Transcript A Closer Look: The Sociocultural Legacy of Economic Disinvestment in Richmond, CA* D *In other words: “What the heck went wrong with Richmond?”

A Closer Look:
The Sociocultural Legacy
of Economic Disinvestment in Richmond, CA*
D
*In other words: “What the heck went wrong with Richmond?”
Further The Work:
Why We Exist
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Tikkun olam”:
A Hebrew phrase meaning “to restore the world,”
tikkun olam carries within it the conviction
that each of us – every single human being, everywhere –
has both the opportunity and the obligation
to help restore the world.
At Further The Work,
we hold this belief at the core of our being.
Further The Work:
What We Believe
•
•
•
•
We believe that maintaining the status quo isn’t good enough - not in
a world in which suffering born of inequity is part of that status quo.
We believe that there is no excuse to squander resources, whether of
time, of attention, of wealth, or of expertise.
We believe that for-profit organizations have an ethical obligation and a practical opportunity - to contribute to the greater good, rather
than just recirculate wealth among the traditional beneficiaries of that
wealth.
We believe in using excellence as a tool to promote social equity,
bringing for-profit, market-competitive standards to our work in the
nonprofit world.
We advocate a comprehensive
approach to community change:
-
Intentionally aligned
Multi-sector
Place-based
Born of coordinated planning
And emphasizing integrated
implementation
....or, “It takes a village.”
A Closer Look:
The Sociocultural Legacy
of Economic Disinvestment in Richmond, CA
• “Those who do not remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.”
- George Santayana, Life of Reason
Where, exactly, is
Richmond?
Richmond
hugs the western edge
of Contra Costa County,
in San Francisco’s East
Bay.
Richmond’s access
to multiple
waterways, and its
direct connection to
the continental
landmass (unlike
SF), have been
critical to its history.
[Note the town of Milpitas.
We’ll come back to it later.]
Richmond:
30 square miles of land and 32 miles of shoreline
North Richmond
is an
unincorporated
area under
County
jurisdiction. With
a population
under 4,000, it is
now an area of
concentrated
poverty and
violence.
Since the 1950s,
a great deal of
land has been
annexed to
Richmond, giving
rise to suburbanstyle bedroom
communities (and
even a country
club).
In the ’70s,
Hilltop Mall
opens, five
miles from
downtown.
The Iron Triangle
is the historic
heart of
Richmond,
named for the
three railway
lines that mark its
boundaries. With
a population of
about 15,000, it is
now an area of
concentrated
poverty and
violence.
An Extraordinary Confluence:
Four Forces Shaping Richmond, 1900-1950
1.
2.
3.
4.
Natural Assets:
•
Cheap and readily available unimproved land carried over from 19th-century
landgrants
•
Calm bay inlets easily connecting to open ocean
Infrastructure Development:
•
Coast-to-coast railway connection, with railway terminus within the city (1900)
•
Ferry system from Richmond to Alameda, San Francisco (1900)
•
Dredged port and customized landfill (1910-1920)
Financial and Economic Demand and Capital:
•
Local, risk-tolerant businessmen with access to capital (1900-1940)
•
War-fueled escalation of demand, with focus on efficiency and productivity (19401945)
Social Mobility:
•
In-migration from the American South following Reconstruction (1920s and later)
•
In-migration from the American Midwest following the Dust Bowl (1930s)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1892: The Giant Powder Company opens on the northern shore, creating the small company
town called Giant. Later, the 2,500 acres will be annexed to Richmond, becoming Point
Pinole Regional Shoreline.
Not a Bubble: A Boom (1900-1950)
1900: Augustin Macdonald persuades Santa Fe Railway to establish a terminus in Richmond
with a ferry to San Francisco, completing the transcontinental railway, with ferry service to
San Francisco. Later, Pullman Company will build sleeper cars and employ African American
men as porters.
1901: Standard Oil Corporation (now Chevron) establishes operations in Richmond. In the
1950s and ’60s, 1000s of acres of Chevron’s “tank farms” will be sold to Richmond &
developers for residential homes.
1907: Mechanics Bank is established to serve railway workers, who are called “mechanics.”
Later, while still based in Richmond, it expands to serve the larger region.
1912: San Pablo Bay is dredged to allow deep water shipping. The dredged silt is in turn
used to build a bay-side landmass, on which the Ford Assembly plant will be built.
1915: The Panama Canal opens. Richmond becomes a major Pacific mercantile port.
1931: Ford Assembly Plant opens, after Fred Parr assumes all costs of building the plant on
spec to Ford. Grows to employ over 2,000 people.
1939: Henry Kaiser opens the Kaiser Shipyard, which soon becomes a leading military
supplier.
•
•
•
1940: Kaiser Medical is formed to provide medical care to employees.
1941-1945: Kaiser builds tens of thousands of units of housing for Kaiser employees.
1941-1945: Daycare facilities for Kaiser families are opened in response to the female
workforce.
A Rising Tide:
Heavy Industry Leads to Housing Construction....
“[During the war,] Kaiser was early in requesting that the Maritime Commission
help address the housing shortage in Richmond....
The Maritime Commission made several addenda to the [Kaiser contract] in
order to build housing, schools, and other community facilities.
The first, awarded 10 September 1942, was to build 6,000 units of housing
[900 two-bedroom, 4,000 one-bedroom, and 1,100 single-room] and a
school....
The next addendum, dated 17 December 1942, was for another 6,000 units of
housing.
A third awarded in 1943...called for 4,000 more units of housing, 4,000
dormitory rooms, schools and nurseries, a market, hospital, and a community
center.”
Historic American Engineering Record, prepared for The National Park Service,
Rosie the Riveter/World War 11 Home Front National Historical Park, Frederick L. Quivak, 2004, p. 206
Kaiser Shipyard, circa 1942
During WWII, 767 Liberty Ships were built at the Kaiser shipyards.
Scale and Productivity:
Day 3 in Building a Liberty Ship,
Kaiser Shipyard, 1942
Richmond’s shipyards led the nation in
number and speed in the production of
Liberty ships.
It took an average of about 17 days to
build a Liberty Ship in Richmond; its
record was five days.
Shift Change:
Kaiser Shipyard, 1942
The shipyard ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for five years.
Skilled Trade Managers at the
Shipyards
Shipyard
#4, August 1944
Buford Payne, 4-Yard Bond Coordinator; Fred Alexander, Pipe Welding Superintendent; Wm. Pierce, Masterpiperfitter; R. Tracy, Asst.
Master Welder; Chas. Bradford, Burner Superintendent; Fred Hamby, Master Riveter; Ernie Rossi, Ass't O.F.D. Hull Supt; Vince
Millicich, Master Shipfitter; Ed. O'Gaffney, Hydrostatic Tests; J. W. Beidler, Master Welder; Harry Feldhahn, Plant Maintenance
Superintendent; Ray Hamilton, Fabrication Superintendent; Earl Stiles, Safety Superintendent; Ivan Duncan, Master Shipwright; A.
Underkoffler, Hull Superintendent; Helmer Ingebrigtsen, Chief Trial Engineer; Art Mori, Master Loftsman; H. McDonald, Machinist
Superintendent; Harry Tipps, Equipment Superintendent; 0. K. Outman, Sheetmetal Superintendent; M. T. Melvin, Ass't Outfitting
Superintendent; J. A. Cbokae, Machine Shop Superintendent W. W. Cooper, Master Boilermaker.R Feenstra, Chief Clerk;
Jack Stoddard, Bond Manager; K. L Sage, Outfitting Superintendent; R. Johnson, I. B. M. Dept Yard Two;
G. Devereaux. 4-Yard Bond Accountant; J. C. Konrad, General Superintendent; C. P. Bedford, General Manager Richmond Shpyds;
M. G. Vanderwende, Executive Ass't; J. A. Sullivan, Warehouse Superintendent; W. F. Tustin, Labor Superintendent;
T. C. Goff, Ironworker Superintendent; R. L. Davis, Stage Rigger; C. A. Walker, Yard Superintendent.
Hard to Imagine, But Archives Tell Us....
In early 1943,
there were
85,100 people
employed in
the Richmond
Kaiser
shipyards.
Maybe It Hadn’t Been a Bubble...
But There Was a Bust, Nonetheless (1945-2000)
•
•
•
•
•
•
1946: Post-war conversion of industrial manufacturing centralizes in the
midwest, with its ready nation-wide distribution capacities. Outmigration from Richmond begins, as skilled laborers with transferrable,
portable skills move east to pursue the post-war boom.
1947: Kaiser shipyard closes down. Thousands of units of substandard
housing remain in downtown Richmond.
1953-1957: Richmond annexes substantial amounts of outlying land,
expanding city boundaries and creating a “suburban” ring. Bedroom
communities develop, pulling many middle-class people away from
downtown and attracting commuters from other areas.
1955: To accommodate increased market demand for cars, the
Richmond Ford Assembly plant closes, and a larger plant opens in
Milpitas.
1968: Racial unrest flares across the country; there are riots in
downtown Richmond, which by now is almost entirely African American.
1976: Richmond’s Hilltop Mall opens, 5 miles north of downtown,
serving the annexed “suburban” neighborhoods. It is a death blow for
Macdonald Avenue, Richmond’s longtime Main Street.
1899: Railway
erminus and
erry
Richmond’s Population
1900-2010
1939: Kaiser
1953-1957:
1901: Standard
1931: Ford
1955: Ford 1976: Hilltop
1912-1917:
Shipyard The City
Oil
Plant closes Mall opens
Harbor dredged Plant opens
opens
annexes land
2000-2005:
1990 and
Richmond endures
onwards:
Immigration from a staggering
municipal fiscal
Mexico and
Central America crisis, running a
30% deficit in 2003increases.
2004.
Mapping Industrial Population
Patterns
“[O]ut-migration
and Fateful
population
loss
n and• Population
Loss:A
Combination
in
(OPL) is detrimental to a
region...because the migration process
selectively removes the ‘best and
brightest,’ damaging the region’s
endowment of human capital and
therefore its competitiveness.”
•
•
“Out-migration, Population Decline, and Regional Economic Distress”, 1/99, by
Edward J. Feser and Stuart H. Sweeney, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill
•
Funded by the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, p. 53
Profound Cultural Shift
During Out-Migration and In-Migration
•
“[S]evere boom-bust cycles
Local Governments and the Lag Effect
accompanied by particularly rapid
Of Out-Migration and Population Loss
population adjustments
• can damage the fiscal position
• of local governments
• as maintenance of infrastructure
and services expanded during a
boom must be financed
• by dwindling populations with
fewer financial resources following
a bust.”
•
Deficit Spending: A Powerful
A case study
of industrial communities
Intervention
in Wyoming
and
Illinois/Indiana
makes
During Out-Migration Busts
the following observation:
• “[B]oth regions faced a crisis not unlike
a natural disaster that required deficit
spending by local governments
struggling to maintain underutilized
infrastructure and possibly overutilized
services (e.g., public assistance,
counseling, and law enforcement).”
1.
What It Takes:
Aggregated Expertise and Shared
Goals
Intellectual leadership, vision, and
advocacy “owned” by a community
revitalization “hub”
•
•
•
To spur wholesale community economic and social development
To advise, advocate, agitate, educate, and hold accountable
To identify and pursue external opportunities that would serve the City (Choice, Promise, Sustainable
Communities, Proposition 84, private funders)
2. Municipal leadership
•
•
Able and determined to promote broadscale partnership and longterm investment
Willing to invest substantial local dollars and to identify and leverage external dollars
3. Business leadership that goes beyond “business mixers” and simplistic questions like, Business
taxes: good or bad?
4. Philanthropic leadership
•
•
To cultivate comprehensive, localized knowledge to inform their investments (rather than depending
on the “parts of the elephant” view that scarcity-model nonprofits are likely to offer)
Willing to commit to longterm goals enacted by partnerships, to raise the tide
5. Capacity-building resources (and expectations) for nonprofits to counteract the “nonprofit
starvation cycle”
6. Public systems (schools, health) committed to multi-sector pilot programs with tracked and
targeted outcomes, not anecdotes
• when all I want to do is prevent it.
We Need More Than a Faster Horse
• Better yet, build it.
• Predicting the future is much too easy,
anyway.
• You look at the people around you,
• the street you stand on, the visible air
you breathe,
• and predict more of the same.
To hell with more. I want better.
~ Ray Bradbury, “Beyond 1984: The People Machines,”
in Cities: The Forces That Shape Them, Lisa Taylor, ed., 1982