All posts by fannyho

Public Intellectuals at the MHC Model City Council

Research-in-Action

According to Corey Robin in “How Intellectuals Create a Public,” a public intellectual “is writing for an audience that does not yet exist…she is writing for a reader she hopes to bring into being.” It is already hard to write for an existing public, but to write for a public that doesn’t exist yet is harder. This unknown public was the target audience at the MHC Model City Council. We were the public intellectuals trying to create a public for our issues. At the MHC Model City Council, groups were advocating their issues and trying to spread awareness; they were trying to create a public that cares and will take action.

It was interesting to see the other presentations within the same session because we get to see how they can relate to each other. In the Urban Environmentalism session, the pollution/greenhouse gases group mentioned how delivery trucks contribute to greenhouse gases and they made a small reference to our group, Not-so-FreshDirect. The recycling group showed a map of recycling centers and I noticed that one was located in the South Bronx area. From our background research of the South Bronx, it would make sense for a recycling center to be located in the historically industrial area.

Seeing these presentations were insightful and though small, we were able to create publics for our topics and engage the audience.

Environmental Justice

Clarifying Key Concepts

“From Environmental Justice to Community Planning” shows the unfair treatment of neighborhoods. A waste-management facility will never be seen in a rich, upscale neighborhood. As a matter of fact, better-off neighborhoods won’t even be considered. That decision wasn’t from any comprehensive plan or from local input. Poor neighborhoods or communities of color, on the other hand, will most likely get the unwanted facilities. In 1989, there was a city charter revision that incorporated the fair-share principle so “that no neighborhood should have more than its share of burdensome facilities” (133), but the lack of strict regulations prevented the principle from being enforced. In 1994, Executive Order 12898 was ordered on environmental justice to address disproportionate environmental burdens, but it was ignored by the subsequent administration. The not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) philosophy was used to justify the unfairness.

Angotti mentions the South Bronx. In 1991, the Bronx Lebanon Medical Waste Incinerator was “built in a low-income neighborhood near a public housing project and several schools” (137), an example of low-income neighborhoods getting LULUs (local unwanted lands uses). Toxic air is frequently discharged, but the official environmental review concluded that “there would be no significant negative environmental impact” (138). Engineers also did not consider “that even a single failure in operations could have a catastrophic effect on the people living around the facility” (138). Reading the South Bronx reminded me of the tour our community contact, Mychal Johnson, gave us. Even though the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition was successful in closing the medical waste incinerator, there was still a chemical smell in the air. Mychal also told us that a Con Edison electricity plant explosion caused residents to lose power. The land erodes every time it rains and may flood during big storms. With incoming stronger storms caused by climate change and a lack of water mitigation, it really looks as if the engineers didn’t put too much consideration for the local residents in case something goes wrong at the waterfront facilities.

 

Discussion: If a low-income neighborhood with LULUs is gentrified, then what will happen to the facilities? Will the facilities be given subsidies to relocate to another low-income neighborhood because the current neighborhood is now upscale and deserves NIMBY philosophy?

Project Update March 24-30

Future of Environmental Justice and Sustainability, Updates - Envr Justice

On Saturday, April 26, Amir, Brianna, Nick, and I met up with our contact, Mychal Johnson, for a tour of the waterfront. We met at the intersection of Alexander Ave. and E 138th St., which Mychal described as the center of the neighborhood because the train station, the police precinct, and St. Jerome’s Church are located there. There was also a reporter from DNAinfo named Gwynne Hogan who recorded the tour for a podcast. Mychal talked about the high asthma rates and told us that they are considered an environmental justice community by the EPA because of the high asthma rates, poor air quality, and air pollutants.

Mychal told us a brief history of the South Bronx. The area has always been industrial. The land is cheap so businesses move in, such as Budweiser from Long Island City, Fresh Direct from Long Island City, FedEx from 34th St., Fulton Fish Market, and others. There are waste transfer stations in which 30% of NYC waste pass through. There was supposed to be an intermodal rail yard to reduce traffic but instead there is a garbage train route. Garbage trucks would bring garbage to the waste transfer station and the train would take the garbage to a landfill in Virginia. Most of the trucks are diesel trucks and PM2.5, a carcinogen found in diesel fuel, can directly enter the bloodstream and cause cancer, heart attacks, and asthma.

Mychal told us that they want green space; they want parks that other waterfront areas have. There are plans for luxury apartments to be built where rent can go up to $3000 for those apartments. They want green space for the community, not for the new people who will move in and can afford $3000 apartments. They don’t want to be another Dumbo where the carousel was built after people moved into the neighborhood. They have two options: do nothing and have nothing, or do something. There is only one green park, St. Mary’s Park, and a couple of asphalt playgrounds. The Bronx has a lot of green space in general, but the amount of green space per person in the South Bronx is low. Mychal also told us of a study where cognitive development in children is related to the air we breathe. He spoke of environmental racism. The air they breathe is different and there was a chemical smell. When there are ferry tours around the city, the guides have nothing to say when they reach the South Bronx.

In 1995 and 2007 the South Bronx was rezoned to increase residential space and allow lightweight industry. The area became mix used and the number of residents increased. Mychal showed us more of the waterfront. We saw the Fresh Direct site and saw a partially built building. He told us that the Fresh Direct site is on top of a Native American burial ground and is a flood zone. Other facilities along the waterfront are a FedEx distribution facility, two power plants, New York Post distribution center, New York Journal distribution center, and garbage truck parking lot. He told us that there was no community input and that the community did not find out about the Fresh Direct relocation until after the announcement. He told us that tax payers are paying Fresh Direct for the move: about $80 million from the city and $40 million from the state.

Mychal continued to show us the waterfront and we saw the destruction and mess caused from Hurricane Sandy. The floorboards of the pier are destroyed and haven’t been fixed. The waterfront is a flood zone but there are no ways for water mitigation at all. In 1980 there was an explosion at the Con Edison electricity plant and residents lost power. With the climate changing there will be more storms but there are no water mitigation plans or plans to fix the piers.

At the end of the tour Mychal took us to Brook Park where we saw a garden and a chicken coop.

From this tour we learned a lot. It was informative and Fresh Direct isn’t the only problem the South Bronx has. The land is eroding storm after storm and nothing is being done to prevent or fix damaged areas.

 

The group is still communicating through emails. We are continuing to research environmental policies and injustices. We will continue to work on the historical narrative and the white paper. We plan on making a survey to gather residential input on Fresh Direct. We are also thinking of how to make a video for the public engagement product.

As of now, the podcast is not yet up on DNAinfo.

The Lack of Community Input

Clarifying Key Concepts

Community intervention has principles from the Progressive Era. One principle is planning in collaboration between experts and citizens. Another principle is citizen or resident participation. For communities to grow and develop, residential involvement is required because the residents are the ones who know the communities best, not the experts. However, there aren’t any collaborations. Experts go to the citizens for approval or promotion of their plans rather than for advice on the plans (15).

This can be seen in the South Bronx and Fresh Direct. The South Bronx community had no say in the matter; they were not consulted. As a matter of fact, they didn’t even know about the Fresh Direct plan until two days after it was approved. There isn’t a collaboration because the South Bronx community isn’t being heard. They want green space, a park, something that would benefit their community, not Fresh Direct, which would add to the area’s already existing poor air quality. The South Bronx community is working together in other to bring change for themselves.

“Communities are the realm in which current workers maintain their health and well-being, and future workers are born, breed, and educated” (3).
How can that be, if a community is suffering because their voices are not being heard? How can people live healthy, happy lives and raise their children in an environment where they have no input?

To Build a Park or to Develop

Contemporary Planning in NYC

Well-designed “parks, playgrounds, and street-scapes” would help make urban areas “livable and attractive for residents and businesses” (Yaro and Hiss 1996, 14). “Abandoned and underutilized” waterfronts and leftover industrial sites and landfills–together accounting for fifty thousand acres of brownfield–would be redeveloped (15).

…”the reclamation of the region’s urban waterfronts offers opportunities to create extraordinary new public spaces”…

In time, Bloomberg would also embrace the use of parks and open spaces to enhance real estate values, drive development, and raise issues of environmental sustainability and projected population growth to assert the need for immediate and decisive action.

In 2007 the administration proposed spending an additional $3 billion over three years to develop eight regional parks and expand the city’s network of green spaces so that no New Yorker was more than a ten-minute walk from a park or patch of grass (Benepe 2007). Plans for proposed waterfront redevelopments in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens featured additional public open space, ensuring city residents access to the water while at the same time providing developers with nearby public amenities sure to enhance the value of their projects (Burden 2007a).

Reading those sentences made me think of what is going on in the South Bronx and FreshDirect’s relocation. A section of the waterfront will be redeveloped and FreshDirect will operate from there. The relocation would bring jobs according to FreshDirect. However, residents wouldn’t be able to use FreshDirect since many live under the poverty line. From the reading, redevelopment of waterfronts can increase real estate values. If prices and rents increase, then residents may be displaced. Having FreshDirect in the South Bronx also isn’t beneficial for the residents’ health. There are high asthma rates and the addition of diesel trucks would add to the pollution.

Why can’t waterfronts be redeveloped into parks? Parks and green spaces would enhance the neighborhood and the waterfront view is attractive. The reading gives the impression that parks/green spaces and waterfronts are separate spaces. The government giving incentives, subsidies, and tax cuts would encourage development in waterfronts, which would in turn increase real estate values and lead to more development. The reading also mentions that having parks and green spaces can bring the same effect, too. Parks and green spaces can improve health, are good for the environment, and may not displace residents. So why not build a park instead and have more New Yorkers live within a 10 minute walk from a park? As it happens, some residents of the South Bronx would rather turn the waterfront into parks and green spaces than to have a FreshDirect facility.

Discussion: What does it mean to reclaim waterfronts? How should waterfronts be handled? Should they be redeveloped or should they be turned into parks?

Real Estate Won’t Give People of Color a Break

The Capital of Capital

In the readings we always see that ethnic groups get the short end of the stick. In the second chapter of Tom Angotti’s book, we continue to see that ethnic groups get the stick in real estate. Tom Angotti writes, “Central locations are generally highest in land value, and as land values in central areas go up, rents go up…this creates a ripple effect that forces people out and creates opportunities for redevelopment. This is the central dynamic underlying what is now called gentrification, a product of the normal operation of the real estate market as it pushes out poor people and people of color and brings in people who can pay higher rents” (43). Since immigrants are a large part of the labor force, it’s impossible for them to afford the high rents in upscale neighborhoods with their low wages.

On pages 47 and 48 are two maps of the city showing the percentage of poverty and the percentage of non-Hispanic Blacks. The maps match up with the high percentages of poverty and high percentages of immigration being in the same area and vice versa. These maps further show how segregated the city can be. Even if people of color have the money to live in the upscale neighborhoods, “the sale and rental of property is color-coded” (49). Racism, discrimination, and “racial steering” prevent immigrants from moving into white neighborhoods.

There is also “blockbusting,” which exploits ethnic groups to satisfy the real estate greed. Rumors are spread that people of color are moving in to lower home values, which would allow realtors to buy homes for low prices and then sell the homes at high prices to people of color. They are being used to change neighborhood values, like that example of a Puerto Rican restaurant being a “blight” and that its presence would lower a neighborhood’s value.

People of color are constantly being pushed around and exploited. They live in their own neighborhoods separate from white neighborhoods. For a city that is known to be multicultural, this doesn’t look like it.

Discussion Question: Can New York City really be called a melting pot despite being heavily segregated?