BLACK PEOPLE REMOVAL PART II

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Tara Servatius August 2007


"Those that ruled Charlotte during that era set up something called the Sawyer Redevelopment Commission to demolish the African- American Brooklyn neighborhood. Back then they called this "urban renewal.""
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A year ago, the oh-so-broke Charlotte City Council raised your taxes by 10 percent because they claimed they couldn't afford to provide you with police protection. But two weeks ago, they somehow miraculously found nearly $12 million from city coffers to subsidize the "redevelopment" of Double Oaks. It's part of the $25 million in loans, grants and infrastructure various governments will pump into the city-backed project.
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The project the city is doing at Double Oaks is what developers call a "town center." Without a definable town center in an area (think NoDa or South End), developers have difficulty getting loans from financial institutions to do the infill projects that will raise property values, push out the current residents and ultimately cause gentrification. Essentially, someone has to go first before developers and renovators can colonize the place and make it hip. And that's exactly what the city is doing.

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I say to hell with tradition. Why wait? Let's hire a consultant right now to document the taxpayer-funded white-washing of the Double Oaks neighborhood area. What's going on in Double Oaks should outrage black leaders (if we had any) and fiscal conservatives alike.