< https://www.dropbox.com/s/2twowz8pped4tbu/MiddleEastBalt.Gomez.2013.pdf>
This dropbox link should allow you to download and/or print the powerpt presentation from April 1, 2013 public talk at MICA on displacement and resistance in Middle East Baltimore.
Recently a colleague attempted to convince me that the powerful stakeholders directing the process of redevelopment in East Baltimore ‘get it’. Later I thought, who ‘gets’ what justice is? We seem to all ‘get it’ differently. And even more deeper to understand is whether our understanding of justice involves community building from the ground up, without discrimination and violation of human rights.
Perhaps my difficulty in understanding what my colleague and his friends ‘get’ is based on my own experience with these stakeholders and the pattern of inconsistencies surrounding their words and actions: the leadership directing the current redevelopment project in East Baltimore. The past 12 years suggest that the collective understanding of justice and community building, by Baltimore’s Mayor in 2001 (now Governor of Maryland) and the past and current leadership of Johns Hopkins and the Annie E. Casey Foundation runs something like this: it is okay to repeat history from 50 years ago as long as we convince people that we really ‘get it’. Fifty years ago in the 1950‘s, Baltimore City Department of Planning and the Mayor assisted the Johns Hopkins Medical campus’s expansion by 59 acres through displacement of more than 1000 majority African American and low-income families during the Broadway Redevelopment Project. In 2001, the Mayor and the Department of Planning and Housing and Community Development again assisted the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus expansion into another 88 acres through displacement of another 1000 African American and low-income families. This time the Annie E. Casey foundation threw in its power to assure this could happen after erratic outcomes in their ‘Making Connections’ projects across the country. Both East Baltimore projects were sold to the public under the heading of urban renewal and public benefit. And yes, community building was hailed as the core; however it was not the existing community that was the interest of either of these development projects, it was the community of the powerful developer of Johns Hopkins and its partners. Certainly a different brand of ‘justice’ than those involved in social justice movements and most importantly community residents directly impacted by the development ‘get’.
The powerful stakeholders understanding of ‘justice’ in 2001 was to use eminent domain to take the land of residents for the Hopkins Science and Technology Park expansion project. However it met with unanticipated resistance when residents organized and challenged these outside stakeholders and their partners to declare their understanding of ‘justice’ – benefit to the existing community through a right of return to the rebuilt area and a ground-up approach to community rebuilding involving residents (see details in Chapter 5 of the Book page on this website). For 8 years they proceeded to show the powerful stakeholders what ‘justice’ meant for them, through organizing residents and demanding consistency in words and actions. And today, another growing community base continues to challenge the projects’ brand of ‘justice’ known for its inconsistency, non-transparency, and inequitable benefit to existing residents of East Baltimore (Daily Record Series in Resources page on this website). The different understanding of justice, by those with great power and little power -and all those in between- continues and this post will present some evidence of this and challenge us to reason how we can bridge the gap between the words and the actions across the divide of inconsistencies.
Table: EBDI Pattern of Inconsistencies
The inconsistencies come in many forms and suggest that we pay close attention to how each one intends or acts toward who the community is being rebuilt for. While the language used by the developers has been about ‘community building’ the social engineering experiment has consistently left the existing community out of the discussion and decision-making. For example, it has been more than one year since EBDI had a regular open meeting for community residents to learn about the status of the project. And as shown in the table insert, when ‘public’ events occur residents are hand-picked for attendance or informed after-the-fact.
Perhaps we must agree on what the term justice means to all stakeholders to begin to bridge the inconsistences in words and action-to meet on a path where everyone is moving toward a collective understanding of justice. Until then those with less power must organize to demand equity in benefit because the powerful stakeholders are currently running the show-creating a reality for the public consistent with their view of ‘justice’.
Finally, if we abide by the law defining what is ‘justice’ in regard to the use of eminent domain in community building, it is clear: ‘a taking of private land should be struck down if it is clearly intended to favor a particular private party over another, or if only an incidental public benefit exists’ (Supreme Court 2005). Because public:private partnerships have been the power behind this redevelopment project and substantial public funds have contributed to removal of residents, acquisition and demolition of property, preparation of land, update of infrastructure, tax incentives for developers, subsidies for developers, public:private status of development agency and new community school, ensuring equitable and sustainable benefit cannot be a side-effect but a major measurable outcome. Anything else would be an injustice-socially and legally.
New 7-11 in EBDI and Johns Hopkins Expansion area-Johns Hopkins Rangos Building- does not accept food stamps
Yesterday I distributed several books (Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore, RCPOEB) to residents impacted by the ‘displacement and dispossession project’ in East Baltimore affecting more than 800 households for the expansion of Johns Hopkins. They were leaving St. Wenceslaus church on Ashland Avenue and each had a story to tell about how they were impacted. As I was driving away, I stopped by the new 7-11 in the only ‘Biotech Building’ built to date in the 88-acre project area at Wolfe Street and Madison Avenue. Called the ‘John G. Rangos Sr. Building’ it is leased primarily by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Harbor Bank occupies space in the downstairs- whose president was the first board chair of EBDI-the quasi public:private entity directing the 88-acre development. A 7-11 convenience store occupies space on the corner of the building facing existing Johns Hopkins’ buildings. The door of the 7-11 boasted two large signs: No food stamps. Several residents were told by the cashier that it was not their doing but the policy of the store.
In a community where the majority of residents live below the poverty line and the majority of students receive free lunches, it is difficult to understand why a 7-11 would not accept a means of currency normally used in the community. Two blocks down the street and one block south on Monument and Chester another convenient store does not discriminate against the local community in this way. The difference in the locations is that the new 7-11 is part of the 88-acre Johns Hopkins expansion project. As the book RCPOEB describes in detail, this development project’s intention was not about maintaining the historic community but displacing the people to make room for a different race and class of people. Still, current and past presidents of Johns Hopkins and EBDI, and current and past chairs of EBDI’s board have waxed on and on about how this rebuilding effort is about the people of East Baltimore. The most recent was at a public meeting in Middle East Baltimore on January 16, 2013 where the same dialogue between the powerful stakeholders and disenfranchised residents occurred. The politicians and EBDI officials reported how wonderful the project was while impacted residents continued to challenge them for transparency, consistency in words and actions, and evidence of equity for residents. Several days later they still await documentation promised that children of displaced historic residents will be guaranteed admission to the new community school in perpetuity (see below).
A 7-11 which does not welcome the local residents as a worthy and respectful consumer by discriminating against their means of purchase is evidence of the true intention of the rebuilding project. And it is typical of the inconsistency of words and actions in this 10-year old rebuilding project. Such discriminatory practices also continue to assure separation and marginalization of historic residents of East Baltimore from the new and welcomed residents of the rebuilt area. A history which the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus continues to assure will not end.
Another is the new community school that is being constructed on 7 acres of the project site. There has been much public relations about the community impact of this school. Lost in between the public and the private relations is the evidence of what similar attempts of using schools for gentrification has accomplished. Well, it has accomplished exactly that. The current plan for the new K-8 community school follows in the footsteps of one in a similarly disinvested neighborhood adjacent to the university of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia. A new public school in partnership with the University-Penn Alexander- was built to gentrify the community and attract a different race and class of people to buffer the university from surrounding neighborhoods. Ten years later, it has done just that and changed the community from a majority low-income to majority moderate and market-rate income dwellers with their community school as a magnet-in attendance at the school is 30.2% economically-disadvantaged – 69.8% economically-advantaged. As described by one parent attempting to send her child to Penn-Alexander: ‘Admit Penn Alexander was built and is funded by the U of Penn to create an “oasis” for the select few. It is not a an “urban school” any more than Masterman is an “urban school.” They serve the elite rather than the public.’
A similar tool for gentrification was initiated in Middle East Baltimore when the board of EBDI hired the executive director of the development project surrounding U of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia and the board of Johns Hopkins hired the vice provost of U of Pennsylvania who oversaw their new school development to become the new president of Hopkins. As president of the Johns Hopkins University he continues to assure the public and private stakeholders that the school will bring together community residents and Hopkins affiliates. But if segregation continues in the 7-11 housed in the building constructed as a partnership between Johns Hopkins and Forest City Development, why would we expect a true partnership to emerge in a school directed by similar partnerships?
Site where new school will be constructed after demolition of homes
This new community school-Henderson-Hopkins Partnership School- will be the first new public school in East Baltimore in more than 25 years and will be financed with a combination of New Market Tax Credits, Tax Increment Financing bonds, foundation and university grants, and state infrastructure funds and operated by Johns Hopkins and Morgan State University’s Schools of Education.The current principal of the new community school in Middle East Baltimore projects that out of the total 540 students for final enrollment, the majority will live in the rebuilt community or be affiliated with Johns Hopkins. With the majority of housing construction planned to attract moderate and market rate earners in the rebuilt community, a gentrification in school and housing will be the outcome-like its role model of Penn Alexandar. Research by Bloomfiled-Cucchiara and others on using schools as gentrification magnets confirms this pattern.
A 7-11 that excludes customers from the historic community and a school which plans to assure a minority of historic residents are in attendance continue to remind us that the ‘New East Baltimore’ is not about preserving a history but about displacement and dispossession. Still we hope that organizing in voice and person will continue to challenge this old way of rebuilding communities like Middle East Baltimore and pave a way for more equitable and sustainable development. Join us on March 9, 2013 and be part of the change!
Reflection of the surrounding ‘new East Baltimore’ from the 7-11 on the corner of Wolfe and Madison Ave.