Monday we started the section of our course called “crafting a critical framework” by discussing the concept/importance/contradictory nature of community, community development, and community control (through DeFilippis, Saegert, and O’Connor).  Today we incorporated the concepts of community organizing (through DeRienzo) and community planning (through Angotti) into our critical framework- making sure to be clear about what we mean by these different modes of community practice (and what we mean by community).  After briefly reviewing each of these concepts (which were beautifully engaged in your reading responses this week), we took stock of our personal and collective view on the name of the problem(s) we are addressing in this course, the root causes of the problem(s), and of what can/should be done about the problem(s).  Throughout this section of our course, we will engage with various concepts that should help us to enhance our abilities to understand, articulate, and engage with the above- in our class, in your projects, in our everyday lives.

A refreshing opinion in the DiRienzo article is re-evaluation of approaching community planning by first defining what it means to be a community.  In a quest for returning power and democracy to the community unit, it is crucial to understand a community in its basic make-up, inspirations, potential, and capacities.  I think it’s a simple, yet innovative perspective that many overlook, often trying to rush large and complicated programs of re-development or zoning in hopes of repairing what seem like slummy, low-class poor areas, when often times, a little simple solution, based in the deeper analysis of a community entity, is what really makes a difference.

DiRienzo defines the community with three principles: commonality, interdependence, and collective capacity.  A community is not a neighborhood, although it may occupy or be occupied by one.  Rather than focusing on the physical housing, their proximities, similarities, and services, a community is about the people, what they share in common that unites them in their efforts and desires, and some inherent ability to accomplish these goals.  DiRienzo makes an interesting point about this final statue; collective capacity .  He states that this can be gauged by merely looking at how much of the community’s institutions are owned by the residents, rather than outside resources.  As a judgement of health, this predicts a lot of other signs that if a community is involved in its programs, there is a greater sense of unity.  This makes me wonder if such an idea can really be unifying if it is so defining.  Sure it seems great to allow a community complete ownership of those forces which govern their way of living, but then doesn’t that just continue to create many inward-turned communities that don’t then branch-out to each other?  If all communities are completely self-sustaining, then what is created is not a working system, but a hierarchy of groups.  DiRienzo’s idea of interdependence then makes an interesting presence; same situation applies to the economic capacity that must be reliant on relations amongst members to improve the quality of the community.  I think there is something beautiful about the way that New York has many different communities, but that it’s important that they too connect with each other, otherwise, it is an inevitable border war.

In the end, DiRienzo argues that grand, elaborate plans are not necessary; a deeper evaluation can yield even more success from plans that aim to promote human values, “reverse destructive isolating dynamics, marginalize them economically, disenfranchise them politically.”

I think Angotti would agree with this perspective, but he also makes more arguments for what other features regarding communities are important to take into consideration with planning.  Angotti presents a strong point that is the origin of many struggles and hardships with housing; security.  We live constantly in flux; by the time you buy the newest, most advanced technology, there will be an even better model in the works coming out tomorrow.  Building homes for longevity is an easy concept to grasp, but when thinking about neighborhoods and communities, one needs only ask a resident who has been living in any one home in the city for more than ten years, and will hear about the constant change in the community.  Community dynamics shift, and influence a landslide of other features of living.  This isn’t always organic growth and decay, however, but the result of forced displacement in the process of seemingly “improving” a transient neighborhood.  One of the greatest insecurities of the homeowner is not having tenure, of buying a home, or getting a home, living in it, but soon being faced with displacement for some urban plan that hasn’t taken them into account.  It is a basic housing right to have tenure, to be able to live somewhere and not be faced with forced displacement that not only unearths a community, but destroys it, and each lifestyle engrained in it.

Angotti’s ideas on planning continue with first understanding those key features that make a community what it is, and those must  be taken into consideration for successful plans, of which, displacement is never one.

There are a lot more factors that have to be considered when considering different community planning ideas than you would think. The readings stress the idea that you should define what a community/ neighborhood is before trying to go in and change everything. Communities are more than just houses and economic structures. And not all neighborhoods are created equal. Some locations accept their current social/ economic state and do not attempt to change it. Others are filled with members who believe, together, that they can make positive change. When trying to community plan one must keep in mind which type of community that one leans towards.

Progressive planning keeps regional and global ideals in mind when planning out a community. They strive for “local and global equality” while keeping the environment in mind. This is important because communities aren’t mere buildings, they can also include parks and gardens. The land itself is very important, especially in a place as dense as New York City. I was surprised by the fact that different social issues are taken into consideration when planning, issues such as feminism. This, however, makes perfect sense. The things that are changing and happening around the world, especially issues that involve minorities and women, are vitally important when planning a community because we don’t want to isolate groups of people. Instead we should strive to build communities that celebrate all different cultures, background, and income levels.

Community is a word that tends to be stretched countless different ways without one overarching or even unifying definition. One very important point I got from Harold DeRienzo’s article is that communities are not just places, they are defined by the presence of interdependence and a commonality and these two factors give the community agency to act and develop. The two models he assigns for community development recognize the political framework of communities in two unique lights. The first, called the Static Enhancement Model, fully accepts the existing social, political, and economic situation surrounding a community and suggests ways that the community can enhance their standing within this situation. DeRienzo rejects this model, saying that realities are not static, they are constantly being created and changed. The Transformative Model better fits DeRienzo’s ideas, as well as the ideas of Tom Angotti, who focuses on policies and economies and how they can better work to serve communities. Both articles see communities and the political landscape as working together fluidly. Power is a critical aspect of these frameworks. DeRienzo says that power lasts for as long as people remain working together, and disappears as soon as they disperse.

Still, many communities are controlled by outside sources of power, especially those with low income residents. Tom Angotti looks at community planning, and its interaction with the large scale powerful real estate development of New York City. He cites Robert Fitch’s Assassination of New York as demonstrating how the FIRE sector dominates the city’s land use and fiscal policies. This sector has a huge impact on the political landscape as the biggest financial backer of political campaigns. So how has community planning stood up to such a huge power force in New York City? Angotti describes community planning movements as dynamic and sophisticated. It’s players are constantly working to create new strategies and ways to interact with the real estate stakeholders of the city. He says that urban planning can work to mediate the gap between real estate development and local community interests with this dynamic sophistication. Combined with DeRienzo’s power concept of the inherent capabilities of people working together, Angotti makes a strong case for the role of urban planning.

DQ: In each of our projects, where is the power held? In the community or outside of it? How do we give more power to unified communities?

Harold DeRienzo’s chapter works on a technical level to identify what communities are and what problems they have. Essentially he defines communities, which relates to Alice O’Connors chapter in The Community Development Reader. O’Connor pointed out that community development is a term that holds various meanings. The interventions and federal policies that it encompasses are not comprehensive and coherent, thus leading to failing programs that do not learn from past mistakes. DeRienzo emphasizes that in order to tackle an issue, we must have a clear, precise understanding of what that issue means. If we are not specific about what we are doing, then it can harm the very people we are trying to help. In defining what communities are, he lays to foundation for addressing O’Connor’s issue with the notorious ambiguity of community development.

From his definitions, we sum that communities exist through common issues or circumstances that a group of people hold, economic interdependence and the capacity to tackle common issues through institutions. In the case of the poor, although the first two components seem reachable, the last one – which he calls collective capacity – does not. To be able to accomplish goals, they have to have control over their institutions. They simply do not have to resources, education, or skill to do so. This idea of power coming from within a community, rather than from external forces relates to Tom Angotti’s critique of the U.S. rational-comprehensive planning model. This is a very orthodox approach that essentially gives professional planners all the power and is too grand to take into account all the differences people and neighborhoods have. Without taking all this in, developers are not specific enough and thus harm the people of these communities. This specificity is seen in advocacy planning – the basis for progressive planning – that Angotti discusses later in the chapter. This type of planning addresses minority interests, it is not just one big plan for a whole city. It also encourages people within neighborhoods to create their own plans.

DeRienzo also introduces two models of community development: the Static Enhancement Model and the Transformative Model. The former does not fix problems; it only helps residents on a surface level by better equipping them to tackle problems. The latter is preferable as it acknowledges that people can make a change and not just subject to the changes of life. Again, this relates to O’Connor’s chapter because it aims at tackling issues at their core in order to prevent unnecessary and harmful attempts from reoccurring. The orthodox model mentioned in the Angotti chapter seems to be a Static Enhancement Model. It tries to use physical answers like public housing problems to solve the problem of urban poverty. This does little to tackle the fact that the poor are poor and only helps a select few. The point that Paul Davidoff made in his “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning,” addresses this issue and how urban planning focuses on physical solutions too much. We should look at things from all perspectives: physical, economic, and social.

Discussion Question:  If professional planners have too much power and the poor are too under-equipped (money, education) to cultivate power, how should planning power be distributed?

In the article “Community planning without displacement: strategies for progressive planning,” Tom Angotti focuses on the close relationships among community planning, political strategy and the control over land-use (public vs private) which could contribute to the prevention of gentrification. He begins by discussing the connection between security of tenure and housing which has been a goal for housing and community movements. The power is usually in the hands of outside forces rather than between or within neighborhoods and it is important for community organizers to take into context these struggles for social justice and to change these relations of political power to play an important role in shaping the city. Angotti states, “ under industrial capitalism, planning became an explicit function of the state, industrial capitalism- contradictions within the capitalist class and between capital and labor.” Urban planning has been a means to address this contradiction. This ties in with James DeFilippis reading for Monday which provided this overview on the contradiction between production and social reproduction. Another important “element of progressive planning” is land-use. Urban planners need to look into ways to develop and regulate land and look at the long-term issues of land use. New York City’s land use policy has been largely been controlled by the economic theory and the powerful real estate sector. As Angotti states, the goal of the community planner is to aid in producing good communities and not just contribute to or accommodate market demand for development. Thus, there needs to be a much more strategic approach to land which would include the development and controlling of land-use. This could provide a “sense of place” that could slow or prevent the gentrification process in neighborhoods that is caused by profitable giant development projects. There is a major set of contradictions between real estate and communities just as between capital and labor. Due to the power of the real estate sector, which is a major node for the transaction of global capitalism, it conflicts with community planning especially in New York City. The real estate industry also plays a vital role in the development of both market-rate and affordable housing. This topic is relatable to our project on community gardens in terms of the connections to land-use and political policies and how that plays a role in community planning. DeRienzo in the article, “Community Organizing for Power and Democracy,” discusses what makes a neighborhood and a community before delving into how community building efforts can be characterized today and a few examples on how to prevent gentrification such as the use of public space should be restored by any community effort. I found DeRienzo’s article very organized and direct in terms of defining or explaining in terms of community planning. This is similar to what Angotti discusses in his article as key for community planners to take into account to slow the process of gentrification. I suppose the question to ask would be, is it indeed possible to mediate between community planning and political power(land-use is just another aspect of political power)?

After reading and learning much about failed and misplaces attempts to plan a community with the public in mind, it was refreshing to read sources that have a clear understanding that community planning needs to be based in a collective understanding of what community is.  As explained in DeRienzo’s pages, if we do not work from a grounded premise, we may find that we are in fact working to the detriment of those who we claim to be working for.  Essentially, we need to have a clear understanding of how and who we are helping in order to keep our efforts relevant to the issues at hand.  The goal is to be precise, not sloppy.  An extremely important point i found in the article is that the outside funders or protagonists in the case of community planning are likely to believe that the world just “is the way it is” and the only thing for communities that need rehabilitation to do is to learn to survive – but once these people lose their homes, they will understand that where they lived was not a community but just a housing cluster that had no interdependence.  I feel that this point emphasizes the importance of understanding how community works from the bottom-up rather than attempting to understand it “top-down” from the outside in order to make any real beneficial changes.  Another interesting bit DiRienzo notes is that it is possible to gauge a community’s health by how many institutions within it are controlled by the community and by whether the community feels a constant need to organize.  Additionally, the second type of community organizing he cites is exactly the kind that my group is dealing with in our project – the type in which a community organizes in order to discuss a specific issue that threatens to enforce political dynamics that made the proposal possible in the first place.  I found DiRienzo’s writing to be extremely well-organized, clear, and accurate in descriptions of things we find in our society.

Angotti’s chapter does well to explain the sources and bases of the issues of housing at hand before delving deeper.  He explains the value of tenure when it comes to housing and what displacement really is (when living in a home becomes impossible, dangerous, or otherwise due to various causes such as natural disaster but more importantly and predominantly unaffordability).  As I looked at Angotti’s chapter after reading DiRienzo, I had DiRienzo’s theories in mind as I observed Angotti’s discussions of urban renewal projects.  He asks an important question that may in fact be answered by some of DiRienzo’s explanation of community dynamics:  What knowledge and analysis will help community planners in developing their plans and linking them with political strategies?  This seems extremely relevant to our project in that we aim to investigate just that – how people inside of a community can use their perspectives to make a difference in community planning in their own areas.

Most of the readings on community planning thus far in the semester have expressed reoccurring themes of hardships, struggles to gain power and recognition,  and helplessness (as city projects continue to tear through neighborhoods). However, the articles by DeRienzo and Angotti offer a different perspective into the whole issue. Their articles take more of  an analytical and organized approach, focusing on the very definition of community and producing a recipe for successful community organizing efforts based on that definition. In contrast, previous articles tended to focus on the outcome of failed plans and posing possible solutions that didn’t have a strong basis of reasoning. With the community issue being as complicated as it is, these empty solutions just made the issue seem like it was going in circles. Although DeRienzo and Angotti don’t pose any specific plans to deal with community planning, their line of thought seems to contain a reasoning that can only prove to be beneficial for communities moving forward.

The main idea going into these articles is that before attempting to organize communities, you need to familiarize yourself with what you’re dealing with. This is an extremely important concept that’s significance often times becomes undermined. There’s more to a community than meets the eye. Angotti demonstrates three key points that compromise a community; commonality, interdependence, and collective capacity. He also highlights the role that power plays in community, saying that if a community were to die, so would the power that interplayed within it. He also goes as far as to say that if a community needs organizing, then there is actually an absence of community because a community cannot be sustained on organizing, but is sustained by the relations, networks, and processes that make it up. I thought this was a better way of viewing communities rather than the more simplistic definition that just tended to stamp any neighborhood as a community.