All posts by Nicholas Randazzo

Project Update for March 16 – 23

Future of Environmental Justice and Sustainability, Updates - Envr Justice

Key Activities, Progress Made, Interesting Findings:

As noted in the previous update, the end of February and the beginning of March consisted mainly of selecting a topic and getting in touch with our community contact, South Bronx Unite. This past week, however, we have started to do more detailed research on the Fresh Direct situation in the South Bronx. One important activity for this week was the group beginning its draft of the historical narrative, which includes information on the history of the South Bronx, the history of environmental justice, and background information about Fresh Direct. This will be essential to our future project activities because it is impossible to try and shape the future of a neighborhood without knowing about that neighborhood’s past. We found that the South Bronx community developed during the Great Migration of the early 1900s. At the start of WWI, African Americans were in high demand since factory owners saw them as cheap labor. The laborers lived in run-down areas due to the institutionalized racism taking place at the time. Thus, we discovered that the South Bronx has a history of industry and exploitation, and that certainly connects with the current situation.

Besides discussing the history and policies that shaped the neighborhood, the narrative also includes information about Fresh Direct itself. We thought it would be important to research the company and determine what prompted their move to the South Bronx rather than to New Jersey, how they are justifying their move, and whether or not that justification is reasonable. We found that Fresh Direct was offered around $128 million in subsidies and tax breaks to move to the Bronx, although the company claims that most of the money came in the form of tax breaks. The company simply outgrew its headquarters in Long Island City and therefore had to move. To justify the move to the unhappy South Bronx residents, however, Fresh Direct claims that they will bring over 1,000 jobs to the neighborhood. This is indeed possible, but it is doubtful that the jobs will pay well. One of our key findings was that Fresh Direct pays its workers very low hourly wages. They negotiated a contract with their workers to raise the average wage from $10.50 an hour to $12.25 an hour over the course of two years. It is difficult to support a family on that kind of income, so although Fresh Direct may bring jobs to the South Bronx, they may not necessarily be viable for its citizens.

Besides working on the historical narrative, our group has also made progress with the community contact, Mychal Johnson. We have been corresponding with him and we decided to meet up this Saturday, the 26th, to learn more about the neighborhood and about South Bronx Unite before we go on the tour on April 16th. This will be our first meeting with the community contact, so it will be the first time we are exposed to community knowledge. Since we are meeting him in the South Bronx, this will be a great opportunity for us to get a feel for the neighborhood dynamic and obtain some experiential knowledge as well. Up until this point, we have been relying on academic sources (articles, readings from class, etc.) and it is imperative that we actually experience the neighborhood rather than just read about it.

One thing we will be sure to discuss with Mychal is the court appearance that took place on March 17th. The issue at hand was whether or not public land could be used for purely private benefit. That is a key factor in this case because Fresh Direct is moving to state-owned land. After reading a short article about the court date, we learned that Harlem River Ventures is the developer subleasing the land to Fresh Direct. Harlem River Ventures has apparently been subleasing land to “environmentally degrading uses” for years, and they have therefore contributed to the health crisis in the South Bronx. The community has asthma rates eight times the national average, and Bronx County as a whole was ranked the least healthy among New York’s 62 counties. Poor air quality is one of the reasons for this, and Fresh Direct’s move will exacerbate the situation. (Some of this information came from the article “FreshDirect South Bronx Move Back in Court: A Deal Riddled With Controversy for More than Four Years”).

Challenges Encountered, Tasks Remaining, Group Process and Dynamics:

 We have not faced any especially difficult challenges this week since we mostly drafted the historical narrative and did research. So far, there does not seem to be any shortage of information about the South Bronx or environmental justice. The information about Fresh Direct was also relatively easy to find since the issue is well known and controversial. In fact, the only challenge we have faced so far was getting in touch with the community contact, but that problem has been resolved. It is good to anticipate possible challenges, however, so that they can be more easily dealt with when they do arise. One such challenge that might come up is how to go about creating our public engagement product, a video. We have not discussed this at length yet. Right now, the concept of the video seems a bit vague, which makes our visit to the South Bronx even important. Seeing the community will most likely give us some ideas about what the video should be. This is another thing that we should discuss with Mychal.

Our remaining tasks include: completing and posting the historical narrative, starting the white paper, coming up with an idea for our video, meeting with Mychal, and going on the April 16th tour. Right now, the most important task is to complete the historical narrative. Since that will also be included in the white paper, it is a good start to our second remaining task as well. Since the video will be based on the needs of South Bronx Unite, that task can wait until after the April 16th tour. At that point, we will have a good understanding of what kind of video can best help the organization and the community.

The group members have been working well together, and we have managed to divide up the tasks so that everyone has approximately the same amount of work. We communicate with each other and the community contact via email. This has been working for us so far. We have a Google doc that we use to work on the project so that each group member can read over the entire thing and make changes or suggestions when necessary. Overall, the group has been working as a cohesive unit.

The Misuse of Data and its Disastrous Results

A Plague on Houses

It was both surprising and disturbing to read about how easily the Rand Institute was able to disseminate their false models throughout cities. Anybody looking at the equations for the Resource-Allocation and Firehouse-Sitting Models will realize that they are gross oversimplifications. It is extremely difficult to reduce human behavior to numbers and equations because there are so many variables that need to be taken into account. Even with relevant data, it would still be hard to develop a mathematical model. The Rand Institute solved this problem by simply ignoring the data and making simplifying assumptions that were extremely unlikely in practice. For example, the assumption that alarm rates were predictable is clearly false because there is no way to say, with absolute certainty, how many alarms there will be within a given period of time. Similar assumptions led to the two model equations which, since they were ostensibly “scientific,” were employed by unfortunate cities.

The Rand Institute’s false models directly led to the policies of benign neglect and planned shrinkage. At their core, these plans were politicians’ solutions to the issue of the urban poor. The policies basically took resources from certain target neighborhoods in order to save the government money and allow other neighborhoods to thrive. In the case of fire departments, the areas targeted were selected based on the inaccurate data supplied by the Rand Institute. Politicians then used this data to suit their own needs, which inevitably included getting rid of poor minority neighborhoods. These events are analogous to those described by Tom Angotti during his discussion of blighted neighborhoods. The neighborhoods that were considered “blighted” and were slated for urban renewal were almost always poor minority neighborhoods. Urban renewal is therefore similar to benign neglect and planned shrinkage, with one difference being that urban renewal bulldozed neighborhoods while the latter two plans cut them off from resources and allowed them to die.

These chapters provide a perfect example of how prejudices, generalizations, and oversimplifications corrupt the scientific process. The Rand Institute supplied the generalizations and oversimplifications, while the policy makers interpreted the data with a prejudiced mindset. Both groups are to blame for what happened. The Rand Institute performed bad science, which the politicians would have recognized had their judgement not been clouded by personal prejudices against the urban poor. The result was disastrous, but it at least provided a cautionary tale about the dangers of misusing data and trying to reduce a complex situation to two equations.

Discussion question: Compare and contrast urban renewal and planned shrinkage/benign neglect. Although Robert Moses was a proponent of urban renewal, would he have advocated planned shrinkage or benign neglect?

The Importance of Balance in Urban Communities

The Roots of Community Planning

Based on chapter 3 of Angotti’s book, it seems that the biggest problem facing city planners and urban communities is one of balance. Jane Jacobs hinted at this when she wrote that the key to successful cities was diversity and varied buildings. But Angotti’s work prompted me to think more deeply about the issue, and I saw that the more important (and more challenging) balance to achieve is between people rather than buildings.

This chapter highlights the power struggle between the decision makers and those affected by the decisions. One example of this struggle was the rent strikes that took place throughout the early 1900s, and the battle for rent controlled properties. Landlords did not want to relinquish profit, while tenants did not want to pay high rents. Another example is the struggle between squatters, who wanted to stay in abandoned areas, and the city government that sought to auction off those areas. Both groups were acting in their own best interest, and this theme pervades the rest of the chapter. Such conflicts are not limited to struggles between groups. CDCs provide a perfect example of how, even within a group, there can be a conflict of interest. Different CDCs had different political agendas, and they also had multiple responsibilities that were sometimes contradictory. They acted as both landlords and as vehicles of change in cities, and those that focused too heavily on one particular role had trouble surviving.

The CDCs, the strikers, the city government, the squatters, and the landlords all have one thing in common: they acted in their own best interest. This makes sense, as self-preservation is a fundamental part of human nature. This chapter showed that fact quite clearly. In general, city planning organizations assert an agenda that benefits a particular group at the expense of another. No plan can satisfy everyone, so it is essential that the various groups reach some sort of compromise. No single group should have absolute power because a city, like an ecosystem, must maintain a balance if it is to thrive. Reading this chapter made me realize that compromise is essential in city planning. People need to be willing to sacrifice some of their immediate gains for the long-term benefits of living in a thriving city that does not suffer from constant conflict and unrest. Incidentally, this logic can be applied to the Jacobs-Moses rivalry, and it follows that a compromise between the two would be better for a city than the application of either the Moses or Jacobs philosophy alone.

A Broader View of Urban Planning

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

The essay, “The ‘Patron Saint’ and the ‘Git’r Done Man,'” is fairly impartial in presenting both sides of the Jacobs-Moses debate, and it shows how both figures played important roles in the history of city planning. Moses and Jacobs had different views about urban planning, but I found that both of their ideologies were important and neither should be vilified, just as neither should be regarded as a saint. There is no doubt Robert Moses did a lot for New York. Although he is often portrayed negatively, it is hard to argue that he did nothing good for New York City. The highways and bridges built by him linked up the boroughs and make transportation much easier. Yes, his projects did displace people, and they may not have been aesthetically pleasing, but driving in New York City today would be much more difficult had Moses not pushed for his projects to be completed.

At the same time, Jane Jacobs makes some valid points regarding urban life. Her idea that cities should be varied and diverse makes perfect sense; having a wide variety of services available to a city’s citizens would certainly make the city better. It seems irrational to believe that leveling an entire area and building strictly residential buildings would be good for a city. In my opinion, this is the strongest of Jacobs’s four components for a successful city, and it is the essential component that Robert Moses was lacking. A purely residential neighborhood does not have much to offer, and Jane Jacobs recognized this while Robert Moses did not. His view on city planning was much more regimented, calculated, and dispassionate, while Jacobs believed in diversity when it came to city planning. She seemed to be much more in touch with the culture of cities, perhaps because her work was informed by actual observations she made while walking the streets of New York, Boston, Chicago, as well as other cities.

Perhaps Jacobs’ and Moses’ views do not need to be mutually exclusive. New York City is a perfect example of the harmony of the two schools of thought. We use the infrastructure established by Robert Moses, but we still maintain neighborhoods, particularly downtown, where the buildings are varied and diverse. Moses provides the transportation (highways, bridges, etc.), while Jacobs provides the actual setup of the city. Both aspects are essential, which is why the theories of both Moses and Jacobs should be considered when a city is planned. Of course, no single theory of urban planning is perfect. It is difficult to predict exactly how people are going to behave in a given environment simply because people are unpredictable. But city planners can still make an effort to expand their views in order to increase the likelihood of a city being successful.

Discussion question – Jacobs believed that diversity is the key to a successful city. How does gentrification affect the diversity of a city?

Pros and Cons in the Restructuring of New York City

Situating New York City

New York City has certainly undergone a radical change from the gritty place it once was in the 1970s and 80s. It is hard to imagine Bryant Park as anything but the hot spot that it currently is, or to imagine 42nd Street as a “center of sex and sleaze” (p.101). The changes that these areas, and the rest of the city, have undergone can be attributed to the construction projects that began in the 90s and that are still happening today. The drawback to this urban renaissance, however, is that New York City, particularly Manhattan, is extremely expensive to live in. It is fantastic that “clubs, coffee bars, chic shops, and trendy restaurants” (p.99) are springing up throughout the city, but they do not come cheap, and frequenting them would cost a New Yorker a great deal of money.

Similarly, the price of housing in the city has dramatically increased; apartments in the city cost $2,000 – $5,000 a month to rent, and lofts can cost upwards of $700,000. This is to be expected, however, because new construction costs money. Business Improvement Districts seem to be helping the city, but these, too, cost money. Some people may not view the rising cost of living in the city as a big deal; many simply accept this as a fact of life. But this could have serious consequences for the city’s future. In both this article and the previous one, Macionis and Parillo mention that an efflux of people from a city can harm the city’s economy. With fewer people living and working there, the city government receives less tax money, so the quality of life in the city naturally starts to deteriorate. The positive changes that New York City has undergone have raised the cost of living to the point where more people, especially the middle class, might start to move away to less expensive areas. This could ultimately harm the city’s economy and bring it back to the state it was in during the 70s and 80s. But without those positive changes, the city would still be in that state today. Obviously, there are pros and cons to every situation, and it is important for New York City to strike a balance between safety and affordability.

Discussion question – How can the cost of living in New York City be decreased while maintaining the current quality of life in the city?

The Future of the Postindustrial City

Situating North American Cities

This reading makes clear the fact that cities were essential to the North American economy from the late 17th century to the early 20th century because they were centers for the production of goods. Originally intended to be sources of income for their mother countries in Europe, the cities quickly became independent and kept the money they made. One reason they became so populated was that many people were required to maintain these centers of commerce, and these people wanted to be close to their jobs. Today, however, transportation and communication have been greatly improved. Macionis and Parillo discuss this in the reading and it made me wonder about the fate of the North American city.

Once it became possible for people to live in the suburbs and commute to their jobs in the city, this became the goal for most city dwellers. The upper middle class people living in the cities moved out to the surrounding suburbs, leaving the poor behind (along with the very rich, who controlled the city and profited from it). Those who could afford it would rather commute to the city for work rather than live there, and it seems that this was the beginning of the decay of the cities. Table 3-3 shows a population decrease for every city except New York (where the population remained approximately the same) from 1950 to 1970. This makes sense because in the 1950s and 60s, transportation became easier, allowing people to live farther from their place of work. Today, however, living far from one’s place of work is even more prevalent because of phones, the internet, and the nature of the work conducted in cities. Cities are no longer centers of manufacturing; rather, many of them are centers for business. This trend towards white collar work means that people do not need to be physically present to do their job, as they had to be in the 19th century. Furthermore, people can remain in constant contact with each other via the internet, and working from home on certain days of the week is becoming increasingly common for white collar jobs.

This shift implies that the population in big cities should decrease while the population of the surrounding suburbs increases. The anti-city sentiment described by Macionis and Parillo is not completely absent from today’s society, and virtually every city has bad areas. This could cause even more people to leave cities, increasing the population of suburbs and “edge cities.” Of course, some may prefer to relocate to the Sunbelt, but even that area is starting to suffer the same fate as the Snowbelt cities. It seems that cities suffer from a vicious cycle of implosion and explosion, with people moving farther and farther away. What used to hold cities together was the fact that people needed to be near their work. That is no longer as big an issue, so what does this mean for cities? Much of the revitalization in cities is government funded, and even so, gentrification has its drawbacks in that makes the cost of living skyrocket. Cities are now entering the postindustrial era, and their futures remain uncertain.

Discussion question: What attracts people to cities now? What does the future hold for North American cities?