Renaissance Journalism is excited to assist a powerful collaboration of Bay Area news organizations who are identifying the biggest landlords in the Silicon Valley and whether they are making life better or worse for local communities.
The investigation is called “Who Owns Silicon Valley?” and is the product of a year-long analysis of more than 500,000 property records and extensive reporting by the partners, which include Reveal, The Mercury News, KQED, NBC Bay Area and Telemundo 48 Área de la Bahia.
Richard Rothstein, one of the most prominent experts on segregation in America, warns that the San Francisco Bay Area will never be able to fully address the current crisis in housing until one truth is acknowledged. It is this:
Segregated housing projects were created by design—not accidentally—throughout the Bay Area because of federal and local government programs and policies, and the legacy of this history profoundly impacts the housing crisis today.
“This myth that it all happened by accident hobbles our ability to do anything about it,” says Rothstein.
Renaissance Journalism is launching a new initiative to test an innovative model of collaborative, community news coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area. We hope to encourage journalists and their news organizations to work together to help people understand and address some of the region’s most pressing problems. To start, we’ve chosen the crisis in housing—from the unbridled gentrification of neighborhoods to the displacement of longtime residents and the rising problem of homelessness. Together, these issues profoundly impact the quality, health and character of life in the region.
