Ben Brown wades into the wealth/income inequity morass to make a pitch for getting beyond "gentrification" squabbles and on to wealth-building strategies for the bottom 90 percent.
Quoting loosely from Ben Brown's essay on gentrification, "A city, as Jane Jacobs famously reminded us, is a living thing, growing, dying, changing all the time. Within all that change, the increasing appeal of urban amenities is powering a market that may trump efforts to shield those without means to adapt. You can have a job and still not be able to build wealth. That’s true with most people in poverty in America. Talking only about income inequity makes it too easy to focus narrowly on jobs. Low-paying work that requires long hours and commutes inhibits responsible parenting and depletes savings that build wealth."
"Broader transportation options (especially the self-propelled kind), dignified housing, high-performing schools, quality childcare, affordable healthcare, access to healthy food and exercise: We know amenities like those build tax base and community wealth in infill urban areas and in close-in ‘burbs with quality bones. Wealth generation, after all, is the upside of gentrification. But right now, we’re allowing the price for those advantages to be bid up to a level that only a narrowing percentage of families can pay and still build wealth. Why not invest in strategies that capture that value in more equitable ways? Why not spread out the costs community-wide?"
FULL STORY: ‘Gentrification’ Redux: Wealth, opportunity, community
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California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
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Federal Rule Raises Cost for Oil and Gas Extraction on Public Lands
An update to federal regulations raises minimum bonding to limit orphaned wells and ensure cleanup costs are covered — but it still may not be enough to mitigate the damages caused by oil and gas drilling.
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