In David Harvey’s “Right to the City” we are introduced to the ideas of urbanization, democratic control, and collectivity. Throughout the past few weeks at WHEDco, I’ve been able to see what WHEDco’s goals and desires are, and their participation in coalitions throughout the entire South Bronx.
This past Saturday, I participated in the Huntspoint Fish Parade and represented the Bronx Wide Coalition. This coalition is made up of many organizations throughout the Bronx and are working together and with members of the community to come up with proposals to discover what the Bronx needs. Through coalition meetings and workshops, it’s clear to me that WHEDco is already working with other groups in the Bronx to to demand their shared right to the city. In addition to this however, the proposal process that the Bronx Wide Coalition is demanding from both community and organization members demonstrates the ways in which the organizations desire for people to take matters into their own hands.
While democracy and democratic control is important and has been mentioned throughout meetings, another term that has been thrown around in both WHEDco and coalition meetings has been “economic democracy”. The Bronx Wide Coalition envisions a future for the Bronx in which all members of the community will be able to come together and envision what their community needs and have ownership over their buildings, businesses, and much more.
WHEDco’s involvement in not just the Bronx Wide Coalition but other coalitions in the Bronx demonstrates how economic democracy is a core principle of their mission and continues to guide their efforts to build a better Bronx. Through the events that the Community Development department hopes to host this summer, we are constantly making sure that a right to the city is consistently becoming a part of the conversations we have with members within our organization and members of the Bronx community overall. However, through events WHEDco has hosted through various different departments, it is clear that there are some misconceptions about voting, civic engagement, and what the Bronx People’s Plan truly is. Through the next few weeks, we plan to hear and listen to community members talk about why they have or have not become engaged civically throughout the Bronx and how WHEDco and the coalition can better help them become civically engaged.
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