All posts by Edwin Cho

Update 5 – 04/20/16

Future of Public Transportation, Updates - Public Transportation

Key Project Activities

Now that we are nearing the deadline for the white paper, our group has been focusing most of our time trying to make sense of all the information that we piled up over the past month. This was not an easy task, but meeting up during class on Monday and Wednesday helped us solidify a solid plan of putting the entire project together. For this update, I wish to provide a comprehensive plan/outline for our project.

As we have mentioned many times before, our main focus is the BQX streetcar line. In order to focus ourselves with what we are going to do with the BQX, we formulated a working thesis to start us off: The BQX will be a successful project if it can meet the criteria we created based on the analysis of other street car projects. The thesis is very vague right now, but it will be refined as we move along with the white paper. It will also make some more sense after I describe the other parts of the outline.

First off, we have the introduction and background. We want to use this part of our project to get our reader up to date with the key information needed to understand our project. This includes the historical context that we worked on earlier this semester. We will be briefly exploring the history of streetcars in NYC and all the reasons of why it went out of use, since the same problems might arise again. Then we will be talking about what the BQX streetcar line is. We will give a detailed overview of what the proposed streetcar line would entail, the people supporting the project, and the predicted impact of the streetcar line as described by the policy makers. Since the streetcar line will go through a number of neighborhoods, we feel that it would be appropriate as well that we briefly mention the demographics of these neighborhoods and other pertinent information.

Before we move on to research methods, as it has been ordered with the model outline, we want to talk about the political context first. There is a large amount of information that we will be going over in the research findings that require the knowledge of the political context. Furthermore, the BQX is a project the city is planning to use as part of their urban planning. As we have seen in class readings, the city is constantly changing and new policies are made in order to provide the maximum economic growth. The BQX is a project that will cause an economic overhaul of the communities along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront. Policies such as rezoning and tax-incentives for development are part of the city’s urban development agenda. The BQX is just another aspect of the agenda. By having the political context come first, we will be able to gain a basis for which our claims and findings can be compared to.

Our research method is mostly based on the study of streetcars in other cities. We will be analyzing census data, demographic information and understanding the factors that made these streetcar systems successful. Based on the successes of these cities, we have created a criteria list or guidelines that the BQX project should, in one way or another, address. Some of the guidelines will already be met by the currently proposed BQX. But for the ones that don’t, we will be focusing our arguments and claims in those categories. We will be visiting the neighborhoods affected by the BQX to gather the qualitative data needed for the comparison to the other cities. Some of the things we’ll be looking out for during the visit would be potential effect on traffic, availability of transportation and the types of uses for these areas. Community input would also be used as well in determining the potential consequences of the proposed streetcar.

The research findings contain the bulk of our argument. We will be presenting all the relevant information from the research mentioned in the research methods section. Preliminary evaluation of our research findings lead to the formulation of some key concepts from which we will be making our claims. We will be looking into the effects on traffic, extent of gentrification, how re-zoning will affect existing businesses/communities, and transit oriented development. Under these key concepts, we will present the reasoning and evidence acquired through the community input and the other cities. Maps and photos will be used to help present our findings.

Based on our findings, we will then make our policy recommendations. We have several types of policy recommendations but our main focus will be with democratic participation and legislative. Our preliminary findings showed that the BQX has the potential to cause gentrification and displacement. It will also likely cause traffic concerns. There are many people who are displeased with what the BQX might bring, and establishing some way for the people to get involved is a must. Next will be legislative action. We’ll recommend some policies that the city can implement to lessen the effects of gentrifications such as rent control or business protection. We will also make recommendations in increasing the budget in order to have enough funds to create a dedicated streetcar lane.

The conclusion will summarize our main points. We’ll also work on the executive summary after the rest of the paper is written. We are off to a good start already so we should have a draft ready by the end of the weekend.

Update on progress

Research regarding the New Jersey and Baltimore streetcar lines has been making great progress. Patrick and Adrian are consolidating their research findings into a form that’s easy to understand and follow. They are using social explorer to create maps that shows the development along the streetcar lines. Mohamed has been gathering data about “failed” street car projects. Something interesting that he found was that some of the streetcar projects were shot down because of funding issues or that people voted against it. Jeffrey has been doing his share of work too by looking for information that can supplement everyone’s findings.

Challenges

We’re still having some trouble with community contact, but Sonia is going to try calling these contacts instead of emailing. Hopefully we can get some input. Some of the criteria we use overlap so we will condense it down into a few, but equally effect set of guidelines. We also realize that it is not realistic for the BQX to completely meet all the criteria. Rather than having to satisfy all, maybe we can say that the BQX will be a successful system if it can satisfy most of the criteria.

Task Remaining

Most of our research is done or almost done. We still need to get some more community input. Our main focus is still the BQX. We have a great deal of information on the other streetcar line but ultimately we need to bring the argument back to the BQX. This still needs more work, but I’m confident that our group can tackle this problem. Finally I will be spending some time during spring break to visit some of these neighborhoods, take photo and notes. This will be used for the qualitative data for the BQX.

Group dynamics

I feel that the group is working really well together. Whenever we have a meeting/discussion, everyone contributes valuable input. There is also communication going on outside of the classroom through email or in person.

Communities changed by the city

Clarifying Key Concepts

A community is a place where people live and work, a place where people can live with people who are just like them. They may share the same interest, culture, or financial situation, and develop a unique type of connection with others in the community. Communities are often defined by the people that make it up, but at the same time, these communities can be easily changed by the government. New infrastructure, a change in policy, or new projects can transform communities.

My group is studying the proposed street car line, the BQX. In order to evaluate whether or not this streetcar will be successful or not, we need to study some of the potential consequences the BQX line will have on the communities it passes through. The area that the BQX will go through were once heavily industrial areas with big focus on manufacturing. As Industry left the city, these areas were rezoned. Industrial areas became mixed used or residential, leading to the development of new buildings. This brought more people into the area, increasing the demand for infrastructure. The BQX is a plan that was developed with this in mind. The city saw these areas as emerging hubs of activities and proposed the BQX to facilitate this transformation. Many areas have already been changed by government policies like the rezoning of Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridge park. However, some communities depend on the existing neighborhood and sudden changes brought by these policies will disrupt the livelihood of these communities. This brings us to one of the goals for our project, which is to help people understand how this streetcar line will affect their community.

Discussion Question: How else is the city changing communities? To what extent is the government necessary in community development?

Government’s Role in Community Development

Community, Part 1: Development and Control

A community is a place where people live and work, a place where people can live with people who are just like them. They may share the same interest, culture, or financial situation, and develop a unique type of connection with others in the community. Sometimes, the community as a whole is lagging behind. Poverty becomes an issue, and the quality of life is low. Community development is done in order to address this problem.

The federal government plays a huge role in community development. The policies that it passes affect small communities in some ways. The direct engagement from the government can be seen as far back as the progressive era. During the great depression, government’s involvement was increased greatly. Under President FDR’s New Deal Policy, the federal government passed a series of legislation designed to help and alleviate the social and financial situation of specific community groups. The federal government funded Large scale construction projects that provided jobs to people in ailing communities. The Social Security Act directly provided social welfare to individuals instead of the community as a whole. The Housing Act also created a basis for public housing. As the economy recovered, the federal government turned their attention to slums and other “pockets of poverty.” Their policies would essentially destroy impoverish communities by pushing the slums out and creating room for new buildings and development. This top down approach also excludes the community of people that are affected as well. This doesn’t actually fix the problem behind poverty, but only the result of a poverty. Its like a doctor treating the symptoms of a disease while doing nothing to treat the disease.

Problems also arose when projects got too large. Too many agencies, organizations and institutions got involved and very little was done. Later on, the federal government adopted a hands-off approach under the Reagan and Bush administration. This aligns with what we learned in previous readings and in class regarding neo-liberalism. In place of big government, community development are undertaken by the private sector. They cut federal spending in community development while poverty rates climbed. The “trickle down” theory was adopted, but was mostly ineffective in low-income communities. The reason federal government’s result in handling community development has been lukewarm so far is because it’s putting the focus in the wrong place. The policies that government create should be designed to fix the problem, namely income inequality, lack of job opportunities and racial discrimination.

Discussion question: To what extent is Federal Government necessary in facilitating community development?

Personal wealth in development

The Capital of Capital

Its interesting to see how the current situation of real estate came to be for New York City. The high demand for space has always been a problem for the city. The pace of growth hasn’t slowed down neither. At the beginning, the city was only limited to the Manhattan. As demand for valuable land space for industrial purposes increased, the city expanded to the five boroughs. With industry and businesses came residents, and the outer boroughs became populated. The personal gains of wealthy individuals were also huge factors for the expansion of the city outwards. These individuals supported plans that would cause land value to soar.  For example, the development of early subway lines not only facilitated the outward expansion of the city, but also caused properties along the subway line to develop. People who owned these lands prior to the construction of the subway benefited greatly.

Soon, the city ran out of empty space. New development can only come at the expense of displacing others, and this often targeted colored people and the poor. What were once unwanted industrial areas are now cheap, but valuable space for development. The Brooklyn waterfront is an example of this. Once the city rezoned the area and made parts of it ready for development, large apartment buildings were built. The neighborhood was greatly improved with businesses moving in. Parks were also built in some cases. However, as the areas along the Brooklyn waterfront was being developed and gentrified, the need for transportation arose. My group is the Future of Transportation and we are focusing on the city’s proposed streetcar line that will run along the Brooklyn waterfront. Unlike history, where subway lines led to development and expansion, the opposite is happening for the Brooklyn waterfront. The area is quickly developing even without transportation services. Instead, the transportation and services is following the development. The Brooklyn-Queens Connector would provide transportation along the Brooklyn waterfront. It is also worth mentioning that the addition of the streetcar line would also increase the property value of the surrounding areas as well. This would benefit the few companies who have businesses in those areas and who are also coincidentally supporting the creation of the streetcar line. It seems like the personal wealth of individuals and companies still play a huge role in the development and shaping of New York City.

Discussion question: Should the wealth/gains of individuals or institutions be involved in city planning? Is it justified when thousands of people are being displaced? But if they don’t develop the city, will the city ever move forward?

Where’s the common sense?

A Plague on Houses

Where is the common sense in city planning? First off, I want to point out that everything about this is just wrong. It doesn’t make sense to model a city based on a mathematical equation. Doing so would create an inaccurate model. And since fire was becoming a problem with the increasing number of false alarms, large and frequent fires, as well as response times, why would it make sense to reduce service to these areas? I understand that the city is doing this because they think that certain areas are better off not there, but there are many other ways to do it. Also, the city should also attack the root of the problem. Reducing service in well-off areas so that the below average response time can be brought closer to the average is ineffective at solving the heart of the problem. Sub-optimization would only create more problems for these better off areas.

I see this model as a vicious cycle of the degeneration of the poor urban areas. Politicians use the fire department’s data on the numbers of fire alarms to deliberately reduce resource to the poor urban areas. The information is inaccurate and the numbers are often exaggerated with accidental fires labeled as arson. The targeted areas were South Bronx, Harlem and a number of other neighborhoods. These communities, which were mostly comprised of a black population would then be more susceptible to more frequent and violent fires, thus further encouraging politicians to abandon these areas. “Benign Neglect” and “Planned Shrinkage” are just euphemisms for the city to abandon troubled neighborhoods.

The problem explored in this brief reading is still apparent today. While it is true that services to these areas have been restored to a certain extent, the city is still not providing enough resources to these troubled areas. A friend of mine works in the fire department as an operator. He spoke of how his colleagues and him are having trouble with a contract. He has been working about 5 years without a contract because the city is refusing to give them anything. Much like the situation in the reading, The city is tightening their hold on resource as much as they can to these services. For the city, it would be beneficial if they can save resources by having branches closed out. As far as city planning goes, there’s not much common sense involved in solving urban problems. It seems like the city is creating more problems instead.

Discussion question: Should the city ever abandon the people that it’s comprised of? If so, when?

Community Housing in New York City

The Roots of Community Planning

As development in NYC picks up pace in the 1900’s, the overall cost of living increases dramatically. Thousands of families were displaced in order for city projects or better housing to be developed. Communities labeled as “slums” were cleared out and these families had to move to projects or less desirable housing. It was also around this time that many non-profit organizations gathered to develop community housing for low income families or people in need. The architecture firm that I worked part-time in deals with many non-profit organizations to develop community housing/low-income housing. Some of these clients are The Bridge, MHANY, Nehemiah H.F.D.C., HPD, Concern for Independent Living, Inc and many others. Some of these institutions were even mentioned in the text.

However, I would like to focus on the Nehemiah community housing. As mentioned in the text, Nehemiah acquired land to develop low-cost single-family homes. In their current Nehemiah Spring Creek project, hundreds of new buildings have been and are being built on what was once vacant land. This land was a former landfill and is located right behind the Erskine mall in East Brooklyn. This piece of land is not as favorable, but is also one of the few remaining pieces of vacant land left in the city. Nehemiah gets its funding from many city agencies for the large amount of buildings being built. This gives these agencies a degree of control over the project, and often with guidelines that the architects have to meet during the design phase. This makes the entire construction project complicated and slow. Funding is often inadequate and certain luxuries must be sacrificed in order to fund the project. Nehemiah now wants two-family or 8-family buildings instead of one-family buildings. Higher-family buildings cost slightly more to build compared to one-family buildings, but since funding from agencies come per unit built, Nehemiah will get more funding to build each building. This is most likely the case for other community housing projects across the city. The increase in cost of land and construction in NYC and other cities makes it very difficult to build uncrowded housing.

Furthermore, many community housing projects are taking place in Long Island than in NYC now. The construction cost and land value is much lower in Long Island than in the city. This further demonstrates how low-income families, minorities, and other communities are slowly being pushed from neighborhoods closer to the city center to the edges of the city or into Long Island.

City infrastructures

Situating North American Cities

The reading was very interesting as it brought to light many things that I have wondered about or never known regarding the development of cities. While reading, I came across a number of issues that I was interested about. One of these was was development of infrastructure to provide the necessary service to urban dwellers. Services like water, electricity, gas, transportation are necessary, yet expensive and difficult to organize for large cities. As a result, wealthy entrepreneurs offered to fund such projects in return for under the table benefits from the government. Today, we can still observe how the problems with having adequate infrastructures are still affecting large cities.

For some time, I worked part time in an office located in Brooklyn Heights. The neighborhood features rows of low rise brown stone buildings. The neighborhood is one of the oldest in Brooklyn with history dating back well over 150 years. This means that many of the existing infrastructures, such as water, electricity, gas, and transportation, are old and can only support the small population of people in the existing neighborhood. However, with all the housing development in NYC, Brooklyn Heights is about to be changed. New multi-story condo buildings are being developed and will replace a number of buildings in Brooklyn heights. These condos will increase the population of the neighborhood by at least a few thousands. This raises a problem with how can the city provide the necessary services to this neighborhood once these new condos are built.

As I’ve mentioned before, the existing infrastructure is not designed for the large amount of people that will live in the neighborhood after the condos are built. Utility services will need to be improved drastically to match the growing density. Transportation is another problem. The streets in this neighborhood are extremely narrow. Parking is already scarce and will be made even more so after the condos are built. Subway lines in and around this neighborhood are already running very close to full capacity. The increase in residents would place additional strain on this already insufficient service.

This is just an example of how infrastructures are struggling to keep up with the constantly changing city. This problem extends beyond Brooklyn Heights and affects other neighborhoods and cities as well.