Displacement, Segregation (News)

By Dan Bilefsky

In Deborah Brown’s family lore, the American South was a place of whites-only water fountains and lynchings under cover of darkness. It was a place black people like her mother had fled.

But for Ms. Brown, 59, a retired civil servant from Queens, the South now promises salvation.

Three generations of her family — 10 people in all — are moving to Atlanta from New York, seeking to start fresh economically and, in some sense, to reconnect with a bittersweet past. They include Ms. Brown, her 82-year-old mother and her 26-year-old son, who has already landed a job and settled there.

The California Redistricting Commission is set to release its completed political district maps on Friday. Commissioners Cynthia Dai, of San Francisco, and Connie Galambos Malloy, of Oakland, talk with Belva Davis about the process and challenges of drawing new district lines for California.

The black population of Oakland has declined nearly 25 percent in the past decade, and for children the rate is even higher. The decline of African-Americans in cities is a national trend. Why are African-Americans leaving, and what does it mean for Oakland?

As part of Forum's "Our Changing Communities" series on the results of the 2010 census, we take a close look at Oakland.

By Gen Fujioka

The following article originally appeared in The Planner's Network and is reposted here with permission from the author, Gen Fujioka (Senior Policy Advocate at the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development).

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has become a leading policy prescription for reversing America’s sprawling path of growth. The Obama administration, through its Sustainable Communities Initiative, state and local agencies and progressive think-tanks all emphasize TOD as a means to achieve housing, transportation and environmental goals, often through public-private partnerships. But as TOD has been justifiably promoted as the cleaner alternative to auto-dependent development, gaps have appeared in the discourse that understate its costs. This report seeks to fill in some of those gaps with snapshots from four communities of color that have been impacted by various stages of TOD in the cities of Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Minneapolis–Saint Paul.

The Federal Transit Administration pulled $70 million in stimulus funds from BART's Oakland Airport Connector project last month based on our civil rights complaint, finding that BART ignored civil rights laws. Fortunately, the Bay Area didn't lose that funding - it was distributed among the region's ailing transit systems. But the transit administration's action makes it clear that public money must be spent fairly or agencies will be held accountable.

A project isn't "shovel-ready" until it is fair. Agencies receiving federal funds are legally obligated to ensure that low-income and diverse communities share fairly in the benefits of that funding. To do so requires analysis and community involvement. BART failed to live up to these responsibilities.

City Council vows to fight legal attack on measure voters approved in 1996

by Jeb Bing

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 24, 2009


(06-24) 18:14 PDT PLEASANTON -- State Attorney General Jerry Brown joined a
legal challenge Wednesday to Pleasanton's 13-year-old limit on housing
construction, arguing that the East Bay community is defying state housing
laws and adding to urban sprawl, vehicle use and greenhouse gas emissions.

"Pleasanton's draconian and illegal limit on new housing forces people to
commute long distances, adding to the bumper-to-bumper traffic along
(Interstates) 580 and 680 and increasing dangerous air pollution," Brown

Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer

Luke Cole, a San Francisco attorney who was one of the pioneers in the field of environmental justice - filing lawsuits for poor plaintiffs or people of color whose communities were being ravaged by corporate polluters - died in a head-on car crash Saturday in Uganda. He was 46.

Mr. Cole and his wife, Nancy Shelby, were on vacation and traveling on a rural road in western Uganda about 7:30 a.m. when "a truck veered to Luke's side of the road," said Mr. Cole's father, Herbert "Skip" Cole.

Mr. Cole died, and his wife was injured. She was flown to Amsterdam, where she underwent an eye operation Monday, Herbert Cole said.

By Lynda CarsonStop the displacement: Pack the CEDA meeting Tuesday, March 10, 2-4:30 p.m., at Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 1, first floor

Oakland - Low-income renters have long complained about being barred from so-called affordable housing developments because they do not earn enough money. And residents of those developments live in fear that renovation schemes will end up displacing them.
In recent months, two Notices of Funding Availability (NOFA) were made available for affordable housing projects by the City of Oakland. NOFA-1 is for new construction and substantial renovation of low-income housing, and NOFA-2 is for the renovation of existing low-income rental housing. The funding comes from HUD’s HOME program and other sources.

During November 2008, 11 NOFA applications were submitted to the City requesting $13 million in funding to renovate, rehabilitate or preserve a number of low-income housing sites citywide, placing hundreds of low-income renters at risk of being displaced due to a lack of housing available for relocation while their homes are being renovated. Some of these NOFA applications seek funding to renovate properties that they have not acquired beforehand - properties that are currently in legal dispute.

Atty. Gen. Brown, lawsuit contend cap blocks affordable units

by Jeb Bing
Pleasanton Weekly Staff

Community and city leaders started updating the Pleasanton General Plan in 2003, a hoped-for three year process that is just now nearing completion and waiting for final approval by the Planning Commission and City Council within the next few weeks.

But now everyone may have to wait a bit longer.