A2Ethics President Jeanine DeLay and A2Ethics Board member Erin Mattimoe speak with Alan Mallach in this inaugural edition of A2Ethics' Think Over and Above podcast series. Alan is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress, headquartered in Flint, Michigan and Washington, DC. The Center is the most effective national nonprofit resource for large and small communities, whose residents and leaders are committed to examining and enacting just and fair policies and strategies to revitalize vacant, abandoned and deteriorating properties. Alan is internationally known for his thoughtful, and in our view, diagnostic, rigorous and challenging work on housing and urban revitalization. 

Jeanine, Erin and Alan tackle one of the big questions from this year's A2Ethics Ethical Question Slam - can there be decent/good gentrifiers? In response, Alan outlines the bigger picture of neighborhood change, and the role gentrification plays in that. He also discusses some of the issues connected to gentrification, such as low-income housing. Ultimately, Alan, Jeanine, and Erin conclude that gentrification is about who has power - and who doesn't - in a community.

Alan also discusses his excellent new book, The Divided City, from Island Press, and gives some advice on how to view your city through a philosophical lens.