Right to the City

“Urbanization, we may conclude, has played a crucial role in the absorption of capital surpluses, at ever increasing geographical scales, but at the price of burgeoning processes of creative destruction that have dispossessed the masses of any right to the city whatsoever….The urban and peri-urban social movements of opposition, of which there are many around the world, are not tightly coupled; indeed most have no connection to each other. If they somehow did come together, what should they demand? The answer…is simple enough in principle: greater democratic control over the production and utilization of the surplus.” (David Harvey, “Right to the City”)

In the context of Southern Boulevard and the CDNA process, there is a compelling parallel to demanding a shared right to the city. Specifically, that right is predicated on the actions of DCP thus far in the area, where they have initiated a “Neighborhood Study” that is well known by community groups to be the predecessor to a rezoning. Because the recent series of DCP rezonings have lead to rent increases, an influx of gentrification, and overall unequitable neighborhood change, as well as the less-than-ideal outcome of DCP’s actions on Jerome Avenue due to community resistance, the process along Southern Boulevard is happening much more slowly and deliberately. However, this has not reassured community members that DCP intends to do anything other than carry on their legacy of unequitable rezoning forward. Thus, the actions by Small Business Services (more covertly), WHEDco, and local community organizations (more overtly) are a resistance against that process. For WHEDco, the ostensible goal is to get on the ground on Southern Boulevard first and begin to collect information and make changes before DCP moves into the rezoning process in an attempt to ground itself as a community anchor with a voice in the process when it comes to pass. It is safe to assume that SBS is focusing on Southern Boulevard because of their involvement on Jerome Avenue last year. For the community groups, of which there are many, the larger goal seems to be keeping people in their homes and maintaining affordability while also advocating for sustainable growth, both in terms of economy and population.

As I understand Harvey’s argument in this context, the surplus are resources intended to support citizens of a municipality that are not always allocated accordingly or to the greatest impact. If this is so, then yes, WHEDco does see its core mission as connecting residents of the neighborhoods in the South Bronx that they work in—Morrisania, Melrose, and Crotona Park East—to resources and services either in-house, from other non-profits, or from city or broader government. This further reinforces a point I wrote about last week in relation to WHEDco’s “field,” where the organizations works as an intermediary point between these two sectors.