This feels like a good snapshot of why so many organizations are uniting against SB 827, the upzoning law that gives away a lot of value to landowners and developers, without capturing that value, and without protecting tenants.
I’m also looking into the history of property ownership by people of color. Over and over, it’s been thwarted.
Chinatowns were burned down or destroyed, with the support of the state.
Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK. A prosperous Black community formed… and the white people burned it down.
Chavez Ravine usually cast in terms of Mexican Americans being evicted, is really the story of being dispossessed.
Alien Land Laws prohibiting property ownership to citizens, coincided with denying citizenship to Asians. (It’s becoming a potential factor, again, because the current anti-immigrant bigots are pushing that law again.)
Freeways cut through working class communities, and communities of color, like Russian Flats in Boyle Heights: transit has not been a friend to these communities.
Property ownership is, theoretically, considered an absolute: you own, or you do not own. In reality, people need credit, from a bank, to buy a house. People need government support by the police, to protect it. It’s a provisional right that exists only when the state spends money to protect it.
Transit policy, and even progressive plans, haven’t been kind to communities of color seeking to acquire a house, to build capital, and participate in the capital accumulation.
Objections to development need to be considered as part of a larger struggle for achieving equal rights.
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