Liz Ogbu is an architect who works on spatial justice: the idea that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of resources and services is a human right. In San Francisco, she's questioning the all too familiar story of gentrification: that poor people will be pushed out by development and progress. "Why is it that we treat culture erasure and economic displacement as inevitable?" she asks, calling on developers, architects and policymakers to instead "make a commitment to build people's capacity to stay in their homes, to stay in their communities, to stay where they feel whole."
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What is gentrification was about saving families instead of making money in profit
What if saving families was the families’ responsibility, not the government’s?
Charles Dickens
What if society served a purpose and it was the government’s job to make sure that it does?
Because that would mean (as it does mean) granting the government more power, which it *always* uses selfishly. Always. Governments are first and foremost self-serving – the smaller they are the better. When the power of government was reduced and better-regulated in England, the country flourished and gave us the Industrial Revolution and the countless inventions we now take for granted. The highest points in civilization’s progress occurred in small governments – like the little city states of Ancient Sumer (invented writing, the wheel), Ancient Greece (democracy, philosophy, Olympics, mathematics, theater) and Renaissance Italy (Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo). Giant governments like Ancient Egypt gave the world nothing of value but big buildings for the sole consolation of a dictator’s inflated ego.
Look at the 10th century China. An iron industry developed and flourished – making poorer people gain wealth from the trade. The government stepped in and declared iron production illegal except for the Emperor. The trade died, and the poor returned to poverty. The government had felt threatened by the industry – it did not want to lose its control, thus it stamped it out. The same sort of thing happens today.
Charles Dickens
“granting the government more power, which it always uses selfishly”
Nonsense.
“Governments are first and foremost self-serving”
I can tell you have little experience living in an actual democracy.
“When the power of government was reduced and better-regulated”
You think it’s a good idea for the government to regulate itself? I find that surprising.
“in England, the country flourished and gave us the Industrial Revolution”
Technological advancement has nothing to do with governments.
“The highest points in civilization’s progress occurred in small governments”
Irrelevant, and nonsense. What about the thousands of small governments throughout history that achieved nothing? You know cherrypicking is intellectually dishonest.
“invented writing, the wheel”
Unless there’s documentation of these being invented, all you have is a point where the trail goes cold.
“Ancient Greece (democracy, philosophy, Olympics, mathematics, theater)”
Neither invented nor preserved in Ancient Greece.
“Giant governments like Ancient Egypt gave the world nothing of value”
If you bent over as far as you did trying to prove your “small government good” idea, I’m sure you’d find a lot that they gave the world.
I honestly can’t take this argument seriously. It’s a prime example of fractal wrongness.
Government worker confirmed.
So now even 3D space is racist. Stop the world I wanna get off.
That’s not at all what she was saying. Gentrification was only a small point in her entire presentation. As someone who works in architecture myself, what I took away from this was that there are more to take into consideration when working on projects that will have a long lasting effect on the surrounding communities. I work primarily for school districts and hospitals, so overall what she was saying made sense at least to me. Architecture is fundamentally the building of environments, and here she was delving deeper on the intricacies and balances that newly developed or restored environments depend on. This knowledge could be beneficial for everyone actually, the problem is that most people do not care simply because of the illusion that it does not affect them. Previous generations of architect’s worked to create that illusion, but now as we find that people are now more than ever desensitized that breaking, that illusion is something we must incorporate into our job, so that people are more aware of the communities that they are intrinsically a part of, and design in a way that encourages them to participate and make something of those spaces.
it’s not the dimensions you think of. the 8 more dimensions is more like adding another 8 arrows to the graph with the cube inside. so even one extra dimension means infinite 3-dimensional spaces.
WHAT?
Grizzlyman MeinTeil At least the demogorgon has kind of hivemind.
“I don’t want to live on the planet anymore.” –Prof. Farnsworth
Wut
Damn. Homegirl lifts.
If you keep pushing them out where will they live ? Its really sad and refreshing to hear a developer who is willing listen and is not only out for her own interests .
celestialcircledance they don’t have a right to live around whites. Sure whites make nice places that people want to live but tough. Blacks aren’t the responsibility of whites to make sure they are okay. So where else they live isn’t our concern.
The thing is, when one area gets gentrified and becomes unaffordable for a certain group of people, then those people move to a different neighborhood or suburb and start the process all over again there. Nobody is forcing people to live in unaffordable areas
A Moment In Time
It’s not about race at all. I could care less about the color of somebody skin. What matters is you don’t make excuses for yourself, you take responsibility for your success and you make it happen. If being poor is good enough for you, that’s fine, but don’t expect to be living in a nice area with that attitude
A Moment In Time . I don’t believe in segregation . That being said there are also plenty of whites in that boat .
Justice has a geography hahahah
Look up the definition of gerrymandering.
It’s called Justography
Remember when TED was about science?
Who Cares Technology Education and DESIGN
Or at least when they were not all about “social justice “
“complaining about everything” is a women-science
Dont lose hope, ted is still posting videos about science. And sociology is a science too, you could argue without it the others would be in grave danger. Where would you practice science if in your neirborhood there is not a library? Or enough scientific schools? Where would your child play if someone didnt fight for his right to have a park, or less dangerously car devoted streets? All this is achieved with the use of maybe less pure science, but still science. Even when the person helping with the problem doesnt know he’s using it.
Pepperidge farm remembers
Sometimes it’s better to invite someone to talk about their achievements and results of their projects, NOT when project is still in its infancy. IDEA NOT WORTH MY TIME.
Then they would have no progressive guests
I disagree with this.
This is utter bologna
Spatial justice? Equal distribution of resources, services, and access is a basic human right? Sorry, but that’s idealism on stilts. Equality of outcome can only be accomplished through tyranny.
Make everyone poor = equality of outcome.
suprise suprise, no ones going around building buildings that they will lose money on, shocking I know
technically, that is market value…but.
It isn’t only white people who can afford them. That’s really kind of racist. It’s anyone with money, regardless of race or ethnicity. This is just the nature of real estate. They’ll have to find cheap places to live or if they own their house, they will make tons of money on it.
Okay,let me give you an example these are estimates if want the number let me know. In the city of Chicago, Southside let’s say on 55th Garfield blvd you have a three flat right. You search nd see property in the area (from residents who lived their) go for around 90k-130k. Okay now say a real estate investor, buys that building (three apartments)..Renovates the building, new drywall, plumbing ect. When he or she is done they can sell that building for 200k-275k ok. Now say they bought a building on the same block do the same thing.Because the area is so desolate them two buildings on the block might be the only builds on that block driving property value in the area up. The landlords in the area see that the other property owners are getting load of rent per month. So they raise the price of rent. The people (black population) in the area can’t afford it so they move out. Now let’s say 6 months later more and more people move out. Okay the demographics change. Now, the Chinese come in who are buying up loads of real estate on the low end come and sell their building for 250k. The new owners’ rent per month in 1200-1500 per month..you get it kinda hard to explain on text
That just means market value is going up. Market value isn’t static.
Okay first off, I’m not rascist I’m black it’s impossible but, I could be prejudice but which I’m not.. Okay then tell me this, cause I’ve seen it. Why is it that when people of color buy the buildings in that same neighborhood and renovate them the demographic doesn’t change …
oaxacachaka ” its anyone with money” except whites own the vast majority of the wealth in the country… most the people who live in the play is white and there charging 1000% more for the same living space but it’s still market value. Yeah ok
Thank you. I really enjoyed your talk. I especially appreciated your attention to spatial justice and the way a place can bear a brokenness that requires witnesses. I look forward to hearing more from you.
“What if gentrification was about healing communities?”
You’d still call it racist.
Gentrification isn’t necessarily about racism its about all the different things humans use to distinguish each other including economic despairety.
fiona fiona thats racist
fiona fiona That’s racist. You’re excusing white supremacy.
Sorry for the bad wording, gentrification is always bad but Germany does not have many ethnic minoritys and its a mainly economy problem here (still a problem that effects minoritys over proportionally) (still something we have to work on)
Mad George you’re still a racist.
Spacial Justice?
What does that even mean?
This ride we call life,is just getting too freakin strange….
I admit to a certain amount of mystification myself. Has spacial justice got something to do with personal space? I just don’t know.
Is it an injustice when someone comes into my personal space without permission? Is that what “spacial injustice” is?
The word justice implies some sort of legal ramification. Does that mean that I could get done in by the law by simply accidentally passing through someones personal space? Because I have caused a spacial injustice? I am just very confused.
Elizabeth Lee human equality means: you work and I get paid. Sounds great.
Erik Ostensen For example, wealthy people have access to better legal counsel than poor or middle class Americans and often have lighter sentences as a result.
Phillip James Clearman what does that have to do with spatial Justice?
But, you shouldn’t break the law in the first place. And the real disparity is in crime rates, especially violent crime rates. Are you suggesting different populations have the same actual crime rates but that good legal council gets criminals off in one population and not another thereby creating an illusion of differing crime rates?
People have a different idea of what justice is. These are people who pretend that they’re the ones holding THE truth.
“Equitable distribution of resources” also known as “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – Karl Marx.
Fantastic way to destroy any and all motivation to succeed.
Eric Mercon it really becomes a race to do as little as possible.
What if TED was about technology, science, design and other stuff that were part of the original idea instead of identity politics.
Step 1 – fight to close the plant
Step 2 – 5:30 “Why isn’t there more jobs in the community?”
She seems to be missing a basic fact, that gentrification is inexorably linked to property value.
Gentrification is about making an area nicer, better place. It’s fixing the buildings, fixing the infrastructure, adding features like parks and businesses, removing unwanted thing like that power plant. All of these thing will absolutely end up raising the property value, including rent.
If property developers spend extra to gentrify the area they will recover that cost by adding extra to the sale price of the property.
If landlords spend extra to gentrify the area they will recover that cost by adding extra to the rent of the property.
If councils spend extra to gentrify the area they will recover that cost by adding extra to the property tax. (Which owners will pass on by charging more for the rent and sale)
The only way to gentrify an area is if every single landlord, property developer, estate agent, and council all agree to shoot themselves in the wallet by keeping the prices artificially low. I sure any sane person can see why that’s not going to happen.
You could get the council to make a law saying that rent etc must stay low but no one’s going to bother spending money to gentrify a place if they can’t see some return on investment.
The only way to gentrify a place but not end up forcing the current residents out is to have those residents get all the new jobs that may be created. (ie instead of being replaced by higher earners they become those higher earners) However it’s not hard to see that any jobs created by new businesses are likely to be well under the number of residents, so people would still be forced to leave.
In short: poor people can only afford to live in poor areas, it’s just a sad fact of life. If you take a poor area and increase it’s value then poor people will no longer be able to afford to live there. You cannot increase the value of the area while also keeping the value the same, it’s logically and economically impossible.
you make infinitely more meaningful statements than she did, because she literally said nothing of substance. she sounds like she’s completely trying to replace facts with feelings, and doesn’t talk about how anything works in the real world, neither the current gentrification nor whatever she calls “healing” with no clarification.
aren’t architects supposed to be all about making concrete plans? she doesn’t seem remotely like an architect to me. she sounds like a campaigning politician, and a particularly vapid one even among those.
I would rather money be spent to train poor and working class people to become registered nurses, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, etc, rather than throwing money into renewing low income housing.