😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
🌆 Los Angeles promised 👷♂️ Koreatown a 🚇 subway to 📈 opportunity—instead, the Purple Line became a 💸 gentrification express that 🏃💨 displaced the majority-Latino neighborhood over 🗓️ two decades through 📈 rent spikes, 🏗️ speculative property flipping, and 💎 luxury development with 🚫 zero affordability protections.
Now 🌵 Tucson faces the 📖 exact same playbook: the Norte-Sur Bus Rapid Transit (part of the 💰 $2.67B RTA-Next plan voters decide on 🗳️ March 10) has:
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❌ No rent stabilization
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❌ No community land trusts
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❌ No anti-displacement measures
It’s just a 🛣️ transit spine designed to 🎯 prime South Tucson for the same displacement cycle that 🕳️ hollowed out Koreatown, Seattle’s Capitol Hill, and transit corridors across the 🇺🇸 country.
We know how to do 🚌 transit-oriented development without 📉 gentrification (Arlington, Denver, San Francisco all have models), but those 🛡️ protections must come BEFORE the 🚆 train—or 🚌 bus—arrives, not after 👨👩👧👦 families are already priced out…