“The question is not only how much the government spends, but whose wealth it preserves and grows.
For Black and working-class Miami, these choices carry history.
Our communities endured segregation, red-lining, highway construction, urban renewal, exclusion from capital and decades of disinvestment.
Now, after generations of being treated as unworthy of investment, our neighborhoods are considered valuable enough to redevelop and displace the people who sustained them.
Public dollars should support affordable housing based on the actual incomes of impacted communities, relief for longtime homeowners, stronger tenant protections and community ownership and wealth-building models that allow residents to become owners of local homes, land and businesses.
Displacement unfolds over decades, and its consequences can affect families and communities for generations.
Miami-Dade issues bonds, pays debt service, invests public funds and selects institutions to underwrite and manage them.
These decisions determine which projects receive capital, which financial firms profit and whether wealth circulates locally or flows out.
Miami-Dade must stop protecting wealth at the top while managing scarcity for everyone else.
The people are tired of developments we cannot afford, contracts our businesses cannot access and public investments that price us out. The people who built Miami deserve to remain, own what they helped create and pass their community on to the next generation.”
Read more at:
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article317543603.html