{"id":173,"date":"2019-03-15T19:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T19:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=173"},"modified":"2019-03-15T19:46:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T19:46:12","slug":"dc-mayor-muriel-bowsers-insane-economic-development-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/173\/","title":{"rendered":"DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “Insane” Economic Development Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/dc-mayor-muriel-bowsers-insane-economic-development-william-michael\/<\/a>
\nDC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “Insane” Economic Development Plan Published on November 6, 2015 November 6, 2015 \u2022 9 Likes \u2022 3 Comments According to City First Bank, “On Thursday, November 5, 2015, the City First Foundation (convened a) Community Development Finance Summit entitled, ‘Equitable Economic Development East of the River.’ The day-long Summit” brought Washington, DC\u2019s community developers, social workers, foundations and a limited number of community residents together “to discuss the primary challenges and opportunities impacting Washington, DC\u2019s neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River” where 3 out of 4 children live below the poverty line. It’s worth noting that community residents were initially excluded.
\nThe Summit focused on praising real estate developers and their supplicants.. Little by way of equitable solutions were discussed (we have, for example, proposed the creation of several high social impact investment securities: one to address and relieve homelessness and an Energy Efficient Mortgage investment vehicle.)
\nDC Mayor Muriel Bowser believes that community economic development equals real estate development. This approach leads her to use real estate development as the only community economic development strategy, despite clear evidence that this focus does little to actually improve the lives and serve the needs of long term, African American residents of Wards 7 and 8.
\nThose, including residents, opposing real estate development were painted as obstructionists, this not surprising at a conference funded by developers and banks. The fact is that most community groups use legal injunctions to stop certain real estate projects because they have no other effective means of modifying developments to better meet community needs, especially in an environment where real estate developers are worshipped and given every consideration.
\nMs. Bowser attempts to quell dissatisfaction through the use of real estate development tokenism, which implies that if one Black person benefits from a development, we all do. An extension of this tokenistic approach can be seen in her promotion of the fact that she has appointed several Black people to real estate development posts, despite the reality that these appointments have neither the power nor the money to actually change the shape of Black poverty in Wards 7 or 8 (or in the District as a whole, for that matter.)
\nWhat’s insane is this: these are the same “trickle-down” economic policies and rationales that were used to drive Black DC natives from 14th Street and from U Street, gentrified areas now decidedly non-Black. Further, with Black Male unemployment at elevated rates in Wards 7 & 8, the promise of real estate economic development as a jobs creation program for these Black male populations has been proven false. In fact, the picture below shows two Hispanic workmen at the facility where the Conference was held ON THE DAY OF THE CONFERENCE.
\nThis puts the truth to the lie that is used to delay the employment of Black male Ward 7 and 8 residents until they complete specialized training. While there is no doubt that, due mainly to a legacy of extreme employment bias, “soft-skill” training is both required and welcome, we note the gentlemen in the photo above appear to be doing nothing that requires a one, two or four year degree. Training is well and good, but these repeated calls fit within a prejudiced and discriminatory narrative that is not only false, but used by some, including some Black people, to justify the relatively poor economic position of Wards 7 and 8 black residents (and Black residents across the City, for that matter.) Bottom line, the current dire economic situation is not the fault of the majority of Black DC citizens. At all.
\nSo much for rational economic development that improves the lives of long suffering Black residents. <\/p>\n

Mary Bolton 202-390-1208<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/dc-mayor-muriel-bowsers-insane-economic-development-william-michael\/ DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “Insane” Economic Development Plan Published on November 6, 2015 November 6, 2015 \u2022 9 Likes \u2022 3 Comments According to City First Bank, “On Thursday, November 5, 2015, the City First Foundation (convened a) Community Development Finance Summit entitled, ‘Equitable Economic Development East of the River.’ The day-long Summit” brought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}