[Note: Blog posts are an ongoing series where EEMA members explore their personal views and experiences relating to issues of development and community organizing. While the general spirit of the postings may reflect the opinions and work of EEMA the views expressed have not been reviewed or agreed to by the group as a whole.]
Nothing makes me want to go down to Nico’s and grab a cold beer more than the arguments about gentrification that so regularly occur whenever the issue of development is brought up. In place of any substantive discussion people masochistically subject themselves to arguing for or against a word. Yes, a word. And no one can even agree what the word means much less unify around shared criterion by which we might assess whether a situation does or doesn’t qualify. In the place of complexity we get a dichotomy, and everyone is told to choose a side.
Such a debate presumes community problem-solving is all about money, and that there have to be winners and losers to get anything done. This isn’t a surprise; much of the discourse in society is framed in a way that precludes any consideration of the root causes of the issue at hand.
I’m not sure how to break the cycle, but I think getting past framing issues around gentrification is a start. The argument pits objectives against each other that are often not mutually exclusive and groups of people against one another who may actually share motivations and interests.
The truth is, I want the sidewalk on Penn Avenue to be as well-maintained as the one on Walnut Street because freedom of movement is crucial to quality of life, whether we’re talking about being able to walk, bike or take public transportation. People utilizing wheelchairs need to be able to get around. I want people to be able to skateboard, for young children to be able to ride those funny plastic big wheel tricycles we all thought were cool back in the day. I want adequate street lighting. I want my friends to feel safe. I don’t want neighbor’s houses getting broken into.
As a member of East End Mutual Aid, and a person who considers himself an anarchist, I think it’s crucial we make a bigger effort to enter into a dialogue about development issues that focuses on the big picture and what we propose to change things. If I ask my block, “Do you want efficient, prompt, reliable and comprehensive public services? Do you want access to amenities? Do you want the security of knowing that you’ll be able to provide for yourself and your loved ones? How about a place to obtain fresh and quality food? Public spaces to gather, socialize, play and learn?” I’ll get a resounding “yes.”
The devil is in the details. The current structure of society constricts, and often predetermines, the options communities have to meet their collective needs. Examination of the society gives us a lot of good questions to start dialogues with our neighbors: What are the tradeoffs that are demanded of people in exchange for development and jobs? How are winners and losers produced, and why do certain groups of people tend to always be in the same categories? How and why are so many negative costs of government and corporate decisions passed on to the population at large? Who should have agency in the decisions being made and why is power located where it is? How can we proactively intervene to shape these processes?
They aren’t easy discussions to have. Everyone approaches such questions with pre-conceived assumptions about the world, and sometimes very specific and differing political analyses. Still, I think people are pretty aware of the way power is distributed and this often explains folks’ willingness to advocate for (or accept) something they oppose in the hopes it will address something they view as a higher priority problem.
I talk to a lot of people in Bloomfield and Garfield who want greater numbers of police, including many who are concerned about state violence, who may want a different kind of society, who are against the human and monetary cost of the drug war, who believe there is structural racism against communities of color.
The more desperate people are, the worse the trade-offs they’ll accept. Collective organizing and solidarity between people is a start but there are a lot of obstacles in our way and a lot of complexity to be addressed. Even when we begin to identify problems it’s easy to get sidetracked into solely blaming individuals for what are arguably structural problems.
I don’t have the answers but I know I want to start the discussions. And I hope for once it goes beyond “is it or isn’t it gentrification?” to the questions that feel relevant to my own life and my hopes for the future.
