Brian W. Fraser

Published with MONOLITH EDITIONS.

In 2022, the Ward Commission of Jersey City met to remap the district, as typically happens following every census. The most striking change was the reconfiguration of Ward F, which split up the Bergen-Lafayette area. Attorneys and citizens alike argued that this move allowed politically connected developers to opt out of previous ordinance obligations. Change in the city had already been underway before the Ward F remapping, but the policy accelerated the erasure of the community and did nothing to address the growing affordable housing crisis. In The Chance of Living, Brian W. Fraser documents the residents of Bergen-Lafayette and their surroundings as the neighborhood transforms, providing a firsthand observation of what urban renewal really means to people watching their livelihoods diminish.