Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumHow the Media Is Getting Mayor Pete's Gentrification Story Wrong
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/04/21/how-the-media-is-getting-mayor-petes-south-bend-gentrification-story-wrong/South Bend, Indiana was a prosperous manufacturing town through much of the 20th century. It achieved a measure of fame for hosting the auto plant that built the Studebaker. But as the economy changed, so did the towns fortunes. Between 1960 and 2010, its population plummeted by nearly 25 percent. Left in the wake of mass departure and economic stagnation was a rash of urban blight: thousands of homes and other buildings stood vacant, left to disrepair. With blight came decreased home values and a rise in crime.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, now a Democratic presidential candidate, launched an initiative in February 2013 he called 1,000 Homes, 1,000 Days. The goal: identify 1,000 vacant or abandoned homes (about a third of the total) and either demolish or repair them. By November 2015, 427 homes were repaired, 569 were demolished, 10 were deconstructed, 6 were set aside for repair by community development corporations, and 110 were under contract for demolition, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provided a block grant supporting the initiative. If Buttigiegs reelection with 75 percent of the vote is anything to go by, South Bends citizens have signaled their approval. The citys population has steadily increased since 2013.
Buttigieg has made the initiatives success a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, so it should be no surprise that journalists have looked into it. But two remarkably similar stories published last weekin Buzzfeed and on CNN.comsaid the initiative smacked of gentrification. That this odd phrase appeared verbatim in both stories is perhaps interesting. (Buzzfeeds Henry Gomez, who published his piece first, should wonder where CNNs Dan Merica and Vanessa Yurkevich got their inspiration.) Whats puzzling, however, is the decision to frame the demolition and rehabilitation of vacant and abandoned homes as akin to displacing minority communities. (Judging from 2011 and 2019 population estimates, no displacement appears to have occurred. Whats more, its hard to displace people from homes where no one was living.)
The two major challenges Buttigiegs initiative faced were the towns lackadaisical enforcement of building code violations and absentee owners of the targeted homes. One of the initiatives biggest obstacles was determining if the blighted properties owners were both sufficiently willing and able to improve them. Both the Buzzfeed and CNN stories lean heavily on two sources: Stacey Odom and Regina Williams-Preston, two African American women who had purchased blighted properties. Odom purchased one, which she hoped to fix up and make her own home, without knowing that the initiative had already slated it for demolition. Williams-Preston had purchased three vacant homes with plans to refurbish them and either sell them for a profit or create a business, like a day care for local kids, CNN reported. Sadly, her husband fell seriously ill and money that wouldve gone toward their investment went toward health care instead.
Both stories strike a decidedly oppositional tone. Buzzfeed seemed particularly intent on framing the story as a conflict between a robotic, white, impersonal politician and a black community. (The word data, and the mayors abiding interest in it, somehow became grounds for opprobrium.) Ironically, both stories show Buttigieg to have been an exceptional leader. Odom struggled to get her property off the demo list, but then, as CNN reports, she had a chance encounter with Buttigieg. What happened next was governance par excellence:
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primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
elleng
(130,989 posts)Useful.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Not THIS story, but the other two mentioned ...
We're gonna be inundated with friggin' divisive stuff.
I hope we have what it takes to stay together through the storm.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
elleng
(130,989 posts)I'm not looking forward to it.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Celerity
(43,422 posts)and every other attack poodle on the regressive left, be it news sites, blogs, FB, Twitter, etc from one camp go full scorched earth on everyone else. Of course the low rent district of the MSM, like Buzzfeed, Politico, The Hill, etc will do their bit too, plus the top end of the MSM will toss in a genteel shit stir with a silver spoon every so often as well. The RW scum will push up their claptrap up a few notches too, especially if the heat is turned up on the orange shitter..
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
elleng
(130,989 posts)or decide to sit it out?
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Celerity
(43,422 posts)They practise non linear warfare and reflexive control. Create maximum chaos. Never allow the overall society to catch its collective breath. Keep most all of a nation in a fog of perpetual war (in this case, non-kinetic, or at least non-kinetic until a 2nd civil war kicks off, if they can push-pull us that much)
Trump, quite literally, IS chaos. They also want wealth inequality here to continue to explode. That is the number one interlocking stat that most effects the overall well-being of a society at most every measure and level. Rethugs are, again, quite literally, THE wealth inequality party, so the the orders of the day from Moscow will be STAY THE RED COURSE (no pun intended)
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
msongs
(67,421 posts)many reasons including failure to examine the documents, medical emergencies, acts of the loving god etc
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)professionals in state and local government, turns up 2100 hits on Mayor Buttigieg. What he's doing in a city with many very serious problems is studied and respected by his peers.
Thanks for posting this.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden