‘Our city is being taken from us’: West Palmers protest as ‘masters of the universe’ convene
Downtown West Palm was replete with so-called masters of the universe this week – tech and finance titans who make the U.S. economy go ‘round.
The global investment confab was the making of (who else?) Stephen Ross, the city’s biggest developer, who agreed to sponsor the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Invest Live conference in town as part of his effort to promote the city as America’s next big thing.
Activists crash the party
But downtown was full of something else, too: protesters. Waving signs and chanting, 50 of them marched through CityPlace to the Eataly food hall where the conference was getting underway.
They were there to protest the conference as a harbinger of things to come: more finance and tech firms moving to the area, displacing middle-class residents and the businesses that cater to them…