Wine, Beer, and Lotto: Black Community Mobilization Against Liquor Stores in Chicago

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (7) ◽  
pp. 705-726
Author(s):  
Twyla Blackmond Larnell ◽  
Christina Campbell ◽  
Jordan Papp

Many studies find a higher density of liquor stores in urban communities with predominantly Black and/or low-income residents. Although these business establishments tend to fill commercial voids in these neighborhoods, residents complain that liquor stores often provoke serious problems. Scholars support these claims with findings showing evidence of strong correlations between liquor stores and crime, domestic abuse, and substance abuse. The present study focuses on determining whether liquor store density continues to be higher in Chicago’s low-income and Black communities. The results of spatial cluster analysis and geographically-weighted regression analysis run counter to expectations with liquor stores concentrated in wealthier areas and predominantly white communities. Further analysis show that low-income and Black communities mobilized to vote for local moratoriums on the establishments. These results (a) provide evidence of civic engagement and citizen-based political mobilization in low-income and Black communities as well as (b) reinforce the idea that “place matters” with the same institutions playing drastically different roles in different communities. The inequality of spaces perpetuates a system in which the same establishments trigger varying outcomes, thus reactions, according to neighborhood attributes.

Author(s):  
Jason Knight ◽  
Mohammad Gharipour

How can urban redevelopment benefit existing low-income communities? The history of urban redevelopment is one of disruption of poor communities. Renewal historically offered benefits to the place while pushing out the people. In some cases, displacement is intentional, in others it is unintentional. Often, it is the byproduct of the quest for profits. Regardless of motives, traditional communities, defined by cultural connections, are often disrupted. Disadvantaged neighborhoods include vacant units, which diminish the community and hold back investment. In the postwar period, American cities entered into a program of urban renewal. While this program cleared blight, it also drove displacement among the cities’ poorest and was particularly hard on minority populations clustered in downtown slums. The consequences of these decisions continue to play out today. Concentration of poverty is increasing and American cities are becoming more segregated. As neighborhoods improve, poorer residents are uprooted and forced into even more distressed conditions, elsewhere. This paper examines the history of events impacting urban communities. It further reviews the successes and failures of efforts to benefit low-income communities.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. e049564
Author(s):  
Mary Abboah-Offei ◽  
Akosua Gyasi Darkwa ◽  
Andrews Ayim ◽  
Adelaide Maria Ansah-Ofei ◽  
Delanyo Dovlo ◽  
...  

IntroductionWith rapid urbanisation in low-income and middle-income countries, health systems are struggling to meet the needs of their growing populations. Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) in Ghana have been effective in improving maternal and child health in rural areas; however, implementation in urban areas has proven challenging. This study aims to engage key stakeholders in urban communities to understand how the CHPS model can be adapted to reach poor urban communities.Methods and analysisA Participatory Action Research (PAR) will be used to develop an urban CHPS model with stakeholders in three selected CHPS zones: (a) Old Fadama (Yam and Onion Market community), (b) Adedenkpo and (c) Adotrom 2, representing three categories of poor urban neighbourhoods in Accra, Ghana. Two phases will be implemented: phase 1 (‘reconnaissance phase) will engage and establish PAR research groups in the selected zones, conduct focus groups and individual interviews with urban residents, households vulnerable to ill-health and CHPS staff and key stakeholders. A desk review of preceding efforts to implement CHPS will be conducted to understand what worked (or not), how and why. Findings from phase 1 will be used to inform and co-create an urban CHPS model in phase 2, where PAR groups will be involved in multiple recurrent stages (cycles) of community-based planning, observation, action and reflection to develop and refine the urban CHPS model. Data will be managed using NVivo software and coded using the domains of community engagement as a framework to understand community assets and potential for engagement.Ethics and disseminationThis study has been approved by the University of York’s Health Sciences Research Governance Committee and the Ghana Health Service Ethics Review Committee. The results of this study will guide the scale-up of CHPS across urban areas in Ghana, which will be disseminated through journal publications, community and government stakeholder workshops, policy briefs and social media content. This study is also funded by the Medical Research Council, UK.


Lumen et Vita ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Yu

The relationship between law enforcement and predominantly black communities has been characterized by mistrust, violence, and victimization. Recently, this issue has entered into the national conversation, sparked by the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Samuel Dubose, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, and countless other black individuals. The present paper presents the experience of black communities in the United States as an experience of collective and communal trauma. First, collective trauma is conceptualized and distinguished from individual trauma writ large from a sociological perspective with Ignacio Martin Baró and Jeffrey Alexander. Communal trauma is a phenomenon that is different than individual trauma because of its social and communal implications. Next, the experience of black communities in light of consistent patterns of police violence is named as collective trauma. Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow will be used, as well as Atlantic correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates. The final section proposes a pastoral response to the communal trauma of Black communities, divided into two parts. The first is a look inwards towards organized Christianity’s complicity in the terrorism of Black communities and the benefits that are gained from their subjugation, and the second looks outwards, proposing a stance of solidarity, courage, and righteous indignation that actively works towards the liberation of marginalized communities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110389
Author(s):  
Richard Milligan ◽  
Tyler McCreary ◽  
Na’Taki Osborne Jelks

Recent scholarship on environmental justice highlights a concern about the relationship between the racial state and social movement strategy. This paper addresses the ingenuity of environmental justice organizing in the Proctor Creek and South River watersheds of Atlanta, Georgia, each home to predominantly Black communities and unjust flows of toxicants and sewage through urban creeks, streams, and rivers. We begin from critiques of the failure of institutionalized environmental justice and the state’s role in maintaining environmental racisms. To examine organizing responses to these circumstances, we analyze the improvisational politics of social movements in the context of the racial state, theoretically drawing from Charles Lee’s Ingenious Citizenship (2016). Empirically investigating the work of Atlanta community organizers, we emphasize pathways of strategic innovation among environmental justice organizers that improvise against the racial state even while negotiating with it. The article presents evidence of organizers challenging dominant modes of quantifying environmental injustice, appropriating and repurposing the language of environmental restoration, and improvising in the spaces of environmental governance. While state recognition has sought to contain or co-opt movements, we demonstrate the continuing vitality of mobilizations that simultaneously make demands of the state and rupture the governing forms of knowledge and practice that reinforce environmental racisms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-248
Author(s):  
Shanshan Wu ◽  
Hao Li

ABSTRACT Favelas are low-income urban communities in Brazil, and Maré in Rio de Janeiro has the largest cluster of favelas in the country. The prevailing view of a unique, regulated, and normative city conflicts with the reality of the continued expansion of the favelas, posing challenges for architects and urban planners in developing new strategies for integrating informal areas with the main city. This study focused on a decaying industrial area adjacent to the Maré favelas and explored a sustainable path for improving both the quality of the built environment and the quality of life of the residents. Effective infrastructure and socioeconomic links between the favelas and the city were proposed. The home production model that emerged from the favelas inspired the use of the abandoned industrial area as a home-industry incubator. The study proposed an urban regeneration strategy involving a bottom-up industry-space process evolving from home industries to group industries, and finally to larger community industries. This strategy can accelerate Maré’s development and integration with the city of Rio de Janeiro.


2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Muhammad Khalifa ◽  
Ty-Ron M. O. Douglas ◽  
Terah Venzant Chambers

Background/Context This article employs critical policy analysis as it examines the historical underpinnings of racialized policy discrimination in Detroit. It considers histories, discourses, and oppressive structures as it seeks to understand how policies have been and currently are implemented by Whites in predominantly Black urban areas. Focus of Study As we seek to understand how policy is constructed in relationship to predominantly Black communities, we argue that White actions toward Detroit are based on deep-rooted and historical biases, stereotypes, and fears of Blacks. Research Design We used critical policy analysis around the famed Milliken v. Bradley (1974) Supreme Court case to explore 20th century White American behaviors and policy regarding Black urban spaces, specifically in Detroit. Data Collection and Analysis We pull from political, educational, and legal literature surrounding Milliken I and critically examine prior research and policies related to the case. Conclusions/Recommendations Our analysis suggests that Milliken had a long-term deleterious impact on Black students (and families) in the city of Detroit, including the resegregation of separate and inequitable schools and the (re)entrenchment of White fears and stereotypes about Black Detroiters.


Author(s):  
Wei Song ◽  
Karl Keeling

The controversial Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program is the largest federal low-income housing program. Using GIS-based spatial clustering analysis (Getis–Ord’s Gi statistic) and multiple linear regressions, in this paper, the authors examine the locational patterns of more than 13,600 Section 8 housing units in Jefferson County, Kentucky, and explore key social, economic, demographic, and locational factors underlying the spatial distribution of Section 8 housing. The findings reveal that Section 8 housing continues to concentrate in the central city area with predominantly black residents, a high proportion of families in poverty, and abundant low-cost properties. The Section 8 voucher policy has failed to successfully de-concentrate poor families from these urban areas. Residential mobility of low-income families has been restricted by various factors, most important of which is the lack of accessibility to public transportation across the metropolitan area.


2008 ◽  
pp. 3374-3390
Author(s):  
Colin R. Latchem

Dial-up Internet access, wireless mobile services, cybercafés, etc., are fundamentally changing the nature of communications and knowledge and information access for millions around the globe. However, many remote, rural, and disadvantaged urban communities in low-income nations still lack access to the very ICT tools that can help to improve their lives. Many governments lack the commitment or capacity to provide the infrastructure, and many communities lack the resources or technical expertise to use the technology. For example, excluding the more developed regions of South Africa and northern Africa, only one in 250 Africans can access the Internet, compared to one out of every two persons in North America and Europe. Similar digital divides plague the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America (NUA, 2004).


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