Winning at Urban Redevelopment

Starlett Quarles has long been involved in redevelopment projects in South Los Angeles' urban areas, enabling her to have a vast knowledge of how wealth creation works and how people can adapt to changes, which she explains in her talk on gentrification.

With the demographics changing in South LA swiftly, it's projected that many communities within it will become gentrified by 2020. As she quotes, according to Wikipedia, this means that property values are likely to increase and lower-income households and small businesses could be displaced. Although these changes don't seem positive for many of the current inhabitants of South LA, Starlett Quarles explains that they have the ability to contribute to it rather than be negatively affected by it.

In order to "win" at redevelopment, she says that the black community has to be willing to mobilize the dollar, increase their financial and political literacy, continue their legacy and to develop trust for one another so that resources can properly be shared. Starlett Quarles finishes her talk on gentrification by advising her audience to maintain hope and the idea "that better days are ahead" which she supports with a speech from Barack Obama.