amoore writes

"Thursday August 4:

16 beaver street

7:30 p.m. 16beavergroup.org for directions

All for the Taking: Eminent Domain and Urban Renewal Documentary film Screening-- All for the Taking: 21st Century Urban Renewal (presented by editor Sara Leavitt and Sarah Lewison) Discussion of resistance against the planned eminent domain development of the MTA's Brooklyn Atlantic Railyards by Forest City Ratner (presented by Lize Mogel)

All for the Taking: 21st Century Urban Renewal Documentary (George McCollough, Joy Butts, Sara Leavitt, Julia Lima, dir. George McCollough)Synopsis:

According to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau Report, Philadelphia had lost nearly 500,000 residents in only forty years. On April 18, 2001, the City of Philadelphia announced the arrival of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI) the most ambitious urban renewal project in its history. Budgeted at $1.6 billion over five years, the NTI is designed to reverse a 50-year pattern of population decline by preserving and restoring Philadelphias neglected neighborhoods.
Patricia L. Smith, NTIs Director, states, "For the most part, the urban renewal programs of the 70s were defined by demolition, a massive gentrification of traditional neighborhoods and by the lack of meaningful involvement by neighborhood residents. Ironically those programs contributed significantly to the creation of vacant lots and other blighted conditions here in Philadelphia and in other cities across the country. We have learned from the failure of those programs and will absolutely not repeat their mistakes."

Through the NTI, the City is attempting to stem the tide of population loss in Philadelphia by using the right of "eminent domain" to seize thousands of homes in neglected neighborhoods -- often owned by elderly, lifelong community residents -- in an attempt to create a massive land bank to entice private developers to rebuild some of the City's most historic neighborhoods. Thus far, the City has failed to include neighborhood residents in their decision making process, and, as a result, residents are unaware of their rights and have become confused and are scared they will lose their homes.
All for the Taking tells the story of how Philadelphia -- with its NTI program -- has become a guinea pig for all American cities struggling to redefine the value of the American city in the face of a growing global economy that continues to undermine the value of labor, the local economy, and the sense of community that once defined the American city. The film targets local residents who have been directly affected, or know someone who has been affected by Philadelphias NTI program, as well as people across America who have been affected by similar urban renewal programs in their respective cities. Philadelphias NTI program is one of the most ambitious urban renewal programs in America, and, yet, is reflective of many of the urban renewal programs that have been initiated in cities across America, from Rochester, NY to Tacoma, WA. Director George McCollough was formerly director of Drexel University TV, a community based television station that covered stories of local interest. Editor Sara Leavitt will be present to discuss the film's production.

A rant: And why should I care about this if I don't own property anyway? The recent Supreme court ruling Kelo v. City of New London apparently newly expands the Constitutional 5th Amendment reach of eminent domain (*private property be taken for public use, without just compensation*) from its traditional limited uses-- to build thoroughfares intended for direct public benefit such as highways, railways, electric and sewage lines. In truth, the court decision affirms what has already been the practice in cities with large tracts of decaying buildings like Philadelphia. In these cases, as with the New London, Connecticut case, property is seized from private owners and residents and passed on to private developers for 'improvements' that will increase local property tax revenues. For a long time, such eminent domain seizures had been rationalized by subjective definitions of urban blight; the Supreme Court decision streamlines this potentially messy qualitative debate about what is adequate urban living space by turning it into a quantitative one about how much money there will be on the tax rolls.

While some of the struggles documented in "All for the Taking" bear evidence of being thinly veiled cases of contemporary redlining against struggling African American neighborhoods, the huge popular outcry against the Supreme Court's Kelo/New London ruling bears witness to the threat felt by a more affluent and larger class of homeowners. These people now fear that new construction of super sized homes on their block is a harbinger of the eventual condemnation of their own modest older dwellings. A whole new class is threatened by precarity; we will all have company.
The definition of tax revenue increase as an acceptable 'public use' for eminent domain is one that has a number of ideological implications beyond the direct assault on the sanctity of our ironic right to 'own' (arguably stolen) property and use it as we (sic) see fit. As the documentary about Philadelphia witnesses, people who are most precarious (the aged) are thrown out of their homes, histories of community development and agency are destroyed or aborted, and the delicate and long term project of developing a sustainable balance of economies and of a demos in an individual neighborhood is indefinitely suspended.
Please join a discussion of the new techniques of gentrification, the Brooklyn MTA railyards, land rights, precarity, definitions of blight, meanings of home, the world heritage project and the infinite ironies of democracy.

(Sarah Lewison is working on a project about place and the culture of property)

More information

MTA (Ratner Proposal) Railyards in Brooklyn: http://www.developdontdestroy.org/
http://www.nolandgrab.org/

Amendment V - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings. Ratified 12/15/1791.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

-- Sarah Augusta Lewison www.carbonfarm.us"