Sonja Trauss Comes to Philly With the Mantra "Build, Baby, Build"
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Affordable Housing, Development and the Time to come of the City
Bring together united states of america for a discussion about affordable housing, development, and the futurity of the city with:
Philadelphia native & Bay Area housing activist Sonja Trauss of the San Francisco Bay Expanse Renters' Federation (BARF)
Jake Liefer, of Philadelphia'south 5th Foursquare urbanist PAC
Karen Blackness, of Salubrious Rowhouse Project
Moderated by Philadelphia Citizen Editor Larry Platt
When:Monday, April 25th, vi:00pm – seven:30pm
Where:The Philadelphia Citizen at Industrious, 230 Due south Broad St., 17th Flooring, Philadelphia PA 19102
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Affordable Housing, Evolution and the Future of the Metropolis
"Build, Infant, Build!"
"Build, Baby, Build!"
Side by side Mon, pro-development "anarchist" Sonja Trauss, recently featured in the New York Times, leads a word on affordable housing, development and the future of the city. Bring together usa!
Apr. 19, 2016
Over the weekend, the New York Times devoted 3,500 words—a forest, really—to Philly native Sonja Trauss, a cocky-described anarchist who, in the Bay Area, has been challenging all sorts of preconceived notions effectually affordable housing, development and what cities are and ought to be.
Yesterday, I called her to talk nigh our forum side by side Monday at Industrious (230 S. Wide Street) on "Affordable Housing, Development and the Future of the City." I'll moderate among Trauss, Jake Liefer from the fifth Foursquare urbanist PAC, and Karen Black of Healthy Rowhouse Project, which is working to help low-income homeowners stay in their houses.
The argument Trauss has been making in San Francisco, where housing stock is low and prices are sky high, is essentially that capitalism tin can be a strength for social good. Her mantra is build, babe, build; the more evolution, the ameliorate. That strikes some progressives as heresy, but Trauss, who speaks in breathless italics, harkens back to her graduate studies in economics to explain her point.
"If you have a shortage of annihilation, y'all have to decide how to ration," she says. "Rationing means people will exist left out. Y'all can ration by lottery, by waiting lists, or by price. We're rationing past price right now. You tin can laissez passer laws that try to fix prices, just history shows that, if nosotros don't increase supply, we're fucked. What'south the difference between being able to afford something that isn't bachelor and not existence able to afford something that is available? The answer is zip . They both suck. Either way, you have a shortage."
This idea of more development might strike some every bit counterintuitive. Simply, while our politics may exist dominated by real examples of corrosive crony capitalism and rhetoric pitting the haves versus the have-nots, there are also movements similar the B Corp revolution and the apply of social impact bonds to serve the common expert. To hear Trauss tell it, it'southward not commercialism that sucks, it'south the people who use it to destructive ends. "I've been thinking a lot almost this thought, that capitalism is what you make of it," says Trauss. "It'south not a new concept. I constitute an essay from 1685 in London, entitled 'An Apology For The Builder.' Turns out that, since the dawn of commercialism, there's been a fight over whether and how much to permit cities grow."
Trauss has been making headlines as much for her style as her substance. She clearly takes her bug seriously—but doesn't take herself too seriously. She named her group the San Francisco Bay Area Renters' Federation—or BARF, for short. (Total disclosure: She had me at BARF.) She's using classic activist guerilla tactics—like suing suburban developers for not building enough, and trying to surreptitiously elect a pro-development manager to the Sierra Club board—and shouts truth to power every 24-hour interval.
Trauss grew up in Germantown and attended Temple Academy. She cut her teeth fighting the Street administration'south efforts to run skateboarders out of LOVE Park over a decade ago, and however refers to Philly as if she lives here. Once in San Francisco, she found herself lost and solitary, before borough life rescued her.
Since the 1950s, California has had a police force on the books called the Brownish Human activity, assuasive whatever citizen to speak for one to three minutes before any public quango, committee or bureau on matters of public importance. And so Trauss started showing up at Metropolis Hall and signing up for her 1 to iii minutes, part to office, day after 24-hour interval. "It's and then novel," she says. "There's a public center square in San Francisco. My hobby was making speeches. And information technology just became a classic case of getting followers."
Trauss found her voice, and now finds herself often the eye of controversy, which prompts nothing but giggles from her. Recently, she bought a handwritten sign off a homeless man on the street: "Nobody Wins 'Cause Everybody Dies," it read. It resonated, because the notion that, every bit she says, "Overall, cipher really matters" has insulated her from the political attacks. So at present, emboldened, she won't be shushed.
Come on out Monday nighttime to hear that vox, and to hear from both Liefer and Black, two local modify agents working towards more equitable housing for all Philadelphians. We'll too have the essentials of Republic on manus: Beer and pretzels.
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/sonja-trauss-build-baby-build/
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