" If there was history being made in the city, if history was the high-level war rich people waged for their own turf in the city—those wars about waterfront developments and opera houses and real-estate deals and privatization contracts—then the poor waged wars for control of their small alleyways and walkways, their streets and the trade in unofficial goods. Their currency was not stocks, wealth and influence peddling, but tough reputations and threats of physical damage; their gains weren’t stock options and expensive homes but momentary physical control and perennially contested fearsomeness. This war was a more volatile war, perhaps. There was no cushion of security to land on if you lost a skirmish. "

― Dionne Brand , What We All Long For