Gentrification, environmental justice, and climate change

This was a talk that I gave during a panel discussion as part of the Emancipated Century readings of August Wilson's Plays.  The panel was titled: Gentrification and the Urban Plight Chinatown, the

South End, Roxbury, and East Boston.

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When I talk about gentrification, I am specifically talking about the systematic displacement of low income people, who are – in the modern era – mostly people of color or immigrants. When I talk about gentrification, I am specifically talking about the displacement of people who are vulnerable because they are politically, socially, or economically insecure and marginalized.

I want to start off by stating that not all revitalization or redevelopment results in displacement. For years, there was a lot of debate in the scholarly community about whether the negative impacts of gentrification do in fact happen. And there was conflicting evidence because displacement seemed to be found in one place but not another. However, recent research suggests not all gentrification is alike. Most importantly, the kind of gentrification that I am most concerned about – the kind that involves displacement – happens most often where there is the kind of large scale developments that we see in Chinatown, Dudley, and also in East Boston. By the way, that’s not to say that the displacement that has happened in South End isn’t real but that there are clearly different mechanisms at work there. Just like you can break your leg by falling off a ladder or by getting into a car accident, there are different ways that displacement can occur.

Now, it just so happens that the same people who are at risk of displacement through “revitalization” or “redevelopment” are also the people who live with and fight against environmental injustice.

Historically, the focus on environmental injustice involved the siting of noxious or polluting facilities – hazardous waste sites, trash transfer stations, power plants, large scale hog farms in rural areas. In this conception of environmental injustice, the injustice occurs through disproportionate environmental exposures of some kind. This way of thinking about environmental injustice allows us to easily see how activities that create pollution and other safety hazards become environmental justice issues.

 It is why, for example, residents and business owners in Dudley Square are legitimately concerned about the redevelopment of Ferdinand Building and nearby abandoned properties. Not only does "successful" redevelopment raise the specter of increased car traffic and its attendant pollution and safety risks, but it also raises the risk of gentrification and displacement. Dudley Square residents and small businesses have every reason to be skeptical. These large scale redevelopments, all of which are subsidized by our tax dollars, have rarely resulted in an improvement in the quality of life or opportunity for low income communities or communities of color where these developments are targeted.

However, in the face of climate change, the disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards operate a little differently. When we talk about who is vulnerable to the negative impacts to climate change, some people would like to argue that it is everyone. OK, that is technically correct, in the same way that it is technically correct that I am also vulnerable to dying from the flu. Except that the real risk of my dying from the flu is pretty small. And that is because I have really good health insurance, I am wealthy enough to be able to eat a healthy diet, and I am privileged enough to have the time to exercise – which full disclosure since my husband may be in the audience, I really don’t do to the extent I probably should. But I still have great health insurance, which is one form of resilience.

So, when we talk about who is really vulnerable to the storm surge, flooding, and heat waves that we can expect here in Boston as our climate continues to change over the next few decades – it is the people who are least resilient who are really the most vulnerable. It is those who are politically, socially, and economically marginalized and insecure. The people who do not have good health insurance. The people who have to work several jobs to feed and clothe their families. The people who do not have access to fresh food, and even if they did, do not have adequate time to prepare a healthy meal.

How are these things – climate change, environmental justice, and gentrification – connected?

In East Boston, we have a weird thing going. We have a lot of abandoned waterfront land. And our entrepreneurial city government is eyeing that land as the next big redevelopment. Now, to be clear, I have yet to meet anyone in East Boston who doesn’t want something to happen on all of that abandoned land. It is ugly. It is dangerous. And it prevents us from having access to the water. So, of course we want that land developed. But we also want it developed responsibly, we want it developed in a way that does not increase the hazards that residents are already exposed to, and we want it developed in a way that does not displace current residents or make it difficult for the kind of diversity we have now to be maintained in the future.

But, what we see happening is that, the large scale developments, over 900 units of new housing, that are expected to fetch $3000 per month for 2 bedrooms are already impacting the rents. And not a single one of these developments has even been built yet. But, between February 2012 through February 2013, rents have increased 31% in East Boston, faster than any other neighborhood (although North Dorchester comes in close at 29%). And I can tell you stories of people that I know personally – young, college educated people – who have had to move out of the neighborhood to find an affordable place to live.

Now, the fact that the rents increased in this way even before these large scale developments have even rented their first apartment is not the weird part. The weird part is that all of these proposed developments that are pushing up rents are all located in the riskiest location: right on the waterfront. These developments are premised on the economic value of the waterfront; on the waterfront as an environmental amenity. And at the same, we are putting market and luxury rate housing right where sea level rise is happening. Or to put it another way, we are building housing, that is marketed for people who have the greatest ability to leave, in the place of highest risk to storm surge and flooding.

What makes this weird is that we can predict what is likely to occur. Wealthier folks, most probably young people – because this is not family housing being built – will move in. A superstorm Sandy type event or bigger happens. Their car, conveniently located in the basement level parking garage, is flooded out. They will have to survive on the island that East Boston will turn back into in the next big storm event for who knows how long.

Will you be surprised when these folks, who have the resources to leave their rented apartment, actually do? I won’t. And what will then happen? Will rents go down? Will maintenance fall off? Will it become abandoned? And what happens to the rest of my community? This is what we don’t know. We could know if we put the time and effort to find out, but we don’t.

My concern is that if these large scale developments are not built so that they are both resilient to climate change AND so that they build on the strong sense of community that exists in East Boston, we will have ironically created the potential for the kind of gentrification that may result in displacement in the short term, but in the long term leads to abandonment.

An experiment in game theory: Part I

So, last night I performed an experiment.  I wanted to test out whether Robert Axelrod's use of game theory in explaining the evolution of cooperation worked in the modern world of social media.

Axelrod has successfully shown that how we structure interactions with each other determine how effectively cooperation develops.  Cooperation is viewed pretty expansively.  I particularly like the description of the "Live and Let Live" phenomenon that existed in trench warfare during WWI.

The standard situation in game theory is the Prisoner's Dilemma.* The upshot of the game is that both parties benefit from mutual cooperation (e.g. live and let live) but one party could do better by exploiting or abusing the other.  Repeated experiments have shown that all parties do better in the long run by cooperating, but each individual has the short term incentive to exploit the other. Axelrod provides four "suggestions" for promoting and sustaining cooperation, or non-exploitative, behavior.

Don't be envious. Axelrod argues that you shouldn't compare how well you are doing to how well someone else is doing.  Instead, you should compare how well someone else could be doing in your shoes. The main lesson here is that you do not have to do better than others to do well for yourself.  

Be nice.  Here, Axelrod asserts that your default behavior should be to cooperate, especially if you are going to interact with that other person again. What's most important about this is that always starting off in the adversarial position creates an environment in which cooperation becomes a losing strategy.  If you start off fighting, you'll be fighting all of the time.

Reward good behavior and punish bad behavior.  The strategy that works best in the Prisoner's Dilemma is called Tit for Tat.  Basically, it means that when other people are nice, be nice right back at them.  But when they exploit or abuse you, you punish them.  When they start cooperating again, you forgive.  How much forgiveness you give depends on the environment. The willingness to forgive is itself exploitable unless you use a one to one reward/punishment strategy.

Don't try to outsmart other people.  People respond to your behavior. If good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior punished, as Axelrod says, "...your own behavior is likely to be echoed back to you."

I have become curious about whether the structure of social media promotes cooperation or exploitation. People have written that at the same time that social media allows people to connect across space (think about friends or family across the world that you regularly interact with on Facebook), it also engenders a form of social distance that allows people to say things in social media that they would not say in a face to face situation.

In the next posting, I will describe the experiment and my lessons learned.

*In this game, two burglars are caught at the scene of the crime and interrogated separately. If both burglars cooperate with each other and keep their mouths shut, they would each spend only 1 year in jail. However, if one decides not to cooperate and implicates the other, he will not go to jail at all. 

Learning, Doing, Teaching, Being

Some time ago, Snap Judgment, one of my favorite NPR programs, had a show about Daryl Davis who befriended a few KKK Grand Wizards.  Through simply trying to understand how they could hate him before they knew him as an individual, he managed to convince at least three to give up their robes.

I admire this.

Recently, I saw a TEDx talk by Ash Beckham whose message was that your hard isn't any harder than anyone else's hard. Your hard may be disclosing that you are gay, or being an undocumented immigrant, or fearing hordes undocumented gay immigrants moving into your neighborhood.  But, as she says, there is no harder.  There is just hard.

I admire this.

And even today, I happened upon an RSA video of Brene Brown brilliantly explaining the difference between sympathy and empathy.  Sympathy acknowledges, but also disconnects one from others. Empathy requires connecting with the feelings of the other.

I admire this as well.

I also read an article about Mandela written upon the event of his death.  The author recounted the story of Mandela looking after and keeping clean a fellow prisoner suffering from a stomach illness. The message in the article is that it is insufficient to remember. What is demanded of all of us is to act to facilitate social justice and honor the dignity of other human beings.  And, of course, to forgive.

This I admire and want to emulate.

And as someone who teaches and works at the intersection of social relations, community development, law and policy, and public health, I encourage engaging in respectful discourse that allows empathy to develop.   I read about it, especially in relation to race/ ethnicity, gender, and class. I write about it.  I participate in lots of activities that demand facilitating this exact thing.  I do research that requires that I put myself in a non-judgmental position (and I am pretty good at this). And, as a college professor, I teach it at every level and every opportunity.

And yet, openness, empathy, and forgiveness are difficult to practice outside of my "work."  I can listen to a participant in one of my studies talk about how a specific group that I belong to are "the problem" in society. I can analyze this and relate it to a variety of theories that situate such reactions in ethnocentrism, political manipulation, mass media hysteria or some combination therein. And I can even encourage everyone I work with to remember that "those people" are human beings and not caricatures of false consciousness.  But I cannot handle intolerance outside of this.

So, there is this woman in my neighborhood.  And she just says the most gawd-awful things, mostly about Latino immigrants.  It doesn't take a whole lot of training in the subtle code language of xenophobia or regular reading in social theories of othering to see her behavior, especially online, as too closely aligned with folks who have landed in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence files. 

And I know from my own training, ongoing engagement with development in social theory, and field research that her behavior is likely the result of fear and loss.  Fear of people who she doesn't know or understand. Loss of standing in a community that has changed before her eyes.  Fear of change, generally.  Loss of a community that she once knew and that is not so slowly fading into the past.

But, to be frank, I can not let her behavior go unchallenged.  She may very well be a nice person otherwise, but her statements and behavior in certain spaces are simply unacceptable  While I can understand why she may act the way she does, I do not empathize with it.

I think this is the case because I associate these fears and this sense of loss with an undeserved sense of entitlement.  I cannot give quarter to someone who wants to tell me, or people like me, whether I am entitled to be actively involved in this place that I have chosen to call my home.  This is my community and you cannot tell me otherwise.

And so, I continue to work on  promoting discourse, understanding, empathy, and forgiveness.  But I do not confuse understanding with acceptance.  I cannot tolerate intolerance, even when I understand where it is coming from.  I believe that people should held accountable for their actions, especially with the words they use in social media. But I do hope that someone in this neighborhood is able to continue to engage in meaningful dialogue with this woman, at least for her sake. At this stage in my life, I cannot.

Dear Gaming Commission

I am a homeowning resident in East Boston and professor of law and policy at Northeastern University. 

I am writing to urge you to reject any consideration of a proposal for a "Revere-only" casino at the Suffolk Downs site without having gone through the proper process as outlined in MGL c.23K§15(13).  The current plan is so different than the original proposal that has been described by Suffolk Downs for the past two years that it can only reasonably be considered a new proposal.  The current plan has a different applicant, a different location, a different partner, and a different business model.  As such, MGL c.23K§15(13) clearly states that this new proposal requires a new host community agreement and a new vote at least 180 days after November 5, 2013.  The plain reading of the law is quite clear on this point.  As your legal counsel undoubtedly has made you aware, Massachusetts courts pay very close attention to the plain language in state statutes.

To entertain a so-called Revere-only casino proposal at Suffolk Downs without having gone through the process as outlined in Expanded Game Act and your regulations is to render the concept of the rule of law meaningless.  It is not the place of the Commission to divine the intent of the voters in Revere.  This is not an academic exercise in epistemology or logic; it is a practical a legal matter with material implications.  MGL c.23K§15(13) explicitly describes the process by which voters are to make their choices clear.  The Commission needs to ensure that the proponents of this new proposal follow the letter of law and the process described therein.

I also urge Chairman Steve Crosby to recuse himself from all decisions related to Region A casino license applications.  The recent revelations of personal and professional relationships between Chairman Crosby and casino proponents in both Everett and Suffolk Downs reinforce the concern that casinos will corrupt our public officials and public processes.  It is simply implausible that Chairman Crosby could be considered impartial if he were to recuse himself from evaluating one applicant but not the other.  Indeed, the insistence on finding some way, even if contrary to the unambiguous language in state law, to allow Suffolk Downs to submit a proposal suggests that the Commission is trying to create the appearance of competition in order to create a distorted semblance of impartiality. 

The decisions and actions taken by this Commission to date have already reduced the public trust in the ability of the Gaming Commission to provide meaningful oversight of any casino licensed to operate in Massachusetts.  As I stated in my comments to you dated 2 October 2013, the rule of law is first and foremost rooted in the commitment to following procedure.  Procedure in and of itself does not automatically result in fair outcomes.  But without fair procedure, even desirable outcomes are tainted with the appearance of corruption, further reducing trust in our government.  If the Commission allows the proposed "Revere-only" proposal to go forward, and if Chairman Crosby refuses to recuses himself from evaluating any Region A applicants, the Commission's decisions can only be interpreted as stating that laws do not apply to some people and that the government cannot be trusted to look after the public's interest.

Thank you for your time.


Neenah Estrella-Luna, MPH, PhD