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As rising seas threaten Miami’s luxurious beachfront, wealthy property owners are pushing inland to higher ground. Residents of the historically Black neighborhood of Liberty Square—the first segregated public housing project in the South—are the new target of an upcoming “revitalization” project due to their location 12 feet above sea level. Razing Liberty Square, a film by Academy® Award nominated filmmaker Katja Esson (FERRY TALES, SKYDANCER, POETRY OF RESILIENCE, LATCHING ON), is a character-driven verité documentary that weaves personal stories with the larger social justice narrative of climate gentrification. Foremost, it is about a community fighting to save itself from being erased in a rapidly changing Miami.
The film begins in 2017, at the very time when the first homes of Liberty Square are razed to the ground to make way for a new $300 million mixed-income development. Initially, the community is hopeful this development will be different than past urban renewal projects, but it soon becomes clear it will be yet another instance in Miami’s long history of broken promises. Razing Liberty Square shares perspectives from residents, community advocates, teachers, developers, and politicians—with active resistance being led by neighborhood women, including a single mother of seven who has lived in public housing all her life, the founder and principal of Liberty Square’s only alternative school, and a local environmental activist who educates her community about Climate Gentrification.
Razing Liberty Square, a good complement for COOKED by major-award winning filmmaker Judith Helfand, provides a looking glass for contemporary issues of wide-scale significance: the affordable housing crisis; the impact of systemic racism; and climate gentrification. While focused on Miami, which is experiencing sea level rise ahead of many other places, the story of Liberty Square is a prescient reminder of what is to come in communities across the US and world.
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