all right I want to start by asking you
a question the question is who built the
city that you live in who built the city
that you grew up in and in this city
that you live in or you grew up in what
side of town did you live in did you
live on the nice side of town or did you
live on the bad side of town
and I asked that question because it
gets me thinking about a game you see it
asks for me the question of who’s in
control of our cities and who has the
decisions to impact the communities that
we live in so let me start with this I
wonder have any of you ever heard of the
game called Sim City yeah so Sim City
for those folks who are not familiar
with is a game that I was absolutely
obsessed with growing up in the 90s as a
computer game and it’s a city simulation
game so what you do is you have a blank
slate and you get to build your city
from scratch you get to decide where the
roads go where the hospitals where the
universities the police stations and the
parks go and as a kid you sometimes want
to have a little fun and you put things
where they don’t belong so you’ll put
the zoo in the middle of the new
subdivision you built and eventually the
the lion will break out and in the game
when you press play these notifications
will plop the pop up and they’ll say you
know letters and angry letters from the
neighborhood association and then
they’ll start protesting and then
eventually they’ll ride and burn your
city down if you don’t build the city
appropriately and so for me that when I
was playing the game I’d love to play
the game because what I was trying to do
was build a great city build an
equitable city and I was trying to build
a place where every community member had
access to public transportation had
access to universities and schools and
clinics but for me the reason I love the
game so much was because growing up my
reality as opposed to my virtual reality
where I was at the computer screen
making the decisions was much different
for me my neighbors and my friends and
my community members and my family we
didn’t really have a choice or a voice
when it came to making those big
decisions so really it had me wondering
who controls our city who builds our
communities and if they’ve been building
our communities for generations why is
it that they’ve been building these
communities to be so unequal why is it
that in one side of town your life
outcomes the variations to upward
mobility is so drastically dependent on
where you’re born and it’s so
drastically depending on where you end
up and so I thought to myself you know
what I want to be the person making the
decisions so I got this crazy idea when
I got too old for the computer game if
there is such a thing I decided that at
the age of 24 back in 2011 that I wanted
to run for office that I wanted to be on
the City Council because I wanted to
make the decisions for my city I wanted
to build my own city so here’s what I
did for five months I knocked on 3178
doors it was the longest job interview
of my life
and I want to tell you about the very
first door I knocked on because if
you’re a good candidate this is what you
do you have the list of all of the
people who have voted and you go out and
you knock on doors and so the very first
door I knocked on was miss Rodriguez and
I go do one of these little numbers
knock knock knock she comes to the door
and she opens it before she can shut it
in my face I say miss Rodriguez I’m so
sorry to bother you wanted to introduce
myself my name is Rey Saldana I’m
running for City Council was born and
raised in the community went to the
public high schools went off to college
and I came back and want to run for City
Council can I count on your vote and she
looked at me with this look and
confusion she said you said you’re
running for the City Council you’re
running for the student council because
you’re certainly you’re certainly not
old enough to be my councilman remember
that was the first door of 3178 it was a
long five months in the Texas heat but
eventually I was elected as the youngest
and I said to myself okay now I’m in the
driver’s seat now I get to make
decisions about what the city is gonna
look like and where the investments will
go and if we have a million dollars
where that million dollars will go but
here’s what I want to talk about I
learned something
not only in the experience of running
for office but I learned something
actually being in office and for a while
I didn’t know if it was by accident that
our communities were this unequal or if
it was on purpose but in my experience I
can tell you that it’s actually on
purpose and I’m going to tell you
exactly how that is
you see we create these communities
actually I should say we’re in the
community that I represent here today on
the south side of San Antonio and my
community like the community of millions
of others all across the country is the
type of community that struggles with a
history and a reputation and that
history is one of neglect of being
overlooked of poor health outcomes of
low-performing schools of issues of
inequality and so the statistics tell me
this they tell me that it is more likely
that you would find me and my family
members and my friends and residents
caught in a cycle of poverty or caught
in a jail than you would catch us in a
college classroom so I thought to myself
we need to do something about this it’s
not just the statistics that I’m worried
about I in my job I actually get to talk
to high school students and high school
students are the ones who I asked tell
me about your community how do you feel
about the community you live in and they
tell me very stark terms they say this
community is a community that’s holding
me back and what they say is that for
their peers and the adults and the
people who they’ve grown up with that it
is eating them alive and if you look at
the statistics they’re not wrong
the statistics are chewing them up and
spitting them out if you look at
educational outcomes if you look at
health outcomes if you look at who not
only who becomes a graduate but who
becomes a professional so I want you to
chew on one statistic about this city
because it’s also a statistic that you
could find in any other major city in
this country
here in San Antonio if you were to
compare the lowest-income zip code to
the wealthiest just by the life
expectancy it’s a difference of 20 years
between the lowest income and the
wealthiest zip code now look this isn’t
a talk about a rally against rich people
this isn’t a talk about a class warfare
or or a rage against the 1% but if
you’re gonna take 20 years of life from
my community you’re gonna get a fight
out of me if you’re not going to do
something about it so here’s how we got
here and I need to be honest I wasn’t
completely a forthright I told you that
I knocked on 3178 doors but what I
didn’t tell you is that I skipped
thousands of doors along the way if I
was knocking on doors one morning I
remember I would walk and there was a
block of 20 homes I would knock on the
first door then I would skip 19 and then
I would knock on the 20th and then in
some neighborhoods there wasn’t a single
name on my list and so here’s what
happens tomorrow one of you is going to
decide that you want to run for office
and you’re gonna hear the same thing I
heard you’re gonna talk eventually
you’re gonna talk to a political
consultant an expert who’s gonna tell
you this is what you need to do you have
two jobs first job is you need to raise
money and then the second job is you
need to find votes the catch is when
you’ve raised that money you’re not
going to spend it on anybody who’s never
voted before in the past and when you
knock on doors I don’t want you wasting
any time in any neighborhoods or at any
doors where nobody’s ever voted before
in the past and so what ends up
happening is that’s a great playbook and
that’s a great strategy to win a
campaign we’ve been doing it for
generations but at the same time it
forces you to ignore entire communities
and it’s been happening for generations
and for me as I consider why is it when
when community members who I represent
scratch their heads wondering why is it
that they’re so often overlooked
then I tell them that really your
neighborhood your community has been
invisible for a long time because the
campaign consultant who got the guy in
power who got the girl in power told
them they need to ignore eighty percent
of the people that they represent eighty
percent is actually a high bar if you
can get twenty percent voter turnout in
some of these communities you’re doing a
pretty good job but what we’re doing is
actually recreating the cycle and
building our cities to be more unequal
because here’s what happens
persons like me get into the position
and we think about well well there are
those neighborhoods where I actually
have knocked on doors where those
neighborhoods I’ve got a million dollars
to spend some public dollars to invest
they’re gonna go right back to those
communities that in a few years I’m
gonna go and ask for my job back
that’s where the fundamental problem
exists in our communities that’s why
we’re becoming so unequal in fact it
reminds me of you know I live in Texas
and in Texas if you believe in something
strongly enough if you’re willing to
fight for a belief what you do is you
put it on your bumper sticker and a few
months ago I saw this bumper sticker and
I can’t share all kinds of bumper
sticker philosophy because that’s too
crude but here’s one that I actually
can’t share with you it said that bad
politicians are elected by good people
who don’t vote that bad politicians are
elected by good people who don’t vote
but here’s the problem
I know those good people who don’t vote
I call them my friends I call them my
family I went to church with them I
baseball with them I grew up with them
so the problem is that we’re blaming
these communities for not showing up but
you know we can’t forget to point the
finger of blame in the rock in the right
direction which is that these political
consultants they’re a hundred percent
right what you do is what they tell you
is that nobody who’s never voted before
in the past will ever come out because
here’s the end conclusion the person who
didn’t get their door knocked on who
didn’t have any mail sent to them
reminding them about the election day
people will not vote if you don’t ask
my mind was blown rocket science you
mean you mean the person that nobody
spent any time on the neighborhood the
community that’s been forgotten for a
long time we’re no politician knocked on
their door nobody came out to vote no
they didn’t because nobody’s actually
ever rang their doorbell nobody’s
knocked on their door and so we’ve got
these self repeating cycles and so if
we’re asking ourselves who’s in those
positions who’s building these cities in
these communities to be so unequal it’s
really the people in power who
completely ignoring vast amounts of
people who are making those communities
invisible and the dirty little secret in
politics is the only way to get away
with this kind of harm to a community
for decades the only reason the only way
that you get away with twenty years life
expectancy difference in one
neighborhood or another is to do it to
communities that are completely
invisible that are completely powerless
so this is what I did after a month of
following this list when I ran for my
first campaign I said this is ridiculous
I’m literally walking past homes of
friends who who I grew up with and we’re
classmates of mine people I know because
we went to the local restaurants and so
my campaign manager and I my best friend
at the time decided that we would do
this we wanted to expand the amount of
houses and people that we went to
because we wanted to change the way that
candidates actually speak to the
communities that they want to represent
it wasn’t just about winning a campaign
it was about shifting this paradigm
around communities that for a long time
the lights are completely out and it is
completely dark and here’s the reason
that you do it here’s a door that I
knocked on that wasn’t on my list that
has actually helped me in my work today
I remember it’s a gentleman who’s lived
for 60 years in my community and he told
me that back in 1965 there was somebody
who was sitting in a position of power
making a decision about where the new
university was gonna go and where the
new landfill was gonna go and he said
we’re still living through the negative
effects because if you look at the new
University they’ve got brand new roads
brand new hospitals brand new clinics
brand new public amenities and parks and
when we got the landfill nothing ever
happened here
community members were only just there
explanation and and the reason for being
here no longer existed and they left and
all we got was an undeveloped piece of
former landfill and so he said to me why
don’t we do this why don’t we turn that
landfill into a park and a few miles
from here you can visit a park that’s a
former landfill that’s got ten million
dollars worth of worth of an investment
and that wasn’t my idea that was the
idea of a community member who for a
long time his door had never been
knocked on nobody had ever sent a mail
you will be stunned by the richness of
information that exists in these
communities if you truly want to
transform a community from an
impoverished to an empowered one you’ll
actually talk to the people who live
there and when I was putting this talk
together I wanted to make sure that I
pulled the curtain back on why it is
that we see these communities that are
becoming so much more unequal while we
see these differences in life outcomes
that’s important and I wanted to point
out that these political consultants
essentially could recreate this pattern
over and over again but here’s my bigger
point we lose out as a country as a
state as a community as a city when we
completely let lose the potential and
the talent of the community members who
live in these parts of our city and
these parts of our community because the
crazy thing is is that these community
members they just don’t they don’t just
lose confidence in the system they lose
confidence in themselves but here’s the
great thing when you take chance on
their door when you actually talk to
them you will be surprised by what
happens you might get one of these
community members who might be crazy
enough he or she might be crazy enough
to run for office one day and if you
truly want to transform impoverished
communities to empowered ones you don’t
do it from the outside in you do it from
the inside out and you turn the lights
on and you bring power to these formerly
powerless communities it reminds me of a
quote by Alice Walker it’s one of my
favorite quotes she’s a poet and a
writer she said that the most common way
people give away their power is by
thinking that they don’t have any we
know where these powerless communities
are we know where they go to school we
know what community
they live in we know that they’re in
areas that politicians completely ignore
and when it comes time to make decisions
people decide to overlook them year
after year so here’s my suggestion
if you want to flip and transform these
communities you’ll spend some time
knocking on their doors and getting to
know the folks in these communities that
are completely dark and if you want to
change and transform impoverished
communities to empowered ones you’ll
make sure the old knock on every single
door thank you [Applause]
a question the question is who built the
city that you live in who built the city
that you grew up in and in this city
that you live in or you grew up in what
side of town did you live in did you
live on the nice side of town or did you
live on the bad side of town
and I asked that question because it
gets me thinking about a game you see it
asks for me the question of who’s in
control of our cities and who has the
decisions to impact the communities that
we live in so let me start with this I
wonder have any of you ever heard of the
game called Sim City yeah so Sim City
for those folks who are not familiar
with is a game that I was absolutely
obsessed with growing up in the 90s as a
computer game and it’s a city simulation
game so what you do is you have a blank
slate and you get to build your city
from scratch you get to decide where the
roads go where the hospitals where the
universities the police stations and the
parks go and as a kid you sometimes want
to have a little fun and you put things
where they don’t belong so you’ll put
the zoo in the middle of the new
subdivision you built and eventually the
the lion will break out and in the game
when you press play these notifications
will plop the pop up and they’ll say you
know letters and angry letters from the
neighborhood association and then
they’ll start protesting and then
eventually they’ll ride and burn your
city down if you don’t build the city
appropriately and so for me that when I
was playing the game I’d love to play
the game because what I was trying to do
was build a great city build an
equitable city and I was trying to build
a place where every community member had
access to public transportation had
access to universities and schools and
clinics but for me the reason I love the
game so much was because growing up my
reality as opposed to my virtual reality
where I was at the computer screen
making the decisions was much different
for me my neighbors and my friends and
my community members and my family we
didn’t really have a choice or a voice
when it came to making those big
decisions so really it had me wondering
who controls our city who builds our
communities and if they’ve been building
our communities for generations why is
it that they’ve been building these
communities to be so unequal why is it
that in one side of town your life
outcomes the variations to upward
mobility is so drastically dependent on
where you’re born and it’s so
drastically depending on where you end
up and so I thought to myself you know
what I want to be the person making the
decisions so I got this crazy idea when
I got too old for the computer game if
there is such a thing I decided that at
the age of 24 back in 2011 that I wanted
to run for office that I wanted to be on
the City Council because I wanted to
make the decisions for my city I wanted
to build my own city so here’s what I
did for five months I knocked on 3178
doors it was the longest job interview
of my life
and I want to tell you about the very
first door I knocked on because if
you’re a good candidate this is what you
do you have the list of all of the
people who have voted and you go out and
you knock on doors and so the very first
door I knocked on was miss Rodriguez and
I go do one of these little numbers
knock knock knock she comes to the door
and she opens it before she can shut it
in my face I say miss Rodriguez I’m so
sorry to bother you wanted to introduce
myself my name is Rey Saldana I’m
running for City Council was born and
raised in the community went to the
public high schools went off to college
and I came back and want to run for City
Council can I count on your vote and she
looked at me with this look and
confusion she said you said you’re
running for the City Council you’re
running for the student council because
you’re certainly you’re certainly not
old enough to be my councilman remember
that was the first door of 3178 it was a
long five months in the Texas heat but
eventually I was elected as the youngest
and I said to myself okay now I’m in the
driver’s seat now I get to make
decisions about what the city is gonna
look like and where the investments will
go and if we have a million dollars
where that million dollars will go but
here’s what I want to talk about I
learned something
not only in the experience of running
for office but I learned something
actually being in office and for a while
I didn’t know if it was by accident that
our communities were this unequal or if
it was on purpose but in my experience I
can tell you that it’s actually on
purpose and I’m going to tell you
exactly how that is
you see we create these communities
actually I should say we’re in the
community that I represent here today on
the south side of San Antonio and my
community like the community of millions
of others all across the country is the
type of community that struggles with a
history and a reputation and that
history is one of neglect of being
overlooked of poor health outcomes of
low-performing schools of issues of
inequality and so the statistics tell me
this they tell me that it is more likely
that you would find me and my family
members and my friends and residents
caught in a cycle of poverty or caught
in a jail than you would catch us in a
college classroom so I thought to myself
we need to do something about this it’s
not just the statistics that I’m worried
about I in my job I actually get to talk
to high school students and high school
students are the ones who I asked tell
me about your community how do you feel
about the community you live in and they
tell me very stark terms they say this
community is a community that’s holding
me back and what they say is that for
their peers and the adults and the
people who they’ve grown up with that it
is eating them alive and if you look at
the statistics they’re not wrong
the statistics are chewing them up and
spitting them out if you look at
educational outcomes if you look at
health outcomes if you look at who not
only who becomes a graduate but who
becomes a professional so I want you to
chew on one statistic about this city
because it’s also a statistic that you
could find in any other major city in
this country
here in San Antonio if you were to
compare the lowest-income zip code to
the wealthiest just by the life
expectancy it’s a difference of 20 years
between the lowest income and the
wealthiest zip code now look this isn’t
a talk about a rally against rich people
this isn’t a talk about a class warfare
or or a rage against the 1% but if
you’re gonna take 20 years of life from
my community you’re gonna get a fight
out of me if you’re not going to do
something about it so here’s how we got
here and I need to be honest I wasn’t
completely a forthright I told you that
I knocked on 3178 doors but what I
didn’t tell you is that I skipped
thousands of doors along the way if I
was knocking on doors one morning I
remember I would walk and there was a
block of 20 homes I would knock on the
first door then I would skip 19 and then
I would knock on the 20th and then in
some neighborhoods there wasn’t a single
name on my list and so here’s what
happens tomorrow one of you is going to
decide that you want to run for office
and you’re gonna hear the same thing I
heard you’re gonna talk eventually
you’re gonna talk to a political
consultant an expert who’s gonna tell
you this is what you need to do you have
two jobs first job is you need to raise
money and then the second job is you
need to find votes the catch is when
you’ve raised that money you’re not
going to spend it on anybody who’s never
voted before in the past and when you
knock on doors I don’t want you wasting
any time in any neighborhoods or at any
doors where nobody’s ever voted before
in the past and so what ends up
happening is that’s a great playbook and
that’s a great strategy to win a
campaign we’ve been doing it for
generations but at the same time it
forces you to ignore entire communities
and it’s been happening for generations
and for me as I consider why is it when
when community members who I represent
scratch their heads wondering why is it
that they’re so often overlooked
then I tell them that really your
neighborhood your community has been
invisible for a long time because the
campaign consultant who got the guy in
power who got the girl in power told
them they need to ignore eighty percent
of the people that they represent eighty
percent is actually a high bar if you
can get twenty percent voter turnout in
some of these communities you’re doing a
pretty good job but what we’re doing is
actually recreating the cycle and
building our cities to be more unequal
because here’s what happens
persons like me get into the position
and we think about well well there are
those neighborhoods where I actually
have knocked on doors where those
neighborhoods I’ve got a million dollars
to spend some public dollars to invest
they’re gonna go right back to those
communities that in a few years I’m
gonna go and ask for my job back
that’s where the fundamental problem
exists in our communities that’s why
we’re becoming so unequal in fact it
reminds me of you know I live in Texas
and in Texas if you believe in something
strongly enough if you’re willing to
fight for a belief what you do is you
put it on your bumper sticker and a few
months ago I saw this bumper sticker and
I can’t share all kinds of bumper
sticker philosophy because that’s too
crude but here’s one that I actually
can’t share with you it said that bad
politicians are elected by good people
who don’t vote that bad politicians are
elected by good people who don’t vote
but here’s the problem
I know those good people who don’t vote
I call them my friends I call them my
family I went to church with them I
baseball with them I grew up with them
so the problem is that we’re blaming
these communities for not showing up but
you know we can’t forget to point the
finger of blame in the rock in the right
direction which is that these political
consultants they’re a hundred percent
right what you do is what they tell you
is that nobody who’s never voted before
in the past will ever come out because
here’s the end conclusion the person who
didn’t get their door knocked on who
didn’t have any mail sent to them
reminding them about the election day
people will not vote if you don’t ask
my mind was blown rocket science you
mean you mean the person that nobody
spent any time on the neighborhood the
community that’s been forgotten for a
long time we’re no politician knocked on
their door nobody came out to vote no
they didn’t because nobody’s actually
ever rang their doorbell nobody’s
knocked on their door and so we’ve got
these self repeating cycles and so if
we’re asking ourselves who’s in those
positions who’s building these cities in
these communities to be so unequal it’s
really the people in power who
completely ignoring vast amounts of
people who are making those communities
invisible and the dirty little secret in
politics is the only way to get away
with this kind of harm to a community
for decades the only reason the only way
that you get away with twenty years life
expectancy difference in one
neighborhood or another is to do it to
communities that are completely
invisible that are completely powerless
so this is what I did after a month of
following this list when I ran for my
first campaign I said this is ridiculous
I’m literally walking past homes of
friends who who I grew up with and we’re
classmates of mine people I know because
we went to the local restaurants and so
my campaign manager and I my best friend
at the time decided that we would do
this we wanted to expand the amount of
houses and people that we went to
because we wanted to change the way that
candidates actually speak to the
communities that they want to represent
it wasn’t just about winning a campaign
it was about shifting this paradigm
around communities that for a long time
the lights are completely out and it is
completely dark and here’s the reason
that you do it here’s a door that I
knocked on that wasn’t on my list that
has actually helped me in my work today
I remember it’s a gentleman who’s lived
for 60 years in my community and he told
me that back in 1965 there was somebody
who was sitting in a position of power
making a decision about where the new
university was gonna go and where the
new landfill was gonna go and he said
we’re still living through the negative
effects because if you look at the new
University they’ve got brand new roads
brand new hospitals brand new clinics
brand new public amenities and parks and
when we got the landfill nothing ever
happened here
community members were only just there
explanation and and the reason for being
here no longer existed and they left and
all we got was an undeveloped piece of
former landfill and so he said to me why
don’t we do this why don’t we turn that
landfill into a park and a few miles
from here you can visit a park that’s a
former landfill that’s got ten million
dollars worth of worth of an investment
and that wasn’t my idea that was the
idea of a community member who for a
long time his door had never been
knocked on nobody had ever sent a mail
you will be stunned by the richness of
information that exists in these
communities if you truly want to
transform a community from an
impoverished to an empowered one you’ll
actually talk to the people who live
there and when I was putting this talk
together I wanted to make sure that I
pulled the curtain back on why it is
that we see these communities that are
becoming so much more unequal while we
see these differences in life outcomes
that’s important and I wanted to point
out that these political consultants
essentially could recreate this pattern
over and over again but here’s my bigger
point we lose out as a country as a
state as a community as a city when we
completely let lose the potential and
the talent of the community members who
live in these parts of our city and
these parts of our community because the
crazy thing is is that these community
members they just don’t they don’t just
lose confidence in the system they lose
confidence in themselves but here’s the
great thing when you take chance on
their door when you actually talk to
them you will be surprised by what
happens you might get one of these
community members who might be crazy
enough he or she might be crazy enough
to run for office one day and if you
truly want to transform impoverished
communities to empowered ones you don’t
do it from the outside in you do it from
the inside out and you turn the lights
on and you bring power to these formerly
powerless communities it reminds me of a
quote by Alice Walker it’s one of my
favorite quotes she’s a poet and a
writer she said that the most common way
people give away their power is by
thinking that they don’t have any we
know where these powerless communities
are we know where they go to school we
know what community
they live in we know that they’re in
areas that politicians completely ignore
and when it comes time to make decisions
people decide to overlook them year
after year so here’s my suggestion
if you want to flip and transform these
communities you’ll spend some time
knocking on their doors and getting to
know the folks in these communities that
are completely dark and if you want to
change and transform impoverished
communities to empowered ones you’ll
make sure the old knock on every single
door thank you [Applause]
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