At this point in the semester, we have come to a meaningful understanding of the issue our project is set to address, the historical context leading up to this problem of uneven development, and possible (although radical) changes that can be made to attempt to remedy the problem. We have learned that gentrification can have a very bad connotation and denotation in that although it may make neighborhoods shinier and “more livable,” it can mean rent increase, other inflation of prices in the area, or even displacement for current residents of low-income neighborhoods. We understand that the history of affordability has been tipped in the favor of those who have more money and, as such, away from those who have less, even in their own neighborhoods. And so, we understand that the best chance we have of making a difference in the face of those who control land use in East Harlem is arming the low-income residents with knowledge in order to ensure that they are capable of standing up for their own rights. We believe that public education is key in both raising awareness of issues and producing solutions, and that is something we will be taking into account strongly as we construct our popular education product.

Since our white paper is in the revisions stage and our ideas are starting to take shape, now it is time to start considering the various aspects of our product. As we discussed in class on Monday, crafting our popular education product to cater to a certain audience is important, and what is even more important is determining the characteristics of the certain audience we want to have in mind. Our target neighborhood is one with very low income riddled with social issues, so we do not want to make our product too difficult to understand for people who may not have had access to a quality education. At the same time, we want our product to draw in the audience with some kind of emotional appeal that keeps their attention and helps them to understand that their home is at risk of severe re-shaping. Of course, knowledge of the problem is important, but ideas for a solution are equally as important, so we want to keep possible resolutions in mind as well as we create our product so we are not simply informing residents of their impending doom. We can encourage residents to do something as simple as writing a letter to the community board, or we can inform them about the community land trusts that were discussed at the last El Barrio Unite meeting. We need to encourage publicization of land, as privatization is the enemy of low-income residents.

In short, our product needs to be understandable, concise, appealing, and informative. A lack of any one of these qualities could result in an ineffective advertisement that does not raise the right type of awareness that it needs to. Something like a poster that we can put up in East Harlem seems very accessible to most of the people living there. If we were to pursue the idea of a poster, we would need to make sure that there is something that draws the audience in, something that informs them of the gravity of the issue, and something that informs them of what they might be able to do to make even a small difference.