Defying Gentrification

About Defying Gentrification

Love living in cities, but tired of feeling like you don't belong or don't understand why and how they work? Want to understand more about what gentrification means and how to both defy and eradicate it? Join me, Kristen Jeffers, Black queer feminist, disabled, urbanist essayist, editor, and urban planner from the South, living in the MidAtlantic, each week, along with some special guests, to discuss gentrification: what it is, and what it isn't, and how we as Black folks and our co-conspirators, can not just survive on a changing planet but thrive. We'll discuss hot topics in urban planning, real estate,  housing, and transportation. We will teach you everything you need to know about complex and complicated topics in the field, so you can be equipped to help your community thrive. We are committed to justice and liberation and we hope you'll feel better and empowered after listening. Follow Kristen X, Instagram, Bluesky, Threads @blackurbanist LinkedIN https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenejeffers/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@defyinggentrification theblackurbanist.substack.com (https://theblackurbanist.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈

Category

arts · government

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Mar 2024

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

29 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Raleigh and Durham have gentrified. Can we reverse the tide?

   We’ve now come to the end of our report card series just 50-miles from where we began. Durham and Raleigh are not the same city, but they are siblings (https://www.visitnc.com/places-to-go/piedmont/raleigh-durham-the-triangle). They are now joined at their Southeast and Northwest corners, respectively, and anchored by one international airport that bears their names (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raleigh%E2%80%93Durham_International_Airport). They are two points in what was dubbed Research Triangle Park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park), conceived in the 1950s to invigorate a state struggling with its primary industries of farming, textiles, and furniture after World War II. The foreshadowing has helped as those industries continued to decline statewide, but the new industries brought to the park grew. Before I get into the full analysis of the area where I went to undergrad and spent my first year post undergrad, an area that all of us North Carolina public school students learned about in the fourth and eighth grade and went to as its our state capital region, let’s just plop in the report card. Yes, they are sharing a report card too, mainly because I wanted to condense space, but not because they are exactly the same. One key difference is how the cities relate to their surrounding counties. Durham is also an incorporated city, but it has areas surrounding it that are also named Durham but are governed at the county level. It’s adjacent to Orange County, which has Hillsborough and Chapel Hill as its major towns, with Carrboro and others as auxiliary towns. Raleigh is just one city of Wake County, with all other auxiliary towns (Cary, Apex, Garner, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Zebulon, Morrisville, Fuquay-Varina) and others growing along with it. I hesitate to call these towns suburbs, because they were all towns with rich histories before they started to function like suburbs. The growth of these cities has officially split the region into two halves according to US Census Data: Raleigh-Cary and Durham-Chapel Hill. The original region is now a Combined Statistical Area (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_statistical_area), similar to how Baltimore and Washington, DC and its surrounding counties are treated. Meanwhile, for comparison, Charlotte and Atlanta are the primary central cities to satellite cities that, again, had history, but are now conveniently placed as suburbs. I just went through all of that explanation so that you can understand how we see these areas as North Carolinians and why I still loop these places together and why they might have the same score, despite some (slight) geographic distance. Gentrification also plays a role in how Raleigh, Durham, and its auxiliaries have merged and mingled over the years. With housing prices rising in the core cities, in the early years of that price increase, the auxiliaries looked even more attractive. However, there are key high-paying job center clusters throughout the region, so some of that price advantage has melted. Historically, Durham has been slightly more proactive with Black businesses and homes than Raleigh, and Black neighborhoods are more spread out. Both cities do risk losing those populations, but Durham has North Carolina Central University as a core Historically Black College and University that’s active, while Raleigh’s two HBCUs have faced pressure to sell land (https://www.shawu.edu/shaw-university-announces-next-step-toward-the-shawu-district/) (https://www.shawu.edu/shaw-university-announces-next-step-toward-the-shawu-district/)and even stay open (https://abc11.com/post/st-augustines-offer-classes-fall-amid-bankruptcy/19711388/). But displacement as a whole has been the name of the game in a way that threatens the cultural fabric. But there are ways that citizens, governments, developers, corporations, and other stakeholders can push back against all of the negative policies and narratives around gentrification and displacement. However, as I mentioned in my previous post (https://theblackurbanist.substack.com/p/what-is-the-state-of-the-state-of) on The Assembly NC’s documentation of the last 15 years of North Carolina (https://www.theassemblync.com/special-report/north-carolina-state-policy-by-the-numbers-fifteen-years/), job security and wages are slightly rising, but things like the minimum wage being at the federal minimum of just over $7 an hour don’t help those at the lowest end of the job and housing market maintain their homes and commercial spaces. This is how both cities, while earning twos on this measure, can still be individual ones based on what is actually going on in a household. But the job and entrepreneurship market as a whole is integrated. Finally, I want to highlight that, like many other NC school districts, both Wake and Durham Counties have a comprehensive school district that allows for community schooling at the elementary level, then optional choice for students and families, but with complete integration of school quality across the board. Durham is seen as slightly more LGBTQ-friendly, but both cities have resource centers and parades. And the park systems that adjacent areas like Greensboro are known for are very much alive and well and verdant in Raleigh and Durham. Again, I need all of y’all who are still on the ground to submit your own grades (https://www.jotform.com/build/262383869171063). If they happen to be the same, great! It means this measure is covering what it needs to cover, but more responses give the study more reliability. I’d love to reexamine all of these metros next year and to spend some on-the-ground time in all of them before said revaluation. So we are taking a break this coming Monday to honor our indigenous folks, but we will be back on Tuesday. Until then, Kristen Get full access to Defying Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers at theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe (https://theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   6 Oct 2026

   The DC Metro Will Probably Never Be Free

   Welcome to your Daily Dose of Defying Gentrification. I’m Kristen, a public policy expert, a fiber artist making art influenced by city life, and someone tired of the erasure and pain of gentrification and its cousins. On the weekdays (save holidays and days I need to make a holiday), I analyze a few articles, but one in particular, or I deep dive into a topic of my choice. Today, upon hearing that the DC Metro fares may be going up again (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/metro-fares-could-jump-by-11-under-proposal-officials-say-is-due-to-inflation/4163396/), I wanted to go into some thoughts as to why this keeps happening. I will always love and cherish the DC Metro system, rail, bus, and paratransit, operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) (https://www.wmata.com/). So much so, I wrote out all the proper names without looking. I’m working on a fiber art project that honors the colors and the interiors of the underground stations and the trains. Despite moving to Baltimore at the tail end of the year, I still took 75 trips on a Metro vehicle, 63 of those the train and 12 of those the bus. But, as James Baldwin has said, I can love something and criticize it fiercely. And I’m not a fan of Metrorail going up again, even if it’s an inflation adjustment. I feel like there should be some reserve money to help with those kinds of jumps. But, having studied this system for a long time, I know that from the time the system was conceived, it was built on faulty funding. Chapter 7 of Dr. Zachary Shrag’s book The Great Society Subway (https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/8842/great-society-subway?srsltid=AU7gw4VI1raD1Jz1oYTB4KzsM79TTnDBhTvOnMoE7plBRtmxwUOmU-rL) supports my suspicions. The entire book is considered a bible for those who are obsessed with how Metro works and has worked. I hate that Dr. Shrag won’t do at least a small update of how Metro has ebbed and flowed within the last 20 years, but looking back on what he did write, most every change, save what happened with the system during the onset of COVID-19, can be explained by something in one of the chapters in the book. The money chapter is spot on to what’s happening now. There’s no way we get around this save we do what he mentioned in the first paragraph of the chapter (highlight mine): When Congress authorized the regional Metro system in December 1969, it approved a financial plan based on the hope and expectation that the system, once completed, would generate enough revenue from fare-box collections to cover all operating expenses and pay back at least some capital costs. Rapid transit kept the financial structure of a profitable business. Perhaps it would not provide enough direct return on investment to attract private capital, but it would not be a long-term drain on public coffers. That model died in the mid-1970s, the victim of inflation, delay, and political realities. The system was primarily subsidized by a Congressional act of financial appropriation. Then the federal General Services Administration was given permission to grant each federal employee a fare cards with enough money to cover to and from work commutes. Those cards started as papers with magnetic strips, then a card called SmarTrip that you tap on a circle on the faregate, and now a digital card inside our smartphones that zaps the circle when you hover over it. Now that zap happens just by tapping our phones and selecting which digital bank card we want to use. This is why Metro being free will always be an uphill battle, as its two main funding sources are arms of the federal government, subject to the whims of what the federal government wants or doesn’t want to do. Yet, I want to propose that it could be free. I want to make it clear that the “free” part comes from subsidizing riders from another source, such as a corporation or even the US federal government, versus having riders pay fares, on top of their property, sales, and other use taxes that go back into capital improvements (a.k.a. buying new trains and buses and fixing up old ones and their stations). A lot of people already ride for free in DC – as children under the age of 18 from DC or all children under the age of five. The thought is that kids don’t make money, and in DC, they use the Metro instead of yellow school buses to go to school. In most places, kids use the subsidized yellow school bus to go to school. With Amazon being a major billion-dollar-plus employer with interests in the area, it could be the new number-one subsidizer. However, that brings up concerns with private entities having just their best interests in mind and those not being the public’s interest. However, we live in 2026 United States. Unless there’s a dramatic change in who we vote for and in belief in the power of voting, we are stuck with a federal presidency that operates like a private business empire, one that doesn’t believe in Metro the way we believe in Metro. However, many of my colleagues in the local government, press, and think tanks and institutes focused on local government do. I know people in leadership at WMATA want the best for it, and they acknowledge its challenges. In fact, another proposal circulating at the moment, also detailed in the news story from NBC 4 Washington discussing the inflation related fare increase (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/metro-fares-could-jump-by-11-under-proposal-officials-say-is-due-to-inflation/4163396/), is that if the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Maryland each give $3 million to Metro, all children under 18 would ride Metro free, pending they carry and use their special Metro card, similar to how seniors and disabled riders get a discount if they use their own special cards. I’d love for us to not have to use fair cards, especially if we have income issues. Especially if we are admitting it would only take millions and not billions, in lump sums, for those populations of people to do so. Finally, I have a tradition of making holiday wishes on this platform, and one of my wishes in 2022 was for free public transit globally (https://theblackurbanist.substack.com/p/why-i-believe-transit-fares-will). I still have that wish and belief that we can subsidize public transit the way we subsidize public parks, roads, schools, and such, without double taxing the public at the door, like Metro is a show we go to. Metro is a service, not a show and we should treat it that way. How about you, do you think that the DC Metro would ever be fare-free and totally subsidized? Before You Go Need a guided community cohort to help you maintain your culture and voice? Apply for The Defying Gentrification Fellowship (https://form.jotform.com/262635501822150). I want to do a vision board/zine-making workshop themed around The Defying Gentrification Playbook. I could use your help with where you want to host it. These will cost, but they will come with a meal and a complimentary copy of The Defying Gentrification Playbook. I’m looking at East Coast destinations at the moment. Plus, if you’re up to sponsor, take a look at this sample invitation (https://partiful.com/e/g5B4itByUZtf6PB7BEDw) and reply with where you are and what your sponsorship would look like. I’m specifically looking for venue, food, and book sponsorship so that we can offer these programs to those most affected without being yet another financial burden for something they need to thrive. And again, grade your (https://form.jotform.com/262383869171063) (https://form.jotform.com/262383869171063)city (https://form.jotform.com/262383869171063) on how well it defies gentrification, based on the report card I’ve created. See you tomorrow! Kristen Footnotes Schrag, Zachary M. The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro (Creating the North American Landscape) (p. 171). (Function). Kindle Edition. Get full access to Defying Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers at theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe (https://theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   5 Oct 2026

   Kansas City has the ingredients to defy gentrification, but is it?

   I know I said I’d give you this post yesterday, but since we are coming together anyway every weekday, I decided to make this my Monday post. We have one more of these city-grade posts coming, and it will be Raleigh & Durham, North Carolina, together, but with separate rubrics. Join us on weekdays for links and commentary around defying gentrification and related topics. It’s been exactly ten years since I lived in Kansas City, Missouri, for 14 months. It was long enough for me to learn the local lingo for what side of Kansas City I was referring to and to learn the dynamics of the surrounding suburbs on both sides of the state line. Having a metro region sit on a state line freaked me out at first, but having lived in the DC region, I understand that it’s a nuance that doesn’t have to ruin the vibe. But more on my evolved views on core cities vs. metro regions later. I add this caveat on this and on my next post on Raleigh and Durham, because these areas were lacking things 10-20 years ago that they have caught up to now. Namely, the completed (for now) Kansas City Streetcar. While I was heavily involved in the rollout for the first phase, I’ll never experience what it was like to have it for a major sporting event like the recent World Cup. I did, however, experience the 2015 World Series win in person, and that stands out as one of the most adaptive ways I’ve seen urban streets used. That parade showed me that when it’s something people really want or want to do, they will come downtown and walk miles to get there. The infrastructure is there for them to walk miles, and the streetcar is perfectly positioned along those areas where people walked and biked that day. Yet, the residential segregation and my declining mental health at the time is ultimately what made me decide to leave what was an amazing position for pedestrian and bicycle advocacy, Membership and Communications Director for BikeWalkKC (http://www.bikewalkkc.org). We were reaching some people, but not everyone who should be paying attention. Part of that reason was that residential and commercial segregation is so strong in Kansas City. However, I want to give a special shout-out to Vine Street Brewing Co (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://vinestbrewing.com/&ved=2ahUKEwjqt6nj7KKXAxUmKVkFHcUHDswQFnoECBcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1eTQqvj7rk0GGMkapFOlev). and its owners, who embody what it means to defy gentrification by valuing Black-led and stewarded neighborhood assets and resiting narratives of good and bad neighborhoods. Same with the Kansas City Defender, (https://kansascitydefender.com) in their community-based journalism that isn’t afraid of telling the truth and helping people with resources.If we valued Black folks and others deemed Black as much as we claim, we would have less gentrification and more redevelopment. If we valued subsidized housing as much as we do affordable housing, we would also have less gentrification and displacement. But that’s a slight digression in this Kansas City metro region analysis. Being so spread out technically gives ample housing and commercial opportunities. Still, many homes in the historically Black sections of Kansas City have been vacant and torn down, partially due to an old policy that seized homes that didn’t pay for sidewalk improvements (https://www.kcmo.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/3340/636994921789600000). One of the proudest moments of my time in Kansas City was seeing that get reversed, along with, of course, the first day of the streetcar and being on the first train. But so many of those homes, when they are remodeled, are more expensive to run and purchase, because construction costs are what they are now. On the Kansas City, Kansas side, there have been criticisms of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County. Recent ones have been that the government isn’t running well after nearly 30 years of consolidation (https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-10-11/are-wyandotte-county-and-kansas-city-kansas-due-for-a-breakup-25-years-after-unification), but criticisms that I heard when I was on the ground a decade ago were around Black residents not getting proper representation in the merged government. This is something else I’d love for my KC folks to tell me more about. Additionally, many businesses owned by all kinds of people along the streetcar route were displaced because of rising commercial rents and low foot traffic due to street closures and parking disruptions. Commercial rents often rise because people want a certain type of business with a certain type of tax rate. That’s a type of displacement that only becomes gentrification if it has a racialized element, as the original kind from Britain was racialized and American life is racialized by default. Stay tuned, as I have some posts queued up now that we are coming to you every weekday on how I distinguish between gentrification, displacement, and how both are racialized, so you can really understand how and why I graded the way I did for all the assessments. But now, without further ado, Kansas City’s report card. Finally, I can’t leave y’all without saying I feel like 15+ school districts aren't helping provide equal access to students in the region. Now, geographically, it makes sense to have at least two school districts, since we are dealing with two US states with different educational standards. But I do like that there’s a joint metro planning organization (https://www.marc.org) (shoutout to what I like to call other MARC) and the local association of superintendents and school board presidents (https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.csdgkc.org/governance&ved=2ahUKEwiljpb-8KKXAxUAKVkFHUHABFUQy_kOegoIAAgACAAIChAB&opi=89978449&cd&psig=AOvVaw14XeGsidL3-4pOH-oGJ0dV&ust=1791289890498000), which coordinates things like school closures and shares information on how students and staff are doing. Areas that insist on having so many school districts should create similar organizations and work with their metropolitan planning organizations to help ensure schools care about all children. Now, this is my invitation for my on-the-ground Kansas Citians to grade their region (https://form.jotform.com/262383869171063). Even if you technically live in Olathe, Lenexa, Overland Park, Lee's Summit, or another metro area city, I still want to hear individually how y’all are doing. See you tomorrow, Kristen PS: I’m working on bringing a book talk and vision board event to KC for The Defying Gentrification Playbook. More details to come, but let me know by replying if you’d come or sponsor! PPS: Fellowship applications are still open (https://form.jotform.com/262635501822150). Get full access to Defying Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers at theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe (https://theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

Who has been a guest on Defying Gentrification

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Rev Dr Andrew Wilkes
• Arionne Nettles
• Christine Edwards

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 55 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

67

Social presence

94

YouTube

0

Engagement

60