Gentrification and the Comparative Context

I am so grateful for today’s visit to the historic center of the predominately Afro Brazilian city of Bahia. While our academic and legal work here is stimulating, this sort of cultural work is very important because it teaches us about the powerful history of the area and informs our understanding of how race, gender, and class relations order public life in Brazil. After two cups of Brazilian café and an equally ‘zippy’ taxi ride, we arrived in the colonial center where Julia, our friend and Brazilian liaison and coordinator, gave us a great tour of the area. Not only is Julia a pleasure and not only does she know the most exciting places to visit, but the history she provides for us is extremely helpful because it is informed by her critical intersectional analysis.

I was especially struck by her analysis of race and urban 'planning' in Bahia because it reminded me of a similar way in which racial power has been consolidated in Los Angeles and throughout American colonial history vis-à-vis race and class. After taking pictures of a beautiful church and colorful Portuguese colonial architecture, Julia informed us that this area used to be predominately Black and that its inhabitants were forced to relocate in order to ‘restore’ the area. However, once the paint began to chip from the buildings walls, the area’s new upwardly mobile residents left in search of more lavish living arrangements. Due to changing arrangements of global capitalism and expansion of Brazilian tourism, the economic void left by the wealthy residents was quickly filled by turning the area into a tourist hub. My first thought was, ‘Wow sounds a lot like downtown Los Angeles.” Here, poor Black and Latin@ residents are slowly being pushed out of their communities due to gentrification, where rents are increased and dilapidated apartment buildings are condemned and torn down in trade build equity producing loft-style apartments, corporate office buildings, and large luxury hotels. This analogy might be pushed further because in both cases such lavish elite-servicing industries are located adjacent to communities in destitute poverty.

What can be learned from this similar cross contextual juxtaposition? How might race and class based consistencies in ‘urban renewal projects’ be used to support affirmative action for poor communities of color in both contexts? Access to clean and safe housing is a human right that should be viewed as furthering – rather than limiting – national development.