STM Daily News
For graffiti artists, abandoned skyscrapers in Miami and Los Angeles become a canvas for regular people to be seen and heard
In 2023-2024, graffiti artists tagged abandoned skyscrapers in Los Angeles and Miami, highlighting financial and political issues through their large, visible artworks.
Colette Gaiter, University of Delaware
The three qualities that matter most in real estate also matter the most to graffiti artists: location, location, location.
In Miami and Los Angeles, cities that contain some of the most expensive real estate in the U.S., graffiti artists have recently made sure their voices can be heard and seen, even from the sky.
In what’s known as “graffiti bombing,” artists in both cities swiftly and extensively tagged downtown skyscrapers that had been abandoned. The efforts took place over the course of a few nights in December 2023 and late January 2024, with the results generating a mix of admiration and condemnation.
As someone who has researched the intersection of graffiti and activism, I see these works as major milestones – and not just because the artists’ tags are perhaps more prominent than they’ve ever been, high above street level and visible from blocks away.
They also get to the heart of how money and politics can make individuals feel powerless – and how art can reclaim some of that power.
Two cities, two graffiti bombings
Since late 2019, Los Angeles’ billion-dollar Oceanwide Plaza – a mixed-use residential and retail complex consisting of three towers – has stood unfinished. The Beijing-based developer was unable to pay contractors, and ongoing financing challenges forced the company to put the project on pause. It’s located in one of the priciest parts of the city, right across the street from Crypto.com Arena, where the 2024 Grammy Awards were held.
Hundreds of taggers were involved in the Los Angeles graffiti bombing. It may never be publicly known how the idea was formed and by whom. But it seemed to have been inspired by a similar project that took place in Miami during Art Basel, the city’s annual international art fair.
In November 2023, the city of Miami announced that a permit to demolish One Bayfront Plaza site, an abandoned former VITAS Healthcare building, had been filed.
Miami is known for its elaborate spray-painted murals. There’s also a rich tradition of graffiti in the city. So Miami was a natural gathering place for graffiti artists during Art Basel in December 2023, and One Bayfront Plaza became the canvas for taggers from around the world.
Over the course of a few days, graffiti artists – some of whom rappelled down the side of the building – tagged the brutalist, concrete structure with colorful bubble letters spelling their graffiti names: “EDBOX,” “SAUTE” and “1UP,” and hundreds more.
The response to the Miami bombing was more awe than outrage, perhaps because the building will soon be torn down. It elicited comparisons to 5Pointz, a collection of former factory buildings in the Queens borough of New York City that was covered with graffiti and became a landmark before being demolished in 2014.
Meaning and motivation
In the early 2000s, when I started researching street graffiti, I learned that there are different names for different graffiti types.
“Tags” are pseudonyms written in marker, sometimes with flourishes. “Fill-ins” or “throw-ups” are quickly painted fat letters or bubble letters, usually outlined. “Pieces” involve more colorful, complicated and stylized spray-painted letters.
The tradition of painting ornate graffiti names made me think of Paul Cézanne, who painted the same bowl of fruit over and over. The carefully chosen names and their letters become the subject that writers use to practice their craft.
But I also wanted to know why people graffitied.
Many graffiti writers tagged spaces to declare their existence, especially in a place like New York City, where it is easy to feel invisible. Some writers who became well known in the early 1970s, like Taki 183, scrawled their names and street numbers all over the city.
During my research, I spoke with one New York graffiti artist whose work had garnered a lot of attention in the 1980s. He explained that his writing had no concrete political messages.
“But,” he added, “the act of writing graffiti is always political.”
Another graffiti artist I interviewed, “PEN1,” stood with me on a street in lower Manhattan, pointing out one of his many works. It was a fill-in – huge letters near the top of a three- or four-story building, very visible from the street.
“Those people have paid so much money to put their message up there,” he said, pointing to nearby billboards, “and I get to put my name up there for free.”
Through my project, which I ended up titling “Unofficial Communication,” I came to understand that writing graffiti on walls, billboards and subway cars was a way of disrupting ideas of private ownership in public, outdoor spaces.
It involved three different sets of players. There were the taggers, who represented people defying the status quo. There were the public and private owners of the spaces. And there was the municipal government, which regularly cleaned graffiti from outdoor surfaces and tried to arrest taggers.
In cities across the U.S., then and now, it’s easy to see whose interests are the priority, whose mistakes governments are willing to overlook, and which people they aggressively police and penalize.
Loud and clear
The names painted on the Los Angeles skyscrapers are the faster and easier-to-complete fill-ins, since time is at a premium and the artists risk arrest.
These vertical graffiti bombing projects on failed skyscrapers, deliberately or not, call attention to the millions of dollars that are absorbed by taxpayers when private developers make bad investments.
Because the names painted on the buildings are fill-ins, they’re not especially artistic. But they did, in fact, make a political statement.
A former graffiti artist who goes by “ACTUAL” told The Washington Post that he’d come out of retirement to contribute to the Los Angeles project.
“The money invested in [the buildings] could have done so much for this city,” he added.
Some of the graffiti artists in Los Angeles were arrested, and the Los Angeles City Council is demanding that the owners of Oceanwide Plaza remove the graffiti, described as the work of “criminals” acting “recklessly.”
Meanwhile, the developers of buildings that have sat, unfinished, for years, in the middle of a housing crisis, have broken no laws.
Some reckless acts, apparently, are more criminal than others.
Colette Gaiter, Professor of Art and Design, University of Delaware
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Lifestyle
Newsweek Names Delta Dental of California One of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity 2025
Annual ranking recognizes companies fostering inclusion and championing diversity based on anonymous employee feedback, public data, and third-party research.
SAN FRANCISCO /PRNewswire/ — Delta Dental of California and Affiliates, the leading dental insurance provider, has been recognized by Newsweek as one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity in 2025. This distinguished award is presented by Newsweek and Plant-A Insights Group to recognize U.S. companies across industries that prioritize fostering diversity and inclusive workplace cultures.
“Our people are our greatest asset,” said Brian Sherman, executive vice president and chief people officer of Delta Dental of California and Affiliates. “This recognition reflects our deep commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that support and celebrate the unique perspectives and contributions of our employees.”
America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity is an annual ranking determined by a rigorous evaluation of public data, HR insights, and anonymous employee surveys. The list honors organizations with over 1,000 employees that demonstrate a meaningful commitment to offering distinctive company cultures inclusive of backgrounds and demographics, including age group, race, cultures, and sexual orientations. Research suggests about 80 percent of U.S. workers believe it’s important for companies to create inclusive cultures.
“As companies in the United States continue to navigate the evolving dynamics of the workplace, diversity remains a cornerstone of organizational success and social responsibility,” said Nancy Cooper, global editor in chief of Newsweek. “Newsweek and market-data research firm Plant-A Insights are proud to introduce ‘America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity 2025,’ highlighting companies committed to building inclusive workplaces.”
Delta Dental of California received a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars for its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices in 2024. The company has also been recognized with other Newsweek accolades, including America’s Greatest Workplaces 2023, America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity 2023, and Americas Greatest Workplaces for Parents and Families 2023.
Delta Dental is committed to providing consistent, quality access to oral health care, improving education and driving lasting policy changes to address systemic issues. To learn more about what makes Delta Dental of California and Affiliates one of the best employers in the U.S., visit our career page.
About Delta Dental of California and Affiliates
Since 1955, Delta Dental of California and Affiliates has offered comprehensive, high-quality oral health care coverage to millions of enrollees and built the strongest network of dental providers in the country. The Delta Dental of California enterprise includes its affiliates Delta Dental Insurance Company, Delta Dental of Pennsylvania, Delta Dental of New York, Inc., as well as the national DeltaCare USA network, and provides dental benefits to more than 31 million people across 15 states and the District of Columbia.* All are members of the Delta Dental Plans Association based in Chicago, Illinois, the not-for-profit national association that through a national network of Delta Dental companies collectively covers millions of people nationwide. Delta Dental is a registered trademark of Delta Dental Plans Association.
For more information about Delta Dental of California and Affiliates, please visit www.deltadentalins.com
*Delta Dental of California and Affiliates’ operating areas encompass Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
SOURCE Delta Dental of California
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Space and Tech
The Starbase rocket testing facility is permanently changing the landscape of southern Texas
Robert A. Kopack, University of South Carolina
If there is a leader in the aerospace industry, SpaceX is it. The company’s Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon spacecrafts are the current go-to vehicles to deliver astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.
NASA contracts awarded to SpaceX through 2030 alone are worth nearly US$5 billion and include research and development for the Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon.
Over the past decade, SpaceX has also emerged as a key vendor to the U.S. Department of Defense, seen most recently with a $733.5 million contract for projects such as launching defense satellite networks and contributing to other national security space objectives.
As a human geographer, I’m interested in how commercial space and defense companies affect the local communities where they conduct launches and tests.
For instance, I spent over two years in Kazakhstan researching the privatization of the Soviet space program and the beginning of a global commercial space industry.
Elon Musk and SpaceX’s influence
Politically, SpaceX is an enormous boon to the United States.
As a U.S.-based defense supplier and contractor, the company’s technology has helped to nearly end an almost two-decade dependency on the Russian Federation for access to the International Space Station. Its billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, has even expressed plans to colonize Mars.
Musk’s decision to spend $250 million helping Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election is expected to lead to more support for SpaceX.
In the new administration, Musk is poised to lead a newly created advisory agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, which could lead to benefits for his business and widen his space ambitions.
Boca Chica, Texas, is home to SpaceX’s flagship assembly and test installation, Starbase. Since 2021, I have been conducting research with environmental groups and multigenerational community members of Latino and Indigenous descent in south Texas who see space exploration as a landscape-altering industry that affects their well-being.
After watching Starbase’s development proceed since 2014, locals there told me that there is much unseen and unsaid about what happens on the ground while an aerospace giant shoots for the stars.
Breaking eggs to make an omelet
Starbase is an industrial installation built by SpaceX to fabricate and test a number of the company’s rocket types.
The area around it is a unique and delicate ecosystem that includes estuaries and coastal grasslands, mud flats and more, where falcons, hawks, ravens, gulls and songbirds live.
Since construction began, SpaceX engineers have had to drain water-logged soils, level them and pour concrete to support ground tracking stations, assembly buildings, engine test stands, a nearly 500-foot (152-meter) launch tower and onsite fuel mixing and storage.
In a lengthy response to local environmental groups’ claims of environmental abuses, the company maintains that it is dedicated to environmental stewardship.
But developing rockets is a dangerous and messy business. Sites chosen for this kind of work are often, though not always, remote and highly secured installations.
Fiery explosions on the ground or in the air aren’t unheard of over the past several years. Rocket tests in Scotland, China and Japan have all ended in accidents.
In April 2023, one of SpaceX’s prototype Starship rockets exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after liftoff.
This is not the only time that a rocket has exploded at places where SpaceX operates.
SpaceX runs a compact though growing operation at Boca Chica that has transformed the area. The hamlet was previously known as Kopernik Shores, and SpaceX purchased nearly all of the approximately 35 ranch homes in the area. Some residents have reported pressure to sell their property for suboptimal prices following rumors that the county would use eminent domain to seize their residences.
I spoke to Rebekah Hinojosa, a local activist and member of the Carrizo-Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, while researching in the area. To many locals, including Hinojosa, it seems like Musk is so well connected that SpaceX is insulated from public criticism.
In a 2018 press conference, Musk said, “We’ve got a lot of land with no one around, and so if it blows up, it’s cool,” referring to a rocket he planned to test at Starbase.
Changes to the landscape
An installation the size of Starbase cannot avoid disturbing the wildlife in the four distinct state and federal wildlife protection areas that surround it.
If you walk through the protected areas you may see shrapnel, segments of rocket chassis and other random debris from any number of explosions – that is, if someone else hasn’t picked them up first.
In December 2022, I visited a luxury campground near Starbase. It displayed various fragments of rocket debris, which they called memorabilia to the new space age, throughout the site.
Within SpaceX, as well as NASA, the explosion of 2023 was celebrated as a crucial step in developing the Starship rocket. The event did produce valuable data on the rocket’s performance – it has done little to tarnish the company’s reputation.
There is tremendous support for SpaceX in Texas. The company has promised to drive high-tech industry jobs into a region ranked among the country’s poorest.
SpaceX has created about 2,100 jobs. However, reporting shows that local and state politicians have seen more personal gains in their real estate holdings and campaign budgets than the region’s economy has overall.
A laboratory near the community
At the end of the day, to develop a rocket, you need a place to test your design.
“Our local beach is the laboratory,” local activist Hinojosa told me.
Resident coalitions of Indigenous, Latino and Chicano people as well as conservation groups are suing the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and others to combat SpaceX.
These groups argue that SpaceX misled state and federal regulators about Starbase’s operations. They claim SpaceX changed how frequently it planned to launch tests and built new facilities for several rocket types, which rendered the company’s original environmental impact statement for the area inaccurate.
Some key issues these groups are fighting against include a bid to expand Starbase into more protected areas. Another point of contention is the deluge system, which creates thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater to cool launch pads and rocket engines after testing.
While the EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have notified SpaceX about violations of the Clean Water Act, claimants in a recent lawsuit contend that these agencies have not held the company accountable for breaking the law. The company has denied any wrongdoing and refutes claims of environmental harms.
“As we have built up capacity to launch and developed new sites across the country, we have always been committed to public safety and mitigating impacts to the environment,” a SpaceX statement reads. “The list of measures we take just for operations in Texas is over two hundred items long, including constant monitoring and sampling of the short and long-term health of local flora and fauna. The narrative that we operate free of, or in defiance of, environmental regulation is demonstrably false.”
So, what does the future hold? Many people from conservation agencies, activist groups and Indigenous communities in Texas want the company out. Given the high public support for space exploration in the U.S. and the burgeoning friendship between Musk and Trump, a SpaceX evacuation from the area seems unlikely.
While it may take difficult negotiations that require concessions from each party, I hope that somewhere there is a middle ground on which space exploration and environmental protections can coexist.
This article was updated on Jan. 17, 2024 to reflect the amount of money Musk spent helping Trump win the 2024 election as $250 million and the correct speed of light.
Robert A. Kopack, Faculty Instructor of Human Geographies, University of South Carolina
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site focuses on delivering inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.
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Community
Larry Krasner, Kensington, the scrapped Sixers arena − and other key concerns that will shape Philly politics in 2025
Richardson Dilworth, Drexel University
Campus protests. Homeless encampment clearings. Significant decreases in shootings, homicides and overdose deaths. Protests to “Save Chinatown.” A mass shooting at a SEPTA bus stop. Illegal car meetups. City workers called back to the office. A SEPTA strike averted.
These were just some of the headlines that dominated Philadelphia politics in 2024.
So, what does 2025 hold for the city?
I’m a politics professor at Drexel University and in 2023 I published a short book, “Reforming Philadelphia, 1682-2022,” that traced the city’s political development with an eye toward the future of its policy and politics.
Here are six key storylines that will shape Philly’s political landscape in 2025.
1. Partisan shifts
Philadelphia enters 2025 notably more politically diverse than five years ago.
Partisanship in Philadelphia is not so much captured by a Democratic-Republican split as it is by what local journalist Larry Platt once called “reformer vs. progressive,” referring to the division between more conservative Democrats on the one hand and more liberal Democrats and progressive third parties on the other.
Progressive candidates have had minor surges in recent years. Seven of the 17 members of the Philadelphia City Council are elected at large, but no party is allowed to nominate more than five members to run for these seats in the general election. This has meant that, as long as anyone can remember, there have been five Democratic and two Republican at-large council members.
Then, in 2019, Working Families Party candidate Kendra Brooks won one of the two at-large seats previously held by Republicans. One year later, two Democratic Socialists who ran as Democrats, Nikil Saval and Rick Krajewski, were elected to the state Senate and state House, respectively. And in 2023 another Working Families Party member, Nicolas O’Rourke, won the second at-large City Council seat reserved for minor parties, thereby completely replacing Republicans in those positions.
At the same time, the mayor elected in 2023, Cherelle Parker, is a reasonably conservative Democrat – at least in the sense that her focus has not been on social justice issues but rather the classic municipal issues of cleanliness and public safety.
And the 2024 elections saw the GOP vote go up in Philadelphia, as it did almost everywhere in the country. Republicans captured a state Senate seat in the city for the first time in two decades.
The most recent surge favoring Republicans would ostensibly threaten the two at-large Working Families Party members of the City Council, who are most vulnerable to electoral challenges that would bring back at-large Republicans. However, they’re safe until 2027, by which time another Democratic surge in Philadelphia is likely, as many voters will have most likely soured on the Trump administration by that time.
2. Will Krasner stay or go?
In 2025, the most high-profile city election will be for district attorney, and that does seem potentially ripe for change.
The incumbent is Larry Krasner, first elected in 2017 as part of the post-Trump progressive wave. He won again decisively in 2021, against a challenger in the Democratic primary whose main support was from the Fraternal Order of Police.
Yet as Parker’s election as mayor – and Trump’s as president – suggests, Krasner may face an electorate ready for a more law-and-order message in May 2025. The DA’s office in Philadelphia has historically been a bastion for conservative Democrats and even Republicans. Krasner may face more significant challengers this time around, especially in the primary.
3. Kensington at a crossroads
Parker has benefited from the sharp decline in crime and violence after its pandemic-driven spike. But she has also increased the police budget to provide for hiring 400 new officers; hired a police commissioner from within, Kevin Bethel, who previously received praise for his work on diversion and juvenile justice; and focused on quality-of-life issues such as cracking down on ATV gangs.
Parker has also focused in particular on the Kensington neighborhood and its notorious open-air drug markets. This is important, not least because Kensington has been a large contributor to the city’s unfortunate status of being a leader in drug overdose deaths.
The drug trade was also holding down development and property values – and therefore property tax revenues – in a neighborhood on the path of gentrification. From my perspective, cleaning up Kensington promises to be some of the best return on investment in the city.
4. Parker vs. Trump administration
Of course, another new thing that the city will have to grapple with in 2025 is the incoming Trump administration.
The previous Trump administration got into a fight with then-Mayor Jim Kenney in 2016 over the city’s sanctuary policy with respect to federal immigration enforcement. Basically, the Kenney administration won and got back federal grant money that had been withheld.
Parker may be in a tough spot if she plans to maintain some sort of sanctuary status for the city. The Trump administration – no friend of Philadelphia under the best of circumstances – will likely face less resistance and some acquiescence, as we’re seeing in Chicago, where some aldermen have suggested getting rid of that city’s sanctuary status.
The incoming president has also signaled repeatedly his willingness to use the military for mass deportations, thereby sidestepping necessary cooperation from local law enforcement. This is a critical issue because immigration is a key economic asset for Philadelphia. As the Pew Charitable Trusts have found, immigrants in Philadelphia tend to be younger, more likely to participate in the workforce, and more likely to start a business than native Philadelphians.
5. Market East in limbo
And then there was the proposed downtown 76ers arena, approved by the City Council in a 12-5 vote in December 2024 and then entirely scrapped in early January 2025. Was this entire project simply some sort of bargaining chip used by Sixers owners and management to get a better deal in South Philadelphia from Comcast Spectacor, the owner of the teams’ current home at the Wells Fargo Center?
Whatever the case, the entire project no doubt leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the Chinatown businesses and other interest groups who opposed the new stadium and felt sold out by the mayor and City Council. But with the next City Council and mayoral elections not happening until 2027, it seems likely that the entire thing will be forgotten by the time any elected official might be punished at the polls.
The fall of the downtown stadium deal throws open the future of the Market Street East corridor. The proposed arena was part of a reimagining of the Fashion District, a redevelopment project by the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust that opened in 2019. The pandemic and higher interest rates led to store closures and financial problems, and PREIT has since filed twice for bankruptcy. Add to that the fact that Macy’s, an anchor tenant on the corridor, announced it is closing its store in the historic Wanamaker Building next to City Hall.
Market East – essentially the front door of the city – doesn’t look so good for the 2026 celebrations planned as part of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country. Indeed, the Constitution was drafted at Independence Hall, which is part of the Market East corridor. The chances that things will look much better in 2025 seem pretty dim, although there are plans to convert the space to apartments and smaller stores.
Other major infrastructure projects will likely work in the mayor’s favor, most notably a new park covering part of I-95 that will reconnect the Delaware riverfront to the Society Hill and Old City neighborhoods. This is set to be completed during Parker’s first term.
6. Inflation and housing
And finally, one of the bigger issues in the last presidential election was the housing affordability crisis. This crisis is slightly muted in Philadelphia compared with some other major cities, but it is real nonetheless.
Yet the city has to a certain extent inadvertently lucked out. As 2021 was the last year that developers could take full advantage of the city’s 10-year tax abatement for new construction, a record number of building permits were granted that year.
In 2022, the number of building permits plummeted to 2013 levels. Nevertheless, the permits from 2021 have led to a building boom, especially in residential construction, which may be keeping housing prices lower than they would otherwise be. We can expect this trend to continue into 2025, even if the volume of new permits drops even more.
Richardson Dilworth, Professor of Politics, Drexel University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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