All posts by Jeffrey

Communities and Neighborhoods

Clarifying Key Concepts

In Harold DeRienzo’s “Community Organizing for Power and Democracy: Lessons Learned from a Life in the Trenches,” we are given definitions of neighborhood and community, which at first glance appear to be synonyms. However, DeRienzo considers them to be two separate concepts, and he explains the little nuances that differentiate them. One such nuance is that neighborhoods are based on geography, so it can be said that the defining characteristics of neighborhoods are the households, whereas communities are based on relationships, so it can be said that the defining characteristics of communities are the people. Furthermore, communities are implied to have a sense of unity and solidarity that neighborhoods, with their separate household units, lack.

It seems like Jane Jacobs would have agreed with DeRienzo’s definition of a community, and the mutually beneficial relationships that DeRienzo describes in a community bring to mind Jacobs’s description of the merits of stoop sitting, where community members would sit on their front steps and become the “eyes of the street,” keeping the neighborhood (and community) safe and dynamic. Another point of agreement between the two writers is the stress that they place upon the importance of public space in communities.

Discussion question: In this modern day and age, is it possible for a neighborhood to develop without a community?

 

Weekly Project Update – 3/30

Future of Public Transportation, Updates - Public Transportation

During the last week, we have mainly been continuing our research into how the BQX will impact public transportation within the city, which included going through the updated news and resources links that Aaron Kendall helpfully put up for us on the course website (Thanks Aaron!). We continued to dig into the light rail systems of Baltimore, Hoboken, and Washington D.C, but some of our group members also went and did some scouting work, including visiting the areas that the proposed BQX line will serve and contacting various community organizations that are connected to the BQX. We have also been discussing our research methodology and what we want our white paper to accomplish. The goal of our white paper is chiefly to inform and educate the media and the public about the BQX, but we also wish to influence those who have power over the project, including Mayor DeBlasio, whose pet project this is, his officials, and the investors.

One of the things that our group accomplished over the weekend was figuring out what our approach to gathering data and research will be. We decided at first that we would definitely need to collect quantitative data for our white paper, which will allow us to compare different metro systems with each other in an unbiased way. Consequently, quantitative data are going to be integral to the bulk of our white paper and for constructing our arguments. However, our white paper also needs qualitative data that tells us what people think about the BQX streetcar plan, especially those who live close to the proposed line and whose everyday lives will be affected by it. If our white paper is supposed to benefit and give a voice to these people, it would be extremely remiss to write it without any input from the people themselves!

We will gather our quantitative data through research on the internet, as it is the most convenient and accessible medium for procuring information about train systems in other states. Qualitative data will require a more interactive approach, though. We are thinking of using public opinion polls to figure out what residents and commuters think about streetcars and their potential effects upon their communities, including increasing land values and looser zoning restrictions. These will probably make real estate developers and landlords happy, but not their tenants. We hope that our community contacts will help us with collecting our qualitative data by administering surveys, answering our inquiries, and sharing their thoughts about the project.

Edwin took the opportunity to visit some of the places that will be served by the BQX line over the weekend, and he made several observations about these areas and neighborhoods while he was there. In Sunset Park, he found that many of the buildings there were being used for industrial and commercial purposes, with few residential buildings. He saw that there were already subway lines running through residential areas, just an avenue away from the planned BQX route, with subway stations being about a ten minute walk away for most residents. Edwin also saw that many businesses had trucks and cars double parked on the street, which would be an issue for the BQX.

Sonia emailed three more community organizations about the BQX, which are the Uprose Organization, the Red Hook Civic Organization, and the Regional Plan Association. We are trying to see if they would be interested in answering some of our questions about the BQX and help us with collecting our qualitative data. In any case, it can’t hurt to expand our community contacts! As of Wednesday, we are still waiting for a reply from these groups.

Adrian has been researching the impact of the Hudson-Bergen line in Hoboken. One interesting discovery that he made was that the Jersey waterfront used to be an industrial manufacturing and shipping hub too before becoming a semi vacant area with little development. Beginning in the early 90’s, New Jersey formed a master plan for the waterfront that included the light-rail line. They packaged the line with sweeping changes in zoning, just like what the BXQ plan intends to do. The area along the rail line has seen much commercial and residential development. The changes in zoning have also had a very small requirement of 1 parking space/1000sqft, which has since been reduced further. This indicates that there is a significantly decreased reliance on cars as a means for transportation.

Patrick has been continuing his research into the Baltimore light rail system. Most of the light rail in use today opened in 1992, coinciding with the opening of the Baltimore Orioles new stadium, Camden Yards. It was built without federal money, though the government paid for some costs in a 2004 expansion. The light rail in Baltimore, unlike the BQX in Brooklyn, was intended to help fans reach the new ballpark, and not to provide public transportation to underserved areas. Patrick was especially interested to learn how many streetcars and light rails were created in cities as a way to move money and stimulate the economy, even though they are now considered an environmentally friendly and cost-effective alternative to other forms of public transportation. There are some notable differences between the Baltimore light rail and the proposed BQX streetcar, though. The Baltimore route is about twice as long as the proposed BQX line, and not all of it runs through the city, while the BQX will only run along the waterfront. Outside of Downtown Baltimore, the light rail runs on private right-of-ways, which are privately owned and maintained access routes specifically made for light rails. Also, many of the Baltimore light rail tracks were already in place from defunct railcar routes.

Over the next week, we plan to use the social explorer tool, as it seems like it will be very helpful with our research into the streetcar systems of different cities and the neighborhoods that the BQX will serve. We definitely could use a clear way to compare population density and the needs of public transportation in certain neighborhoods, which is what we can get from the social explorer tool. We are still thinking about our public engagement product, and though we haven’t decided on whether we want to go with the website or the pamphlet yet, we do have an idea of what we want them to be like. If we go with the pamphlet, we would want it to be clear and easy to comprehend by somebody who picks it up, and it will probably look a bit like one of the MTA’s bus schedules. If we go with the website, we would want it to be clear and user friendly, but it would also be more in-depth and creative because of the lack of physical restrictions. We will continue to think about these choices.

The group has been functioning very smoothly so far, and everybody is going to continue researching the topics that they were assigned, but we are aiming to have a draft of each section by April 4th. We have been contacting each other via email and a shared google drive folder, which has been very productive so far.

Mixing Moses with Jacobs

Contemporary Planning in NYC

In Chapters 5 and 6 of his Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind, Larson presents two examples of real life development – the Regional Plan Association’s Third Regional Plan and the Bloomberg administration’s development plan. These plans both exhibited qualities that are in accord with Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs’s ideologies, but they ended up producing results that would have disappointed Jacobs, such as gentrification and the elimination of minority communities and neighborhoods.

The RPA sought to improve New York by emphasizing Economy, Equity, and Environment in order to increase the quality of life in the metropolitan region. By making the proper investments and policies that focused on all three of those qualities, they reasoned that they could create some long term solutions to many social problems and environmental threats, which were both ignored in the past due to the sole focus on Economy. This all sounds fine on paper, but in practice it resulted in the gentrification of neighborhoods, which was presumably what the RPA was hoping for in the first place. By privatizing public space in order to finance the changes that the RPA wished for, poor residents were gradually pushed out from their neighborhoods and eager real estate developers took their places. They were given free rein to develop to their hearts content, attracting wealthier citizens to the neighborhoods, and property values predictably went up. So in the end, the quality of life did go up, but only for those with the money to afford it.

The Bloomberg administration followed a similar plan, where they relied on rezoning to attract developers to certain areas. Developers were practically given carte blanche to develop as they saw fit, with the hopes that they would build with the public good in mind, but that ultimately did not pan out. Affordable housing never materialized, but at least the economy was stimulated.

Discussion Question: Should universities – such as Columbia or NYU – have governmental support as they try to expand their campuses?

ACT UP Oral History Project

Uncategorized

The ACT UP Oral History Project chronicles a dark time in American history, the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. Countless numbers of people perished from the disease during this time, and the government did little to alleviate this crisis, vacillating between ignoring its existence and blaming its spread upon licentious behavior.  A succession of political figures, including the former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, effectively put the brakes on AIDS research, the development of drugs and treatment for the disease, and limiting the amount of care that AIDS patients may receive from hospitals. In short, these patients had been practically left for dead in another astonishing display of benign neglect by the government.

ACT UP’s activism managed to turn the tide in this struggle, and their efforts resulted in public awareness about the epidemic and the beginning of drug trials for AIDS. However, their production of HIV/AIDS glossaries and their educating of people about the disease, including how to prevent it and slow its spread, was arguably their most effective contribution to stemming the crisis. Without a cure or a treatment, the best thing that people could have was the ability to protect themselves.

The aftermath of the AIDS epidemic is still impacting the lives of many people in the present day, as the ACT UP website will attest. Its purpose, to keep a record of the time that was almost brushed under the rug, will continue ACT UP’s solemn work in educating people about the AIDS crisis, and it will hopefully ensure that something like it will never happen again.

Discussion question: Whose high school US History classes covered the AIDS crisis? If it was covered, how was it taught, and given the information that you have now, do you think schools could do more to teach students about this tragic period of history?

Benign Neglect

A Plague on Houses

The story of the Rand Institute and Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a cautionary tale that continues to ring true for us in the present day due to how there are still people in America who hold views that are very similar to the ones that Moynihan espoused. In addition, the rampant abuse of statistics and conclusion-jumping that is featured in this reading make it hard to tell that it was describing events from almost 40 years ago. It’s too bad that the authors failed to include any quotes from the residents of the affected neighborhoods in the reading; it would have been interesting to read about how some of the lower and middle class African-Americans and Puerto Ricans living in the “sick neighborhoods” reacted to being labelled as sociopathic arsonists by Moynihan.

The idea of benign neglect is fairly odd once it is given some thought. It practically says: “Shut your eyes and pretend the problem is not there, and with any luck, once you open them it won’t be there.” Planned shrinkage is no better as a policy, but at least it actually had a plan, which was to pull resources out from “dying” neighborhoods and redistribute them among healthy ones. According to the authors, The Rand Fire Project deliberately manipulated NY Fire Department policy for its own purposes, which happen to coincide with Planned Shrinkage policy. With this in mind, it seems hard to believe that they were extremely simple-minded when they made all their assumptions and generalizations for their models. It is also hard to believe that the Rand Corporation is still around today, and it has done very well for itself since the 1970s, having been involved with studies on health insurance and national security and defense with numerous Nobel Prize recipients.

Discussion Question: To what extent should public policy be dictated by outside organizations like the Rand Corporation?

Planning New York

“The Patron Saint” and the Git’r Done Man”

Scott Larson’s chapter, “The ‘Patron Saint’ and the ‘Git’r Done Man,’”  from his 2013 book Building like Moses with Jacobs in Mind, contained a lively discussion of the merits and drawbacks of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs’s urban planning philosophies. Larson made sure to give a fair overview of their legacies, and their impact upon the modern New York City was stressed, but he ultimately made no attempt to pick a side in the Moses-Jacobs argument. A person’s views on the matter would definitely depend on how they think of New York City and what the city ought to be like; should it be more like a shining, homogeneous, “modern” city, which would require the presence of a grand architect to oversee its development, or should it be more like a diverse mass of neighborhoods that determine their own identities, without outside interference?

 

However one may feel about the question, it is clear that the modern New York City features a synthesis of the best parts of Moses and Jacobs’s ideas. The diverse neighborhoods that Jacobs so favored are present throughout the city, while the strong infrastructure engineered by Moses connects them and unifies them into a cohesive patchwork quilt. It is important to remember that every city presents its own challenges when it comes to urban planning, and such a large city like New York has many unique challenges that make it especially hard to plan, such as how to coordinate with the numerous minority enclaves within the city’s boroughs and how to build infrastructure that can adequately service the largest city in the nation. As a result, some imagination is essential when it comes to urban planning, as what has worked in one city may not necessarily translate over successfully in New York.

Discussion Question: How would the urban planning of New York change if the city were half its current size? Would it look more like Jacobs’s ideal city or Moses’s ideal city?