In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."
Related Movies
Co-op Housing: The Best Move We Ever Made (1975)
Canada is facing a housing crisis, and cooperative housing might be a part of the solution.
Berlin Babylon (2001)
A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Basin of Souls (2024)
Rua de Santa Catarina, a street that was formerly home to dozens of local businesses and hundreds of Porto residents, now sees a crowd of tourists attracted by the cheap, disposable amenities that are popping up everywhere at once. Gentrification has decontextualized Portuguese culture, rendering the landscape uncanny. The Basin Woman, a symbol of the female workers of the historic Bolhão Market, is chased down by seagulls in the midst of this transcendent chaos.
The Little Ancestor (2024)
An ancestral house builds itself, comes to life, and shows us its story spanning one hundred fifty years. Through the ages, it allows us to perceive the passage of time.
The Street (2019)
The baker, the pie-maker and the diminished long-term community of Hoxton Street face gentrification in this compelling portrait of a rapidly changing London.
Flag Wars (2003)
Filmed over four years, this documentary focuses on the impacts of gentrification as gay white professionals move into a largely black working-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.
San Francisco 2.0 (2015)
San Francisco has long enjoyed a reputation as the counterculture capital of America, attracting bohemians, mavericks, progressives and activists. With the onset of the digital gold rush, young members of the tech elite are flocking to the West Coast to make their fortunes, and this new wealth is forcing San Francisco to reinvent itself. But as tech innovations lead America into the golden age of digital supremacy, is it changing the heart and soul of their adopted city?
Dorchester: au coeur de la mêlée (2025)
Under Dorchester Square in Montreal lies the cemetery where 55,000 people were buried in the 19th century. The square is still at the heart of social conflicts in Quebec, 150 years later.
Alternate Spaces (2022)
A short documentary on the River Ouse, following it downstream from Lewes to Newhaven, meditating on the surrounding area.
Work in Progress (2001)
An author spends a year and a half filming what happens as a new apartment building is built in a neighborhood of Barcelona.
Douce France (2021)
Amina, Sami and Jennyfer are high school students in the Paris suburbs, in 93. At the initiative of 3 of their teachers, they embark on an unexpected investigation into a gigantic leisure park project which involves concreting agricultural land near their homes. But can we have the power to act on a territory when we are 17 years old? Funny and intrepid, these new citizens take us to meet residents of their neighborhood, property developers, farmers and even elected officials of the National Assembly. A joyful quest that challenges conventional wisdom and revives our connection to the land!
My Brooklyn (2013)
Director Kelly Anderson's personal journey as a Brooklyn 'gentrifier' to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood along lines of race and class. The film reframes the gentrification debate to expose the corporate actors and government policies driving displacement and neighborhood change.
Gut Renovation (2013)
Su Friedrich's personal essay charting the destruction of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. After living in the neighborhood for 20 years, the filmmaker was one of many who were forced out after the city passed a rezoning plan allowing developers to build luxury condos where there were once thriving industries, working-class families, and artists. Filmed over many years, it is a scathing portrait of one neighborhood's demolition and transformation.
Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2017)
Writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs fights to save historic New York City during the ruthless redevelopment era of urban planner Robert Moses in the 1960s.
Amancio Williams (2013)
A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.
Empire City (1985)
A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.
