Join us on Sunday, January 21st at 2pm at the Tarboro Road Community Center (121 N. Tarboro Street, Raleigh) to learn how you can help stop the city’s urban renewal of New Bern Avenue. Stand up for Raleigh’s Black history and for revitalizing existing neighborhoods and businesses along the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit line rather than forcing them out.
Missing Middle will not repair our history of racist redlining. With all the discussion of zoning’s racist past, there is surprisingly no discussion to ensure that zoning changes will result in more equitable and truly affordable housing choices. It appears that our racist past has been weaponized to support changes that in the end may do nothing to repair it other than providing more opportunities for the building industry.
Council’s upcoming decision to either keep or eliminate Raleigh’s COVID-era free bus fares has been framed as making an important statement about Raleigh’s commitment to high quality and equitable bus service. Maybe so, but if you listen to the Raleigh Transit Authority’s Nov 10 deliberations on the topic, you might conclude that reinstating fees will have little impact on a system that is in decline and without an effective plan to provide high quality and equitable transit services in post-COVID Raleigh.
Raleigh has revived our nation’s now despised legacy of explicitly race-biased policies aimed at destroying Black neighborhoods.