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St. Louis Anthropocene: displacement & replacement

JJP

A brief essay about St. Louis' notorious eminent domain history--

--along with 2 recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch articles about "urban renewal" projects that are scheduled to reoccupy the Mill Flats area, which hosted the most notorious episode of displacement of African-American communities: the Chouteau Greenway project (will it serve or displace low-income St. Louisans?); and SLU's Mill Creek Flats high-rise project, which certainly will, and whose name seems to me an especially tone-deaf if gutsy move...

https://humanities.wustl.edu/features/Margaret-Garb-St-Louis-Eminent-Domain

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/steelcote-developer-plans-more-apartments-brewery-space-in-million-midtown/article_811eaf96-76e1-5c20-a870-1e79abd3f06e.html

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/chouteau-greenway-project-aims-to-knit-st-louis-neighborhoods-together/article_55fea4e6-6829-5c80-9168-313305b4e3bb.html

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jaostrander

The main argument Knowles develops in this article is structural and engineering integrity of buildings and equipment is not always questioned until a disaster occurs and there is public outcry for regulations to be put in place. Whereas if building codes and safety equipment was being regularly tested and enforced, when disasters occured they would not be as tramatic. 

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jaostrander

First the article makes claims to research on populations affected primarily by natural disasters such as hurricanes and how the population was selected, as in were they directly affected by the disaster, lived near the disaster, or had relations to people affected by the disaster. The article then looked at the risk factors for each population at the different parts of the disaster (pre, peri, post) and the state of individuals at each of those times; were some already struggling with depression, would employment be effected, did they have kids to care for, ect. Lastly the article discussed what interventions emergency responders can take to reduce the risk of mental illness and supported those claims with statitics from the CBT about debriefs with victims and having counselors readily available, in person or virtually. 

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jaostrander

The main stakeholders portrayed in this film is the Marines and family members of Marines living at Camp Lejeune. Many of them have been diagnosed with cancer, likely caused by chemicals in the base's water supply. Several of the victims have united to question the government and the actions they failed to take after reports of polluted water.

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jaostrander

Didier Fassin is an anthropologist and a sociologist, who was initially trained as a physician at Paris University Pierre et Marie Curie. During his time there he practiced internal medicine and taught public health. In 2009 he was appointed at the Institute for Advanced Study as the James D. Wolfensohn Professor. Didier Fassin’s most recent project, Humanitarian Reason, explores how immigrants, refugees, and minorities are treated in France. He also has heavy connections to MSF or Doctors Without Borders.