"We don't want downtown here!"

Zakiya Alake works with the Roxbury Neighborhood Council, a non-profit community planning group. Their mission is to ‘protect the community’ from the harmful effects of development and neighborhood change.

She’s been a leader within the Roxbury Neighborhood council for years and has seen how community activism can make a difference.

Zakiya is also acts as a facilitator for MIT’s Real Talk for Change initiative. This group guides discussions between members of marginalized communities in Boston about policy issues affecting their lives. Real Talk for Change summarizes these conversations and makes them available to be seen by the public, the city council, and the mayor. Zakiya hopes that sharing the voices of marginalized groups will help politicians make choices that are more grounded in what people really need.

In this interview, Zakiya shares her thoughts about the need to community activism, current issues facing Roxbury, and how Northeastern impacts her community.

*This interview has been edited for clarity*

Q: Why was the Roxbury Neighborhood Council formed?

The Roxbury Neighborhood Council came together to fight the construction of skyscrapers in Roxbury. Our fight began in 1984, when the Boston Redevelopment Authority proposed to build a 35 floor tower in the middle of what is now known as Nubian Square. We fought that because that development would have exacerbated what was the beginning of gentrification and speed displacement. Within a couple of years, the City of Boston backed down.

Our group stayed together to show that we should have the authority to plan the development of our neighborhood. We’ve never tried to apply for grants or external funding and we’ve always been member funded.

Q: What issues are you working on now?

We’ve been fighting against the imposition of these skyscrapers in Roxbury for a long time

Right now, a majority black led team is building ‘Nubian Ascends’, a 25-story building in Roxbury. This project is going to change the character of Roxbury for generations to come. The developers claim that this project will create generational wealth and do a ton of fantastic things, but I’ll need to learn more to be sure. This group is doing a lot of public outreach. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how the community responds when gentrification comes with a black and brown face.

The last time this happened, a black developer that manages a lot of affordable housing proposed a 36-floor office tower in Roxbury. But we—the community—never said we wanted a development like this. We don’t want downtown here!

Q: How do you asses the development proposals you come across?

We’ve created a set of guidelines for future development and are trying to proactively communicate our goals with community members.

However, there’s a generational divide in community expectations around development. I can remember in 2018, we had a hearing on gentrification with city councilors—including Mayor Michelle Wu—that a couple hundred people attended. After the hearing, I spoke with some younger activists that said they wanted development and new business in the area. My question to them was, what are your standards?

Q: Does Northeastern’s growth have any positive impacts on the community?

Northeastern is giving business opportunities and contracts to black and brown people as they develop. There’s the new coffee shop, the Underground Café, that Northeastern is trumpeting everywhere. But I wonder, how do we measure that impact?

In the buildings near Ruggles, Northeastern provides community spaces with computers and other resources that folks can use for free. But how do we estimate what impacts these spaces have on Roxbury? Is it worth mentioning? Or is the positive outweighed by the damage Northeastern is doing to the community? I don’t know yet!