Majora Carter warns of ‘brain drain’ while community members fear displacement

At Majora Carter’s Boogie Down Grind Cafe in Hunts Point, customers can order coffee with oat milk, and drink it by a window bordered by music-themed wallpaper and newsprint, all while listening to the ‘00s R&B they grew up on. There are books and magazines for free on a shelf next to a mess of posters on the wall advertising dating apps and homeowner help. 

Carter may have created a space at her coffee shop for people to work, connect and learn, but the nonprofit advocate-turned-developer from Hunts Point wants other Bronx natives to stay and invest in their community too. 

For Carter, young people don’t see themselves as having any opportunities in the Bronx. Instead, they measure their success by how far away they get away from their neighborhoods, she said.

“That is really sad, that folks just don’t see themselves investing — not just financially but emotionally — in their own neighborhood. And that brings the brain drain,” Carter said.

A mural created by art organization Groundswell NYC, in collaboration with the Majora Carter Group, students from Hyde Leadership Charter School and the New York City Department of Transportation, in Hunts Point. The mural says “You don’t have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one.”

Carter is a real estate developer and consultant who works to create opportunities in development that retain talent. Her coffee shop, for example, offers “the type of experience we used to have to leave the Bronx to experience,” according to the cafe’s website

Boogie Down Grind Cafe is Carter’s most illustrative example of her work to combat the brain drain — she said she took every single dollar after tax from her consulting work and brought it back to invest in her community. But Carter also said creating the Hunts Point Riverside Park and advocating for environmental justice as the executive director for Sustainable South Bronx had made Hunts Point a place worth staying.

“I believe in the promise of America, that everyone has a right to prosperity and happiness for him or herself,” Carter said. “The way that low-status communities are set up —  it absolutely deprives them of their right to do that.”

Carter doesn’t have the data to support her claim that people are leaving the Bronx — that’s according to her husband James Chase who is also vice president of marketing of the Majora Carter Group LLC.

“When Majora speaks at area high schools (as well as similar communities around America) and asks student groups “who intends to go to college?” nearly every hand goes up,” Chase said in an email. “Her standard follow up is, “If, after college, you’re recruited for a high paying job, will you return here?” and every time, almost zero hands go up.”

Carter said her theory of a brain drain comes from what she’s noticed, anecdotally.

“I’ve been all over this country and even in Europe and found people from the Bronx who left,” Carter said.

Carter wants young people in the Bronx to reinvest in their communities and make their homes a place worth staying. Her group is looking into investment strategies that have been proven to create more opportunity. But after all, she said this is still a capitalist country, so young people are going to need to have some money to do so.

But some Bronx residents just don’t have the capability to invest. 

The Bronx population is growing steadily at 26% since 1980 — faster than the citywide growth rate of 22%, according to a report from the New York Comptroller’s Office. Most of that growth has come from people making less than $50,000, according to a report from the Regional Plan Association. 

What’s more, 29% of residents earn salaries below the NYCgov Poverty Measure of $33,562,  according to the Bronx Community District 2 profile. That measure, compared to the official U.S. poverty measure, accounts for the higher cost of housing in New York City, according to the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity website.

Bronx residents are at the highest risk of housing displacement in New York City, according to the Regional Plan Association. The report said 71% of census areas in the Bronx are in danger of being displaced.

All of this adds up to a different picture  — not one of brain drain — but of displacement, said  Maria Torres, president and chief operating officer of The Point Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to youth development and economic revitalization. 

Young people aren’t leaving the Bronx because they’re “too good to be here,” but because they just can’t afford to live in some parts of the Bronx anymore, Torres said.

“This shouldn’t just be a place you just want to run away from,” Torres said. “If we’ve done our jobs right, the kids have an affinity for where they live — they have a pride in this area.”

The Bronx is no different than any area that is struggling with school systems, unemployment and student debt, Torres said. But this doesn’t lead young people to leave — it keeps them close to a home that is far more affordable than any other part of the city.

Development may excite people who have lived through the worst of times in the Bronx, but Torres also said development speculation from outside investors will be the driving force behind people’s departures since affordability in the community will decrease. Strengthening the industry in Hunts Point to make sure people are getting quality jobs and keeping housing affordable keeps displacement at bay, she said.

Carter also said predatory speculators profit by pushing poor people out, but she still feels strongly that combatting the brain drain can create a stable, income-diverse community.

In terms of economic growth, Hunts Point saw 23% of private-sector job increases in the borough and had the most businesses of any neighborhood in the Bronx. Significant job increases were reported in wholesale and retail, trade, social assistance, business services and transportation, according to the Comptroller’s report.

The Point collaborates with community groups, young people and the city to determine what the community actually needs to not only retain talent — but avoid displacement and economic hardship.

“They’re just misguided,” Torres said about people labeling the issue a brain drain. “I hope it [development] plays out in such a way that the people don’t get hurt, the community doesn’t get hurt and lose really good people and things like that because of economics.”

Carter advocates for community ownership too, but she said strictly advocating for affordable housing is not going to cut it. She said academia, media, the government and philanthropy dictate one way to “be noble,” and that if you don’t adhere to their strategy you’re deemed inauthentic.

“We can all be right,” Carter said. “I’m not saying they’re wrong. And I think that lots of folks can try a lot of different strategies — this is the one that we’ve chosen.”

3 Responses to “Majora Carter warns of ‘brain drain’ while community members fear displacement”

  1. avatar James says:

    The Headline: “Majora Carter warns of ‘brain drain’ while community members fear displacement” is biased by omission, and could just as easily and more accurately read: “Community Member Majora Carter warns of ‘brain drain’ while Non-Profit Industrial Complex fears displacement”

    Furthermore, the line towards the end of the article: “The Point collaborates with community groups, young people and the city to determine what the community actually needs to not only retain talent — but avoid displacement and economic hardship.”

    — is likewise editorialized in the use of the word “actually” and is not demonstrated. It subtextually negates the community knowledge offered by Majora Carter Group and backed up by local survey data which we shared with the writer.

  2. avatar Ashley says:

    “All Majora Carter and her WHITE husband Care About is Money,” should be the title of this article. I don’t use the term “white” glibly or to insult James Chase. He is an outsider, a puppet master, who has duped his African-American wife to continually exploit the Hunts Point community for financial gain. Carter has been at odds with the community to some degree ever since he showed up as the “vice-president.” Cool to be able to give yourself a worthless title.

    He has no feeling or caring for the people of color who live in the area. He doesn’t have a stitch of experience or any professional background working with communities of color. Don’t get caught up in the minutiae, it’s the oldest story in the book: White dude shows up in brown place to rip people off.

    The sneering term Non-Profit Industrial Complex is pure racism. The audacity. Chase can’t even conceal his contempt as he dismisses all activism not related to selling $6 coffees as worthless. So all the hard- working community members plugging away at nonprofits and getting paid dirt are part of an industrial complex? I think it’s the dumbest term I’ve ever heard. When I think of the industrial complex, I think of Halliburton or The Pentagon, not the Point community center. jajajaja It would be laughable if this exploiter wasn’t doing damage to the people of Hunts Point.

    What does James Chase care if the neighborhood changes? He doesn’t even live in Hunts Point! They live in a million dollar loft in Tribeca.

    Of course he doesn’t have brain drain stats. It’s just a dodge.
    They’re simply gentrifying the neighborhood. It ain’t rocket science.

  3. avatar James says:

    Ms Ashley makes too many assumptions and non-factual statements here to address them all. She is welcome to sit down with us and explore those assumptions, as well point out our own, and hopefully agree on the facts. We are easy to find and as always open to talk.

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