Urban revitalization strategist Majora Carter explains why so-called low-status communities like her native South Bronx are developed around the assumption of poverty, and makes the case for a talent-retention approach to community development.
00:00:05:21 - 00:00:25:24
Majora Carter: Born in what I consider to be what we call a low status community called the South Bronx in New York City. And by low status, I mean the kind of neighborhoods where inequality is assumed by people both living in the neighborhoods and those outside of them. And they can be, you know, air cities. They could be Native American reservations.
00:00:25:24 - 00:00:49:16
Majora Carter: They could be, you know, all poor white towns, you know, where there was like lots of industry that's come and gone and you can tell where they are, you know, by the the fact you'll see things like the low health outcomes, low educational attainment, higher rates of chronic health related illnesses that often perpetuated by environmental factors. And and of course.
00:00:49:17 - 00:01:12:01
Majora Carter: However, rates of poverty and even unemployment and often incarceration as well. But it's the inequality piece that really does make it so that it's almost as if the way those neighborhoods develop are developed by the kind of places where and you'll where it's like poverty is assumed and poverty is actually part of the culture. And that's what you develop to.
00:01:12:02 - 00:01:38:01
Majora Carter: And so for us, our approach to development really plays on that in terms of how we in terms of what we look at, which is a talent retention approach to community development. And and that means it's sort of like when you think about successful businesses and how when they hire people, their goal is not for the competition to hire them away.
00:01:38:01 - 00:01:57:09
Majora Carter: It's so that people bring them into so that they so that the people that they hire, you know, sort of see themselves as part of the the culture and also the well-being of this company because it reflects well on them and they get something out of it. We don't do that in low status neighborhoods. We, the brightest talented ones, are expected to leave.
00:01:57:16 - 00:02:04:13
Majora Carter: You know, brain drain is real. It doesn't just happen in the developing world. It happens in American low status communities daily.