A lawsuit from Oregon highlights the deterioration of Black neighborhoods.

Bobby Fouther grew up in a house that is now a parking lot. The two-story, shingle-sided house was demolished in the 1970s along with many other homes in Portland, Oregon's predominately Black neighborhood.

Growing up there was all about love, according to Fouther.

Fouther and his sister, Elizabeth Fouther-Branch, are among 26 Black people who either lived in the neighborhood or are descended from former residents. They are suing Legacy Emanuel Hospital, the city of Portland, and the city's economic and urban development agency, accusing them of razing the homes and forcibly displacing the residents in a "racist" manner.

The case, which was filed on Thursday in federal court in Portland, sheds light on how national highway development and urban improvement initiatives frequently come at the expense of communities that aren't predominately white.

In many instances, Black neighborhoods were purposefully built through by city and state planners in an effort to eliminate so-called slums and blighted regions, according to a 2020 analysis by the Pennsylvania-based charity Pew Charitable Trusts.

Due to legislation that upheld all-white neighborhoods and "redlining," where banks discriminate against applicants for house loans based on race, people who were members of racial minorities were frequently forced to live in those areas.

According to the lawsuit, Fouther and his sister frequently visited a home that Fouther's great-aunt and her husband purchased in the Albina section of Portland in 1934.

However, after purchasing homes and establishing lives in Albina, many were compelled to relocate due to highway construction and so-called urban regeneration.

The construction of Interstate 5 and Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the initial home of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, partially devastated and split up Albina in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, though, a hospital expansion was declared.

The Portland Development Commission destroyed approximately 188 houses between 1971 and 1973, 158 of which were residential and housed 88 families and 83 individuals. The lawsuit claims that a total of 32 businesses as well as four church or community organizations were destroyed. 74% of the households that were forcibly relocated were Black.

Comments

Musk presents "Optimus" at Tesla's AI Day.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils "Optimus" at "AI Day" on Friday. A robot-based business would be worth more than a car-based business, the billionaire said. He wants to move beyond self-driving cars, which he has repeatedly promised. Onstage, a robot model waved to the audience. In the automaker's factory, a video showed the robot moving metal bars and watering plants. "Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as soon as possible," Musk said. "Optimus needs a lot of work to be effective." Musk said humanoid robots "lack a brain" because they can't travel the world independently. He also said they're expensive and rare. Optimus would be mass-produced in the millions and cost less than $20,000, he said. Musk expected to discuss Tesla's self-driving car technology. In May, the CEO said the world's most valuable car company would be "worthless" without self-driving cars. The company faces regulatory and techno...

Hackers from North Korea are stealing NFTs using almost 500 different phishing domains.

The cybercriminals established dummy websites that posed as legitimate NFT marketplaces, NFT projects, and even a DeFi platform. There have been reports that hackers with ties to North Korea's Lazarus Group are behind a massive phishing campaign aimed at investors in nonfungible tokens (NFTs). This campaign is said to have used nearly 500 phishing domains to trick victims. SlowMist, a blockchain security company, published a report on December 24 revealing the strategies that North Korean Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups have used to separate NFT investors from their NFTs. These strategies include the use of decoy websites that are disguised as a variety of different NFT-related platforms and projects. Some examples of these fake websites include a website that pretends to be a project associated with the World Cup, as well as websites that impersonate well-known NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, X2Y2, and Rarible. Another example of one of these fake websites is a website th...

By 2030, the GCC economies are expected to receive $15 billion annually from the metaverse.

According to the most recent report from Strategy& Middle East, a member of the PwC network, the potential contribution of the metaverse to the GCC economies may be roughly US$15 billion yearly by 2030, of which $7.6 billion would be in Saudi Arabia and $3.3 billion in the UAE. The metaverse is still in its early stages, yet change is happening quickly. Companies in the GCC should move right away to take advantage of this chance. According to Tony G. Karam, Partner at Strategy & Middle East, by 2030, the metaverse will contribute $15 billion yearly to the economies of the GCC. The forecasts evaluated new metaverse applications like content production, commerce, and other activities as well as growth in the underlying platforms, hardware, and software. The metaverse's charm lies in the fact that it is neither a location nor a tool. Instead, it represents the most recent development in human/computer interface technology, one that aims to produce a seamless, pervasive, immers...

Meta Financies

Search This Blog