Mayor Pete Demolished Homes To Revitalize South Bend — And Stirred Resentment In The Minority Community
Mayor Pete Buttigieg looks out from his office in South Bend, Ind., Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019.
Pete Buttigieg, the improbable, suddenly upper-tier Democratic contender, treats the initiative as an unfailing example of his executive leadership and one that shows why the mayor of South Bend, Indiana deserves a promotion to the White House. Buttigieg gave himself a nice, round-numbered goal and an urgent deadline: 1,000 vacant and abandoned houses bulldozed or repaired within 1,000 days. Then he finished ahead of schedule.
“He is using that as a flagship,” Williams-Preston said last week in an interview at her campaign headquarters, a house on the city’s northwest side where she works from behind a folding table in a sparsely furnished living room. “That’s cool, but you can’t do it like we did it.” “Everyone wants to find a villain,” Williams-Preston said. “This is just how economic development happens. And I’m just constantly telling the administration: If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always gotten. And what we have always gotten in cities all across the country is displacement of poor people and people of color.”An older home sits with newer homes behind it, in the Harters Heights neighborhood near Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Ind. on Wednesday, March 13, 2019.
The mayor’s data-driven approach, which he nurtured in his twenties as a consultant for the global management firm McKinsey & Co., has impressed the council president. “There’s a lot of concern sometimes to try new things,” Scott said. “Pete was really good about trying new things. He always has data.
In his book, Buttigieg recalled the “contagion of blight” — a phrase that invokes the vast, destructive urban renewal programs of the middle of the 20th Cenutry. In South Bend, it was associated with vacant and abandoned houses, the top issue raised by voters during his 2011 mayoral campaign. To study the problem, he convened a task force, which he co-chaired with James Kelly, an expert in community development law at Notre Dame.
“I was so proud,” Odom recalled. “So I tell this guy, ‘I’m just working on my house.’ He said, ‘Well, this house is on the demo list.’ … The demo list? What’s the demo list?”As she sat last week in another once-vacant home she acquired — this one to be the headquarters for a community development nonprofit she launched to help others navigate the red tape and manual labor of tricky housing rehabs — Odom shared a string of horror stories about what happened next.
More broadly, they saw a mayor who wanted what they wanted — revitalized neighborhoods — but who didn’t listen to their concerns about displacement. And there were suspicions that homes were targeted because they stood in the way of other city-endorsed residential development plans that would price out longtime area homeowners and renters.think is an improvement for you, but what is actually gentrification — and you have to move somewhere else, you’re going with nothing,” Odom said.
इंडिया ताज़ा खबर, इंडिया मुख्य बातें
Similar News:आप इससे मिलती-जुलती खबरें भी पढ़ सकते हैं जिन्हें हमने अन्य समाचार स्रोतों से एकत्र किया है।
Buttigieg teases 'special announcement' in South BendSouth Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who hasn't formally declared his candidacy for president yet, will make a 'special announcement' later this month in his hometown
और पढो »
Pete Buttigieg gives strongest hint yet that he’s running for president in 2020South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg says in a Twitter video that he is planning to make a special announcement in April as he considers formally entering the 2020 race.
और पढो »
Pete Buttigieg on 'GMA:' Trump's 'hypocrisy needs to be called out,' socialist criticisms 'losing all meaning'EXCLUSIVE: Pete Buttigieg on whether 'socialist' label could be liability for Democrats: 'That trick has been tried so many times, I think it's losing all meaning.' 'The Affordable Care Act was a conservative idea...and they called that socialist.'
और पढो »
Pete Buttigieg teases potential presidential launch amid swelling interest in campaignThe South Bend, Indiana mayor raised $7 million in the year's first quarter and has performed strongly in recent polls.
और पढो »
Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg says he no longer uses the phrase 'all lives matter'Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg on Thursday said he no longer used the phrase 'all lives matter' following a report published in CNBC a day before surfacing his 2015 use of the phrase.
और पढो »
Opinion | Pete Buttigieg shows how to campaign on values in the age of TrumpOpinion: Pete Buttigieg shows how to campaign on values in the age of Trump
और पढो »
Pete Buttigieg says he didn't understand context around phrase 'all lives matter' in 2015Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said Thursday that he was unaware when he said 'all lives matter' in 2015 that the phrase was being used to undercut the Black Lives Matter movement.
और पढो »
Pete Buttigieg: Donald Trump is taking us back to the darkest days of the '50sButtigieg, who is expected to announce his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, attacked Donald Trump’s labeling of things he does not like as socialist.
और पढो »
Why Pete Buttigieg says he stopped using ‘all lives matter’The Democratic presidential candidate used the contentious phrase in a 2015 speech.
और पढो »