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Ep 37: Public Housing and Tenant Power in Atlanta with Akira Drake Rodriguez
Ep 37: Public Housing and Tenant Power in Atlanta with Akira Drake Rodriguez
ratings:
Length:
65 minutes
Released:
Nov 2, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In this episode we do a deep dive into the history of Atlanta’s public housing program, from its inception in 1934 to the eventual demolition and redevelopment of many sites in the 1990s and onward. But Professor Akira Drake Rodriguez’s focus isn’t the public housing developments themselves. Rather, it’s on the tenants — overwhelming Black, and disproportionately women-led — who called public housing communities home, organized and built political power within them, and used that power to make demands of the government. It’s a complex history without clear or consistent “good guys” and “bad guys,” and it complicates the narrative which argues that housing vouchers (or “Section 8”) are a complete substitute for the decline in public housing across the country. Whatever your connection to Atlanta or your knowledge of the US public housing program, there’s a lot to be learned from this case study on the politics of public housing in Atlanta.
Released:
Nov 2, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (73)
Ep 04: Fair Housing with Katherine O'Regan by UCLA Housing Voice