Join us on Tuesday, June 2nd for an “Imagining” in New York City that will bring together community members, organizers, artists, cultural workers, and other stakeholders to imagine the creative approaches, organizing strategy and bold vision we need to win anti-gentrification and anti-displacement fights in NYC now and into the future.
We are in a critical juncture in New York City’s fight against gentrification to preserve affordable housing for working class and low income New Yorkers. During Mayor Bloomberg’s 12-year reign, he passed over 120 rezoning plans that has and will ostensibly displaced thousands of low-income, immigrant, and residents of color from their neighborhoods. Everyday New Yorkers are already struggling and getting systematically pushed out of their city; with declining wages, increase in costs of living and rent prices skyrocketing. Yet, hard-hit communities are organizing to resist this massive displacement across the city.
The event is part celebration and part envisioning and strategizing. Participants will take part in a collective-imagining process where we will ask ourselves: “What the year 2034 might look like when art’s transformative power has been fully integrated into all aspects of public and community organizing life, such as housing as a human right?”
Organized by U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC), a non-government people-powered department, inciting creativity in the service of empathy, equity, and social imagination. www.usdac.us
This NYC Imagining is being coordinated by an diverse group of artists, cultural workers, activists and organizers.
For more on the event email Betty Yu (2015 NYC Cultural Agent with the USDAC) bettyyu21@gmail.com or ImaginingNYC@gmail.com.
*Special thanks to New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC for the space.