We can have one without the other
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
The following is part 1 of a two-part discourse by David Southgate during South Puerto Rico Community Summit (January 24, 2026) held at the Centros Sor Isolina Ferré, Santa Maria de la Luz Hall in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where 103 community members attended. Present also… Read More »VIDA Costera: Community Resilience and Justice-based Transdisciplinary Science
In the discourse surrounding economic justice and public policy, it is common to encounter skeptics of established narratives. Skepticism, when grounded in inquiry and evidence, is healthy. However, a recent exchange on a professional forum highlighted a troubling trend: the misappropriation of Henry George’s philosophy… Read More »Why Henry George is Not a Shield for Climate Change Denial
Opportunities for climate adaptation can emerge unexpectedly, prompting communities and their institutions to explore a maze of complicated decisions. As a board member for the CBO Un Nuevo Amanecer, Inc. (UNA), I’ve learned to embrace these moments through rigorous analysis. The challenge lies in balancing… Read More »Lessons from the Frontline of Climate Change Why Every Community Organization Needs a Decision Matrix
A fundamental paradigm of our political economy is that government has an ethical and moral obligation to intervene when markets fail. The paradigm is central to the Market Failure Doctrine. The doctrine recognizes that rational self-interest produces undesirable externalities. It advances welfare economics on the… Read More »Challenging Market Failure in a Climate-Vulnerable Community: How La Playa Produces Its Own Public Goods
Motivation In what ways are environmental stressors re-shaping relationships among urban actors, and what are the implications for disrupting conventional patterns of urban growth? Climatic extremes and associated disasters are increasingly shaping the future of urban development in the United States. In Central Arizona, now… Read More »Rethinking Growth in the Desert: How Water Scarcity Is Reshaping the Future of Phoenix
Two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, one of the world’s largest superyachts quietly moored at the Port of Ponce, Puerto Rico. EU economic sanctions froze the Russian owner’s assets, cutting off funds that could support Russia’s war effort and halting payments to Le Grand Bleu’s… Read More »What’s That Russian Oligarch’s Yacht Doing in the Port of Ponce? Hydrocolonial Currents, LNG, and the New Global Order
In a previous blog (The Port that Transformed Barrio Playa’s Shoreline),I examined the physical transformation of Barrio Playa, Ponce, through a hydrocolonial lens. The discussion attempts to illuminate how U.S. colonial expansion and port development reengineered the coastline and displaced vulnerable communities in the name… Read More »Erasing Communities: How Progress Displaced the Playeros of Ponce
The shipping cranes and cargo terminal at Puerto Rico’s Port of Ponce are linked to a powerful, official discourse that can be traced across a century. Less visible is the dispossession required to create port infrastructure, dispossession that is largely absent from academic and planning… Read More »The Port that Transformed Barrio Playa’s Shoreline
Let me begin by plainly stating what I do, something I hinted at in my first blog, “The Ethical Disclosure that Begins this Story.” In the past year I deepened relations in my geographically focused area of investigation, Barrio Playa in the Municipality of Ponce,… Read More »What I Do and How: Embedded Research for Hazard Adaptation
