As discussed in previous blogs in this series, the neighborhood of Willow Run in the city of Ypsilanti, Michigan faces dueling pressures given its geographic situation between affluent Ann Arbor and the less economically advantaged city of Detroit. These pressures, coming from both the east and west have situated Ypsilanti…
Month: March 2017
For Our Consideration: A Look at Culmore through Globalization and CRT
Using a Transformationalist Globalization Lens to Understand Historical Context To fully understand the political context of Culmore, I suggest the use of the transformationalist approach to globalization, which views globalization as a historically contingent process filled with contradictions. The largest paradox is that while globalization is causing greater integration in some areas of geopolitics and…
Bulldozers, HOPE, and History: Gentrification on Richmond’s Southside
In my previous blogs, I introduced Richmond, Virginia’s Southside and provided an abbreviated history of the Manchester District and the surrounding areas. This blog post will explore the role of gentrification in the making of Richmond’s segregated Southside. This gentrification of Richmond’s Southside occurred in waves over a number of years. Gentrification as a Lens…
“But I ain’t no Pollyanna with black skin”: Boundaries in the Knowledge-Economy
To understand the convergence of macro and micro social and cultural behaviors of our world, multidisciplinary theorists have looked to cities as a site of analysis. Within the boundaries of a ‘social city’, researchers deconstruct the ways in which complex socio-cultural processes of globalization and neoliberalism emerge, converge and reproduce power dynamics representative of our…
From Abandonment To Art: Healing in Poletown
The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands, An iron authority against the snow, And this grey monument to common sense Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands, Of protest, men in league, and of the slow Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence. Beyond, through broken windows one can see Where the great…
Racialized Neighborhood Experiences in Woodridge, D.C.: A Counter-story
I moved into my apartment in the Woodridge neighborhood in the Winter of 2012. I found the vacant apartment listing on Craigslist and thought it was a hoax. A two-bedroom unit in upper north east Washington, D.C., for only $895 seemed, at the time, inappropriately affordable; almost laughable. The landlord took at least two weeks…
‘Like we ain’t nobody’
we have survived so many fires i can no longer tell if we are alive, or simply burning. people of color; pavana The recent movie, Get Out, told the story of rich, privileged, white people stealing black bodies for a variety of reasons – health, talent, the ‘cool’ quotient, sex – you name it. In…
The Struggle for Problem Ownership
In 1987, the U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett said that Chicago’s public schools are the worst in the nation. “If it’s not the last, I don’t know who is… There can’t be very more cities that are worse. Chicago is pretty much it.” (Ap, 1987) Before these critical remarks, and to this date there…
Baltimore – A case of history predicting the future
“To make way for the project and clear an initial 31 acres, 584 families were relocated. With funds provided by the city, some chose to move permanently to other areas of the city and state; rental properties were found for others to live in while new housing was being built.” – The Changing Face…
Fairwood: Wealthy Community, Failing Students?
Fairwood is a sprawling 1,800-home subdivision in Bowie, Maryland that is built on a former slave plantation that was once owned by the state’s 34th governor, Oden Bowie. The town of Bowie is named after the patriarch and the historically Black university Bowie State, is named after the town. The streets in Fairwood bear the…
Hoods, Schools, and People 