In this weeks reading, Tom Angotti writes in his book “New York For Sale” about the power that community planning can hold. He discusses at length two specific plans: the Cooper Square Plan and Melrose plan, and the way in which the completely community-run organizations were able to protest official urban renewal plans and fight superpowers like Robert Moses. While reading this, Jane Jacobs consistently popped in my head as she strongly vouched for community power and acted accordingly. Despite the similarities, Angotti provides a much more thorough example of what community organization and planning quantitatively looks like and the struggles that can come with disputes within the groups of planners. Community initiative has worked in many cases, however in places where the community is not united it is harder to resist negative change. For example, in Williamsburg, because the Latino and Hasidic communities were both insular and did not consider themselves as part of the same community, the placement of an incinerator was only avoided because they were able to delay the change.
This reading reminds me of the song “Waiting On the World to Change” by John Mayer which claims almost the opposite of Angotti. Instead of standing by and waiting for things to change, Angotti provides a very real description of what can happen when communities band together and act. Just wishing for something to change is not enough, especially because of how intensely these unwanted changes influence the neighborhood. Communities that band together to resist a negative change can often be successful which can even result in an improvement in the relationships among those within the community. Community boards can be powerful, but their composition must be thoroughly thought out as to avoid the corruption that money and power can bring.
Questions to think about:
- What needs to be taken into consideration when forming a community board in order to avoid the same corruption that can be evident in city government?
- How can we mitigate corruption in city government? Are there any feasible changes we can make within that framework or are they already set in stone?
- In what ways might we be able to create a stronger neighborhood identity for those neighborhoods that contain different cultural enclaves?
