With support from Princeton’s Bogle Fellowship, I planned to work with DPDA to conduct community surveys to create a podcast informing residents about the local challenges to economic development, including gentrification and lack of civic engagement, and provide them with resources. First off, I planned to familiarize myself with the community by speaking with local community members and DPDA officers to compile topics that were relevant to discuss.
I learned that the language barrier isolated the business community from city government, leading to clashes and miscommunications, that the city had historically concentrated funding in more affluent areas, and that the COVID vaccination efforts were slow in progressing partly due to workers’ inability to afford time off to get the immunizations. Many of the issues stemmed from a disconnect between the local government and the business community: some members of the organization didn’t believe that the government was representative of its community, and as a result, was not able to make decisions in its best interest. A lack of communication due to the language barrier (most materials are only provided in English, although there are many immigrants in the area whose primary language is Spanish) and lack of trusted and consolidated sources for information has resulted in misinformation running rampant, especially during the peak of the pandemic.
