A Right to the City

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

African American History And Culture, Tony Cohn, Natural History, Air And Space, Society & Culture, Art19, Smithsonian, Science, Sidedoor, History Of The World, The Smithsonian, Pop Culture, Zoo, Dc, National Museum, Exhibit, History, National Zoo, American History, Exhibits, Postal Museum, Washington, Museum

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2018

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Washington, D.C., the neighborhood of Anacostia was once dismissed as the wrong side of the river. Now, it is turning into a housing hotspot as the city sees an influx of newer, wealthier residents. It’s called gentrification, and the process has become a flashpoint from Houston to Harlem and beyond. We’ll explore this longtime fight for housing through an innovative community museum that empowers local residents—kids and adults—to tell the stories of these changing neighborhoods.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Seidor, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:12.4	I'm Tony Cohn. from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:12.5	I'm Tony Cohn.
0:13.4	We used to be a chocolate city,
0:20.6	but now we're at 49%. It's crazy to think that the destruction of this beautiful
0:24.9	piece of black history was all caused by the city unfairly raising the rent. Historic
0:29.8	neighborhoods getting torn down and rebuilt as a high rise with the pen.
0:33.6	And unfortunately, not a lot of those people moving in look like me or any of my friends.
0:39.8	The prices of living here are rising so fast it's impossible to even beat.
0:44.0	They're pushing out the families that have lived here for decades pretty much by the week.
0:48.3	Destruction of supermarkets, libraries, churches, and small corner stores,
0:52.7	just so that they can send the folks in and build
0:54.5	overpriced condos and Starbucks galore.
0:57.7	You just heard 18-year-old Aisha Nunez
0:59.8	tell the story of neighborhoods in Washington, DC, but it could easily apply to dozens of other cities in America.
1:05.3	She read the poem at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, and the reading is kind of a perfect example of why the museum says it is of, for, and by the people.
1:16.0	Because Aisha is one of 11 teens from the area who is in a writing workshop at the museum.
1:20.0	She spent part of her summer immersed in an exhibition about neighborhood change in her city, Washington, D.C.
1:26.0	It's affectionately been called Chocolate City by many African American residents,
1:30.0	though noticeably less so since it lost its African American majority almost 10 years ago.
1:35.0	If you live in or near a city you might have seen the pattern that you should describe yourself.
1:39.0	A house or building is neglected, condos are built in its place, a Starbucks or Whole Foods open up down the block,
	...

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