On Tuesday, we vote not for the fate of the nation but for the fate of our city.
Tomorrow, we vote yet again, though I may be one of 100 students who will take the extra effort to head to the polls, but there is so much more on the line this time around. Counter to what the media would tell you [or not because honestly whatever (candidate for an election in exactly one year) said yesterday is so important], Election Day 2015 matters much more to the future of our community and Durham as a whole than last year’s exercise in democracy ever could.
Sure, control of the U.S. Senate was up for grabs in 2014, but Congress’ abject lack of productivity in doing anything beyond 11-hour Benghazi Committee hearings (#HillaryIsNotImpressed) and the occasional budget deal before the government shut down pale in comparison to the significant role local city and county officials play in the lives of Durham, its citizens and us the transplants of the Bull City.
My purpose today is not to attempt to convince you to vote nor to opine about the ethical necessity for democratic participation. Pretty much every other column on elections attempts to do this. It has been established: you should vote because it helps issues we care about when we vote for politicians who care about them, and city leaders have far more influence in the daily lives of their constituents than members of Congress could ever have. At play tomorrow are three at-large city council seats and the office of the mayor, each arguably as vital to the future of the city as any elected office.
As much as endorsements and reading up on the candidates is vital to educated voting, what I hope to communicate today are the issues at hand in Durham and why we should want to work to solve them.
The first and most pressing matter in the city is the intersection of affordable housing and poverty, both distinct issues but fundamentally linked to each other. The mayor launched a poverty initiative last year that has struggled to truly take shape, while community organizers and citizens through networks like Durham CAN (Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods) have passionately pushed for greater policy control on affordable housing in the rapidly growing downtown. At play in Durham is a rapidly growing crisis of inequality, a microcosm of the fundamental shifts in the national social and political landscape as income inequality has drastically risen.
Stagnant wages, few middle-income jobs, rampant homelessness and growth in only high-income housing downtown that only a startup employee or new-age hipster could afford have driven growing gentrification as the legacy of our shared past as a tobacco town built on forced labor and the black Wall Street, a historical symbol of progress for the African-American community fade into memory. In its place has arisen fancy hotels no one can stay in, apartments only the wealthy or their children (that’s right, Duke students) can afford and that new, local, gluten-free, vegan, gastro-pub/farmer’s market combination.
We’re both a cause and effect of this crisis. If it weren’t for wealthy students and economic growth in the Triangle through the tech industry, the demand for apartment complexes like West Village and 605 West would not exist. To afford rent in one of those buildings, one would have to make around twice the median income of the city. Similarly, there are then fewer housing options for Duke’s employees, lower income students and the great majority of Durham’s local population in the downtown district. Homeless rates in Durham are among the highest in North Carolina, especially for veterans, despite the prevalence of Section 8 housing vouchers and a large network of service providers. Without an effective public transit system, there is little that working class, homeless and service employees like firefighters and teachers have in terms of housing choice being driven further and further away from the nexus of development in our city.
The reality is that local government cannot halt all development downtown, but they should not also enable such changes that clearly do not serve in the interest of all of our citizens and instead serve only a select few through tax breaks or loop holes. According to research performed by Durham CAN’s Affordable Housing team, the city has given more than $60 million in public dollars to develop high-end housing and hotels in the downtown area.
Candidates for city council have stated quite clearly that the forces of capitalism and rapid development cannot be stopped but must be curbed through policy. We are implicit in this change even if not directly accountable, but that does not mean as students and members of this community, we should fail to recognize or participate in the process to change these realities.
The second broader issue that undergirds and further facilitates the crisis discussed above is one we are not unfamiliar with in our own community, namely the active legacy of American anti-black racism, a militarized and generally subpar police force and the links of gentrification and poverty to the education system. One cannot discuss poverty or housing without discussing anti-black racism in America, for they are inextricably linked. Durham County Jail, which looms over the Durham Performing Arts Center, epitomizes the presence of mass incarceration in our community. The call for better community policing contributed to driving the current police chief to resign.
These problems are real, and they do not exist in vacuums. Each is crucial to solving the other, and without effective and accountable city leadership, they go unsolved and untouched.
Contrary to how we think and act at Duke, we live in Durham, and our actions or, better said, inactions continue to drive the most pressing problems our city faces. Durham is growing but that growth is only happening for the upper reaches of this community, many of us included in that subset. Perhaps you feel discouraged by politics, simply care about the issues in an intellectual sense or could care less, but a battle is being fought for the soul of this city and the lives of its citizens that will largely determine this community’s future.
We have a choice to make, and the voting booth can be a great place to start.
Jay Sullivan is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Mondays.
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