In (Re)living Democracy, artists Scott Berzofsky, Lasse Lau, Nicholas Petr, and Nicholas Wisniewski have collaborated with East Baltimore organizers (KIDS/TEEN Scoop, Nia Redmond, Rose Street Community Center, Rose Street Transitional House, Glenn Ross, Save Middle East Action Committee) to turn the Contemporary Museum into a platform for participation in a critical dialogue concerning the residents of East Baltimore's struggle against urban renewal.

(Re)living Democracy is accompanied by numerous public programs addressing these issues. The program on November 5th featured David Harvey, author of The Limits to Capital, The Urban Experience, and The Spaces of Hope, and Marisela Gomez, Director of Save Middle East Action Committee. Harvey and Gomez addressed urban economic and political problems of Baltimore through the lens of gentrification on the eastside and Johns Hopkins University projects. (Thanks to the Megaphone Project for access to technology for transcription, which is based on detailed notes from videotapes done by Lasse Lau; it's almost, but not entirely, word-for-word).

Cira Pascual Marquina: "David Harvey in Conversation with Marisela Gomez" is part of the Contemporary Museum's exhibit (Re)living Democracy, one of several integral to a project on so-called urban renewal in East Baltimore. The Contemporary is providing an open discussion for these urban issues.

Nick Petr: To begin, we would like to ask Marisela to describe the situation in East Baltimore. What is EBDI and the development project these? What is SMEAC?

Marisela Gomez: SMEAC, Save Middle East Action Committee, is a community organization in Middle-east Baltimore. SMEAC formed in 2001 after residents learned their houses, their homes were to be taken so that a biotechnology park could be built. The residents responded with grass-roots organizing. It was a huge 20 block, 90 acre area with up to 2,000 homes, impacting 800 households. Supposed you learned about your community like they did, through The Sunpapers? It is usually the marginalized, poor people of color who find out this way. These are the reasons a community like Middle East is treated this way. Keep this in mind.

Members of Save Middle East Action Committee asked the question: "How much money for my house?" "Can I come back when the neighborhood is gentrified?" "How can we ensure that we are treated fairly?" For over four years, SMEAC slowed down, but did not stop, this process. You don't stop big projects initiated by Johns Hopkins University. But you can slow it down, you can seek to change the dollar amount of those whose homes are to be used, you can still struggle, you can fight for the right of re-entry. You can still fight to make sure the residents who are to be moved out can stay in the neighborhood. Usually, it is the speculators who eventually move people out of neighbors.

What is EBDI? The East Baltimore Development Initiative is a quasi for-profit/not-for-profit entity created to manage through the development project. EBDI determines where relocation occurs. It raises funds to ensure the progress of the project. EBDI is the main adversary of SMEAC.

NP & CPM: David, would you talk about solutions for the community, about city policies and development projects?

David Harvey: When I was still at Johns Hopkins, something was set up called the Urban Health Initiative, formed from the good will of doctors and researchers. They had a program in the community on ashtma and were concerned about the community, but, as you know, Hopkins is a corporation. The administration did not like famous people from abroad seeing poor people of East Baltimore and the related problems. It was an image issue for Hopkins, not mainly financial.

In the 1970s, the cost of Medicade was sufficient, but cuts in Medicade payments did develop. There were two basic options for Hopkins Administration: 1) develop preventive medicine programs; 2) gentrify the whole area. The main strategy adopted was to remove the people out from around the Hospital. So, part of the situation is the Hospital's interests leading into gentrification. When Medicade was remunerated, Johns Hopkins was OK with the neighborhood.

Second, I've recently been contacted by a group at Columbia University, and also a group in Camden. The situation with Hopkins and East Baltimore is not a unique circumstance. What we seeing is a political economy of dispossession, a taking-away from people who have little—peasants, urban poor. There's a history of it, of benefits captured. There were lots of struggles in the cities in the end of the 1960s. Incomes in the bottom 20% were rising. Things were going up. The end of the 1960s, early 1970s saw benefits gained in the areas of environmental protection, occupational health and safety. There was legislation passed. Then, in the early 1970s, the corporate counter-attack began. The first place to experience this counter-attack was New York City in 1975 during its fiscal crisis. It is interesting to see how it played out.

The banks went on strike, forcing the City into bankruptsy. They took over control of the city budget to pay off bondholders. Municipal services were attacked. The budget crisis was used to remake New York City into the center for global finance. Then, to make Manhattan into a playground for the rich. Funds for public schools and higher education were cut. The City University of New York experiment in free and open education was attacked. The corporate elites pushed against public education, health care, and public transportation. This corporate attack was an effort to dispossess the population of New York City of rights and privileges. The corporate counter-attack on New York City was a pilot project used as a model by the Reagan Administration. And this model is exactly what the International Monetary Fund through structural adjustment programs used in Nicaragua, Mozambique, the Philippines, Mexico, and eleswhere. They could not solve problems of capital accumulation, but they could save class assets by actually robbing as many around the world of their assets as possible.

How was consent for this corporate counter-attack constructed? First, through the sheer weight of corporate power, through business organizations like the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, through conservative think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation, through capturing the "Financial Times", the "Wall Street Journal". in short, there was a tremendous ideological assault. There's a line from former Secretary of Treasury William Simon, who was delighted with the Chile experience under the Pinochet regime: "Tell the City to drop dead. I want New York City to hurt so bad that no other city would try to do what New York did."

In the 1960s, the 400 richest individuals were worth $650 million on average. Now they are worth $2.8 billion, according to the New York Times. The top .1% has increased by 300% its national income share. If you examine tax returns for 2003 and 2004, controlling for inflation, the top 1% had income increases of 3.5%; the top .1% was raised by 9%. There's been a constant taking away to feed that 1%, a taking away of educational and health benefits, of workers' pensions. [See Joseph Kay on 'Forbes 400 List of Richest Americans: Snapshot of a Financial Oligarchy' on World Socialist Web Site.]

People like Hopkins President Brody have a grasp on economics, on international institutions, on this city Baltimore…. We must ask why it is? Why the corporate counter-attack has been so successful? In Britain, Margaret Thatcher said "I'm out to attack the soul", to attack solidarity. Ideologically, individualism has a lot to do with it. The 1960s movements liked individual liberty, but they also worked to advance social justice. Neoliberalism says "We give you individual liberty. Forget social justice!" This has to be put in general political-historical perspective. We have to stop this across the board. In East Baltimore, the political battle for "the right of return" is crucial. It's not enough to accept "We'll give you some money, then go." In London, there's complete gentrification. The other crucial issue, of course, is to construct an alternative….Sorry, I get off on this stuff.

NP: Why aren't people aware? Those who are, why can't they inform the people? Where's the Left? Middle East has published a lot, but, in Poppleton, there's another biotech park project. Should we organize local and small, or national and global?

Gomez: Ultimately, it's about individualism. I'm not from this country, but from Central America. The United States is not about social justice. Individualism has always been what drives the US. Why is there fragmentation in the poorest communities? It's all about individualism. How can we change it? Let's not fool ourselves about what capitalism means. It is never about communities moving forward. If we understand this, then maybe we can move forward.

Johns Hopkins University has been a land bank for a hundred years. 1916 is the first time it expanded. Growth in the US is about how to make sure people go quietly, make sure they are poor and unorganized. First, we have to organize some successful projects. Second, we have to face the truth, to define clearly what is equity, what is equality.

SMEAC organized people impacted by one thing in East Baltimore. Why this fragamentation and individualism? An institution like Hopkins can give an individual an opportunity to do research in a community. You might even get to sit on a board. You might move forward individually, but individualism moves us back to promote ourselves. Hopkins is a corporate entity here. Every development project in East Baltimore occurs with Hopkins involvement. It's a power in East Baltimore. The City does not participate with low-income communities on house building projects. The City supports gentrification. We have to organize. Yes. But, we also have to ask ourselves what is it in the US which supports this individualism and fragmentation. In the US, people pretend that there are two political parties. But when you look at the US from the outside, it looks like a one-party system.

Harvey: Marisela, what is the main clue to your success? What's your trick in organizing?

Gomez: I was involved in Est Baltimore since the 1990s, and in SMEAC since it's beginning. I studied at Hopkins. I knew of the carrot of an available community for research. Here's what Hopkins sells a student for a bright future: first, a community at your footsteps for research; second, the opportunity to proceed through a process of hierarchy to be the person society tells you to be. Divide and conquer is used. It makes sense that East Baltimore is fragmented.

What SMEAC did, we went to people and said "You're gonna loose your houses. They don't give a shit about us, when we're poor and black." So we organized on this issue, the issue of equity when they went to take people's homes. SMEAC organized around this one issue, the issue of shelter. People did not know if they were going to have their house. This urgency brought people together. You can't go to the community from the outside and organize. Rather, people themselves have to decide that they have the power to organize. The situation didn't feel fair. It felt like segregation. But people felt power in numbers. They felt power in talking about it together. And people went back again and again with the same demands, with one voice. SMEAC represents 150 houses in this community. Activists knocked on doors and asked "Is this fair?" We represented a group of people who said "You can't tell me what's good for me!" It made a difference. SMEAC challenged the rhetoric for four, for five years.

Every chance the EPDI gets, it tries not to be transparent. But SMEAC holds them accountable, challenges them, throws off their agenda. While the history of East Baltimore shows what a bad neighbor Hopkins has been, residents still don't feel it's bad intentions, but ignorance. Still people need justice. Hopkins and the EPDI cannot stand SMEAC because we throw there agenda off.

Ques: [Addressed to David Harvey on New York City]

Harvey: Basically, it's been the gentrification of Manhattan with the boroughs being let go. There are disparities in income, in education. The rich had lots of property and wanted to gets its value back. There was the slogan "I Love New York" of the Manhattan Partnership while the elites supported disciplining the police and fire departments unions. The unions responded with slogans like "Fear the City!", "Get mugged on the subways!", "If there's fire in the hotels, forget it!" This got to Europe and elsewhere and people stopped coming to New York. Then, the City says "OK, we'll give more jobs." But then these jobs were in Manhattan, not in the Bronx or the other boroughs. Manhattan as the "gilded ghetto." Guilianni cracks down on crime with the "no tolerance" policy. Harlem is beginning to be gentrified now, but the Bronx remains a poor area.

New York is a divided city. While the median income in the boroughs decreases, it is up 12% in Manhattan. In the 19th century, Engels observed "The bourgeous solves problems by moving people around." They take poverty elsewhere. This is a big problem in the central cities. Mayors hope to balance the budget by bringing high-end development to cities, investments in condos and harbor recreation. There is a certain logic here, but we must transform this logic. Organizing starts local like in Marisela's work. But then a broader movement must be built to take the City back. City-wide. Then state-wide. Then nation-wide. We have got to push on federal policies.

I've been criticized for being nostalgic about the New Deal. The US had a period of social justice momentum. I'ld give my eye-teeth to hear a Roosevelt say, as FDR said to Congress in 1933, "Enough is …pulling up the income of the rich. We need some of this to get the country back on its feet." We also had such momentum in the late 1960s, early 70s with legislative gains. The corporations complained about this as "anti-capitalist" legislation. Social justice movements in the US have not eliminated individualism. We still need to deal with this ideology, even among the most oppressed people. We need to develop solidarity of some kind, and a united front against corporate power to make something happen.

SMEAC shows that even a relatively small group with purpose and solidarity can make a difference. We need to build alliances, need solidarity to take back the City, to end this dispossession. People have a right to the City. It's an important right. Saying "Here's $300,000. Now get out" is no answer.

Ques: The electoral system's not functioning. What power? What bargaining chip do people have?

Harvey: There's been a shift of the power structure the last 30 years. Most representative, democratic institutions have been disempowered. Two things must be done. First, people need to reclaim the terrain of democratic institutions. Second, look at how the French stopped their country in 1995 when public benefits were attacked. They just stopped the country from running. If people can get rid of the president in Bolivia, why not in the US? These are examples of the crucial importance of street action. There was no public awareness of the problems of globalization until the Seattle protests. Massive street action can change things. We must think in those terms. Impeach Bush, but also impeach the Democrats! We must pull the discussion towards street action, to direct action. I can't see another way to work something up. I'm appalled that New Orleans has been put aside. And FEMA will not give the names and addresses of those relocated, effectively depriving them of the right to vote. Outrageous!

Ques: Why has Hopkins responded to SMEAC?

Gomez: We've developed an organized presence at the table. At decision-making meetings, the community is involved. We asked the questions "How do we come back?" and "How do we benefit?" It's SMEAC's grassroots organizing approach. When activists can say "I represent 20 blocks", they have accountability. SMEAC consistently demands a voice at the table and always says what the resident membership has to say. Sometimes it takes six or eight months, but we keep going back.

Harvey: We should remember that Johns Hopkins is not monolithic. When the Administration got into this, doctors, those with some idealism, found out and questioned the institution. So, Hopkins has its internal problems. It's also important to push internally.

Ques: It is important if the people effected are those in the leadership. I was involved in the 1960s, in the civil rights movement, in the anti-war movement. Then, blacks and students were in the front of the movements of the 1960s. Cindy Sheehan, with Military Families against the War, brings a new face to the anti-Iraq war movement. Marisela, who are the natural allies of SMEAC? David, what national alliances are there among social movements now? There's a recent unfortunate example of Delphi Auto Parts workers whose wages and health benefits were cut, whose union made contract concessions.

Gomez: There's lots of groups in East Baltimore. Those groups which have a history are important to build alliances with. And unions. And the churches. We did not get as much support as we hoped from churches. SMEAC works to build alliances at the base. But it is difficult to build alliances in East Baltimore except with those dealing with housing issues. Now we have the Poppleton interest. Redevelopment is blossoming in the US so everyone can get involved. Maybe some groups can get started before SMEAC did. We made a video of the SMEAC struggle for use by other communities. Maybe this can help stop development.

I spoke with a professor in New York City who said to me "If you had done a good job, no one would have had to relocate." We say "What do you mean? We have struggled so much. We got a benefit package." But, she's right. It should have been people first, not bricks and mortar. The train had already started. We did not save Middle East, but brought equity. The problem is that we started from a context of individualism, of fragmentation. The need for collaboration is huge. Organizations in institutions are important. Hopkins students picketed at graduation on housing and development issues. We have to raise a ruckus inside and outside. But we also have to talk to build alliances.

Harvey: I agree entirely. Organizing at the base by those immediately effected is the way to go. In Baltimore, ACORN does not speak to BUILD; BUILD does not speak to ACORN. This is ridiculous. Some of this is individualism, but it's more about "my organization", a possessiveness about my organization. This is a political problem. There's always been this thing in Baltimore since I've been here. This has been paralyzing in Baltimore for years. "I have a little power and don't want my power center messed up." This is turf politics. When the organizing is their own, that of the effected, the Cindy Sheehan example, then organizing can reach out farther. However, I'm not an organizer, but an academic. I'm reluctant to do politics. I do not have answer. I just try to observe and reflect.

Comments: [From Glenn Ross, an East Baltimore activist] East Baltimore has been allowed to decay for over 30 years. It's become a haven for drugs, just blocks from Johns Hopkins Hospital. When the community found out about the biotech park, the City showed up….Prior to the work of Marisela, some community activists had become territorial. Baltimore is divided, but then SMEAC was formed. The EPDI did not want community activists on the board…. A phrase of mine heads the detailed map of political relations in East Baltimore [represented on the east wall of the Museum]—"Break the disconnect to change the game."

There's a big problem with the African American politicians in East Baltimore. The politicians say not to go into Hopkins with your issues, but go into the back door to get favors. The politicians have deliberately let the neighborhood go down. If SMEAC can do what it did in East Baltimore, then activists can do the same all over the City. Coalition work is important. There's the example of CPHA. Since groups are so territorial, they don't go into different neighborhoods. If group reps keep forming coalitions and work together, we can change this game!

Ques: Has Johns Hopkins tried to use this "Kilo Decision"? The conservatives on the US Supreme Court voted against it; the liberals voted for it. [Recent decision which asserts the preeminence of eminent domain].

Gomez: Eminent domain allowed Johns Hopkins to use these properties. Actually, SMEAC was looking forward to this decision. If the decision was different, then there was no basis for Hopkins to stand on. The community could have moved differently. The US is all about individual land rights. You can't come and take my land. The conservatives opposed eminent domain, while the liberals supported it. How will community activists respond? Jim Kelly of the University of Baltimore wrote a legal brief for the case which looks differently at doing eminent domain as a participatory process. If people participate at the beginning, we can get at eminent domain with justice and fairness. A participatory approach is needed: Nothing can happen in this process unless the people effected are involved in the process.

Ques: Are any communities taking a proactive approach to development issues? Lizzie, can you tell us a bit about the Mets stadium struggle in New York? [Lizzie] The community created an alternative development plan. They found a developer, and even found a playing field, but the deal already existed.

Gomez: There's an example in Philadelphia. With SMEAC, there's a 90 acre project with 380 households to be relocated in phase I. But there is no plan for phase II and III. SMEAC says residents must be part of a participatory process. SMEAC activists walk block by block. There are abandoned blocks. Will they be demolished? Will they be rehabilitated? How will EBDI respond? Here, SMEAC with community participation, there's a prime opportunity to show an alternative, to show just how a low-income community can serve a low-income community.

Ques: What are examples of success of re-development projects in the US?

Harvey: Absolutely successful? No. No such example, though there are many examples of groups impacting, constraining. But shifting the balance? But, look at the interventions. Some are not noble, for example, enhancing the value of property. I have property in Hamden and have seen the values go up. We need to think in a broader context. Some project that looks successful now … will it look successful in five years? Things are constantly shifting, games being played. The level of community action is critical, but there's never a clear victory, but an ongoing process. We get organized and make a nice urban environment. Then rich people come in and buy it. There are many examples of success in bettering the urban environment, then property speculators start moving in. You buy a house for $80,000, then five years later it sells for $200,000.

Ques: Some of us were in an earlier discussion. The New Greenmount West Community group is attempting to appropriate two buildings there, in the Station North Arts District. They want to get these buildings from the City—School 32 for a community center and a factory building for a solar factory. Here's an alliance between a low-income based community group and a group of artists/activists at the Cork Factory. Rene used the word "proactive." I see these groups a attempting an alternative to gentrification. Ms. Gomez, are you aware of this struggle in Greenmount West? Do you think this a defensive or a proactive struggle?

Gomez: SMEAC is aware of this struggle and has worked with Dennis Livingstone. Is it defensive? I do not think so. I think they have a little more power than the Middle East community. But the fact that there was already a plan was unfortunate. New Greenmount West is not as organized as Middle East at this point. And the community group has not done organizing from the base as SMEAC has done. This is an important question: How to take successes like SMEAC in organizing and make it city-wide, state-wide, nation-wide? Given the small numbers involved in SMEAC, how can we take what we learned and link with Greenmount West? With Poppleton? And go forward and go city-wide. We haven't been able to notch it up to city-wide because we do not have the funding. We have to do a lot of lip service to our funders. Funders do not understand the importance of notching up to the city-wide level.

Ques: What is the role of the City Council? Of the media? Of The Sunpapers?

Gomez: Organizing is not just the organizing of residents, but also working with government. We need to build social capital to effect change. SMEAC worked with City Council reps knowing we might need legislation for the "right to return." We tried hard, like Glenn so eloquently put it. There were three City Council reps, now there is just one for East Baltimore. We've worked with Paula Branch who has a lot of pressure on her. We've had lots of meetings with Branch and thought we were making headway, but she didn't respond. But Branch did get legislation saying that 33% of those residents who get back in Phase I have to be "low-income." But then we had differences on what the definition of "low-income" is. So, we have differences with City Council reps, but have to cultivate the relationships.

The media. We did not get The Sunpapers to print what SMEAC members were saying. It's difficult to get coverage that supports us. We know that the media is supported by Hopkins. We know that the Mayor is trying to make Baltimore's image "up-and-coming" for his bid for Governor.

Harvey: We can't take lightly that we have a power structure with the media embedded in it. By the same token, institutions like the media can make an impact. It's important to hammer away at them. I'm an academic and there's a saying "A bad review is better than no review at all. At least, you're on the map." So keep hammering away. I have good contacts with New York Times writers and editors, but I've had no Op/Ed piece printed yet. I've sent many articles and I've even heard "I can't print this. I'll loose my job." I've heard that Marc Steiner has been disciplined. There are alternative forums—here [at the Contemporary Museum], the Internet, "white papers", etc. There's disparities with wealth and power. It's asymmetrical. But, members of left groups in academia do get into [mainstream] professional publications. One day, we'll get into the New York Times.