Danger Zone One

(Continued from Section 3B)

BEWARE THE BULLDOZERS?
WHY YOUR BLOCK COULD BE NEXT
Arie Skye, Pallad City Post

As head of urban planning in Silica City, Egol rezoned large swaths of low-income urban development, ultimately increasing the density of poverty-stricken and working-class communities, while limiting density of wealthier communities where large-scale luxury development was prevalent. The concentration of residents in high-poverty neighborhoods quadrupled, leading to public outcry. For some, Egol’s efforts were viewed as a way to enact a form of ‘super-gentrification’, allowing the wealthy to dominate massive amounts of property while relegating the poor to remote and crowded subsections of the city. Old high-rise apartment buildings were torn down in favor of corporate office buildings, storefronts that catered to the upper-class, and expensive restaurants.

“Expect to see entire low-income districts decimated,” claimed Feiss. “We’re going to see the poor pushed out of these neighborhoods, and families will either be tossed onto the streets or packed into worse slum-style districts, more congested than ever before. These new neighborhoods will deteriorate within a year’s time and we’ll be back to square one—and, in all likelihood, in a more dire situation than what we’ve experienced before the renewal efforts.”

Danger Zone One. Story by Midnight. Art by Tanabata Usagi.