City Rising | KCET
City Rising is a multi-platform documentary series in partnership with The California Endowment that has examined gentrification — its historical roots, economic role and social consequences. In this season, City Rising investigates informal economies — how workers who labor off the books, sometimes hiding in plain sight, are organizing to find pathways for legalization and protection.
City Rising illuminates the journey of California's neighborhoods advocating for responsible development. The documentary series highlights individuals facing discrimination but fighting to change policy and improve upward mobility for their communities. The effects of these movements are far-reaching, and their voices will ultimately impact the social health of communities across the country and beyond.
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Full Episodes
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City Rising
City Rising
City Rising: The Informal Economy
California is the world's fifth largest economy — yet, hiding in plain sight are workers who labor off the books, unprotected and unregulated. Follow four California workers organizing to find pathways for legalization and protection.
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City Rising
City Rising
City Rising: Gentrification and Displacement
City Rising shows how gentrification is deeply rooted in a history of discriminatory laws and practices in the United States.
Clips & Segments
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City Rising
As an independent contractor, Daniel “Seko” Uaina drives merchandise for some of the largest corporations in the world yet he struggles to make ends meet.
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City Rising
For decades, many immigrants — primarily women — have been criminalized for supporting their families with street vending income.
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City Rising
In Eastern Coachella Valley, Santos and Juana Barajas discuss immigration policy that funneled them into low-wage jobs and the challenges they have faced as entrepreneurs.
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City Rising
In Oakland, where residents are still recovering from the crack epidemic and disinvestment that hit the city in the 1980s, formerly incarcerated residents struggle to establish sustainable careers to sustain their families.
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Upcoming Airdates
City Rising: Gentrification and Displacement
This multi-platform documentary shows how gentrification is deeply rooted in a history of discriminatory laws and practices in the United States. City Rising follows the journey of California communities that are fighting gentrification and features a growing movement of advocates seeking responsible development across the state. People of color who cherish their neighborhood's culture and sense of community are mobilizing against unsustainable rents and other forces that they see are pushing neighbors into homelessness.
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2019-04-25T18:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
City Rising: The Informal Economy
From the beginning of our nation’s history our laws, institutions and social norms have contributed to the creation of a segmented or dual economy. Many people — including people of color, women and immigrants — were excluded from the benefits of society, forcing them to find alternative ways to make a living in a parallel economy.
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2019-05-02T18:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
Neighborhoods
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yost theatre
City Rising
The Gentrification of Santa Ana: From Origin to Resistance
From the late 1800s, Santa Ana has gone from being a historic urban center in wealthy white and conservative Orange County to a large center with a Mexican, working-class and immigrant identity.
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City Rising
City Rising
The Historical Roots of Gentrification in Boyle Heights
Perhaps more than any other community in Southeast L.A., Boyle Heights' residents are the most at-risk of displacement and a loss of community due to rising gentrification.
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City Rising
City Rising
The Gentrification of Sacramento's Oak Park
Up until recently, the tight-knit Oak Park community carried the stigma of being a neighborhood with a high poverty rate, gang violence and neglect. For a long time, that was mostly true.
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south central los angeles
City Rising
The History of South Central Los Angeles and Its Struggle with Gentrification
Rising property values, no rent controls, Metro's expansion and the arrival of the Rams all contribute to the area's complex gentrification issues.
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Articles
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Informal Economy
City Rising
Docking Paychecks: The High Cost of Working as a Port Truck Driver
Since April 2014, port truck drivers have held 16 strikes at the L.A./Long Beach ports, often demanding to be reclassified as regular employees.
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economic development
City Rising
The Scale of Informal Labor and Its Impact on the Economy
Measuring the nature and impact of the informal economy is difficult due to the lack of a common understanding of its meaning.
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City Rising
City Rising
San Diego Nonprofit Feeds the Entrepreneurial Spirit of East African Women
In the heart of San Diego a group of East African women is running catering services to promote entrepreneurship and implement the valuable skills refugees bring to the table.
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City Rising
City Rising
Oakland Organizers Promote Economic Justice for City's Most Vulnerable Workers
The East Bay Alliance for Sustainable Employment works with other community groups to ensure that Oakland's economy grows without displacing the people that have made Oakland the vibrant, diverse, culturally rich place that it is.
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City Rising
City Rising
The Future: How Do We Formalize Informality?
The informal economy is widespread, diverse, and deeply tied to the formal economy. It is also full of paradoxes and contradictions, which make it difficult to find simple solutions.
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City Rising
City Rising
Neoliberalism, Globalization, and the Magnification of the Informal Economy
Not only did neoliberalism redefine the role of the state, it also intensified the speed and depth of globalization, which radically transformed the economy.
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Neighborhood Data for Social Change
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Coachella Valley NDSC
City Rising
Community Profile: Mecca
Mecca is an unincorporated community in the southeast corner of the Coachella Valley in Riverside County.
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Coachella Valley NDSC
City Rising
A Collaborative Response to the Coachella Valley’s Housing Crisis
Like California as a whole, the Coachella Valley is faced with a serious housing crisis and an urgent demand for more affordable housing, as evidenced by the fact that more than half of renter households in the region
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Coachella Valley NDSC
City Rising
Community Profile: La Quinta
The city has established itself as a popular resort city, dating back to the opening of La Quinta Resort and Club in 1926.
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NDSC
City Rising
In Los Angeles, Linguistic Isolation is Still a Challenge
L.A. County households speak at least 185 languages, yet ethnic-rich communities are often segregated as well as socially and economically isolated.
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Los Angeles NDSC
City Rising
Life Expectancy: A Tale of Two South L.A. Communities
The average age of a baby born in Los Angeles County is higher than both the average Californian and the average American. However, average life expectancy alone can be misleading.
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Coachella Valley NDSC
City Rising
Community Profile: Palm Springs
Palm Springs is a desert resort city known for its warm, year-round temperatures, golf courses, midcentury modern architecture and its palm tree-lined downtown streets.
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