Barnard-Columbia Urban Review Fall 2023 Issue 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LETTER FROM DIRECTOR OF URBAN STUDIES Aaron Passell LETTER FROM BCUR EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Nyah Ahmad and Maya Felstehausen

Articles

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THE EVOLUTION OF MILITARIZED POLICING IN LOS ANGELES: THE CRIMINALIZATION OF YOUTH DELINQUENCY

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A CLOSER INSPECTION OF THE GVSHP’S ROLE IN GREENWICH Colin Roedl

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URBAN INFORMALITY IN BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA: CONTESTING DOMINANT, MORALIZING NARRATIVES OF THE VILLA MISERIA

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READING THE MIDWEST: HOW NOVELS CAN INSPIRE URBAN PLANNING AND POLICY IN THE RUST BELT, GREAT PLAINS, AND GREAT LAKES

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Celeste Ramirez

Celeste Ramirez

Ellie George

Artwork

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COVER ART Alia Khanna

Ishaan Barrett Ananya Bhatia Mila Lin Tabach Ananya Pal

EXECTUIVE BOARD EDITORS-IN-CHIEF NYAH AHMAD, BC ’24 & MAYA FELSTEHAUSEN, BC ’25 PUBLICITY DIRECTOR JACQUELINE ARTIAGA, BC ’25 EVENTS COORDINATOR GISELLE (GIGI) SILLA, BC ’24 TREASURER JENNIFER GUIZAR BELLO, BC ’24 LAYOUT DIRECTOR AMANDA CASSEL, BC ‘25

SENIOR EDITORS MARGARET BARNSLEY, BC ’24 ISHAAN BARRETT, CC ’26 SOPHIA CORDOBA, CC ’26 ELEANOR AILUN DING, CC ’26 LILLY GASTERLAND-GUSTAFSSON, BC ’25 PEER REVIEWERS LOWELL CERBONE, CC ’26 SUSANA CRANE, BC ’26 FRANCESCA (FRANKIE) EISENBERG, BC ’26 ALIA KHANNA, BC ’27 ASHLEY MEDEL, CC ’25 AVA LYON-SERENO, BC ’26 AUTHORS ELLIE GEORGE, BC ’23 CELESTE RAMIREZ, BC ’24 COLIN ROEDL, CC ’25

ART & VISUAL CONTRIBUTIONS ISHAAN BARRETT, CC ’26 ANANYA BHATIA, CC ’27 ANANYA PAL, BC ’25 MILA LIN TABACH, BC ’26 STAFF WRITER ISHAAN BARRETT, CC ‘26 SOPHIA CORDOBA, CC ‘26 FRANCESCA (FRANKIE) EISENBERG, BC ’26 ABIGAIL JACK, BC ‘25 MADELEINE MARTIN, BC ‘27 WEB MANAGER MADELEINE MARTIN, BC ‘27 COVER ARTIST ALIA KHANNA, BC ’27

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Letter from the Director of Urban Studies I have the privilege and pleasure of writing once again to celebrate the success of the Barnard-Columbia Urban Review. The work of the editorial staff in soliciting and compiling interesting writing on cities, all while engaging critically with their authors to refine and improve, is admirable and benefits the Urban Studies Program as a whole in furthering the kind of careful observation, analysis of data, and reasoned debate that is our collective goal. The efforts of the authors to conceive and implement interesting projects are fundamental. The publication of this work, moreover, indicates how all our research can be made accessible, and how it can provoke questions and conversation.

There can be few prouder or more fulfilling moments for teachers than to see their students choose to undertake that which we struggle to teach. But enough about us – on to this volume! The contributions to this issue of the BCUR are clever and creative in the manner in which they take up topics of significance to their authors. You will notice, in particular, a number of pieces that take seriously the representation of the urban in visual art and fiction. I am excited to see this engagement with the often underrated ways of knowing about the city. At least two pieces take up questions of the roles of urban institutions (the police and historic preservation organizations) in different contexts, pointing to their importance. Finally, we find international work on Buenos Aires, complicating and problematizing our understanding of urban informality.

The contents of the BCUR reflect the Urban Studies Program’s ongoing commitment to interdisciplinary conversation, international investigation and comparison, and a breadth of methodological approaches to urban research. I am proud of the authors and editors, particularly the ways they see how both doing and sharing this work can carry forward their thinking and ours. Congratulations to all involved.

Sincerely,

Aaron Passell Director of the Barnard–Columbia Urban Studies Program

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Letter from the Co-Editors We are beyond thrilled and honored to present as Co-Editors-in-Chief the sixth issue of the BarnardColumbia Urban Review. What a tumultuous yet accomplishing semester it has been! This fall, we not only received written and visual submissions from passionate students from a variety of academic disciplines, but also joined Columbia University Apartheid Divest, launched our weekly newsletter, and published five BCUR staff articles on our website — a new addition to the brilliant writing published through BCUR that we are so proud has finally come to fruition!

In addition to our biweekly meetings, we were able to organize events such as a film screening of the Palestinian documentary, “Where Should the Birds Fly?” and a Zine Night in the Barnard Zine Library where we printed and digitally published all the zines created that night! This would not have been possible without the organization and support of Gigi, our Events Manager; Jacqueline, our Publicity Director; Amanda, our Layout Editor; and Jennifer, our Treasurer. We would not have been able to persevere through the many trials and tribulations of the semester without their zealousness and hard work.

The cover of this semester’s edition includes an intricate multimedia collage by Alia Khanna that reflects various urban structures and elements. The written work in this publication highlights students’ critical approach to global urban research from informal urban living communities in Buenos Aires to how literature propels urban planning in the American Midwest. We also feature student photography dispersed throughout the publication, all of which are united by the photographers’ attention to urban landscapes.

We want to express our utmost gratitude for the work and dedication of countless individuals in bringing this journal to life from start to finish. Thank you to the entire BCUR executive board and staff, written and visual submission contributors, our peer reviewers, the faculty and staff of the Urban Studies department, the administrative staff of SEE, every past and future BCUR member, and numerous others who have made undergraduate urban research a reality at Barnard and Columbia. We are so proud to say that BCUR, with our many endeavors beyond this publication, is not an individual effort but rather a collective labor of love.

We are so happy to see the community we have been privileged to foster through our work — both within the Urban Studies cohort and beyond.

As always, we encourage feedback and participation in the future of BCUR, and we sincerely hope that you enjoy this issue as much as we do.

Sincerely,

Nyah Ahmad Co-Editor-in-Chief | Barnard College ’24

Maya Felstehausen Co-Editor-in-Chief | Barnard College ’25

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The Evolution of Militarized Policing in Los Angeles: The Criminalization of Youth Delinquency

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BY CELESTE RAMIREZ Barnard College ‘24

olice reform responding to drug use and gang related crime in 1970s-1980s Los Angeles set a national turn towards militaristic policing, continuing to legitimize the criminalization and overreaching surveillance of Black and Latine youth as well as the development of police gang culture (Kennedy 2020, 2). Both are arguably ineffective responses to the drug crisis these populations were enduring (Lusane 1994, 84). This paper uses scholar Clarence Lusane’s definition of drug crisis, where he emphasizes how the drug war has specifically failed Black communities, stressing the way in which there must be an adequate frame that addresses ongoing racism and applications of racial dynamics that have been so central to the war on drugs (84). This paper specifically explores the way the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD), the department that founded the first SWAT unit, introduced a new martial era of policing in the 1970s to 1980s, defined by expansion of authority and elite, more violent command units (Murch 2015, 5, 13). Youth gang and drug crimes in Los Angeles are what turned heads nationally, stimulating the supposed necessity for this militarized policing style. The rise and fall of the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit in Los Angeles, particularly depicts the ineffectiveness of a militarized approach to juvenile crime and in turn, gang drug crimes. It is important to analyze other effects of CRASH and more generally, the militarized approach, such as the way the Los Angeles police heightened their level of surveillance into more intimate parts of Black and Latine youth’s lives and privacy, as well as the normalization of elite, gang-like culture. Additionally, strategic and moral panic-driven discourse is mistakenly entangled with the reality of drug use and histories of these communities in current scholarship. Introducing other simultaneous histories is necessary in straying away from this moral panic-driven narrative moving into the discourses these communities were having with each other.

In September of 1999, officer Rafael Perez, former CRASH unit officer, pleaded guilty to multiple incidents of misconduct, including stealing eight pounds of cocaine from police evidence, shooting unarmed gang member Javier Fransisco Ovando—leaving him paralyzed from the waist down—and planting a gun on him, as well as the involvement of multiple other officers in these incidents (The Economist 2000; The Economist 1999). Perez was sentenced to five years in prison, and his plea led to three officers being found guilty of conspiracy and perjury, the suspension of at least another twelve officers, and an investigation on police captain Richard Meraz (Young 2001; The Economist 2000). After these allegations, the CRASH unit was disbanded and the existence of a weak police commission, poor oversight, and accountability of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) quickly came to light (The Economist 2000; Felker-Kanton 2023, 1026).

The CRASH unit was initiated in the late 1970s with thirty-eight officers specializing in juvenile crime as the Total Resources Against South Bureau Hoodlums (TRASH) unit, eventually changing the

acronym due to community pushback (Felker-Kanton 2023, 104).

As scholar Max Felker-Kanton writes, the elite, anti-gang CRASH unit’s approach was distinct due to the intensity of tracking known and potential gang members, as well as its “function as an aggressive assault-type unit meant to break up gangs by arresting and removing gang members from the streets” (Felker-Kantor 2018, 104-105; Gascón and Roussell 2019, 57). The conflation between and progression of youth crime to gang-related and drug crime in existing scholarship is worthy of note, depicting the targeting of Black and Brown youth; more specifically, having some sort of surveillance or “contain[ment]” over as much of this population possible (Felker-Kantor 2018, 104). This sentiment, and the criminalization of Black and Latine youth in Los Angeles, was not new at the rise of CRASH, but this alternative unit of officers led to many youth’s names–many who had never actively participated in drug or gang-related crime, or simply lived in neighborhoods with gang activity–to stay on their radar and appear in their permanent file (Felker-Kantor 2018, 105). Narratives of fear and panic over the drug crisis in Los Angeles were used to justify the increased militarization of law enforcement and distract from other, more necessary approaches to the drug crisis in the city. As scholar Donna Murch writes specifically about Black communities in Los Angeles at this time, these “divergent responses,” such as the CRASH unit’s policing approach, “embod[ied] the core contradiction” produced by the drug crisis, where “on the one hand, these locations faced an unprecedented scale in the militarization of policing, arrests, and incarceration,” but on the other, folks were “seeking solutions to the public health and social crises facing their neighborhoods’’ from drug use (Murch 2015, 162).

POLICE GANG CULTURE What is distinct about the CRASH era is the rise and legitimization of a more aggressive, almost rogue police mentality. Chief Daryl Gates, considered one of the most influential figures in LAPD history, served from 1978 to 1992 and is known for heading the CRASH units (Gascón and Roussell 2019, 53; Bricker 2016).

Gates’ more aggressive, “repeated call to arms” ideology aligned closely with the militaristic CRASH approach (Murch 2015, 166).

Gates’ early law enforcement career, shaped by emergency situations and events such as The Watts Riots of 1965, influenced an ideology that sought more aggressive and militarized options for law enforcement outside of the military or National Guard, such as a SWAT response team or CRASH unit (Gascón and Roussell 2019, 54). Gates had a strict, intolerant stance on incarceration for drug use, stating that a higher incarceration rate achieved greater public safety and that “the casual drug user ought to be shot” (Murch 2015, 166). In 1980, the “year of the gang enforcement,” Gates also declared, “This is war. We want to get the message out to the cowards out there...that we’re going to come and get them,” in reference to Operation Hammer, a large scale crackdown through the CRASH unit, sending 1,000 police officers into South Los Angeles and arresting 1,400 people—the

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Figure 1. Cover page of the Los Angeles Free Press newspaper for the week of August 8-14th of 1969, as quoted by page 7 of the Los Angeles Free Press newspaper for the week of April 1323th of 1973.

minority being charged with a crime (Murch 2015, 168). The type of officer Gates and the LAPD were looking for was tough, intolerant, and more aggressive, not afraid to fully or deeply integrate with these gang members to gather intelligence (Bricker 2016).

The level of mixing these officers made with this community must be analyzed, as it blurred lines of what officers oversaw, from not being tied to radio calls or going undercover, to whether or not they would wear their uniform (Bricker 2016). This new forum of policing allowed a specific culture to develop where officers emulated gang members’ dress and manner, and to some degree, used it as an opportunity to participate in corrupt behavior, such as dealing these drugs themselves (Bricker 2016). While Chief Gates was not alone in creating this distinct police culture, it is important to point out the emergence of this increased violence, misconduct, elitism, and “police gang” behavior shown in the CRASH era.

The response to police officers being part of a secret subgroup, or “gang members themselves,” specifically when referring to drug control, is not new (Kennedy 2020, 1). For example, as shown in figure 1, in 1973 Los Angeles Free Press re-published a Los Angeles Free Press cover page from 1969, with the headline: “Narcotics Agents Listed: There should be

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no secret police” (Los Angeles Free Press 1973). Although the initial cover page had been published in the midst of SWAT deployment disagreements between the LAPD and the Black Panther party, it was referred to in 1973 in the wake of multiple stories of narcotics officers abusing their power and working unconstitutionally (Los Angeles Free Press 1973).

The Center for Juvenile Law and Policy at Loyola Law School, which focuses on representing “at-risk youth” holistically in delinquent proceedings, takes this a step further in its report pointing out Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s (LASD) history with “deputy gangs” (Kennedy 2020, 2). Deputy gangs is a term from scholar Sean Kennedy, referring to secret subgroups specifically formed in LASD stations in predominantly Black and Latine communities that have negatively impacted fairness in Los Angeles Superior Court proceedings and “foster[ed] a culture that resists police reforms…instead encouraging and even celebrating aggressive tactics and use of force” (Kennedy 2020).

The report used this term to characterize secret subgroups that explicitly engage in criminal gang-like behaviors such as tattoos, hand signals, and rituals (Kennedy 2020, 2). It focused on seventeen subgroups within LASD, the most out of any other law enforcement organization in the U.S. (Kennedy 2020, 2-3).

These groups have been referred to in many ways in the past — “deputy cliques,” “secret societies,” “drinking groups,” and “intramural sports teams” — but the report explores those that have evidence of operating like a criminal gang, the ways they have resisted other types of reform, and where a blind eye has been turned on unconstitutional behavior (Kennedy 2020, 2-3).

This language brings to mind the concerns and distinct developments made by CRASH officers and by extension, anti-gang and juvenile crime units. There is a fostering of a culture that is more violent, feeds on lack of oversight, and plays with rogue culture, or more specifically, having a strong political belief that police authority needs to be expanded in order to address this type of crime. For example, the deputy gang “The Jump Out Boys’’ arose in 2005 from another LASD anti-gang effort that echoes this same language (Kennedy 2020, 6). In a pamphlet obtained by LASD management from the back of a patrol car, that described the gang’s ideals, it stated that members understood “when the line needs to be crossed, and crossed back;” they “weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty” (Kennedy 2020, 6; Cunningham 2021). The Jump Out Boys in a way took officer-involved shootings as a “badge of honor,” shown with the meaning behind their tattoos (Cunningham 2021). Their creed describes how the tattoo represents being a member of an “organized brother,” always including “red eyes” and a gun (Cunningham 2021). If the gun was smoking, that meant the member had “been involved in at least one shooting,” shootings that were recorded in their “black book” to track membership (Cunningham 2021).

The tattoo, usually located on the right ankle, was of a red-eyed skull with a bandana spelling Operation Safe Street (OSS)—after the LASD bureau—holding a revolver, an ace of spades card, and an 8 of spades card (Cunningham 2021). Kennedy 2020, 2).

SURVEILLANCE AND MONITORING OF BLACK AND BROWN YOUTH: JUVENILE DELINQUENTS ARE TOMORROW’S DRUG DEALERS? Another understated effect of the turn to militarized policing

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has been the normalization of overwhelming police surveillance of Black and Brown youth in Los Angeles, increasingly inching into their privacy. Arguably, Black and Brown youth have been criminalized, approached as criminals even if they are simply potential offenders (Felter-Kantor 2018, 488). The CRASH anti-gang unit specifically, had thorough details of Black and Latine gang crime in their early manual, with minimal detail of white and Asian gangs, such as categorizing “gang members’’ with very generic identifiers that could apply to all nonwhite youth, such as “the Pendleton shirt,” “the round or V-neck T-shirt, or shoes that ”range from tennis shoes to French-toed shoes,” for Latine gang members (Felker-Kantor, 2018, 105). As Murch states, the conflation of drug crimes with street gangs—specifically considered as Black or Brown organized crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism— created the perfect “comprehensive net for the criminalization of nonwhite youth” (Murch 2015, 166). The category of “gang” became vague and somewhat racialized, as shown by the close surveillance of these young people long before any delinquent act (Murch 2015, 167; Felker-Kantor 2018, 488). Their approach was to “maximize the availability of information on hardcore youth offenders,” introducing a level of surveillance and monitoring that quickly was reflected in “inner city” school security, as well as tracking in the “Alpha File” database (Felker-Kantor 2018, 488).

During Mayor Tom Bradley’s term specifically, funding from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) supported many juvenile prevention projects aimed at interacting with youth before their first encounter with the criminal justice system through diversionary alternatives, as well as increased security measures and police presence, such as in 1974 in six predominantly Black high schools: Crenshaw, Dorsey, Jordan, Locke, Manual Arts, and Washington (Felker-Kantor 2018, 488). Bradley’s reforms “aimed at increasing diversity and accountability in the LAPD with a commitment to safety and a get-tough approach that contributed to a more robust criminal justice apparatus,” specifically viewing juvenile delinquency programs as a “key departure in the city’s overall plan for comprehensive crime control” (Felker-Kantor 2018, 479). Bradley viewed juvenile delinquency as an ignored aspect of crime prevention that bred the toughest future criminals (Felker-Kantor 2018, 479). This is also reflected in Human Efforts at Revitalizing Youth (HEAVY’s) program, funded by LEAA and the Juvenile Delinquency and Prevention Act of 1974, a program with the intention of using a “rehabilitative approach to juvenile justice” by diversionary programs such as job training, recreation, health services, etc. (Felker-Kantor 2018, 480). The push for a “comprehensive juvenile justice system that combined social services and penal institutions” is very specific to this time period, and its impact varies (Felker-Kantor 2018, 482). However, it must be stated that this required careful screenings of delinquent and pre-delinquent youth, enabling the growth of more punitive detention and incarceration (Felker-Kantor 2018, 480). The capacity to monitor these youth even through alternative programming, was easily exploitable, and often treated and labeled child delinquents as fullblown criminals in their surveillance (Felker-Kantor 2018, 477, 479).

The culture of not only surveilling, but monitoring was being embraced, trying to get even potential delinquents or criminals on their radar. For example, the LAPD “Alpha File,” tracked the names of “criminals” or “potential criminals” on a public database, declaring them “potentially dangerous,” although the file was obtained in a

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Figure 2. “The Jump Out Boys” deputy gang membership tattoo.

The tattoo, usually located on the right ankle, includes a red-eyed skull spelling “O.S.S.,” revolver, an ace of spades card, and an 8 of spades card. If the revolver was smoking, it meant the member was involved in at least one shooting.

discriminatory way, targeting specific racial groups and neighborhoods (Felker-Kantor 2018, 488). This hyper-surveillance approach of collecting data in order to be aware before they commit their inevitable crime, as well as the approach of molding youth “correctly” through surveillance, continues to allow the conflation of nonwhite youth to gang activity, specifically drug-trafficking and organized crime. Policing responses to this, such as the CRASH unit, solidify this conflation with an even more aggressive, reactive response.

A NOTE ON THE DRUG CRISIS: SOCIAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH In historical scholarship, the labeling of nonwhite youth in Los Angeles as tomorrow’s gang members and drug traffickers can be resisted through the presentation of simultaneous histories of this time. It is necessary to challenge these narratives, specifically those presented about what occurred in the everyday life of nonwhite populations during this drug crisis. For example, as scholar May Fu explores, “organizing around drug abuse was not new to the Japanese-American community in Los Angeles,” with a history of community service centers responding directly to the drug epidemics and socioeconomic problems of their communities as early as the 1960s (Fu 2008, 82). Sansei youth activists specifically, or third generation Japanese American teenagers, adopted an addressing “immediate and practical needs of their community” and “serve the people” approach, inspired by the Black Panther Party’s principle,

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to anti-drug organizing, particularly rooted in “building sustainable community programs run for and by local people” and “situating personal and community struggles within social, economic, and political contexts” (Fu 2008, 82-85). These activists addressed more complex, intersectional issues that were specific to the place they were advocating for, such as how “women in all ethnic and racial communities overdosed at three times the rate of men,” or how their communities needed treatment and counseling for young drug users as well as their parents, identifying health care professionals needs and the “broader social conditions that made drug abuse” attractive to youth (Fu 2008, 82). Sansei activists practiced drug prevention in a framework of the drug crisis as a social crisis, hosting drop-in centers, crisis hotlines, youth and parent groups, other community outreach and education, and deeply believing in how “street people knew more about how to deal with drug overdoses than the doctors” because it was hitting minority communities, not the general public (Fu 2008, 87, 94). Community work, such as that of Sansei youth activists, emphasizes community as an alternative to other, more violent forms of drug prevention, as well as the importance of situating the crisis in the societal conditions of the time. Perhaps there is more to be explored about how to support safer drug use that is at times necessary or the more medical aspect of the drug crisis, but this narrative highlights how there were groups creating other narratives about the drug crisis.

In conclusion, the socio-political and policing response to the drug crisis in 1970s Los Angeles must be revisited, as the current narrative allows for the reproduction of two cultures distinct to the CRASH unit era: police gang culture and invasion of Black and Brown youth’s privacy through surveillance. The militarized policing approach that arose in this era, defined by the elite, new police units, database tracking, and the conflation of youth delinquency to gang and drug crime, is not the most effective response compared to how other scholars have framed the drug crisis: an inherently social and health crisis. The minority communities being disproportionately affected by the drug crisis would frame the issue and use solutions vastly different from those of Los Angeles police departments. car2268@barnard.edu _____________________________ REFERENCES Anderson, Jack, Anna Sklar, Art Kunkin, Ron Ridenour, Harriet Katz Berman, Royal Landy, Vicki Brow, et al. 1973. “Los Angeles Free Press: Los Angeles Free Press” 10 (456). https://jstor.org/stable/ community.28040050 Bricker, Todd E. “The Rampart Scandal,” August 24, 2023.

Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rampart-scandal/ additional-info#history.

Cunningham, Waylon, “These ‘rogue’ deputies were fired. So how did the Jump Out Boys win back their badges?,” January 1, 2023, Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-01/ jump-out-boys-win-appeals-after-sheriffs-department-firing.

Felker-Kantor, Max. “‘Kid Thugs Are Spreading Terror Through the Streets’: Youth, Crime, and the Expansion of the Juvenile Justice System in Los Angeles, 1973-1980.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 3 (May 1, 2018): 476–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144215623260.

Felker-Kantor, Max.“Liberal Law-and-Order: The Politics of Police Reform in Los Angeles.” Accessed February 26, 2023. https://doi.

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org/10.1177/0096144217705462.

Felker-Kantor, Max. 2018. Policing Los Angeles : Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD. Justice, Power, and Politics. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://ezproxy.cul.columbia. edu/login?qurl=https%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26AuthType%3dip%26db%3de025xna%26AN%3d1902498%26site%3dehost-live%26scope%3dsite.

Fu, May. “‘Serve the People and You Help Yourself’: JapaneseAmerican Anti-Drug Organizing in Los Angeles, 1969 to 1972.” Social Justice 35, no. 2 (112) (2008): 80–99.

Gascón, Luis Daniel and Aaron Roussell. 2019. The Limits of Community Policing : Civilian Power and Police Accountability in Black and Brown Los Angeles. New York: NYU Press. https://ezproxy. cul.columbia.edu/login?qurl=https%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost. com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26AuthType%3dip%26db%3de025xna%26AN%3d1909764%26site%3dehost-live%26scope%3dsite.

Kennedy, Sean. “Fifty Years of ‘Deputy Gangs’ in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department: Identifying Root Causes and Effects to Advocate for Meaningful Reforms,” Center for Juvenile Law and Policy at Loyola Law School, September 2020, https://www.lls.edu/academics/ centers/centerforjuvenilelawpolicy/cjlpdeputygangreport/.

Lusane, Clarence. “In Perpetual Motion: The Continuing Significance of Race and America’s Drug Crisis,” University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1994, Article 5, https://chicagounbound. uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1994/iss1/5.

Murch, Donna. “Crack in Los Angeles: Crisis, Militarization, and Black Response to the Late Twentieth-Century War on Drugs.” The Journal of American History 102, no. 1 (2015): 162–73.

The Economist. “Over-Creative Policing.” September 25, 1999.

The Economist Historical Archive. https://www.economist.com/ united-states/1999/09/23/over-creative-policing.

The Economist. “LA More.” February 5, 2000. The Economist Historical Archive. https://www.economist.com/ united-states/2000/02/03/la-more The Economist. “Storming the Rampart.” December 2, 2000.

The Economist Historical Archive. https://www.economist.com/ united-states/2000/11/30/storming-the-rampart.

Young, Rick. “Rafael Perez: In the Eye of the Storm,” n.d.

Frontline PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ lapd/scandal/eyeofstorm.html

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Photography by Ishaan Barrett

Off Mott Street

One Way: North Hudson

Father and Son

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Run

Statehood

Adams Morgan South

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A Closer Inspection of the GVSHP’s Role in Greenwich

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BY COLIN ROEDL Columbia College ‘25

n 2007, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s (GVSHP) Executive Director, Andrew Berman, requested that the Chair of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee consider designating the three connected buildings within the South Village extension at 233-237 Bleecker Street as individual landmarks (GVSHP, 2007). Berman was concerned with the possible demolition or damaging alterations of these rare, early 19th century structures. He argued that these buildings may have served as the inspiration for Edward Hopper’s painting “Early Sunday Morning,” which contributes to their historical and architectural significance (Berman 2007, 1).

According to Linda Yowell, Co-Chair of the GVSHP Preservation Committee, several striking similarities between Hopper’s painting and a 1933 photograph of 231-235 Bleecker Street suggest the inspiration (Yowell 2007, 4). The photograph, taken by Percy Loomis Sperr in 1933, highlights various similarities between the buildings and Hopper’s work, such as the barber pole in the sidewalk, the scallop-edged awning of the storefront, the design of the storefront’s painted lettering, the profile and color of the cornice, and location of the tall building behind the storefront. Although the work was initially entitled “Seventh Avenue Shops,” Yowell argues that Seventh Avenue did not exist below Eleventh Street until 1916, thus it could not realistically be the painting’s reference location. Instead, Yowell argues that Hopper may have used the phrase “Seventh Avenue” to describe the quotidian shops shown in the painting, in contrast to the “finer” stores on Fifth Avenue (Yowell 2007, 8). She concludes that the location represented in Hopper’s work, 231 Bleecker Street, still exists today, and deserves recognition and preservation.

However, this paper is less interested in understanding how the GVSHP situated Early Sunday Morning to Bleecker Street in Greenwich; rather, it intends to explore the organization’s influential role in the development and preservation of the built environment. By focusing on this organization, this paper intends to remind the audience that history is a continuous and ongoing process being “made” in the present, a process of active negotiation by various scales of actors such as the GVSHP. GVSHP, now referred to as Village Preservation, was established in 1980 to document, honor, and safeguard the unique architectural and cultural legacy of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo (Village Preservation, “Mission & History,” n.d.). Village Preservation has effectively campaigned for over 1,250 structures to be recognized as landmarks in their community, as well as assisted in procuring zoning safeguards for close to 100 blocks. The organization oversees any demolition, modification, or new construction permits for over 6,000 building lots in their community (Village Preservation, “Mission & History,” n.d.). ​​Village Preservation has produced and commissioned

numerous reports that delve into the history, architecture, and culture of their neighborhoods to advocate for crucial preservation and development, including their 2007 request to the Chair of the New York City Landmark Preservation Committee (Village Preservation, “Advocacy Reports,” n.d.).

Other advocacy reports include affordable housing, rezoning with an emphasis on socio-economic diversity, and historical designation. However, the Village Preservation efforts are not limited to these categories; they are currently extending efforts across the city and urge community members to take action to save NYC’s first Spanish church, recognize and preserve Black historical landmarks, and protest Mayor Adam’s preliminary proposed budget (Village Preservation, “Take Action,” n.d.).

While there have been beneficial initiatives enacted by Village Preservation, the organization has not existed without controversy. In 2008, Village Preservation opposed a proposed expansion of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center that involved demolishing nine buildings in Greenwich Village to make room for a new hospital and apartment tower (Signore 2008). The proposed expansion was unanimously rejected by the Landmarks Preservation Committee, and Village Preservation applauded the Committee’s decision (Glenn 2008). However, the hospital’s bankruptcy filing in 2010 resulted in the facility’s closure and over 1,000 staff members losing their jobs (Hartocolis 2010). In a 2017 Op-ed, Dr. Alec Pruchnicki, a former employee at St. Vincent’s Department of Medicine, urged Village Preservation to take partial responsibility for their inadvertent failures, including the consequent demise of St. Vincent (Pruchnicki 2017). However, Andrew Berman responded to Dr. Pruchnicki’s op-ed with his own Letter to the Editor, insisting that Village Preservation offered an alternative community plan focused on the hospital’s modernization without the accompanying real estate project which Berman claimed was met with hostility by various government and community officials (Berman 2017).

Although the organization primarily focuses on advocating for and honoring the cultural legacy of Greenwich Village, its website also offers various tools to help users better engage with the history and culture of the neighborhood. They provide numerous image archives showcasing the community, such as Drag performances in the 1990s, the 9/11 attacks as viewed from Greenwich, as well as various photographers and artists’ collections of the neighborhood throughout its existence and (re)development (Village Preservation, “Image Archive,” n.d.). Outside their image archives, Village Preservation provides an oral history consisting of interviews with activists, preservationists, and community organizers to capture their “first-person perspectives on the important histories they witnessed” (Village Preservation, “Oral Histories,” n.d.).

One of the organization’s major accomplishments was the landmark designation of 70 Fifth Avenue, which was once the headquarters of the NAACP, The Crisis Magazine, and various other influential civil rights, human rights, and social justice organizations in the early 20th century (Village

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Preservation, “Accomplishments,” n.d.). Another notable achievement was the prevention of an air rights transfer at 4 St. Mark’s Place that would have allowed a developing office building to grow 20% larger than zoning permitted. Finally, Village Preservation led a successful campaign to prevent a Landmarks Preservation Commission rule change which would have limited the public’s ability to understand, learn, and discuss specific applications for modifications of landmarked buildings, thus making the process less accessible (Village Preservation, “Accomplishments,” n.d.). The organization has been lauded by various community organizations like The Preservation League of NYS and NY Landmarks Conservancy because of these efforts, often referred to as an “inspiration to other preservation organizations” and “a model of advocacy for other neighborhoods” (Village Preservation, “Testimonials,” n.d.).

Using the history and efforts of Village Preservation, this paper argues that the residents’ strong desire to preserve the architectural and cultural legacy of their neighborhoods reflects the importance of historical and cultural preservation in maintaining the character and identity of urban environments. The group’s advocacy for affordable housing and socioeconomic diversity demonstrates a concern for equity and inclusivity in the city as well as illustrates their vision for the future. The debate over the St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center expansion, however, also highlights the challenging trade-offs that frequently occur in urban development, such as managing the requirement for modern infrastructure alongside the desire to maintain historical landmarks and the potential repercussions of those decisions.

By reflecting on the decisions and history of Village Preservation, this essay highlights the intricate interplay between history, community advocacy, and the shaping of urban landscapes. The organization’s active role in preserving landmarks like the Bleecker Street buildings is not merely an act of conserving physical structures but also entails a nuanced selection and preservation of a carefully curated historical narrative. In championing the protection of these sites, community and board members not only safeguard architectural treasures but also assert their envisioned identity of the community’s past and future. This dual role of preservation and curation raises intriguing questions about how historical significance is determined and preserved, reflecting the conscious choices made by organizations like Village Preservation in shaping the narrative of their community. The advocacy against the demolition plans for the St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center expansion unveils a continuous negotiation of community space, where residents actively assert their stake in shaping their surroundings. Such actions underscore the active agency of citizens in crafting the narrative surrounding their locality, emphasizing that history is not a static entity but an ever-evolving product of present-day engagements. The multifaceted efforts, whether through preservation, engagement with history, or advocating for zoning laws, manifest in Village Preservation becoming a force for the continuous remaking of history in the present, ultimately impacting the community’s future self-perception and sense of place.

The case of Village Preservation, previously known as the

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Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, presents a compelling narrative of how community organizations can wield significant influence in shaping the urban environment. By fervently advocating for the preservation of architectural and cultural landmarks, this group has showcased a dedication to safeguarding the identity and character of Greenwich Village and neighboring areas. Their endeavors, spanning from landmark designations to zoning safeguards and reports advocating for socio-economic diversity, reflect a multifaceted commitment to their community’s past, present, and future.

The legacy of Village Preservation extends beyond physical preservation efforts, encapsulating a dynamic engagement with history through archival resources and oral histories that capture the essence of the community across time. By examining the actions and controversies surrounding Village Preservation, scholars can glean valuable insights into the intricate interplay of interests, visions, and negotiations that define urban landscapes. Ultimately, this organization’s story illuminates the potent role of citizen action in shaping and perpetuating the ongoing narrative of their community and its urban environment. kcr2141@columbia.edu _____________________________ REFERENCES Berman, Andrew. “Request for Evaluation for 233-237 Bleecker Street, Manhattan.” Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, 2007. https://vparchive.gvshp.org/_ gvshp/preservation/south_village/doc/Bleeckerlandmarking. pdf.

Berman, Andrew. “St. Vincent’s Closing.” WESTVIEW NEWS, February 2, 2017. http://westviewnews.org/2017/02/02/ st-vincents-closing/gcapsis/.

Collins, Glenn. “Building Proposal by Greenwich Village Hospital Is Rejected.” The New York Times, May 7, 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/nyregion/07hospital. html.

Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation. “233237 Bleecker Street.” 2007. https://vparchive.gvshp.org/_gvshp/preservation/233-37_ bleecker/233-37bleecker_main.htm.

Hartocollis, Anemona. “Layoffs Announced at St. Vincent’s.” City Room, 2010. https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes. com/2010/04/19/lawsuit-aims-to-keep-st-vincents-open/.

Pruchnicki, Alec. “Letter from Dr. Alec Pruchnicki, MD.” WESTVIEW NEWS, January 4, 2017. http://westviewnews. org/2017/01/04/5960/gcapsis/.

Signore, John. “St. Vincent’s Plans for New Greenwich Village Hospital.” Gothamist, April 1, 2008. https://gothamist.com/ news/st-vincents-plans-for-new-greenwich-village-hospital.

Village Preservation. “Accomplishments.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/about-us/ accomplishments/.

Village Preservation. “Advocacy Reports.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/resources/ advocacy-reports/.

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Village Preservation. “Image Archive.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/image-archive/#/ collections/recent/1/.

Village Preservation. “Mission & History.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/about-us/ mission-history/.

Village Preservation. “Oral Histories.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/resources/ oral-histories/.

Village Preservation “Take Action.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/get-involved/ take-action/.

Village Preservation “Testimonials.” Accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.villagepreservation.org/about-us/ testimonials/.

Yowell, Linda. “A Connection between Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning and the Buildings at 231-235 Bleecker/15 Carmine Street.” Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, 2007. https://media.villagepreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/15074223/22_A-Conection-btw-Edward-Hoppers-Early-Sunday-Morning-01-18-2007.pdf

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Metropolitan Mélange

by Ananya Bhatia

Taken outside the World Trade Center and speaks to the creative artistry yet permanence of the New York City skyline.

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Urban Informality in Buenos Aires, Argentina: Contesting Dominant, Moralizing Narratives of the Villa Miseria

​​T

BY CELESTE RAMIREZ Barnard College ‘24

his paper analyzes literature pertaining to a variety of informal urban living communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ranging from villas miserias, casas tomadas, cuchas, boliches, Peronist era public housing, to ‘reurbanized slums.’ Scholars demonstrate the way informal living inhabitants are fragmented in terms of citizenship and a specific social hierarchy, as well as how this dominant narrative has vastly shifted historically, based on what actors’ visions of order are being realized. In other words, these scholars complicate dominant narratives of urban informality by approaching it as a more malleable term that cannot be easily defined; complexifying aspects such as the different reasons people have entered and left informal living communities, how the specific historical context of a moment shapes these narratives, and what actually occurs ‘on the ground.’ This paper reaches the conclusion that although social power relations are evaluated in the literature, race and ethnicity as an axis of analysis in this field remains understudied.

To borrow language from scholar Tanja Bastia’s work, in Buenos Aires, ethnicity, and more specifically the “others” from the ethnically homogeneous national norm, often determines who belongs to the nation-state and receives legal citizenship. Bastia shows how in the face of transnational and/or internal migration in Buenos Aires, ethnic differentiation is associated with territorial affiliation, continuing to be used to legitimize positionalities within the informal living community (Bastia 2015, 1821). Bastia’s question of whether there has been a de-ethnicization of everyday life on a national level—what has been attempted in contemporary times—has reached these informal living communities. Even after looking at three different actors at play: “transnational migrants, elected leaders (who are themselves internal migrants) and grassroots organizations,” Bastia still arrives at the conclusion that to different extents, they continue to obtain legitimacy from ethnic positionality and reproduce ethnic divisions themselves, specifically through the determination of who is a citizen and who is not. This paper argues that Bastia’s call for de-ethnicization of everyday life in Buenos Aires is an effective conceptual framework to use alongside evaluating the housing “crisis” in the city, specifically how literature has conceptualized social hierarchies with legacies and consequences in informal living communities in Buenos Aires.

SECTION 1: LEGITIMIZED RIGHT TO URBAN SPACE THROUGH “CITIZENSHIP” Scholars Ryan Centner, Corinna Hölzl, and Rosa Aboy all explicitly use language around “citizenship” in their respective time periods—post-neoliberal Buenos Aires in Centner and Hölzl’s case and Peronism between 1946 and 1955 in

Aboy’s case. Centner’s argument relies on his conceptualization of “microcitizenships” or “group-specific quasi-legal relationships with the local state” that are “ethnographically derived discursive categor[ies],” meaning they are socially determined by a fragmented sense of urban belonging and the government’s “vision[s] of territorialized social rights” (Centner 2011, 338-39). Centner’s framework emphasizes how these microcitizenships across different social groups in Buenos Aires, create legitimate, yet temporary rights to urban space, as well as easily dictate who belongs where (Centner 2011, 339). For example, as Hölzl writes when directly referencing Centner, post-neoliberal Buenos Aires has attempted to “fix” issues of living informality and poverty through new housing projects, upholding a form of citizenship that “common[ly] reject[s] poorer social groups” and “stereotype[s] a collective enemy or ‘other’” (Hölzl 2017, 118).

This is the case when Centner speaks of “transposable citizens in Abasto,” a neighborhood near the center of Buenos Aires with a unique socio-economic profile of mixed elite and impoverished people (Centner 2012, 339). He points out the contrast between the high rises and commercial buildings being built in the neighborhood in the mid-1990s— neighborhoods occupied by elite and upper-middle class members—and adjacently located “commonly poorer social group” or “collective other,” that are the “havens for informal economic activity and squatter residents” (Centner 2012, 339; Hölzl 2017, 118). Centner explains that this created two “different cohorts liv[ing] alongside each other, but with a total absence of sustained interaction” (Centner 2012, 339, 341). Centner also takes this further by pointing out that porteños, or Buenos Aires inhabitants associated with being descendants from Spain and Italy, were supportive of addressing these housing issues through the making of “accessible space” in Abasto, such as outdoor spaces that were open to mixing, but within a very specific hierarchy. These areas would be “regulated for certain specific uses, enough to maintain important geopolitical distinctions between ‘here’ and ‘there’” (Centner 2012, 348). Hölzl also brings up this differentiation in belonging to an area and level of citizenship between people of different ancestry in the city when writing about the response to the occupation of the el Parque Indoamericano in 2010. More specifically Hölzl observes that “from the point of view of porteños,” squatters and new immigrants, are considered “second-or even third-class citizens” due to their lack of linkage to immigration from Europe 2017 (Hölzl, 118-119). Here, Centner and Hölzl shed light on not just the creation and separation of an “other” in this specific citizenship hierarchy, but how identifiers such as lineage and heritage are legitimized claims to 1) citizenship to a particular urban area and 2) a level of agency in deciding what to do with a particular urban area.

Hölzl additionally explores citizenship in conversation with the issuing of property deeds to residents. She finds that

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for informal residents, before the occupation of the parque in 2010, the city government approached housing conflict with the mentality that by granting these deeds, “[one could] transform them into citizens, and the meaning of property [would] make them improve and reinforce their own homes…. thereby integrating them ‘into society and the labor market’” (Diario Perfil 2010 qtd. in Hölzl 2017, 120-121; IVC president qtd. in Hölzl 2017, 121). This language brings to mind Aboy’s commentary on Peronism-era public housing construction, as both Hölzl and Aboy add to this idea of citizenship as a social hierarchy, informed by an even set of social behaviors or ways of life. Aboy writes about how the government intended to “inclu[de] the working class in national political life” and “tear down… the barriers that confined them to a second class citizenship” (Aboy, 2007: 508). In a sense, Aboy’s point about access to comfort being a benefit that helped people recognize themselves as citizens” and tear down barriers seems promising as a form of housing reform (Aboy, 2007: 508). However, it was also used as a form of “mold[ing] the new citizens arriving from the rural areas under the tutelage of the benefactor and owner state” as Aboy begins to discuss, these transformations or moldings run the risk of creating a very specific form of citizenship, one that fortifies a fragmented social order with specific “others” (Aboy 2007, 505). Aboy describes this housing modernization process as a “testing lab[s] for new ways of daily life,” meant to “neutralize social conflicts,” “promote conservatives values…[of] property, family, and putting down roots,” creating the “legitimization of a disciplinarian device” (Aboy 2007, 493; 499500). Fast forward a bit to the 1950s, where scholar Agnese Codebò’s work is situated, similar language is present with statements like “the state’s proposed solution involved an educational and civilizing discipline,” where “the house thus had the function as the instrument of re-education” (Codebò 2020, 92-93). Although these scholars discuss different periods, there is a valid call to question the way “citizenship” is tied to a specific social order that does not allow for groups with certain social identifiers, such as being non-European migrants, rural migrants, people in poverty, etc. They are seen as people in need of transforming or educating in order to achieve citizenship status, and as Centner establishes, it creates a fragmented, temporal, and essentially socially constructed sense of microcitizenships based on a specific vision of legitimized rights to urban space.

It is important to note that while these scholars use the term citizenship more explicitly, they at times mention other identifiers of these groups, whether that’s social categories informed by heritage, “ethnic and migratory background,… socioeconomic and spatial factors,” in Hölzl’s case, rural migrants in Aboy’s case, and those “usually living in extremely poor conditions and often descended from more obviously mestizo or indigenous ancestry than the bulk of middle-class and elite porteños” in Centner’s case (Hölzl 2017, 118-119; Centner 2011, 346). However, these are mentioned minimally when compared to citizenship and alongside Bastia’s call for de-ethnicization, fail to explicitly name racial and ethnic identities as a key informer in the social hierarchy of citizenship in Buenos Aires.

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SECTION 2: MALLEABLE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OF URBAN INFORMALITY IN BUENOS AIRES Looking at citizenship in Buenos Aires as fractious and ever-shifting around governmental policy across time also shows how differing research approaches can track how urban living has been historically perceived in a stark variety of ways. Scholars Javier Auyero, Aboy, and Codebo explore the idea that informality is a very broad, malleable concept that easily contests who is considered informal, when they become informal, and why this new identity is given to them.

As scholars Jean-Louis van Gelder, Maria Cristina Cravino, and Fernando Ostuni write, “the historic[al] analysis of the development of informality in Buenos Aires,” demonstrates “how legislation, policy and socioeconomic developments have not only led to the emergence of informal settlements, but have also determined the particular shape they took and where they emerged” (van Gelder et al. 2016, 1971).

For example, when Aboy speaks about the casa chorizo, or “a series of rooms in a row, each opening onto a lateral patio,” and conventillos, a “multifamily dwelling with a group of rented rooms distributed around a central patio” in the city, she discusses how during initial European immigration to Buenos Aires, a quarter of that population lived in these dwellings located in the center of the city, housing the elite classes until they abandoned them and moved to the northern zone of the city (Hölzl 2017, 497). Conventillos were eventually inhabited by working-class people and during the yellow fever epidemic of 1971 (Aboy 2007, 497). The positivist ideology of hygienist reformers—many of whom were medical doctors—caused the demonization of these dwellings as a social and biological danger due to overcrowding and deficient hygienic conditions in the dwellings (Aboy 2007, 497). They were “perceived as a threat to the physical and moral order” and as quoted historian Marcela Nari said, “consequently, the preoccupations for individual physical and mental health could not be separated from the social and political health of all of the nation’s inhabitants” (Aboy 2007, 499; Nari 1994 qtd. in Aboy 2007, 499). The sudden change of narrative that surrounded these areas depended on who was concentrated there, and highlights the role of government-induced moral panic and the legitimacy of this moral judgment.

Codebò highlights this tension in how the term villas miserias was first legally defined, looking at the 1956 document, Plan de emergencia: informe elevado por la Comisión Nacional de la Vivienda al Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión created by the Comision Nacional de la Vivienda [the National Housing Committee] where for the first time, villas were “systematically identif[ied]—not without inaccuracies—as the border’s of the city’s slums, while also defining them as an urban anomaly” (Codebò 2020, 86). Codebò explains how in legal text, the villas were identified by the stereotypes discussed above; an area “where all the moral misfortunes of the city are concentrate[d],” with “a lack of hygiene, a lack of urban planning,... lack of morality,” and “being in need of urgent measures to favor their social readjustment” (Codebò 2020, 91-92). Here, Codebò argues that this government documentation marked the shift from “emergencia” as a term with a neutral meaning of “to emerge” to the negative meaning of “emergency,”

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presenting the villas as a “dangerous situation or disaster that requires immediate action” and an “emergency to be eliminated for the sake of the city” (Codebò 2020, 91). However, Codebò’s text notably explores not only the creation of a definition for villas miserias in this context but also contests this dominant narrative used in government documents with how literary and artistic discourse spoke about villas miserias. Codebò calls it a form of “reinsert[ing]” itself “within the city’s regular grid, interrupting thus the linearity and cleanness imagined by the state” (Codebò 2020, 88). For example within the next year of El Plan de Emergencia, Bernardo Verbitsky’s Villa Miseria Tambien es America comes out, where the villa miseria is defined not as an area of emergencies and issues, but an area of “workers, who are able to upgrade their place in society through solidarity networks” (Codebò 2020, 86; 94).

Codebò subverts “the concept of the villa as an underdeveloped space lacking progress, the author’s characters reveal life, work, and a myriad of objects, representing the slum as a profuse new world in the face of eradication” and emphasizes the agency in those living in the culture being able to define their place within the urban grid (Codebò 2020, 95).

Aboy and Codebò’s questioning of changing definitions and connotations associated with types of urban living in Buenos Aires, calls for much more nuanced depictions of villas and accurate research on these spaces. One of Auyero’s main points are that “little empirical research that focuses on the recent fate of the shantytown and specifically on the impact that the combined withdrawal of the state and the market has on these expanding enclaves and the everyday lives of their stigmatized inhabitants” (Auyero 2000, 104). Here, Auyero deeply contests the portrait made of these villas, specifically calling to the lack of attention on “daily interpersonal violence, intermittent state repressive violence, and the structural violence of unemployment [that] dictate the pace of everyday life in [specific places like] Paraiso as well as in most poverty enclaves in contemporary Argentina” (Auyero 2000, 97). To summarize and conclude this section, Auyero states how portrayals of villas have been shaped and changed by its specific historical context, from being “the ultimate example of the failure of Peronist populism during the fifties” or as “places of immorality, crime, and lawlessness” in Argentina today” (Auyero 2000, 103).

SECTION 3: COMPLICATING THE PORTRAYAL OF INFORMAL URBAN LIVING Existing literature by scholars Solange Muñoz, Melina Ons, Álvaro del Águila, and Mariana Ortega Breña, are examples of more complex depictions of informal urban living, challenging narratives of inferiority and the traditional villa miseria. For example, Muñoz agrees with Auyero and calls for more to be “written about the everyday material and symbolic manifestations of chronic precarity, particularly in the context of housing and home,” taking it further with his conceptual framework by which to assess ways of urban life; one that hones in on how “urban communities and individuals live and experience chronic uncertainty, instability, and crisis” (Muñoz 2018, 413412). Muñoz also uses casas tomadas, or informal hotels, as

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his object of study, to further his conceptual framework of how there must be contributions to analysis that show precarity “embodied and embedded” in the most mundane, everyday home-making. Muñoz calls for “the discussion around the right to use public spaces and the right to participate in decision-making…[to] begin at the home scale’” and/or the most intimate and mundane spaces (Muñoz 2018, 414). Ons’ main call is similar in its emphasis on the everyday, intimate, mundane space, saying that the “regularization [or reform by the government] must be accompanied by a comprehensive and participatory process in which the needs and capacity to pay of its inhabitants are evaluated” (Ons 2021, 916).

Ons is specifically talking about contemporary “reurbanization” efforts in five villas by the Chief of Government Horacio Rodríguez Larenta starting in 2015, and pays close attention to the efforts by el Instituto de Vivienda de la Ciudad, or City Housing Institute in Villa 31-31 bis (Ons 2021, 897). Here, Ons is inserting another point of view by which to view or measure the success of an urbanizing project, critiquing the lack of public power and intervention in infrastructure, changes in land use, or the redevelopment of the land itself, interestingly not only on the basis of “humanitarian necessity,” but also within the contexts of massive costs of informal urban living for multiple actors at play (Ons 2021, 916-917). She explores critiques of this specific project in Villa 31-31 bis, which are primarily due to little opportunity for participation and transparency with the community in the planning, “such as the price that the beneficiaries will pay for the houses they live in, or for the new ones in case of being relocated” or other lack of information about the central projects. Ons provides a lens by which to reconceptualize property in these areas, “not as a right without conditions, but as a set of rights (of use, construction, transformation) that imply obligations” for inhabitants themselves, to “better distribute the burdens and benefits of the city” (Ons 2021, 916). Águila and Breña also represent other frameworks for research when looking at cuchas and boliches inhabited temporally by on-site construction workers in the city (Águila and Breña 2022, 81). These cuchas and boliches made of metal sheets and wood, serve as the workers’ shelter for the job, creating an interesting dynamic where these construction workers, “must be willing to have the job demand increasingly more of his person and occupy more of his private life” as well as have the job of transforming the space into goods, but are not able to inhabit them once they become goods (Águila and Breña 2022, 82-84). Additionally, Águila and Breña make the distinction that most of these workers are Paraguayan migrants, stating that “39.8 percent of Paraguayan males residing in the metropolitan area work in construction as opposed to 10.4 percent of Argentines” (Águila and Breña 2022, 79). Águila and Breña call it an “overexploitation of the migrant workforce,” emphasizing the way on-site construction workers are suppressed by companies “within [their] wage labor conditions, limiting and blocking the development of their subjectivity and/or the possibility of [the] collective organization” (Águila and Breña 2022, 80-81). Águila and Breña, and by extension Muñoz and Ons, complicate what the informal

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urban inhabitant looks like and can be portrayed as Buenos Aires, whether that is in terms of agency in Muñoz and Ons’ case, or literal way of living in Águila and Breña’s case. These scholars begin to shift from the historical narrative of informal urban living as an urgent problem in need of elimination.

CONCLUSION As mentioned above, these scholars do mention identifiers of inhabitants of Buenos Aires’ informal living communities that have socially fragmented groups, such as ancestry, heritage, class, migration pattern, and citizenship status, as well as complexify the narrative of who these inhabitants are, what they are capable of, and what has existed simultaneously with the dominant narrative. However, this paper does find that the scholarship lacks recognition of this social fragmentation happening within ethnic and racial lines. Would a more comprehensive framework for understanding informal living communities, and by extension social hierarchies and citizenship in Buenos Aires, come from more explicit recognition of the racialization and ethnicization of informal living? This paper views the next steps of this literature to be more explicit about the consistently reproduced racial ethnic hierarchies and their direct impact on housing and citizenship, specifically in informal living communities of the city. It additionally emphasizes the significance of questioning where the narrative of these communities is being received, complicating what informality entails and how it has been defined in a variety of ways. car2268@barnard.edu _____________________________ REFERENCES Aboy, Rosa. 2007. “‘The Right to a Home’: Public Housing in Post–World War II Buenos Aires.” Journal of Urban History 33 (3): 493–518. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144206297139.

Auyero, Javier. 2000. “The Hyper-Shantytown: Neo-Liberal Violence(s) in the Argentine Slum.” Ethnography 1 (1): 93–116.

Bastia, Tanja. 2015. “Transnational Migration and Urban Informality.” Urban Studies 52 (10): 1810–25.

Centner, Ryan. 2012. “Microcitizenships: Fractious Forms of Urban Belonging after Argentine Neoliberalism: Microcitizenships in Buenos Aires.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36 (2): 336–62. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01050.x.

Codebò, Agnese. 2020. “Against the Grid: The Cultural Emergence of Villas Miseria in Buenos Aires.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 29 (1): 85–107. https://doi.org/10.108 0/13569325.2019.1636365.

Gelder, Jean-Louis van, Maria Cristina Cravino, and Fernando Ostuni. 2016a. “Housing Informality in Buenos Aires.” Urban Studies 53 (9): 1958–75.

Hölzl, Corinna. 2017. “The Occupation of the Parque Indoamericano in Buenos Aires: Discourse Dynamics and Stakeholder Practices.” Latin American Perspectives 44 (3): 113– 34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X15602661. Águila, Álvaro del, and Mariana Ortega Breña. “Living on the Construction Site: Paraguayan Construction Workers in Buenos

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Aires.” Latin American Perspectives 45, no. 1 (2018): 77–90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48595198.

Muñoz, Solange. 2018. “Precarious City.” Cultural Geographies 25 (3): 411–424.

Ons, Melina. 2021a. “Asentamientos Informales y Grandes Proyectos Urbanos En La Ciudad de Buenos Aires - Informal Settlements and Large Urban Projects in the City of Buenos Aires.”

Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos 36 (3 (108): 891–920.

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Photography by Mila Lin Tabach

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Columbus Circle Station Man waiting for the train.

New York City Marathon, Nov. 5, 2023 Probably the most community I have seen in NYC.

Sun hitting building

Building on 63rd street during sunset.

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READING THE MIDWEST: How Novels Can Inspire Urban Planning and Policy in the Rust Belt, Great Plains, and Great Lakes

BY ELLIE GEORGE Barnard College ‘23

INTRODUCTION: his research is situated within the evolution of the urban planning profession, specifically its transition to understanding planners as “social facilitators” (Fainstein 2015, 176). Although the objective of planning remains the same—to promote sustainable urban development—the role of the urban planner has undergone significant changes (Fainstein 2015, 176).

Previously, planners focused solely on technical knowledge related to zoning codes and land use. However, with shifts in planning theory, planners are now viewed as mediators, aiming to forge consensus among community members, land developers, and political leaders with conflicting interests to achieve equitable pluralism (Friedmann 2015, 77).

Within this shift, “communicative planning,” emerged, a philosophy that promotes equitable pluralism by advocating for those left out of the participation process. Planning commissions tend to be ill-equipped to represent a pluralistic society, as the lifestyle requirements that allow for participation are inherently limiting; participants must possess the ability to attend evening meetings and provide unpaid labor, which those who may have evening childcare responsibilities, work long hours, or cannot work for free, among other constraints (Friedmann 2015, 77).

In reaction to the impossibility of planning commissions to represent everyone in a city, communicative planners advocate for those marginalized by the planning process (Healy 1992, 242).

A communicative planner creates equitable pluralism within the city by representing the needs of the people absent from the decision-making table (Fainstein 2015, 176).

Despite communicative planners’ goals of inclusivity and social equity, scholarship emerging in Literary Urban Studies (LUS) argues that these ideals are undercut when planners write official documents (Beauregard 2021; Finch 2022). LUS is the academic study of urban literary representations, a field that investigates literature and the urban environment—how literary works help us understand cities, and how cities influence literary production. LUS understands that planning’s relationship with storytelling is reciprocal: while communicative planners are conventionally thought of as story collectors because they listen to the perspectives of people unrepresented in the planning process, they are also story producers (Throgmorton 2003, 142). When writing land-use plans, planners are charged with the difficult task of translating and condensing an assorted array of experiences—some more alike than others—into comprehensible and cohesive documents meant for the public (Throgmorton 2003). As choices are inevitably made to include certain details about community wants and needs, that means the converse is also true—certain details are not included (Beauregard 2021, 283). Planners ultimately choose which narratives are elevated

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and expanded to represent the status of the geographic area (Beauregard 2021, 282-292). Stories can be condensed, twisted, or brushed aside in favor of elevating others such as the agenda of political leaders or land developers (Beauregard 2021, 283).

Despite a communicative planner’s vision for inclusivity, the document-making process ultimately becomes exclusionary due to the planner’s role as an editor (Beauregard 2021).

The exclusionary nature of planning documents highlights a gap in communicative urban planning scholarship—the communicative planner’s role in document creation. This is the start of my research, which understands how narratives about urban space are constructed and considers the effectiveness of urban planning documents to reflect urban knowledge and experiences. I turn to novels to understand urban experiences that are portrayed through characters, settings, plot, and literary elements such as figurative language, symbolism, and motifs. I conduct a comparative analysis between planning documents from Auburn, Indiana, a post-industrial Midwestern town, and the experiences of characters in Auburn’s fictional mirror, Vacca Vale, Indiana from Tess Gunty’s 2022 novel, The Rabbit Hutch.

Vacca Vale mirrors Auburn in many ways—in population size, history, and the problems brought on by Rust Belt deindustrialization; their comparison reveals aspects of life represented in fiction that lay beyond what’s captured by the report-style writing in Auburn’s documents. Through this comparison, I gain insight into the process of communicative planning, including the edits that are made (or not made) when writing plans, and what aspects of residents’ experiences are left on the cutting room floor.

My analysis understands that the surveys designed by Auburn’s planning department can’t account for the perspective of Blandine Watkins, the nineteen-year-old protagonist of The Rabbit Hutch. Blandine is a low-income, high-school dropout and former child of the foster care system; she is neither a highschool dependent nor a 40-something, mid-career adult, which are the two demographics best captured by Auburn’s citizen participation methods. Blandine falls between the cracks, and yet, her voice is necessary. Due to the discrepancy between Blandine’s perspective and what is captured by Auburn’s planning documents, I argue that a reliance on surveys hinders communicative planning’s objective. Truly inclusive planning methods would create documents that account for all residents—including Blandine.

My findings advocate for a third “turn” in planning theory, where communicative planners broaden their epistemology to encompass representations of the city created by artists, musicians, and creative writers. Artistic representations of the city enable planning documents to better reflect the intricacies, histories, and contradictions of an urban space that are overlooked in their current form. While uncommon, the experiences of residents with complex lives and identities are important and bring a

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unique perspective on city development if captured by planners.

Expanding planners’ conception of what belongs in an official planning document brings planners one step closer to realizing the inclusive ideals of communicative planning considering exclusionary results. I envision a future where Blandine’s voice not only matters to planning practices, but can help inform them.

RESULTS Vacca Vale and Auburn both characterize post-industrial Midwestern towns on the brink of downtown revitalization, yet one aspect differentiates them: The Rabbit Hutch’s protagonist, Blandine Watkins, vehemently opposes Vacca Vale’s downtown revitalization plan. In contrast, Auburn’s official 2040 Comprehensive Plan and 2018 Downtown Revitalization Plan omit any mention of opposition (2018 Downtown Revitalization Plan, 63-71). This is a glaring incongruence, as urban planning documents aim to correctly and comprehensively document stakeholder input. But the incongruence can also illustrate something else: how form shapes city narrative—in this case, what prose fiction conveys about urban experience compared to data-driven government reports. By examining Blandine’s opinions on downtown revitalization and comparing her experience to the survey data reflected in Auburn’s reports, I understand that Auburn’s planning methods aren’t designed to capture Blandine’s demographic.

To compare a fictional novel to non-fiction planning documents, I employ methodologies created by LUS. I consider planners and fiction writers as interlocutors with dueling accounts of the city, and approach their work the way a scholar approaches a work of literature—focusing on how narrative structure shapes its underlying significance. My research process consists of four sections, which are listed as follows: Part One: Auburn’s Documents I analyze Auburn’s planning documents for a narrative “plot” to understand the motivation behind the proposed downtown revitalization plan.

Part Two: Auburn and Vacca Vale I compare Auburn’s socioeconomic and infrastructure issues to those depicted in The Rabbit Hutch’s Vacca Vale.

Part Three: Blandine’s Story Using Blandine’s story as a case study, I compare aspects of urban life in The Rabbit Hutch that Auburn’s surveys fail to capture.

Part Four: A Future for Planning Documents I propose a new epistemology for communicative planning practices, using a chapter from The Rabbit Hutch as an example.

PART ONE: AUBURN’S DOCUMENTS Analyzing Auburn’s documents for a narrative arc reveals it as a “city of ghosts,” where factory closures and population decline motivate revitalization in hope for a prosperous future.

Auburn’s narrative arc showcases what a city used to be, what it is now, and what it dreams of becoming in the future—in other words, a vision for how the proposed downtown revitalization

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will transform Auburn. Weaving together three pieces of information in Auburn’s planning documents creates this “city of ghosts” archetype: 1) Auburn’s history of auto manufacturing, 2) recurring automobile imagery in the vision statement, and 3) statistics that illustrate a declining population and limited housing stock. Approaching the document as a literary text to construct Auburn’s past, present, and future, reveals a plan to change this narrative by pivoting the city’s image towards one of opportunity and excitement, where downtown transforms into a booming tech hub for young professionals.

Auburn’s “plot” to transform from a declining post-industrial city into a tech hub is first illustrated by the history section, which explains that the automobile industry served as Auburn’s former source of economy. Two prominent manufacturers—the Auburn Automobile Company and Eckhart Carriage Company—provided jobs and drew residents to Auburn. These two companies pioneered luxury automobile engineering in the 1930s but closed by the 1950s due to material shortages and economic depressions. In the wake of these closures, Auburn pays homage to its roots in the automobile industry by opening the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum and showroom of the Auburn Automobile Company (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 8). Every Labor Day since 1956, the community has held a festival which brings thousands of visitors to Auburn to admire the classic luxury cars (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022).

Automobile imagery is continued throughout the plans to convey that innovation will inform future development. The 2040 Comprehensive Plan displays imagery and written sentiment about the importance of automobile manufacturing in the town’s history. (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 2, 27, 31, 65). Take the vision statement on page 28, for example. It maintains the automobile as central to the city’s success because even though Auburn no longer possesses any car manufacturers, language associated with driving is still used to describe the vision for its future. The vision statement begins by stating “like the auto that made it famous,” and similarly, also ends with a callback to the automobile, that “Auburn will drive and thrive on the road ahead” (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development, 28). The vision statement also describes the process of reaching future goals as a “road map.” In other words, even though Auburn’s manufacturing days are long gone, readers of this document are not meant to forget about it. Auburn’s use of figurative language connected to driving keeps cars at the forefront of the reader’s minds to convey that Auburn’s history in manufacturing and “innovative spirit” will continue to propel it forward into the future.

The reference to “innovative spirit” represents the central drama of Auburn’s planning documents: what, if not the automobile manufacturing industry, will propel this spirit? While the history section and vision statement demonstrate that Auburn used to be booming and is still a sought-after destination for tourists, the statistics in the demographic and survey sections paint Auburn as a much less desirable place to live based on its lack of housing, infrastructure, and amenities.

Statistics on housing, employment, and youth retention statistics contrast to the vision statement, and portray Auburn as a place of low housing stock, declining population, and poor

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youth retention rates. Despite the city’s goal to “provide affordable and diverse options for housing,” 23% of respondents believe Auburn’s housing stock will not meet future needs (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 36). In addition to concern about housing stock, Auburn’s also experiencing population decline; it is expected to decrease by 0.53% by 2050, meaning 700 residents will exit Auburn’s economy (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 9). Not only will Auburn suffer low housing and decreasing population, but the city’s youth population also consider leaving the city; when surveying high schoolers, the planning department found that students perceive Auburn to lack job opportunities, activities, and amenities (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 5). 39% of students are unsure if they will stay in Auburn after finishing school (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 9). Whereas the history section portrays Auburn as a place with a strong history and a prosperous future, statistics on housing, population, and youth retention tell a different story— that residents are dissatisfied with the town’s lack of housing, infrastructure, and amenities.

Despite resident’s dissatisfaction, the 2018 Downtown Revitalization Plan displays an ideal vision for how a vibrant downtown will fix Auburn’s issues, and restore the area by creating resurgence of young residents: Future residents will continue to provide a refreshed look and indeed additional consumer demand for retail, restaurants, and services in Auburn’s downtown. They will first visit and experience Auburn with new eyes as they consider moving to the area. Then, they will explore and become connected to their community and its heart—Auburn’s Downtown (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2018, 21).

According to Auburn’s planners, tourism will entice an initial wave of visitors, and upon seeing the quality of life in Auburn, they will feel inclined to put down roots in the community.

This story arc—how a formerly prosperous town rebuilds into something greater—reveals the purpose for downtown revitalization. Moving forward, Auburn’s past as a manufacturing town will drive its future as a desirable place for young professionals and high-tech businesses by capitalizing on the influx of visitors who come to view the auto shows and inspire them to establish roots in Auburn. The plans for economic revitalization aim to change this narrative by pivoting the city’s image towards one of opportunity and excitement. In LUS, Auburn’s plot reflects the “city of ghosts” archetype, or a site of “memory, of small towns, drying up and blowing away [...] of neighborhoods being destroyed by urban renewal [or] being eviscerated by deindustrialization” (Throgmorton 2003, 142). Approaching Auburn’s planning documents as a literary text by reading across various sections clarifies that the potential to become a thriving town with tech and tourism motivates downtown revitalization.

PART TWO: AUBURN AND VACCA VALE Similar to Auburn, Vacca Vale also reflects the “a city of ghosts” archetype due to population decline, lack of sufficient infrastructure, and the history of formerly lucrative automobile

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manufacturers, and seeks transformation downtown revitalization and attracting high-earning, young talent. Auburn encourages property owners to renovate upper floors for office and high-tech businesses in hopes of attracting young professionals to “consider moving to the area” (Downtown Revitalization Plan, 51). Likewise, in The Rabbit Hutch, the mayor of Vacca Vale partners with local real estate developer Maxwell Pinky to develop the Vacca Vale Revitalization Plan, generating an estimated $4 million in local tax to fund luxury condominiums in the hillside “to transform Vacca Vale from a dying postindustrial city into a startup hub and attract talent from all over the world” (Gunty 2022, 34-35).

Auburn and Vacca Vale also reflect each other as students remain uncertain about their desire to remain in Auburn. In Auburn, 39% of students express uncertainty about staying in the city as adults (Auburn Department of Building Planning Development 2022, 9). Blandine also dreams of leaving Vacca Vale. However, it isn’t easy for her to do so because she is a low-income former child of the foster care system, whose recent emancipation means she lacks the resources and connections needed to start a life somewhere else (Gunty 2022, 181). So, when Vacca Vale reveals its own revitalization plan, it only seems logical that Blandine would support it, as revitalization, in theory, would also improve her own quality of life. Yet, Blandine opposes the plan and even commits an act of eco-terrorism to protest it, threatening developers with fake blood, animal corpses, and voodoo dolls (Gunty 2022, 33).

If planners could capture Blandine’s perspective on downtown revitalization, they would understand her experience working a minimum-wage job and living in an affordable housing complex. Importantly, the surveys designed by Auburn could not account for Blandine because as a high schooler, the surveys do not reach her demographic. Auburn utilized two different surveys to capture citizen input, one for high school students and one for adults (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 32). Which survey would Blandine complete? She shares the age of a typical high school student, yet holds the responsibility of an adult. Blandine would not receive the high school surveys because she is not enrolled in school.

But if Blandine did answer it, her perspective may not be captured because it is uncertain which aspects differed between the high school versus adult surveys, such as questions about the status of housing and employment in Auburn—questions that Blandine can answer, but a typical teenager cannot (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 32).

Therefore, even if Blandine completes the student survey, she may not receive the opportunity to convey her full lifestyle due to the unclear nature of how the adult survey differs from the survey meant for students.

Even if Blandine participated in the adult survey instead of the student survey, her perspective would nevertheless become drowned out by older, high-income individuals who dominate Auburn’s citizen-participation process. The Public Engagement Appendix corresponding to Auburn’s 2040 Plan shows that public participation skewed towards Auburn’s wealthy population (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 1). Despite there being an even spread

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across participant ages, with no age bracket receiving more than 26% of the number of participants, 8-24-year-olds only made up 3% of respondents (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 1). Only 16% of participants made less than $75,000 per year, which contrasts Auburn’s average income of $48,684 (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 1). Blandine would be one of the only people in the 8-24-year-old age group represented in these statistics. Furthermore, at least 68% of survey respondents earned an above-average income. (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 1). The difference between Auburn’s average age and income versus that of the respondents shows how the data skews toward those of residents whose lifestyles do not represent the average person in Auburn, let alone Blandine, who belongs to the least-represented age group and income category (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 1).

Not only do older, high-income individuals dominate the citizen participation process which contrasts Blandine, but the mismatched results between development priorities and suggestions for improvements exemplify that they skew the results.

One survey presents a list of nine land-use types such as “arts and entertainment,” “dining,” and “educational and community services,” and participants check a box if they consider the option available, affordable, and of acceptable quality (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2022, 2).

The results show that “recreational options” received the lowest score, and employment opportunities received the second-lowest (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 2). Logically, recreational options and employment opportunities would then reflect “recreation” and “employment” in a second survey which displays the top 3 development priorities for the next 20 years (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 3). However, despite being viewed as having the second-worst quality, “increase employment opportunities” only received 29% of the vote as a top-3-development priority, in favor of “increase and enhance food,” “expand recreation activities,” and “continue to beautify and redevelop downtown,” which received higher scores of 33% and 43% of votes respectively (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development 2021, 3). This means that unessential goods and services such as food, recreation, and downtown renovation are prioritized over essential ones, like access to employment opportunities.

Prioritizing food, recreation, and redeveloping downtown over employment opportunities demonstrates the consequences of high-income people having an outsized impact in the survey.

For low-income residents like Blandine, employment opportunities do not hold the same weight as food options, recreation, and downtown redevelopment, as employment determines a person’s ability to afford rent or put food on the table. The survey results disproportionately reflect high-income earners’ unessential desires, detracting attention from the expressions of less-represented, and in this case, lower-income residents. If Auburn’s planners acted based on the recommendations from this distorted public perception, they would not have implemented changes in Blandine’s favor. Instead, they would cater to the

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non-essential desires of Auburn’s wealthier, older population and prioritize restaurants, recreational space, and an upgraded downtown instead of designing for better quality employment opportunities. This shows the consequences of utilizing a citizen participation method that can’t account for the diversity of its population—the needs of the populations most vulnerable will be obscured and subsequently ignored under the pretense of implementing citizen feedback as the planners follow the majority’s opinion.

PART THREE: BLANDINE’S STORY The Rabbit Hutch showcases how fictional modes of writing capture input on urban experience that can’t fit into traditional survey methods used by Auburn’s planners. The Rabbit Hutch uses sustained metaphors to liken the local government of Vacca Vale to an absent parent and the urban environment’s condition with an unhealthy body to show how the revitalization plan ultimately creates harm. On the first page of The Rabbit Hutch, it is revealed that the novel’s protagonist, Blandine Watkins, exits her body (Gunty 2022, 1). It is uncertain what “exiting the body” entails metaphysically, but this phrase is repeated in a countdown-like fashion at the start of each section until the last one, where the scene is finally laid bare: wanting to impress Blandine, her three roommates, Malik, Todd, and Jack, attempt to kill the injured goat Blandine rescues in an act of well-intentioned animal sacrifice (Gunty, 311-316). Blandine throws herself in front of the goat, and as Todd’s knife enters her chest, she sees flashes of light before she finally “exits her body,” and wakes up in the hospital (Gunty, 311-316).

Three nineteen-year-olds attempting animal sacrifice may seem like a strange plot point in a novel about a decaying midwestern town. However, in The Rabbit Hutch, bodies—both dead and alive—represent more than mere physical flesh and bone.

Bodies represent the livelihood of the built environment. In The Rabbit Hutch, bodies and cities are two of the same—to exit the body is to exit the town of Vacca Vale, which she spends the length of the novel to accomplish. Like the youth in Auburn, Blandine dreams of a better life elsewhere.

The Rabbit Hutch likens the city government to a parental figure to convey how Zorn’s death, the town’s former automobile manufacturer, affects the city. Blandine narrates: “[The Zorn factories] haunt the sky and the birds with their remembrance of a supposedly better time, reliving their history over and over like a sad, drunk father who was once the high school quarterback” (Gunty 2022, 138). In likening the remnants of Zorn’s impactful past to a “sad, drunk father,” Blandine portrays Vacca Vale as a neglectful parental figure—someone who fails to provide safety and security for their dependents. Blandine depends on the city for a good quality of life, just as a child depends on their parent.

Even though Vacca Vale once held promise like a high-school quarterback in a ‘90s film, the glory days are long over, as the city now resembles the quarterback’s fall from grace and entrance into a harmful, neglectful state.

Not only does Blandine understand the city as a government body meant to take care of her to provide safety, but in her reaction to a commercial, it is understood that figurative language can illustrate abstract emotions about urban life. This is shown

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through Blandine’s reaction to her roommate watching a commercial for the revitalization plan on television. In a commercial, a television narrator states: Home is a place where you don’t have to choose between big-city life and the comforts of a small town. [...]

Home is wood in the fireplace, rain boots by the door, a mug of cocoa, game nights with friends. Home is first steps. Belly laughs. [...] Home isn’t just a place. It’s a mindset. Vacca Vale: Welcome home (Gunty 2022, 232).

Blandine’s roommate, Todd, a fellow emancipated child, watches the commercial with tears welling in his eyes. Since Todd never possessed a true sense of family, he lived in foster care for his entire life, the possibility for Vacca Vale to provide a comforting sense of domestic life and family causes him to support downtown revitalization. Blandine recognizes how poetic language about home speaks to Todd’s deep-seated feelings based on his experience as a foster kid. Blandine’s response to his tears highlights the effectiveness of figurative language to capture residents’ relationship with the city that lies below the surface, and is communicated through abstract concepts like “home” and “parenting.”

Blandine believes that the Vacca Vale Revitalization plan falsely promises a sense of home. She remains wary that the advertisement’s promise to provide a sense of home or family lulls her into a sense of complacency. She thinks that the revitalization plan will actually destroy the city because it will replace Chastity Valley, a swath of wild, untouched land where Blandine goes to relax in Vacca Vale. Blandine deems Chastity Valley “the last good thing” (Gunty 2022, 25-26) and “the only place she’s ever loved” (Gunty 2022, 117). In contrast to the Revitalization Plan, the Valley’s creators were akin to responsible parents because it provided a “safe recreational space” during a pandemic and an inclusive refuge from disaster (Gunty 2022, 172). The Valley provided what good parents should provide—safety and refuge.

The Valley benefits everyone, including low-income people like Blandine because it serves as a site of relaxation. It especially becomes a safe place for Blandine, who often goes there to read, be in nature, and forget the troubles brought on by her difficult life (Gunty 2022, 172). In a town that only facilitates dullness and decay, Chastity Valley provides a sense of life and regeneration (Gunty 2022, 121). The Valley’s extinction proposed by the Revitalization Plan threatens the one place that Blandine previously viewed as free from harm.

Blandine’s figurative death—“exiting her body”—is the consequence of Chastity Valley’s destruction. This death is symbolized by Vacca Vale’s personification as a human with a body.

The narrator states, “Blandine suspects that if medical students sliced open her body, they would find a miniature Vacca Vale nestled inside it. No organs at all. A network of highways, disposable attempts at human ascendancy, a plundered place existing despite its posture of nonexistence” (Gunty 2022, 136).

The connection between the body and the city is a figurative one: Blandine “knows” the city because it resides within her.

When Blandine states her desire to “exit her body,” leaving her body would also mean, in this figurative context, leaving the city.

Therefore, at the novel’s end, when Blandine finally “exits her body” just as the mayor commences the Revitalization Plan, it

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is understood that her body’s vitality comes at the expense of the Revitalization Plan’s construction—Chastity Valley gets torn down and Blandine dies. By showing the figurative relationship between the urban environment and Blandine’s body, the reader understands that replacing Chastity Valley, a place that is used for rest and personal well-being with privatized, luxury condominiums will ultimately cause suffering for low-income people like Blandine who rely on public places.

PART FOUR: A FUTURE FOR PLANNING DOCUMENTS Gunty’s novel presents a unique perspective on the revitalization plan for Chastity Valley by demonstrating how the urban environment affects Blandine. The novel argues that replacing public space with luxury housing for high-income populations will ultimately harm low-income populations. Gunty uses literary devices such as figurative language and personification to show the connection between the city and the body and to convey the message that the government’s role is akin to a parent’s in providing a safe, nurturing environment for its residents (Gunty 2022). Through The Rabbit Hutch, Gunty showcases the aspects of Blandine’s life that aren’t taken into consideration by the Vacca Vale’s government, such as the city’s parent-like effect on its residents, and that Blandine and her roommates seek a sense of home within it (Gunty 2022).

The novel also emphasizes the diminishing impact of opinions from a demographic similar to Blandine within Auburn’s citizen engagement process. The discrepancy between Blandine’s experiences and the input captured by Auburn’s planners points to a larger question about the function of planning documents.

The Rabbit Hutch shows that implementing housing plans for high-income residents comes at the expense of lower-income residents such as Blandine. To achieve communicative planning’s goal of inclusivity, planning processes must capture and reflect the experiences of all people, without one demographic distorting the results.

Given the shortcomings of conventional planning documents and traditional citizen engagement methods, I propose the integration of artistic representations like poems, short stories, and prose into planning documents. This approach aims to better capture the intricacies of urban life and aid planners in amplifying the voices often marginalized by survey-based methods. The Rabbit Hutch’s ability to portray Blandine’s perspective on the Vacca Vale Revitalization Plan demonstrates that Blandine’s perspective is more complex than what Auburn’s surveys account for. In order to meet their goals of equity, planning documents must reflect this complexity, and incorporating prose into these documents stands as a viable method to attain this objective.

Although incorporating fictional stories in planning documents is not a common practice, an experimental example of this approach happened in Helsinki, Finland. In 2009, the Helsinki planning office commissioned a novelist to write a novel that would exemplify the incoming development in the city. The novel follows the life of a young man who works in various trades in Helsinki, including as a construction worker, brewery assistant, baker, and ship laborer. His experiences are shaped by the proximity of the sea to the city and the shipping industry’s influence on it (Ameel 2016). Although the novel is not integrated

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into Helsinki’s planning documents, it still helps planners and the public understand the experiences of tradespeople and the shipping industry’s impact on the city, highlighting the usefulness of stories in the planning profession.

I propose incorporating short stories and poems directly into planning documents, building upon the success of Helsinki’s novel in assisting planners. In The Rabbit Hutch, one of the most influential segments of the text recounts Vacca Vale’s history from Blandine’s perspective: The city speaks to her. Won’t stop speaking to her. As [Blandine] walks, she can hear the dead Zorn Factories, even though she can’t see them. She can always hear them. [...] The factories pollute the air with their history, just how they once polluted it with dark chemical smoke. The price of overabundance. Oblivious to the plan, the factories loom and groan. Rusty and trapped in their expired power, they march to the east until they vanish into the hallowed glimmer of the Valley. Blandine doesn’t need medical students to open her body to know that her city lives inside her (Gunty 2022, 142).

This paragraph, which details the effect of Zorn’s decommission on Vacca Vale, could be included alongside other literary segments representing the city. By presenting prose that contrasts survey results, a more inclusive tapestry of urban experiences can be reflected in planning documents. Blandine’s perspective of Zorn’s effect on pollution presents information that is not recounted by Auburn’s history section. While Auburn’s history section portrays its automobile manufacturing roots as a force that propels Auburn into the future, Blandine views Zorn as causing the opposite effect. Instead of allowing Vacca Vale to “drive and thrive on the road ahead,” Zorn factories “pollute the air with their history” (Auburn Department of Building Planning and Development, 28; Gunty 2022, 142). Including excerpts of prose such as these in planning documents will better reflect the diversity of opinions left out by survey results, ultimately presenting a more comprehensive account of the city.

CONCLUSION Communicative urban planning seeks to mediate stakeholders’ conflicting interests and advocate for those marginalized by the participatory democratic process. However, the limitations of planning documents and the document creation process, prohibit this goal, failing to capture a complex array of city experiences. This failure is reflected in the documents of Auburn, Indiana, where the distorted survey results reflect the desires of Auburn’s older, higher-income population disproportionately.

Ultimately, this is problematic for Auburn, as their use of surveys detracts from the inclusive plan.

In contrast to planning documents, fictional accounts of the city present an alternative understanding of life in a city, often by the very people whose voices are omitted from the planning document. This is displayed in The Rabbit Hutch by the novel’s protagonist, Blandine Watkins, an eighteen-year-old who was formerly enrolled in the foster care system and a recent high school dropout. She believes that the construction of luxury condominiums in Chastity Valley built to revitalize the town will destroy her. She likens Vacca Vale to an irresponsible parent, and the destruction of the Valley as another case of this

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mismanagement, with the town working against her. Throughout The Rabbit Hutch, Blandine tries to voice her opinions to the town officials and developers to no avail. At the end of the novel, she “exits her body”— dies and is reborn—but the revitalization plan commences anyway.

Blandine possesses a nuanced perspective on the revitalization plan. She and her roommates, who also hold marginalized identities in Vacca Vale, express feelings of frustration at the town’s dismal state, yet simultaneously grapple with helplessness in their ability to change their situation or the town’s willingness to listen to their perspective. Blandine’s opinions on the revitalization plan are important; they ultimately point to what it’s like for Vacca Vale’s population most reliant on social services to set up a good life for themselves.

Blandine’s opinions are important for town planners to know because it is the planner’s job to capture the perspectives of its residents. However, in looking at the planning practices of Vacca Vale’s real-life equivalent, Auburn, Indiana, Blandine’s perspective is not effectively captured. The discrepancy between Blandine’s experiences and what is captured by Auburn’s planners points to a larger question about the function of planning documents. If planning documents are meant to showcase how planners’ land use plans were informed by the public, what does it mean if the planners are acting based on results that are predominantly concentrated in one group, such as the high-income responders in Auburn’s example? Reading The Rabbit Hutch alongside Auburn planning documents shows how the mode of writing in planning documents should live alongside survey results. Adding fiction would allow people like Blandine to express themselves when falling through the cracks in other planning methods. egeorge@barnard.edu _____________________________ REFERENCES Ameel, L. (2017). The City Novel: Measuring referential, spatial, linguistic, and temporal distances. In The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space (pp. 233-241). Routledge.

Ameel, L. (2017). Towards a narrative typology of urban planning narratives for, in and of planning in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki.

Urban Design International, 22, 318-330.

Ameel, L. (2016). A Bildungsroman for a waterfront development: Literary genre and the planning narratives of Jätkäsaari, Helsinki. Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, 3(2), 169-187.

Athitakis, Mark. The New Midwest: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction of the Great Lakes, Great Plains, and Rust Belt. Small Pr United, 2017.

Arnold, Amanda “Why Literature and Pop Culture Still Can’t Get the Midwest Right.” Literary Hub, April 12, 2019. https:// lithub.com/why-literature-and-pop-culture-still-cant-get-themidwest-right/.

Department of Building Planning and Development, Downtown Revitalization Plan (2018). Auburn, Indiana Department of Building Planning and Development.

Department of Building Planning and Development, Auburn 2040 (2020). Auburn, Indiana Department of Building Planning

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and Development.

Department of Building Planning and Development, Community Engagement Report (2021). Auburn, Indiana Department of Building Planning and Development.

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Photography taken in Barcelona, Spain by Ananya Pal

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