Geography

Geography 50AC, "California"

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Instructor: Seth Lunine
Semester: Fall 2016

During the Fall of 2016, students with the UC Berkeley ACES program worked with artist and anti-displacement organizer, Leslie Dreyer, in conjunction with the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition (SFADC) and the Coalition on Homelessness. Throughout the residency, they learned the policies and politics driving Bay Area displacement, how to use art, social media, and community organizing to resist displacement and were connected to homeless and housing advocacy groups on the frontlines of the housing justice struggle.

For their final project, they helped build, stage, and document a pre-election anti-displacement action designed by Dreyer with SFADC and COH and built this website to educate students about the negative impacts of gentrification and eviction. Though this site is more an information hub than a student group, there is hope that this collaboration may catalyze a longer, deeper relationship between UC Students and the broader Bay Area housing movement.

Semester: Fall 2024

During the Fall of 2024, students in Geography 50AC: California continued an ongoing partnership with Canticle Farm and Restorative Media, two nonprofits located in the Oakland Fruitvale District. 

Canticle Farm is a community-led educational center and urban garden, providing programming for formerly-incarcerated people, youth activists, and other residents of the Fruitvale area. They work at the intersections of non-violence, environmental remediation, restorative justice, and community organizing. To support Canticle's work, ACES students developed story maps to represent the spatial histories of the Canticle Farm site. To create these story maps, they analyzed historical newspaper articles, real estate promotions, archeological reports, and city planning documents, revealing legacies of Indigenous stewardship, the Brown Power movement, redlining, and criminalization that has shaped Canticle Farm. 

 Another group of ACES students collaborated with the Executive Director of Restorative Media, Troy Williams, who learned media production while incarcerated in San Quentin. As an organization led by formerly incarcerated and systems-impacted people, Restorative Media aims to uplift lived experience, advance intellectual ownership, and inspire transformative narratives. Guided by Mr. Williams, ACES students employed documentary film production skills to interview Canticle Farm stakeholders about their movement activism and life stories.

Group of ACES students sitting with Canticle Farm stakeholdersHand-drawn map of Canticle FarmExample of a student-created story map portraying Boulevard Park

Geography XB50AC, “California” (Fall Program for First Semester)

Flyer in Spanish discussing how civic center's redevelopment will change the Tenderloin district of SFInstructor: Seth Lunine
Chancellor’s Public Fellow: Alec Stewart
Semester: Fall 2017

Students in Dr. Seth Lunine’s Geography X50AC, “California” continued an ACES partnership with the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC), a nonprofit agency providing affordable housing, social work, education, and community organizing in San Francisco.  Throughout a series of meetings, TNDC community planner Ramon Quintero paired ACES students with Tenderloin residents, including members of TNDC’s Leadership Academy, in order to examine the City of San Francisco’s Civic Center redevelopment plan, its potential impacts on the Tenderloin, and strategies for community intervention. 

Flyer that discusses how will civic center Redevelopment will change the Tenderloin district of SF

A meeting with the City of San Francisco urban planners provided further insights into not only city planning processes but also the thorny politics of public/private partnerships.  Community members then identified several core concerns about the redevelopment plan, which the students incorporated into posters.  Guided by Architecture Ph.D. candidate and Chancellor’s Public Fellow Alec Stewart, the students used design exercises, Adobe software, and Slack to render several posters in English, Mandarin, and Spanish.  These posters will prove instrumental in developing a coalition of residents, activists, and nonprofit organizations dedicated to protecting and enhancing the Tenderloin community over the next two years.  The project also deepened ACES students’ understanding of several key course topics, including social justice, public space, and the cruelly widening wealth gap in San Francisco.  Through their experience of community organizing and activism, ACES students learned firsthand that gentrification is neither inevitable nor inexorable. 

Geography 70AC, “The Urban Experience: Race, Class, and the American City”

Instructor: Seth Lunine
Semester: Spring 2017

The ACES project for Dr. Seth Lunine’s Geography 70AC, “The Urban Experience: Race, Class, and the American City” enabled five students to explore and encounter key course topics, including gentrification, racialized displacement, and community organizing. ACES students partnered with the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC), a nonprofit agency providing affordable housing, social work, education, and community organizing. A series of meetings facilitated by TNDC community planner Ramon Quintero brought together ACES students and Tenderloin residents, activists, and representatives of nonprofit organizations. Ongoing conversations about both existing programs and unmet community needs guided students’ research of nonprofit organizations, city services, and accessible public spaces in the Tenderloin. Read Tenderloin Neighborhood Resource Guide.