All posts by Amanda Bernstein

Project Update #7 -Amanda Bernstein

The Future of Community Gardens

One focus of our project is Melrose Commons. We chose Melrose Commons because the challenges it has faced are similar to the issues we are currently seeing. One main issue we are seeing with community gardens today is that they are being redeveloped without the consent of the community. Similarly, in the 1980s and 1990s, the city was planning on redeveloping the South Bronx before consulting the community members. After this, in 1991, the Bronx Center Projected started the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Plan. When this plan was brought to the public, it was met with disapproval. The plan would originally displace thousands of current residents. To counter this, a member of the community, Yolanda Garcia, formed Nos Quedamos to organize the community and keep everyone informed of developments in the planning agenda. They worked along the City Council and resisted large scale urban renewal plans in order to develop a plan that to benefit the existing community and allow for further growth. Since this time, Melrose Commons has been praised by a variety of organizations such as the ADPSR, the National Civic Council, and the LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. This development has continued to be successful, which is why it is a good role model for community garden activists working with the city. Melrose Commons is a wonderful example of how affordable housing and green spaces can and should coexist instead of being in opposition to each other.

 

Another issue is the lack of political recognition. One issue with out white paper was why we wanted to include the history of NYC’s 1970 fiscal crisis. Community gardens have been developed as a quick fix for people (typically poor people) that lack food. Then these gardens are abandoned once political support dies out. The government liked the idea of community gardens because it beautified run-down areas. However, the opportunity of using this land, as a way to make more money was too good to pass up, to the city opted to redevelop that land. The financial appeal has outweighed the complaints of the communities, which is another problem we hope to address.

 

Mapping out the organization of the political system regarding community gardens as well as mapping out the possible ways of reform helped us to determine a better way to address these problems in our paper. We were able to clearly map out alternative sources of funding, which was one of the problems brought to our attention during our white paper presentation. Our goal is to now find a clear way to express the problems with community boards and City Council so that people outside of these communities can relate and empathize with them.

 

We still have not been able to get in contact with Ray Figueroa about connecting to a Melrose Gardens local, but we still hope to do so. Once we can contact a local, we intend to find out what they know of the problems with community gardens, how they feel about such problems, and how community gardens have affected their lives. We also were not able to attend the “Gardens Under Threat Ride,” but we plan on contacting the organizer of the event to possibly use any pictures or videos that were taken on our website. We will be filming a video based on the television show Parks and Recreation in order to make a more relatable source of information for the public. This will be our public interest piece, and will go on the website that we have created.

 

Reference:

http://www.maparchitects.com/melrose-commons-timeline/
http://www.plannersnetwork.org/magazine-publications/case-studies-and-working-papers/melrose-commons-a-case-study-for-sustainable-community-design/
http://www.grownyc.org/files/GrowNYC_CommunityGardenReport.pdf

Reading Response #5

The Politics of Place, Oppression, and Privilege

According to Squires and Kubrin, “privilege cannot be understood outside the context of place.” This is especially true in urban communities. For the most part, place and race define the opportunity structure in urban areas. This concept has been called new urban sociology.  Since people tend to live amongst people of their own race, this unintentionally leads to racial segregation. However, not each race has the same opportunities in the neighborhoods they live in. For example, according to Squires and Kubrin, black middle class neighborhoods are more likely to be located in or near poor neighborhoods than white communities. This proximity gives them less privilege than their white counterparts because they are forced to interact with the poorer communities instead of communities with more opportunities for them.

I found it interesting that employment is considered the most important factor in determining opportunity for people. I always grew up hearing that education was the most important factor in getting ahead in life. However, Squires and Kubin believe that employment is more important than education. One major problem with employment is that it can be extremely biased.  Employers sometimes pre-judge potential employees based on what neighborhood they live in. They assume that because you come from a certain area, you have a certain set of skills, or certain attributes. While not relating to employment, there was a similar mindset where I grew up. People in Westchester county draw these “mental maps” based on what town you live in. I know I have personally assumed something about a kid when I heard which part of Westchester they were from. People do it without realizing, and in terms of employment it can be extremely detrimental. People do not live in poorer neighborhoods by choice, they live there because they cannot afford to live anywhere else. The only chance they have to move out is to find a well-paying job, which is hard since employers do not want to hire people from the neighborhoods they live in. It is a vicious cycle, that is hard to stop.

 

Discussion question: Is it possible for employers and people to stop drawing “mental maps,” or are people doomed to be stuck in that cycle?

Reading Response #4

Roots of Community Planning

During the first half of the 20th century, African Americans who were confined to ghettos developed their own communities. Often this was due to the fact that they could not afford to live in other places. Also, many immigrants from Caribbean countries were moving to the United States during this time, and they all settled near one another. They brought their families over when they could, which also contributed to the strong sense of community in these neighborhoods. However, during the latter half of the century, these ghettos were destroyed as part of an urban renewal strategy. Urban renewal began as a strategy for planed shrinkage, which caused massive displacement of African Americans. It also caused tensions with new people moving into the area. Even though the areas were newly renovated, the middle-class people moving in still felt out of place at first. The tensions between the displaced people and the middle-class people did not stop more urban renewal from occurring. Urban renewal did not begin with maleficent intent.It started as a program to clear large “slum” areas for modern development in order to attract middle income residents. However good the intention of this was, in practice it did much harm. While it did bring higher income families to the area, it displaced many people and destroyed neighborhoods. Communities were disbanded, and the neighborhoods that took their place were shadows of what they were when lower income people lived there. While it may be necessary to renew neighborhoods, more consideration for the people already living in the neighborhoods should be considered. Otherwise, more harm than good will come out of replacing pre-existing communities in an attempt to renew the neighborhood.

Discussion Question: Why did urban renewal continue to occur even after the negative effects were observed?

Reading Response #3

"The Patron Saint" and "The Git'r Done Man"

It seems like the authors have a negative point of view on city planning. While planning is important in order to effectively use the available space,it does not always work the way the planners want it to. The most planned areas tend to fall apart the fastest. The reasons for this remain unknown. However, one major reason is that city planning does not always take the communities’ wishes into perspective. Planning is solely based on theory, not on people’s emotions. This is one downside to city planning. Any neighborhood will become a slum if people do not want to live there. If city planners do not take into account what the people of the neighborhood want, then they will leave. The only people left will be those who cannot afford to leave. This is why slums form, no matter how much more planning goes into the area. Jane Jacobs cared what the people wanted, and planed accordingly. However, Robert Moses planned for the most efficient city possible. He used mostly theory in his planning, and used his influence in order to get his wishes to come true.He was more of a modernist and wanted to make the city more available for cars. He built massive highways and bridges in order to connect the city and make it more accessible. Most of his plans worked, however many were turned down due to their projected effect on the city. While his projects were useful in the longterm, at the time they displaced many people. This form of city planning is not good for the city overall, because it can lead to an increase in slums where the citizens are unhappy.

Discussion question: If city planning is considered a pseudoscience that often does not work and leads to the creation of slums, why continue to attempt to plan out a perfect city?

 

 

Reading Response #2

What's Taking Shape?

The development of some of the first and largest North American cities was due to British colonization. They settled cities that were on the coast and near good resources because that was easiest for them. After the American Revolution, cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston became the center of the new American world. This was because they were the most developed once the British left, and they were in optimal locations to continue to expand. This is when the cycle of urbanization and suburbanization started. People flocked to cities because they believed there was better opportunity there. Then, once the cities became crowded and unsanitary, people left to suburban areas in order to escape the city life. They were still able to travel to the city for work due to advancements in technology. Cars, trains, and other modes of mass transportation were the main push behind suburbanization. Cities became crowded not only due to population growth, but due to immigration. Soon, the only option was to push Westward because the cities in the East became too crowded. Once the second wave of migration started, people in the cities became frustrated with the immigrants. They believed that the immigrants were stealing their jobs because they would work worse jobs for less money. This caused a panic and the government even went so far as to make laws regulating immigration to the United States. These exclusion laws in 1921 and 1924 were similar to immigration laws in other countries. One such country is Australia. After British colonization, the Australian government created a “White Australia” policy. This policy excluded non-white immigrants from entering the country. The main way of excluding immigrants, was through a diction test. The test came in many different languages and was given until the unwanted immigrant failed. The United States did not get this extreme in excluding immigrants, and eventually came to accept the roles immigrants played in developing the cities. Now, cities are a conglomerate of people from many different countries. This is crucial to the cultural development of this country, because this time period is the start of the United States we know today.

 

Discussion questions: What started the rumors of the American dream? How would American culture and development be effected without the influences from immigrants?

Reading response 1

What's Taking Shape?

Overall, it seems that the New York City public wants a change in the local government. People want to move away from a financially driven government to one that takes care of the poor and homeless. It appears that New York City has been successful since the Wall Street Crisis in 2008. However, this success has been largely concentrated in the richest 1% of people living in the city. This has mainly been due to Bloomberg focusing more on the financial aspects of the city than the public’s well being. He wants to take care of his own employees, and other public workers such as police officers. However, there has been an increasing amount of homeless people living in the city, as well as a rise in poverty. While the rich have become richer, the poor have become poorer. The current minimum wage is not enough to sustain a family because taxes and the cost of living continue to rise. This is one of the main reasons the public has turned to supporting de Blasio. He wants to make a change to support the homeless and the poor members of society instead of the rich. He wants to make a better public school system that is more available to the public instead of the competitive, cutthroat system Bloomberg has in place. I agree with the article that it is mainly the atmosphere of change that is propelling him forward. It is a combination of past events and the current feeling of unrest that is the main reason de Blasio has the support of the public. If there were another candidate who was asking for change like de Blasio, would he have as much support? People seem to just want change to happen, I do not think they really mind who is bringing that change. As long as the poor are taken care of, they will be happy. However, most methods of helping the poor involve taking away from the wealthy, which the wealthy would not support. This makes political change extremely hard and slow. The public needs to understand that as much as de Blasio promised to change the way the New York City government is working, it will take a long time for this 180-degree switch to happen. The public may get frustrated during this time, but it is crucial for the public to continue to stand behind whoever they believe will bring the change they want. Without public support there is no way that the issue of the rise in homelessness and the rise in poverty will be fixed.

 

Discussion question: If there were another candidate who was asking for change like de Blasio, would he have as much support?