Gentrification, Urban Planning

Activism and Land Control in a Changing Boston

Reflections from the Mandela Initiative

Saleh Ismail

April 30, 2023

On November 3rd, 2021, Michelle Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, became the first woman and person of color to be elected mayor of Boston. A Democratic political strategist proclaimed that “the old Boston is gone, there’s a new Boston in terms of political power.” Her campaign promises were wide and ambitious, including pledges to “reapportion city contracts to firms owned by Black Bostonians; to pare away at the power of the police union; to waive fees for some public transportation; and to restore a form of rent control.” Her election saw the formation a new coalition of Black, Asian, and Latinx voters in an increasingly diverse Boston.

Most notably, Wu called for the abolition of the Boston Development Planning Agency (BPDA), an agency accused of displacing poor and low-income residents through its “urban renewal projects,” mainly by encouraging a luxury housing boom. Urban renewal refers to a program of land redevelopment in which marginalized and blighted areas are cleared out to make space for higher class development. In a report published by her campaign admonishing the BPDA, Wu quotes a 1965 ruling in which the judge warned: “economically powerful private interests, shielded by [the court’s decision] and working behind the facade of a public authority which has the power of eminent domain, will be enabled to become the real beneficiaries of the exercise of [the government’s urban renewal] power.” The residents of Roxbury, however, were determined to prevent the realization of the judge’s prediction.

“Greater Roxbury” and the Mandela initiative

Though only one of many neighborhoods that have experienced the threat of displacement brought forth by urban renewal, Roxbury represents one of the most significant and radical efforts by a neighborhood to challenge corporate power. Roxbury was one of the first settlements founded by English colonists in the 17th century. Originally an independent city, Roxbury was annexed by Boston in 1868. The neighborhood has historically hosted working-class communities and was a hub for mainly Jewish and Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. During the Great Migration in the early 20th century, thousands of Black Americans from the South re-established themselves in Roxbury to chart new lives in the rapidly industrializing North. Today, Roxbury is known as the “heart of Black culture in Boston.”

In the 1960s and ‘70s the neighborhood became a center for grassroots activism that targeted issues such as land use, education, and unemployment. Land use, however, was especially important to residents due to the large-scale urban renewal projects undertaken by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the predecessor of the BPDA and pejoratively called the ‘Boston Removal Authority’ by activists. For example, the agency was responsible for one of America’s largest urban renewal projects, which displaced over 7500 working-class residents from Boston’s West End neighborhood. Homes, schools, and small businesses were demolished to make room for luxury housing, highways, and commercial and government offices. One of Roxbury’s greatest economic resources is land since relatively few open spaces for physical investment remain in the rest of Boston, making the area ripe for urban gentrification. With this history and context in mind, the residents of Roxbury were determined to deter the same fate as their West End neighbors.

Black activists in Boston became increasingly organized in the wave of political activism triggered by the Civil Rights Movement and the deteriorating social and economic situation in their city. After repeated failures by the city government to desegregate the city and the BRA’s unchecked power and expanding reach, Roxbury residents identified Black liberation as the key to ensuring the continuity of their community. Many realized their relationship with the city mirrored the colonial relationship seen in much of the Global South, noting that “the economic relations of the ghetto to white America closely parallel [the relations] between third world nations and the industrially advanced countries.” As such, many activists compared their struggle to the anticolonial struggles of the colonized world. It was at this point the first ruminations of a new city guided by self-determination rose to prominence in the Black communities of Roxbury.

Before and after picture of Boston’s West End, large cleared out area.

West End Demolition for Urban Renewal: Before and After.

The Greater Roxbury Incorporation Project (GRIP), also known as the Mandela Initiative, organized in the 1980s in response to the city’s role in the destruction of Roxbury. Activists contended that land control was crucial, as “land control is the key to self-determination.” Radical economists argued that “if community control can help poor Blacks empower themselves and alter some of the ‘colonial’ economic mechanisms that marginalize them, then in the long run the community control strategy may offer a great deal of promise for economic development.” Black communities were growing extremely frustrated with their repeated failed attempts to influence local government policy, especially after the failure of Mel King to secure a mayoral election win despite winning the Black vote by nearly 99%. As Byron Rushing, a Black Massachusetts state legislature member, put it, “why should we go out and kill ourselves, marching up and down to register to vote for a mayor of a city which is only 20-25 percent black? Why not break our backs to elect our own Mayor, who would appoint a chief of police…our own city council, instead of using energy to try to be a part of a system with very little sympathy for us; use it [energy] to be independent.”

Andrew Jones and Curtis Davis echoed the state legislature member’s sentiments, stating in their official Greater Roxbury Incorporation that “we have tried every means, except incorporation, to solve our many serious problems. We have been individually and collectively frustrated by not having the internal tools to exterminate the conditions which have blighted our neighborhoods. The time has come for us to assume full legal control over our community. Nothing short of total enfranchisement will do.”

“We have tried every means, except incorporation, to solve our many serious problems. We have been individually and collectively frustrated by not having the internal tools to exterminate the conditions which have blighted our neighborhoods. The time has come for us to assume full legal control over our community. Nothing short of total enfranchisement will do.”

In their plan they set out to separate Roxbury, as well as parts of Dorchester, Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, South End, and Fenway, from Boston and create a new Black-majority municipality to push for more community-control. Here, they argued that “the most meaningful, if not powerful, form of government is local government. Since municipalities have no obligations, except to residents, they are able to focus efforts on internal priorities undiluted by outside interference.” Furthermore, in contrast to the white-dominated Boston, Roxbury’s “residents from all walks of life and every ethnicity” recognize that “the principles of government lie in enfranchisement and not colonization.” Though they recognized that “access/representation is not enough” they contended that “a community must be free to run its own affairs unhindered by outside interests. Government is not a glamorous process. It is the means by which ordinary people make the most out of their sacrifices, their principles.”

They sought to propose a referendum that would call for the legislature to vote on the separation of these neighborhoods. Progressive politicians and Black residents supported the plan enthusiastically in what was seen as a move to redress decades of racist treatment and a shift to a more accountable local government. Opposition to the movement, however, was strong. Critics assailed the project as one that would “re-entrench segregation” and as “counterproductive and polarizing in its attempt to divide Boston,” pejoratively calling the project “Separatist City.”

Establishment media was also harsh. The Boston Globe, in what was described as “near-hysterical outpouring not seen since the 1970s racial violence associated with busing,” ran a sweep of articles charging Mandela advocates with “deceitfulness,” “negativism, untruths, and confusion,” and making “loud, angry charges,” as well as being “hostile and divisive” and “promot[ing] racial segregation.” Non-local newspapers, like the New York Times and The Los Angeles Times also published articles with titles like, “Separatist City of Mandela: Boston Voting to Let Black Area Secede” and “Irate Blacks Pushing for Secession in Boston.” The referendum on GRIP failed to pass after it was brought forth in both 1986 and 1988.

Gentrification in a Post-Mandela Roxbury

Though the Mandela initiative failed to make headway, it sparked new discussions and activism surrounding the need for community control in an increasingly gentrifying Boston. In a post-Mandela Boston, the growing diversity of the city, brought forth by an influx of new immigrants from West and East Africa as well as Latin America, forced politicians to take note of the issues surrounding land and gentrification echoed by the Black activists of 70s and 80s.

Often, the word gentrification has a negative connotation and elicits impassioned responses from those who care deeply about low-income communities. Boston was recently declared the third “most gentrified city in America”, where Roxbury was labelled as “in significant risk” of gentrification as 81% of residents are renters. However, gentrification, itself, is not always the problem. “Public dollars are a huge reason gentrification has happened for good” argues Clinical Professor Eloise Lawrence of Harvard Law’s Legal Aid Bureau, “the problem is once that investment happens, you need to put stop-gaps and wind gates [for] what happens after.” Often, residents do not get to enjoy the benefits that come with gentrifications as a result of the rapid rise in rents in the area, resulting in displacement.

Map of the boundaries of the proposed Mandela.

Lawrence notes efforts by Boston Mayors to drive investment in low-income communities, “former Mayor Menino built a beautiful new government building in Dudley, Roxbury, that drove a lot of gentrification in the area…but what are you going to do to ensure those same people who the new government building was created for enjoy the benefits of that investment?” Long-time Roxbury resident and congressional staffer Sophia Abdi agrees, “I like the change. I appreciate the change, I don’t mind having healthier grocery stores, but it becomes ugly when the folks that were there previously are being kicked out and its being built for new people.”

Abdi points to the rapid changes she’s seen first-hand, and through the eyes of her father in Roxbury. “My dad came here in the 1980’s and he’s shocked at the changes he’s seen. Back then crime rates were really high, he did not think it was a safe environment to raise children, but now he’s like it’s becoming perfect, but the same underlying issue of displacement remains.”

“My dad came here in the 1980’s and he’s shocked at the changes he’s seen. Back then crime rates were really high, he did not think it was a safe environment to raise children, but now he’s like it’s becoming perfect, but the same underlying issue of displacement remains.”

Though rhetoric around gentrification has often focused on housing, Abdi sees the issue as one that goes beyond housing, “it’s not always about housing. It’s the small things. The grocery stores being closed because the environment is changing. Young professionals coming in so now we have the Whole Foods, the Starbucks, while small grocery stores and bodegas are closing. So, you see this whole transformation of the environment.”

She notes Mr. G’s Plaza as a prime example of this displacement. Mr. G’s Plaza is a center for small minority-owned businesses and restaurants in Dudley Square, Roxbury. In recent years, as developers have declared Roxbury a new, up and coming zone for development, small businesses that cater to the mostly Black and immigrant community have begun disappearing. Bintimani, a West African restaurant profiled by Eater as a pillar of Boston’s West African dining scene that was recently forced to relocate to Rhode Island is just one example of the economic displacement occurring in the area. “That neighborhood is changing, and the developers came in and their goals were to convert that building into luxury co-living. They actively evicted my dad, one of thirteen other small businesses, and most of them were women-owned, and the majority West and East African-owned” says Aiyah, the son of Sahr, the owner.

For Abdi, this issue is similarly personal, “my dad ran a halal meat shop and had to sell it in 2018 because he predicted that it would be bought out by a developer. He ended up passing the shop onto another Somali member of the community with the hope that the shop would live on.” Given this trend, gentrification may soon push out Boston’s key communities that make it one of the most multicultural cities in the US in service of corporate interests.

Solutions and Challenges

Activists in Boston have been pioneers in the United States for crafting new and innovative solutions to prevent the displacement that is associated with gentrification. Most notably, the creation of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) in Roxbury, an organization that operates as a community-based planning non-profit dedicated to the revitalization of the Dudley neighborhood of Boston, which includes parts of Roxbury and North Dorchester.

The DSNI was created as 1984 by a coalition of Black, Latinx, and other impoverished minority groups in response to the same concerns of urban blight and lack of community control that energized the leaders of GRIP. However, instead of annexation, their initiative sought to secure the plentiful and inexpensive vacant lots in the area and protect that land from outside developers. Through this, they aimed to respond to their community’s vision of “development without displacement.”

The DSNI is particularly revolutionary as it is the first and only non-profit organization to possess the power of eminent domain, a power traditionally reserved by the BPDA but given to the DSNI in 1988. With this, they can combine vacant lots acquired via eminent domain with City-owned parcels and “lease to private and non-profit developers for the purpose of building affordable housing consistent with the community’s master plan.” Moreover, the group is mostly known and renowned for creating community land trusts (CLTs), which hold land “in trust” for the community to ensure residential housing is kept affordable for long-time residents while allowing for the development of new civic and commercial buildings.

Front door of Mr G’s Plaza with sign on top.

Mr G’s Plaza in Roxbury. A center for minority-owned small businesses.

The first CLTs were rural agricultural land trusts created by Black farmers in the South in response to their expulsion from their land in retaliation for registering to vote following the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Today, CLTs are largely urban and centered on ensuring affordable housing for low-income residents. The main goals of CLTs are to “(1) gain control over local land use and reduce absentee ownership, (2) provide affordable housing for lower-income residents in the community, (3) promote resident ownership and control of housing, (4) keep housing affordable for future residents, (5) capture the value of public investment for long-term community benefit, and (6) build a strong base for community action.”

With these goals in mind, the DSNI has been incredibly successful in ensuring that affordable real-estate is kept off the speculative market helping insulate long-time, mostly poor residents from the whims of corporate interests. Professor Lawrence points to her work in foreclosure in which she compares the housing bubble burst of 2008 to a “tsunami” in which big Banks destroyed entire communities, wiping out all their equity. “When the wave ‘receded’, these same banks were the only ones able to come in and pluck what was left” she says.

In contrast, residents of CLT’s were largely able to avoid the worst consequences of the home foreclosure crisis in 2008. Indeed, a 2011 study on foreclosures found that “only 0.46 percent of CLT owners were in foreclosure proceedings compared to 4.63 percent in the conventional market.” A condition of many CLTs where when an individual receives a subsidized government loan for their home, there is a restriction on how much that individual can re-sell it for to ensure the property is passed on to a similarly situated low-income buyer. As such, owners may not “flip homes” for profit.

“I think we need to be wary of certain rhetoric that ultimately benefits corporate interests” says Professor Lawrence.

Though innovative solutions like CLTs have been proven to help insulate low-income communities from the capitalist market, rhetoric around homeownership as a solution to wealth inequality may impede the growth of such solutions. “I think we need to be wary of certain rhetoric that ultimately benefits corporate interests” says Professor Lawrence. “There’s an argument that we need to eliminate the wealth gap through homeownership.” For example, “we currently have a government program that allows first-time low-income home buyers to receive loans with restrictions on how much equity they can receive if they sell their home within 30 years.” She explains, “but there is an argument that these people should be able to receive all the equity they want, the problem with this is you will have taken a public good right and just fueled the problem of higher rent and higher costs for a short-term gain for a small number of people.”

Abdi agrees but shows caution, “this is a tough one because you do want to preserve a person’s autonomy to do whatever they want with a house they bought. Maybe they need the equity from this house to pay for a bigger house for a number of reasons. But restrictions are one way to stop big developers from bribing or getting folks out of their homes.”

Other solutions to prevent the displacement that follows gentrification include inclusionary zoning, in which planning ordinances require a share of new construction, often luxury housing, to be affordable to low- and moderate-income households. Boston was one of the first cities to implement the policy. Despite being touted as a fix to the affordable housing crisis, many activists and academics are skeptical. “It is simply not enough” says Abdi, “instead of 10% or 20% for low-income people why not 50%?” Professor Lawrence agrees but takes a more critical approach, “[It] is more of a mitigation tactic then a solution.” “More luxury housing just makes everything more expensive. What we need to do is stop thinking of housing as bitcoin, as just a way to increase profit for speculators and investors…we need to stop saying ‘well the capitalist market will take care of it,’ it won’t!”

Corporate interests have ultimately won out beyond the boundaries of Roxbury. Lawrence points to the Seaport area in Boston as a prime example of both the failures of inclusionary zoning and the city acquiescing to corporate interests. Though the Seaport has been celebrated as a shining achievement in Boston’s massive redevelopment scheme, Lawrence does not see it this way. “In the 21st century we had an opportunity to build a new neighborhood, the Seaport. But today the Seaport is the most segregated community in the city. It is completely run by corporate interests. Its only 3 percent African-American. They sprinkle in some inclusionary zoning units but those tenants are often evicted because they do not ‘fit in’. And as a result it is a soulless neighborhood.” A survey found that 24 percent of black respondents and 20 percent of Hispanic ones said they did not feel welcome on the waterfront compared with 6 percent of whites and 13 percent of respondents overall.

Due to these repeated failures by the city to curb the influence of corporate influence, Bostonians are taking action. Both in their communities and at the polls.

A Majority-Minority City: Newfound Hope?

Undoubtedly there has been a shift in redressing the consequences of gentrification. The electorate that placed Michelle Wu into power was one of the most diverse this city has ever seen. Activists and organizers alike in Roxbury expressed excitement at the prospect of a changing Boston. Abdi remains excited, “If you look at Michelle Wu’s cabinet, or the folks that she hires, they represent the city, and this is only happening now. People are electing these folks because they’re not siding with developers, they want to see change.”

Professor Lawrence feels similarly, “this is a huge deal in Boston. We’ve only had white men for our entire history in the oldest city in America.” Though Wu was strongly supported by people of color throughout Boston, including Black residents, some may have seen the momentous occasion as a missed opportunity. “Michelle Wu is fantastic and will do great work. But there have been some activists and communities of color who were disappointed that despite two Black women running, a Black woman was not able to win. People had been waiting since Mel King for a Black mayor.”

Nonetheless, the influence of the Mandela Initiative inspired a wave of innovative solutions to protect the most marginalized from corporate interests, which has culminated in this moment. Though the issues largely remain the same, the change in the city’s new leadership has sprung a sense of optimism for the direction the city is headed. “People are waking up, they know a lot more about the issues than they did 10 years ago” says Abdi. For now, though, residents of Roxbury will have to wait and see if the new Boston they’ve manifested also has enough room for them.