For the past 14 years, Aaron Bartley, as one of PUSH Buffalo’s cofounders, worked alongside colleagues to build a model of community-controlled development WNY. The organizers rooted their organization in the values and analysis of the Just Transition and Development Without Displacement movements.

This lecture workshop serves as both an exploration of the praxis and strategy underlying the battle for land and power in the gentrifying city, and as an airing of the contradictions and tensions within the movement. He will problematize the constraints of the nonprofit industrial complex and the shortcomings and enduring value of different organizing practices.