by Gabby Ross
Razing Liberty Square is a 2023 documentary film that highlights the impacts of climate change and gentrification on a historically Black community in Miami, FL called Liberty City. Opened in 1937, Liberty Square was one of the oldest public housing projects in the United States that served primarily Black residents. White residents and leaders in Miami lobbied against allowing Black people to reside in communities near Miami Beach, which pushed Black residents to communities like Liberty Square. For decades, the city’s leadership maintained the racial division and separation between Black and white communities. In Razing Liberty Square, this is shown through a physical barrier known as the “race wall” which was built in the 1930s to separate the Black neighborhood from nearby white areas.
However, in recent years, as intensifying climate change breeds more disasters and flooding, developers looked to Liberty Square for redevelopment due to its geographical position in an area not prone to flooding. This is known as climate gentrification, a term that first coined in Miami that describes the practice of gentrifying neighborhoods and displacing existing, often low-income, residents due to the relocation of other residents from areas impacted by climate change; in this case specifically rising sea levels and flooding.
The documentary film follows members of the community who are navigating different aspects of climate gentrification. In the film, residents and families of Liberty Square are faced with the potential of being displaced from their homes. The development company, Related Urban, who is responsible for the revitalization project of the complex, is featured in the film and is shown hosting meetings and town halls with residents who are concerned for the future of their community and housing stability. Many of them have experienced past revitalization efforts of other housing complexes and have seen the displacement and harm that occurred during the process. Over the course of the film, viewers are shown the direct impacts climate change and gentrification have on residents, specifically those who are low-income and Black, and the greater implications that the razing of a housing complex has on a community.
Trenise Bryant, resident and community organizer in Liberty City, highlights the displacement of public housing residents happening across the country, “Not Another Scott Carver” and “here we go again the Cycle hasn’t changed still years later.” In 2024, NLIHC hosted a panel discussion named “Climate Gentrification and Community Erasure: Are the Themes Highlighted in Razing Liberty Square Coming to a Community Near You?” This discussion included perspectives from residents and activists who were also highlighted in the documentary including Valencia Gunder, Trenise Bryant, and Aaron McKinney. You can read more about that discussion here.