Americans become distressed when they witness social unrest.
However, some overlook the role that economic injustice and segregation by race and class have played in creating social unrest, fraying our connections to one another and eroding the country’s founding values.
It stands to reason, then, that equitable development involving residents of affected communities is essential if we are to avoid continual displacement, increasing segregation, and social unrest. That is the argument Derek Hyra puts forth in his new book, Slow and Sudden Violence, which has significant implications for the equitable development advocates in our coalition. NCRC and local community advocates need to explore further linkages between Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) negotiated with banks and CBAs that are also negotiated with developers.
Hyra’s book, released in late 2024, explores the unrest that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland shortly after the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Some commentators focus on the immediate police brutality in those ghastly murders as the spark that fomented uprisings in those cities. Hyra agrees that police brutality played a role but argues that abusive policing is one of a long chain of abuses that often follows decades of disinvestment and segregation followed by reinvestment, gentrification and displacement.
He chronicles that history in Ferguson and Baltimore over decades, including the Gateway Arch development in St. Louis and the Inner Harbor revitalization in Baltimore that devastated African American communities. Low-income African Americans were then segregated in public housing developments in inner city neighborhoods. Then during the 1970s and 1980s, their neighborhoods became desirable once again for redevelopment. Under the HOPE VI program, public housing was destroyed, often replaced by mixed income housing that had far fewer units for the former residents of the public housing. African Americans were once again displaced and moved to poorer and more segregated neighborhoods.
Baltimore civic leaders and developers razed 300,000 housing units in Baltimore between 1957 and 1968, mostly in African American neighborhoods. Likewise, from 1950 through 1970, urban renewal programs displaced 75,000 people in St. Louis – a full 10 percent of the city’s 1960 population.
“When people are consistently pushed by public policy into even worse conditions,” Hyra writes, “it is only a matter of time before they snap, rebel, and revolt.” The police brutality against Michael Brown and Freddie Gray ignited the smoldering fire.
Towards the end of his book, Hyra quotes an advocate asserting that development must be “for Black people, by Black people, and with Black people in mind.” Even cities like Baltimore that achieved substantial Black political representation, including the mayor in the 1990s, did not engage in equitable development. Missing were community organizations led by marginalized populations that could have not only held developers and elected officials accountable but also led key parts of the redevelopment.
PowerSwitch is a national organization that promotes CBAs negotiated among its local members and developers. For example, Stand Up Nashville negotiated a CBA with the owner of a professional soccer team that erected a new stadium in the city. The CBA mandates that 20% of the housing constructed during the development must be affordable, the minimum wage for jobs must be $15.50, the owners must fund construction of a childcare facility and the owners must create an advisory committee including local residents that monitors the CBA’s progress.
Another collective action group in Maryland is working to ensure that a light rail development in Silver Spring, Maryland benefits communities of color and modest income communities instead of displacing them. While different from a CBA, the Purple Line Coalition involves multiple stakeholders ranging from community organizations, national nonprofit intermediaries, foundations and local public agencies. The coalition aims to preserve 17,000 units of affordable housing and assists small business with grants and technical assistance.
While the Coalition efforts include a major bank providing financing for a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), I do not see any new special purpose credit programs or other initiatives on its website that involve direct bank lending supporting vulnerable homeowners, renters or small businesses. Hence, NCRC’s CBAs regularly include not only bank support for CDFIs intervening in large scale development projects but also direct lending and investing to benefit local and long-term residents. As NCRC and its members seek new CBAs with banks, they continue to look at the local landscape, identify significant development efforts, and see if there are ways to partner with neighborhood-based organizations trying to inject equity goals into the developments. My colleagues at NCRC seek to expand their CBAs with banks and are aware of the CBAs that focus on development and the advocacy organizations that engage in them.
To break the cycle of displacement, segregation, gentrification, and unrest, we need to pursue equitable development directly involving the communities affected. This will help create a more prosperous and peaceful society.
Josh Silver is a Senior Fellow with NCRC.
Photo by Chad Davis via Flickr.
