[thread] I’ve told this story before but it bears repeating. my first week working full time in tenants rights, a building of BIPOC Bay Area tenants were happy about an MR development down the street because they thought they’d get public investment in streetlights and safety.

then they got mass evicted from the Bay (keeping details vague on purpose) and all had to move two hours inland, because their landlord specifically told them “I can have richer tenants than you. bye”

the binary at work in our cities is racist disinvestment, poverty, and neglect, versus racist reinvestment in and summary expulsion, and exclusion from, the urban core.

if we focused on institutionalizing democracy in land use and articulating social vs investment demand, you’d IMHO see a demand for more housing, and differences over what kind. BIPOC communities are not monoliths and the binary is very complicating

but the point is that *no one is asking* in our housing debates. urbanists and anti-urbanists are just assuming things on their behalf, and if we don’t change that, we aren’t gonna fix jack shit. and that’s why tenant organizing matters.

people want investment in their communities but not the kind that excludes and destroys them. they want more housing. but the idea that they want no new housing per the slow growthers, or they want exactly the kind of new housing urbanists are advocating for, is horseshit