Latest / The Infographics Show Podcast / The Bronx: Colonial Origins, Labor Unions, and Urban Evolution

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The Bronx: Colonial Origins, Labor Unions, and Urban Evolution · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You ever look at a map of your city and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: just assume it's basically a finished product, Oh, all the time? Yeah, right,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Like we see the rigid grid of the streets, the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: solid blue lines for the rivers, those little shaded green
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: patches for parks, and we just tend to view urban
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: geography as something completely static.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fixed in place it is. I mean, it's incredibly
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: tempting to see those solid lines on a map and
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: think the dust has finally settled. We really like to
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: believe our environments are permanent.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We do. But then, you know, you step out your
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: front door and you confront the reality of how cities
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: actually evolve. Suddenly that static map feels like a well,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: like a snapshot of a ghost.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: You realize you're looking at a living, breathing organism, one
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: that is constantantly breaking down and rebuilding itself, and that
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: is exactly what we are getting into today. Welcome to
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Beyond Infographics.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Thrilled to be here as always, So before we.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Get completely lost in today's journey, I just want to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: mention a quick bit of housekeeping. If you are enjoying
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: these explorations into how the world actually works. It would
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: be a massive help if you could take two seconds
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to drop a five star rating on whatever app you're
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: using to listen to us right now.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It really really does help us keep doing this kind
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of research.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It does. Okay, So, over the past few weeks we
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: have been on this fascinating personal journey of discovery. We've
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: been looking at how a single geographic area can like
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: profoundly shape global culture and what.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: It actually takes for a marginalized community to be resilient exactly.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And to answer those questions, we turned our focus to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a place with a legendary past, a wildly dynamic present,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and a very very complex future, the Bronx New York.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Which is just such a vital exploration. I mean, whether
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you are a lifelong New Yorker, an urban planning enthusiast,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: or honestly just somewhat interested in how humanity adapts to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: intense pressure, the Bronx is an absolute masterclass.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It really is.
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  Speaker 2: It provides this real time look at how communities survive
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: the forces trying to literally pave over them and how
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: they use that very pressure to innovate.
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  Speaker 1: So diving into the history of this burrow, the very
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: first thing we found completely challenged my assumptions. Oh the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: naming origin, yes, because I mean I always picture early
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: New York history as this very straightforward timeline. You know,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Dutch settlers eventually pushed out by the English. But the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Bronx gets its name from a Swedish guy.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: It does. Yeah, am a named Jonas Bronc.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, I need you to explain this to me again,
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  Speaker 1: because if the Dutch had this tightly controlled, massive colonial
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: monopoly in the sixteen hundreds, how does a Swedish sea
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  Speaker 1: captain just waltz in and acquire a six hundred acre.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Farm in what we now call Mohaven. Yeah?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Right, that seems like a massive historical contradiction.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: It seems like one, for sure, But it reveals how
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: porous those early colonial networks really were. Like Bronc was
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a Swedish merchant and sea captain, but he operated deeply
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: within the Dutch trading world.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Uh.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. When he arrived in sixteen thirty nine, New Amsterdam
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: was well, it was less of a rigid nation state
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: and more of a chaotic, multicultural corporate outpost, just a
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: free for all kind of The Dutch West India Company
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  Speaker 2: wanted development and stability and bronc. You know, he had
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: capital and maritime expertise, so he.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Was essentially the ultimate seventeenth century independent contractor. Precisely he
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: just leverages their system to secure this pristine River Valley
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: real estate.
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  Speaker 2: He was pragmatic and that independent, adaptable spirit it perfectly
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: sets the stage for the identity of the borough itself
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  Speaker 2: from its earliest days. This was a place that had
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to navigate shifting identities, right.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And he didn't just farm, did he.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. He became a crucial peacekeeper. In
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: sixteen forty two, he actually hosted and mediated a major
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: peace treaty between the Dutch led by Governor will Kiefed
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and the Native Lenapee people in his house, right there
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: at his farmhouse.
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  Speaker 1: I just love the idea of this massive geopolitical treaty
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  Speaker 1: happening in a guy's living room. So people naturally started
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  Speaker 1: calling his massive estate Bronx.
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  Speaker 2: Land, and over the centuries, the linguistics just slowly smoothed
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: out into the Bronx.
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  Speaker 1: That's wild and the geography of that land is just
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: as important as the name.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Oh, absolutely, the Bronx is uniquely defined by its topography.
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  Speaker 2: It's divided straight down the middle by the Bronx River, Right,
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  Speaker 2: So you have a very hilly, rugged western section and
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  Speaker 2: a much flatter eastern plain. And because it was the
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: only borough physically attached to the North American mainland, it
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: was geographically positioned to be a natural connector.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: To link the mainland to the islands.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, it linked the agricultural goods of the mainland to
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: the ports of the islands.
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  Speaker 1: It was basically the region's circulatory system, which is crazy
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  Speaker 1: to think about because it didn't even officially consolidate into
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  Speaker 1: Greater New York until eighteen ninety eight.
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  Speaker 2: And it only became its own distinct county in nineteen fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So for the longest time it had this identity
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  Speaker 1: as a lush, connected rural hub. But then as we
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: move into the twentieth century, that identity gets violently disrupted.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the prevailing logic of urban planning takes a very
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: dark turn. In the mid twentieth century, top down planners
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  Speaker 2: start looking at maps not as ecosystems of neighborhoods, but
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: as blank canvases.
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  Speaker 1: Blank canvases for what cars.
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  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, for moving automobiles as fast as possible from
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  Speaker 2: point A to point b which.
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  Speaker 1: Brings us to a really heavy realization I had during
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: this research just about the sheer devastation of that kind
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of top down planning. I'm talking, of course, about the
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  Speaker 1: Cross Bronx Expressway.
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  Speaker 2: Right. It is arguably the defining physical and psychological scar
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  Speaker 2: of the borough.
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  Speaker 1: It literally cleaved entire functioning neighborhoods in half, just cut
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  Speaker 1: right through, and for seven decades it has brought intense,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: relentless pollution and physical division to the area. I mean,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: it has asthma rates soaring to the point where it
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: earned the title of New York City's deadliest road. It's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: a tragic legacy, and looking at the landscape today, there's
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: this fierce tension over what to do about it. You
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: have grassroots advocates like Nilka Martel.
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  Speaker 2: She found it an organization called Loving the Bronx.
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  Speaker 1: Right, yes, exactly, and they are fighting tooth and nail
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to cap the expressway.
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  Speaker 2: Which is an incredibly ambitious concept. Essentially, you build a
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  Speaker 2: massive physical deck over the sunken highway.
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  Speaker 1: Just pave right over it, right.
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  Speaker 2: You cover that deck with soil and plant green space,
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  Speaker 2: physically stitching the divided neighborhood back together.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds beautiful. But then on the flip side of
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that debate, you have state officials like Governor Kathy Hochel,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: who have proposed expanding the expressway to accommodate modern, crushing
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  Speaker 1: traffic demands.
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  Speaker 2: It's a massive clash of priorities, it is.
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  Speaker 1: And just to be completely clear to you listening, we
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  Speaker 1: aren't taking a political stance on this. We are just
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  Speaker 1: looking at the reality of the situation. There are incredibly
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  Speaker 1: complex environments, mental, logistical, and economic arguments driving both sides absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: But what really jumped out at me is that while
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  Speaker 1: this massive bureaucratic debate rages on, the local community isn't
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: sitting on their hands waiting for salvation. They are actively
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: reclaiming their environment right now.
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  Speaker 2: That is so often the untold story of these neighborhoods.
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  Speaker 2: When top down infrastructure fails a community where actively harms it,
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  Speaker 2: grassroots environmentalism almost always steps in to reclaim the physical space.
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  Speaker 1: I started picturing the community as the area's immune system,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like the expressway is this concrete wound and
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  Speaker 1: the locals are healing it from the inside out.
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  Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
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  Speaker 1: Like, for example, I was looking at the work of
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  Speaker 1: Sally Connolly and the volunteers at the City Island Oyster Reef.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the oyster restoration, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: They are literally building coastal resiliency by putting oysters back
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  Speaker 1: into the waterways, which is just.
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  Speaker 2: An ingenious use of biology to solve an industrial problem.
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  Speaker 1: I do want to pause there though, because I see
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  Speaker 1: oyster restoration and environmental headlines all the time. But practically speaking,
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  Speaker 1: how does tossing a shell into the water actually fix
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  Speaker 1: decades of heavy industrial pollution? Like, what is the actual
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  Speaker 1: mechanism there?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it all comes down to how in oyster feeds.
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  Speaker 2: Oysters are filter feeders. They draw water over their gills,
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  Speaker 2: trapping particulates, excess nutrients and algae which they consume. They
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  Speaker 2: then expel clean, filtered water back into the environment.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, just natural brit of filters.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, a single adult oyster can filter up to fifty
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  Speaker 2: gallons of water in a single day fifty gallon sifety
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  Speaker 2: gallon day the day. So when you plant an entire reef,
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  Speaker 2: you are essentially installing a massive, self replicating water purification plant.
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  Speaker 2: And as a bonus, it also acts as a natural
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: breakwater against storm surges.
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  Speaker 1: That is brilliant, and that reclamation isn't just happening on
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  Speaker 1: the coast. Inland, you have the Bronx River Food Way.
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  Speaker 2: Which is such a cool project right.
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  Speaker 1: It's actively connecting the community to edible plants, allowing them
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  Speaker 1: to forage right in the middle of an urban landscape.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And then you have Siddartha. Sanchez who leads the Bronx
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  Speaker 1: River Alliance. Oh Yes, through their decades of environmental justice work.
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  Speaker 1: They recently celebrated the return of beaver's to the Bronx
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  Speaker 1: River for the first time since twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: And seeing the return of an indicator species like the beaver,
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  Speaker 2: that tells you that the local ecosystem is fundamentally healing,
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  Speaker 2: It's working, It is working. The intense environmental degradation of
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  Speaker 2: the twentieth century directly catalyzed this hyperlocal instinct to protect
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  Speaker 2: and restore. The community realized that if they didn't assert
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  Speaker 2: their right to clean water and green space, no one
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  Speaker 2: was going to magically grant.
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  Speaker 1: It to them, right, and that fierce instinct to reclaim space.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't stop at rivers and oyster reefs. It happened
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  Speaker 1: inside the concrete itself, and it directly sparked a global
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  Speaker 1: cultural revolution.
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  Speaker 2: Because, as we've seen, spatial environment heavily dictates cultural output.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly. Let's look at fifteen twenty Cedric Avenue in the
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  Speaker 1: West Bronx For those unfamiliar, this is a one o
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  Speaker 1: two two unit, eighteen story residential high rise and it
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  Speaker 1: is situated right next to the major Deacon Expressway.
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  Speaker 2: So you have a community completely box stand by massive, isolating,
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  Speaker 2: noisy infrastructure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were spatially marginal.
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  Speaker 2: When we talk about the political economy of the nineteen seventies,
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  Speaker 2: it's vital to understand that neighborhoods like this were essentially
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  Speaker 2: abandoned by the financial systems of.
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  Speaker 1: The city, left defend for themselves entirely.
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  Speaker 2: We see this pattern where marginalized communities convert that absolute
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: neglect into cultural capital.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Hold on, let me stop you there, because I hear
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: phrases like cultural capital and political economy thrown around in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: sociology seminars, but it can sound a bit abstract enough.
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  Speaker 1: Practically speaking, how does being totally neglected create culture? Wouldn't
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: being abandoned by the city and cut off from basic
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: services just completely stifle any kind of creative output because
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you have zero resources.
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  Speaker 2: It's a great question. You really have to look at
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  Speaker 2: the mechanisms of that neglect. During that era, the Bronx
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: was subjected to severe redlining. Redlining was a literal practice
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: where banks and government agencies would draw red lines on
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: a map around certain neighborhoods, usually low income or minority areas.
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  Speaker 1: And they would just completely refuse to invest money completely.
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  Speaker 2: They refuse to offer mortgages or provide loans to anyone
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  Speaker 2: living there. This drains all traditional economic resources from the area.
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  Speaker 2: Buildings burn, parks crumble, school programs are slash.
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  Speaker 1: The safety net is just gone gone.
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  Speaker 2: So what are the young people living there do. They
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: can't go to downtown music venues, and they can't afford
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: expensive instruments, so they use the only things.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Available to them the environment itself.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly, the physical environment itself becomes the instrument. The concrete
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: walls become canvases for graffiti, the neglected public parks become
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: venues for break dancing.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: The lack of resources forces them to invent entirely new
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: ways to express themselves using the literal scraps they were left.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: With, which brings us back to fifteen twenty Sedgwick Avenue.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: On August eleventh, nineteen seventy three, in the ground floor
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: recreation room of that specific building, Clive Campbell, who the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: world now knows as DJ Cool Hirk Legend, and his
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: sister Cindy Campbell, they hosted a back to school jam.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: They couldn't rent a club, so they used the only
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: space available to them, a cinderblock wreck room. Kirk takes
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: two turntables, isolates the instrumental breaks of funk records and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: completely changes the trajectory of global music. Hip Hop was
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: born in that room.
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  Speaker 2: It was a profound assertion of existence. Hip Hop wasn't
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: just a new genre. It was a marginalized group saying
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: you drew a red line around us, you built highways
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  Speaker 2: to trap us. But we are here and we are
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: going to make you listen.
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  Speaker 1: It is staggering to think that a multi billion dollar
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: global industry started in a rec room pressed up against
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a highway.
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  Speaker 2: It really is.
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  Speaker 1: It just proves that intense sociospatial pressure actually forces the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: absolute highest levels of creative innovation.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: We often say necessity is the mother of invention, but
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: spatial restriction is the mother of cultural revolution. Oh I
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: like that when you limit a community's physical and economic mobility,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: their creative expression often becomes boundless. It's a sheer survival mechanism.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And it's so satisfying to see that legacy finally being
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: physically cemented. I saw the plans for the massive new
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: hip hop museum slated to open in the South Bronx
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: around twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six. It is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: bringing that global phenomenon right back to its geographic roots.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And that cultural reclamation. It's actually the perfect lens to
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: view what is happening in the borough's economy today because
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: that exact same entrepreneurial energy, that ability to build something
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: massive out of an overlooked space, is currently driving a
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: massive economic and educational renaissance.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: The current landscape of the Bronx is this incredible study.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: In contrasts, the demographic reality still shows very real systemic disparities.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yes, we.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Are looking at a median household income of about forty
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: sixer forty dollars and only twenty two point seven percent
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of residents hold a bachelor's degree. So the hurdles are
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: undeniably there. But simultaneously the borough is overflowing with opportunity.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: The job growth statistics over the last couple decades are
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: incredibly telling.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Even factoring in global recessions and economic pullbacks, the Bronx
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: has seen a net game of fifty seven thousand jobs
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: since the year two.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Thousand, which is wild.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: That is double Manhattan's rate of growth.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Right, which forces us to ask why why is growth
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: accelerating there? Specifically, It fundamentally comes down to human capital.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: For a long time, the Bronx functioned as a bedroom community,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: a place where people merely slept before commuting into Manhattan
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: to do the actual economic work.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: But that model is dying.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: It is the Bronx is rapidly becoming an economic engine
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: in its own right.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: You can see that shift in the sheer scale of
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the project's breaking ground. Like there is the redevelopment of
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the Kingsbridge Armory, which is a nearly three billion dollar project.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Three billion, that's magic.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: And the MTA is currently building four new Metro North
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Trains stations, which is going to completely alter how people
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and money flow in and out of the area.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: And we cannot understate how critical that is in the
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: era of hybrid work oh.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Right, because people aren't commuting five days a week anymore.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If white collar workers are only commuting to a
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: traditional central business district two days a week, the local
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: neighborhood economy becomes the center of their week.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Coffee shops, restaurants, and local retail thrive because the money
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: is staying local rather than being exported to midtown Manhattan.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: But the most crucial takeaway for me is who is
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: driving this change. They aren't outsiders swooping in with the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: savior complex. I read this brilliant report called fifty Ideas
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: for a Stronger and More Equitable Bronx, put together by
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the Bronx Community Foundation, which is led by doctor Meisha Porter,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a fantastic report. The entire premise is just so logical.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: If you want to fix a city, you don't hire
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: an outside consulting firm. You ask the fifty local leaders
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: who are already doing the work on the ground.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Because local leaders intuitive understand the socio spatial dynamics we've
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: been breaking down today. They know where the historical barriers are,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: and they know the cultural language of the people they
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: are trying to help.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You look at people like Plinio Ayala at Perscalos
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: or Jeralen Rodriguez at the knowledge House. They are taking
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: students from the South Bronx and scaling high tech workforce
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: training across the entire country.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It's incredible to watch.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: But let me ask you this, because scaling high tech
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: workforce training, I mean it sounds like a line from a.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Corporate pitch deck, right, it can sound a bit buzzy.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of these organizations actually doing differently that makes
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: them so successful.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Well, it is all about removing the traditional friction of education.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Rather than just teaching coding in a vacuum and hoping
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: students find a job. Organizations like this partner directly with
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: major tech employers. First, oh, I see, they find out
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: exactly what skills those companies are desperate for, and they
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: reverse engineer the curriculum to match.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: That is so smart.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, they remove the physical and economic barriers to entry.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: They provide a quick offer, stipends, They even connect students
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: with childcare. Wow, they aren't just teaching tech. They are
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: actively dismantling the economic barriers that usually keep marginalized talent
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: out of the industry entirely.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It's engineering a direct pipeline to the middle class. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you see that same internal innovation in the sciences too,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: people like doctor Jaron Tomer leading world renowned research right
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: there at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: This all represents a fundamental shift in the borough's narrative.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: For decades, the story of the Bronx was defined by
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: what was extracted from it, whether that was clean air
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: taken by the expressways or wealth extracted through redlining. Today
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: the narrative is defined by what is being generated within it.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: So why does all of this matter to you listening
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: right now in whatever city you call home. It matters
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: because every major city on Earth has a Bronx. Truly,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: every city has a neighborhood or a district that the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: urban planners overlooked, paved over, or just wrote off as
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a lost cause. But if you look closely at the history,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: those are almost always the exact places that secretly serve
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: as the beating heart of the region's cultural and economic innovation.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: The margins of a city are always where its future
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: is being written.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: We have covered so much ground today. We started with
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Jonas Bronk navigating a seventeenth century colonial monopoly. We looked
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: at the concrete scars of the cross Bronx Expressway and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: how local residents used oysters and urban food ways to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: become the environment's immune system.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It's been quite the journey.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And then we stepped inside a cinderblock wreck room at
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: fifteen twenty Sedgwick Avenue, where sheer spatial pressure created the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: billion dollar culture of hip hop. And finally we landed
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: in today's era of billion dollar redevelopments and tech education
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: led by the community itself.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: It is a testament to the absolute stubbornness of urban resilience.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: The physical map might show you barriers, highways and red lines,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: but the human map shows boundless innovation.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Which leads me with one final thought, free to chew on.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time today talking about how
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: twentieth century concrete infrastructure like highways physically ripped neighborhoods apart.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: But as we see massive new green infrastructure projects being
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: proposed in cities everywhere today, like those multimillion dollar highway
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: caps or luxury eco parks built on old industrial.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Sites, this is a tough one.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Is there a risk that green infrastructure could become the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: new divider in the twenty first century? Could building these beautiful,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: highly desirable green spaces inadvertently spike property values and price
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: out the very communities that fought to heal the land
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: in the first place. It is something to watch very
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: closely as your own city evolves.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: That is a great paradox of urban renewal. It's a
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: complex challenge for the future.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: It certainly is. Thank you so much for joining us
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: on this edition of Beyond Infographics. We love untangling these
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: complex stories with you, and just a friendly reminder, if
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you haven't already, please drop a five star rating for
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the show on your podcast app. It truly helps us
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: keep bringing you these explorations.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, everyone.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Remember the next time you look at a map of
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: your city, don't just see the concrete grid. Look for
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the immune system, look for the wreck rooms, look for
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the life. We'll see you next time.