How Climate and Redevelopment are Changing Liberty Square. A Film Captures the Tension.
BY C. ISAIAH SMALLS II UPDATED JANUARY 19, 2024 8:42 AM
Valencia Gunder still gets emotional every time she watches “Razing Liberty Square.”
She has seen it half a dozen times at film festivals across the country. Yet between the unkept
promises from elected officials, the displacement of the families who lived in Liberty Square and
the frustration of her fellow community stakeholders, the tears form.
“It’s nerve-racking to see your community change before your eyes,” the Liberty City-born
organizer said.
That change is at the center of “Razing Liberty Square,” a documentary set for release on Jan.
29 on PBS. It revolves around the redevelopment of the public housing project, the oldest in the
southeastern United States.
Directed by Germany-born filmmaker Katja Esson, the documentary follows a host of characters
on different sides of the renovation, which sits at the intersection of the housing crisis, climate
change and institutional racism.
“Miami Beach was completely segregated and now, the Beach is going under water and
everybody is now pushing into the area that nobody wanted to be in before,” Esson said. “It’s a
horrifying, historical turn.”
Esson moved to Miami in 1987, about 50 years after the construction of Liberty Square, with a
dream to work in the film industry. Her first gig brought her to Liberty City courtesy of one of the
community’s shining heroes: Luther Campbell, Uncle Luke.
“My first job ever was as a production assistant on all the 2 Live Crew videos that were shot in
Liberty City,” she said, chuckling.
Looking back, she can’t help but feel embarrassed at her lack of knowledge about the area’s
history. She didn’t know about the McDuffie riots in 1980 and how federal funds designated for
the neighborhood’s revitalization never quite made it to the area. She didn’t know that the
nearby Hampton House used to attract Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. And she didn’t
know about the segregation wall that still sits near Liberty Square today.
After a stint in New York, Esson returned to South Florida in 2015, the same year that Miami-
Dade County began its plan to revitalize Liberty City in an attempt “to address the issues of
crime and poverty,” according to the county website. A year later, the county partnered with
Related Urban for a $300 million redevelopment to convert the public housing project, once
known by the nickname Pork ’n Beans, into mixed-income apartments.
“As a European, I was thinking ‘What?! This is such a historical place. How could they just tear
this down?’” Esson said. Around that time, she first heard the term “climate gentrification.” Her
seven-year filming process began shortly after. “People were telling me, ‘This is not the regular
gentrification.’”
In the context of Liberty City, climate gentrification happens when primarily low-income residents
are pushed out as developers decide to build in the neighborhood due to the neighborhood’s
high elevation and lack of flooding. Gunder, who bought a home in Liberty City, has fashioned
herself into a climate change activist over the years — long before Esson decided to follow her
around with a camera.
“A lot of my climate work is grounded in Black communities in Miami,” said Gunder, who calls
herself the “hood environmentalist” in the documentary. “The thing about climate gentrification, I
was teaching it but I also teach climate change through a racial justice lens, specifically how
climate change and environmental injustice actually impacts Black communities.”
The redevelopment of Liberty Square is the result of climate gentrification, according to Gunder.
And while Liberty Square residents were promised they could return if they wanted, only five of
the more than 600 families have as of 2022, according to the documentary. That’s because
many opted for the housing choice vouchers, something that Aaron McKinney, the development
associate for Related Related Urban at the time, didn’t expect.
“As a part of the project, you had the option to port out, both temporarily during construction of
your unit or to get out of there if you really wanted to,” said McKinney, who was raised in Liberty
City and played a prominent role in the documentary.
“I just didn’t expect that everybody would bite on it the way they did and that the vouchers would
become available to everybody at one time versus the block slated to be impacted by the
construction,” he said. “That’s why you had such a mass exodus because they were made
available to everybody.”
And while Related Urban president Albert Milo told the Miami Herald in April 2022 that Liberty
Square hasn’t “displaced anyone,” McKinney doesn’t believe the developers were naive.
“I’m pretty sure they knew if you gave everybody a choice to get a voucher, the residents were
going to leave,” McKinney said.
Many residents, he said, were fed up with the broken promises — the Scott Carver projects
being the most egregious example — that they took “the pretty nice carrot that was dangled.”
McKinney said that the mass exodus likely wouldn’t have happened “if you gave everybody a
chance to see that they were going to get some nice amenities.”
In addition to McKinney and Gunder, the documentary’s other protagonists include Samantha
Quarterman, the founder and principal of Multi-Ethnic Youth Group Association (MEYGA)
Learning Center in Liberty City; Anna Williams, a longtime Liberty City resident and activist who
was raised in Liberty Square; and Samantha Kenley, a current resident of Liberty Square. From
Quarterman’s fight to ensure MEYGA has a space inside the development to McKinney’s
attempts to preserve the culture of his hometown while upgrading the living arrangements, the
documentary explores each person’s involvement with the project over the span of six years.
“What’s happening here will happen in so many cities all over the world,” Esson said. Such a
phenomenon elicits many questions: “Who’s getting pushed out? Who has the right to stay?
Who has the power to stay? Who has the money to stay? How do we, as humans, deal with this
question of our cities in the future?”
As for the Liberty Square project, the housing development is far past its original 2020
completion date. The third of nine phases opened in April 2022. When the project is completed
in 2026, it will also include a supermarket and educational center. Between now and then,
Gunder and Williams want to use documentary to put pressure on elected officials and the
Related Group.
“It’s a tool to educate the residents, the officials as to what will happen when these developers
come into the communities and pitch their dog and pony show,” Williams said of the
documentary.
Added Gunder: “The documentary is complete but the work is not done.”
IF YOU GO
What: “Razing Liberty Square” screening
When: Jan. 26- Feb. 1 (7 .p.m. on the 26th, 2:45 p.m. & 7 p.m. on the 27th, 5:30 p.m. on the
28th, 7 p.m. on the 29th, 5 p.m. on 30th & 31st, 7 p.m. on Feb. 1), 6 p.m. Feb. 16, 5:30 p.m.
Feb. 24
Where: Coral Gables Art Cinema (260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables), The Freedom Lab (4300
NW 12th Ave, Miami), African Square Park (1466 NW 62nd St., Miami)
Tickets: $12.75 in Coral Gables; free for the other screenings
Information: https://www.razinglibertysquare.org/screenings This story was originally published
January 19, 2024, 6:38 AM. C.
ISAIAH SMALLS II 302-373-8866 C. Isaiah Smalls II is a reporter covering race and culture for
the Miami Herald. Previously, he worked for ESPN’s The Undefeated as part of their inaugural
class of Rhoden Fellows. He is a graduate of both Columbia University and Morehouse College.