Today we picked up where we left off last Wednesday, and worked in groups to distill the problems we are working on, the roots of those problems, and what can/should be done.  We also wove into our analyses the most relevant and resonant concepts from recent readings.   Here are some highlights from my notes:

From the Future of Homelessness Group: The problem is a lack of caring- people become dependent on sources/forces that are too controlling and abusive-i.e. invasion of privacy; we need solutions that give power back to communities.  For example, Community Land Trust (CLTs) would do this by given communities the opportunity for – transformative community development and a sense of independence.

From the Private Development Group: The problem is uneven growth/development/distribution of $- which leads to lack of opportunities for some and privilege for others.  In El Barrio there is a lack of $ and community vibe is really important.  When private development occurs, wealthier people move in and further break down the sense of community.  What can be done?  We need a counter to place-less planning- with tighter regulations, case by case zoning, tax redistribution, better representation in government, access to public space- i.e. crack is whack park is now threatened by highway expansion.

From the Community Gardens Group:  Oppression… The city planning commission/community planning boards are not very open to community involvement.  As shown in the El Barrio film, people care but have no agency to impact decisions, and people outside the community have the power; CPC is not helping this situation, which silences the residents’ voices (also the CPC is not powerful enough- just advisory.) The gardens being closed down are in poor parts of Harlem and Brooklyn, where these spaces/resources are particularly important.  Organizing seems most necessary at this point- Melrose Commons, Nos Quedamos, and Bronx United – are examples- but there is no recognized public policy group that unites them, so alliance organizing might be a good idea.

Great work everyone!  Think of these as outlines for your projects- use them to dig more deeply, get more specific, and clarify the links between your issue, research questions, methods, findings, conclusions, and products.

This week takes a new approach to defining community, and brings into question the politics of place. Instead of just using a community as a standard, Hayden investigates the built environment as questioning for who the city is for and who it belongs to. This characteristic is especially interesting within the urban setting, and in new york, because of continuous growth the city is experiencing at the hands of both private developers as well as federal and local government.  Space is a cultural product that indicates both identity and history of certain group, while revealing specific social connotations (“knowing one’s place”, a woman’s place”). Hayden argues that preserving the memory of place  is not enough, and that public space is necessary and must foster a need for maintaining diversity and culture.   Having “Place” is then defined as a privilege by Young, and those who have limited access to space do no get an equal hand in shaping social reproduction and a full spectrum of economic and political rights. Young states that terms like “sprawl” are applicable specifically to a privileged class, as urban centers continuously reveal growing minority, low income populations.

However, these notions are tested in what we’ve been talking about as gentrification. In a city as a growth machine, with very limited access to land, growth must occur in neighborhoods that may be considered “undesirable” or that “need fixing anyway”. Place then becomes a political matter, as land is seized by those who can afford it and used in a manner which Hayden would argue does not consider its social impacts.  We’ve been discussing the role of the government in city planning, yet are facing a situation of a shifting focus to private development at the hands of a neoliberal economy. New ownership of space is what is then used to exploit and oppress certain people within these communities. While they might be part of the labor force that takes on developments, these developments shape how the city grows, with little public investment. Gentrification drives rents up, destroys the identity of place, and makes these places unsuitable for those who lived in  them initially. “Placeless” planning, as Hayden would define it, can not meet the needs of an existing community, contributing to marginalization of people within their own communities.

We should consider whether De Blasio’s inclusionary housing plan actually considers the politics of place. As understood in Smith’s article from  few weeks ago, it doesn’t at all. Proposed developments are not for communities but for market growth within a capitalist economy. “Inclusionary Housing” is not in fact inclusionary, as it must be discussed in terms of a larger built environment- the entire architectural landscape of a community, what existed before development, as well as a shifting political and demographic situation.

To what extent is public space in the hands of communities?   Is any form of community  planning able counter “Placeless” planning? How can we ensure economic diversity in preservation?

Hayden’s article on place commences with an insight into what it means to say architecture as opposed to  what is vernacular, and further, how a neighborhood is defined.  Presenting a he-said she-said contrast allowed easy insight to the two sides of the debate, as well as clear logic that a happy equilibrium of both in terms of perspective, and preservation is necessary.  By that, I mean that architecture chosen as representative of their time and place should not only be indicative of the time through it’s historical impact (such as the vernacular, working class buildings with cultural significance) but also preserve the beauty of the architecture, such as those many buildings by McKim, Mead, and White.  It is so important to have places that show the “essence” of a city through its society (the people) and the politics, which should, if being preserved, have some significance and meaning, and message, that makes them worth keeping around.  Purely-for-beauty preservation, well funds can be better allocated, especially if the public wouldn’t even have access to these luxurious sites.

In his discussion over the many aspects of design that goes into considering the built environment of an urban landscape, Hayden touches on an important theme when referring to the ideas of Lefebvre.  Lefebvre argues that “the production of space is essential to the inner workings of the political economy,” thus illustrating the inherent tie between capitalism and the architecture of a city.  It becomes evident in tract houses, malls, the identical suites in skyscrapers, all loose a sense of identity, history, and meaning  in their repetitious modularity.  Comparing this back to last weeks class, it becomes painfully obvious that so much of the built environment is not influenced by the social factor (when in reality, this should be the most important – buildings and cities are for people), but rather they are designed with profit in mind.  This incentive not only pushes for appeal to the upper class inhabitants, but also for the cheapest possible production, which means laying out one design and repeating it to meet quota.  Architecture, a field encompassing of so many aspects of living, strives to design for the user most efficient to their way of life, and when presented with problems, will strive for solutions.  I find it disheartening how much design is compromised for cost, and thus people and their ways of living become dependent on the market.

Thus, when Hayden argues that architecture as a discipline “has not seriously considered social or political issues,” I find it works poetically when he goes further to say that society develops without consideration of space and design, but I think this is false.  Design of space completely affects the way societies develop, and further on in the article, his examples of analysis of areas with radical political systems, such as communist cities, only furthers the point that design and social/political issues are not mutually exclusive.  They are fundamentally related.  In looking into the future design, architecture of course needs to understand the social implications of its time and space, as well as how the grander layout will affect a city and its people politically.  We see this so easily in retrospect, such as in the tenement houses that not only tell of a time when code wasn’t enforced, when immigrants worked hard for little pay to support families, and when a corrupt city struggled to make important advances in the lifestyles of its citizens.  Tenements, however negative in light, tell us so much about the culture of the time, the society, and the politics.  There is so much to learn from them moving forward with housing, and relatively, so much to learn about design implementation based on what worked and what didn’t in our past.  Hayden suggests this; urban planning can be influenced by digging into the past, recongnizing the “social diversity of the cities as well as communal uses of space,” and creating a heightened sense of “place.”

Question: Will design always have to be compromised for cost, or can a new system where designing is made priority and profit secondary be implemented to better society?

Even though NYC is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, it’s interesting that the patterns of community that have taken shape over the years diverge from this notion of a melting pot. Rather than actually appear like a blend of different ethnicities, communities have segregated based largely on race and class. Being born and raised in NYC, I have grown accustomed to the different racial communities and have attributed it to a sense of nationalism; thinking that people simply feel more comfortable with their own race. However, this is not entirely the case. The article, “Privileged Places” by Squires, on the other hand, takes a deeper look into these patterns, and explains them through analysis of new urban sociology.

More specifically, Squires focuses on the relationship between structural constraints, location, race, and privilege and how these aspects create an influence on the community. According to the article, race has a really big role in public policy and the creation of communities and is essentially what determines the types of privileges that residents of a community can enjoy. By census, poor blacks and hispanics have been more likely to live in poor neighborhoods than poor whites. This has resulted overtime from wealth, fiscal, and social disparities among the races. For instance, non-whites earn a lot less than what whites earn, even with the same educational backgrounds, capabilities, jobs, and incomes. When it comes to home equity, blacks also receive 18% value for their investments, which is not as much as whites receive. These various inequalities have caused an uneven development and distribution of privilege, which spills over to effect the quality of life for underprivileged neighborhoods. This has been associated with issues such as teen pregnancy and high school dropouts.

It is because of all these disparities and low employment rates that certain people move to certain communities. Their choices are largely based on their financial capabilities, which are negatively impacted by discrimination. Therefore, sometimes some may not have a choice but to move into a neighborhood because of affordability. When it comes to solutions, it is a beneficial suggestion to have different groups become allies, that otherwise wouldn’t have a reason to work together. It makes sense that specializing in different purposes but having the same underlying motive might make the alliance a powerful one by offering differing perspectives on the issue and solutions that are strengthened by different facets.

I really appreciated the definition of exploitation provided here, because I realized that I’ve often heard and used the word without having a clear, concrete definition for it. The idea that transferring of the results of labor from one social group to the benefit of another is exploitation is a concept that I think is really powerful. Homeless people might not seem to be victim to exploitation, but only to someone who believes in the stereotype that homeless people don’t work. The Urban Institute says that about 45 percent of homeless adults have worked in the past month, which makes them some of the clearest possible victims of exploitation. If they are being hired, that means that someone is profiting from their work somehow, but they aren’t getting even the most basic benefits from this work–a stable place to live–so they are clearly being exploited.

The inseparable relationship between underdevelopment and race is made clear in Squires and Kubrin’s argument. Both authors asses the nature of spatial and racial inequality and put forth possible solutions to this social problem. The history of uneven development has its roots in post-World War II years – where sprawl, concentrated poverty, and segregation were the descriptors of metropolitan development. Squires and Kubrin continue to make the connection between the sprawl, concentrated poverty, and racial segregation and the conceived “concentration effects” of privileges in different neighborhoods and racial groups. These “concentration effects shape opportunities and lifestyles throughout the life cycle and across generations” (349). It’s a kind of generational curse that keeps cycling on. According to the authors, the way out comes in the form of an uncommon allies, “coalitions that cut across interest groups and racial groups” (352).  Examples of such allies would be anti-poverty groups and affordable housing advocates to address the issue of the housing crisis. Another example was school choice and fair housing groups.

I agree with Squires and Kubrin’s “uncommon allies” suggestion. In the grander scheme of things, we have to acknowledge our global crisis. In a system of neoliberal capitalism, there’s so such thing as stopping to solve the root problem. It’s apparent in the way our government has even handled our 2008 financial crisis. We kept pushing back the budget problem because the focus was on maintaining the economy. The issue of uneven development finds its macro-roots to the rise of industry. Everything became a commodity, even basic needs. Therefore, in order to challenge the present system, there’s a strong argument against solving capitalism crisis with capitalist solutions – because it’s an impossible task. The very nature of neoliberalism is to expand profit making in a forceful way. Solutions shouldn’t carry that intent. “Uncommon allies” suggests a method of breaking down the profit-lust that our society seeps in. No longer are coalitions self-focused in that they’re only concerned with promoting their agenda. But in coming together as a collective group to champion the same goals, that will lead to smarter answers.

Especially in New York City, the concept of place cannot be defined through a single narrative. As Hayden discusses in the chapter “Claiming Urban Landscapes as Public History”, analyzing and commentating on the history of public space requires the incorporation of various sociological elements such as gender, race, and ethnicity. Moreover, the chapter focuses heavily on “ the power of place” and how urban memories (streets, buildings, gatherings etc.) are entities that cannot go unnoticed by any effort to preserve a community. Additionally, Hayden mentions that the manipulation of space has been a powerful tool not only for altering economic conditions in some areas, such increasing jobs or enhancing transportation, but also for constraining certain social groups. As Hayden explains, “One of the consistent ways to limit the economic and political rights of groups has been to constrain social reproduction by limiting access to space” (Hayden, 1995). In other words, policies like zoning have significant implications in the realms of politics and economics. Alongside the constraints, the chapter also cites many sources that note that the existence of capitalism in American society and the altered landscape, mentalities and production practices have essentially separated people from their spatial history. Hence, Hayden concludes the chapter by advising preservationists who seek to revive deteriorating communities to critically analyze the idea of place through the lens of sociological memories and experiences rather than ordinary aesthetics.

“The power of place” is resonated in the “Privileged Places” chapter by Squires and Kubrin by stating that the notion of privilege is bound to have a spatial component. Moreover the chapter mentions that the opportunities one has in a metropolitan setting is undoubtedly underscored by his/her “place and race”, which in turn is dictated by public policy and zoning constraints (Kubrin and Squires, 2012). One of the main ideas presented in the chapter, and also something I can relate to, is suburban sprawl. Apart from the fact that my neighborhood (in Long Island) is predominantly white, I can agree that it has access to “products and services associated with the good life . . .health, education, employment” (Kubrin and Squires, 2012). Additionally, my commute to school makes me realize that as you get closer to the city, the more racially and ethnically diverse the stops on the LIRR become even though they are middle-class neighborhoods. Hence, it is no surprise when the chapter mentions that the residential choices many families make are ultimately involuntary and segregated in nature due to calculating public policies that limit opportunities for people of color. Employment is just one example. Furthermore, I found the ending of the chapter to be quite appealing, especially for our project on affordable housing. The mentioned “alliances” between affordable housing and school-choice groups or between governments and “transit-oriented” developers in low-income communities offer plausible solutions the cyclic dilemma plaguing the city.

Discussion Question:  Would the “uncommon alliances” mentioned in the chapter be readily endorsed by mayor De Blasio and his administration?

References

• Hayden, D. (1995) “Claiming Urban Landscapes as Public History” and “Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space,” from The Power of Place, p. 1-43.
• Squires, G. and Kubrin, C. (2012). “Privileged Places” from The Community Development Reader, p. 347-352.