Social infrastructure in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami

There is an article in the Miami Herald about "climate gentrification" ("Another study finds climate gentrification in Miami, this time in the rental market") but it's behind a paywall so that you have to access it through a library articles database.  

Doing the search on that site, there were links to other articles on the topic within the paper, including "Liberty City is rapidly transforming. Residents are split on who will benefit." 

Artist Kyle Holbrook of Moving Lives of Kids created the nine-story ‘Liberty City Mural’ for the Liberty City Pinnacle Art in Public Places program. Photo: EILEEN ESCARDA.  "Mural depicts leaders, positive changes in Liberty City," Miami Herald.

Liberty City is a historically black neighborhood of about 28,000 residents.  Its black population is dropping, its Hispanic population is increasing, and in part because of its location, but also its relatively high elevation in the face of climate change and the expected rise in sea levels that will devastate most South Florida neighborhoods, it's experiencing new development and an influx of higher income residents.

I've discussed "social infrastructure" in the context of equity planning ("An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017) and even within managing  and programming public spaces as a network ("The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building and Silver Spring, Maryland as an example," 2012) although I didn't refer to the concept of anchor programming as a kind of "social infrastructure."  I should have.

Community, social, and civic organizations are part of the civic asset network in communities, which is discussed in Eric Klinenberg's book about social infrastructure, Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life.  His study of death and the Chicago heat wave, found thatwhen comparing equally impoverished neighborhoods, those neighborhoods with a greater array of community organizations and civic and retail amenities had fewer deaths.

The organizations listed in the Herald article that I found particularly interesting are:

• Roots Collective Black House, which has a print shop, event space, offers creative services and an internship program for youths, including access to seminars on topics such as gentrification ("Roots Collective Black House Aims to Enrich Black and Brown Communities," Miami New Times)
• Collective 62, an artists cooperative, gallery and work space
• MEYGA, the Multi-Ethnic Youth Group Association, started as an after school program for children, expanded to offer some family programming, and has since opened a private school serving K-8 grades
• African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, is part of the county culture agency, has programs in visual and performing arts for children and youth, presents various arts events including black theater, and has residency and apprenticeship programs for artists ("African Heritage Cultural Arts Center Shapes the Next Generation of Miami's Black Creatives," Miami New Times).

The original theater has been expanded into a cultural complex with the addition of a new building immediately adjacent.  

In Overtown, another historically black Miami neighborhood, one remarkable civic asset is the Black Archives, History & Research Foundation of South Florida.  

In addition to its ever expanding archives on the Black experience in South Florida, the organization also operates the Historic Lyric Theater, the city's first theater building dedicated specifically to the Black community when it opened in 1915.