In this episode, Amber and Erika are joined by Joshua Poe, an urban planner, community organizer, and geographer from Louisville, Kentucky to discuss gentrification and urban capitalism, and the threat to Black lives resulting from White Supremacist greed. Utilizing the Breonna Taylor’s tragic murder, Mr. Poe explains how many of the issues in Black communities – such as militarized policing, food desserts, and inequitable education – are tied to gentrification and predatory, racist real estate practices. Tune in the hear the discussion!

Homework

1. Visit Root Cause Research to learn about their work.
2. Donate to Root Cause Research.
3. Follow Josh Poe on Twitter @JoshuaPoe_Lou.

Receipts

Josh Poe is a Co-Principal Investigator at the Root Cause Research Center and an urban planner, community organizer and geographer. He has over 20 years of scholarship, organizing and practical experience in planning, urban land policy and housing issues. Originally from Eastern Kentucky, he began his career doing grassroots organizing around housing, labor, and economic justice issues in Seattle, WA in the late 1990s. In 2017 he authored and published the interactive story map, Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate, which received recognition from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in its effort to recognize best-in-class data visualizations. His research and activism are foregrounded in exposing racial capitalism in real estate science, creating counter maps to institutionalized planning curriculum, and using cartography and organizing to combat dispossession and displacement.

His maps, data analysis, and research have been used and incorporated into the work of the Kresge Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, the National League of Cities, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, CityLab, the Urban Equity Lab, the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, Next City, Teaching Tolerance magazine, the school district in Hamburg, Germany, as well as a host of local and national education, research, public policy and planning organizations.