JUST AS QUICKLY AS YOU READ THIS…YOU ARE NOW INVOLVED THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN DESIGN AND URBAN ECOLOGIES
IN THE CITY OUR RIGHT TO THE CITY
NEWCOMERS
SI O
s nt e re ris
RETURN DISPLACED PEOPLE
FLOW
D IV ER
DISPLACED PEOPLE NEWCOMERS
INSIDE
MONEY
N
The History And Strategies
FRANK MORALES: MY LIFE AS A HOMESTEADER page 28
DEVELOPERS
DEVELOPERS
N
O
SI
ER
IV
D
MONEY FLOW OUT OF COMMUNITY
COMBATING DISPLACEMENT IN BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN CITYSTEADING
page 36
The people and community organizations of Bushwick are ‘planning to stay.’ Any strategy must adopt an integrated approach to consider community owned housing, cooperative wealth building, and participation in governance. Citysteading is the steady making of economic life as a city and community through the creation of shared assets and dialog.
BUSHWICK INCLUSIVE
page 40
If a more inclusive community of stakeholders have access to socially innovative tools, resources and networks, community projects will have a greater impact, leading to overall systematic change instead of just local interventions. In short, we want to create an innovative and sustainable social impact venture to build affordable housing alternatives.
ENGAGING LOTS
page 44
Through agreements with the owners of vacant lots, we can begin to build a space for our community to gather and pursue shared images of our neighborhoods. Other spaces are set up to divert the problems of displacement. The goal is to create permanent spaces of habitation both for displaced people and our neighbors at risk.
FROM URBAN HOMESTEADING TO A NEW ECOLOGY OF HOUSING This Gazette is part of a long term urban research and design project initiated by faculty and students from the Graduate Program in Design and Urban Ecologies at the New School. Our investigation begins with an overview of city-wide processes, the current housing condition, homelessness, structural vacancy, and the success and failure of federal and local urban homesteading programs. In today’s context of for-profit development, urban practices in the legacy of Homesteading are crucial to acheive the Right to Housing. However, they must be envisioned with complimentary urban processes leading to Citysteading, the path to fulfill the Right to the City, and therefore gain access to alternative models
of learning, working, housing provision and ownership. The project seeks to design alternative strategies for community based access to housing, renovation and infill of existing housing stock, structured around the provision of subsidies, loans, sweat equity subsities and developing expertise with residents able to renovate existing vacant buildings. In addition, it envisions platforms to recognize local knowledge, resources and skills that could be disseminated and exchanged to collectively generate a more sustainable and inclusive social and spatial development.