Julia Borowicz, Larissa Begault

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism Master Thesis May 2015 Theories of Urban Practice Julia Borowicz and Larissa Begault

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism Master Thesis May 2015 Theories of Urban Practice Parsons The New School For Design Julia Borowicz and Larissa Begault Thesis Advisor: Victoria Marshall, Assistant Professor of Urban Design Secondary Advisor: Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank all our professors that have influenced our work to date and particularly our dedicated advisors, Victoria Marshall and Miodrag Mitrasinovic. Special thanks to Miodrag for his contagious enthusiasm for public space. We would also like to thank Neighbors Allied for Good Growth for their support and collaboration in running our Walking Workshops. Also, our wonderful participants in the workshops and research interviewees that were critical to the development of our thesis. Finally, we would like to thank our incredibly inspirational fellow Theories of Urban Practice students: Nora Elmarzouky, Rania Dalloul, Katherine Horstmann, Sam Wynne, Nadia Elokdah, Renae Diggs, Katerina Vaseva and Sara Minard for the many stimulating discussions and many more to come.

Cover image: Larissa Begault, 2015

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 1A. ABSTRACT

p. 9

1B. HYPOTHESIS

p.10

1C. ARGUMENT

p.11

1D. METHODS Theoretical Lenses Site Observations Positionality Site Analysis Intervention

p.13

2. OVERVIEW OF TRENDS 2A. VALORIZATION AND DEVALORIZATION CYCLES

p. 23

2B. LUXURY CITY PRODUCTION - BLOOMBERG TO DE BLASIO

p. 27

2C. PRIVATIZATION OF SPACE AND RESOURCES

p. 31

2D. SITE INTRODUCTION

p. 35

3. SITE DYNAMICS AND ANALYSIS 3A. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF MAIN THEMES

p. 41

3B. TRIANGULATION First Phase of Triangulation Process - CPC Ownership Second Phase of Triangulation Process - Two Trees Ownership

p. 43

3C. CAPITAL STRATEGIES AND SOCIAL GOOD Havemeyer Park Kara Walker Exhibition

p. 51

3D. PRESERVATION AND AESTHETICS Politics of a Spatial Renaissance Reason and the Aestheticization of the Past On Discourse of Tolerance and Authenticity Aestheticization of Ethnic and Class Difference Sociospatial Amnesia Class Consumption and Crisis

p. 61

3E. MULTIPLE BELONGING AND DIFFERENCE Politics and Difference Standardization, Homogenization and the Normative Commodification - Public Space for Profit Participation and Citizenship

p. 71

4. DESIGN AND PROPOSALS 4A. INTRODUCING PARC Designing a Negotiation Process 4B. PROTOTYPING PARC Walking Workshops Analysis 4C. IMPLEMENTING PARC

p.81 p.85 p.93

5. CONCLUSION 5A. SIGNIFICANCE AND APPLICABILITY

p.99

5B. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

p.99

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

p. 100

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

1. INTRODUCTION 1A. ABSTRACT

This thesis engages in the processes and negotiations that take place in the creation of new landscapes of consumption and production. Landscape here, refers to the spaces produced through the need of surplus capital to be invested in fixed and human assets. Their built form derives from cycles of valorization and devalorization, land speculation and profit maximization and is produced for a new ascendant class identity born out the most recent labor force restructuring. Situating this within the growing trend of public-private partnerships we are questioning what the mechanisms are for the participatory production of ‘public’ space within which participatory and democratic acts are possible. In order to investigate this, we are looking at the Domino Sugar Factory, a large scale luxury redevelopment project. This is a significant site to study because it is one of the current manifestations of the production of such new landscapes being packaged through a number of provisions, namely affordable housing and open space, within neighborhoods with established communities. To what extent do these spaces meet the objectives they promise to communities, typically in need of more green space? How do these benefits weigh against potential costs of development? This thesis questions how the process of production of such landscapes and its outcomes participate in the shaping of citizenship, belonging and representation. Through actionable theory, we are establishing new openings for multiple publics to take part in such space production through a proposal for a legislated body, which we have called Public Action Review Collaborative (PARC). PARC is a participatory model that seeks to expand democratic practices by including representational justice in local politics and overseeing the production and management of public space. PARC challenges the power imbalance of urban development, creating long term structural change to the process of public-private space production. The objective is to create a city mandated model that is replicable across New York.

Applying the model of agonistic pluralism, which involves relations between adversaries who share common (symbolic or physical) space but seek to organize it in different ways, allows for the recognition that a politics without adversary falsely seeks to reconcile all interests provided that they align with the project at hand and can be part of the ‘people’ or thus a legitimate public (Mouffe, 2000). PARC draws on this conception by enabling productive agonism within space production, recognizing the failure of consensus, and advocating for the necessity of multiple publics, while concurrently seeking change within the existing system.

Previous page: Photograph of Domino Sugar Factory under construction. Source: Larissa Begault, 2015 Left: Photograph of Domino Sugar Factory under construction. Source: Tod Seelie for The Gothamist, 2014 1. Introduction

9

1B. HYPOTHESIS

This thesis examines the forces behind current landscapes of production and consumption that valorize a particular class identity and shape the city accordingly. Particular manifestations of these landscapes are luxury residential and mixed used developments that serve as a key economic strategy for the City of New York. Landscapes here refer to the spaces produced through the need of surplus capital to be invested in fixed and human assets. The built form derives from cycles of valorization and devalorization, land speculation and profit maximization and is produced for a new ascendant class identity born out the most recent labor force restructuring.

Alongside this phenomenon, we are witnessing a rise in new forms of privately owned public space generated by these luxury developments. These spaces typically participate in the trend of creating a public realm that is depoliticized, homogenized and commodified equating to the sanitization of people, practices and design. This thesis explores the ways in which multiple publics engage in the making of public space and sphere. There is an important dialectic relationship in which a democratic public sphere is necessary for the production of participatory public space while such space is also necessary to continue generating a democratic discourse and expansion of the public sphere. Within this work, we develop a new conception of citizenship at the local level through applying representational justice to a new democratic structure.

What kind of mechanisms can be developed so that existing civil society can not only be heard but also systemically accounted for? How does a participation process become democratic? Who is represented?

In order to explore these interconnected themes, this thesis examines the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment as a revitalization scheme within a post industrial landscape. Through the aesthetic trend of post-industrial space valorization and the economic and political narrative of progress and modernization, these kinds of projects are further legitimized in the eyes of public. This is a significant site to study because it is one of the current manifestations of the production of privately owned public space, or what is more typically referred to as open space, within mixed use and residential developments.

It is our contention that these kinds of spaces, within residential neighborhoods, participate in a broader trend of spaces of amenity for adjacent luxury developments that are generated through public subsidies but not consistently contribute to the general public’s welfare. The formulaic design typically creates predefined uses, tied to the commercial entities that are present on the site. Thus, returning to our initial hypothesis, the spaces created are commodified and depoliticized sites for consumption and passive recreation. Further, their effect is not neutral, but rather, they carry agency in contributing to rising land values, speculation and the ever increasing upscaling of the city.

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

1. INTRODUCTION 1C. ARGUMENT

In using the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment as a site of analysis, we examine the costs and benefits of such developments within neighborhoods with established communities, while situating it within broader trends of public-private partnerships in urban space production. We argue that the conceived cost-benefit calculus represents a consensus amongst the status quo—public officials, private developers and the general public—and goes unquestioned. Thus contributing to existing contradictions in urban process and decision making inherent in public-private partnerships. As argued by Julian Brash, this contradiction has been concealed through various means including the dominant narrative of public interest being equated with profitable real estate development (Brash, 2011). This has been particularly prevalent in the post fiscal crisis era and carried out “by denying the existence of conflicts of interest and assuming that consensus around technical solutions can be reached” (Brash 42, 2011). Similarly as with Inclusionary Zoning, in which “the result is a few new cheap apartments in neighborhoods that are suddenly and completely transformed” (Stein 5, 2014), such open space provisions not only provide varying degrees of benefit to various publics but also play a strong part in raising land values and upscaling neighborhoods. Thus, Inclusionary Zoning, potentially displaces more poor people than it provides housing for, but when the population most harmed by the system are not accounted for, they remain outside of public consideration and thus invisible (Stein, 2014). Once these system’s casualties can no longer let their disenfranchised position be ignored they come together in contestation, making claims for not only their right to access public space but also to be able to participate in the discussions that take place in the public sphere around uneven production of space. The possibilities that can emerge from such rampant disenfranchisement need to be harnessed from the bottom up, acknowledged by the power holders at the top, and supported through institutionalized reform.

We are witnessing a heightened level of urban resources being appropriated for private gain. Much of public investments today are allocated for the production of public space that serves privileged property owners in the form of private asset value gains (Harvey, 2012). Harvey attributes the recent revival of attention to the urban commons, particularly the claims of its loss, to the wave of privatization, spatial control and policing that increasingly inhibits not only action in public space, with the mass incursion of the interests of the dominant class and money, but also of its everyday experience (Harvey, 2012).

Commons entail spaces and resources that are accessible and shared by multiple publics and remain outside of typical market transactions. Exclusive public spaces such as the High Line, are ones that have displaced numerous residents in the surrounding area due to escalating costs that the creation of such spaces has initiated, as such representing sites that wholly diminish rather than enhance the “potentiality of commoning for all but the very rich” (Harvey 75, 2012). Here we understand commoning as the enactment and coming together of the public to advocate for access and participation in the decision making processes around public resources and space production.

1. Introduction

11

How do we account for the commoning of multiple publics when some neighborhood residents are not accounted for in the participation process and denied access to making their claims heard? How does this denial in turn affect a sense of belonging? How does the absence of belonging limit one’s ability to common and fight for participation within such structures?

These impediments create a self-reproducing cycle that necessitates intervention. Belonging is inherently tied to an ability to make change or exert influence over a space, in other words belonging is on the one hand, an active verb that one instantiates and requires agency to do so, and on the other, it is an emotive state. It is influenced by a psychological tie to a space born out of past experiences, memories, and cognitive relationships with and within it.

Similarly citizenship is an active status allowing the participation in political debates and decisions. However, there is a mismatch between current legal frameworks around citizenship, and contemporary realities within our urban centers. Democracy as it stands is not representative of the urban populace. The inability for some to participate in the production of space demonstrates “the slipperiness of the ground on which today’s democratic governance claims to be built” (Pincetl 907, 1994). Particularly this is manifested as an increasingly significant share of the population is not legally enfranchised to take part in shaping a future vision for their neighborhood, yet have been long term residents that significantly contribute to the fabric of the spaces they reside in (Pincetl, 1994).

How are these concepts able to play out in new landscapes of production and consumption such as the waterfront open space in construction on the Domino Sugar Factory site? One of the primary ways through which such developments are enabled to take place is a result of a host of formulaic developer tactics that promote a false idea of community good. Through the primary strategy of triangulation, a method of stratification of different groups set against each other, these tactics help development take place without concerted opposition and result in a highly uneven outcome. It is fundamental that we do not abandon efforts to seek out the ways in which urban commoning and difference can challenge the critical power imbalance that results from public-private partnerships and their manifestation in space. Thus, the proposed intervention responds to the current structure of urban development that falls short and affects the majority of communities who become disenfranchised within their own neighborhoods. Some of the ineffective mechanisms this proposal seeks to challenge include non-binding community board votes, ineffective incentive zoning, opaque structure of city council hearings and lack of structural accountability for minority groups.

Finally, this proposal begins to dismantle the seeming consensus around such space production.

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

1. INTRODUCTION 1D. METHODS

Using the site of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment as a case study for a prototype we have developed a research methodology that allows us to gain a more comprehensive understanding of our site which we will then use to conceive and create the mechanisms through which the participatory production of ‘public’ space within which participatory and democratic acts can be created. This tool represents a method for understanding relationships between a variety of stakeholders and forces within a development site. The components of this new methodology include a reflexive theory - practice binary, as the diagram below illustrates. At the core of this new approach are theoretical analysis, site observation, and site analysis. Of particular interest are the areas of intersection among these three methods, where productive spaces are created for investigation - as new ways of conceptualizing space- and generation - as the fertile ground for the production of such space.

Theoretical

Within these new developments, where do the openings exist for a civic engagement that at its core reframes notions of consensual politics?

In adopting Mouffe’s conception of agonistic pluralism, we seek to activate mechanisms through which productive agonism can be produced and alternative spaces of difference and multiple belonging realized.

Applying the framework from Chantal Mouffe’s Democratic Paradox, we seek to explore the ways in which democracy and citizenship, as conceived under liberal democracy, is manifested in urban development and public space.

Modern democracy signals the ‘dissolution of markers of certainty’ -power, law and knowledge no longer hold an absolute or constant identity. The democratic paradox is the incompatibility of liberalism on the one hand and democracy on the other. The constant struggle/ tension between the two provides the driving force of historical political developments. However, as Mouffe claims, ”Until recently, the existence of contending forces was openly recognized and it is only nowadays, when the very idea of a possible alternative to the existing order has been discredited, that the stabilization realized under the hegemony of neoliberalism...is practically unchallenged” (Mouffe 2, 2000).

Furthermore, we are witnessing a dissolution of ‘archaic’ left and right politics for a Third Way, ‘consensus at center’, a ‘modernizing’ project. This has lead to an abandonment of struggle for equality, a refusal to consider demands of the popular sector, apart from their—the current power holders— political and social priorities, and in the worst case, the demands are rejected as ‘antidemocratic’, the remnants of a ‘discredited’, ‘outdated’ left project (Mouffe, 2000).

Drawing on Mouffe’s argument of liberal democracy as a space of paradox and impending closure, is ripe with opportunity and thus the desire for consensus is misguided (Mouffe, 2000). Pluralist democratic politics consists in precarious and unstable forms, which in turn enable the co-existence of rights, freedom and equality. Applying the model of agonistic pluralism, which involves relations between adversaries who share common (symbolic or physical) space 1. Introduction

13

Trends Mayoral Strategies + Platforms

Theoretical Lens

Valorization / Devalorization Cycles in Post Industrial Sites

Mouffe

Democracy + Citizenship Difference

Public - Private Partnerships

Productive Agonism

Displacement

Young

‘Community’ + Civic Engagement

Questioning Redefining the ‘public’ ‘citizen’ + ‘civic’ Fraser Public / Private Partnerships Multiple Belonging Public Space /

Public Sphere

Privatization

Rise of Luxury Housing as Economic Strategy

S

Inclusion / Exclusion

Gentrification

Expansion of Privately Owned ‘Public’ Space Gentrification

Site Observatio ns Mapping

Interviews

ysis nal A ite

Stakeholer Map REAP Methodology

-Historical documents -Individual interviews -Expert interviews -Participant observation

Ethnosemantics Ethnography and Positionality Linguistic Analysis Scales of Analysis - Site - Domino Sugar factory - Neighborhood - South Williamsburg / Williamsburg / Greenpoint - City - NYC

Above: This diagram represents a method for understanding relationships between a variety of stakeholders and forces within a development site.

The components of this new methodology include a reflexive theory - practice binary. At the core of this new approach is theoretical analysis, site observation, and site analysis.

Our key theoretical frameworks, outlined in this diagram, serve as an active tool to engage with our fieldwork and as reflexive devices to assess how theory stands up to current and potential practices.

14

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

but seek to organize it in different ways, allows for the recognition that a politics without adversary simply “pretends that all interests can be reconciled and that everybody -provided, of course, that they identify with ‘the project’- can be part of ‘the people’” (Mouffe 14, 2000).

True opposition and postulation of an alternative to the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment, and the wider trend of luxury housing development and revitalization it reflects, is not an option. Thus, there is no regard for alternative civic engagement within neoliberal hegemony for a disruption of ‘consensus at centre’ -at the centre of power and money interests. Yet, where do the openings and fissures exist?

-Perpetual displacement -Permanent state of insecurity -Housing crisis, scarcity that affects majority -Active community organization in adjacent spaces -Growing global trend of popular uprisings, citizen movements and Occupy

How do we activate these, mobilize them to include a pluralist public, and negotiate a space for them within dominant power structures? How then do we move from agonistic pluralism to productive agonism, which recognizes failure of consensus and necessity of multiple publics, yet concurrently seeks change within the existing system?

In examining the politics of the Domino Sugar Factory and similar development projects, Chantal Mouffe’ Democratic Paradox serves as a key analytical framework. Thus, guiding this thesis is the notion that “within agonistic pluralism the primary task of democratic politics is not to eliminate passions from the public sphere in order to render a rational consensus possible, but to mobilize those passions towards democratic designs” (Mouffe 103, 2000).

Now transitioning in scale to our site and the dynamics of neighborhood redevelopment, we draw on the work of Iris Marion Young. Young challenges the philosophical concept and application of ‘community’ to defend what she calls the ‘politics of difference’ as a potential model for urban living in the ‘unoppressive city’. The ideals of unity and single identity within community and individuals determines its members as the norm and excluded members as the ‘Other’, therefore denying difference within and between subjects while hierarchizing different groups (Young 1986). Community can be understood as a self-identified group that holds a common heritage, culture and norms. As Young states, in our present day society, “identification as a member of such a community also often occurs as an oppositional differentiation from other groups, who are feared, or at best devalued” (Young 12, 1986).

In breaking down the totalizing narratives around identity and community that have been born out of essentialism and the metaphysics of presence, a new structure and proposition on how to rethink this term is enabled. However, there is also a necessity to accept that communities do exist and are formed for multiple reasons. People do identify more or less with others and their environment and this can serve as a self-supporting mechanism particularly within disenfranchised groups. As a result spaces of exclusion have a necessary place in our urban society. How these are negotiated is where thought and action is required. Can we envisage communities as non-static, as a constant discussion, contestation and compromise of its ‘borders’, both 1. Introduction

15

social and physical? The formation of communities is a political process in itself, where the agonism of multiple belonging is constantly at play. As Steven Gregory chronicles, community refers to a “place based social collective but a power-laden field of social relations whose meanings, structures, and frontiers are continually produced, contested, and reworked in relation to a complex range of socio-political attachments and antagonisms” (Gregory 11, 1998).

How can we harness this framework of multiplicity and the ‘politics of difference’ and apply them in the processes and outcomes of urban developments? How can space embody this politics of difference? In turn if we accept that community formation is a political process we can also question: How and why are these collectives formed? What triggers this commitment? How can we ensure this political process forms part of the ‘politics of difference’ movement?

In breaking down the misconceptions of unity and stasis of communities, we aim to use the framework provided by Young of the politics of difference and representational justice within the formation of new publics in neighborhoods in reaction to voracious restructuring and space production.

Civic engagement and the formation of civil society are essential for creating the mechanism through which inclusion, engagement and commitment within public space can be activated. This is a necessary step towards creating a public space and sphere in which multiple belonging can be achieved and a rally against displacement realized. In examining the production of privately owned public space, we recognize an important dialectic with an active public sphere that we seek to activate further within these processes.

Nancy Fraser’s work contributes to a reframing of the parameters necessary for the existence of more expansive public sphere. In critiquing Habermas’ ‘bourgeois conception’ of the public sphere, she outline four assumptions that need to be challenged in order to achieve an equal, representative public sphere (Fraser, 1990). This work draws on these four points and utilizes them as critical elements for envisioning a space that applies both Mouffe’s and Young’s conception of agonistic pluralism and politics of difference.

1. Social and class differences have an impact on deliberation processes and participatory parity within the public sphere, thus inequalities between publics need to be accounted for.

2. Multiple publics can be preferable to a ‘unified’ public in order to sustain democracy.

3. Private interests and issues can be relevant matters in the public sphere, it should not be limited to the ‘common good’.

4. Civil society and the state can and should deliberate together in the public sphere, this enables putting deliberation into action.

Looking at broader trends within New York, and specifically Williamsburg as a heightened illustration of economic and social restructuring of a neighborhood, our contention is that within the site there are a number of publics, community groups and organizations with differing, and often conflicting, desires, class anxieties and imaginaries, with varying levels of participation and influence in the process of public space development and it’s 16

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

future iterations. Thus, our key theoretical frameworks, outlined above, serve as an active tool to engage with our fieldwork and as reflexive devices to assess how theory stands up to current and potential practice.

Site Observation

In order to propose tools and mechanisms for engagement of the public in the construction of new landscapes of production and consumption, we will begin by studying the economic and social history of the area, the recent rezoning and the application of existing public policies and subsidies in the production of these landscapes. We will also look at the different social constructs participating in shaping the future vision for the area through media representation, architectural proposals, and planning documents. We will situate population changes and labor force restructuring within the current political system and wider urban cycles of capital flows. This will provide a better understanding of the overall dynamics between political, social and physical structures as well as the negotiations that take place between multiple publics and stakeholders within the site. We will then overlay this structural/ historical understanding of the site with the lived experiences from various stakeholders through in depth interviews and observation to get greater insight on the negotiations and processes around this development. This will serve as a tool for gaining an alternative understanding of the site from an individual/ human perspective which when overlaid with the structural/ political/ social mapping of the site can expose contradictions or fissures in how space in transition is used, understood and negotiated. This plays a critical role in the design of our proposal.

In order to carry out our site observations and ethnographic work in a comprehensive manner, we will apply certain elements Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedures (REAP), a methodology that originated in the fields of agriculture and public health (Low et al., 2005). REAP emerged from Rapid Assessment Procedures, which were first documented in 1981 in a manual published by Susan Scrimshaw and Elena Hurtado (Low et al., 2005). For our work, we are drawing on REAP methodology as adapted to planning and design, and as further documented and developed by Setha Low, Dana Taplin and Suzanne Scheld. Thus, for the remainder of this discussion we are using ‘REAP’ as understood and applied by Low et al.

As argued by Low et al., this methodology is particularly useful for practitioners seeking to undertake anthropological ethnography work and apply in rapidly changing environments (Low et al., 2005). Further, applied as a methodological tool, it can be used to not only gain an in depth social and cultural understanding of a space, but also as a “value-explicit approach that works to achieve self-determination and to foster the accumulation of power in local communities” (Low et al. 184, 2005). The multidisciplinary nature of those engaged in Rapid Assessment Procedures promotes the inclusion of a variety of viewpoints and modes of studying a site (Low et al., 2005). Finally, REAP is particularly beneficial for the work undertaken in this thesis, as one of its objectives is to find the ways in which to represent the cultural heritage of various communities, as well the means by which the operating, protecting and conserving of cultural heritage is ensured (Low et al., 2005). Such goals are critical to conceiving of difference and multiple belonging in space as is a key objective of the proposal.

1. Introduction

17

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Left: This Diagram illustrates the different scales of analysis. We utilize these as a tool to analyze certain policies/ moments/ trends/ narratives within their context but also examine how scalar boundaries are not clearly defined and actually overlap and infiltrate each other. In situating our observations in this matrix, we are able to draw relationships between discourses and individual narratives, policies and lived experiences, trends and specific spatial configurations etc.

In undertaking REAP one can draw on a number of methods of data collection. Some of these methods we will be using in order to gain a comprehensive understanding and critical analysis of our site are Historical Documents and Archives collection, Individual interviews, Expert interviews, and Participant observation.

Positionality

It is important to outline our positionality in this investigation, but also note how our positions may shift throughout the research. We entered this thesis topic with a certain knowledge and experience with issues around uneven urban development and privately owned ‘public’ space, as such perhaps influencing our initial investigation. However, we decided to not let this cloud our interaction with our site and place every participant’s account on the same playing field in order to unpack the existing dynamics between stakeholders and more or less powerful forces. We had the intention, perhaps naively, to, as part of our final proposal, present a portion of our work to the developers and establish a working relationship with them in our quest to develop best practices within such spaces. However, what we discovered, was such an uneven playing field that it becomes harder and harder to not let our initial inclination return. As academic practitioners, we continue to shift between feeling unable to accept to work with developers and by default participating within highly uneven structures that we think work to the detriment of communities. further by ‘improving’ relations, we would allow the continuation of ‘business as usual’. On the other hand, we are also aware that structural systemic change in the organization of city development and building is unlikely to fundamentally happen, so we question whether completely stepping back from business practices actually serves the communities we seek to protect by not taking part in current practices with developers. While not pointing fingers, we are critical of certain processes, which often involve a multitude of actors and enablement of actions. Regardless of this, we want to be able to share our final thesis with all participants and therefore we aim for our account to be balanced and representative of our participants within existing structures.

We are both white female researchers living in Williamsburg. We therefore, also have a stake in this development and neighborhood. As newly arrived residents, we certainly form part of the ‘gentrifying’ international and transient class that has emerged in the neighborhood. This position complicates our work and relation we may hold with different community members. However, in our quest to unpack how multiple belonging and difference can be realized, we hope that our own ‘difference’ can form part of the discourse initiated while enabling personal reflections on our privileged positions.

Site analysis

1. Introduction

Drawing on our site observations and ethnographic work outlined above, here we will look more closely at our findings, using a number of analytical tools, to develop a comprehensive understanding of and proposal for our site. Underpinning the analysis is the objective of ensuring the validity and reliability of the study. The aim is to produce a framework that is replicable within other redevelopments accounting for the differences between sites while noting commonalities and areas of applicability across spaces. Our three main modes of analysis, as seen in the previous methods diagram, are a scales analysis, linguistic analysis (ethnosemantics) and the resulting theoretical

analysis.

19

The process of urban development exists at multiple scales, we utilize these as a tool to analyze certain policies, moments, trends and narratives within their context but also examine how scalar boundaries are not clearly defined, but rather, overlap and infiltrate each other. As Neil Smith argues “The importance of “jumping scales” lies precisely in this active social and political connectedness of apparently different scales, their deliberate confusion and abrogation” (Smith 66, 1992). In situating our observations in this matrix, we are able to draw relationships between discourses and individual narratives, the application of policies and lived experiences, trends and specific spatial configuration, etc. Finally, the ‘jumping of scales’ offers opportunities for creating tools that have an impact on numerous levels, altering current processes at multiple geographical, social and political scales. “Scale offers guideposts in the recovery of space from annihilation and a language via which the redifferentiation of space can be pioneered on freely argued and agreedupon social grounds rather than according to the economic logic of capital and the political interests of its class.” (Smith 78, 1992). Drawing on Smith, we see the potentiality of productive agonism in combating economic and political forces that exist on scales that feel unreachable but penetrate the very local and intimate space that people inhabit.

The diagram on p.18 outlines the scales we are focusing on; the geographical boundary of the site and it’s history (scale 1), the scale of community which is not necessarily bound by geography but rather by social networks and narratives (scale 2), the urban as a scale encompassing forms of governance from public and private bodies and trends that has spatialized these (scale 3) and finally the global scale which touches on particular elements in relation to our site of investigation.

The second analytical tool is linguistic analysis, and more specifically ethnosemantics. Semantics looks at the meaning in a language and culture through an analysis of their linguistic structures. Ethnosemantics focuses on the semantic structures of a group(s) in relation to their local environment. It can reveal important information on the built environment while highlighting the significant role of language in the symbolic communication of relevant cultural ideals and norms. Ethnosemantic methodologies look at language in order to understand cultural value systems of groups in a specific locality, through linguistic analysis. Structured questions are used to form taxonomic categories in order to generate cultural domains of meanings (Low et al., 2005). These differ from the common language that design professionals, architects and planners use when talking about space and the built environment and can often reveal conflictual relationships in and understandings of space. As such this method is beneficial as it can be used to make visible, and potentially begin to resolve some of the differences between groups and their needs and specific desires for a space.

The final analytical method we are using is based on the theoretical frameworks outlined above. Utilizing our primary methods of analysis, we have drawn out four main theoretical thematics: Triangulation, capital strategies and social good, preservation and aesthetics, and multiple belonging and difference. Situating these within broader, local and global trends, allows us to unpack the larger cycles necessary for the reproduction of new landscapes of consumption and production.

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Proposal

In our proposal we engage with a binary between ‘design for politics’ and ‘political design’ introduced by Carl DiSalvo. DiSalvo outlines an alternative design approach to ‘design for democracy’. He brings in Mouffe’s concept of ‘agonistic pluralism’ as a democratic model based on constructive conflict into his proposal of a design methodology and questions “how can we distinguish design in the context of agonistic pluralism from more mainstream objects and practice of ‘design for democracy?” (DiSalvo 2, 2010). He makes a clear distinction between designs that are applied to politics - ‘design for politics’ and the alternative; ‘political design’ that disrupts dominant political structures (DiSalvo, 2010). The former works in supporting, improving, and making more clear the current political system (which can be necessary) while the latter actually challenges our current political structure by raising questions, not only on particular issues, but on the conditions that give rise to these issues. In doing so, he reveals a space for contestation, a space where agonism becomes productive (DiSalvo, 2010).

Within our intervention, we have carved out a position for ourselves within this binary between ‘design for politics’ and ‘political design’. We do not see these terms as mutually exclusive, rather we put forward a proposal that expands current conceptions of democracy while positioning it within existing democratic frameworks. The purpose of such design is to create spaces that reveal and challenge existing power relations by providing openings for dissent and new possibilities for action.

Right: This sketch illustrates the first stages of brainstorming around context, themes and proposal while identifying key theoretical frameworks.

1. Introduction

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SURPLUS CAPITAL Investment Human Assets

Labor Force

Fixed Assets

Urbanization

Knowledge / Science / Technology

Infrastructure

Built Form

Transition from Industrial to Knowledge Economy

Disinvested Industrial Neigborhoods Williamsburg + Vacant Lots

Land Speculation

-Supply is not Correlated with Demamd = Growth for Profit

Potential for Growth

Domino Sugar Factory (DSF)

GROWTH MACHINE -Media -Real Estate -Universities -Arts and Culture

Labor Force Restructuring

Devalorization / Valorization

Accumulation by Dispossession

Class Restructuring

INTER - URBAN COMPETITION

Class Identity Formation + Valorization

Government Policies

-Branding -Marketing Strategies -Indeces

Race +

GOVERNMENT AS ENTREPRENEUR Luxury City Production

Displacement of Citizens as Inhabitants Customers / Consumers

Homogenization

New Landscape for Production + Consumption

Public Space = Space of Consumption

OPEN SPACE DSF Waterfront Plan Havemeyer (Privately-owned ‘Public’ Space) Park

Review Board

Appointed by Developers Two Trees

Public Space as Amenity

Private Interest in Space

Symbolic Capital

Kara Walker Exhibit

2005 Rezoning of Williamsburg Waterfront

Privatization of Public Space

Mixed-Use Developments Incentive Zoning -421a

Complete loss of Democratic Citizenship

NEW YORK SPECIFIC

Developer Tactics

Public -Private Partnerships Fragmentation + Triangulation

-‘Third Way’ As Nonpolitical

2003 Zoning Resolution

Aesthetics of Spaces of Ethnic + Class Difference

Private Interests

ec -Incentives l ur To -Tax Breaks + -Privatization -Zoning (Upzoning / Downzoning)

Class

Gentrification

‘Authenticity’ and Displacement

tal api

-J-51 -ICAP

BIDs

LDCs

Conservancies

Uneven Development of ‘Public’ Space = Rules and Regulations -Limitations on Public -Inclusion / Exclusion

Private Property as Prerequisite for Management + Ownership

= DEPOLITICIZATION / SECURITIZATION / COMMODIFICATION / HOMOGENIZATION OF PUBLIC SPACE + DIFFERENCE PARC

City Legislated Representational Justice

22 Decision-making Power = Capital Assets

Multiplicity + Difference

Publicly

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Elected Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism Publicity

Public Maintenance + Programming

2. OVERVIEW OF TRENDS 2A. VALORIZATION AND DEVALORIZATION CYCLES

In order to situate the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment in its historical urban context; the valorization and devalorization cycles around land, labor and class identity must be framed within New York City politics and urban development. Williamsburg’s rapid urban transformation and dramatic land rezoning serve as a key illustration of these wider trends.

As Harvey contends, the necessity of constant accumulation for the reproduction of the capitalist class system, “accumulation for accumulation’s sake and production for production’s sake” (Harvey 102, 1978) has created a cycle, full of contradictions, where surplus needs to be invested in fixed capital to yield more profit. Fixed capital appears as investments in the urban environment for both landscapes of consumption and production. The city has become dependent on this cycle in order to continue to put labor and capital to use (Harvey, 1978). This continual investment in urban centers leads to perpetual growth not always correlating with actual need. For example, according to data from the Census Bureau in 2012, in a three-block stretch of Midtown, from East 56th Street to East 59th Street, 57 percent, or 285 of 496 apartments, are vacant at least 10 months a year. From East 59th Street to East 63rd Street, almost 50 percent, are vacant the majority of the time (Satow, 2014). High vacancy rates demonstrate that urban development no longer supplies a demand, but rather a virtual demand is created for fixing capital assets. This contradicts the status quo rhetoric that new housing plans are responding to a housing deficiency crisis. Rather the existing crisis we face is one of affordability. Affordability is measured by the percentage one spends of their income on rent. Increasingly New Yorkers are spending more and more of their total earning on rent as rental prices have risen recently by 19% in just 10 years while average incomes have declined (Furman Center, 2013).

Left: Political economy diagram illustrating the processes around the investments of surplus capital and the creation of new landscapes for consumption and production.

2. Overview of Trends

Another important facet of this cycle of capital is for the necessary processes of what Harvey calls ‘creative destruction’ (Harvey, 1978). This entails an active process of eradication of built infrastructure to make space for new investments and accumulation. Devalorization and valorization cycles participate in laying the groundwork for this. Profit driven, calculated disinvestment becomes an accepted strategy to continually allow for the positioning of surplus capital. Capitalist redevelopment requires a fine balancing act to negotiate the preservation of exchange values generated from previous investments in the built environment and the destruction of these same spaces in order to pave the way for profit maximization and further accumulation (Harvey, 1978). This valorization and devalorization of the built environment can be witnessed across many sites in New York both historically and currently, and is intrinsically tied with class struggles. As Harvey states, accumulation can only exist side by side with dispossession. We can see this play out in last financial crisis that was bailed out by the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank while some 2 millions people have been or are on the verge of becoming dispossessed of their homes by foreclosures (Harvey, 2008). This becomes convenient for private investors who accrue new lands, potentially ripe for investment that previously housed low income neighborhoods “far more effectively and speedily that could be achieved through eminent domain” (Harvey 8, 2008). Historically, and still employed today, eminent domain is 23

precisely the tool used by governments in favor of private interest and capital.

This legislation enables the city to take away privately owned spaces, clearing residents and businesses in the process, in order to enable new construction.

Another historical illustration of this creative destruction is ‘planned shrinkage’, a method utilized in the 1960s to “organically” wipe out low income neighborhoods, deemed as blighted, through cutting basic services such as fire stations. As Wallace and Wallace state, “[t]here is strong indication that as neighborhoods deteriorated, the fire department redlined [them]...further hastening deterioration and causing the fire blight to spread to previously viable neighborhoods” (Wallace and Wallace 395, 1990). Thus under the current system, this exemplifies the necessity of generating a blank slate environment, as communities have been dispersed and properties abandoned, creating possibilities for developers to maximize their profit. One of the tools that enabled this process was ‘redlining’, a discriminatory practice where financial and real estate institutions denied services within defined neighborhood boundaries. The common discourse around disinvested neighborhoods is that they become dismantled by “natural” causes or individual actions, and that gentrification acts as a corrector to this neglect and abandonment. However, gentrification, the class restructuring of a neighborhood and its abandonment are the result of an economic system with a set of stakeholders enabling the process: financial institutions, developers, government and landlords (Deutsche, 1998).

Williamsburg is a more recent manifestation of similar processes, where gentrification is seen as the unquestioned method for revitalizing a post-industrial, working class neighborhood. Further, gentrification is deemed a corrector to individual failures. As stated by Luis Garden Acosta, founder of a South Williamsburg community organization, El Puente “The cultural integrity and the dignity of our community is being removed solely for the profit motive”, the status quo rhetoric on the area is “how bad things were, often to demonize and reduce those who had been living here before” (Costa cited in Gonzalez, 2012). The 2005 extensive rezoning plan under the Bloomberg administration, demonstrates a sudden interest in the neighborhood after years of disinvestment. It entailed changing the land use of 184 blocks from industrial to residential and mixed use areas, and legislating a growth in density through increased height restrictions on the waterfront. This works to escalate land value while enticing a certain class identity and labor force born out of the most recent economic restructuring. This strategy of upscaling neighborhoods works in tandem with the valorization of the ascendant class lifestyle that is promoted through luxury redevelopments. This has been particularly prominent as such new environments further promote a certain class formation based on consumption and profit maximization.

The decision to rezone Williamsburg reflects the restructuring of the working class manufacturing labor force and their forced exodus from the neighborhood. This is particularly problematic as manufacturing jobs are replaced by service industry jobs, which do not have comparable wage standards or upward mobility. Further, as Michael Freedman Shnapp states “on average manufacturing pays about $16,000 more a year than people in retail and restaurant jobs and the manufacturing workforce in the city is about 80% people of color and about 2/3 foreign born” (Domino Effect documentary, 2012). Moreover, the 2005 rezoning lead to the decrease of the Hispanic population by 22%, further, median rent burdens have increased by 6% for low-income tenants, and tenant organizers have been witness to an increase 24

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Profit driven, calculated disinvestment becomes an accepted strategy to continually allow for the positioning of surplus capital. Capitalist redevelopment requires a fine balancing act to negotiate the preservation of exchange values generated from previous investments in the built environment and the destruction of these same spaces in order to pave the way for profit maximization and further accumulation.

in illegal evictions, landlord harassment, rent overcharge cases, and landlords withdrawing their apartments from rent stabilization (Stabrowski, 2014). Thus, the recent changes in Williamsburg’s built form represent not only material transformation but also class and racial restructuring. Such rezoning plays a key role in land value escalation and secondary displacement of workers and residents. Such displacement involves the indirect removal and relocation of populations through escalating rents and upscaling of neighborhood resources that in turn become unaffordable.

The Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment process illustrates how speculation also participates in the rezoning process. Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), the first developers who bought the Factory, acquired the site for an incredibly low $55,831,875 (Kreger, 2006). They proposed a residential development, which required City Planning approval to rezone the site that passed City Planning despite significant opposition from a fragmented community and their low confidence in the financial feasibility of the developer.

Once they defaulted on the project as predicted in 2010, they sold the site to Two Trees Management for $180,000 000 (Bagli, 2012). The value of the site escalated to more than three times what it was when zoned as an industrial area. This was perceived as a free gift from the City to the developers and demonstrates how such speculation contributes to the lack of faith people have in urban development politics.

Another way rezoning decisions are legitimized, are the ways in which they are equated with growth and job creation. The question of growth is inherently tied to the capitalist system in which economic competition is constructed between cities, and within them. As Logan and Molotch argue “one issue consistently generates consensus among local elite groups and separates them from people who use the city principally to live and work: the issue of growth” (Logan and Molotch 50, 1987). Further, such elites deny the possibility for contesting this consensus around growth and eradicate the potential for the public to envision an alternative for their urban environments, thus also limiting the possible expansion of community (Logan and Molotch, 1987). Growth is blindly valorized and this is directly translated to how decisions around urban development take place. Vishaan Chakrabarty, an influential figure in the field of urbanism who formerly worked for the department of City Planning and currently works for SHoP Architects, the designers of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment states: We also need to grow. Density is good. Density is the reason we all live here… I met my counterpart from the city of Paris a few months ago, who explained to me that 10 years ago the city of Paris passed a moratorium on buildings anything more than a five story building in the heart of Paris. In that ten years, they lost 150,000 jobs. We are going to grow or die in this competitive environment. (2004b in Brash 2011)

2. Overview of Trends

25

As the principal architect of SHoP, Chakrabarty’s vision of growth is materialized in the plans for the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment. Here such growth machine rhetoric has acted to the detriment of an agonistic politics necessary for contesting such vision and generating an alternative. The ways in which this can be translated into a productive agonism will be developed in our proposal.

To synthesize the historic and present day cycles of valorization and devalorization laid the groundwork for a new vision for Williamsburg, and the City more generally. This vision is one of unquestioned and unfettered growth leading to a class restructuring and further stratification of populations along class and racial lines manifested in the built form of the city.

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

2. OVERVIEW OF TRENDS 2B. LUXURY CITY PRODUCTION BLOOMBERG TO DE BLASIO

As previously argued, investment in the built environment is one of the primary modes, in the present context of New York City, through which capital production takes place and the main way capital accumulation is manifested.

Thus, as Harvey contends, the urban takes on a very specific meaning under capitalism, that can be understood through the dual forces of accumulation and class struggle (Harvey, 1978). In order to better understand how such process take place and how such an urban environment is produced, we will take a closer look at New York City’s development under the Bloomberg administration, and based on emerging policies and practices, examine the discursive and indeterminate material shift under the De Blasio administration.

Cities have long participated in interurban competition, branding and city marketing strategies. Though boosterism dates back to eighteenth and nineteenth century American cities (Logan and Molotch, 1987), a particularly important moment for New York City, one that has shaped its built form today, has been the strategies that came out of the 1960 and 1970s urban fiscal crisis. The narrative of urban decline has dictated the prevalent and pervasive phenomenon of privatization of space and government responsibilities that we witness today, as well as the transformation of the city for elite consumption and capital production. This is tied to a long standing trend of devalorization and valorization cycles of city spaces, as noted in the previous section. Further, this is facilitated through conscious decisions by private individuals and investors to transfer capital flows from one space to another and physically move from one locality to another. The result of these decisions can be most clearly seen in inner city neighborhoods in the postwar years. As city governments faced major financial crisis, public officials were desperate to attract local real estate developers through land subsidies and incentives in order to finance essential services such as firefighters and police, public schools, and transportation. This has had real material implication for inner city neighborhoods across the United States. “Local roots would finally be destroyed when the state eliminated the social safety net of rent controls, and real estate investors and developers replaced low-cost housing with expensive luxury apartments” (Zukin 227, 2010). This, irrefutably has been the trend in Williamsburg, as well as witnessed and painfully experienced city-wide.

Left: Image rendering of the future redevelopment plans by SHoP Architects and Two Trees developers illustrating the height and density with the Williamsburg bridge as a reference point.

Source: © SHoP Architects 2. Overview of Trends

Branding and image formation play a critical role in this transformation.

In order to gain a more acute understanding of Bloomberg’s governance, what Julian Brash calls the Bloomberg Way, it needs to be situated within its historical context that includes neoliberal urban development, postindustrialization and class transformation (Brash, 2011). That is, the Bloomberg Way is “ideological , class-based, and deeply political” (Brash 16, 2011).

Recent, neoliberal urban development has been taking place in a way that asserts the identity of a new cosmopolitan elite class, or the “transnational capitalist class”, via the cultural valorization of such identity and the shaping of the urban environment to further promote identity formation (Brash, 2011).

Further, Bloomberg’s strategy has been one of establishing the dominance of the “ascendant postindustrial elite vis-à-vis other social groupings in New York City”, as such, this effort has involved the establishment of a new class hegemony (Brash 19, 2011). Thus, the branding of New York is inherently tied 27

Bloomberg’s governance strategy masks its inherent political nature and the racial, class and gender cleavages it exacerbates. Further, it enables political power players to continue developing piece meal, unequal development projects, while neglecting the ever more pressing lack of a consolidated urban strategy that would address the effects of uneven growth.

to the production of knowledge around a certain product and the formation of a cultural and consumer identity that finds articulation within such product.

Here we are witnessing the focus of such efforts is the city, in which urban development itself, is treated as product development (Brash, 2011). The way in which this product is developed and marketed takes a very specific form, drawing on Bloomberg’s own description, “ ‘If New York City is a business, it isn’t Wal-Mart — it isn’t trying to be the lowest-priced product in the market.

It’s a high-end product, maybe even a luxury product’ ” (as cited in Brash 112, 2011).

Urban development, under such a schematic, serves the needs and desires of a well educated, professional, elite class and those sectors that employ them. Bloomberg, in his $3 billion housing plan envisioned the waterfront as an ideal location for new luxury housing developments. This contributes to the ongoing privatization of public space along the waterfront which is required to remain publicly accessible under the 1993 Zoning Resolution. However, as we witness in Williamsburg’s latest waterfront redevelopment, such spaces “serve as backyards for the residents of their luxury towers and not for the public” replicating the Battery Park city model which created a “state-sponsored luxury enclave with an attractive waterfront esplanade that only local residents and Wall Street brokers can get to with ease” (Angotti 51, 2008). These groups then continue to find articulation in this built form, participate in the production of it, and generate the further concretization of such cultural identities and imaginaries. Imaginaries are born out of cognitive and affective constructs created by one’s respective status and experience in society. Bloomberg’s strategy thus, is based on a real-estatecentered approach to development and job creation that focuses on specific sites rather than on a city-wide scale, and on the construction of high-end commercial and luxury residential development. An important indicator of this is the significant and highly detrimental zoning changes that were put into place under Bloomberg.

Zoning, as previously discussed, is a political tool that has the potential to transform the socio-economic fabric of neighborhoods. Under Bloomberg’s 2003 Zoning Resolution, which spanned from 2003 to 2007, approximately 6 billion square feet of residential development capacity was added to the city, with the highest capacity gain in Brooklyn (Furman Center, 2010). A large portion of this net gain, 100 million square feet, was seen in districts that were rezoned from commercial or manufacturing to mixed-use areas (Furman Center, 2010). Further, it is important to make the distinction between upzoning and downzoning, both of which were part of the Resolution, and to examine the socioeconomic characteristics in the census tracts where such changes took place. As documented by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, upzoning, most commonly used to spur economic investment and allow an area to develop more intensely, tended to be located in census tracts with a higher proportion of non-white residents than the median tract in the City.

Downzoned lots, on the other hand, used for preserving neighborhoods, were more likely to be located in tracts with a higher share of white residents and 28

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

smaller shares of black and Hispanic residents than the City median (Furman Center, 2010).

Bloomberg’s governance strategy masks its inherent political nature and the racial, class and gender cleavages it exacerbates. Further, it enables political power players to continue developing piece meal, unequal development projects, while neglecting the ever more pressing lack of a consolidated urban strategy that would address the effects of uneven growth.

Meanwhile, we see the escalation of issues of urban poverty, racial conflict and lack of public services and resources, sidelined by the constant competition between urban centers, under capitalism and growth machine politics. As a result, urban development continues in a way that heightens social, economic and material disparities in space and further enables the upscaling of the city to take place.

This has serious ramifications for the fabric and populace of New York City and major political repercussions. It is predetermined on the privileging of the desires, interests and imaginaries of some, while excluding the needs and realities of those outside the target audience. Thus, the city is rebranded, reimagined and reproduced to reflect an urban imaginary that mirrors that of a professional, mobile, cosmopolitan elite. Those who are absent from this narrative are the majority of the working and middle class populace struggling to maintain their social and physical status and belonging in ever more exclusive spaces of the city. Drawing on Rachel Sherman’s work, Brash further argues that luxury city branding not only constitutes a class imaginary and status, but also reaffirms it as a legitimate prerogative with ever higher expectations and entitlement (Brash, 2011).

For those residents struggling with the high costs of living and increasing unaffordability of inner city neighborhoods, this luxury strategy is the obvious problem. Others, who are attracted to the alternative visions of the city – of its grunge, gritty and seemingly unpolished, undiscovered elements – are also at odds with the luxury city strategy, though nonetheless are active participants within it. Thus, perhaps this leaves room for linking a call for equity and multiple belonging with a more powerful multiplicity of cultural identities and imaginaries. Yet, such grittiness, a critical component of authenticity, as described by Zukin, represents a form of cultural power over space that threatens the cohabitation of space. This threat is generated through escalating costs and land value appreciation, produced through the aesthetic valorization of such notions of authenticity. Further, in spaces such as Williamsburg that represent some form of absolute urban experience, as a global phenomenon and yardstick against which urban experience more generally is measured, it is a “consciously chosen lifestyle and a performance, and a means of displacement as well” (Zukin 4, 2010). The way culture is co opted within such strategies becomes a direct link between state power and financial institutions.

Authenticity, culture and its branding are utilized in ways that disguise their relationship with power and our own participation in its reproduction. Such an agenda is precisely what is envisioned under the Bloomberg strategy “in effect turning Manhattan into one vast gated community for the rich” (Harvey 8, 2008).

However, the election of a mayor with a radically different discursive image and political platform for the city perhaps signals the desire for an alternative. De Blasio’s election, a campaign of ‘One New York, Rising Together’, signaled the dissatisfaction with the luxury city platform of former mayor Bloomberg. As declared by The Guardian, the shift away from the ‘luxury 29

city’ discourse under Bloomberg to that of a ‘tale of two cities’ under De Blasio, with “unashamed emphasis on equality and social justice of the incoming mayor marks a new era for the city” (Pilkington, 2014). Further, the article continues to state that the inauguration of the most prominent liberal politicians in the US, may have “profound nationwide repercussions” (Pilkington, 2014). In his first State of the City address speech, De Blasio states “let’s dedicate the funding we need to do what New York City must – and let’s tap the wealthiest New Yorkers to do so” while recognizing that the “we here in New York City government have many tools at our disposal to make good on that promise, on that responsibility, and we will use them” (De Blasio in NYT, 2014). Such tools are targeted towards a host of sectors from education to housing. Under the De Blasio administration’s affordable housing strategy the dramatic loss of rent control units in the city is to be remedied through a set of incentives, on the side of both production and preservation of affordable units. However, with the luxury development to date and underway, such as the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment, continuing unfettered, its efficacy is questionable as indeed is the prospect of change in the uniform trend of upscale, luxury city development.

Below: Photogaph of Manhattan skyscrapers. Source: Stefan Georgi for The New York Times

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

2. OVERVIEW OF TRENDS 2C. PRIVATIZATION OF SPACE AND RESOURCES

The Bloomberg administration represents a broader shift in governance practices and strategies. In order to situate this larger transformation within the City of New York, in particular, we once again turn to the urban fiscal crisis.

This has lead to a set of austerity measures being put in place, the slashing of city jobs and spending for city services and infrastructure. This era, has placed attracting private investment as a core strategy in development policies. City government, post fiscal crisis was permanently changed as a result of the imposing involvement of the private sector. The fiscal crisis reorganized the relationships between the political mobilization, ideology, and governmental practices (Brash, 2011). This moment was taken up by an alliance of elites, from both public and private sectors —media, business, real estate and local politicians, as a means to reorder policies both at the local and city-wide level.

This serves to maximize the power of this new elite while necessarily reducing the power of labor and minority groups. Good governance at the city level is now largely measured by it’s ability to work and resemble the corporate community (Hackworth, 2006).

This alliance of elites and new corporatism in government, represents a new form of governance in the form of entrepreneurialism. This is a shift from the former practice of managerialism which involves a more top down, concentrated decision making and planning process, to a more diffused, outsourced and privatized mode of governing. Entrepreneurialism, in its most common form, expands government practices to new private sectors through establishing public-private partnerships. This is “entrepreneurial precisely because it is speculative in execution and design ... In many instances this has meant that the public sector assumes the risk and the private sector takes the benefits” (Harvey 8, 1989). Neoliberalism consists of both rollback and roll-out interventions. The rollback phase takes the form of the destruction of Keynesian policies and spatial configurations. Keynesianism, of the post World War II era, entails the centralization of state organization to promote even economic and urban development, spreading growth equitably across space. This rollback consisted of the removal of the public housing, public space, policies around redistributive welfare, food stamps, labor unions, and institutionalized mechanisms for housing and development. Neoliberal rollout, on the other hand, entails the overtaking and reconfiguring of existing institutions and practices as well as the creation of new governing entities to reproduce neoliberalism in the future (Hackworth, 2006). This is not a linear process, rather it results in a highly segmented landscape as such processes are geographically and temporally contingent and take hold in different sectors to varying degrees.

The critiques of bureaucratic Keynesianism have been utilized in a politically regressive manner. These promote individualized and competitive city strategies that encourage neoliberal governance and the revitalization of urban growth machine politics (Mayer, 2013) Thus, as previously argued, city politics under Bloomberg, represents a consensus on this form of Third Way governance, a supposedly apolitical agenda. As such, Bloomberg’s administration serves as an illustration of a wider trend of a more liberal kind of neoliberalism that combines a social tolerance, fiscal conservatism, and a business-friendly climate (Brash, 2011).

2. Overview of Trends

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These spaces offer various programmes in physically appealing arenas, where one is promised a low risk of unwelcome encounters, capitalizing on what a civilized ideal entails, contributing to a docile public. Even if free access is granted, consumption is an inherent part of the experience in which city dwellers can not only ignore difference or the other, but are increasingly actively able to avoid them

This Third Way manifests in our conceptions and ordering of public space. In order to frame this in a historical context, we now turn to the privatization of public resources. The Third Way implies a more withdrawn government, with a greater emphasis on civil society’s participation in its governance. While growth and market demand remain at the forefront, community based programs and public-private partnerships have become key to addressing the problems austerity has created and in segmenting its effects through providing locational assets. Civic engagement has been co opted to intensify inter-urban competition (Mayer, 2013). More recently, the revival of the Third Way comes with the application of equating space and resources with an economic strategy for profit development. Here, we begin to see government as business, citizens as clients or customers, and city as product.

As introduced earlier, through the work of Mouffe, this represents a supposed consensus in the middle, where any contestation is rejected. “The third way of contemporary politics disavows politics altogether” (Blackmar 50, 2006) signaling the erasure of any possible democratic access or participation. The commons—public space, infrastructure and resources—have receded from a more egalitarian public governance to serving private interests, under the guise of the benevolence of private property. Situating discussions on public space within the discourse of political economy, reveals questions on the ways in which proprietary power extends to public space and the ambiguous ways in which the public is equated with “amorphous community, on the one hand, or the realm of commercial spectacle, on the other” (Blackmar 51, 2006).

In the nineteenth century, the middle classes, property-owning Americans, viewed the state as beneficial in providing public institutions that supported private economic activity. Further, public space, under the bourgeois conception, was an extension of such asset accruing deliverables by the public sector (Blackmar, 2006). Despite seemingly antithetical to popular conceptions today, “in the absence of a well-established ruling elite, public space and public institutions sustained both the opportunity and opportunism of many propertied Americans in the volatile age of capital” (Blackmar 55, 2006). This faith in public governance has seen a slow erosion, accentuated post fiscal crisis. For instance, with the objective to restore Central Park to its former glory, the Central Park Conservancy was established and became a model for governance of public space and parks, based on rational business principles and separated from politics. As conservancies gained more power over finances, management and rules of spaces, the slow retrenchment of the historical notion of public space as public property was set in place (Blackmar, 2006).

The private management and control of public parks and spaces, though promoted under the general public’s desire for safety, security and cleanliness, come at a high price. These depend on various actors positioned outside the democratic framework which we control—business associations, the police establishment, private security companies etc.—signaling the ongoing pacification of the public in local politics. Since the 1980s, public 32

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

spaces in urban centers are increasingly run and managed by private associations, private patrons and businesses with vested interest in revitalizing them in line with the current rhetoric of progress and modernization. These associations take a variety of different forms such as Business Improvement Districts, Local Development Corporations and park conservancies. Spaces under these kinds of ownership and management structure, including Bryant Park, Union Square, Central Park, Madison Square and soon to be parts of the Williamsburg waterfront, all share in common the desire to make their space a destination. Part of this agenda involves rules and regulation predicated on private property rights, and inherently, exclusion. The privatization of public space reinforces social inequality by curating where these spaces are situated and who the target public is.

With the urban fiscal crisis and the decline of inner city neighborhood, as previously explained, a growth coalition of private investors, real estate, higher education institution and commercial interests, concerned with this trajectory, participated in the upscaling and privatization of space.

Subsequently, these same actors were involved in forming public-private partnerships as a mode of governing public space and resources. As the city continued to face budget cuts, the Parks Department has become increasingly willing to partake in various market-based strategies and lease more and more space to private individuals and corporate sponsors (Zukin, 2010). Bryant Park and other open spaces like it represent an ever increasing form of public space creation. These spaces offer various programmes in physically appealing arenas, where one is promised a low risk of unwelcome encounters, capitalizing on what a civilized ideal entails, contributing to a docile public. Even if free access is granted, consumption is an inherent part of the experience in which city dwellers can not only ignore difference or the other, but are increasingly actively able to avoid them (Zukin, 2010).

The result of our public spaces being increasingly turned over to private groups of property owners means that we are granting them the power to exclude people from such spaces which, further, contribute to denying basic rights, such as freedom of speech and assembly, with no laws to hold the private associations in charge of such spaces accountable.

This phenomenon, moreover, can be tied to an increasingly repressive state, neoliberal urban development, and the advancement of market ideals for the suppression of organized labor, the unemployed and welfare recipients (Zukin, 2010). Privatization under neoliberal urbanism has been characterized by its enclosures. New urban redevelopment projects have destroyed the previous use value and publicness of its surrounding spaces while simultaneously eradicating the city of those that threaten to devalorize its value and potential consumption practices (Mayer, 2013). Such urban redevelopment projects also participate in privatized space production generated through state legislated Incentive Zoning and tax breaks on residential and mixed use developments.

These enable the creation of ‘open spaces’ which are produced by developers and, in the case of the Domino Sugar Factory, remain owned and maintained by them.

In order to understand how such privatization is experienced, we need understand the relationship between public and private space and sphere.

Public space, drawing on Habermas’s account of the public sphere, comes out of both an expression of civil society and as an intermediary between it and the state. The notion that there is a clear distinction and separation between public and private needs to challenged. The experience of individuals and groups 2. Overview of Trends

33

highlights that what is deemed public is in many regards privatized (media outlets, access to the Internet, and many rights of way in the city) and what appear to be private matters (laws governing sexuality and social reproduction, the policing of national borders, and state surveillance of personal activities) are heavily infiltrated by public order (Smith and Low, 2006).

Above: Image rendering of the future redevelopment waterfront space by SHoP Architects and Two Trees developers illustrating use and programming. Source: © SHoP Architects

The state emerges as the product of specific orderings of power relations, which determine the public that is to be included and that which is excluded. This again is not fixed but rather fluid and this precise fluidity is what is at stake with increasing privatization and repression within the arena of public space and sphere. Privacy and publicity are experienced through power relationships in space and should not be considered purely as spatial properties. Materiality and ownership are only one side of what makes a space public, what is also important is the way in which the environment is ordered to enable a type of experience that is public in our conception today (Mitrasinovic, 2006). The discourse on what is public today is a critical issue that arises out of specific modes of space production and ownerships structures shaping how the public experiences what is meant to be public space. Here the role of PARC becomes particularly generative, as it enables new discourses on varying dimensions of publicness. It begins to open the space for alternative publicities to democratically confront one another in the public realm(s). Heterogeneity provides an alternative source for creating new kinds of practices and discourses around what it means to belong and participate in society. Insurgent citizenship – citizenship that is not bound by the nation state and seeks other forms of legitimacy – is critical to rethinking what social means, and the realm of possibility rooted in heterogeneous lived experience, “which is to say, in the ethnographic present and not in the utopian futures” (Holston, 53 1995). This potentiality opens the space for a productive agonism within the experiential and productive elements inherent in space. The harnessing of such potential, as utilized in PARC, can work towards reclaiming some of the depoliticized practices of privatization and state reconfiguring.

34

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

2. OVERVIEW OF TRENDS 2D. SITE INTRODUCTION

The valorization of land for profit through the creation of exclusive spaces for a certain class formation has inherent social implications for the communities existing within them. The recent changes in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as telescoped by the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment, have had significant effects on the fabric of the neighborhood. The ramifications of such processes are felt not only physically, but also socially, as they contribute to heightening the conflictual relations between different community groups and individuals, in effect serving to weaken public opposition to such development processes.

The Domino Sugar Factory is a very contested site that has been at center of debates on large scale urban development, affordable housing and open space. It also played a key role in the new mayoral administration under De Blasio, that would set the stage for future urban development strategies undertaken by the City. The Factory shut down in 2004 and was subsequently bought by Community Preservation Corporation (CPC). They instigated major conflict within the community, before defaulting in 2012. Two Trees Management acquired the property, the same year, and came forward with a new proposal that is currently underway, further shifting and complicating relations within the community. A variety of publics had differing visions for what this site should be, including preserving the Factory as is, reintroducing manufacturing within the space, developing the main building into a large scale art center and affordable live / work spaces. Though the city initially promised to maintain the space as one of the last remaining large scale manufacturing sites in the neighborhood, that same year CPC acquired the site. The initial purchase of the site occurred during the lengthy 2005 rezoning process for the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods. During this time, most of the community effort and advocacy was targeted towards stopping or altering the rezoning plans and therefore the sale of the Factory took place largely uncontested.

In 2005, a major rezoning proposal was passed in City Planning under the Bloomberg administration. This saw the rezoning of 184 blocks of the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods from manufacturing to residential and mixed-use districts. This was a moment of particularly active community engagement. Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG), a community organization, provided leadership and resources to the Rezoning Task Force, a body created within Brooklyn Community Board 1 to oversee and guide the rezoning process. During this time, NAG also initiated the creation of the North Brooklyn Alliance, a coalition of over forty organizations in order to represent disparate community needs and desires. Nonetheless, the rezoning passed largely as first proposed. This instigated land speculation that drastically transformed the fabric of the neighborhood and further hastened the processes of gentrification, which encompasses a class restructuring of an area. In addition, this was also a critical moment in which the community felt their efforts were futile and a sense of disenfranchisement was strongly felt by the majority of the public.

2. Overview of Trends

35

NEIGHBORHOOD STATISTICS

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2009

2008

2010

2011

2013

2012

2015

2014

From 1992 - 1999 4250 manufacturing jobs left the neighborhood From 1990 - 2000 67% increase in median rents Population growth of 2.8% 8% decrease in Hispanic population 1.5% decrease in black population 10% increase in white population

NOVEMBER

BLOOMBERG ADMINISTRATION

JANUARY JANUARY 19th

From 1989 - 2000 Vacant land decreased by 30% Residential increased by 45% In 2000 CB1 ranked as one of the poorest neighborhood with 35% percent of the population living below poverty line.

Urban

OCTOBER

2002 - 2013 Amanda Burden Director of City Planning

By the City Planning Commision on rezoning proposal

Draft Environmental Impact Statment Points of Contention: - Distributions of park space - Affordable Housing - 85% Development in Greenpoint - 100% park space development in Williamsburg 31sq/f per person ration = 1/3 of DCP recommended ration (100 sq/f) or 1/5 city wide average (152 sq/f)

MARCH 4th

FEIS ISSUED

Community

197 - a PLAN 6 years collaborative planning process to develop a plan as DCP recognized advisory document.

Plan passed in 2002. This Lead CB1 to create a REZONING TASK FORCE in repsonse to the city’s proposed zoning.

REZONING ADOPTED

CPCR BUYS THE DOMINO SITE

CPC Resources, the for-profit arm of Community Preservation Corporation and Brooklyn developer Isaac Katan - buys for $55,831,875,

STRIKE @ the Domino Sugar Factory.

One of longest strike in New York History.

JANUARY 4th

RFP

COMMUNITY BOARD PRESENTATION

2004

2007

DOMINO SUGAR FACTORY CLOSES

LANDMARK STATUS

After 148 years of activity.

Over 225 workers lost their jobs.

To three buildings of the Domino Sugar Factory.

MEGAN SPERRY ON

ELLEN RAND FROM ART 101

“Bloomberg was a very top down guy, he was like this is my vision, these are the people that fit within it and this is what we are going to do. A lot of back door conversations. And a lot of people think De Blasio is going to change everything but if you look at who is surrounding him it is a lot of Bloomberg and Gulliani people. So not a lot of change. On the surface De Blasio looks like change but in reality he has a lot more work with a lot less resources.�

“We watched the Domino thing pretty carefully.

When the Domino closed we were told we would get another manufacturing [use]. Big lie number one.

So then CPC wanted to buy it. They were just given a green light by the city their EIS was incorrect so we went and did one ourselves and we tried to present it to the city, to city planning.....The city never kept any promises, look at these towers we had no input.

You know our plan was to make something like the Tate modern which would have been ideal for the community.�

Fall 2012 APRIL

To Two Trees Management for 185 Million Dollars ‘Undervalued’

CONSTRUCTION

Breaking ground of HAVEMEYER PARK June - construction wraps up

“If you look at the protests before 2005 and going into 2010 you can get 100s of people to show up today I don’t know if you can. A lot of people that were active have moved. Have been pushed out. The neighborhood has changed a lot and its really hard to activate rich yuppies to involved in social protest. 2005 was a huge defeat and Domino on top of that was like bam bam its hard to find people who think you can fight against any of that in the neighborhood.�

MEGAN SPERRY ON

STEPHANIE (Save domino)

CPCR

“ We partnered with Save Domino a little bit but they weren’t well organized. But Stephanie has been an opponent from day one, people say its selfish but thats not true. She is concerned about it because of the environmental impacts.

She owns a lot of manufacturing in the neighborhood so its like she saw the neighborhood she grew up in get demolished.

At community meetings people would point the finger and be like she’s crazy. But she was always right. Whatever she said she could always see before whatever anyone else saw. Then she partnered a group of younger people who kind of ushered the idea of Save Domino and thats when it kind of lost its impact.

Because its like an older community resident who has very specific ideals about the community partnered with a younger hipster group of people who don't really understand her intentions and her voice.�

“ When we were making the film we didn’t know that CPC would go bankrupt a lot of people were asking show me your books, show me the money, can you afford to do this development? They said trust us, trust us trust us. Ultimately because of the leverage they had at city council they were able to get the project accepted as it was and okayed. A couple months later they weren’t doing anything and we knew they didn’t have the money. Six months later rumors were flying that they already went bankrupt and Two Trees were already eyeing it. Two Trees was going to officially buy it.�

KARA WALKER EXHIBITS @ DOMINO

by Creative time - Jed Walentas is Board member and co-chair.

2013

BUSHWICK INLET PARK

RYAN KOUNEN ON

16 Acres unbuilt of the 28 Acres promised in 2005 REZONING

RELATIONSHIPS with opposition groups. “It got ugly and I would say that this would be a lesson learned to other communities. CPCR was genius at going in and sort of dividing very much along racial lines. From the very beginning they courted the latino groups and the churches so many times when NAGG went up we were called racists, you are these white gentrifiers who are against this, and on the side you had like the radical Williamsburg Independent People who were like you aren’t doing enough look at you you talk to those people...part of what's ugly in this ULURP process is that all these non-profit groups who need money to keep going. So if you have a developer who is willing to fund your project you are going to agree with them.

MAY 10th

RFP by Two Trees Management Land leased to: Bobby Red North Brooklyn Farms Brooklyn Bike Park Open Space Alliance Later Tipi Project

“(those in favor of the plan) in the film really got screwed the most because they put their identity on the line for CPC and then CPC was basically like sorry highest bidder. The individual relationships that they had with the church groups were ruined and the benefits that they were promised were never given.�

MEGAN SPERRY ON

(Save Domino - probably behind this)

DOMINO SITE SOLD

MEGAN SPERRY ON

RYAN KOUNEN ON

NYC MAYORS

Against development - projection “Buy Back Domino�

THOSE IN FAVOR

PROTESTS

2382 signatures and delivered to Amanda Burden

PROTEST

ARCHITECTURAL PROPOSAL APPROVED By architedct Raphael Vinoly

PETITION

MAY 30th

Six members of CB1 approve plan despite lack of transparancy from CPC. Jose Leon (St Nicks alliance), Marie Leanza (St Nicks alliance), Karen Nieves (EWVIDCO), Israel Rosario(Los Sures), Robert Solano (Churches United For Fair Housing) and Esteban Duran (Churches United For Fair Housing).

Some argue that they have benefited in some way in the past from dealings with CPC.

Unveiled by CPCR proposal to build 2,200 housing units.

30%, or 660, of the new apartment units would rent at a below market rate.

One-hundred rental units would be designated as affordable for families making $21,000 a year; 330 for those making up to $40,000, and 100 for seniors who make up to 50% of the median income for the area. The remaining 130 "affordable" units would be offered for purchase to families making up to $90,000 annually.

By HAO Architects and community group, Williamsburg Independent People for a worldclass cultural centre inspired on the Tate Modern in London OCTOBER 1st

Stop destruction of Historic Domino Sugar refinery and review the ALTERNATE PLAN

@ Woods (bar) to the community. This was orgnized by NAGG and MC by Ryan Kounen

CB 1’s Land Use Committee reject CPC’s plans for the “New Domino�.

FEBRUARY 18th Votes discussed with De Blasio Presiding meeting: Carl Weisbrod (Newly appointed City Planning Chairman) (Real Estate Industry insider) WHAT IS NEW ABOUT DE BLASIO’S APPROACH?

24 in favor, 4 against NOVEMBER

PROPOSAL UNVEILED

FEBRUARY 23rd

“DOMINO PLAN�

Acting chair Kenneth Knuckles

DECEMBER 10th

ALTERNATIVE PLAN IS UNVEILED

MARCH 19th

First community board presentation ULURP presentation by CPC on the Domino Sugar Factory proposa

JULY

With 700 Affordable units in exchange for additional 20 storeys in 5 buildings. (Alter Zoning Regulation)

CB1 VOTES ‘YES’

for temporary proposala for SITE E of Domino Sugar factory.

FEBRUARY 9th

Lead by community member Stephanie Eisenberg Proposed alternative plan: A public art centre

Issued by OPEN SPACE COALITTION (Non profits and community organizations) Main goals: “- Ensure existing and future community open space needs are met in proposed redevelopment and rezoning, - Create public funds that match private sector proposed open space developments to ensure contiguous and timely development, - Create a legacy of Brooklyn Waterfront open space with development of active and passive recreational areas served by connecting pedestrian and bicycle f acilities, and - Establish public oversight and management of private open space development to guarantee complimentary programming and design standards.�

Narratives

Submitted by Two Trees New proposal unveiled designed by SHOP architects 2284 Residential Units 80,000 sq/f ground floor retail space 630,000 office space

First community board presentation ULURP presentation by CPC on the Domino Sugar Factory proposa

SAVE THE DOMINO

PLATFORM REPORT

GWAPP Greenpoint Waterfront Associtation for Parks and Planning JULY

SPECIAL PERMIT

CB1 VOTES Neighbors Allied for Good Growth believes is should be retained as a national landmark and remain unaltered.

This is agrred by: Waterfront Preservation Alliance Landmark Conservancy

RENEGOTIATED PLAN

(ULURP) PUBLIC HEARING

MARCH

MARCH 9th

NAGG

MARCH 3rd Council and De Blasio Approves

JANUARY 22nd

Christine Quinn as Speaker and in favor.

Concerned about new influx of people (communiting and real estate value)

APRIL

2013 - END of year Amanda Burden Director of City Planning leaves position - VACANT

“The council voted UNANIMOUSLY to approve the rezoning changes after 6 years of debates and hearings.

CB1

Outside City Hall for lack of provisions given to the: - 197 - a Plan - Collaborative work of GWAPP - + other local and city wide civic org.

Joe Vance - Activists speaks out Christine Holowacz - Activist and board of GWAPP

In response to DEIS. This report influenced the formal response by the Rezoning Task Force.

Core of report to propose alternate height / bulk study.

2000

The developer has NOT secured financing.

PROTEST

GWAPP ISSUES REPORT

Site

With CPCR to discuss the proposa and initiate a community engagment process (ULURP) CPCR repsond and refuse with the excuse that they arent ready.

Approved the six ULURP actions for the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning, with several modifications to the zoning text amendment and the zoning map change.

NOVEMBER

“197-a plans are a participatory planning tool developed in the mid-1970s that allow community boards to sponsor and draft community based plans. Once passed

by DCP and City Council, 197-plans serve as advisory plans for future private and public developments within a community district.�

The CPCR proposal for rezoning the Domino Sugar Factory The proposal includes: 660 affordable housing units 2200 housing units and 60,000 sq/f of retail space.

PUBLIC HEARING

By CB1 Rezoning Task Force (RTF) Chris Olechowski, Chairman Issues raised: - “The rezoning must be the forum to execute visionary Affordable Housing developments.

- The Height and Bulk of the proposed plan does not reflect the community’s existing, or desired, character and scale.

- The language regarding Mixed-Use zoning is not effective for maintaining a mixed-use neighborhood.

- The location and amount of Open Space fails to meet even the City’s own standards.

- The Shore Public Walkway must be continuous and serve to celebrate and protect natural features.�

1996 - 2002

JUNE 27th

MARCH 14th

RESPONSE TO DEIS

On Loans for the Domino redevelopment

CITY COUNCIL APPROVES

CB1 DEMANDS A MEETING

DCP’s Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning Adopted and FEIS approved

NOVEMBER 23rd

C.P.C.DEFAULTS

JULY 29th

Results in below 20% promised affordable housing built and a fraction of the public space built.

MAY 11th

MAYOR DE BLASIO ELECTED

Spring 2012

As Council memeber of District 33

Williamsburg as neigborhood with most housing development stalled.

Final Environmental Impact Statment

On October 4, 2004, the Department of City Planning certified the ULURP application for the proposed actions.

STEPHEN LEVIN APPOINTED

HOUSING MARKET CRASH

PUBLIC HEARING

DEIS ISSUED

Under the supervision of Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, Burden initiated the rezoning process for the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfront.

DENISE CERMANSKI FROM TIPI PROJECT ON

HAVEMEYER PARK

DENISE CERMANSKI ON

SAVE DOMINO “I don't know who it comprises.

I think a lot of people in the building on Wythe, basically the Domino sugar redevelopment screws up their view.

I approached one person to do some work in the park, and she said you know they are just using us for PR and my views will be screwed up by that.�

“It s park that felt‌ you could feel the human touch in the park.

It brought the community together, I met more people from my community at that space than most other space, the next space is going to coffee shops. I think the success as well is that it was a incubator for people to have a concept, execute the concept and grow, it was a tremendous opportunity for the organisation that were blessed to be a part of it. I think that all and all it was a huge success.�

Jed Walentas and Dave Lombino on

PUBLIC PROCESS “ Maybe discussion should exist less among the public and more amongst experts.� “ There is a process issue and a substance issue.�

MEGAN SPERRY ON

TWO TREES

“Two Trees met with all of the organizations as anyone would do and identified what the needs were. But what they did differently was they identified with the future of the community rather than with past. �

RYAN KOUNEN ON

PROCESS “From the beginning Two Trees came and did a presentation for NAGG. One thing I don’t like its always segregated meetings, the new people on one side and the latino churches on the other. It annoys me that thats how its always done. Even the update meetings they hold at woods for the neighbors that are white and then they go to a church and present for the latino groups and its a sort of weird segregation of meetings.

2005 REZONING

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36

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Left page: Timeline of the process from 2003 to the present, highlighting three key moments of heightened tensions in the neighborhood. Below left: Image rendering of the CPC redevelopment proposal

by Vinoly Architects. Source: © Vinoly Architects. Below right: Image rendering of Two Trees redevelopment proposal by SHoPArchitects. Source: © SHoP Architects.

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2. Overview of Trends

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37

The rezoning promised a large contribution of affordable housing and new open spaces through the use of Incentive Zoning, a legislation that encourages developers to take on the responsibility of creating open space and affordable housing in exchange for higher density and extra building height.

However, the reality in Williamsburg has been that the scale of the majority of new developments has not made this incentive economically lucrative and therefore, to date, there has been a significant shortage of open space and affordable housing being produced. Further, this policy is flawed when implemented as it contributes to the creation of public space as amenity for the adjacent condo dwellers, participates to rising land values, speculation and luxury city production. Finally, it places less onus on the City to take on the responsibility for creating equitable public space across New York.

Above: Image from the 2005 Williamsburg and Greenpoint Waterfront Plan, illustrating porposed green spaces, waterfront access and programming. Source: Williamsburg and Greenpoint Waterfront Plan, 2005.

Alongside the rezoning proposal, the Bloomberg administration released the Greenpoint and Williamsburg Waterfront Access Plan (City of New York, Bloomberg Administration, 2005) which envisioned the entire waterfront of both neighborhoods to be publicly accessible and connected through a boardwalk and a series of parks. To date, only 6 acres of the 28 acre plan for a park has been built and only a fraction of the boardwalk exits.

Williamsburg and Greenpoint are also home to numerous ethnic minority groups which were detrimentally impacted by the recent changes in the neighborhoods. Greenpoint became an area of settlement for Polish residents during two major waves of immigration in the early twentieth century and in the 1980s and 1990s, and South Williamsburg is home to a large Hispanic and Hasidic Jewish community.

38

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Thus, as these changes find articulation on an ongoing basis, it becomes particularly important to think of how displacement and gentrification are both ongoing and lived. What does this mean in terms of belonging? How does this affect relations between individuals and groups, and between them and their environments?

The robust Polish community residing in Greenpoint was established and continues to this today. However, the 2005 rezoning, and real estate speculation around it, has driven property values and rental prices beyond the affordability of the majority of this population. Though historically this was a mixed-ethnic working class neighborhood, as industry moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, Greenpoint became a highly-concentrated area of Polish immigrant settlement in the second half of the 1980s. The sustained immigration transformed Greenpoint, physically and socially, into a classic immigrant enclave, where new Polish immigrants could find housing, work, and access to social services (Stabrowski, 2014). An immigrant enclave is a geographic area with a high concentration of ethnic minorities, characteristic cultural and economic activity, often tied to the relative impoverishment of new arrivals, as a means to eventually assimilate with majority population or unrelated to financial constraints and as a result of preference for such areas (Logan et al, 2002). As housing prices and rents grew over the years, landlords began to see their apartments as potential income generators. This had implications for tenant-landlord relations in the neighborhood. For owners of rent-stabilized units long-time tenants were regarded as particularly problematic. In other cases, tenants faced much more precarious conditions. There were a number of tenants that did not have a formal lease and often worked on the ground floor business of their apartments thus having their rents subtracted from their wages (Stabrowski, 2014). Under such conditions, residents faced tense and insecure positions within their homes, impacting their ability to stay in place, as well as their sense of security, freedom and agency. In addition to this, private developers were given the go ahead to engineer their vision for the neighborhood. This vision involves the construction of over 10,500 units of luxury residences, a 54-acre park, and a connecting esplanade to the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge. The aforementioned rezoning included tax abatement and density-bonus programs by the City in order to actively promote such private development (Stabrowski, 2014).

Thus, as these changes find articulation on an ongoing basis, it becomes particularly important to think of how displacement and gentrification are both ongoing and lived. What does this mean in terms of belonging? How does this affect relations between individuals and groups, and between them and their environments?

As we move south, we begin to see another complex story of past and present contestations over identity, representation, security and belonging.

The Southside of Williamsburg is home to a large Hispanic and Jewish population. Grand Street represents more than merely the geographical demarcation between north and south, rather it exists as a point in space dividing the luxurious Northside from the gritty, authentic Southside (Williams, 2013). As this was not always the case, this demonstrates a continual shift and the sociopolitical aspect of neighborhood geographies, particularly when undergoing change for, primarily, motives of economic and labor restructuring.

In the Southside, after the building of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, 2. Overview of Trends

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thousands of Lower East Side Jews crossed the river to Williamsburg leaving the overcrowded Manhattan community. This community further expanded in the 1930s, when large numbers of European Jews escaped Nazism to settle in New York. Later In the 1960s, many Puerto Ricans came to Williamsburg attracted by the abundance of factory jobs. In 1961, Williamsburg had 93,000 manufacturing jobs however, by the 1990s, this number had decreased to less than 12,000. This decline in manufacturing left thousands of Hispanics unemployed intensifying poverty, racism, poor health care and inadequate education (Brooklyn Public Library, 2015).

As both the Hispanic and Jewish communities continued to grow, the area became overcrowded into decaying tenements, instigating some friction between the two groups over government money and housing. However, in more recent years, working together on environmental justice issues has led to their rapprochement (Brooklyn Public Library, 2005). Such contention demonstrates that community formation and their geography is inherently a political process and that tensions are inevitable and need to be addressed productively. We are now witnessing a depoliticization of space production and identity formation, where a seemingly consensus on what is ‘common good’ is created. This stops the possibility for the necessary agonism to take place in a democratic negotiation.

The housing crisis of South Williamsburg has lead to the creation of various community organizations which are still existent and working on similar causes today. Los Sures started to fight back against neglectful landlords and were one of the first organizations to get a city contract to rehabilitate a building that had been abandoned (Tarleton, 2014). Another active organization is El Puente, which was founded in 1982 by Luis Garden Acosta to fight street violence and provide youth education. They have now recently undertaken a renewed effort to negotiate the changes of the area, namely the voracious gentrification, with an ambitious project focused on the arts, health and the environment (Gonzalez, 2012). Acosta is concerned that “The people promoting gentrification always tried to put a positive spin on it...But rich people come in and bring rich people things. Displacement was never part of the dialogue” (Gonzalez, 2012). However, there has been a 22% decrease in the Hispanic population since the 2005 rezoning (Stabrowski, 2014), demonstrating that displacement is directly tied to and a result of gentrification and must be addressed prior to developing an area.

Left: Image redering showing the alternative proposal for the Domino Sugar Factory as an art center modeled on the Tate Modern by Scott Henson Architect LLC hired by community advocates. Source: © Scott Henson Architect LLC, 2007.

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

3. SITE DYNAMICS AND ANALYSIS 3A. INTRODUCTION TO THEMES

Having performed in-depth research around the processes and negotiations during the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment and utilizing our primary methods of analysis we have drawn out four main theoretical frameworks. Situated within broader, local and global trends, the following chapter unpacks the larger cycles necessary for the reproduction of new landscapes of consumption and production. Drawings on thematics as varied as race theory, sociology, theories of justice, architectural theory, history studies, and political theory, these sections span across various disciplinary boundaries.

We begin with an exploration of Triangulation, which we have come to see as a primary tool utilized by developers to weaken community opposition through stratifying groups and organizing them in a particular hierarchical ordering. Such a tactic works to solidify existing racial and class cleavages existing in a specific locality. Further, we situate this tactic within a broader spectrum of capital strategies that employ culture and symbolic values to generate long term profit. All of this is tactfully executed under the banner of community benefit and public good, depoliticizing the process of urban development.

Another mode of depoliticizing space production is through giving primacy to aesthetics in design and preservation. The aesthetic representations of the past serve to obstruct the political nature of landscape formation and narratives of progress and modernization. Further, within the neighborhood at large, we see the aestheticization of difference under the promotion of tolerance and authenticity, serving to detach space from its producers. We conclude this chapter with exploring and calling for more expansive conceptions of multiple belonging and difference within the decision making process and space formation. This serves as an optimal segue into our propositional chapter.

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3. SITE DYNAMICS AND ANALYSIS 3B. TRIANGULATION

In order to understand the complex processes around large scale urban redevelopment projects and space production, we need to examine how different landscapes of privilege and decline are produced and the racial ideologies and structures that underpin them. Once this broader framework is set out, we illustrate the ways in which particular tactics, primarily one of triangulation – the stratification of groups set against each other, are employed by private interests to further solidify racial and class differences in space and enable unfettered growth and development.

Prevailing ideologies, particularly hegemonic norms, seep into our daily lives as individuals whether we are conscious of them or not, acting to reproduce structures of inequality. As such, these ideologies, which begin to define the boundaries of naturalized and acceptable thought, are critical to understanding race in our contemporary society (Pulido, 2006). Moreover, race has real material dimensions that manifest in visible structural and spatial configurations, namely segregated cities. This results in tangible disparities that ensure the continuation of inequality and discriminatory racial ideologies (Pulido, 2006). It is further important, for our analysis, to look at how race varies across space and time. Pulido outlines two ways of looking at this, differential racialization—the different sets of meanings attached to particular racial/ethnic groups that affect and produce certain race and class positionings, and racial hierarchies—specific configurations, based on racial ideologies, of power relations in a certain time and place (Pulido, 2006). Both these understandings help deconstruct our current landscapes, as the products of particular histories, needs of capital and the ways the incorporation and economic integration of various populations play out.

In addition to understanding the spatiality of racism, a historical perspective that examines white privilege and problematizes racism is necessary. Racism, as it is currently understood, is seen as simply a product of malicious, individual acts, which thereby obscures the structural and hegemonic forces that give rise to stark inequalities and their respective spatial manifestations (Pulido, 2000). Further, we need to understand its socio-spatial relation to the city as well as between places. This, enables a more structural analysis that recognizes the benefits accrued by white people, their category unmarked, against which all other is measured (Pulido, 2000). Such privilege, a form of racism, coupled with overt and institutionalized racism allows us to understand how places are shaped and produced. Proof of intentionality, as a prerequisite for racist acts being committed, exonerates whole workings of society and normalizes the state and capitalism that produces severe inequality, as racism is reduced to anomaly (Pulido, 2000).

Left: Photograph of Diana Reyna, Council Member District 34 speaking in front of City Hall in favor of CPC’s proposal. Source: © Aaron Short, 2010.

3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

Ruth Wilson Gilmore further argues that “racism is singular because, whatever its place-based particularities, its practitioners exploit and renew fatal power-difference couplings” (Gilmore 16, 2002). Thus, in order to understand the spaces we are looking at we need to take into account, not only race, but also the concomitant power differences between various groups. Further, there is no difference without power and neither power nor difference, have an essential value or meaning (Gilmore, 2002). Racism acts in a way that 43

limits and “pushes disproportionate costs of participating in an increasingly monetized and profit-driven world onto those who, due to frictions of political distance, cannot reach the variable levers of power that might relieve them the costs” (Gilmore 16, 2002). This applies to both race and class and is witnessed in the power hierarchies and stratification of people of color, marginalized groups, immigrant and legal/ illegal migrant populations as well as non-profit organizations struggling to represent them. These structural power imbalances are exploited by private interests driven by the very profit motive discussed

by Gilmore. Such processes are not necessarily the intentional actions of any individual but rather work in tandem with a system that sees some populations as surplused capacities (Gilmore, 2002). Those not as productive become a hindrance to the accumulation of capital and the production of landscapes that serve it. Thus, tactical weakening of group mobilization serves to incapacitate their ability to fight for their right to stay in place.

Clement Lai argues that Western scholarship on race has significant shortages. Though some scholars have recognized the mutual constitution of race and space, most, with the exception of Pulido (2000; 2006) mentioned above, have failed to expand their analysis to include an understanding the nature of such process as a “multivectored, relational one involving multiple racialized groups” (Lai 153, 2012). Further, their focus has been on Black— White relations, though warranted due to pervasiveness of anti-black racism, may not accurately represent racial dynamics in different locations (Lai, 2012).

Bringing in an analysis of a form of large scale urban redevelopment, Lai’s work helps us contextualize the Domino Sugar Factory, in relation to multiple class and racial configurations within the surrounding neighborhoods. Lai examines how the processes of urban renewal work in conjunction with relational racialization in order to enable specific forms of urban development and space production under capitalism. Further, he questions how redevelopment processes are made more effective through the social and spatial differentiation of different groups located in or near such development sites, one of the main theoretical questions that guide our own work here. We seek to situate the scholarship on race and class within the processes we have witnessed taking place on the ground around the Domino Sugar Factory. Through tactics set out by developers and private interests, communities become highly fragmented and divided, in ways that radically cripple their ability to oppose such developments.

Racialization processes are mutually constitutive of each other (Kim, 1999), the same goes for other forms of oppression such as gender and class. Thus, as Claire Jean Kim argues, we need to look at race, within a field of positions, at multiple scales and times. She applies this analysis to Asian Americans whom she explains are racially triangulated vis a vis Whites and African Americans in this field of racial positions (Kim, 1999). This takes place through two simultaneous and connected processes which include the relative valorization, by the dominant group, of one subordinate group (Asian Americans) relative to the other subordinate group (African Americans) in order to dominate both but particularly the latter. The other process involves the civic ostracism of the first subordinate group in order to exclude them from the body politic and civic membership (Kim, 1999). We seek to situate this concept of racial triangulation within broader urban processes of development and neighborhood change, more specifically we apply this framework to what we have witnessed as the existing stratification and oppression of certain groups in Williamsburg. In addition, understanding triangulation as a spatial process enables a more fine-grained reading of how such a tactic serves to produce space and reproduce spatial relations within it (Lai, 2012).

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Those not as productive become a hindrance to the accumulation of capital and the production of landscapes that serve it. Thus, tactical weakening of group mobilization serves to incapacitate their ability to fight for their right to stay in place.

Racial Triangulation of one minority group vIs a vis another can be applied to the relative valorization of one community group over another by developers and other private interests within urban redevelopment and real estate processes. However, this is once again not to say that private individuals bare sole responsibility for such stratification but rather, that such a field of class and racial positionings exists as an inherent part of white dominance and our present economic system, that is then exploited by such interests to further enable unfettered growth and capital accumulation. “As a normative blueprint for who should get what, this field of racial positions profoundly shapes the opportunities, constraints and possibilities with which subordinate groups must contend, ultimately serving to reinforce white dominance and privilege” (Kim 107, 1999). Therefore, in returning to our site of analysis, we can begin to understand the complex power dynamics between the different community organizations and their constituents, as existing beyond simply the time and space of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment. In our entry point to the investigation, there is a recognition that relations between various stakeholders are products of complex historical economic, political and social struggles and relations.

First Phase of Triangulation Process - CPC Ownership

In examining the key moments in the redevelopment, the CPC ULURP and Two Trees ULURP, we can see a particular racial and class configuration that was already present and further produced by multiple variables and resulted in disparate needs and priorities. The two main groups that have been triangulated by the various power holders, namely CPC in the first phase and Two Trees in the second, are the Latino population in South Williamsburg and the white population, both older and newer residents, in North Williamsburg.

In applying Claire Jean Kim’s frame of racial triangulation, we will illustrate the ways in which the Latino population can be understood as analogous to the most subordinated group in the race-class hierarchy, the existing white residents as occupying the position of the second, superior but also subjugated group, and the dominant grouping as represented by private interests, developers and the future ultra wealthy population (see image on following page). These positions are not static throughout, but rather are constantly in flux, in direct relationship with different power interests, and change in accordance with the tactics employed by the two different developers and moments in time. A more in-depth analysis of such groupings illustrates how these positions play out in spatial and relational ways.

In order to contextualize the two main groups in space, we can look at the spatial configuration of Williamsburg. There exists a visible divide between these neighborhoods, characterized by race and class, that is the result of a long history of immigrant settlement, economic and migration trends and differential investment and disinvestment in the built environment. As stated

by Alex Williams in a New York Times article “Grand Street is more than just the dividing line between streets that are numbered north and those numbered south. The border has become Williamsburg’s equivalent of the Mason-Dixon line, cleaving the neighborhood into two: a sleek, moneyed ‘North Williamsburg’ 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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FIELD OF RACIAL POSITIONS

Developers + Future ultra wealthy population

SUPERIOR

Left: Diagram illustrating triangulation in Williamsburg during CPC and Two Trees phases of ownership. Diagram based on Claire Jean Kim’s illustration of racial triangulation.

White residents

Latino population

INFERIOR

Relative Valorizarion Civic Ostracism

and a gritty, hyper-authentic ‘South Williamsburg’ ” (Williams, 2013). These two distinct populations and their community organizations played a critical role in the various stages of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment and held shifting positions within a field of class and racial hierarchies, manipulated and amplified by the different interests vested in the project. As one community member and former NAG employee stated: CPC was genius at going in and sort of dividing very much along racial lines. From the very beginning they courted the Latino groups and the churches so many times when NAG went up we were called racists, you are these white gentrifiers who are against this, and on the other side you had like the radical Williamsburg Independent People who were like you aren’t doing enough, look at you, you talk to those people.

NAG was very much in the middle, they had a city planning background or were really educated during the whole rezoning so there was a general knowledge on what was possible to ask for what we should be fighting for. We were very much caught in the middle and it was ugly (Kounen, 2014).

It is clear from this excerpt that race and class played a real role in this first phase of the redevelopment process. As Kounen correctly points out, the developers were able to first, identify a predominantly poor population at risk of displacement and second, take advantage of their precarious position by making false promises of providing such needed resources like affordable housing, open space and organizational funding. There is also a distancing that takes place here, in which the white population, here represented by NAG, occupies a differentiated class position. As becomes further evident in the next part of the excerpt this is not only the result of background and education but also to do with resources and conscious decisions, though not without consequences.

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Afterwards, not that it matters, people from the Latino side apologized, once CPCR did everything we said they were going to do. They came back and were like we apologize our behavior was ugly but after the fact it doesn’t matter who cares. It was very much the church groups…the church has money problems and part of what’s ugly in this ULURP process is that all these non-profit groups who need money to keep going so if you have a developer who is willing to fund your project you are going to agree with them. That is where NAG has always been a beacon because we don’t take money and now we also don’t have staff. So you can see why these groups compromise because they have giant staff and jobs that they have to keep going. But it was a hard process from every angle and it gets gross (Kounen, 2014).

Again, we see the flaws of the existing structures and in the means for individuals and groups to participate in a democratic process. This ultimately has a disabling effect that begins to explain why such unequal development processes are able to take place city-wide. Within such realities, the public does not have the capacity to exert change or exercise agency over the spaces they inhabit. Further, it reveals the structural impediments towards collective action and contestation. Speaking on the Latino community, another former community member, Megan Sperry explains :

The individual relationships that they had with the church groups were ruined and the benefits that they were promised were never given. [You have] Diana Reyna, Brooklyn Borough President and organization leader, say sometimes its survival of the fittest. The developers see that, and they go to the church because there is power in numbers. The church is struggling so if you just break them off 10,000 here and there that will buy us butts and seats at the city planning meetings. And then if they go bankrupt and flip it to someone who might not play that game, but still in a different way plays that game. You see Southside organizations scrambling (Sperry, 2014).

Second Phase of Triangulation Process - Two Trees Ownership

The group relations and positioning changed dramatically when Two Trees acquired the site. Here is where we witness another developer not participating in the same strategic tactics employed by CPC, but rather playing a whole new game with a new set of rules. This has real ramifications for an already fractured community further disabling any real democratic entry for contesting the parameters of development. As Megan Sperry further explains, Two Trees didn’t need the church groups because Two Trees have their own money. “Two Trees met with all of the organizations as anyone would do and identified what the needs were. But what they did differently was they identified with the future of the community rather than with the past” (Sperry, 2014).

The divisions in Williamsburg, based on race and class, not only manifest spatially, but also have a temporal quality. The factor of change over time, reveals an additional layer of complexity to such relations as it indicates the fragility of class positionings. Two Trees’ vision for the neighborhood is one that is focused on the future. This future envisioned here is disassociated with the former manufacturing uses and workers, long term residents and those struggling to remain in place. Instead, the image presented is one of a destination the best and the brightest, from the architects and planners to the artists taking part in the redevelopment and interim, to the future creative and technology firms, residents and spaces. These kinds of capital strategies are further explored in the following section.

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Beginning to expose these tactics and generating an understanding of how they affect the majority of residents is the necessary prerequisite for intervening in structural forces that at present, work to demoralize the public and immobilize participatory and democratic reform.

The second phase of the development, under Two Trees Management, saw a very different playing field. A shift in relations took place, after the significant rifts created under CPC’s ownership of the site and the cleavages that were left behind. The Latino groups withdrew their support for the development, and other organizations such as NAG came out in favor of the new proposal put forward by Two Trees.

Developers are very savvy...CPC is deviously savvy. One thing I will congratulate Two Trees is on is they are honest they will tell you to your face you are not going to like this portion of the plan and that’s the way its going to be. I like the fact that they don’t sugar coat it and convince people. They are very straight forward, we are doing this because it will make us this money. They are very different from CPC that is like a con job walking (Kounen, 2014).

The reason for the transparent nature of Two Trees as developers, within this narrative, is that Two Trees is a very different type of Developer Corporation from CPC. They have their own capital to develop the project without assistance from the government, and as such the support of the community. As a gallery owner and neighborhood resident and activist, Ellen Rand stated: “They have [done extensive outreach] with the people they knew would respond to them” (Rand, 2014). Further, the plan was already passed when they acquired the site and Two Trees was able to use this as a leverage point threatening to withdraw their proposal, had their plan not been passed.

Two Trees, did nonetheless have their own set of tactics. As Kounen again explains: From the beginning Two Trees came and did a presentation for NAGG. One thing I don’t like, its always segregated meetings, the new people on one side and the Latino churches on the other. It annoys me that that’s how it’s always done. Even the update meetings they hold at Woods for the neighbors that are white and then they go to a church and present for the Latino groups and it’s a sort of weird segregation of meetings (Kounen, 2014).

This unarbitrary division of meetings is one of the ways in which efforts to oppose development and strategically align with multiple groups is quelled.

However, when asking one community resident about this they did not see this so much as strategic but rather as a means to cater to the desires of the community—holding meetings in their preferred venues, and to address their respective needs. It is important to note that spatial and social attributes of these spaces ensure that certain groups will not be present at the meeting. This is also the result of defined racial and class divisions in space. The meetings held at Woods, specifically target the newer white residents whose homes back on to the development, narrowing the conversation to construction scheduling and noise concerns. Nonetheless, the following reflection illustrates well the ramifications of this: [There is a] segregation of all these interests, and when you agree separately this is when hands get tied because you may not have thought oh yeah this is a good idea or we should change that so we should all be in the same room but the reality is 48

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

closed door meetings happen. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how city council works, developers work and the process works. Even the community board has closed door discussions with developers. Its weird. If you knew who was meeting with who you would know what questions to ask as a public. You could put pressure on the right people. (Kounen, 2014).

Thus, what becomes clear through the multiple strategies outlined above, development takes place under the auspices of consensual politics through the stratification of groups and the amplification of existing racial and class hierarchies and differences. Through the primary tactic of triangulation, community groups are weakened in their ability to oppose such development processes. Thus, the public not only loses their agency over the spaces they inhabit, but such manufactured hostility, has larger implications for diverse neighborhoods and cities such as Williamsburg and New York. Beginning to expose these tactics and generating an understanding of how they affect the majority of residents is the necessary prerequisite for intervening in structural forces that at present, work to demoralize the public and immobilize participatory and democratic reform.

Left: Photograph of Stephen Levin, Council Member District 33 yelling in opposition to CPCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposal prior to voting in favor of it. Source: Š Aaron Short, 2010.

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3. SITE DYNAMICS AND ANALYSIS 3C. CAPITAL STRATEGIES AND SOCIAL GOOD

During the ongoing process of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment, we have witnessed a host of capital strategies promoted as a means of generating social good for all parties involved in the redevelopment and negotiation process. In reality, these capital strategies are based on a philosophy of investment intended to yield maximum profit over a long term period and through multiple mechanisms. Thus, investment was used to build capital in less tangible sectors such as culture and symbolic that in return ensure a profitable return on the development. Culture is an effective tool for the stabilization and increase in land value and participates in the symbolic economy (Zukin, 1995). Such an economy is based primarily on the power of aesthetics and culture to enhance and represent space in such a way to increase it’s capital value (Zukin, 1995). In this section, we will examine two particular cases, Havemeyer Park and the Kara Walker exhibit. Both these cases illustrate an orchestrated spatial and cultural intervention organized

by Two Trees that, through their aesthetic, branding and media attraction, contributed to adding to the symbolic economy of the site and neighborhood at large.

The symbolic economy can also be utilized as a form of control, in the case of the Domino Sugar Factory, it was used as a direct means to restrict and manipulate the groups in opposition to the development by organizing events and spaces which made resistance seem unreasonable. From the creation of a temporary community park on one of the vacant sites of the development to the funding of an exhibition showcasing a global artist in one of the Factory spaces prior to demolition, these events participate in improving Two Trees’ public relations with the local communities. In addition, they work to elevate the redevelopment project in the eye of the general public, quelling opposition while also depoliticizing the highly political process of development. Furthermore, the elements that form culture; symbols, patterns and meaning (Zukin, 1995) can be manipulated in such a way as to “humanize the space of real estate development” (Deutsche cited in Zukin 22, 1995). Tools such as community participation, promoted transparency and human agency, and hiring the ‘best and brightest’ participated in ennobling the developers, while pushing their agenda into the incontestable ground of social good. Deconstructing and contextualizing these strategic tactics help demonstrate how “suddenly nothing is immune from appropriation as an accumulation strategy” (Smith and Low 15, 2005) while also revealing the disingenuous manipulation of the public for the gaining of support and the pacifying of dissent.

Left: Photograph of Kara Walker’s Sugar Baby sculpture installed in the Domino Sugar Factory prior to initiating demolition of the site. Source: Larissa Begault, 2014 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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Havemeyer Park I have been to Havemeyer Park, that was a great thing. That was great public relations move too (Rand, 2014).

Above: Photograph of Havemeyer Park, a temporary space leased to the community by Two Trees developers. Source: © Denise Cermanski, 2014.

Number one its a green space on the South side. It s park that felt… you could feel the human touch in the park. It brought the community together, I met more people from my community at that space than most other spaces… ( Cermanski, 2014).

Havemeyer park was a plot of land leased by the developer for the creation of a temporary park on Site E of the development site (previously a parking lot) as an interim use prior to initiating construction. Following the release of an RFP in early January 2013, three local groups won the bid; North Brooklyn farms, Brooklyn Bike Park and Bobby Red (who later dropped out of the coalition). The proposal entailed a bike track, urban farming, a few hard surfaced terraces, a large grass lawn and shipping containers to be leased to pop up restaurants and stores as a means to fund the project. Two Trees were not prepared to bear the cost of construction and operation of the space and therefore funding mechanisms had to be included by the applicants. The proposal’s mismanagement and lack of funding meant that certain elements were never completed such as pop up restaurants and stores, these were replaced by larger events such as the Kickstarter film festival. The lack of resources for permanent security personnel also meant the park remained closed when none of the group members were present, which limited access to weekends and occasionally a few hours on weekdays. However, when the park was accessible, it was loved by its users; Havemeyer park embodied the aesthetic of the community garden, it was perceived as “the people’s park” (Community member at a community meeting, 2014) or the open space with a “human touch” (Cermanski, 2014). The scale and humanizing qualities of this space detached it from the negotiations and tensions taking place within the rest of the development; the everyday experiences lived on site E, temporarily removed it from the ongoing politics surrounding the Domino Sugar 52

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

redevelopment. Furthermore, the aesthetics developed in the park promoted an ideal of inclusion when actually, public participation was highly controlled and limited.

The process that took place in creating the park engage in a new form of space production and ordering, neither private, nor public, a Third Way in between the two forces. This seemingly apolitical approach to creating shared, common space can be analogous to the ideologies surrounding the conceptions of the commons as a spatial arrangement which “implies open access and shared participation without the shadow of the state (with its heavy-handed powers to tax or regulate); and it implies a space for community assembly apart from the hard sell of the market” (Blackmar 49, 2006). These spaces often perceived as more inclusive, constructed from the coming together of civil society, from the grassroots movement, are in fact not as accessible as they seem. Within such a process, one can question who is the public involved and included? As one of the organizers mentioned, the space was to be used in a certain, very specific way leading to the inevitable exclusion of persons and groups.

One of which was there were so many entrances it was hard to keep the park secure and so it created a lot of undue anxiety. Basically often times one of the gates was left open, or the locks was lost and so in my space that is supposed to be sacred and respected it invited danger, or people using it in ways that I was not supporting and people at the park were not... did not care….so next year [relocation space] there will be one door which is amazing (Organizer, 2014).

The manner in which the organizer refers the park as ‘my’ space, and the level of control in how one is able to participate within it highlights how the Third Way can easily sway into a struggle of power and rule. The denial of the politics involved in such a process and the promotion of consensus around its production serves to prohibit these kinds of spaces from becoming spheres where democracy can be deliberated and enacted, as Lefort points out “democracy is invented when references to an unconditional basis of social unity are abandoned” (Lefort sited in Deutsche xxiii, 1996). This is a necessary step to be taken in order for inclusivity and multiple publics to be accounted for. This inherent paradox was denied in the production of Havemeyer park but more broadly into the process of the development. We have seen a rise of Third Way politics that aims to depoliticize such developments under the claim that what is proposed serves all parties involved equally. This ‘consensus at the centre’, false sense of unity, and the lack of deliberative space, fixes the democratic discourse and disables any possibility for change, advancement and dissent. As Mouffe states “instead of trying to erase the traces of power and exclusion, democratic politics requires us to bring them to the fore, to make them visible so that they can enter the terrain of contestation” (Mouffe 34, 2000).

In addition, the Third Way claims to be separated from market forces.

However, when the developers, who have particular interests vested in the space, handpicked the civil society able to participate in its creation, capital inevitably participates in the production of such space.

I think the success as well is that it was a incubator for people to have a concept, execute the concept and grow, it was a tremendous opportunity for the organization that were blessed to be a part of it. I think that all and all it was a huge success (Organizer, 2014).

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These spaces often perceived as more inclusive, constructed from the coming together of civil society, from the grassroots movement, are in fact not as accessible as they seem.

One of the Park’s organizer describes the park as an incubator, a space to grow as an organization. This further demonstrates the inextricable tie of this space to market values. This revival of new forms of governance of the commons, from a capitalist perspective, arose in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a means to protect the system from its self-destruction. As Caffentzis points out “Who would commit themselves to defend capitalist society ‘to the death’, if everyone acted like perfect neoliberal agents aiming to maximize his/her own private utility function?” (Caffentzis 23, 2010). This is what he calls the Plan B or what we have discussed as the Third Way, “a political position to evade antagonistic responses to the privatization of land when they become too powerful and aggressive” (Caffentzis 29, 2010). By proposing new ways for participating in the market, civil society governance becomes a new mechanism for capital accumulation. Often, leading to the corporatization of the space’s operations and control, moving away from solidarity amongst members towards building social capital (Caffentzis, 2010).

Top left: Photograph of Havemeyer Park and the Tepee Project. Source: Sara Beck for The New York Time, 2014.

Bottom left: Photograph of North Brooklyn Farms in Havemeyer Park. Source: Nicole Disser for Bedford + Bowery, 2014.

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Havemeyer park also participated in promoting the discourse of private over public and the denigration of public services, specifically the Parks and Recreation Department. The park managed to, at the same time, show a space that was built and maintained by members of the community but also maintained the affiliation that this successful space was provided and owned

by Two Trees. This mental association of community run and private ownership equating to ‘the people’s park’ is a false and dangerous one to make as this rhetoric is able to slowly alter the common understandings, meanings and representations of public space.

I know people are disappointed that once the development happens it won’t be like a peoples park. The parks department is going to come in with their rules and how they do stuff. There was this push by, people were scared that Two Trees would maintain some control over their park space but at the same time one of the public meetings people were like we created this amazing thing that is very different from anything out there and we don’t want the park that’s here to become this sterilized city park. There were people who didn’t want Two Trees to keep control but there were also people who were like we would love for Two Trees to keep control so that we could do what we want to do in the park. All these competing dynamics (Kounen, 2014).

This statement by a community organizer, points to this new dynamic favoring privatization under the false ideal of more freedom of participation and agency over the space.

Finally, this discourse starts to blur the meaning and importance in differentiation between public space and neighborhood space and multiple publics for community. Here the different connotations assigned to public space are competing. Who is the community able to participate? Under the control of distinct vested interests, how do these space account for including undesirables, and more broadly difference? While community is an undeniably important element for enhancing belonging and agency in our society, its operation and management of public space inherently excludes the Other.

As Young explains “A community is a group that shares a specific heritage, a common self-identification, a common culture and set of norms. In the US, today, identification as a member of such a community also often occurs as an oppositional differentiation from other groups, who are feared, or at best devalued” (Young 12, 1986). Providing agency for a specific community to participate in open space production leads to question what was the process of curating who was able to participate in its making? This concept is further reinforced by what Deutsche calls the ‘quality of life discourse’, an adopted neo-conservative rhetoric on democracy. This includes movements such as ‘the new community activism’ and ‘the new citizenship’ advocating against social spending to rather, rely on resources from civil society and non-governmental institutions (Deutsche, 1996). All this works towards vilifying government practices as the main instigators of the decline in quality of life and builds on normalizing this privatizing practice.

To summarize, the creation of Havemeyer park was an ingenious community relation maneuver that ameliorated the negative image of the developer within the neighborhood, humanized the space to be developed while detaching it from the contention around the development. Further, it helped denigrate public space ownership to promote the discourse of private entities or civil society as more adequate to produce and operate public spaces. This latter point is not insignificant when talking about public space, 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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as ownership is an important factor in democratic space production and an important one to deconstruct if equitable provision, distribution and use of such spaces is to continue. We will now be turning to another event organized in the late Spring/Summer 2014, primarily funded by the developer that continues cultivating cultural capital on the site while perpetuating an image of social good associated with the development and benefits for the community.

Above: Photograph of the opening of the Kara Walker exhibit at the Domino Sugar Factory.

Source: David Prutting, Courtesy of BFA, for Musee Magazine, 2014.

Kara Walker Exhibition

Two Trees, in partnership with Creative Time, organized a final exhibition in the one of the Domino Factory buildings. This exhibition curated

by Nato Thompson hosted the world renowned artist Kara Walker. Her work paid “homage to all the unpaid and overworked Artisans on the occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant” (Walker, 2014). This event was an international success for its two month duration, but its global reach and popularity left a permanent trace on the site. Thus, not only the space but also the redevelopment itself now enjoy association with one of New York’s most successful art intervention.

There is an inextricable irony in this exhibition commemorating the industry’s past operation and workers on a site poised for the construction of luxury mixed use development which inherently participates in the displacement and restructuring of that very labor force. As Yee, in a New York Times article, rightly points out, In a borough convulsed by change, perhaps no set of buildings carries as much symbolic freight as the Domino complex. Where blue collars once dominated, an art-world blockbuster now reigns. Where Mr. Shelton [factory worker] and hundreds 56

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of his fellow workers once walked a picket line, the young and hip now come by the thousands, sprinkling Instagram with their photos (Yee, 2014).

This considerable contradiction was hardly contested by the public who visited the site in mass and even less by the media who proclaimed this to be one of New York City’s “most substantial works of art” (Gopnik, 2014). This represents the failure to contextualize the event within broader ramifications of such development nor the contestation that surrounded it. Blinded by media attention and the exceptionality of the installation by the artist, only a few questioned who was being commemorated in this space? Perhaps those at a safer distance from present day conflict. What public does this exhibition target and how did it hold any relationship to the neighborhood and its residents whom had been serving this space for the last decades? On the one hand, a message of empathy and inclusion was proclaimed by the developers to the Williamsburg working class community, and beyond to workers in sugar plantations, on the other, this exhibition was just another mechanism to halt any possible contestation and build symbolic capital, while denying community participation in the curating and making of the event.

The choice of Kara Walker, ‘the best and brightest’ in her field, meant than any alternative put forward would be incomparable and inferior, it halted any possible participation and also made contestation seem unreasonable. It forcefully, placed members of the community into a position of gratitude, awe and acquiescence. This event, a gift from the developers, attempted to tame conflicts through distribution, a common way to tackle social justice issues and disable alternative claims. However, as Young points out, there is a need to shift the concept of justice as patterns of distribution “to procedural issues of participation in deliberation and decision making” (Young 34, 1990).

This heavily marketed approach to a cultural event works in parallel to the neoliberal planning approach of ‘highest and best use’ as the cornerstone to determining the market value of land. This method claims that “high-yielding land uses supplant marginal or low-yielding ones as a matter of right” (WolfPowers 381, 2005). Though, particularly implemented in urban planning post fiscal crisis, this is an ideology born out of early capitalism that has served as the reasoning behind land expropriation of native Americans and globally for resource extraction. “Individuals who fail to produce value have no claim to property” (Harvey 76, 2012), in translating this to the event, we realize that agency of the local population was worthless in the cultural market. ‘Highest and best use’ omits taking into account any elements that do not result in a direct economic return. In choosing to exhibit Kara Walker, an intentional decision was made to put the Factory to its best use as a cultural institution, regardless of community needs and wants. It was an excellent branding exercise that attracted global attention, amassed cultural capital and marked the site as a destination.

In holding an event for the remembering of an industry, a question that arises is whose memory is being celebrated? As Abramson chronicles “Against history’s officialism, memory recalls hidden pasts, the lived and the local, the ordinary and the everyday. Against history’s totality, memory’s pluralism blooms” (Abramson 2, 1990). What is important to note here is the power of memories to reveal the invisible and illustrate lived experiences. In this event, the honoring focused on the plantation workers, while a very important population to remember in relation to the sugar industry and American history, it is also a population distant from the one present in Williamsburg, and with 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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no tie to the more recent events surrounding the Factory; it’s closure and subsequent development proposal. The everyday struggles for some members of the community and the contentions around the site were not part of the event and remained invisible in the eyes of the wider public. As Campo said “That was a missed opportunity” (Campo, 2015), a failure in including and giving a voice to the present day population affected by the industry’s closure, in making visible the sociopolitical tensions that such a development has on the fabric and ecology of a neighborhood. Deutsche accurately states, there is the opportunity for artwork and a site to impact and alter one another’s identity, blurring these boundaries allows art to enter and participate in wider cultural and social practices. This, further, illustrates “the need for criticism to conceptualize this meeting ground [art and urbanism] is especially urgent now since neo-conservative forces are performing that task in order to promote a type of public art that complies with the demands of redevelopment” (Deutsche 63, 1996).

Above: Photograph of mura by Los Muralistas on the hoarding of Domino Sugar Factory construction site. Source: Jeremiah Budin for NYCurbed, 2014.

Having made the above claim, a recent mural from Los Muralistas – a group of artists from El Puente, on the scaffolding wall of the development, demonstrates that the irony of these public installations still exists. Even with community participation that seeks to challenge the demands of development through creating critical artwork, such subversive work still participates in the production of cultural capital and authentic value.

The dynamic mural depicts the neighborhood’s rich history and Latino cultural values, specifically addressing the significance of Domino Sugar’s presence in the neighborhood and the historic impact of the sugar trade on the Los Sures community. The project reflects on the changes that the Latino community has undergone, and the economic and social tensions surrounding those changes, while emphasizing the community’s resilience and welcoming disposition (El Puente 2014).

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Despite the critical nature of the mural, It is interesting to note how the quote ends with the claim of a welcoming disposition towards the development. This was a repeated phenomenon we witnessed throughout the ULURP process for the second proposal by Two Trees. Most of the opposition that came forward, outlined their concerns and requests, but ended on an apologetic note asking to work with the developer to alleviate some of these issues. As mentioned earlier, Two Trees had made a credible threat to withdraw the application, thus community groups have been treading lightly in their contestations. Even though a creative go ahead was given— a supposedly democratic discourse required for the production of such a mural— the ultimatums, threats and bargaining mechanisms from the developers meant that the message, though political, remained unheard. As previously mentioned, El Puente’s Director, fears that the dignity and cultural pride of his community is being removed for profit (Gonzalez, 2012), how does the mural address this claim? We realize that the various cultural milieu of artists, even radicals are now taking an ambiguous stance as they characterize urban space as attractive. The sub and counter-cultures are seen to saturate such space with cultural capital, “which in the scheme of ‘creative city’ policy then becomes transformed by investors into economic capital” (Mayer 11, 2013).

In this section, we have discussed the various strategies employed by Two Trees during the development process. Although perceived as social and community benefits, these revealed a series of imperceptible tactics that build on the symbolic economy of the site and neighborhood at large while limiting community participation and contestation in the process. It is important to put these forward as a means to position the actions taken by the developers.

As Caffentzis contends “The power of capital lies...in its ability to terrorize us with our lack of capacity to organize the reproduction of our lives outside of its structures” (Caffentzis 26, 2010). Being aware of these processes may not result in being able to abstract oneself from the reproducing them, it does however, enable the possibility for a more reflexive positioning with regards to such large scale redevelopment processes.

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3. SITE DYNAMICS AND ANALYSIS 3D. PRESERVATION AND AESTHETICS Politics of a Spatial Renaissance

In looking at neighborhoods such as Williamsburg and particular spaces within it, the Domino Sugar Factory, important questions regarding history, past and present, preservation and even commemoration come to the fore. The retelling of the past takes a multitude of forms and serves a variety of economic and political purposes. Though this is not unique to Williamsburg, the political nature of preservation is a well documented phenomenon, the neighborhood and our particular site of investigation, which holds landmark status, provide an insightful and intensified representation of the intersections between the commodification of history and memory as an ‘apolitical’ past, the aestheticization of ethnic and class difference, formation and valorization of class identity, discourse of tolerance, and authenticity and crisis.

One of Williamsburg’s most popular tales is that of its reemergence, symbolized by its newest wave of bars, restaurants, hotels and luxury towers. This, however, represents not simply a mere upscaling of a less remarkable past, but rather that of a burgeoning area, born and reimagined, neatly detached yet inextricably containing the most authentic of the past’s offerings. It has made its way to the global kaleidoscope of “it” neighborhoods.

Williamsburg represents an old industrial neighborhood that has experienced a renaissance, regarded as “the epicenter of the Brooklyn renaissance” by an elected public official (Marty Markowitz cited on NYC & Company, 2014) and a rebirth, according to a New York Times article, as seen through its waterfront, “the Domino redevelopment project has come to symbolize the rebirth of Williamsburg’s waterfront” (Gregor, 2014). Within such popular narratives, it becomes particularly imperative to examine the multifaceted forces that have shaped it in its present iteration and continue to refashion post industrial neighborhoods more broadly. Aesthetic trends that ascribe value to post industrial areas, valorization of authentic spaces, and movements around preservation all take part in shaping the physical and social fabric of our current day neighborhoods.

Left: Photograph of interior relics of the Domino Sugar Factory.

Source: AbandonedNYC, 2012.

3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

The earlier efforts around preservation in New York City can shed some light on how our present day landscapes have been conceived and constructed. Though dating back to the 1890s, the historic preservationist movement has most commonly been associated with the work being done beginning in the 1960s. It is important to understand that the efforts of these groups was not merely that of preserving the past. Rather, as Randall Mason suggests, such advocates “were deeply committed to the city’s modernization” their efforts “at once tried to connect and distance the past and present” (Mason 234, 2009). Thus, preservation and aesthetic representations of historic relics can be understood as simply a fragment of remembrance along a more definite path towards modernization and progress. Preservation also served the more overtly political agenda of national pride, civic patriotism and social cohesion, particularly important at a time of an increasingly fractured city life, corporate capitalism at its height and an influx of immigrants (Mason, 2009).

Preservation and memorialization of history served as a stabilizing force in which “[a]lternative narratives, or any real sense of empowerment of ethnic 61

One of Williamsburg’s most popular tales is that of its reemergence, symbolized by its newest wave of bars, restaurants, hotels and luxury towers. This, however, represents not simply a mere upscaling of a less remarkable past, but rather that of a burgeoning area, born and reimagined, neatly detached yet inextricably containing the most authentic of the past’s offerings.

groups over “the public,” were discouraged” (Mason 238, 2009). Though today objections to ethnic difference and representation in historical preservation and architectural relics are much more covert, they continue to shape our landscapes and produce largely uniform spaces for consumption and passive spectatorship. Here, the Domino Sugar Factory becomes an interesting illustration of these themes and serves as a useful vehicle for further unpacking these concepts.

Reason and the Aestheticization of the Past

In exploring the factory as a long serving social and economic space of productivity reveals a complex multi-scalar, layered spatial assemblage —of employment and labor relations, physical and intimate relationships between individuals, and particular spatial orderings of the body, the factory, the neighborhood, the urban and ultimately the global (Smith, 1992). Thus, one must begin to look at the factory as a site within larger economic and political forces, circuits of capital, investment and disinvestment, ideologies of progress and modernization, and ultimately the material transformation and racial and class restructuring of the neighborhood and city. Here Dylan Trigg’s provocation is particularly on point, “considering the history of the twentieth century, a legacy of destruction which looks set to increase into the present century, can we still maintain that reason is the mechanism by which progress can be realized? (Trigg 1, 2006)

Much of the destruction and restructuring of neighborhoods is executed under the guise of rationality and progress. Looking at the recent past of the Williamsburg waterfront reveals a heightened illustration of such valorization and devalorization cycles, premised on destruction and legitimized through capital accumulation. Triggs goes on to explain that intuition is considered reactionary, detachment from human sentiment and contingency thus become the necessary means toward extracting oneself from the subjectivity of contextual experience, so that reason may triumph. Governed by such reason “an atemporal and placeless (non)environment in which context is subjugated by necessity” (Trigg 3, 2006) enables the suppression of such context through which we can achieve an “aesthetic universality” at the cost of an actual experience.

The plans for the Domino Sugar Factory waterfront, by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, reimagines just such a past, one that is decontextualized, apolitical and detached from any kind of human experience. As most aptly represented in the Artifact Walk, which according to one of the senior associates, Karen Tamir, at Field Operations is two city blocks, elevated, made partially of the raw sugar house and its columns. Aside from the actual walkway, it is punctuated by numerous artifacts from the site, gantry crane, bollards, conveyer, syrup tanks etc. Further Tamir states “not always do you get a developer that is willing to go to these lengths so this was an opportunity and we always like to keep the psyche of the site and bring it 62

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Above: Render of the Artifact Walk along the Domino Sugar Factory waterfront by James Corner Field Operations, presented at the community meeting by Two Trees.

Source: Community Meeting Presentation, 2014.

into being in the design” (Tamir, 2015). Yet, all memories of struggle—a twenty month strike by the Factory’s workers, the ensuing job loss, class restructuring, and displacement, are masked by a rational and aesthetic representation of the past. Field Operations are not alone in their praise and acceptance of this kind of history. John H. Beyer, of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners, working on the reconstruction part of the project states, in a New York Times article “I don’t think anything approaching this level of interpretation of industrial history has occurred in New York” (Dunlop, 2013). Here the interpretation of history is equated with the preservation of industrial relics, once again promoting the consensus around an apolitical aestheticized past. Yet, David W. Dunlap, rejoins “but it won’t be sticky. And it won’t smell of sugar and sweat” (Dunlop, 2013).

Here we are reminded of reason as a “homogenizing agent which defines and identifies the particular in accordance with a static principle already established in the past” (Trigg 3, 2006). This static principle is that of real estate development as a principle economic strategy for the city, production of upscale built environments as the articulation of healthy capital flows, and development as the illustration of progress. The reverse of such representations of history would act in a political manner. Alternative representations have the potential to begin to unravel some of the status quo around urban redevelopment and their consistent negative consequences for the majority of communities, perhaps helping to explain the purported consensus on such preservationist projects.

As argued by Daniel Abramson, being confronted by more complex and real representations of the past requires the positioning of oneself in relation to that past and otherness that is created as a result. It begins to make room for people to “address each other across the boundaries of difference” (Roth cited in Abramson 4, 1999). Further drawing on the work of LaCapra and psychoanalysis “working through the past” would “involve a modified mode of repetition offering a measure of critical purchase on problems and responsible control in action that would permit desirable change” (LaCapra cited in Abramson 4, 1999). And finally, this would require “the generation of a transformed network of relations that counteract victimization and allow for different subject-positions and modes of agency” (Abramson 4, 1999).

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Yet, all memories of struggle—a twenty month strike by the Factory’s workers, the ensuing job loss, class restructuring, and displacement, are masked by a rational and aesthetic representation of the past.

Non-static, non-linear representation and engagement with history transcends simplistic and universalizing readings of the past and allows for engagement with oneself, present-day society and our fluctuating and uncertain positions within it. It also allows a critical engagement that doesn’t negate conflict or agonistic accounts of past realities and relationships (Abramson, 1999). Finally, it may prove productive for the future as we move forward and past notions of a supposed consensus around development and common good. However, such a shift requires a reconsideration, beyond preservationist projects, of how we relate to and understand ourselves in relation to difference. It also entails moving past a simplistic and detached appreciation of spaces and aesthetics of ethnic and class difference.

On Discourse of Tolerance and Authenticity

Situating the social and political space of the Factory and its redevelopment within Williamsburg reveals a more complex understanding of how local and global forces intersect to give rise to such spaces. Scholar Sharon Zukin astutely summarizes the major forces, critical players, policy decisions and cultural trends that all came together to produce the space as we see it today: The origin story of Brooklyn cool is a romantic story of indie artists and culture jams, of participation and creativity; it’s an anti corporate, anti-Manhattan rant. It also reflects the deliberate absence of economic involvement by private developers and public officials, who ignored manufacturers’ pleas for protection from landlords when they refused to renew their leases or dramatically raise their rent when they saw artists coming. More than that though it represents a larger cultural transformation, with the creation of a nouveau grit aesthetic that telescopes Williamsburg’s rebirth from a cheap, unremarkable immigrant neighborhood near the docks to the “third hippest neighborhood” in urban America (Zukin 50-51, 2010).

We are witnessing the emergence of a widespread phenomenon of neighborhoods that have become gentrified, inhabited by hipsters and a new chic, cosmopolitan populace. Williamsburg is a case in point. These areas are identified and touted as spaces of tolerance. Meanwhile those very spaces, imaginaries and groups who represent the ‘authentic’ aesthetic that attracted the new waves of people and investment, are the ones threatened and displaced. Here authenticity is understood as the supposedly real or genuine and aesthetic representations of the past. This is not a new process and by now it is a well known occurrence. However, what is less frequently documented, outside of a few critical academic disciplines, is the discourse of tolerance and the complex interweaving with issues of authenticity and preservation within these spaces. Zukin’s work is a laudable contribution towards ameliorating this gap.

The discourse of tolerance is widely used in academic as well as political circles, particularly in multicultural cities with large foreign born populations. It appears in cultural and economic strategies for cities, popularized by Richard Florida in his work on the Creative Class (Florida, 2002; 2008). Yet, there is little interrogation of what the actual meaning of the word is nor how it plays out in its application. According to Merriam-Webster, tolerance 64

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Right: Photograph of an ‘authentic’ Southside mural and streetscape. Source: Anthony Lanzilote for NY Daily News, 2011.

is the capacity to endure pain or hardship; sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own; the act of allowing something (Merriam-Webster, 2015). This kind of endurance, allowance or indulgence of difference leaves much to be desired. Tolerance discourse will be expanded through addressing the means through which multiple publics can belong side by side in a more substantive way, in the following section.

In critiquing dominant understandings of ‘authenticity’, we can begin to problematize the fissure between the appreciation, or tolerance, for the aesthetics of spaces of ethnic and class difference, which come with affordable living, gritty industrial remnants and ‘authentic’ food, with the actual inhabitants of such spaces. As such, it becomes important to position oneself within such processes. As newly settled residents in the neighborhood, we form part of the transient, mobile class enjoying this ‘authenticness’, complicating our own work. However, through our proposal, we seek to find more just forms of cohabiting and producing space that move beyond aesthetic representation of difference. Similarly, Zukin problematizes her own positionality, recognizing her own status and role within such neighborhoods while calling for an “‘origins’ to speak for the politics of the underprivileged, to offer an objective standard of authenticity that defends their right to the city” (Zukin 18, 2010). However, the “new, post-Jacobs rhetoric of upscale-growth” (Zukin 18, 2010) under the current processes of valorization, consumption and ‘pursuit of authenticity’ seems to be the inevitable result of our current trajectory. There is little evidence to suggest that the confluence of authenticity, origins and a right to the city brings us any closer to a more radical understanding of and call for difference that moves beyond the spaces and aesthetic of it detached from the lived realities and struggles of its everyday producers. This is where we break with Zukin. As becomes evident in the proposition section —legislative change is necessary in order to begin witnessing some form of parity that is institutionalized and relies on mechanisms beyond valorization and exchange value that can be reaped from reproduction of difference.

Aestheticization of Ethnic and Class Difference

There is also a critical relationship between authenticity and subjectivity. Mobility—as is unarguably the case in Williamsburg—allows a sort of distance and “objective” understanding of what is authentic, determined and 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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weighed against an absolute urban experience by a populace of “connoisseurs” (Zukin, 2010). This understanding of the term authenticity neatly mirrors the more popular use as that which is determined by an objective expertise.

Authenticity, represents a form of cultural power over space that threatens the cohabitation of space due to escalating costs and land value. Further, in spaces such as Williamsburg that represent some form of absolute urban experience, it manifests not only in rising costs and consumption patterns but also in the form of lifestyle, identity and class formation.

Here, the concept of lifestyle and performance resonate with the work done on postmodernism and aestheticization of daily life. The desire for new and diverse experiences, tastes and sensations as a form of subject articulation can be found in the work done by postmodern theorists. Aesthetic questions gained prominence and in turn, much of the criteria for the good life centered on the desire to enlarge one’s self through seeking out such new aesthetic potentialities (Featherstone, 2007). This focus on aesthetic consumption and the role it played in lifestyle and subject position was closely tied to the development of mass consumption and has become central to consumer culture (Featherstone, 2007). “This distanced, voyeuristic attitude is to be found in the stroller in the large cities whose senses are overstimulated by the flood of new perspectives, impressions and sensations that flow past him. Yet we also face the question of the necessity of distantiation” (Featherstone 70, 2007). Class becomes an important element here in which cultural production, according to Bourdieu, occupies a position on the “dominant axis of class relations” (Ley 2531, 2003).

Distance or mobility, is critical for such differentiation and the ability to construct a subject position relative to one’s environment. Moreover, “[m] iddle-class origins and/or high levels of education, frequently both together, are required to establish the aesthetic disposition” and such a disposition in addition to the act of “affirming and transforming the everyday, is a class-privileged temperament” (Ley 2531, 2003). Thus, when looking at neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, as already introduced in the previous chapter, class and race become critical points of differentiation between individuals and communities. More often that not class positionings are strengthened and articulated through distancing oneself from the other. What is interesting here is the intersection of distance and attraction. As noted, Williamsburg is celebrated as a space of tolerance. Here, Zukin sees such appreciation of difference and authenticity as also potentially a way of gaining ownership for different groups (Zukin, 2010). Yet, again, how much does this potentiality rest on the aesthetic value and economic gain that is generated by current class tastes and desires that lineup with such notions of authenticity?

Sociospatial Amnesia

New inhabitants in such neighborhoods “will lay claim to the bricks and mortar of the historic city, indulging in a collective amnesia about the earlier eras of factory work and mass migration that made these neighborhoods come alive. The urban authenticity to which they will aspire won’t be inborn or inherited; it will be achieved” (Zukin 23, 2010). Collective amnesia becomes an interesting qualifier here that represents the effects of the aestheticization of history and the past and signals a societal acceptance of such processes.

However, this should not be seen as natural nor inevitable. As signaled earlier, remembrance and an alternative way of imagining our post industrial landscapes enables self reflection that also opens up space for an affinity 66

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Right: Photograph of Woods Bar, illustrating postindustrial aesthetic and venue of community meetings held by Two Trees. Source: Yelp.com

with the other. This other exists not only in distant past. The fragility of each individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s class position within our system of ever expansive capital accumulation and upscaling of urban environments suggests all of us reside on the uncertain ground between class positions, between that self and a new other.

Returning to the recent history of the 1960s movement of a coalition of historic preservationists, community preservations and gentrifiers fought for notions of authenticity that were in line with a vision of a physical fabric comprised of local neighborhoods and ties. Neighborhoods such as West Village and Brooklyn Heights began to resemble the aesthetic advocated for by these groups. However, these measures did little with regards to bridging the divide between the celebration of historic and authentic aesthetic spaces with the working class populations that built and resided within them. Thus, again we are reminded of the sharp division that takes place between the valorization of spaces and aesthetics of difference with the actual inhabitants of those spaces.

In analyzing the rhetoric around the redevelopment we see also see a distancing of the past. Despite indisputably capitalizing on its aesthetic appeal, the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment has no plans for encompassing its actual past inhabitants or intimate imaginaries. As Megan Sperry notes: Two Trees met with all of the organizations as anyone would do and identified what the needs were. But what they did differently was they identified with the future of the community rather than with past...Two Trees said this neighborhood is changing and the future of this neighborhood is business in a different way not manufacturing but computer technology business and we can bring people here like Google and we can make this a destination and the future of this area is young people or young families and this is what we are going to cater to, this is who we want on our side (Megan Sperry, 2014).

Thus, within redevelopment projects this collective amnesia not only applies to the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s site but spreads throughout the fabric of the neighborhood, in which whole communities become forgotten. The City has 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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a definite role within this, enabling such development to take place. Rezoning has become one of the city government’s primary tools for redevelopment and its execution is never neutral nor are its effects. Waterfront areas are upzoned to enable taller more profitable development, while smaller side streets are downzoned to maintain their unique character and the capital return they provide. The latter, is yet again another tool, in which preservation and landmark status supports upscaling, capital accumulation and ever greater returns on investment.

Class, Consumption and Crisis

Above: Photograph of South Williamsburg Bodega. Source: Frankie’s Apartment, 2013.

Unbridled capital accumulation and opulence come with a cost. “The fertile urban terroir of cultural creation is being destroyed by the conspicuous displays of wealth and power typical of private developers and public officials who build for the rich and hope benefits will trickle down to the poor” (Zukin xi, 2010). Neighborhoods in New York, such as Williamsburg, are being constantly redeveloped and refashioned for a new ascendant class identity. As such, under processes of uniform upscaling and homogenous development these neighborhoods are beginning to lose their unique identities. What are the implications of this on the ideals of difference and tolerance, representation and belonging, authenticity and preservation? How is this moral crisis reflected in the production and proliferation of privately-owned public space within luxury mixed-use developments? What does representation, belonging and citizenship mean under such a state? These questions gain particular resonance when capital interests and consumer culture come to dominate urban spaces and policies, both actively supported by the city, but also to marketed to the city and city dwellers “to think they could have it all: a postindustrial revolution with no human costs, both a corporate city and a new urban village” (Zukin 223, 2010). What are the alternative mechanisms for producing public space for the city that values human life and needs more equitably? What do such spaces look like? What kind of social, political and moral crisis is required for such needs to be actually recognized?

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As discussed in the trends section, city governments faced major financial crisis, public officials were desperate to attract local real estate developers through land subsidies and incentives in order to finance essential services. This sealed the fate of neighborhoods in inner cities across the United States. As rent control apartments disappear and luxury apartments proliferate, spaces of difference where local ties can be found are being destroyed.

This, irrefutably has been the trend in Williamsburg, as well as witnessed and painfully experienced city-wide. Under the De Blasio administration’s affordable housing strategy the dramatic loss of rent control units in the city is to be remedied through new incentives. However with the luxury development, such as the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment, continuing unfettered, its efficacy is questionable as indeed is the prospect of change in the uniform trend of the upscale city. Citing sociologist Leslie Sklair, Zukin argues that culture acts as the cohesive between state power and financial capital. Images produced by media and tastes as consumers ground the contemporary power within our individual class desires, masking the politics behind the need for consuming authentic city spaces (Zukin, 2010). Once again we are reminded of the aestheticization and depoliticization of our intimate urban spaces, however now we can also see the potential unraveling of such spaces when rampant commodification will deem them undesirable and unsavory to our carefully cultivated class tastes.

Consumption is a fundamental element that shapes our identities, imaginaries and cities. Further, it contributes the pacification of political and collective identities and spaces. Moreover, the very processes of privatization and securitization of public space are dependent on this consumer culture allowing the production and solidification of the upscale city and new class hegemony. City-led cultural and economic strategies, in the form of large scale luxury redevelopment, make up the new economic urban policy in order to lead in the global growth machine. Without state laws communities are powerless in protecting the social and physical structure of their neighborhoods. We are in dire need of a strong bottom up resistance, made up of a wide public of voters, including the middle class, that reconfigures this narrative of urban development. This also potentially means developing a discourse that begins to couple a strong opposition to displacement with the power of authenticity. Yet, as indicated earlier, placing such hopes in authenticity may prove futile unless we are able to wrestle it from the domain of the artificial and aesthetic.

Returning to the Factory, the aesthetic spaces to be created utilizing its past relics, participate in building long term cultural capital for the site. The artifacts and symbols that will be part of a permanent installment in the artifact walk mark the symbolic worth of the development. As such, an aestheticized history here, contains not only perceived and symbolic value, but also capital value. This demonstrates neatly how the commodification of everyday life and difference finds its place here through the commodification of history. As Abramson suggests “marketers commercialize memory as commodity, further encouraging passive consumption of the past. ‘Memory has thus become a best-seller in consumer society’” (Jacques Le Goff cited in Abramson, 1990, 4). Thus, thinking about how we not only commemorate such sites but also how we inhabit our everyday spaces, needs to involve a critical positioning of ourselves within such fluctuating and fragile realities and in relation to other human beings. The alternative is not only detrimental to the social and political realities of those who are marginalized but, more practically for the economic and political stability of our urban centers, and ultimately, more intimately, for ourselves.

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3. SITE DYNAMICS AND ANALYSIS 3E. MULTIPLE BELONGING AND DIFFERENCE You won’t feel unequal when you go there— Two Trees on waterfront open space (Two Trees Management, 2014).

What does ‘feeling equal’ entail? If the state of being equal requires equality in status, rights, and opportunities, how can public space production participate in this sensation? We argue that complete equality in space in our current economic and political system, with the inherent asymmetrical power relations it produces, is not achievable and claiming so might erase the potentiality for difference to participate in its production. As Fraser states, a rhetoric of publicity claiming accessibility, rationality, and the elimination of hierarchy between publics is utilized as a mechanism for distinction and domination. Further, the act of “declaring a deliberative arena to be a space where extant status distinctions are bracketed and neutralized is not sufficient to make it so” (Fraser 60, 1990). There exist a dichotomy between the universal and the particular, thus the consolidation of the two when applied to citizen rights and participation creates a disjuncture that acts as a disservice to participatory and representative processes. Therefore, instead of focusing on equality between publics, which appears as a more passive status, we focus on just access to participation in shared space production. By discussing what mechanisms support or hinder difference from existing in space - by difference we mean class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc - we suggest that working towards the ability to belong in space is a means to achieve a more just, democratic public arena both in space and sphere. This allows the common discourse on inclusivity to move past tolerating multiplicity to actually promote one of multiple belonging.

As mentioned in chapter one, belonging in space is not merely the right to access space, but rather, requires a more nuanced understanding of the interconnected elements of presence in space. It is both tied to an ability to make change, or exert influence over a space while also serving as an emotive state influenced by a psychological tie to a space.

Left: Photograph of Rally at City Hall advocating for the promised completion of Bushwick Inlet Park. Source: Larissa Begault, 2015.

3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

The previous sections all highlighted certain tools utilized by private interest that influence one’s capacity to belong in space over another’s, both further stratifying groups amongst each other while distinctly excluding some from the process and imagined future of the neighborhood. The tactic of triangulation increased existing racial and class hierarchies, strengthening geographic boundaries of difference and prohibiting these different publics from encountering and confronting one another. The capital strategies utilized during the pre-demolition and construction process highlights the inclusion of a specific public in the making of Havemeyer park and the exclusion of the local working class community in the Kara Walker exhibition commemorating the industry’s workers. The aesthetic and preservation rhetoric used in the design of the development suggests a certain class identity is valorized over another. Finally, the overall scope of the development, including its density, design and programme cripples one’s capacity to exist in space as the land value speculation associated with such luxury development, directly displaces populations through processes of secondary displacement. This is the indirect displacement of population through escalating rents and upscaling of 71

neighborhood resources that in turn become unaffordable. These developments are justified and promoted by the government through their provision of affordable housing and open space. These provisions are enabled through tax breaks and density bonuses, granted through two legislative tools, Incentive Zoning and Inclusionary Housing. Further, these policies also incentivize landlords in the neighborhood to sell their property to speculative developers and decontrol their rent controlled apartments. Even though a percentage of the development would be somewhat affordable, “the outcome would likely be a net loss in low-cost apartments and a major hit to the rent-regulated housing stock” (Stein 6, 2014). Can we imagine a process in which differences between publics becomes a force to challenge the power imbalance in development processes rather than a tool that further entrenches them?

In this section, we are investigating the mechanisms that allow for multiple publics to cohabit space and for their differences to be acknowledged, included, maintained and supported in space both in its production and continuation. In unpacking comments from interviews with local stakeholders, we are able to challenge some of the issues raised with propositions. Firstly, we will begin by drawing on a series of theories that discuss the issues of difference, belonging and citizenship in the current redevelopment of urban landscapes. Unpacking the lived experiences of populations during such a process will further help evoke what a democratic public space and sphere entails, as Crawford states “[c]hange, multiplicity, and contestation, rather than constituting the failure of public space, may in fact define its very nature” (Crawford 279, 1995).

Politics and Difference

As aforementioned, to achieve a sense of belonging, agency is required. Agency can take place in the form of participation but also requires one having influence over a decision making process. Young claims justice is often defined through distribution patterns, and little concern has been payed to the procedural issues of participation (Young, 1990). As witnessed in the development process of the Domino Sugar Factory, distribution of affordable housing and open space is what legitimizes such developments in the eyes of the City but also the public at large. The democratic participation that takes place in the decision making processes of projects of this scale, such as Community Board votes and the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) process, fail to provide binding agency, bring together an adequate representation of the distinct groups existing on the site, and create a dialogue where differences and distinct privileges are accounted for. Fraser contends that although in our current unequal societies an equal participation process is not achievable, “it is more closely approximated by arrangements that permit contestation among a plurality of competing publics than by a single, comprehensible public sphere” (Fraser 68, 1990). However, the current democratic system in place, only enables a certain population to participate through assuming time and resource for such participation. The procedure for participation often excludes the populations which are most at risk of exclusion and displacement within such developments, through the scheduling of meetings during work hours, the opaque structure on how to get involved and the general lack of awareness on the existence of such democratic processes.

However, a truly democratic process requires the representation of multiple publics and institutionalized mechanisms “for the effective recognition and representation of the distinct voices and perspectives of those of its constituent groups that are oppressed or disadvantaged” (Young 184, 1990). Both the 72

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ULURP process and Community Board structure do not provide special attention and tools to ensure the presence and participation of underprivileged groups and thus, prove to be inadequate for ensuring the maintenance of difference in space.

Further, the needs of different publics vary dramatically and these can be taken advantage of to sway the supposedly democratic vote during the ULURP process.

Part of what’s ugly in this ULURP process is that all these non-profit groups who need money to keep going. So if you have a developer who is willing to fund your project you are going to agree with them (Kounen, 2014).

The public hearings in the City Planning Commission, which can sway the final decision during the ULURP, is set up so that the amount of seats filled by opposition or supporting groups is the main factor that demonstrates the public’s position on the redevelopment. This is problematic for numerous reasons. Firstly this process of engagement is far from actually facilitating meaningful participation. The seats can be filled with people who have simply been asked to be present without really knowing the context of what they are participating in, in order words participation is bought by different interest to show support or contestation. Secondly, voting in such a way, discards the possibility that minorities (less seats in the room) may be disproportionately affected by a decision and therefore require special attention in the process.

Thirdly, the process claims an impartial procedure for making decisions.

Impartiality, Young chronicles, supports the concept of the neutral state, legitimizes bureaucratic authority and a strong hierarchy in decision making processes and reinforces oppression by placing the privileged groups’ point of view within the ‘normal’ and universal positions (Young, 1990). What we also know is that impartiality is actually unachievable as it demands moral judgment to be disengaged, impassive and universal (Young, 1990), however it is impossible to abstract oneself from one’s own history, feelings and imaginary.

Further, the politics involved in such developments mean that different interests are continuously at play and certainly demonstrate the non-neutrality of the State as the quote below from Council Member Stephen Levin from District 33 illustrates.

One there was .. the speaker [who] was for it and I was a very new member and the speaker was a lot more powerful than I was and two it was the day of the budget and we voted on Domino on the same day we voted on the budget and that’s a really important day. That’s a day.. putting it in the previous administration, not so much now as the current speaker has done a lot to depoliticize the budget but at the time, like yeah members ... that would be one day where members would not want to be on the wrong side of the speaker because it could jeopardize some of their programs in the budget, at least that would be the impression (Levin, 2014).

When analyzing the numerous interview responses through the tool of ethnosemantics, certain taxonomic categories were formed in order to generate cultural domains of meanings around broad terms such as democracy and democratic processes, identity and community, publicity and public good, etc. What was particularly interesting was the distribution of language and themes that came out of each of these domains that further served to illustrate what democracy and democratic process looks like and means to different groups. Four main meanings were exposed, these encompassed a critique of democracy and systemic exclusion, a discourse of private over public, 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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backdoor bargaining, threats and manipulation and finally acceptance and defeat. For example Two Trees claimed: Community board is non-binding, this is for a reason (Two Trees, 2014).

This demonstrates a rhetoric based on valorizing private decision making processes over the institutionalized, supposedly democratic, public process.

The non-binding element of the public procedure discards any possible agency of the public to sway decisions and can lead to an overall participation fatigue and disinterest, which is what was witnessed during the lengthy process. This exercise revealed that the elected official and community had a lot to share on bargaining and threats as well as a general tone of acceptance and defeat.

The current democratic procedure, far from increasing sense of belonging and agency, may actually participate in discouraging communities from taking part in these decision making processes.

Returning to the representation of difference within such processes, the conception of impartiality reduces such differences under the guise of unity.

That unity is often forged out of the abstraction from a situation’s particularities, therefore the conception of impartiality polarizes the terms “universal and particular, public and private and reason and passion (Young 97, 1990). The impartial rhetoric participates in forming an unquestioned consensus around a decision, allegedly removed from private interests. Further, the impartial framework participates in the pacification of the public, as reason is valorized over passion and universal over the particular, such participation becomes self-interested, unjustified and unvalued. This partakes in enhancing the notion that we have entered a postpolitical era, where democratic debate is replaced with unitary accord. As Swyngedouw argues the formation of the urban post-political goes alongside the post-democratic arrangement that supplants “debate, disagreement and dissensus with a series of technologies of governing that fuse around consensus, agreement, accountancy metrics and technocratic environmental management” (Swyngedouw 601, 2009).

Silent majority is not the one voicing their concerns. This is true with every aspect of our society. This leads to asymmetric dynamic...The reality is that it isn’t such a real problem, therefore the silent majority is not really showing up (Two Trees, 2014).

This statement by Two Trees highlights that in this process, the minority was not considered. Who are these silent others? Through what means have they been silenced? We draw on Mouffe’s argument that the lack of differentiation between left and right, the inadequacy of truly different options leads to a general disinterest as people no longer feel represented (Mouffe Lecture, 04/07/15). In the case of the redevelopment, the impossibility to alter what has been decided under the Bloomberg administration and later under De Blasio (supposedly drastically different political platforms), the accepted hegemonic consensus on private developments as a win-win strategy for all parties involved, means populations lose their will to participate. The developers continued to argue that “This is not a city [New York City] that is civically engaged” (Two Trees, 2014). This statement demonstrates that they are aware of this trend, that the public in New York is losing interest in engaging in local politics. However, they do not make the connection that this is partly because people are disenfranchised and not able to exert change in the very processes they are part of and dominate. Finally, this is a common discourse that justifies and empowers private interest to make decisions without engaging the public, and must be challenged. Moreover, as we argued earlier belonging 74

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requires influence and the ability to be heard, however when some groups and individuals are completely dismissed because others are silent, we reach a moment that annihilates any form of participation.

Standardization, Homogenization and the Normative

Taking Young’s description of a heterogeneous public implying two key principles: first, that no individual, actions, or facet of a person’s life is to be pushed into privacy and secondly that no social institutions or practices should be eliminated from forming part of public discourse and expression (Young, 1990). Through such an understanding, we are able to critically witness the sweeping standardization and homogenization of space. The permitted behavior in space becomes highly controlled, particularly the way in which these spaces are produced and designed. The fear of disorder and dissent between publics enables developers along with city officials to advocate for subduing public spaces through prescribing a set of activities within them.

Thus, this implies inherent exclusions but also organized processes of exclusion to tame the uncontrolled difference and inherent agonism existing and necessary, for a democratic public space (Mitchell, 1995). Drawing on Lefebvre, Mitchell argues “difference threatens social order and hence must be absorbed by hegemonic powers” (Mitchell 124, 1995). This, once again, valorizes the rational and is based on the normative which derives from the privileged groups’ point of view placed in a universal position.

The current separation of what is deemed part of the public space and sphere and what needs to exist in privacy drastically limits the possibility for including multiple publics. These terms, and their associated behaviors and rhetorics, are “cultural classifications… deployed to delegitimate some interests, views, and topics to valorize other.” (Fraser 73, 1990). Fraser continues to argue that democratic publicity necessitates various means through which minorities can persuade others that certain issues deemed private in the past need to become now public concern. These are not fixed boundaries, but rather, issues of common concern are born out of a discursive dialogue between multiple publics (Fraser, 1990). The political exists and must be acknowledged in group difference and relations, even when taking place in the private sphere as discerning these spheres “where the public represents universal citizenship and the private individual difference, tends to result in group exclusion from the public” (Young 168, 1990). The standardization of behavior in space through programmatic design and consumption aims at depoliticizing such spaces and prohibits various cultures from partaking in its production. As argued, belonging also entails a psychological tie born out of individual practices and memories, however the construction of normalized spaces mean that relating to space on a personal level becomes increasingly difficult.

Setha Low, Dana Taplin and Suzanne Scheld argue that maintaining cultural diversity in public parks is a prerequisite for the maintenance of these spaces as part of the democratic sphere. they suggest that often, the reconstruction of such spaces and their operating management embody various symbols of class privilege (Low et al., 2005). The Domino Sugar Factory waterfront is not yet completed but we can draw on the current management structure of public spaces in the neighborhood. Both McCarren and the East River State park work with private entities to raise funds for the maintenance of the spaces through partnering with organizations such as Open Space Alliance modeled after successful conservancies to establish these private partnerships.

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How can we promote the creation of green space, while being aware of their contribution to the potential displacement of communities? Can the discussion around public space production account for the legitimate fears and concerns of its residents while not accepting the notion that lower income areas should not then have access to equally well designed and maintained spaces?

The operations of these spaces certainly represents a certain class identity, from the high-end food and flea market on the waterfront, to the numerous pop concerts in the summer, to a steeply priced farmer’s market, these programmes directly target a specific population while excluding others through financial and cultural means.

Further, in redevelopment processes, erasure of not only cultural elements but also the social use of a place can takes place (Low et al., 2005).

In investigating various precedents in the neighborhood, such erasure can be witnessed. For example, East River State Park located on the waterfront, formerly known as BEDT, occupies a long history of struggle, multiple belonging, identity and alternative forms of imagining, using and cohabiting space. This was the former site of a railyard that shut down in 1983, in the eyes of public officials and private interests this site remained vacant since the end of the former use. This was definitively not the case, and as such, it existed as a sort of “other” space, various appropriations emerged from this, leading to a loosening of space and collective action. As Daniel Campo chronicles, the waterfront served as a space for a wide variety of publics, at times conflicting, often harmonious and always seemingly unplanned or accidental. These publics included the more affluent new residents, groups of local working class men, Polish families, skateboarders, artists, and undocumented workers living in tents and shacks. Everyone participating in creating their own and shared space (Campo, 2014). The redevelopment of the site, once acquired by the State did not include these less formal uses and its users, and the space is now controlled, programmed and has no reminiscence of its past use apart from a few rail tracks embedded in the design. There is a necessity to accommodate different notions of publicity and use of minorities, ethnic and class difference in the space while establishing a balance between prescribed use and vernacular use (Low et al., 2005).

There currently is the provision for a Review Board to oversee the open space management of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment’s accessible waterfront. This agreement, for a Review Board, between City planning and Two Trees Management was made in the last minute of the rezoning process and consists of seven members, six of whom shall be appointed by the developers from nominations made by CB1, Council District Members 33 and 34, Brooklyn Borough President and Open Space Alliance. The last member is to represent the Developer. This is not only inadequate but demonstrates a process highly in favor of private interest. Further, the Review Board is not actually able to impose any restrictions or conditions on activities, events and recreation within the space later than three months prior to the date on which the Developer anticipates opening the space (City Planning Commission, 2014). This means the authority of the body is highly limited and holds no agency to plan for the everyday operation and oversight of the space. While this body is unacceptable, it enables us to question what would the structure of an equitable representation model look like if positioned in place of a Review Board?

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Above: Photograph of shoppers at the Brooklyn flea on the Williamsburg public waterfront.

Source: Brooklyn Flea, 2014.

Finally, in order to maintain diversity in space, access to a variety of income groups is necessary. This means that the neighborhood must encompass varying classes and that transportation to the space is free, efficient and connected (Low et al. 2005). However, as discussed, the construction of these spaces participate in the escalation of land value and often participate in displacing the more vulnerable populations. How can we promote the creation of green space, while being aware of their contribution to the potential displacement of communities? Can the discussion around public space production account for the legitimate fears and concerns of its residents while not accepting the notion that lower income areas should not then have access to equally well designed and maintained spaces?

Commodification - Public Space for Profit

The ethos of perpetual growth adopted in our economic system and particularly manifested in urban centers has a direct impact on how and where public space is produced. Public space is increasingly capitalized and thus, City governments and developers focus on building luxury public spaces to attract tourists and a particular class identity for leisure and consumption. While other spaces in low income areas, where investment is not touted, are unable to participate in the growth machine and remain underfunded and poorly maintained (Laughran, 2014). The value generated from these new landscapes of production and consumption primarily serves neighboring property owners in the form of private asset value gains and land speculation. Mayer explains that exclusion is inherent within redevelopment projects, dismantling the existing use value and publicness of a series of spaces, while seeking to eliminate â&#x20AC;&#x153;whoever might threaten to devalorize its exchange value or disrupt the exclusive business and consumption meant to take place thereâ&#x20AC;? (Mayer 10, 2013). Thus, the private interests, vested in these spaces, radically limits access and sense of belonging.

What affects the business is the long term health of where our projects are located and the interest rates. If the city is healthy, business is healthy. The flip side is that the developer cares about what functions, the incentives align between community and real estate business (Two Trees, 2014).

This quote from the developers, particularly illustrates the common rhetoric that private interest and community interest align and every party benefits from such investments. However, the value described here is solely 3. Site Dynamics and Analysis

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Left: Photograph of consumers at the Williamsburg Smorgasburg on the Williamsburg public waterfront.

Source: Off Metro, 2015.

based on profit making and economic success as the sole measure in redevelopments projects. This omits all the other aspect of neighborhood life necessary for its just functioning, namely the security to remain in space, the opportunity to exercise one’s identity and culture, the ability to form oneself through the shaping of one’s environment and the capacity to be confronted with difference. This last point is becoming progressively more difficult as interactions in spaces become increasingly planned and controlled. Market and design concerns supplant the distinctive and impromptu encounters of engaged people in the establishment of urban space (Mitchell, 1995).

“Designed-and-contrived diversity creates marketable landscapes, as opposed to uncontrolled social interaction which creates places that may threaten exchange value” (Mitchell 119, 1995). As such the premium placed on exchange over use value necessitates the erasure of difference and acts to diminish the democratic potential of space and the political potentiality of its users.

Participation and Citizenship

We need to take a closer look at how these processes are ongoing and lived in the neighborhood and continually impacting the relationships between individuals, groups and their environment. As Crawford argues “concepts such as public, space, democracy, and citizenship are continually being redefined in practice through lived experience” (Crawford 271, 1995).

Interestingly, this school [across the street] has become a really great school. And everybody wants to go to it and there are tons of foreigners who moved in and send their kids there. I hear more French than English on streets these days, German, Swedish and Korean. And more tourists, its certainly changed... ...I don’t think the new community is very community minded. I don’t think they really care, I don’t think they really know. When the school started getting better a few years ago some of the new residents who had a little more power and money tried to go in and get all the pre-K places in the school, realizing that the Latino population was a little a slower and wouldn’t go in on the first day and wanted to grab it for themselves. That’s not very community minded. Now there is a principal who is trying not to let that happen but of course the money is pushing them out (Rand, 2014).

This interview excerpt demonstrates that struggles for accessing public resources and by default the notion of existing in the eyes of the others becomes an everyday concern. Here, we witness a new power dynamic where participation and inclusion in these resources such as public schools becomes more exclusive. Holston and Appadurai argue that the increasingly 78

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growing economic gaps and social inequalities between different groups sharing a space make their difference too large and areas of commonality to narrow to sustain a just and meaningful relation, especially when advocating for a common cause (Holston and Appadurai, 1996). Citizenship, they argue, “has defined the prerogatives and encumbrances of that membership, and the nation-state rather than the neighborhood or the city or the region that established its scope” (Holston and Appadurai 187, 1996). What it means to be a constituent of society comes to be acknowledged as a citizen bearing right and part of a nation-state (Holston and Appadurai, 1996). This narrow and highly exclusive conception of citizenship on the one hand, prohibits agency in local environments regardless of nation-state identity, and on the other, through its delocalization and elimination of local spaces as the fertile grounds for activating citizenship, produces a sense of entitlement and passivity damaging its very foundation (Holston and Appadurai, 1996). This pacification of the public has dramatic impacts on sense of belonging and on the possibility to belong in multiplicity. As Rand suggests, a sense of community and awareness of whom one shares space with, is not acknowledged by the newer residents.

However, neither groups are at fault as both are functioning within the legal and democratic framework provided by the State. In witnessing the lack of institutionalized mechanisms to support groups that are disadvantaged over another offers opportunities for action. In revealing and bringing forward these typical neighborhood contestations, a new discursive spaces can be created between populations who had not acknowledged one another. Both Crawford and Holsten argue, an insurgent citizenship exists and though not formally recognized, necessitates support and acknowledgment to recognize the multiplicity of publics and their interactions that are reordering urban space, and “revealing new political arenas for democratic action” (Crawford 271, 1995).

We need to consider urban centers as critical spaces where these citizenships are lived in their precarity but also surfacing in new forms and practices (Holston and Appadurai, 1996).

As described in this section, formal participation in redevelopment processes through current ‘democratic’ structures does not reconcile engagement with belonging. The lack of agency, security and ability for just representation overshadows any significant participation and leads to the disenfranchisement of individuals, groups and communities which end up burnt out and disinvested in their neighborhood politics. An alternative is pressing, to salvage the remaining interest and activate this new citizenship detached from the nation state and rooted in urban centers. Young believes that as members of society, we thrive when: advocating for values of justice as well as fairness in distribution patterns, given the opportunity to learn and the ability to use expansive skills and knowledge in socially recognized settings, participating in setting up and managing institutions while gaining recognition for such participation, communicating with others and the ability to express experiences, feelings, and perspectives in contexts where others can listen (Young, 1990).

Taking some of these necessary, yet currently inconsistently attainable actions, into consideration, we propose to introduce an institutionalized participatory mechanism which would start activating this informal yet crucial citizenship.

This new structure dismantles notions of consensus around space production through introducing a deliberative space where productive agonism is enacted between multiple publics.

How might a new mechanism in the form of an equitable representation model, that preserves difference in the process, outcome and continuation of ‘public’ space, challenge the power imbalance in public space production?

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SURPLUS CAPITAL Investment Human Assets

Labor Force

Fixed Assets

Urbanization

Knowledge / Science / Technology

Infrastructure

Built Form

Transition from Industrial to Knowledge Economy

Disinvested Industrial Neigborhoods Williamsburg + Vacant Lots

Land Speculation

-Supply is not Correlated with Demamd = Growth for Profit

Potential for Growth

Domino Sugar Factory (DSF)

GROWTH MACHINE -Media -Real Estate -Universities -Arts and Culture

Labor Force Restructuring

Class Restructuring

Devalorization / Valorization

Accumulation by Challenging Dispossession Dispossession Through Intervening in Space Production

INTER - URBAN COMPETITION

Class Identity Formation + Valorization

Government Policies

-Branding -Marketing Strategies -Indeces Race +

GOVERNMENT AS ENTREPRENEUR Luxury City Production

Displacement of Citizens as Inhabitants Customers / Consumers

Difference Homogenization

NEW YORK SPECIFIC

Public Space = Space of Consumption

New Urban Democratic Mechanism for Citizen Participation Review Board

Appointed by Developers Two Trees

Democratically Elected

2005 Rezoning of Williamsburg Waterfront

Privatization of Public Space

Mixed-Use Developments Incentive Zoning -421a

Complete loss of Democratic Citizenship

Developer Tactics

Public -Private Partnerships Fragmentation Symbolic New Alliances + Triangulation Capital b/w PPPs Subverting Kara Walker Exhibit New Landscape for Fragmentation Production + Consumption

-‘Third Way’ As Nonpolitical

2003 Zoning Resolution

Aesthetics of Spaces of Ethnic + Class Difference

Private Interests

e -Incentives l ur To -Tax Breaks + -Privatization -Zoning (Upzoning / Downzoning)

Class

Gentrification

‘Authenticity’ and Displacement

ital c ap

OPEN SPACE DSF Waterfront Plan Havemeyer (Privately-owned ‘Public’ Space) Park

Private Interest Public Space in Space as Amenity Public Space for Alternative Forms of Publicity

-J-51 -ICAP

BIDs

LDCs

Uneven Development of ‘Public’ Space = Rules and Regulations -Limitations on Public -Inclusion / Exclusion

Conservancies PARC

Private Property as Prerequisite for Management + Ownership

= DEPOLITICIZATION / SECURITIZATION / COMMODIFICATION / HOMOGENIZATION OF PUBLIC SPACE + DIFFERENCE PARC

City Legislated Representational Justice Decision-making Power = Capital Assets

Multiplicity + Difference

Publicly Elected Publicity

Public Maintenance + Programming

4. DESIGN AND PROPOSALS 4A. INTRODUCTION TO PARC

Responding to our findings, which reveal highly uneven development processes with ineffective democratic mechanisms for public participation, we are proposing a new participatory model in the form of a legislated body, which we are calling Public Action Review Collaborative (PARC). PARC strengthens the democratic process through introducing representational justice in local politics. PARC is a body with binding authority that oversees all the stages of development and operations of public space. It challenges the power imbalance in urban development, creating long term structural change to the process of public-private space production. While we are designing for the political structures we are inherently creating political design through drawing on productive agonism and politics that do not assume or strive for consensus.

The purpose of such design is to create spaces that reveal and challenge existing power relations by providing openings for dissent and new possibilities for action (Di Salvo, 2010). PARC introduces new means of envisioning space production that is contra to the status quo. Its purpose is to enable contestation around issues of ownership, displacement, conflict, disagreement, access and representation. The role of PARC is thus multifold, first, it exposes the root of such conflicts and unmasks a fake sense of consensus, second, it provides the essential deliberative spaces for contestation, and third, it grants the legislative power to institutionalize its outcomes.

This work exposes a host of formulaic developer tactics that promote a false idea of community good, cultural capital, preservation and aesthetics.

Through the primary strategy of triangulation, a method of stratification of different groups set against each other, these tactics help development take place without concerted opposition and result in a highly uneven cost benefit outcome. In order to address this unequal and detrimental process, PARC responds to community fragmentation, and is particularly necessary for intervening in luxury mixed-use developments, which serve as one of the main new producers of “public” space. The objective is to create a city mandated public body within development sites, replicable across New York.

This project addresses the ways in which the current structures for participation in urban development fall short and affect the majority of communities who become disenfranchised within their own neighborhoods.

This includes non-binding community board votes, ineffective incentive zoning, opaque structure of city council hearings and ULURP and lack of structural accountability for minority groups. This is heightened by community fragmentation through tactics of triangulation by developers, and the lack of neutral spaces and platforms for communication and representation of disparate needs, realities and imaginaries. This is a social issue that affects all individuals, as they lack the agency to shape and participate in their built environment and thus negatively impacting their ability to belong.

Left: Diagram illustrating PARC’s impact and subversion of certain elements of the broader political economy of new landscapes of consumption and production and public space production 4. Design and Proposals

In designing PARC, we employ an equitable representation model that recognizes the importance of preserving difference in the process, outcome and continuation of “public” space. Through understanding and exposing developer tactics, and the resulting division within communities, the proposal alters perspectives on development, allows new alliances and facilitates the creation of a PARC. 81

Value is generated for underrepresented groups, and spans across a variety of classes contributing to the welfare of past, present and future populations. PARC reconfigures the current distribution of exchange value rather than use value generated from public space that serves neighboring property owners in the form of private asset value gains. The typical private interests, vested in these spaces, radically limit access and sense of belonging.

Belonging is tied to an ability to exert influence over a space; it is both an active verb and an emotive state influenced by past ties, experiences and cognitive relationships with and within it. Similarly citizenship is an active status allowing and requiring participation. As it stands it is lacking at the local level, is not representative of the urban populace, and is at risk, when increasingly large portions of the population are not accounted for. Activating belonging and representation adds significant value to current democratic structures.

PARC subverts the dominant notion that one requires private capital in order to have agency in the production and management of shared space and resources. It stands in contrast to current public-private models that contribute to the privatization, commodification, depoliticization and securitization of space. It questions and expands the notion of who is part of the public and has the right to public space. It reveals the illusive cost benefit calculus inherent in public-private partnerships. This project does not aim to provide a solution but rather is a targeted intervention in a highly unequal system of development that is promoted as a win-win strategy. This project is innovative as it responds to, and directly challenges, the strategic and disingenuous tactics set out by developers. In exposing this, the project firstly, generates a just platform for engagement and secondly, lays the groundwork for a more formalized PARC to be institutionalized.

PARCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s constituents, identified through our research and actionable theory practice, are currently trying to find ways in which to participate in the production of local neighborhood spaces. They currently lack agency to varying degrees based on their resourcesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;time, knowledge, financial ability etc. They face the further impediment of structural and systemic shortcomings of the political structure allowing such processes. PARCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s structure and operationalized mechanisms for supporting equitable deliberative processes, work to address the above differences between publics with varying resources.

Bringing together such disparate publics challenges the current narrow notion of whom is granted legitimacy in both discursive and physical space. PARC draws on such heterogeneity enabling productive agonism within space production, recognizing the failure of consensus, and advocating for the necessity of multiple publics, while concurrently seeking change within the existing system.

Designing a Negotiation Process - Description of structure and operation

The structure of PARC is based on a steering committee made up of distinct constituent groups within a neighborhood. The geographical boundaries of a PARC can be modeled after the existing geography of Community Boards but can be amended by the body itself as members see fit. These constituencies include: commercial industrial, residential owners (representative of developer) as one group, day laborers and unions commercial tenants, residential tenants, community organization and City officials. These varying constituents ensure that the deliberative spaces bring together a multiplicity of interests and values allowing for just representation in the decision making process, while guarding against the cooptation by a 82

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

few under the quality of life discourse. What is important to note is that each constituent group is entitled to one vote, this is to ensure that private assets, or disproportionate representation in one constituency does not sway the decision making process. Further it is critical that certain constituent groups benefit from institutionalize mechanisms for the just and equitable representation of publics that are disadvantaged. As argued by Young, in order to achieve a democratic public it is necessity to: 1. Support the empowerment of certain members through enabling the self organization of members and a reflective understanding of their relative position to other groups.

2. Illustrate that the deliberation process has considered the distinct perspectives of various groups.

3. Systemic recognition and representation of oppressed or disadvantaged members within constituent groups (Young, 1990).

These support mechanisms will be a key element of the PARC structure and necessary for its authorization. The process for authorizing the body in a specific locality is similar to that of the Business Improvement Districts (BID). This process includes: a needsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; assessment, project plan, a host of public meetings and votes, and all documents to be submitted to City officials for authorization. While PARC is a new legislative structure, it is particularly important to note that it necessitates a grassroots movement to be implemented on a specific site. In other words PARC can only exist when communities, groups and organizations are willing to instigate this new form of agency and power. Thus, such a body requires the of support grassroots activism through institutionalized mechanisms. It is necessary for planning to work not only with the informal, insurgent activism and constituent building but also with state institutions in order to ensure a more leveled all encompassing ideal that is often less available at the local level (Holston, 1995). The financial burden for the maintenance and operation of â&#x20AC;&#x153;public spaceâ&#x20AC;? under a PARC is to be funded 1/3 by the City, 1/3 by the developer and 1/3 through self organized programmes and events. This structure is a first draft and requires more refining and understanding of legal frameworks, daily operations and necessary political action.

We see the legislation of PARC as particularly necessary, as many of the inequalities and structural injustices that produce exclusion and oppression are the result of economic processes. Therefore, state institutions are necessary as a corrective to such inequity and essential as a means towards promoting self development (Young, 2000). Thus, in drawing on the critical parameters, outlined above, around just representation PARC moves beyond design for politics which serves to promote the generally accepted political processes and structures, while attempting to mitigate some of the necessary and generative agonism and dissension within society (Di Salvo, 2010). PARC on the other hand understands such tensions as the fertile ground through which democratic processes are enacted. By providing the minimum requirements for beginning to create a more equitable arena within which multiple publics can begin to exert agency over shared public space and resources, PARC not only strengthens and designs for existing politics but also devises political interventions that challenge the fundamental shortcomings in current political processes.

4. Design and Proposals

83

CITY GOVERNMENT Borough President

Borough Board

City Council

Community Board

OWNER / DEVELOPER OF SITE

Council Member

Parks and Recreation

1/3

1/3

1/3

Department of City Planning

PARC

Public Action Review Collaborative

FUNDING STRUCTURE

Steering Committee

Commercial / Industrial / Residential Owners (Representative of developer) = 1 Vote

* Day Labourers/ * Commercial Tenants

* Residents / Tenants

Unions = 1 Vote

*

Community Organization

= 1 Vote

= 1 Vote

= 1 Vote

City Officials

= 1 Vote

MULTIPLE PUBLICS REPRESENTED

1.

Needs Assesment for PARC Constituents + Members

Within Set Criteria for PARCs

2.

PROJECT PLAN - Budget - Maintenance - Programming - Operations - Physical Recommendations 3.

* Democratic public requires institutionalized mechanisms in place that:

“1. Support self organization of members to achieve collective empowerment and reflective understanding of their position with regards to others and society.

2. Proof that deliberation between decision makers has taken into consideration various group perspectives.

3. the effective recognition and representation of the distinct voices and perspectives of those of its constituent groups that are oppressed or disadvantaged” (Young 184, 1990)

84

Schedule for Public Meetings + Presentation on Ammendments 4.

Steering Committee Vote + First Draft Plan 5.

Submit to City Officials to Be Approved LEGISLATIVE AUTHORIZATION

Above: Diagram illustrating PARC’s structure and legislative authorization process. PARC is formed of a steering committee of 6 constituent groups. The process of getting a PARC authorized is similar to the BID procedure and necessitates the coming together of civil and civic society in a specific locality.

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

4. DESIGN AND PROPOSALS 4B. PROTOTYPING PARC

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The walks include an introduction to the Williamsburg waterfront, ownership, policies and past, present and future use and management of the space. A historical and physical evolution of the neighborhood and an overview of demographic change and social, political and economic reasons behind these. The walks will be centered around the themes of Public space / Public sphere, Collective Commonality, and Multiple Belonging and Difference.

Greenpoint

NAG is working in collaboration with Julia Borowicz and Larissa Begault, an interdisciplinary team from the Parsons Urban Practice Graduate Program.

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Please RSVP at:

walking.workshops@gmail.com BLACK BEAR BAR 70 N 6TH ST, BROOKLYN, NY 11249 NAGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S OFFICE 110 Kent Ave. [@ N8th]

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Above: Image of the back of the flyer designed for the kickoff event and walking workshops. This was dispatched in Williamsburg as one of the outreach methods.

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Walking Workshops

In order to prototype the discursive framework of PARC, we organized a series of walking workshops in Williamsburg. The workshops acted as a vehicle for prototyping connectivity between different agents. The purpose here was to catalyze the possibility for the self-organization of the public in order to create capacities for political change. The workshops began to generate the political narratives that will play a large part in the formation of the PARC and the deliberative spaces within it. We used walking and narrative building as primary tools for finding neutral space and platform for communication. The act of walking enables dialogues between publics to take place beyond set geographical boundaries associated with sociopolitical group identification and exclusions. These tools are the very first step towards consolidating and activating a new citizenship at the local level.

In order to run these workshops and build a constituency base we partnered with Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG), a community organization based in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. We saw their mission as aligned with the type of dialogue we were hoping to generate during these walks. As an organization, their work advocates for:

4. Design and Proposals

85

- Recapturing the waterfront and advocate for the people who live and work here - Making the claim that the entire community is entitled to participate in decision-making and negotiation processes affecting their neighborhood.

- Promoting the right to design a future vision for our community

In collaboration with NAG, we hosted a kickoff event to launch the workshops. This event included a screening of the Domino Effect, a film on the history and more recent struggles around the Domino Sugar Factory, situated in the broader restructuring of the neighborhood. The film screening was followed by a Q&A with Ryan Kounen, a former NAG employee featured in the film and Megan Sperry, one of the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s directors. This set the tone for the thematics of the workshop, which were outlined in a brief presentation of our work and objectives. This event formed part of a wider outreach strategy, which included distributing flyers, Facebook campaign and add, and a series of interviews with the media. Articles were published in local as well as city-wide media outlets: Greenpoint Gazette, Brooklyn Paper, Free Williamsburg, Brownstoner and DNAinfo. From discussions with participants, we learned that their source of information on the walks was evenly distributed among the different outreach methods.

The walks included an introduction to the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront and public spaces, particularly the ownership, use and policies that inform the past, present and future of these spaces. We also explored the historical and physical evolution of the neighborhood and the social, political and economic reasons behind these. Finally, we looked at the impact these processes have on people and spaces. The walks were centered on the themes of Public Space / Public Sphere, Collective Commonality, and Multiple Belonging and Difference. The main goals of these workshops were to expand notions of publicity. Here publicity entails firstly, the establishment of a site for communication, engagement and contestation, secondly, the relationships within a site between multiple publics and thirdly the various ways in which publics express themselves and form discursive spaces (Young, 2000). Another objective was to provide tools for situating the participants within a spectrum of conceptions of publicity and instigate participation towards intervening in the production of public space. Finally, the walking workshops provided a platform for connecting multiple publics.

We ran a walking workshop every Saturday for four consecutive weeks in April. These lasted two hours and took participants on a set route. We had the following ten stops on our route: 1. NAGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office + East River State Park, where we set the stage for the remainder of the discussion through introducing the concept and relationship between public space and public sphere. We touched on East River State Park as a space that occupies a long history of struggle, multiple belonging, identity and alternative forms of imagining, using and cohabiting space. 2. Bushwick Inlet Park, here we unpacked the speculation born out of the 2005 rezoning that informed the escalating land value of the space, its promised use, unfulfilled present and unknown future. 3.

Greenpoint Development, here we discussed the valorization and devalorization cycles as witnessed on the Greenpoint waterfront and relating this to wider practices of creative destruction. 4. Wythe Hotel and Entertainment, post industrial sites, their aesthetics and culture valorization were the points of discussion here situating this in the often obscured labor restructuring that enabled such spaces of consumption. 5. McCarren Park + Greenpoint neighborhood, issues of green space, public-private partnerships, maintenance 86

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Above: Photographs of walking workshop illustrating two points on the route: Bushwick Inlet Park and the Entertainment District.

Source: Aaron Li-Hill, 2015 4. Design and Proposals

and access and the rising land valued surrounding such spaces were explored.

To the north we pointed to Greenpoint and the history of Polish immigration and the recent changes, while thinking about displacement and gentrification as both ongoing and lived and how this affects relations between individuals and groups, as well as their relations with their environment. 6. Bedford, here the main themes discussed were tolerance and authenticity as terms that aestheticize difference through a necessary distancing and abstraction from lived realities. 7. Wythe Street, the inadequacy of Incentive Zoning under the 2005 rezoning was discussed through looking at existing residential loft living, their lack of affordable housing and participation in the upscaling of the neighborhood. 8. South Williamsburg, the North and South divide was unpacked through the history of the Latino and Jewish communities by understanding the valorization of certain cultures. 9. Domino site + Havemeyer Park, here we introduced the Domino Plan and contested processes around such large scale urban development as illustrated in the mural on the hoarding surrounding the construction site. Havemeyer Park was briefly introduced as an interesting new form of public space production while situating the temporary park within the developerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital strategies and public relations agenda. 10.

Grand Ferry Park, we ended in this small publicly-owned park as a space of difference and belonging.

87

The walk also included a set of ongoing questions to generate a dialogue around our main themes. A sample is outlined below.

PUBLIC SPHERE AND PUBLIC SPACE - What does participation look like in public space?

- How can public space be a platform for democracy?

COLLECTIVE COMMONALITY - What social practices bring people together?

- What creates commitment?

- What elements of development / change creates opportunity for engagement?

MULTIPLE BELONGING AND DIFFERENCE - What does it mean to belong?

- How is that activated in space (or processes)?

- How can space embody difference?

In order to meet our objectives outlined above, we also developed an interactive game called “What Public Agent Are You?” The point of the game was to continue expanding various notions of publicity and engage people in identifying with a type of public persona. The game followed the structure of a multiple choice personality type quiz where the answers corresponded to one or more of the four personality profiles we developed. The profiles provided a narrative based on an imagined persona that one can easily identify with. This also served to spark interest and engagement in the various ways the public can get involved, as well as means to reveal other possible positions with regards to public space.

Analysis

The demographic of the participants varied greatly, each walk included some long term residents, as well as more recent arrivals, participants from various other neighborhoods and a couple from out of town. Participants’ age also spanned from early twenties to late sixties. One area of relevant homogeneity was race, the predominant demographic was white. Some of the different ethnicities, however, included Polish, Belgian, Italian, Canadian, Australian and Greek. Professions from the 45 participants included housing attorneys, lawyers, planning students, architects, artists and street artists, teachers, a geographer, a real estate agent, an affordable housing developer, an actress, a tour guide and a professor.

Based on the above description it becomes evident that our participants represent a fairly privileged, educated group. Thus, the workshops did not manage to bring together publics with broad differences in resources, knowledge and experience. The public engaged in the walks had at least some knowledge or interest in the issues presented. Therefore, this indicates the need for a more robust outreach strategy, including working with other community organizations with different constituents including El Puente, Los Sures, Churches United For Fair Housing and Greenpoint Church.

Having come to this realization and reflecting on the material presented, we understand that for the first series of walks, this targeted audience was particularly suited to the issues and perspective that we brought as fairly privileged members of the community. In discussing issues such as displacement, gentrification, class valorization and identity formation, our 88

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

participants were particularly those enjoying a safe distance to the everyday struggles that come with such processes. As such, our walks were particularly effective in unpacking these realities while allowing participants to position themselves without feeling attacked. Having one long term Polish resident as a participant showed us that in reaching this demographic, and other more vulnerable populations, requires a more back and forth dialogue. Though the feedback we received from him was that the walk was greatly insightful, he also was one of the more active participants, eager to share his experience and narratives of the neighborhood. This was a wonderful addition and allowed us to reflect on the necessary changes we would need to make had we had a more diverse group. In speaking to populations on the other end of such processes, their narratives would become the driving force in shaping the walk.

We cannot discuss displacement at the distance that we are enabled, to people who face it everyday.

The discussion generated through these workshops, revealed that the narrative presented was new for most of the participants. Conversations were instigated around processes such as gentrification, development, cycles of disinvestment and investment as part of larger forces rather than organic, natural or caused by individual failures. Participants were particularly interested in issues of authenticity, public-private partnerships for managing public spaces, displacement, and policy tools such as Incentive Zoning and Area Median Income (AMI). Thus, such conversation initiated some of the political narratives and dissensus around fundamental issues that the deliberative spaces within PARC would necessitate.

Below: Screenshots of media outlets publicizing and describing the walking workshops. Source: Greenpoint Gazette and Brownstoner

There was a strong interest in finding new mechanisms to address some of these issues, the referral list, provided in the game, did not satisfy this desire. Moreover, the majority of the group expressed enthusiasm in the prospect of further collaboration. We are in the process of organizing a follow up co-design workshop for the development of the deliberative structure and operation of PARC. In developing the next steps for PARC, in addition to working with the community through a new series of workshops, we need to begin to form alliances with city-wide organizations and City officials. This will initiate a more comprehensive campaign, a broader constituency and greater legitimacy.

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Below: Excerpt of questions and multiple choice answers of the game.

Top right: Photograph of one participant holding the game.

Source: Aaron Li-hill, 2015.

Bottom right: Public Agents profiles and ways to get involved.

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QUESTIONS BEDT SITE

Q1 Q1 - Which moment / groups / activities do you identify with in the history of this park? a. Its informal use and creative potentiality b. Alternative forms of public and unregulated space c. Current design - reordered, accessible and safe +(( %* !, () '(& ( $$!% &% (*) )$&( ) +( 1 $ (" * NOTES

ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT

Q3 - How would you deal with the changes in industry from manufacturing to Q3 service and creative economy in public space / sphere?

a. Commemorating industry through preserving industrial relics in public space b. Ensure spaces become publicly accessible and open to all users c. Rally to ensure equitable development and employment opportunities d. Program events around history and bring different narratives to the space NOTES

BUSHWICK INLET

Q2 - What is your vision for this space (Bushwick Inlet Park) ?

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a. Open green space for passive recreation b. A development with public access to the waterfront including a programmed open space c. Community space born out of local advocacy and planning d. Alternative and creative open cultural uses NOTES

GLOSSARY

MCCARREN PARK

Q4 Q4 - How can park space remain inclusive to past, present and future populations? a. Fight for greater protection for existing tenants and for more affordable housing for future residents b. Co- design elements of the space with various existing community groups to ensure cultural representation c. Program events in collaboration with local organizations and businesses that generate funds that then go back to the community d. Unplanned, community run park that remains open to the general public NOTES

AUTHENTICITY: Real or genuine, also understood as the aesthetic representations of the past VALORIZATION: Ascribing value or validity to someone or something PUBLIC SPACE / PUBLIC SPHERE: Spatial in the form of parks, streets, squares, public transit, and as Sphere in the form of dialogues between publics, internet, media and democratic forms of dissent.

BELONGING: !#!*/ *& $ " % &( . (* !%1+ % &, ( )' % *!, verb that one performs and requires agency to do so and also an emotive state born out of past experiences, memories, and relationships.

GENTRIFICATION: Class restructuring of an area CAPITAL ACCUMULATION: The acquiring of assets that appreciate in value, for example, through investments in the built environment.

CREATIVE ECONOMY: An economy based on knowledge and information.

BEDFORD AVE Q5 Q5

- How can we expand the existing ideas of authenticity - aesthetic representation of the past - promoted in popular culture?

a. Understand the different architectural and spatial qualities of how various groups inhabit space b. Get involved in current community organizations in order to understand their history and struggle ) * ( , %+ (&$ .!)*!% '(& ( $$!% )+ ) * 1 $ (" * &% * waterfront to subsidise events held by more disadvantaged populations in the neighborhood d. Host a cultural event where different histories and imaginaries are in conversation with one another NOTES

CULTURE: The beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time (Cultural strategies: used to attract members of the creative economy)

90

Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

PROFILES DESIGâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;NERDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - 1

PROGRAMMATIC AFICIONADO - 2

ENCHANTED ENCOUNTERER - 3

REBEL WITH A CAUSE - 4

You have a keen eye for well designed landscapes. You believe that the built environment has an impact on one!s sense of belonging and security. You pay

aesthetic spaces. You are someone who is eager to contribute to these spaces through various means such as collective gardening, neighborhood clean ups and community design charrettes. As a resident of your neighborhood, you believe you are entitled to quality public space that is well maintained and you are someone who is willing to advocate for this.

You are a person who comes alive in spaces that engage your participatory personality. You believe that a passive or underused space is ripe for activityoriented interventions. You regard a set of rules and regulations as a necessary part of ensuring the smooth operation of your neighborhood spaces. You particularly enjoy events that bring multiple publics together and turn a public space into a city-wide destination.

You see partnerships with different organizations and businesses as an opportunity to activate space and generate the necessary funding for its proper maintenance.

You thrive on impromptu and chance encounters with different publics. You are a person who enjoys a space that facilitates these exchanges and interactions. You see arts and culture as a successful tool for bringing various groups together and activating multiple belonging. You see these spanning from the grassroots level of DIY interventions to more formal cultural events and exhibitions. You embrace the temporal aspect of public art and space and the everyday encounters within it. Rather than seeing temporality as a limitation, you recognize it as an opportunity for

You are engaged with the political potentiality of public space. You believe access is a fundamental condition of successful public space and your conception of access moves beyond the physical. You see public space as an arena for multiple publics to have their voices heard and you actively advocate for this right. You see the appropriation of space as one of the mechanisms for initiating such deliberative platforms. You believe public advocacy is necessary for the continuation of accessible and open public spaces.

GET INVOLVED!

GET INVOLVED!

GET INVOLVED!

GET INVOLVED!

WILLIAMSBURG / GREENPOINT

WILLIAMSBURG / GREENPOINT

WILLIAMSBURG / GREENPOINT

WILLIAMSBURG / GREENPOINT

- Get involved with Open Space Alliance in order to participate in the programming of local spaces (Stage E) - Help with organizing events with groups such as El Puente, NAG and GWAPP - Advocate for more inclusivity of

Smorgasburg from within or outside the Brooklyn Flea organization

- Partner with local galleries such as Art 101, 17 Frost, AG gallery, Brooklyn Art Library, etc. and develop coalitions between them to host public art events - Get involved with El Puente and their cultural programming, youth education and mural project by Los Muralistas

- Get involved in tenants! rights organizing with Southside United, Los Sures, Churches United for Fair Housing - Join Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park to advocate for promised waterfront park (Stage B) - Pitch legislation proposal to Council Member (District 33/34)

- Community Board meetings and design charrettes (Stages A and C).

- Community clean up initiatives through local organizations such as NAG and GWAPP - Community gardening with organizations such as North Brooklyn Farm, GrowNYC, Southside Community Garden (Stages D and E) - Participatory Budgeting District 33 and 34 CITY WIDE

- Participatory Budgeting - Project for Public Space - Design Trust for Public Space

ENT (STAGE D)

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT A. Rezoning Proposal B. Acquisition of Site C. ULURP Process D. Construction E. Completed Space

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4. Design and Proposals

munity Organizations Communication

CITY WIDE

- New Yorkers for Parks - Project for Public Space - City Parks Foundation & NYC Parks

CITY WIDE

CITY WIDE

- Municipal Arts Society (MAS) - 596 Acres - Creative Time - ART START - Five Borough Project

- Citizen!s Committee for New York City - Copper Square Committee (Community Land Trust) - Right to the City Alliance - Participatory Budgeting - Urban Justice Center (UJC)

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what combination of personalities you have!

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Q3 a-1 b-3 c-4 d-2

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Q5 a-1 b-4 c-2 d-3

Q6 a-1 b-4 c-3 d-2

Q7 a-2 b-1 c-4 d-3

Q8 a-2 b-1 c-3 d-4

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PARC Public Action Review Collaborative

4. DESIGN AND PROPOSALS 4C. IMPLEMENTING PARC Left: Photograph of the Domino Sugar Factory construction site taken from the Williamsburg bridge. Source: Larissa Begault, 2015.

For the implementation of PARC, we have developed a series of diagrams outlining necessary steps and stakeholders to clearly illustrate the required actions for such a legislation. The first section provides an overview of existing organizations divided into civic organizations, public-private partnerships, and city-community partnerships working on the production, design and operation of public spaces. This brings to light the existing precedents, as well as significant shortfalls, in the work being done towards developing more equitable and representative space development. The second section includes a diagram outlining the necessary stakeholders that we need to target for a more expansive and developed campaign strategy. Such an ecosystem map reveals a variety of resource providers, allies, beneficiaries, competitors, and opponents. Finally we end with a theory of change diagram that entails short term, mid term and long term goals, social impacts, indicators and the necessary interventions to achieve our desired objectives. This section ends with a brief outline of a scaling strategy and our role within this legislative work.

CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS “Friends of…” Organizations “Friends groups” are organizations created by a group of citizens with a shared interest in the stewardship of a local public space or park. This can take the form of temporary support and development or a more long term conservation of a specific park. This structure for public space involvement utilizes community interest and investment in local parks to promote and maintain such spaces.

Project for Public Space - http://www.pps.org/ “Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit planning, design and educational organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain public spaces that build stronger communities. Their pioneering Placemaking approach helps citizens transform their public spaces into vital places that highlight local assets, spur rejuvenation and serve common needs” (pps. org). This organization is working towards an alternative way to produce and maintain public space by striving to include community participation. PPS acts as an intermediary between public/private entities with already proposed plans for public development, and potential communities affected by such proposals.

Design Trust for Public Space - http://designtrust.org/ This unique model brings together government agencies, community groups and private-sector experts to transform and evolve the city’s landscape. With every project, Design Trust for Public Space acts as a catalyst, delivering innovative, yet feasible solutions for project partners to implement. This organization is a platform for communication between different actors to instigate public space proposals. By joining communities with designers/experts and advocating to gain support from the public sector, the organization facilitates the creation and implementation of public space transformation at a local level.

Right to the City Alliance- http://righttothecity.org/ “Right to the City (RTTC) emerged in 2007 as a unified response to gentrification and a call to halt the displacement of low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities, and youths of color from their historic urban neighborhoods” (righttothecity.org). RTTC works by creating alliances between racial, economic and environmental justice organizations nation-wide. The groups together advocate under shared principles and a common frame and theory of change with the objective to build a national movement for racial justice, urban justice, human rights, and democracy.

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PUBLIC - PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS BIDs - http://www.nycbidassociation.org/ “A Business Improvement District is a formal organization made up of property owners and commercial tenants who are dedicated to promoting business development and improving an area’s quality of life. BIDs deliver supplemental services such as sanitation and maintenance, public safety and visitor services, marketing and promotional programs, capital improvements, and beautification for the area - all funded by a special assessment paid by property owners within the district” (nycbidassociation.org). BIDs are a public-private partnership, which take on the responsibility of maintenance and control of certain public spaces. Often tied to commercial strips, BIDs are primarily a tool for enhancing space for consumption. However, their funding and partnership structure is worth understanding as BIDs are completely self reliant and supported/recognized by the City.

POPS (In Partnership with Municipal Arts Society MAS) - http://apops.mas.org/ A joint force between Municipal Arts Society and the City, offering unique stewardship for the city’s 525 or so privately owned public spaces (POPS), those zoning-created plazas, arcades, and other outdoor and indoor spaces located at the street level of many office and residential towers. Their work seeks to enhance the City through creating an attractive, usable, and egalitarian public realm. This partnership works at promoting existing privately owned public space through art installations, public programmes and beautification. The group advocates for a different vision of what public space can be and works together to implement it in collaboration with local clients.

CITY - COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP Participatory Budgeting - http://council.nyc.gov/html/pb/home.shtml Participatory budgeting (PB) allows residents of 24 Council Districts across the City to directly decide how to best spend $25 million of tax-payer money. Community members meet in organized events to exchange ideas, work together and vote on proposals to get funded. This is a new form of democratic participation supported by local governments in New York City. Here populations have a say on how some of their tax money gets invested in their local environment.

Inter-Environnement Bruxelles - http://www.ieb.be/ Brussels Inter-Environnement is an independent organization that brings together 80 neighborhood committees and groups of people; the organization remains independent of political parties and works as intermediary between government and local groups. By uniting the inhabitants of the Brussels region to become active on social and environmental urban issues, IEB works on bringing a collective voice to advocate for change. IEB works with both transient populations as well as on more permanent local struggles and develops a dialogue between groups to instigate a collective dynamic. The IEB promotes solidarity, social emancipation and urban democracy to work towards social transformation in the urban. IEB believes in the right for the population to define and defend collectively their environment (social, ecological, economic, political, cultural). The organization acts both as a collective force of reflection, information, experimentation, proposal and protest and promotes debate and deliberation among its members and with society, allowing for a critical analysis, evaluation, exchange of knowledge, and the creation of networked alliances with other social actors. IEB considers the multiplicity of views of its members as a strength and seeks to defend the collective interests rather than special interests.

Within the majority of these case studies we are witnessing the activating of agency within communities and generating of resources for public / private / design partnerships. However, we see a shortage of groups working towards alleviating unequal access to participation. Further, the uneven impact of development on different communities is an issue that is not addressed by any of the more design oriented organizations. Thus, this research and analysis has revealed an opportunity for creating our own alternative organizational structure that tackles the aforementioned barriers while creating successful links between public bodies, community groups, private entities and design professionals within the umbrella of public space production and participation.

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PARC DESIGN PRINCIPLES -

Providing an accessible and equitable platform for communication Recognizing differences amongst groups in deliberative spaces Activating agency within communities Generating resources for productive public partnerships Ensuring capital assets do not play a role in decision making Creating a vision for alternative public space/sphere

PAINS

GAINS EXPECTED GAINS

UNDESIRED OUTCOMES -Burn out of community engagement due to impossibility to sway decisions-making process

-Space that is more inclusive to local populations and less treated as an amenity for developer profit

-Public space that becomes exclusive to non community members

-Enhancing sense of belonging and commitment to shared space

-Public space as amenity for luxury developments

RISKS

-Upscaling and restructuring of neighborhoods -Lack of equitable representation in decision making process

OBSTACLES

-Acutely unequal and exclusive spaces within the city

-Bridging public sphere / discourse with space production -Dismantling of consensus around development projects and processes

-Equitable representation

-Further disengaged public

-Non- binding community board votes -Lack of structural accountability for minority groups -Opaque structure and functioning of city council hearings - Lack of interest, time and or resources of users for participation

REQUIRED GAINS -Local agency (binding) on â&#x20AC;&#x153;publicâ&#x20AC;? space production and maintenance

DESIRED GAINS

-Accountability for marginalized or underserved populations

-More dynamic public space / sphere that contributes to an expanded notion of citizenship -Citizenship at the local level -Alternative forms of publicity -New mechanisms for alleviating displacement

Above: Diagram illustrating existing pains and future gains in implementing PARC. 4. Design and Proposals

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RESOURCE PROVIDERS

COMPETITORS

Financial

-Open Space Alliance -BIDs -LLCs

-1/3 Government financing -1/3 Private sector -1/3 self-financing though programming + partnerships Human

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTERS + ALLIES -Creative Time -Project for Public Spaces -MAS -Influential stakeholders / Public figures

PARC LEGISLATION

-Awareness building/ Civic engament/ Involvement of public -Public participation forPARC board Knowledge -Expert on legislation -Finance + Legal team

-Campaign illustrating necessary change -Co-Design operation and structure of body -Partnerships, support and coalition building Tools for intervening in public-private space production

Networking -Other public space + civic engagement organizations -Local elected officials Technological -Communications (person to person + online) -Tools + campain strategies Intermediaries -Community groups/ local organizations/ -Galleries/ housing organizations/ Influential stakeholders

BENEFICIARIES -Local Residents -General Public -Community Organizations -Public Sector

ALLIES -Political allies

-Council members -Local elected officials -Mayor

-City Wide Organization

-NYCommons -Urban Justice Center -596 Acres -Citizens Committee for NY -Design Trust for Public Space

OPONENTS -Developers -Private sector -BIDs

IMPACT: Maintain Difference in space through equitable public space production, operations and use, while also supporting difference in neighborhood redevelopment processes

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Reconstructing New Landscapes of Consumption and Production: Multiple Publics, Belonging and Productive Agonism

Stakeholders + Ecosystem map - Campaign Development and Capacity Building In order to build the momentum and capacity for the scaling of work and legislation of PARC we have three main areas of action. These fall under that categories of communication, coalition and credibility.

Communicating + Alter perception of what is possible Develop a communication strategy, which targets multiple publics through differentiated forms of delivery (lectures, conference, workshops, online platforms, public hearings) with language adapted accordingly.

Alliance Building + Building network Building coalitions with existing organizations working towards similar goals.

Working towards alliances between government, non-profits and the profit sector to achieve long term structural change. Ensure the involvement of populations that are not yet targeted by the current advocacy and work being done.

Blend service with advocacy PARC is a useful tool to provide a necessary service while advocating for legislative change and shift in perception of participation in public space. All future projects will maintain this duality.

Community Development Committee

Daniel Squadron 26

Martin Malave Dillan 18

State Wide / Regional

Johnathan Rose Companies

Bill De Blasio NYC Mayor

Carl Weisbrod DCP

Mitchell Silver Parks & Rec

Fund for Public Advocacy

New York Common Cause

The Durst Organization

City Legislative Process

Urban Justice Center

Creative Time

Project for Public Space

NYCommons Design Trust for Public Space

Citizensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Committee for NY

596 Acres

MEDIA

City Wide / Urban

Two Trees Management

Left: Ecosystem map illustrating various stakeholders and their positions towards the implementation of PARC. Right: Implementation stakeholder diagram and alliances for the necessary city wide campaign to get PARC legislated.

4. Design and Proposals

Antonio Reynoso 33

CB1

Open Space Alliance

Stephen Levin 34

Church Groups

NAG

El Puente

GWAPP

Constituents

Community / Local

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{ i - Variety of demographics ; ethnicity, age and income Maintain difference in space - Regular use of public resource by variety of demographics A- City neighborhoods remain affordable enough to house difference - Equitable public space production, operation and use leads to difference in space { i - Equitable representation of groups in descision } Maintain and support Equitable Public Space difference in neighborhood making process production, operation and - Inclusive programming with equitable distribution redevelopment processes use of funds generated

A- An agreeance on operation and use can be reached -

A- Variety of populations have the ability (resources) to participate I - Assist PARC in decision making processes

Continual involvement of multiple publics A- Variety of populations have the ability (resources) to participate - Willingness to participate

I - Refexive work to improve operations and continuous engagement of the public

{ i - Authorization granted

Legislative authorization of PARC (in an identified specicific space A- Steering committee able to reach consensus - Ability to reach representatives of steering committee

I - Consult on procedures for legislative authorization

Steering committee is created

I - Coordinate logistics for formally setting up a committee i - reaching capacity for setting up } steering committee - momentum mediatized

Community org. and communities are working together on creating momentum around a space

i - Attendance of org at workshops } - Abiity from organizers to relay information to their constituents

Attending workshops on PARC structure. legislation process + tool kit

Representative publics participates in dialogue A- Variety of populations have the ability (resources) to participate

Attending public workshops { i - Successful turn out of on rights, zoning regulations, multiple publics tools to get involved - Increased public involvment /

memebership in local org. / voting

SITE SPECIFIC

PARC legislated City wide

I - Collaborate with City Officials towards legislative work

i - On public agenda of City Coucnil } legislations is supported heatings and on Mayorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s agenda by public officials

Capacity to get PARC legislated is attained

I - Collaborate on designing a set of mechanisms to work/ build cappacity with communities

A network with local and City-wide org. is established

Consultancy work as funding platform

I - Campaign

I - Outreach methods

Operation and structure of body is designed

{ i - Variety of participants - Reaching viable structure - Creating solid lega framework

Campaign illustrating necessary changes

{ i - Increased public involvment / memebership in local org. / voting

I - Co-design workshops - Dissemination I - On the ground workshops - Online platform and social media platform - Inforgraphics - Contac city wide organization working around public asset

LEGEND

Think and do tank to intervene in public space production through: 1- Prototyping connections b/w publics in specific locality 2- Catalyze the opportunity for the self-organization of the public 3- Generate the political narratives for forming a PARC and the deliberative space within it

Long term goals 6 -10 yrs Mid term goals 2-5 yrs Short term goals 1-2 yrs

I i A

Interventions Indicators Assumptions

5. CONCLUSION 5A. SIGNIFICANCE AND APPLICABILITY Left: Theory of Change diagram highlighting the short, mid and long-term goals, interventions required, assumptions made and social impact indicators.

This begins to position us and our future work towards these objectives.

In examining the multiscalar forces that shape our new landscapes of consumption and production, we bear witness to economic and political structures that infiltrate numerous sites of our daily lives, from as intimate as the body and home to our public spaces, urban localities and global sites of encounter. It is fundamental to look at the interstices of human action, capital flows, cycles of investment and disinvestment and everyday spaces of deliberation and struggle in order to begin to carve out openings for alternative modes of cohabiting and commoning that are more just and representative. This also means we must radically shift our understandings of where such critical sites for action reside. We need to look to state institutions for the generation of new modes of exercising our citizenship within new democratic spaces of struggle, contest and productive agonism. This requires a more expansive idea of what state institutions can offer, beyond merely a means for opposing corruption and power, as spaces of difference, social change and representative justice. In proposing PARC we aim to harness the critical potentiality of institutionalized deliberative space of action. Here we take up our current mayor in his overture to governing “we here in New York City government have many tools at our disposal to make good on that promise [of greater equality], on that responsibility, and we will use them” (De Blasio in NYT, 2014).

Drawing on this work’s findings, PARC serves to counter the stratification of publics along racial and class line by moving past distributive notions of justice and offering institutionalized mechanisms in which a representational public can participate in the decision making process affecting their environment. In recognizing the real differences between groups and the fallacy of impartiality, PARC mobilizes passions towards a democratic discourse that begins to move us out of our postpolitical condition. With this proposition, there is an opportunity to find value outside capital or symbolic, beyond the superficial aesthetization of difference and the past to create agentic spaces of multiple belonging.

This is a significant endeavor as the aforementioned postpolitical situation is evermore present. This is particularly felt in our increasingly privatized, sanitized, depoliticized and commodified public spaces. Further, current debates on expanding public participation in the programming and production of such spaces makes PARC a timely and urgent proposition.

5B. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH - How do we ensure such deliberative spaces encompass difference in the everyday experience of those spaces?

- How do we create commitment to such new democratic structures and reframe the current apprehension toward state institutions?

- How do we ensure that PARC does not come to be another means by which onus is placed on the individual for the equitable and just production of shared space?

- How do we ensure it is not co opted by insular community interests?

5. Conclusion

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