One Strategy for the Arts to Beat Gentrification: Buy the Building

An increasingly popular way to attract foreign direct investment is to let the world’s wealthiest trade cash and property investments for citizenship. The $2 billion-a-year industry allows the ultra-rich to buy passports that permit visa-free travel to nearly the entire world, often with no residency requirements. Highly controversial, the industry is marked by a lack of transparency and concerns about what happens to civic ties when citizenship can be bought and sold.

In Jackson, Mississippi, a series of community-led cooperatives are creating opportunities for affordable home ownership. This is part of a trend across the country to create community land trusts. They are financed through donations, other community businesses, or commissions. Though each land trust faces hurdles, they are collectively allowing more access to wealth and ownership in historically low-income neighborhoods.

Redeveloping and repurposing unused real estate provides a path toward economic revitalization. With a combination of public and private grants, the nonprofit group, International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA), has purchased and redeveloped real estate in the town of Ajo, Arizona. The renovated town plaza and Curley School complex contain retail spaces, artist studios, and even house community gardens of the Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

Black banks have been held up by leaders and celebrities in the community as a way to end Black poverty. Previous efforts have been made in the 1960s when Black banks gave loans to community members after being denied home loans from white banks. But those loans lost money when housing values declined as a result of redlining policies that damaged public schools. Black banking therefore was not the answer to ending Black poverty and bridging the gap between white and black wealth. One law professor believes the answer lies in public banking which is funded by tax revenue and acts as a public utility.

Mobile home owners in Colorado are beginning to own their own communities due in part to legislation that is making it easier to do so. Resident-owned communities preserve the affordable housing stock, which manufactured home communities make up a large percentage of.

Incremental investment is gaining momentum in South Bend as an alternative to big developers. Residents are given the network and knowledge to become micro-developers so that ownership and money stay within the local economy. The project aims to cultivate community and strengthen the local economy.

As building developers in Kenya design new structures that are more environmentally friendly and sustainable, they can look to the Garden City Mall in Nairobi as a successful example. This mixed-use development with shopping, residential, and office spaces uses solar energy, which helps cut energy costs by over 30 million shillings each year. The mall also was the first in the region to receive an international green building certification.

Two insurance companies, Discovery and Dialdirect, implemented a smartphone app for drivers to report potholes in their city. The companies then fill the potholes and brand them with their logos.

The Diné Naazbaa Partnership (DNP) serves Navajo Nation veterans, connecting them with food, medication, transportation and other necessities, as they’re more likely to be unemployed and far less likely to use or apply for VA services. The DNP has connected with about 1,228 of the 14,700 veterans on the Navajo Nation and has partnered with 370 groups to fund projects that provide housing improvements and emergency financial aid to veterans.

The South Side Queer Farmer Convergence provides culturally-affirming community gatherings that effectively reduce isolation, promote emotional healing, and foster mental wellbeing for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC farmers facing significant social stressors and discrimination.