We can have one without the other
In Part 1 of this blog, we looked at Olivier De Schutter’s case that capitalism doesn’t fail to serve the poor by accident. De Schutter is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He says capitalism is structurally built to follow… Read More »Part 2: What Does Economic Democracy Actually Look Like?
As the cost of living is skyrocketing, policy proposals tied to fairness and equality are making a comeback. Think about, for example, Mamdani-style socialism, a type of “consumer socialism” that attacks consumer prices through government supplied services, such as universal childcare and city-run grocery stores.… Read More »Part 1: Reclaiming the Economy Through Structural Redesign
Imagine living in tropic heat and going without running water for two days at a stretch. The scenario has spread to seven Puerto Rican municipalities, San Juan, Canóvanas, Carolina, Gurabo, Juncos, Loíza, and Trujillo Alto (Burgos, 2026). Puerto Rico’s water infrastructure, managed by the state-run… Read More »The Economic Injustice of Puerto Rico’s Dry Taps
During Hurricane Maria’s prolonged Puerto Rico blackout, one mayor created his own impromptu electric brigade to light up his town. He called it the Pepino Power Authority (PPA). The PPA was a middle finger to a failing centralized grid. Fed up with the inaction, San… Read More »Blackout Rage to Blueprint for Action
If you’ve watched documentaries about Hurricane Katrina’s human toll in New Orleans, you were likely moved to tears, as I was, when caregivers left wheelchair bound people to succumb to rising flood waters. In Playa de Ponce, we lived our own version of this horror… Read More »Before the Water Rises: Protecting Our Neighbors
The night I got my first lesson in Colombian property law, I was seated at an Italian restaurant on the edge of Provenza — Medellín’s famously raucous party district. On the street outside, Provenza was doing what Provenza does — karaoke, clinking glasses, the low… Read More »I Went to Medellín for the Party and Found Henry George
The ghost of Puerto Rico’s industrial past has re-emerged, amid recent U.S. military actions against Iran that have sent shockwaves through global energy markets, driving oil and gas prices to new heights,. The current crisis recalls the 1973 Arab–Israeli War and OPEC’s oil embargo, highlighting… Read More »Oil Wars and Industrial Decay: The Urgent Case for Decontaminating Puerto Rico’s PR-127
After Hurricane María, Puerto Rico’s prolonged power outages revealed a stark reality: when electricity fails, people die. In this blog, David Southgate examines the public health consequences of the island’s fragile electric grid and the disproportionate burden it places on vulnerable communities like Playa de… Read More »The Deadly Cost of Darkness: Taking Control of La Playa’s Energy Future
Visitors to Puerto Rico’s south coast inevitably come across the PR-127 former petrochemical corridor, among the world’s largest petroleum complexes in the 1960s. Commonly referred to as La CORCO—a name derived from the anchor industry, the Commonwealth Oil Refining Company, the zone encompasses approximately 3,500… Read More »Progress, Poverty, and Petroleum: Reclaiming the Common Inheritance of the World’s Largest Petrochemical Zone
The following is Part 2 of a two-part discourse by David Southgate during the South Puerto Rico Community Summit. While Part 1 detailed the reality of “slow violence” and historical planning failures, this section outlines the transdisciplinary framework we used to empower the residents of… Read More »VIDA Costera: A Theory of Change for Community-Led Climate Justice
