Place Attachment as a Tool for Shaping Change

"Gentrification gets a lot of attention these days, and rightfully so. Particularly as it relates to issues of displacement. No one (or at least no one of heart) wants to see anyone forced from their home and from the community they care for and that, oftentimes, cares for them."

"The dangled carrot of economic opportunity, coupled with the municipal policies and regulations that shape how it gets consumed, makes for an awfully blunt tool. When applied to more disadvantaged or powerless communities, as it often is, it’s seemingly heartless as well."

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That’s no kind of way to build a better places to live."

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But there’s another angle as well that gets decidedly less attention: The far more prevalent places — places of pervasive disinvestment and poverty — that aren’t experiencing gentrification. Or anything else. Places defined only by their slow, agonizing decline and ongoing loss of investment and possibility."

Scott Doyon talks us through love—and attachment—as the best force for organization in today's communities.