Agora 13

TRANSFORMATIONS

PROGRES-

AGORA

2007

GROWTH MANAGEMENT

2008

CHANGE

2009

DETROIT

2010

ENDURANCE AND ADAPTATION

2011

CONNECTION

2012

PUBLIC | PRIVATE

2013

ALTERNATIVES

2014

DIVISIONS

2015

PROGRESSION

2016

PERSPECTIVE

2017

SEMBLANCE

2018

TRANSFORMATIONS

University of Michigan A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Agora Journal of Urban Planning and Design Volume 13: 2019

The Agora Journal of Urban Planning and Design is an annual, student-run, peer-reviewed publication of the University of Michigan’s A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning 2000 Bonisteel Boulevard Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069 USE www.agorajournal.squarespace.com ISSN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

2331-2823

The publication of Agora 13 was made possible by the Victor Gondos, Jr. Archives Fund.

COPYRIGHT

We would also like to thank the following individuals for their generous support for Agora 13:

Agora Volume 13 2019 The Regents of the University of Michigan LICENSING This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial - Share Alike 40 International License TYPE Didot, DIN-Light, DIN-Medium PRINTING ArborOakland Group Royal Oak, Michigan, USA Printed in an edition of 500.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed in this journal reflect only those of the individual authors and not those of the Agora Journal of Urban Planning and Design. Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. All figures are created by authors unless otherwise noted.

Dr. Lan Deng Dr. Robert Goodspeed Dr. Scott Campbell Dr. Lesli Hoey Dr. James Macmillan MarĂ­a Arquero de Alarcon Dr. Harley Etienne Dr. Joe Grengs Dr. Ana Paula Pimentel Walker Michael Borsellino Matan Singer Taru Carla Kayanan Robert Pfaff We would like to give special thanks to our faculty advisors, Dr. Scott Campbell and Dr. Julie Steiff.

Agora 13 Staff Editors-in-Chief Michael Friese and Emily Smith Creative Directors Karina Pazos and Sarah Stachnik Deputy Editor Kim Higgins Symposium Directors Morgan Fett and Matthew Tse Director of Distribution and Finance Peter Swinton Director of Fundraising and Outreach Karis Tzeng Manager of Communications Meagan Gibeson Staff Editors David Deboskey, Morgan Fett, Michael Friese, Meagan Gibeson, Kim Higgins, Nadia Karizat, Emily Korman, Janney Lockman, Neetu Rajkumar Nair, Brittany Simmons, Emily Smith, Matthew Tse, Karis Tzeng, and Rebecca Yae Layout Editors Colin Brown, Jake Hite, Sam Kollar, Cristian Muñoz, Karina Pazos, Megan Rigney, Mrithula Shantha, Sarah Stachnik, Anikka Van Eyl, Keerthana Vidyasagar, and Zhao Wu

Table of Contents “Seems Like The Ghetto:” Understanding the Image of East Cleveland Emily Richards

12

The Role of Urban Planning in the Spread of Communicable Diseases Sam Henstell

26

The Story of Public Space in Beirut’s Geography of Power Nadia Karizat

36

Public Housing Development and Provision Structure in China Weican Zuo

48

Old Money, New Nashville: A Tale of Changing Wealth in Music City E. Janney Lockman

62

Narratives of Segregation: Ghettos of Ahmedabad Ayesha Wahid

68

Bustees to Blots: The Bangladeshi Pursuit of Community Salvador Lindquist

76

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities: Detroit and Brixton Brittany Simmons

90

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina: A Case of Climate Justice Carol Maione

102

Wearable Society Ester Lo

118

Design is Political: White Supremacy and Landscape Urbanism Jennifer Low

126

Letter From The Editors A

gora continues its tradition of excellence moving into its 13th year. A team of graduate students are pushing forward Agora’s tradition of creating an open forum for discussion of pressing issues and future possibilities posed by the built environment. After winning The Center for Architecture’s Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals in 2018, we are excited to continue this tradition of excellence in student publication.

As with last year, Agora continues to seek varied perspectives of the city. We once again welcomed submissions from colleges throughout the school with multi-disciplinary backgrounds. Within Taubman College, the Agora 13 staff has worked hard to create an inclusive environment where students gain new skills and refine their abilities in critical thinking, writing, editing, and design.

The title of this year’s journal is Transformations. Built environments are in a constant state of change. The articles explore a variety of ways in which urban areas are transforming. Nadia Karizat in her article “The Story of Public Space” explores the transformations that have occurred in Beirut after the Lebanese Civil War. Ester Lo in her design piece entitled “Wearable Society” imagines a not-so-distant future where individual wearable technologies connect people with the urban fabric, allowing real-time transformations of the built environment. We are challenged by Emily Richards in “Seems like the Ghetto,” which exposes how language and perception combine to transform physical space in insidious ways.

We would like to thank the staff of Agora 13, whose tireless efforts produced this exceptional work; its authors and photographers for sharing their visions; our supporters who make this journal possible; and our faculty advisors and peer reviewers for their expertise and guidance. It is through your collective efforts that Agora continues its mission of cultivating transformational thought to inspire current and future community leaders.

We hope you enjoy this work as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Emily Smith & Michael Friese Editors-in-Chief

Letter From Faculty I

n 2006, an ambitious and stalwart group of Michigan planning students first optimistically floated the idea of creating a new, student-run journal. Yes, there were skeptics: wasn’t the era of print media ostensibly over, and did students with their busy schedules even have time to run a journal (and solicit articles, collaborators, funding and supporters)? But they persisted, and the first issue appeared the following spring. In subsequent years, this journal has become an integral tradition within the planning program, shepherded by successive teams of tireless and creative editors and staff. Agora has become an essential activity of planning student life here at Michigan, along with the annual Martin Luther King Jr. event, the Urban Planning Student Association (UPSA) the Expanding Horizon trips, and the capstone projects in Detroit.

At the end of each academic year, the current Agora staff passes the baton to the next cohort, attracting (and cajoling) a remarkable and committed cadre of new staff. Agora challenges students to find precious time outside their studies and other commitments to make this journal happen.

They also are that rare journal that makes a substantive commitment to contributing writers to edit and re-edit over a tight, intense schedule. Importantly, they explore the power of writing as a tool beyond the classroom.

Reading these pages, one is vicariously shuttled not only through the high streets and alleyways of cities around the globe, but also through the imaginations of emerging planners, designers, builders, activists, scholars. One vividly senses their critical engagement with the city, their mix of fascination and worry about our urban futures. One also observes the tangible and rich fluidity between disciplines: the mix of urban planning, architecture, public health, policy and urban design.

There is also a fluidity of cultures and places, as authors cross borders and oceans, from Nashville to Ahmedabad, Beirut to Detroit, Cleveland to Beijing. Here is an emerging new global imagination about urbanism. Yes, here one can see the barriers and inequalities that divide the cities of the world. But one also sees the shared urban challenges (housing unaffordability, climate change, traffic congestion, pollution, etc.) and the shared values (sustainability, social justice, community, healthy cities) that create solidarity between urban planners from around the world. And these pages are richly illustrated with evocative photographs, highlighting the internationalization both of planning and of our students, which is a cherished attribute of our college and the larger University of Michigan.

Congratulations to the Michigan planning students for a great issue and for all the activities of Agora over the school year (including the annual salon evening event). May the journal long thrive, evolve and capture the rich voices and experiences of the next generation of urbanists.

Scott Campbell Co-Faculty Advisor

Maxwell Gigle - New Delhi, India 10

11

It is my view that integration failed in East Cleveland because neither group really wanted it to succeed. The white population fled the city due to fear and ignorance…

Black citizens were simply living the American dream of finding a good home in a good community. Integration was not their primary goal. They wanted the same things which brought my parents to East Cleveland.

- Robert Dreifort, Former East Cleveland Resident, 2012 1

I

“Seems Like the Ghetto” Understanding the Image of East Cleveland Emily Richards Master of Architecture 2019

ABSTRACT This essay aims to understand the decline of a specific community, Cleveland’s historic inner-ring suburb of East Cleveland, as a set of troubled and constructed histories that were never inevitable. In particular, the essay takes up the use of terms like ‘ghetto’and ‘blight’ in descriptions of East Cleveland to explore how the negative perception of the city has compounded the effects of its decline. The text begins with a brief introduction to the city, describing its transition from an ‘elite’ white suburb into a deteriorating, primarily African American, one. This is followed by an analysis of the many factors that contributed to East Cleveland’s rapid decline, including suburbanization policies, racial integration and blockbusting, physical deterioration, and economic mismanagement. The essay’s final section describes how public perception of the city has played one of the most harmful roles in shaping its development, identifying the city’s image as equally important as its financial state or physical deterioration. Using East Cleveland as example, it poses the broader question: can the expectation of ‘ghetto’ or ‘blight’ beget just that?

12

n a spurt of curiosity one day in 2017, I ran a search on YouTube for East Cleveland, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and a city just down the hill from where I grew up. Among the first titles to appear were names like “Abandoned East Cleveland,” “Cleveland’s Worst East Side Hoods,” and “Drive Through the Ghetto Wasteland of East Cleveland, OH.”2 Although these disparaging titles were intended to be provocative clickbait, they didn’t surprise me. The way those videos portrayed East Cleveland was not so far off from the image marketed to me growing up. I had heard the City was getting rid of traffic lights because there wasn’t enough traffic to warrant the upkeep. I saw some pretty roughed up houses when I would drive through the neighborhoods. One high school friend of mine would roll her eyes and tell me she didn’t like coming to my house because I lived near – she would whisper – “the ghetto.” Her condemnation of the neighborhood stuck with me. Did I? Was it?

The City of East Cleveland has been in a near-constant state of fiscal emergency since 1988. The city of 17,000 has an annual operating cost of about $17 million, but each year draws in only $10 million in tax revenue, so it struggles to provide even basic services for its residents. The city is over 93 percent black. The median household income is $19,500 and the poverty rate is over 40 percent.3 In the fall of 2016, the City’s last ambulance broke down and it had to take a loan from nearby Oakwood Village,4 followed by two borrowed salt trucks from the Ohio Department of Transportation, since its two were temporarily out of service.5 In recent

years, the City has been discussing a possible merger with neighboring Cleveland to halt what seems like a downward spiral of decay and debt. However, after a dramatic mayoral election recall in 2016, those talks have been put on hold.6 Although once considered a select suburb of Cleveland and home to part of famed ‘Millionaire’s Row,’ today East Cleveland is one of Ohio’s most distressed communities, sitting on decades of physical decay and a state of fiscal emergency a generation long.

How and why did this inner-ring suburb change so drastically in only a few decades?

This essay aims to understand the decline of East Cleveland as one case study in the evolving identities of inner-ring suburbs in the 21st century. It is centered on the argument that the patterns that emerge in East Cleveland are contrived conditions manufactured through a series of discreet but related actions and forces, and not an inevitable turn of events. In particular, this text considers the way public perception of the city’s identity, especially through the lens of terms like ‘ghetto’ and ‘blight,’ continues to play one of the most powerful roles in shaping real forces within the community.

BUILDING EAST CLEVELAND East Cleveland was the City of Cleveland’s first suburb. A small territory immediately to the east of the main city, East Cleveland occupies only about three square miles.

It was first settled in the early 1800s by a

AGO R A 13

13

RICHARDS

“Seems Like the Ghetto”

handful of Scottish and English settlers but grew slowly alongside its western neighbor throughout the 19th century, incorporating as a city in 1911.7 In its early decades, East Cleveland was considered an elite suburb for wealthy locals. Euclid Avenue, known as ‘Millionaire’s Row’ for its collection of ornate mansions built for local magnates, extended from downtown into the new suburb and carried with it the city’s wealth and prestige. In 1873, John D. Rockefeller, East Cleveland’s most notable Gilded Age resident, purchased a 248-acre estate in the city and built a family mansion, the ‘Homestead,’ overlooking the lake. His son would later donate most of that land to the cities of East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights to create Forest Hill Park and develop some of the remaining land into a small French-Norman residential neighborhood modeled after Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City.8 At the turn of the century, the city’s population boomed and shifted towards the middle- and upper-middle classes, spurring the construction of a large number of homes. By 1920, East Cleveland was a city of over 27,000,9 and the population peaked in 1950 at around 40,000 residents.10 During these years, the city saw high rates of home ownership and a population that was almost exclusively white and largely locally-born. The neighborhoods were primarily residential;

Figure 1: John D. Rockefeller Home, Forest Hill, 1910 (The Cleveland Memory Project, 2018).

14

many people worked in white collar or manufacturing jobs downtown and could commute easily by public transit to and from the city.11

A NEW EAST CLEVELAND While East Cleveland’s development was fairly stable through the first half of the 20th century, the 1960s brought rapid and lasting change to the city. While the housing stock and infrastructure began to show signs of age and the downtown job markets slowed, the city also experienced a swift population turnover from majority white to majority black. Coincident with these changes, East Cleveland began to take on a very different image than in the first half of the century.

Suburbanization and Urban Policies The post-war suburban housing boom left East Cleveland largely untouched.

The city, whose housing stock was built primarily before 1920, was small and already developed to capacity with residential units, leaving little space for new development after World War II. Social trends in the post-war era promoted single-family homes, yet only about one in four of the city’s homes matched that typology, one of the lowest ratios in the state. While East Cleveland had been a trendy neighborhood in previous decades, in the 1940s and 1950s its layout and housing styles were going out of fashion. As younger families bought houses in the newer second suburban ring, the population of East Cleveland began to age, and the modest decline in the city’s popularity opened up space for new residents to move in.12 As post-war suburbanization drove white East Clevelanders out to new neighborhoods, urban renewal policies helped usher new black residents in. East-side Cleveland

neighborhoods like Hough, Glenville, and Fairfax – all sites of race riots during the Civil Rights Movement – became targets of mayoral urban renewal schemes in the late 1960s and 1970s. The new neighborhood development aimed to rehabilitate the damaged neighborhoods while also dispersing some of the crowded population.

However, as thousands of properties were torn down, black residents found themselves with little Section 8 program assistance and no place to go in the city. East Cleveland, full of spacious, affordable homes, was a commonplace to settle.13

Racial Integration in the Suburbs Histories of post-war American cities tend to focus on the suburbanization of white families, but that trend was quickly followed by a black suburbanization movement. While we tend to think of ‘white flight’ as whites leaving urban downtowns, in Cleveland the term also has significance in the city’s innerring suburbs. In 1960, only three percent of the Cleveland area’s African American population lived in the suburbs. By 1970, that number was 14 percent, and in 1980, 27 percent of Cleveland-area African Americans lived in the suburbs. The period from 1960 to 1980 represented a significant and rapid integration of suburban neighborhoods, and inner-ring suburbs like Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, East Cleveland, and Warrensville Heights saw the most dramatic changes in their populations.14 The African Americans involved in Cleveland’s suburbanization were mostly local: between 1960 and 1970 alone, 23,000 African American Clevelanders moved across the border to East Cleveland.15 On an individual level, African American Clevelanders had many motivations to move into the suburbs, but there were also many regional forces that led to such a rapid and linear move. Eastside Cleveland neighborhoods were at capacity, especially following the demolition of many

properties in the Hough, Glenville, and Fairfax neighborhoods due to urban renewal policies, so the African American population needed to expand geographically. Coupled with a drop in industrial and manufacturing jobs in the center city, this made downtown residents look outward.16 Those who were able (usually families with a higher socioeconomic status) chose to leave. Historians like Andrew Weise, author of Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century, cast cases like this as an example of “Suburbanization by Spillover,” which suggests that instead of operating as an independent suburb of Cleveland, East Cleveland became a spatial extension of the city when African Americans moved in. Weise offers this conceptual conflation of city and suburb as one explanation of why, today, East Cleveland might feel like “an inner-city suburb with all the problems of the central city.”17 In the 1960s, a move to the suburbs still came with overtones of self-improvement, and the income of suburban residents surpassed that of urban residents for the first time. Alongside the contemporary Civil Rights Movement, there was also a feeling that following the white trajectory into the suburbs was indicative of some positive effects of the movement.18 But the primary reason African Americans came to East Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s was their desire to own a home. In 1969, 40 percent of the new African American population cited home ownership as their primary reason for moving, and East Cleveland had plenty of affordable homes to offer.19 It comes as no surprise that, like most white neighborhoods of this era, East Cleveland did not greet racial integration warmly. Many white families, accustomed to their cultural homogeneity, were fearful of black neighbors and worried what a changing population might mean for the neighborhood. This racial anxiety became prime fodder for local real estate agents looking to capitalize on the situation. “There certainly wasn’t a welcome

AGO R A 13

15

RICHARDS

“Seems Like the Ghetto”

wagon here,” remembers Mae Stewart, one of East Cleveland’s first black residents; “[realtors] would call some of the neighbors and say, ‘The neighborhood is changing.

Maybe you’d better sell and get out.’”20 Blockbusting, the practice of encouraging homeowners in certain neighborhoods to quickly sell their homes at low rates for fear that minority races will move in, was common practice in East Cleveland, which can be seen in the city’s resettlement patterns. Black families slowly moved into the city one block at a time, beginning at the eastern border and spreading westward.

Each neighborhood took on its own new demographic, with more established families taking the larger properties in neighborhoods like Superior-Rozelle, and younger, less established families taking the more modest properties in neighborhoods like

Figure 2: Kenneth Grady, in front of 14524 Terrace Rd., a home rehabilitated by East Cleveland Development Corporation (The Cleveland Memory Project, 2018).

Chambers-Mayfair. In only a few years, the city changed from an aging white population to a largely black one filled with young families and children.21 But while the change in the city’s population occurred over a very short period of time, conditions in pre- and post-segregation East Cleveland were very different.

16

Physical Deterioration When African Americans moved into East Cleveland in the 1960s and later decades, they were met not with the sparkling image of the new post-war suburbs, but with postprime aging neighborhoods. Most of the city’s properties and infrastructural systems were built in the early decades of the 20th century out of materials that were more difficult and costlier to obtain in post-war America, meaning incoming black families were purchasing aging homes that were expensive to maintain. Meanwhile, renters were subject to the biases of East Cleveland landlords, who frequently reduced maintenance to their properties as soon as they realized the neighborhood demographic was changing.

Some landlords would even subdivide their properties into additional units using cheap construction methods to further increase the profits they made off new residents.22 A 1967 survey showed that at the time, although 44.6 percent of the city’s population was African American, blacks occupied only 33.4 percent of all households. This suggests that black residents were living at a higher density than whites, further increasing the rate of wear on the properties.23 As an added complication, many of these physical changes came with negative economic effects. Aging properties, redlining, and neighborhood re-segregation caused local property values to decline during the 1960s and 1970s. Subdivided properties meant East Cleveland had more residents putting stress on the city’s infrastructure and public resources with no additional tax revenue. Further, many local businesses packed up and followed their customer bases to the more distant suburbs. Storefronts either remained vacant or were replaced with less profitable businesses. East Cleveland quickly found itself in financial straits and began to cut back community services to save money.24 Although East Cleveland’s new residents were not responsible for the local economic decline, its concurrence with the

Figure 3: Looking north from the Nickel Plate Road right-of-way along Strathmore Ave/Missouri Ave, 1922 (The Cleveland Memory Project, 2018).

Figure 4: 1880 Idlewood Avenue, 1929 (The Cleveland Memory Project, 2018).

AGO R A 13

17

RICHARDS

“Seems Like the Ghetto”

racial integration of the city conflated the two issues in the public eye and quickly bred a negative image of the city as a declining black community, perpetuating the feedback loop of disinvestment that continues to the present.

PUBLIC PERCEPTION SHAPES CHANGE “It’s a rough area. If they put a listing out, it lasts a long time. People know about the crime, the poverty level, all the subsidized housing that’s over there, the water department, the police department. People tend to stay away from East Cleveland, if they can.”

- Charles Glaster, Cleveland Heights Realtor, 200125 Although many concrete actions contributed to the rapid transformation of East Cleveland, one of the most influential forces in shaping this city is a very abstract one: public perception. When Cleveland Heights Realtor Charles Glaster described East Cleveland in his 2001 account, he mentioned the measurable conditions – crime, poverty, subsidized housing – but he cast them in terms of the public understanding: “people know about [them],” he says, “people tend to stay away from East Cleveland.”

Former resident Robert Dreifort’s description of East Cleveland’s integration process demonstrates the way white communities fled the city based on “fear and ignorance.”

Dreifort suggests that when East Cleveland residents saw African Americans moving into their communities, they recalled nearby neighborhoods of Hough and Glenville, both in Cleveland, which transitioned rapidly into black communities in the middle of the century and were hosts to major race riots during the Civil Rights Movement.

Following the riots, those neighborhoods had

18

a negative identity in the public eye, and East Clevelanders feared that their community could soon look the same way. For some white households, that fear led them to move to another community. For others who either could not or did not want to move, there was another available option: switch school systems. Dreifort, who attended East Cleveland’s Shaw High School in the 1950s before the major integration of the city, implies that white residents of newly black Cleveland neighborhoods would falsify addresses to attend his still predominantly white school.26

towards specific areas based on their values, cost of living, and available amenities.

In the case of East Cleveland, however, a superimposed identity, based on local precedents, racial stereotypes, and lack of understanding, exacerbates and compounds the problems the community already faces.

The people and institutions who construct these identities are not those who bear their consequences.

During the 1960s and into the present day, the Forest Hills neighborhood of East Cleveland remains one of the wealthiest and whitest communities in the city. It is also geographically separated from the other neighborhoods – perched atop the steep hill and ridgeline that becomes neighboring Cleveland Heights and buffered by Forest Hills Park. In the 1960s, young children in this neighborhood attended Caledonia Elementary School, which served the isolated neighborhoods abutting Cleveland Heights.

As those children grew older they moved to Kirk Junior High School, which served the entire city. Between 1960 and 1967, there was little population change (neither in number nor demographic) in the Forest Hills neighborhood, but the Caledonia School System saw a significant drop in its enrollment. Further, many students who attended Caledonia Elementary School during that decade did not continue on to Kirk Junior High the following year.27 This study indicates that as white families watched their neighborhood integrate, they pulled their children out of public schools. While we cannot pinpoint the exact motivations of each singular household, the collective reaction of white families to an integrating neighborhood contributed to the gradual racial segregation of the East Cleveland school system.

“It used to be one of Cuyahoga County’s best communities. Now, this is the ghetto. Looks like the ghetto, feels like the ghetto, seems like the ghetto.”

Public perception plays a significant role in the identity and success of any neighborhood.

We expect that different groups will gravitate

THE IMAGE OF EAST CLEVELAND

- Earl Wilson, East Cleveland Resident, 201328 Today, although East Cleveland is no longer undergoing rapid demographic change, its public identity still plays a large role in determining conditions in the city. Like in the provocative video titles on YouTube, terms like ‘ghetto’ and ‘blight’ appear frequently in language about East Cleveland and are consequently grafted onto the city’s public image. In his seminal book Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, The History of an Idea, author Mitchell Duneier makes the case for an increased understanding of the history and implications of the term “ghetto.” What originated as a word to describe a segregated community of Jews has morphed in the American consciousness to a taboo term describing neighborhoods of concentrated crime, poverty, and blackness. Duneier names Pepsi-filled baby bottles and hyperpoliced neighborhoods as among the many layers of cultural signals that get conflated into a complex understanding of “ghetto.”29 In Arthur Little’s 1969 report on East Cleveland, he writes, “it is not a slum or a ghetto; its housing is not seriously deteriorated, its city services are not

inadequate, and its schools are not badly overcrowded, understaffed, or poorly run.”30 The report reveals that even when the city did not meet their definition of a slum or ghetto, there was a public consciousness – perhaps a public fear – that it had the ability to become one. In 2019, East Cleveland cannot satisfy most of the criteria this report laid out half a century ago. Today, their statement reads like a sort of ironic foreshadowing and begs the question, can the expectation of ‘ghetto’ and ‘blight’ breed ‘ghetto’ and ‘blight’?

One of the most significant consequences of the correlation between East Cleveland’s concentrated black population and the city’s distressed condition is the ease with which the public can laminate the two characteristics into a causal relationship. Yoonmee Chang’s description of the “culturalization of class” in her 2008 book Writing the Ghetto describes the phenomenon through which we perceive socio-economic status to be an inherent element of a minority culture.31 In this case, we can use Chang’s term to describe the way public perception of East Cleveland grafts poverty and its consequences onto “African American culture.” This tendency is particularly dangerous, not only because it perpetuates reductive stereotypes and reinforces prejudices against a disadvantaged community, but because it influences public action. East Cleveland was in part formed by the racial biases of its community, and the city continues to struggle with consequences of past and current prejudices.

Scholars like Richard Rostein describe the ghetto with two critical characteristics: a government-supported siloing of a minority group into certain geographical areas and the establishment of barriers to their exit.32 One could easily fit this formula onto East Cleveland, but whether you view East Cleveland as a ghetto likely has a lot to do with how you understand the term.

‘Blight,’ once a kind of horticultural disease and now a physical indicator of neglected

AGO R A 13

19

RICHARDS

“Seems Like the Ghetto”

landscapes, is similarly sticky in its application to urban environments. In 1975, an article about East Cleveland in Call & Post newspaper noted, “vacant homes and buildings create an appearance of blight.”33 By employing the phrase “appearance of” before the word “blight,” the author suggests that vacant buildings do not create blight, but rather that they suggest it. This simple change of phrase powerfully recasts the condition of ‘blight’ as something we perceive and gives the viewer agency in building the community’s identity. When phrases like ‘ghetto’ or ‘blight’ are viewed through this lens, we understand them as applied terms with the power to influence real action within a community.

Scholars like historian Colin Gordon have previously cast ‘blight’ as an economic indicator – a source of speculation. An area can be deemed ‘blighted’ when it no longer holds the potential to generate income for investors.34 Although investors may have a rationale for why they think an area is or is not a good site for development, to call an area ‘blighted’ is to make a projective judgment based on a perceived future of a neighborhood. ‘Blighted’ communities are often condemned to disinvestment by governments and local corporations, making manifest their likelihood to fail and rendering the uncertain certain. East Cleveland is a

community with plenty of available land, located within walking distance of Cleveland’s booming University Circle neighborhood and only two miles from Lake Erie. These features could make investment in East Cleveland economically viable; however, negative stereotypes and racial anxieties prevent developers from investing in the community.

The visibility of East Cleveland’s troubles acts as justification for further discrimination and inhibits positive change. We need a deeper public understanding of the nuanced history of East Cleveland in order to invalidate the city’s current negative reputation and open the door for reinvestment.

CONCLUSION Those who see the City of East Cleveland as more than its struggles are leading smallscale resistance movements against the city’s negative reputation. Vivian Thompson, one of many determined residents, claims that she frequently goes directly to City Hall with her complaints about the City’s neglect.

“They know that I’m not going to allow that grass to go uncut,” she says, “I pay taxes.”35 A local nonprofit brings music programming to East Cleveland public schools in a time when schools are slashing arts budgets.36 Last winter, local volunteers gave their time

and labor to renovate East Cleveland’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center.37 While these actions are encouraging, the community will need more than grassroots movements to lift it out of decades of discriminatory practices; it will need investment at a structural level.

Andy Nikiforov, leader of the local Lutheran Housing nonprofit, notes,“people feel that, if somebody else cares about where I live, that makes it easier for me to care about where I live.”38 East Cleveland is a city with historical and cultural significance, beautiful turn of the century architecture, and residents whose stories and lives carry impactful narratives in the development and identity of the Cleveland area. There are many individuals and organizations who are fighting to repair the struggling community and many who find a lot to love about the city. When journalist Erick Trickey was writing his often-referenced 2001 article, “Welcome to East Cleveland,” he stopped and spoke to an anonymous man at the local train station. The man spoke about the poor living conditions in his apartment, his difficult landlord, and the commonpresence of drug dealers. Still, he explained that he wouldn’t trade his city for even the ritziest neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side: “Besides that,” he says, “I love East Cleveland…I’d rather be here than Pepper Pike.”39

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Figure 5: Map of East Cleveland, 1987 (eastcleveland.org, 2018).

20

Emily Richards is a current Master of Architecture candidate at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College in her final year of study. Originally from the Cleveland area, she has long been interested in the urban development of communities throughout the city. Emily also holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia.

AGO R A 13

21

“Seems Like the Ghetto”

ENDNOTES 1. Robert Dreifort, “Life in East Cleveland: 1940-1962,” East Cleveland History (blog), September 7, 2012, https://eastclevelandhistory.blogspot.com/2012/09/life-in-eastcleveland-1940-1962.html.

2. “East Cleveland,” Online Search, accessed August 21, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=east+cleveland.

3. United States Census Bureau, 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates, Table DP03, https://factfinder.census.gov/ faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF. 4. Nick Castele, “Oakwood Village Donates Ambulance to East Cleveland After Others Break Down,” Ideastream, October 3, 2016, https://www.ideastream.org/news/oakwood-village-donatesambulance-to-east-cleveland-after-others-break-down.

5. Emily Bamforth, “ODOT Lends East Cleveland 2 Salt Truck Since Both of Theirs were Broken,” Cleveland.com, December 15, 2016, https://www.cleveland.com/east-cleveland/2016/12/odot_lends_ east_cleveland_truc.html.

6. Eric Sandy, “East Cleveland City Council Isn’t Getting Much Done Following Recall Election,” Cleveland Scene, January 11, 2017, https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/01/11/ east-cleveland-city-council-mired-in-political-arguments-followingrecall-election.

7. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, s.v. “East Cleveland,” accessed December 23, 2018, https://case.edu/ech/articles/e/east-cleveland.

8. Albert Davis Taylor, Forest Hill Park, A Report on the Proposed Landscape Development (Caldwell: Caxton Press, 1938).

9. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland: Response to Urban Change (Oakland: University of California Press, 1969), 23.

10. Evan Comen, “East Cleveland Ranked America’s 4th Poorest City, Study Says,” Wkyc 3, June 18, 2018, https://www.wkyc.com/ article/money/economy/east-cleveland-ranked-americas-4thpoorest-city-study-says/95-565279641.

11. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland, 23-25.

12. Ibid., 26-28.

13. Daniel R. Kerr, Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), 198-199.

14. Andrew Weise, Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004), 213.

15. Ibid., 251.

20. Erick Trickey, “Welcome to East Cleveland,” Cleveland Scene February 8, 2001, https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/welcometo-east-cleveland/Content?oid=1476207.

21. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland, 56-61.

22. Weise, Places of the Own, 252.

23. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland, 27.

24. Weise, Places of the Own, 252.

25. Trickey, “Welcome to East Cleveland.”

26. Dreifort, “Life in East Cleveland.”

27. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland, 56-61.

28. Melissa Reid, “Homes to be Demolished in East Cleveland,” Fox 8 Cleveland, July 25, 2013, https://fox8.com/2013/07/25/homes-to-be-demolished-in-eastcleveland/.

29. Mitchell Duneier, Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea (New York: Macmillan Press, 2016), ix-xii.

30. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland, 3.

31. Yoonmee Chang, Writing the Ghetto: Class, Authorship, and the Asian American Enclave (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 25-69.

32. Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law (New York City: WW Norton and Company, 2017), xvi.

33. R. Dean-El, “East Cleveland in Focus,” Call and Post, 1975, https://www.callandpost.com/.

34. Colin Gordon, “Blighting the Way: Urban Renewal, Economic Development, and the Elusive Definition of Blight,” Fordham Urban Law Journal 31, no. 2 (2004): 321-322.

35. Thomas Ott and Jesse Tinsley, “Broken Sidewalks, Broken Dreams,” The Plain Dealer, September 28, 2003, https://www.plaindealer.com/.

36. James Henke, “Roots of American Music Enriches Lives Through Music,” Heights Observer, August 20, 2013, http://www. heightsobserver.org/read/2013/08/30/roots-of-american-musicenriches-lives-through-music.

37. Jordan Vandenberge, “Volunteers Help Make East Cleveland Rec Center Rise Again,” News 5 Cleveland, January 21, 2019, https:// www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/investigations/a-betterland/volunteers-help-make-east-cleveland-rec-center-rise-again.

38. Trickey, “Welcome to East Cleveland.”

39. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 211.

17. Ibid., 243-253.

18. Ibid., 214.

19. Arthur D. Little, Inc., East Cleveland, 48.

Ryan Henyard - Sapporo, Japan 22

23

Cameron Carley - Chicago, Illinois 24

25

I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the astonished spirit.

- Poet Heinrich Heine on London, 18271

D

The Role of Urban Planning in the Spread of Communicable Diseases Sam Henstell Dual Master of Public Health and Master of Urban and Regional Planning 2020

ABSTRACT 19th-century urban areas were defined by rapid population growth and industrialization that created filthy living conditions and poor health outcomes. Despite dramatic improvements to living conditions, cities remain a hotbed for the spread of communicable diseases. This paper seeks to highlight planning processes and actions – with a focus on urbanization, globalization, and land use planning – in order to show the impact urban planners can have on preventing the spread of diseases including cholera, the Spanish Flu of 1918, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and Ebola Viral Disease (EVD). Cities would not exist without the people who inhabit them; therefore it is imperative that city planners prioritize the health of residents.

26

uring the 19th century, London emerged as a center of commerce and industry.

As the city urbanized, the population rapidly grew from one to six million residents.

This unprecedented growth resulted in London becoming an “infamously filthy”2 city complete with cemeteries “bursting with stinky corpses,”3 air filled with soot, and streets lined with feces.4,5 These concerns were not simply aesthetic; the dirt and filth that defined 19th-century London caused serious health complications, including the spread of cholera.6,7,8 Three cholera epidemics struck London between 1832 and 1866, killing tens of thousands.9 Cholera can induce vomiting and diarrhea so severe that they lead to dehydration, and death can occur within hours. During the early 19th century, the prevailing theory was that cholera was an airborne disease that resulted from foul odors.10 Physician John Snow – familiar with the effects of gases through his studies on anesthetics – rejected this theory, hypothesizing instead that cholera was spread through invisible germs in food or water. To prove this, Snow conducted a survey of an infected neighborhood by drawing a map outlining all cholera-related deaths, finding a water pump at the center of the outbreak. Snow recommended the pump be removed, and the outbreaks ceased.11 Later, it was discovered that the water was being piped from a section of the Thames River contaminated with fecal matter.12 While the focus in high-income countries has shifted to the prevention and treatment of

diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, communicable diseases – infectious diseases that are transmissible by direct contact with an affected individual, through the individual’s discharges, or by indirect means, such as a vector13 – make up seven of the top ten causes of death in low-income nations.14 An increasingly globalized world has opened all nations up to the possibility of a deadly disease outbreak, even nations that previously believed these communicable diseases to be eradicated. In this paper, I expand upon the impact our increasingly urbanized and globalized world has on the spread of the flu, diarrheal diseases, and Severe Acute Respitory Syndrome (SARS).

Additionally, I discuss how land use planning can increase the exposure and spread of Ebola Viral Disease (EVD). By highlighting the unintended health consequences of urbanization, globalization, and land use planning, I will connect the urban environment to negative health outcomes to show that urban planners need to take an active role in working to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

URBANIZATION Efforts to improve “pathogenic and disorderly” cities inspired the fields of both urban planning and public health.15 Overcrowded housing conditions and poor sewage infrastructure were just some of the health-related conditions that inspired planners to come up with new visions for cities. For example, Ebenezer

AGO R A 13

27

HENSTELL

The Role of Urban Planning in the Spread of Communicable Diseases

Howard incorporated population density and air quality in his comparison of urban and country living in his famous book, Garden Cities of To-Morrow.16 Clarence Perry envisioned walkable neighborhoods filled with parks and green spaces in his Neighborhood Unit model.17 And the City Beautiful movement, which focused on civic grandeur and landscape architecture, emerged in response to the “dirt and disorder” that characterized cities.18 The advantages to living in urban areas (e.g., higher levels of social support, potential for political mobilization, and increased access to resources) are now well-documented.

However, cities can also facilitate the transmission of disease, and city planning initiatives have been essential during disease outbreaks.19 One example is the Spanish Flu of 1918, which decimated a staggering five percent of the world’s population. Taking lessons from past outbreaks, New York City’s health commissioner Royal Copeland developed a multi-pronged approach to tackle the flu. Copeland’s approach policed spitting in public spaces, complete with fines and the possibility of jail time, and included public health campaigns that advised on the proper way to cover a sneeze.

However, Copeland was most creative in creating a schedule that staggered workdays – and therefore transportation times – by industry. By staggering transportation times, Copeland helped decrease some of the physical interaction people might have with the infected, limiting the spread of disease.

Additionally, Copeland was able to avoid a sense of public chaos that might come with a large-scale shutdown of the City by keeping businesses, schools, and other spaces open.20 While Copeland was the City’s public health commissioner, reaching across disciplines to incorporate urban planning interventions allowed him to restrict the

28

spread of disease while also maintaining a sense of routine during a time of extreme crisis.

GLOBALIZATION Increased urbanization made connections between cities common, facilitating interregional trade. Techology and innovation during the 20th century also dramatically increased the scale, magnitude, speed, and impact of social interaction across regions.21 As a result of the process of globalization, cities that act as economic centers of the world have emerged, representing distinct points in an ever-expanding network of travel. But these cities do not only facilitate the exchange and spread of information, people, commodities, and capital; they also act as potential points for the spread of communicable diseases.22 Toronto was one city unprepared for the globalized spread of a disease. After a Canadian woman returning home from a vacation in Hong Kong died of SARS in 2003, the city was brought to an abrupt stop; everyday routines were disrupted as schools and workplaces were shut down to prevent the spread of the disease, creating a state of panic.23 While this was the first recognized case of the disease in Toronto, SARS eventually spread to an additional 225 people in the city, killing 38. The World Health Organization went so far as to take the exceptional measure of issuing a travel advisory for Toronto. While this advisory was in place for less than a week, it resulted in a loss of $260 million tourism dollars.24 In addition, the Province of Ontario spent an estimated $12 million on quarantining potentially infectious individuals, protecting the jobs of those quarantined, and setting up services for people who took time off to

quarantine themselves.25 Toronto was “a city under siege,” completely unprepared and ill-equipped for a disease outbreak, which resulted in both population and economic loss.26 Living in a globalized society ensures that the threat of transmission of communicable diseases no longer occurs only at the local level but at the international level as well. Planners often work to find creative solutions to emerging problems in urban areas and have a unique opportunity to prioritize preventing the spread of diseases such as SARS in their work.

LAND USE PLANNING In the mid-20th century, landscape architect Ian McHarg published Design with Nature, in which he argues for using ecological systems as a basis for planning. For McHarg, understanding the factors unique to a specific area is crucial in determining environments conducive to the development and expansion of cities. Design with Nature addresses health in a chapter on Philadelphia that details the impact of the physical environment on health outcomes, including syphilis, tuberculosis, diabetes, and heart disease. While McHarg’s mapping of these diseases is compelling, there is a lack of emphasis on how planners can then work to prevent these diseases.27 Additionally, McHarg does not specifically address the increased potential for transmission of zoonotic diseases – caused by infections that are spread between animals and humans – as a result of planning, despite the fact that zoonotic diseases have been present for centuries.28 Land use planners have the opportunity to work with public health officials not only to better understand where diseases are, but also to work to responsibly manipulate the physical environment in order

to prevent the spread of these diseases.

The spread of EVD in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the result of deforestation and infrastructure development is one example of what happens when disease transmission is not accounted for in the planning process. The DRC is an incredibly biodiverse country, which makes it susceptible to the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases, but these diseases only spread to humans if they are exposed to infected animals. Of particular concern is the traditional practice of hunting bushmeat, which includes non-domesticated animals such as bats and monkeys that often live in forests.29 EVD is spread through bodily fluids, which present many opportunities for transmission during the hunting process.

Rates of deforestation increased at alarming rates during the 20th century.30 As the forests disappear, animals may come out of the furthest recesses of the forest in search of resources, and humans may go farther into remaining forests to hunt. By eliminating a physical barrier such as a forest that serves to separate humans from wildlife, humans can inadvertently expose themselves to contact with disease-infected wildlife.31 Additionally, deforestation allows room for new transportation infrastructure, connecting previously unconnected cities and allowing for the rapid spread of disease.32 In 1995, an outbreak of EVD in Kikwit in the DRC killed 245 people but was largely isolated because of natural geography and a lack of transportation infrastructure. At the time, it would have taken more than a week to travel from Kikwit to the capital of the DRC, Kinshasa. By 2014, new infrastructure had shrunk travel time between the two cities to a mere eight hours. Kinshasa has a population of over 12 million, and there are international flights from the city every day.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that

AGO R A 13

29

HENSTELL

The Role of Urban Planning in the Spread of Communicable Diseases

someone could hunt in Kikwit and travel to Kinshasa to sell the kill, inadvertently supplying infected meat and exposing others who might then take an international flight, spreading EVD globally.33 Land use planning can serve to connect cities for trade of information, capital, and commodities; these connections can influence positive health outcomes by increasing social support networks and access to health care.

Planners can also build on McHarg’s work and incorporate knowledge of potential disease reservoirs into preparation for land use planning initiatives such as deforestation and infrastructure in order to avoid the unnecessary exposure and spread of deadly diseases.

REINTEGRATING URBAN PLANNING AND PUBLIC HEALTH Public health and urban planning have common origins rooted in an understanding of cities as unsanitary and disorganized spaces, requiring intervention strategies focused on creating cleaner and more restrained environments.34 This article aims to highlight the impact that an increasingly urban world has on the spread of communicable diseases by examining the role of urbanization, globalization, and land use planning on the spread of the Spanish Flu, SARS, and EVD. As planners, we are responsible for forming the spaces in which people live, work, and play. Because these environments impact our health, we need to prioritize health throughout the planning process.

While the fields of planning and public health diverged during the 20th century, there is much that can be done to work across disciplines to help prevent the spread of

30

communicable diseases.35 During a potential disease outbreak, planners can work with public health officials to map transportation networks in order to predict the spread of disease. This can alert cities to the potential danger of a disease and help to avoid another situation like the spread of SARS in Toronto. Public health and planning officials can also work more closely to address the impacts of climate change on water and food systems planning. As climate changerelated scenarios such as droughts occur with greater frequency, planners and public health officials will need to coordinate on everything from disaster relief initiatives to global food systems failures. Last, planners can return to their roots in addressing the “dirt and disorder” of cities by focusing on building sewage infrastructure for all.36 Until communication and collaboration are improved between these fields, the threat of another large-scale disease outbreak looms; by working in an interdisciplinary manner, planners and public health officials can focus on prevention rather than on treatment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sam Henstell is a dual Master of Public Health and Master of Urban and Regional Planning candidate at the University of Michigan. She received a Bachelor of Arts. in Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in Society and Environment from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012. After graduating from Berkeley, Sam taught high school in Washington, D.C. and worked at an education non-profit in Los Angeles. Sam is interested in how the built environment impacts health.

AGO R A 13

31

The Role of Urban Planning in the Spread of Communicable Diseases

ENDNOTES 1. P. D. Smith, “Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth

by Lee Jackson – Review,” The Guardian, January 1st, 2015, https:// www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/01/dirty-old- london-fightfilth-lee-jackson-review.

20. Linda Poon, “Remembering the ‘Mother of All Pandemics,’ 100 Years Later,” Citylab, September 18, 2018, https://www.citylab. com/life/2018/09/spanish-flu-outbreak-1918-new-york-city-publichealth-germ-city-museum/569947/.

3. Smith, “Dirty Old London,” 1.

21. David Held and Anthony Mcgrew, eds. The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003), 4, https://edisciplinas. usp.br/ pluginfile.php/4410549/mod_resource/content /0/David%20Held%2C%20Anthony%20McGrew-The%20Global%20 Transformations%20Reader_%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the %20Globalization%20Debate-Polity%20%282003%29.pdf.

4. Jackson, Dirty Old London.

22. Held and Mcgrew, eds. The Global Transformations Reader.

5. Smith, “Dirty Old London.”

23. T. Svoboda et al., “Public Health Measures to Control the Spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome during the Outbreak in Toronto,” N Engl J Med, 350 (2004):2352-2361, DOI:10.1056/ NEJMoa032111.

2. Lee Jackson, Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 1.

6. Maria Ganczak, “John Snow and Cholera – The Bicentenary of Birth,” PRZEGL EPIDEMIOL, 68 (2004): 89-92.

7. The London Gazette, “Cholera Epidemics in Victorian London,” accessed January 3rd, 2019, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/allnotices/content/100519.

8. David Vachon, “Doctor John Snow Blames Water Pollution for Cholera Epidemic,” UCLA Fielding School of Public Health – Department of Epidemiology, accessed January 2nd, 2019, https:// www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/ fatherofepidemiology.html.

24. Svoboda et al., “Public Health Measures.”

25. A. G. Gupta, C. A. Moyer, and D. T. Stern, “The Economic Impact of Quarantine: SARS in Toronto as a Case Study,” Journal of Infection, 50 (2005): 386-393.

26. Danyo Hawaleshka, “The Spread of SARS,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, December 16, 2013, https://www. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-spread-of-sars.

9. The London Gazette, “Cholera epidemics.”

10. Ganczak, “John Snow.”

11. David Vachon, “Doctor John Snow.”

12. Ganczak, “John Snow.”

13. World Health Organization, “Communicable Diseases,” accessed January 3rd, 2019, https://www.afro.who.int/health-topics/ communicable-diseases.

14. World Health Organization, “The Top 10 Causes of Death,” accessed January 3rd, 2019, https://www.who.int/news-room/factsheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death.

27. Ian McHarg, Design with Nature, (New York: The Natural History Press, 1969).

28. Nathan Wolfe, Claire Panosian Dunavan, and Jared Diamond, “Origins of Major Human Infectious Diseases,” Nature, 447 (2007): 279-283.

29. Young, “The Next Plague is Coming.”

30. Jonathan A. Patz et al., “Unhealthy Landscapes: Policy Recommendations on Land Use Change and Infectious Disease Emergence,” Environmental Health Perspective, 112, no. 10 (2004): 1093.

31. Patz et al., “Unhealthy Landscapes.”

15. Jason Corburn, “Reconnecting with Our Roots: American Urban Planning and Public Health in the Twenty-first Century,” Urban Affairs Review, 42, no. 5 (2007): 688-713.

16. Ebenezer Howard, “Garden Cities of To-Morrow,” Organization & Environment, 16, no. 1 (2003): 98-107, https://doi. org/10.1177/1086026602250259.

32. Nathan D. Wolfe, Peter Daszak, A. Marm Kilpatrick, Donald S. Burke, “Bushmeat Hunting, Deforestation, and Prediction of Zoonotic Diseases,” Emerging Infectious Diseases, 11, no. 12, (2005): 1822-1827.

33. Young, “The Next Plague is Coming.”

17. L. Llyod Lawhon, “The Neighborhood Unit: Physical Design or Physical Determinism?”Journal of Planning History, 8, no. 2 (2009): 111-132, https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1538513208327072.

34. Jason Corburn, “Reconnecting with Our Roots.”

18. John D. Fairfield, “The City Beautiful Movement, 18901920,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, April 2018, http://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/abstract/10.1093/ acrefore/ 9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e558?rskey=wqC6EG&result=1.

36. Fairfield, “The City Beautiful Movement, 1890-1920.”

35. Corburn, “Reconnecting with Our Roots.”

19. D. Vlahov, S. Galea, N. Freudenberg, “The Urban Health ‘Advantage,’” Journal of Urban Health, 82, no. 1 (2005): 1-4, doi: 10.1093/jurban/jti001.

Matthew Crilley - Tokyo, Japan 32

33

Megan Rigney - Rome, Italy 34

35

T

he late British social scientist and geographer Doreen Massey spoke of space as being alive – as being actively part of a collection of stories in which we are all physically living at any given moment. Massey argued that social spaces tell the stories of relationships between various entities. These relationships contain power. Within a certain space, one finds what Massey calls the “geography of power,” that the distribution of those relations mirrors the power relations with the society we have.”1

The Story of Public Space in Beirut’s Geography of Power Nadia Karizat Dual Master in Health Informatics and Master of Urban and Regional Planning 2021

ABSTRACT From 1975 until 1990, Lebanon experienced a Civil War that further entrenched sectarian division in its cities. In the country’s capital, Beirut, these divisions were most apparent.

Today, the fragmentation that resulted from the war persists, and little opportunity exists in Beirut’s built environment to facilitate integration. Public spaces in Beirut have been regularly transformed into what Dr. Aseel Sawalha calls “prohibited space,” spaces that were formerly inclusive but now exclude the majority of the population. Drawing from existing research on Lebanon’s real estate and urban development industries, this article demonstrates how development and reconstruction since the Civil War have shaped Beirut’s minimal public space into “prohibited space.” This analysis of three formerly public spaces argues that the self-interest of politicians, the legislation catered towards the real estate and development sector, and the prioritization of an internationally attractive cosmopolitan image have transformed Beirut’s built environment into privatized space. Public space in a divided city plays a valuable role in unifying fragmented neighborhoods by providing established spaces that produce interaction and communal understanding in a city that needs healing across sectarian divides.

36

From 1975 until 1990, Lebanon experienced a civil war resulting in immense property destruction, internal displacement of one million people, and the death of over 100,000 people.2 During this 15-year period, people’s relationships with the once heterogeneous spaces of the city changed. In Beirut, a demarcation line known as the Green Line divided the city along religious lines, forming a Christian East and Muslim West. Secure and controlled spaces, such as shopping centers with guards, became safe havens in the midst of rampant instability and fear.

Political parties often controlled these homogenous spaces according to their sects.3 To this day, the fragmentation of Beirut’s neighborhoods and its subdivisions persists.4 The spaces of Beirut contain a myriad of stories. Since the Civil War, different authors, including politicians, real estate companies, and civil society actors have fought to construct a dominant narrative for the city.

The relationship between power and space is intrinsically linked in these narratives. In the early 1990s, Lebanon’s prime minister Rafik Hariri saw post-war reconstruction as an opportunity to change Beirut’s image to appeal to global investors and compete with other cities internationally as a tourist destination. Hariri tasked joint-stock company Solidere to manage reconstruction of Beirut’s Central District (BCD). While only 30 percent of buildings in BCD were destroyed in the Civil War, 80 percent of those remaining were destroyed by Solidere.5

Harriri hoped to attract investors with the creation of a central district comparable with other city centers along the Mediterranean.6 This marked the start of political and economic interests converging to produce the real estate and development sector’s dominance in a country that was still reeling from sectarian divisions.

Power is at the forefront of the story of space in Beirut. Real estate development and private interests yield power to work together to maximize profit at the expense of communal spaces for residents of the city.

Looking at public space reveals issues of power and exclusion.7 In Beirut, public space has consistently transitioned into what Dr. Aseel Sawalha calls “prohibited space:”

Urban sites that were originally ‘public’ and within reach for the majority of the city residents but, because of the war and the various urban renewal projects, had become ‘private,’ that is, inaccessible and out of reach for the majority of the population.8 This privatization has been a direct consequence of real estate development and private interests. While politicians and developers profit, the people of Beirut and the country are left without public spaces to be part of a mingling public.

Beirut’s ‘geography of power’ shows the forces shaping three formerly public spaces into prohibited spaces: Beirut Souks, the Daliyeh waterfront, and Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach. The existance of public spaces in a divided city works to unify fragmented neighborhoods. However, the normalization of prohibited spaces in Beirut has actively reduced opportunities for healing across sectarian divides.

AGO R A 13

37

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC SPACES IN BEIRUT Since the Civil War, construction has targeted public spaces in Beirut with the justification of its potential addition to “the vibrancy of economic liberalism and a booming real estate market.”9 The aftermath of the Civil War presented an opportunity to use reconstruction as a way to bring Lebanon’s various communities together; instead, the government allocated time and resources to make way for development.

These investments resulted in a series of transformations that made much of Beirut exclusive. Instead of aiding the social cohesion of society, Beirut’s development has created exclusive spaces from those that were heterogeneous and accessible to a majority of the population before the Civil War.

KARIZAT

The Story of Public Space in Beirut’s Geography of Power

What was once heterogeneous and alive has been reconstructed to cater to the elite, propagating further division.

BEIRUT SOUKS The reconstruction of Beirut’s historical market area serves as a prime example of economic and state interests converging at the expense of local residents’public spaces.

Prior to the Civil War, Beirut’s city center had a famous market (suk/souk/suq) area that consisted of three streets: Ayyas, Tawileh, and Jamil.12 According to Samir Khalaf, “this old, dense street grid with access gates, open squares, and sheltered water fountains was scaleable, colorful, and accommodated a dazzling variety of outlets, ranging from the little mangy-looking shops with makeshift vending stalls to specialized stores and upmarket fashionable boutiques” (Figure 1).13

Real estate and construction’s contributions to Lebanon’s gross domestic product (GDP) have risen from roughly 13 percent in 1973 to 21 percent in 2014.10 State actors and members of political parties across sectarian divisions are directly invested in real estate and construction.11 Layers of investment conceal political actors’ direct connections to developments, a particularly beneficial strategy with controversial developments that have received intense political backlash.

Beirut Souks and two sites on the Mediterranean Coast, the Daliyeh Waterfront and Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach, reveal overlaps between the individuals writing the laws and those serving to gain from development.

Those in power permit the elite to replace Beirut’s formerly public spaces with real estate development. Before the war, people across class, sectarian,and gender lines frequented Beirut’s public spaces. While divisions exist in every society, space for interaction and moments of unity existed.

While these public spaces were once open and accessible, they now prohibit access.

38

1994. While Hariri was heavily involved in real estate prior to being prime minister, many people believe that Hariri owned more than 50 percent of Solidere’s shares at the time of reconstruction in the 90s.15 The 200 hectares the company redeveloped was valued at nearly 25 percent of Lebanon’s GDP.16 With the passing of Law 117, Solidere demolished the souk and replaced it with a shopping mall, banking area, and a series of expensive gated communities.17

question anyone who may seem suspicious or even forbid entry. In addition, vendors and beggars are forbidden access to keep the space secured, ordered and clean.19 All of these guidelines establish a ‘classy cosmopolitan’ urban environment that works to solely permit those who fit a certain image.

The surveillance makes people who do not fit into this image, based on their religious sect or income levels, unwelcome and excluded from the space.20

In a panel at the Lebanese American University in 2015, Solidere’s urban planning manager, Amira Solh, emphasized the dangers of relying on private interests to create public space, saying that “private interests want a return on their goods, so therefore they want it to be public insomuch as it serves them...so there is kind of a need to say this is controlled.”18 Today, local residents recall the markets with nostalgia and remember them as a space where a diverse group of people could exist and interact in the haphazardness of the souks.

The Beirut Souks in BCD are part of a trend in Beirut’s urban development that leads to exclusive affordability-based senses of ‘belonging.’ In other words, it leads to more isolated individuals who engage with different spaces based on what they can afford.

While the BCD and its historical market once served as a public space for the intermingling of all identities, the reduction of affordability and accessibility restricts access to the space. Nagle argues that “the reconstruction of the city center further obscures and even reinforces the contemporary process of postwar ethnic segmentation and territorialization of the city by constructing public space that could be used as a vital meeting point for citizens to meet and interact.”21 Beirut needs public space to help with post-war healing, but this trend of urbanization seen in BCD privatizes space and perpetuates division, a trend which also exists on the Mediterranean Coast.

THE MEDITERRANEAN COAST: DALIYEH AND RAMLET AL-BAYDA BEACH Figure 1: Beirut Souks in the 1960s (OldTime Beirut, 2018).

In 1991, immediately after the Civil War’s end, the Hariri government passed Law 117, which “involved the erasure of right-holder’s claims to 5,043 homes and apartments, 7,092 shops and businesses, 5,597 offices and 1,368 workshops and 702 warehouses, 343 hotels, 361 restaurants and 45 bars that had animated the pre-war suq.”14 Prime Minister Hariri appointed the joint stock company, Solidere, to handle reconstruction of BCD in

Figure 2: Beirut Souks by N. Karim (Wikipedia Commons, 2011).

Beirut Souks, like much of what Solidere considers public space in BCD, are now under surveillance by security guards who limit their uses. Guards are permitted to

Historically, Lebanon’s coast served as a place for the public. In 1915, a law declared that “the sea’s shore until the farthest area reached by waves during winter, as well as sand and rockshores, belong to the public.”22 Additionally, Beirut’s 1954 Master Plan banned any construction in Zone 10, an area owned by different families consisting of various seaside plots spanning from the Raouche (Daliyeh waterfront area) to Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach.23 Inspired by the French style of coastal care, the Lebanese government entrusted the care of the coast to the families who owned plots of land along

AGO R A 13

39

it.24 Since the end of the Civil War, however, the Mediterranean coast has grown to hold exclusive spaces like resorts and hotels that are not accessible to a large proportion of the population.25 Through a series of laws passed by the well-connected financial elite and politicians chasing personal and economic interests, real estate developments have transformed public spaces, like the Daliyeh waterfront and Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach, into prohibited spaces no longer accessible to the majority of the population.

Daliyeh Waterfront: Part of a Prohibited Coastline

passing of Decree 4810 allowed “owners of property adjacent to the sea to privately exploit the maritime public domain.”27 This was only permitted with the condition that, if any public domain was used, 25 percent of the land must be given to the municipality of Beirut for public use.28 During the Civil War, many developers and financial elites took advantage of the chaos and began building resorts along the coast.

Though this was illegal, many of the elite, and often leaders of various militias in the war, became members of parliament and gained the ability to transform legislation.29 In 1989, in the final stretch of the Civil War, Decree 169 shifted the currents in favor of real estate development. The decree not only eliminated the 25 percent requirement mandated in former Decree 4810 (1966), but it also allowed for construction in Zone 10.30 Decree 169 was heavily contested by the civil society and coalitions filing a lawsuit against the Lebanese government for the development project on the Daliyeh. Organizers of the lawsuit claimed the 1989 decree was not publicized nor approved by governmental bodies and argued that “developers held close ties to the politicians who passed it.”31

The Daliyeh, also known as Daliyeh of Raouche, is a rocky waterfront area in Beirut.

In the midst of the reconstruction frenzy along the coast following the Civil War, the Daliyeh served as an inclusive place where working-class families could picnic and swim. In 2014, however, the area was closed to make way for a development project that would cover the majority of the natural outcrop.26

Prior to the passage of the decree, a member of the Al-Daher family, a businessman and member of the financial elite, wished to develop the Mövenpick Hotel along the coast.

While the development would have violated former decrees, the Al-Daher family had many connections amongst the powerful militias and politicians of the time. They developed the hotel under the name of the Merriland Company. Amir Saksouk-Sasso and Nadine Bekdache argue that “decree number 169 was tailored and issued in 1989 to enable the Merriland Company to build a large hotel project in the bay, contravening existing legislation.”32

The legal framework that allowed for developments like those on the Daliyeh and other parts of the coast began with decrees and laws passed in the 1960s. In 1966, the

The Daliyeh used to be a place that welcomed those who had lost access to the sea due to restrictive entrance fees.33 Over the years, it “provided sustainable livelihood for many

Figure 3: Daliyeh of Raouche in the 1960s (OldTime Beirut, 2018).

40

KARIZAT

The Story of Public Space in Beirut’s Geography of Power

Figure 4: Daliyeh of Raouche Waterfront Fenced Off (World Monument Fund, 2014).

Figure 5: Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach with Lancaster Eden Bay resortdevelopmentin the background. (Greg Demarque/Executive).

low-income city dwellers and hosted many cultural activities such as the Kurds’ Nawroz [New Year].”34 In 2016, The Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh of Raouche added Daliyeh to the World Monument Fund’s (WMF) watch list, supporting its heritage preservation.

Despite this, a fence continues to surround the Daliyeh, a space that exists as part of the 20 percent of remaining coastline under threat of development.35

Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach: A Shrinking Public Beach In recent years, laws and regulations leaving much of the coastline at the disposal of real estate and construction have endangered and infringed upon Beirut’s last remaining public beach, Ramlet Al-Bayda. In a country with hot summers and unreliable electricity, many low-income residents saw the beach as a refuge and space to socialize.36 And yet, due to neglect by the municipality, the last public beach in Beirut was littered with trash and poorly maintained,37 and sewage disposal contributed to dangerous levels of bacteria in the water.38 In 2017, a five-star resort, Lancaster Eden Bay, opened on the Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach.

At over 22,000 square meters, the resort boasts to potential renters “the exclusivity

of your own private community in the city.”39 Throughout the resort’s development process, residents organized to protest what they considered an infringement on their rights to the beach and sea. In response to the protests, the Lebanese State Council suspended the construction permit. Despite resistance to the resort’s development, construction persisted to completion, successfully turning much of the last remaining public beach exclusive.40 The creation of the resort and the addition of yet another prohibited space along Beirut’s Mediterranean coast shrank an already small public space.

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SPACE IN A DIVIDED CITY The cases of Beirut Souks, the Daliyeh waterfront, and Ramlet Al-Bayda Beach exemplify Christine Mady’s argument that “social relations and practices that generate heterogeneous public spaces seem to be eradicated not only by immediate conflicts but also by post-conflict narratives.”41 The nature and politics of post-Civil War reconstruction and urban development has created a narrative that excludes and actively reduces access to public spaces. United Nations (UN) Habitat defines public space

AGO R A 13

41

as promoting social cohesion and pluralism, serving as spaces where a diverse group of people can come together and interact.42 About two-thirds of Lebanese citizens were uprooted from their communities during the Civil War, and these displaced groups integrated themselves into more homogenous and exclusive spaces, creating a stark sectarian redistribution across cities like Beirut. For example, the Muslim population of East Beirut shifted from 40 percent to only five percent.43 Samir Khalaf argues that while this redistribution may have helped certain groups survive the fighting of the war, it is now making it difficult “as [communities] are considering options for rearranging and sharing common spaces and forging unified national identities.”44 Sectarianism’s prevalence in the social and political life of residents has not weakened in the post-war era. Ethnic quotas exist throughout Lebanon’s political framework.

For example, in 1989, the Taif Agreement established what Hiba Bou Akar calls a “sectarian-based power-sharing system.”45 This agreement solidified a governmental structure with a quota mandating a Maronite Christian President, Sunni Muslim Prime Minister, and Shiite Muslim Speaker, and set a balance of Christian and Muslim representatives for parliamentary seats.46 Not only did the law explicitly mandate sectarian division,but it created a system in which sectarian parties managed welfare services.47 These legal structures culminated to create a society that encourages loyalty to one’s sectarian identity over a national one.48 Public spaces provide an opportunity; they increase chances for interaction amongst all people. When real estate developments infringe upon and destroy public spaces, these chances for interaction decrease.

NAHNOO (meaning we in Arabic) is a prominent organization working to protect and improve public spaces to support better navigation and opportunities in a sectarian society. NAHNOO believes public spaces play a primary role in bringing different

42

KARIZAT

The Story of Public Space in Beirut’s Geography of Power

communities together. They regard the lack of public spaces in Lebanon “as a crucial factor contributing to continuing social tensions within Lebanon’s urban agglomerates.”49 NAHNOO is one of many forces fighting the privatization of Beirut’s public spaces and defending Beirut’s built environment from being completely altered by real estate development.

The presence or absence of public space sends a clear message about who is deemed valuable by those making decisions regarding the built environment. Hiba Bou Akar is part of a research-oriented art collective, Dictaphone Group, working to reunite Lebanese citizens with public spaces. In 2016, Bou Akar told Huck Magazine: “When discussing public space in Beirut, the State talks in terms of an abstract citizen that fits a very specific idea of what an appropriate user should be – someone who looks and behaves as a ‘proper’ middle-upper class European citizen and that’s not based on what the public really is.”50 This desire to cater to “appropriate users” results in exclusive urban spaces reproducing an urban environment that boosts real estate value and thus creates an economic incentive for private and state interests to continue producing prohibited spaces.

After the Civil War, the policies governing urban development made it easier for real estate to build developments such as resorts and expensive shopping malls at the expense of public space. Profit has been prioritized over the communities’ social cohesion.51 The construction of these ‘prohibited’ spaces has become so normalized, and the state is making little investment to preserve the continuously shrinking public space of Beirut. This lack of investment has persisted since the 1990s. A government wishing to unify a country after a conflict so focused on religious division should invest not only to protect existing public spaces, but to create more of them – to actively produce genuinely public spaces that increase chances for integration and the construction of a national

CONCLUSION

identity like “historic buildings, monuments, memorials and landmarks.”52 The practice of investing in public spaces in Beirut could change the lives and behaviors of its people. Public space fosters the practice of being part of a public. Doreen Massey argues that place can change people through encouraging a certain ‘practice’ of place. Place forces people to negotiate constantly – they must operate in relation to the actions and lives of others. Massey believes that place is an “arena where negotiation is forced upon us.”53 Jane Jacobs also echoes this idea in her concept of the intricate street ballet of a city. She believes each person in a city is part of “an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole.”54 The conversion of public space in Beirut to prohibited space has actively constricted these negotiations and dances between people of different religious sects and social classes. It has removed opportunities to practice togetherness, a practice the people of Beirut and Lebanon cannot afford to lose.

At the forefront of Beirut’s ‘geography of power’ lies the self-interest of politicians, the legislation catered towards the real estate and development sector, and the prioritization of an ‘internationally attractive’ cosmopolitan image. Its social spaces tell the story of uneven power dynamics with the average citizen ignored on its pages.

Prohibited spaces subject the citizens of Beirut to a conditional belonging based on affordability and accessibility. Whether replacing diverse markets with upperclass shops or constructing a resort that covers the coast, the end result is the same: formerly inclusive spaces are now exclusive.

This exclusivity erases the pluralism that previously existed in the same spaces.

In a country with sectarian division engrained into communities’ memories and daily lived experiences, it is incredibly important to invest in public spaces. While real estate development provides economic benefits, designing spaces for all people provides an equal, if not greater, social value. A city with spaces for the people, not just those who fit the image of a globally competitive city, creates opportunities for interaction that can lessen tension between communities of different religious identities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nadia Karizat is a dual Master of Health Informatics and Master of Urban and Regional Planning candidate at the University of Michigan, concentrating in Global and Comparative Planning. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Arab and Muslim American Studies from the University of Michigan in 2018. Her interests lie in accessibility: access to information, access to opportunities to be healthy, and access to a built environment designed to optimize the lived human condition.

AGO R A 13

43

KARIZAT

The Story of Public Space in Beirut’s Geography of Power

ENDNOTES

22. Richard Hall, “Beirut’s Only Public Beach Is about to Be Taken Over by an Exclusive Private Resort,” Global Post, 2017.

1. Social Science Bites, “Doreen Massey on Space,” Social Science Space, 2013, http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2013/02/ podcastdoreen-massey-on-space/.

23. Saksouk-Sasso, Bekdache, and Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space?”

47. Nagle, “Defying State Amnesia and Memorywars.”

48. Ibid.

2. Hiba Bou Akar, For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

25. Ibid.

26. Battah, “A City without a Shore.”

4. Alice Fordham, “Ghosts of The Past Still Echo in Beirut’s Fragmented Neighborhoods,” NPR, 2014.

28. American Univeristy of Beirut (AUB), “Legal Timeline: Chronology of Laws and Decrees Affecting Beirut’s Coastal Development,” 2017.

5. John Nagle, “Defying State Amnesia and Memorywars: NonSectarian Memory Activism in Beirut and Belfast City Centres,” Social & Cultural Geography, 2018.

29. Richard Hall, “Is Lebanon’s Beach Privatisation a Corrupt Playground of the Nation’s Wealthy?” The National, 2019.

6. Aseel Sawalha, Reconstructing Beirut: Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab City (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2010), 27.

30. AUB, “Legal Timeline: Chronology of Laws and Decrees Affecting Beirut’s Coastal Development.”

7. Doreen Massey, For Space (London: SAGE Publications Inc., 2005).

31. Battah, “A City Without a Shore.”

9. Abir Saksouk-Sasso, Nadine Bekdache, and Mohammad Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space? A Critical Analysis of Lebanon’s Real Estate Sector,” 2015.

10. Bruno Marot, “Growth Politics from the Top Down,” City 22, no. 3 (2018): 324–40, doi:10.1080/13604813.2018.1484640.

11. Saksouk-Sasso, Bekdache, and Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space?”

12. Sami Khalaf, Heart of Beirut: Reclaiming the Bourj (London, UK: Saqi Books, 2006).

13. Ibid., 153.

14. Najib B. Hourani, “Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Citizenship Agendas: Lessons from Beirut,” Citizenship Studies 19, no. 2 (2015): 184–99.

15. Sawalha, Reconstructing Beirut.

27. Saksouk-Sasso, Bekdache, and Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space?”

52. Alexander C. Diener and Joshua Hagen, The City as Power: Urban Space, Place, and National Identity (Lanham, MD: The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, 2019).

53. Massey, For Space, 154.

54. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books(New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1961),

34. Tadamun, “Community Organization and the Fight for Public Spaces in Beirut,” Tadamun, 2017.

35. Hall, “Is Lebanon’s Beach Privatisation a Corrupt Playground of the Nation’s Wealthy?”

36. Fiona Broom, “Beirut’s Last Public Beach Has Become a Battleground in the City’s Fight for Public Space,” Citymetric, 2016.

37. Harb, “Public Spaces and Spatial Practices.”

38. Scott Preston, “The Untouchable Hotel: Urban Activists View Eden Bay as a Symbol of Dysfunction,” Executive Magazine, 2018.

39. Lancaster Eden Bay, “The Hotel,” Lancaster Eden Bay, n.d.

12.

17. Ibid.

41. Mady, “Public Space Activism in Unstable Contexts.”

18. Habib Battah, “A City without a Shore: Rem Koolhaas, Dalieh and the Paving of Beirut’s Coast,” The Guardian, 2015.

42. Nazzal and Chinder, “Lebanon Cities’Public Spaces.”

21. Nagle, “Defying State Amnesia and Memorywars.”

51. Saksouk-Sasso, Bekdache, and Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space?”

33. Hall, “Is Lebanon’s Beach Privatisation a Corrupt Playground of the Nation’s Wealthy?”

40. Maryam Nazzal and Samer Chinder, “Lebanon Cities’ Public Spaces,” The Journal of Public Space 3, no. 1 (2018): 119–52.

20. Hourani, “Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Citizenship Agendas.”

50. Laurance Cornet, “Re-Mapping Beirut One Art Project at a Time,” Huck Magazine, 2016.

32. Saksouk-Sasso, Bekdache, and Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space?”

16. Nagle, “Defying State Amnesia and Memorywars.”

19. Mona Harb, “Public Spaces and Spatial Practices: Claims from Beirut,” Jadaliyya, 2013, 5.

44

24. Ibid.

3. Christine Mady, “Public Space Activism in Unstable Contexts: Emancipation from Beirut’s Postmemory,” in Public Space Unbound: Urban Emancipation and the Post-Political Condition, 1st ed. (Routledge, 2018), 189–206, doi:10.1093/jpids/pix105/4823046.

8. Sawalha, Reconstructing Beirut, 11.

49. Saksouk-Sasso, Bekdache, and Ayoub, “Private Interest Closing Social Space?”

43. Khalaf, Heart of Beirut, 115.

44. Ibid., 120.

45. Bou Akar, For the War Yet to Come.

46. Karam Karam, “The Taif Agreement: New Order, Old Framework,” Accord, no. 24 (2012): 36–39, doi:10.1177/105382590602900212.

AGO R A 13

45

Brooke Bacigal - Amsterdam, Netherlands 46

47

T

Public Housing Development and Provision Structure in China Weican Zuo PhD in Architecture 2018

ABSTRACT Public housing development has been a critical part of the social welfare system in China since the economic reform in 1978. This paper examines China’s contemporary public housing development and attempts to understand the critical factors that affect its provision structure, which has made the current implementation of public housing programs contentious. More specifically, it examines China’s political and fiscal structures as well as its land system in relation to its public housing implementation and seeks to uncover why the land parcels allocated to public housing projects are mostly located along the urban fringe. This research has identified three major factors that have led local governments to locate public housing projects mostly in the suburbs: the intergovernmental system, fiscal burdens in the local implementation process, and political risks that local governments would face in the provision of land. Local governments have taken advantage of the decentralized authority of policy implementation by locating public housing projects in less-developed suburban areas in order to minimize their fiscal burdens and political risks.

48

iantongyuan and Huilongguan are two mega public housing projects that were built in Beijing, China in the late 1990s and early 2000s and house a population of over 800,000. Setting a record in November 2013, more than 20,000 commuters flooded the subway stations in the north TiantongyuanHuilongguan area in just two hours.1 Researchers from Capital Normal University and Beijing Union University conducted a joint survey on the issue of job-housing imbalance in 2012 and found that people who live in public housing communities have, on average, the longest commuting time and distance.2 China is at a critical stage in re-evaluating its development of public housing, an essential tool in restructuring its welfare system that would allow for the creation of decent homes for its growing population in the next decade. The local implementation of public housing programs remains contentious and unsatisfactory in spite of the strong political will expressed by the central government.3 There are two main “unintended consequences” related to public housing programs: one is that there is an insufficient supply of public housing units; the other is that public housing projects are always located in relatively disadvantaged places such as the urban fringe, where there is a lack of adequate access to employment opportunities and public services.4 Although the provision of public housing is generally considered an important policy step, and governments have invested a huge amount of money to build public housing units, public satisfaction with public housing is lower than the government’s expectation.

This paper focuses on understanding what shapes China’s public housing development in order to uncover the barriers impeding local implementation and the factors that lead to unintended consequences. First, this paper examines the historical development of public housing policy in China. The second section explores how China’s political and fiscal structures, as well as its land system, have shaped the current public housing provision structure, and then elaborates

on the critical factors that have deeply influenced its provisioning and site selection processes. This research aims to help city planners and policymakers think about how to integrate public housing development in future city development.

HISTORY OF CHINA’S PUBLIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT China’s public housing development has experienced three phases after the economic reform in 1978. From 1979 to 1998, the welfare housing system maintained the legacy of communist public housing policies from the Mao period. From 1998 to 2007, the Central Government launched the modern public housing system. From 2007 to present, public housing development has rapidly expanded.

Before the 1980s, under the in-kind socialist housing distribution scheme, China did not have a private housing market. In 1981, over 82 percent of urban housing was publicly owned and was built by state-owned enterprises or other state organizations.5 Work units allocated housing to their employees as a kind of welfare; low rent compensated low wages. This welfare housing system, however, was an impediment to economic growth.6 During the 1980s and 1990s, China enacted urban housing privatization reform through which housing units were sold to sitting tenants at a discount.7 In the 1990s, China’s housing provision system shifted towards being more market-oriented, which aided the revitalization of the Chinese urban economy.

In 1998, the central government issued A Notification from the State Council on Further Deepening the Reform of the Urban Housing System and Accelerating Housing Construction, which terminated the welfarehousing provision and introduced a two-tier public housing system consisting of Cheap

AGO R A 13

49

Public Housing Development and Provision Structure in China ZU0

Rental Housing (CRH) and Economic and Comfortable Housing (ECH).8 The former was rental-oriented, in the form of heavily subsidized social welfare targeting lowincome households, whereas the latter was homeownership-oriented, and provided incentives for developers to construct lowcost housing that would be sold to low- to middle-income households at governmentcontrolled prices. ECH was designated as the predominant form of housing provision in this housing reform (SC[1998]No.23). The intention was, on the one hand, to increase home ownership and promote housing commodification and marketization and, on the other hand, to stimulate domestic consumption in response to the Asian financial crisis.9 Nevertheless, the interest in public housing development rapidly waned after the 1998 housing reform; the national focus shifted towards economic growth, leading to a real estate boom.10 In 2003, the State Council officially terminated the designation of ECH as the main form of housing provision (SC[2003]No.18), and since then the role of public housing has been downgraded dramatically. The post-reform housing provision emphasized the role of housing in economic development while overlooking the housing needs of low- and low-to-middle-income households, leading to a rapid increase in housing prices.

Within a short period of time, housing affordability became a pressing social issue resulting in tremendous social discontent.

Under strong social and political pressures, in 2007 the central government brought public housing programs back on the agenda and committed to meeting the basic housing needs of low-income households through a revival and expansion of public housing programs (SC[2007]No.24).11 Since then, China has established a comprehensive public housing system, and public housing development has experienced a ‘Great Leap Forward.’ In order to counteract the negative shocks of the global financial crisis in 2008, China released a plan to construct 7.47 million public housing units across the

50

country (SCGO[2008]No.131) as a key part of the four trillion RMB economic stimulus package.12 In 2010, China’s 12th Five-Year Plan officially included public housing as a critical component of its social welfare and public service system.13 In 2011, the Premier announced the plan to construct 36 million public housing units between 2011 and 2015, aiming to accommodate one-fifth of the Chinese urban population.14 Nonetheless, China is still experiencing rocketing housing prices. For example, the national-level mean housing price soared from 3576 RMB per square meter in 2008 to 7203 RMB per square meter in 2016.15 Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his speech at the 10th collective learning meeting of the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2013, described the evolution of public housing policy as “the inevitable requirement to promote social justice and ensure the public sharing the achievements of reform and development.”16

INTER-GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE AND PUBLIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT In order to understand the structure of the current public housing system in China, it is necessary to examine China’s political structure, fiscal structure, and land system, which have all played a role in public housing implementation. It is then possible to draw the general framework of China’s public housing provision system and determine the three major factors that influence China’s public housing development, as well as understand how national policy design has shaped the local implementation of public housing programs, including spatial patterns of public housing development.

Political Structure China’s political structure mixes elements

of both centralization and decentralization.

The Chinese government has five levels: central, provincial, prefectural, county, and township. The latter four are referred to as “local governments.”17 According to Xu, China’s inter-governmental system is a “regional decentralized authoritarian system […] characterized as a combination of political centralization and economic regional decentralization.”18 Under this system, the central government has the authority to mandate and instruct lowerlevel governments, yet at the same time lower-level governments have the ability to impact national economic and political development.19 China’s political regime is characterized by rigorous personnel controls, which hold local officials liable for failing to fulfill topdown political mandates.20 Local officials are annually evaluated by higher-level officials based on their political performance.

Therefore, local officials have a strong political incentive to promote economic growth, which is the main evaluation criterion for their promotion or dismissal.21 However, the Central Government also assigns annual and long-term public housing construction tasks for local officials as another evaluation criterion, expecting that public housing programs will contribute to housing affordability and alleviate public discontent.22 A conflict thus arises for local governments, which are expected to provide sufficient public housing, often at the expense of economic growth.

Fiscal Structure Before 1978, China had a highly centralized fiscal system. The Central Government collected and allocated all revenue.

From 1979 to 1993, fiscal power and responsibilities were decentralized to local governments, giving priority to local economic growth and signaling their expectation of an efficient allocation of public resources.23 This move helped China’s

economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s but led to a sharp decline in the central government’s revenue and administrative powers. To strengthen its fiscal and political position, the Central Government enacted a tax reform in 1994.24 Under this tax reform, the Central Government was able to collect increased tax revenue through a valueadded tax, business tax, and enterprise tax. While local governments still had the same spending responsibilities (e.g., public services, public housing provision, etc.), their share of tax revenue shrank. As compensation, the Central Government allowed them to have “some extra-budgetary revenue” (primarily the land-leasing revenue) to finance local expenditures.25 The landleasing revenue, which is positively correlated with local economic development, has become the primary revenue source for local governments. Therefore, local governments are incentivized to finance infrastructure, which effectively attracts investments and promotes the local economy, and favors allocating land towards more profitable uses such as market-based housing or commercial development. This land use decision generates more tax revenue than financing and allocating land to public housing projects.26 Under this fiscal structure, public housing programs have imposed heavy fiscal burdens on local governments. First, the Central Government mandates local governments complete assigned quotas of public housing construction, but only contributes a small part of the cost. For example, in 2011 the Central Government planned to develop ten million public housing units but only budgeted for eight percent of the required investment, leaving local governments to shoulder the rest of the cost.27 Second, current public housing policy design emphasizes free land allocation and other financial incentives for developers, which makes local governments give up part of their revenue from land-leasing and administrative fees.28

AGO R A 13

51

Public Housing Development and Provision Structure in China ZU0

Some innovative strategies have been employed to alleviate fiscal burdens for local governments in public housing development, including utilizing manifold funding sources (e.g., bonds, trust funds, etc.) and encouraging investments from private capital.29 Moreover, local governments have called for developers to participate and share the fiscal burden. Advantageously, professional developers are experienced at reducing construction costs while guaranteeing high construction quality, and this system provides an opportunity for the leading developers to demonstrate their social responsibility.30

Land System China maintains the socialist legacy of the urban/rural dual-track land system, in which the state owns urban land and the village collectives own rural land.31 During the Maoist period, the Central Government adhered to the national plans of production and urban planning when making every urban land use decision.32 Before the 1980s, urban land was largely free, allocated to various danwei (work units) by the government. Since the 1980s, urban land use reform has ushered in a nationwide marketbased orientation, which has privatized urban land use rights and has created a land use system requiring payment on the basis of land value and other market factors. This has given rise to different types of land and real estate markets.33 Whereas the rural land has always been collectively owned, after the 1980s the Central Government released a new household responsibility system that privatized land use rights for individual households. Ever since, the village collectives started to function like contractors, subcontracting their land to village households.

The village households have then been able to keep all the income that they gained from their land after they paid taxes to the village collectives.34 This wave of privatization in both urban and rural land use rights led to

52

significant economic and agricultural growth in the 1980s.

China has a strict quota on the conversion of agricultural land into urban development to ensure its food security. Therefore, while the urban population is rapidly growing, there is a decreasing supply of land devoted to urban development.35 Local governments need to acquire land from both the state and the village collectives and then lease it to manufacturers or developers to collect landleasing fees to finance local expenditures.

State-owned land can be leased directly, whereas China’s constitution mandates that converting rural land uses into urban land uses must go through a state requisition process before leasing.36 In theory, the law decrees that collective-owned land cannot be leased for real estate use; however, in practice, many villages have directly leased out their collective land for housing development at discounted prices. This kind of housing, called “property rights-limited housing,” is theoretically illegal and carries no property rights.37 Until recently, the Central Government suggested that local governments could rent collective-owned land to develop Public Rental Housing (PRH).

In 2017, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) and the Ministry of Housing UrbanRural Development (MOHURD) issued the “Pilot Scheme for the Construction of Rental Housing Using Collective Construction Land,” allowing for 13 cities in China, including Beijing, to develop PRH projects on collective-owned land.38 Since implementation, Beijing has started plans to allot 1,000 hectares of rural collective land designated for PRH construction by 2021.39 This pilot reform would become one of the most important policy innovations in public housing development. As experts have suggested, it will help solve the housing problem for floating populations and “improve the economic and social environment in suburbs.”40

Factors in Public Housing Provision and Site Selection Three factors have affected the provisioning and site designation for public housing projects in China. First, the inter-governmental system tasks local governments with implementing public housing programs. The current structure of public housing provisioning in China has both a hierarchical and a top-down framework, “with relevant government departments at different levels divided by policy and implementation responsibilities.”41 The Central Government not only formulates general policy and strategy but also assigns and mandates local governments to meet the public housing construction targets given to each province. Under this mandatory command, local officials face administrative punishments if they fail to meet the quota (SCGO[2010]No.4; SCGO[2011]No.45).

This performance evaluation system overemphasizes the quantity (total number of units) of housing construction, while ignoring other critical aspects such as construction quality, location, and accessibility. Since the Central Government has not provided a comprehensive and detailed regulatory framework, local governments have the freedom to design their own public housing provision structures. Consequently, this ‘decentralized policy implementation’ has empowered local governments to implement public housing programs that advance their local political agendas.42 For example, local governments are more likely to allocate public housing as a subsidized benefit to specifically target groups they want to attract and retain, such as highly-educated individuals and skilled labors.43 Furthermore, it is reasonable for local governments to build public housing projects in less-developed suburban areas so that they can reduce their revenue losses while leasing expensive land in the urban core for other developments to maintain economic growth. As a result, this inter-governmental system plays a key role in the less desirable placement of public

housing projects across cities in China.

Second, there are serious fiscal burdens placed on local governments’ shoulders, including the opportunity costs from the lost land lease revenues and land requisition costs that occur during the implementation of public housing programs, both of which significantly impact public housing provision and site selection. Based on the current public housing provision system in China, local governments have to take up the majority of responsibilities for public housing development, such as land supply, facility management, provision of infrastructure, and maintenance.44 This bundle of responsibilities has imposed heavy fiscal burdens on local governments. Local governments are less willing to place public housing projects in the urban areas, where the land in those areas could contribute a considerable amount of revenue from land-leasing fees, and are more likely to place them along the urban fringe where the land is much cheaper, in an attempt to minimize their land-based revenue losses.45 Moreover, the fiscal burdens also include financial or administrative costs incurred during the land acquisition process.

If the site were in the urban core, it would likely have a higher density and would cost more to be demolished, requiring higher resident relocation compensation. Thus, local governments tend to avoid well-developed sites because of the concerns over land acquisition costs.

The political risks that local governments face in land provisioning is the third factor that influences public housing development.

Because of the urban/rural dual-track land system, local governments face different kinds of political risks when providing urban or rural land for public housing projects.

Even though local governments can lease state-owned urban land directly to public housing developers without political concern, they are still responsible for acquiring the land from the original property owners. In many cases, urban land acquisition involves a long and complicated process of negotiation with sitting tenants about demolition or

AGO R A 13

53

Public Housing Development and Provision Structure in China ZU0

relocation, which places tremendous political and fiscal pressure on local governments if tenants refuse to be relocated or demand exorbitant compensation.46 The village collectives, however, are striving to find ways to generate income. They are more willing to lease out their collective land in order to obtain long-term and stable benefits.

Therefore, local governments face less resistance and lower political risks in rural land acquisition, which also means lower fiscal pressure. The recent pilot reform of the land system allowing PRH to be built on collective-owned land will further lower the political risks when allocating collective land to public housing projects. As a result, local governments would prefer developing public housing in the suburbs of collective land rather than in the urban core, after they weigh the political risks involved when implementing public housing programs in each situation.

CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS Providing enough quality public housing is one of the main targets of current housing policies in China. China’s recent history has demonstrated that, when constructing a large amount of public housing, it was effective in absorbing surplus capital and labor, which stimulated domestic consumption and thereby counteracted the negative shock of financial crisis. As cities in China experience rapid urbanization, a housing affordability crisis has led to social instabilities. Under social and political pressure, the timely supply of a sufficient number of public housing units has been the key concern for the local and central governments.47 Viewed more broadly, public housing development could be considered instrumental in promoting urbanization and sustainable urban development, and a tool that local governments could use to facilitate other policy initiatives.

54

Because of the inter-governmental system, fiscal burden, and political risk, local governments are reluctant to allocate more profitable and expensive land parcels in urban areas to public housing projects. Local governments take advantage of the system of decentralized authority when implementing public housing projects in order to minimize their fiscal burden and political risk: they simply locate public housing projects in less-developed suburban areas where land is much cheaper and easier to acquire.

The fact that large-scale public housing projects have brought large populations as well as public services and facilities to the urban fringe in conjunction with China’s rapid urbanization needs to be further explored. It is important to examine how these mega-communities contribute to China’s suburbanization. For example, Tiantongyuan was one of the largest planned public housing projects when it started in 1998, projecting to house over 180,000 people – a similar population size to that of a large county. There was no subway service connecting Tiantongyuan with the central city until 2007.48 Since then, this suburban area has experienced a period of rapid growth, which undoubtedly has accelerated the development of infrastructure systems and other public services, and made land parcels more attractive to developers. The increased demand for land raised property prices in this suburban area, which has pushed new public housing projects to locate even further towards outer suburbs.

Therefore, future studies should examine the relationship between public housing development and China’s urban expansion and suburbanization, which happens at the outer edge of urban development in a much broader and continuous process, and how public housing developments can be integrated into the city for the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Weican Zuo is a first-year doctoral student in architecture. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China and Master of Architecture from University of Minnesota. Studying the dynamics of forces that are critical in framing contemporary models of public housing in China, as well as China’s urbanization and sustainable urban development are important topics that she is interested in exploring during her doctoral studies.

AGO R A 13

55

Public Housing Development and Provision Structure in China ZU0

ENDNOTES 1. Jinran Zheng, “Going the Distance,” China Daily, September 11, 2014, http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://search-proquestcom.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1561167664?accountid=14667.

2. Xiaopeng Jia, Bin Meng, and Yuanyuan Zhang, “Analysis of the Residents Commuting Behavior in Different Communities in Beijing City (in Chinese),” Areal Research and Development 34, no. 1 (2015): 56.

3. Yunxiao Dang, Zhilin Liu, and Wenzhong Zhang, “Land-Based Interests and the Spatial Distribution of Affordable Housing Development: The Case of Beijing, China,” Habitat International 44 (2014): 137, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.05.012.

20. Ibid., 11.

46. Ibid., 139.

21. Ibid., 12.

47. Chen, Yang, and Wang, “The New Chinese Model of Public Housing,” 542.

22. Chen, Yang, and Wang, “The New Chinese Model of Public Housing: A Step Forward or Backward?” 541-2.

48. Dang, Liu, and Zhang, “Land-Based Interests and the Spatial Distribution of Affordable Housing Development,” 144.

23. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 12.

24. Ibid., 12.

25. Ibid., 12.

26. Ibid., 12.

27. Ibid., 13.

4. Ibid., 137.

5. Yonghua Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy: Goals vs. Structure,” Habitat International 41 (2014): 8, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2013.06.001.

6. Yaping Wang and Alan Murie, “Commercial Housing Development in Urban China,” Urban Studies 36, no. 9 (August 1999): 1475, https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098992881.

7. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 8.

28. Dang, Liu, and Zhang, “Land-Based Interests and the Spatial Distribution of Affordable Housing Development,” 139.

29. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 14.

30. Ibid., 14.

31. Lanchih Po, “Property Rights Reforms and Changing Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban-Rural Peripheries: The Case of Changping District in Beijing,” Urban Studies 48, no. 3 (2011): 509, https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098010390233.

8. Wei Shi, Jie Chen, and Hongwei Wang, “Affordable Housing Policy in China: New Developments and New Challenges,” Habitat International 54 (May 2016): 225, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. habitatint.2015.11.020.

32. Yixing Zhou and Laurence J. C. Ma, “Economic Restructuring and Suburbanization in China,” Urban Geography 21 (2000): 218, https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.21.3.205.

9. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 10.

33. Ibid., 218.

10. Shi, Chen, and Wang, “Affordable Housing Policy in China,” 225.

34. Po, “Property Rights Reforms and Changing Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban-Rural Peripheries,” 512.

11. Ibid., 231.

35. Shi, Chen, and Wang, “Affordable Housing Policy in China,” 230.

12. Jie Chen, Zan Yang, and Ya Ping Wang, “The New Chinese Model of Public Housing: A Step Forward or Backward?” Housing Studies 29, no. 4 (2014): 538, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2013.873392.

13 . Dang, Liu, and Zhang, “Land-Based Interests and the Spatial Distribution of Affordable Housing Development,” 137.

14. Chen, Yang, and Wang, “The New Chinese Model of Public Housing: A Step Forward or Backward?” 538.

15. “Average Selling Price of Commercialized Residential Buildings

by Use,” National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS), accessed November 7, 2018, http://data.stats.gov.cn/english/easyquery. htm?cn=C01.

16. “Xi Jinping: Make the Construction of Housing Security and Supply System as a Benevolent Governmental Project,” Xinhua Net, last modified October 30, 2013, http://www.xinhuanet.com// politics/2013-10/30/c_117937412.htm.

17. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 11.

18 . Chenggang Xu, “The Fundamental Institutions of China’s Reforms and Development,” Journal of Economic Literature 49, no.

4 (December 2011): 1078, https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.49.4.1076.

19. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 11.

56

36. Po, “Property Rights Reforms and Changing Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban-Rural Peripheries,” 514.

37. Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy,” 14.

38. Zinan Cao, “Beijing to Supply 1,000 Hectares of Rural Collective Land for Public Housing,” China Daily, August 21, 2018, http://www. chinadaily.com.cn/a/201808/21/WS5b7bc799a310add14f386f7d.html.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Chen, Yang, and Wang, “The New Chinese Model of Public Housing,” 539.

42. Dang, Liu, and Zhang, “Land-Based Interests and the Spatial Distribution of Affordable Housing Development,” 144.

43. Chen, Yang, and Wang, “The New Chinese Model of Public Housing,” 543.

44. Ibid., 542.

45. Dang, Liu, and Zhang, “Land-Based Interests and the Spatial Distribution of Affordable Housing Development,” 144.

AGO R A 13

57

Judy Chu - Hong Kong, China 58

59

Bridging the Gap Symposium In an increasingly fractured world, urban planning must engage with imperatives of unity, cooperation, and equity. Planners must consider how they can challenge structures that unevenly disperse resources, privileges, and opportunities. Urban planning has historically played a role in perpetuating these fractures through plans and policies such as exclusionary zoning, inequitable development, and ableist design practices.

Thus, Agora’s fifth annual Symposium topic inquires: How can urban spaces bridge

the gap between genders, identities, ideologies, languages, nationalities, races, religions, and beyond?

The authors in this collection cite domestic and international cases when considering this question. They discuss how immigrants seek a sense of community and belonging across various geographies, they explore how a single urban space can encompass disparate patterns of development and change, and they investigate how a city’s narrative exposes or ignores systems of segregation. Each piece encounters the role of urban planning in bridging gaps – both fostering connection and preventing it – creating a collection that serves as a critique as well as a signal for hope.

Morgan Fett and Matthew Tse Symposium Directors

Cameron Carley - Shanghai, China 60

61

N

Old Money, New Nashville A Tale of Changing Wealth in Music City E. Janney Lockman Master of Urban and Regional Planning 2020

ABSTRACT The City of Nashville has grown rapidly in the past decade, bringing with it increased opportunity for the city, but also growing pains via displacement, gentrification, and congestion. This paper grapples with the dilemmas we have as planners when working in a place that we love and balancing nostalgia with desire for improvements in our communities.

62

ashville rose phoenix-like from a flood in 2010 that took out much of its downtown riverfront, caused more than $2 billion in private property damage, and $120 million in public infrastructure damage.1 This created new opportunities for investment in the downtown and Broadway area (Nashville’s Las Vegas Strip), a street that toes the bounds between public and private. Most days of the week it is filled with bachelorette parties and musicians who moved to the city to pursue dreams of fame.

Nashville is sprawling, hilly, and diverse. It is both a tourist destination and the Athens of the South, the home of Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities. To an aspiring planner, Nashville is the lover that would be perfect if only you could fix them just a little bit. You see the potential for musicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, and activists to thrive if only you could get your hands on some taxpayer dollars. The city has incredible community pride, resilience, diversity – and in this moment in history – wealth.

Nashville’s old wealth is concentrated in the Southern suburbs of Brentwood, Franklin, and Williamson County. Its new wealth is epitomized by the rapid development that has taken place on either side of the Cumberland River: on the tourist-studded Lower Broadway, or the formerly artsy and ‘dangerous’ (now-gentrified) East Nashville.

Part of the challenge for planners in Nashville stems from Tennessee’s regressive income tax structure, which further exacerbates the divide between rich and poor in the city. Tennessee lacks a broad-based income tax and instead relies on higher sales taxes – the secondhighest combined state and local sales tax rate in the nation – for state funding.2,3 Tennessee provides $2.5 billion annually in tax incentives to businesses, the fourthhighest business tax incentive rate in the nation.4 Yet both Nashville and the State of Tennessee struggle to maintain balanced budgets and fund government operations.

According to a 2018 report from the Sycamore Institute, for each dollar spent

by the state government, $0.36 comes from federal funding. In 2017, Tennessee relied more heavily on federal revenue than all but four other states: Michigan, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Montana.5 In early 2019, Nashville’s Department of Finance issued a memo asking City departments to maintain their 2018 funding levels.6 I can foresee a future in which the coming of Amazon further strains the city’s already fiscally struggling infrastructure.

A second issue is less unique to Tennessee.

Nashville is the urban capital of a largely rural state, a blue dot in a red sea. Despite the pull of population, the needs of the rest of the state and even suburban Davidson County make it difficult for the City government to pass measures to support the city’s core.

Unlike the Bay Area or the Denver Metro Region, Nashville lacks the regional cohesion between the business community and municipalities to push for a strong agenda of sustainable urban growth, mass transit, a more equitable tax system, affordable housing, or climate change resiliency. Lack of regional unity is highlighted in the debate around the failed May 2018 initiative to levy taxes to pay for an ambitious new transit system. A downtown automobile dealer (aided by the Koch Brothers) was the main opponent to the transportation levy, but the conflicting priorities of urban, suburban, and rural voters contributed substantially to the levy’s failure. The vote fell (as was somewhat expected) along suburban and urban lines.

Many progressives opposed the plan, fearing that it could serve to further gentrification and displacement.7 Nashville has heard this song and dance before. In 2014, a plan to unite East Nashville with the western part of the city via bus rapid transit failed. The same downtown automobile dealer opposed the plan.

Residents of North Nashville, a traditionally African American and low-income neighborhood that – like the rest of the city – is now rapidly gentrifying, opposed the plan on the grounds that it did not address

AGO R A 13

63

LOCKMAN

Old Money, New Nashville

the transit needs in their neighborhood.

Finally, there was a contingent of wealthy West Nashville residents who didn’t want lower-income “burger flippers” from East Nashville to access their community (it was a different time in Nashville’s development; the East Nashville “burger flippers” have been replaced by social media influencers and tech bros).8

Figure 1: Mural of Downtown Nashville (Wikimedia Commons, 2011).

In October, I attended a Brentwood Zoning Board of Appeals meeting. Brentwood is a suburb of Nashville with approximately 41,524 people.9 Brentwood is home to many country stars (allegedly), a bevy of malls, the birthplace of Ke$ha, and a lot of wealthy people (the median household income is $151,722).10, 11 Having heard rumors about the size of the public library and the beauty of the municipality’s civic buildings, I wanted to see for myself how the one-percent lives.

Brentwood City Hall is attractive but lacked the crystal chandeliers and hardwood floors of my imagination, nor did it feature the champagne toast or a cheese board of my fantasy. As far as civic buildings go, this one was unremarkable. Brentwood’s money was clearly not going towards building government offices. Contrasted with the shiny new condos in East Nashville or the office buildings on Music Row, Brentwood’s wealth has manifested in the destruction of backyards to construct oversized pool houses. The planning board was made up

64

of a selection of old, probably wealthy, white men. The lack of diversity was unsurprising, considering that 86.7 percent of the population in Brentwood is white.12 On the agenda for discussion were proposals for two pool houses (one of which was almost the size of my three-bedroom ranch house in another Nashville suburb) and a barn.

Twenty-five minutes and three Accessory Structure Request approvals later, the meeting was over.

The meeting was free of controversy and, frankly, a bit boring. Little consideration was given to the impact of proposed projects beyond the line of sight of the neighbors.

Importantly, the property owners were all affluent enough that they could hire architects and contractors to make sure that the building designs were up to code and that construction would be done in ways that would not contaminate drinking water or overload the power grid. Entering a zoning board meeting and being confident that your project will pass with flying colors is a luxury not afforded to all Nashvillians. For the pool houses, the zoning board meeting almost felt like a formality, an official handshake and stamp of approval for buildings that there was never any doubt would be constructed.

The whole meeting felt very removed from the rapid growth and change in the ‘New’ Nashville.

Figure 2: Downtown Nashville (Wikimedia Commons, 2016).

The type of money in Nashville feels manic, unsustainable, and threatening to the way of life of my musician and artist friends, my friends of color, my friends who are activists and public servants, and to my own future as a planner in the city. As a planner, you know that the city could benefit from property tax dollars and that increasing density in Nashville could help maintain affordability and sustainability in this auto-centric town.

With the mismatch between community needs and development priorities, every single-family home in a historically black neighborhood destroyed to turn into two $250,000 tall, skinny condos is a personal affront. The pool houses and accessory barns discussed in the Brentwood planning meeting feel far removed from the type of development going on 30 minutes up the road.

When I drive through Nashville, I am always struck by how quickly it changes. Former gas stations become the skeletons of condos.

Bobby’s Idle Hour, a dive bar on Music Row where you would hear songs from old men that could make you weep, is slated to close next week. Bobby’s will be replaced by an upscale office building designed to house music industry businesses, the Nashville equivalent of a subdivision named after the natural feature that it replaced.13 Pangea, the hippie store in Hillsboro Village where my coffee shop co-workers and I spent our tips on turquoise jewelry and postcards, announced that it was closing in early January. I would not be shocked if it were replaced by a boutique catering to wealthy 20-year-old white Vanderbilt students, or a bank.

Change in Brentwood seems to occur at a more glacial pace, and the reluctance to change funding structures, invest in transit, or address the growing economic divide feels like a holdover from the old money, old guard of power in Nashville. The city still has a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the KKK’s first Grand Wizard in the state capital. Despite the hard work by

activist groups and protests that eventually led to attempts by former Governor Bill Haslam to remove the statue, it remains.14 You can dress the city up with Amazon, bachelorette parties, and coworking spaces, but you can’t change Nashville’s history.

When I visit my friends in Nashville, whether I’m seeing my friend who bought a house when she was 25 with a VA loan and an associate’s degree (the kind of story about upward mobility and the American Dream that I did not believe existed post-Baby Boom), or visiting the craftsman-style house another friend shares in East Nashville with four musicians in their late 30s, I feel a nostalgia for the Nashville that existed when they moved there. That Nashville was cheaper and allegedly more fun, devoid of the types of issues that, upon hearing what you do for a living, make people exclaim, “we could sure use some urban planning around here!”

This is the same nostalgia I hear about the Denver of the early 2010s, the Ann Arbor of the 1970s, or the Austin that everyone strives to keep weird. I am often dismissive when my friends who grew up in Nashville or have lived there several decades complain about the changes they have seen in their time in the city. My friend who played pedal steel guitar for Hank Williams III waxes poetic about the house he rented for $400 off Music Row in the early 2000s. Another friend joked with me that Nashville, like Austin, Denver, Ann Arbor, or any other ‘hip’ and rapidly gentrifying town, was always better 10 years ago. This kind of attitude irks me: after all, 10 years ago, I would not have lived there! The constant cycle of music business hopefuls, artists, and locals is part of what makes the city so culturally rich. Yet with every change to my neighborhood, I feel the same sort of anger and sadness reflected in my older friends.

As a planner, one must balance personal nostalgia with one’s duty to help the most vulnerable in the city. But in the

AGO R A 13

65

LOCKMAN

Old Money, New Nashville

United States, one’s hands are also tied by developers and the need to follow the money and potential taxpayer dollars. As one Nashville planner shared, it does no good to throw the baby out with the bathwater – Nashville can have a nice public transit system, beautiful office buildings, affordable housing, and dive bars.

The challenge for urban planners in the ‘new’ Nashville rides on the ability to balance the urban and suburban interests with limited funding and statewide support while avoiding becoming a pawn of capitalism. The ‘new’ Nashville – a southern business hub and future home to Amazon’s new “Operations Center of Excellence” – may not hold space for the nostalgia of my music friends.15 I can only hope that it continues to hold space for them. By the same token, would Nashville hold the same appeal if it were not Music City? The anxiety shared by my friends and

me is not simply about rising rents; we worry that new industry will continue to push out so much of what makes Nashville special.

Yet as a planner, I cannot stick my head in the sand and request a NIMBY-ed ‘old’ Nashville stagnation for the city. To a certain extent, planners must accept that there will be new development, and do what they can to attempt to bridge the gap between what is being built and the needs of the community.

With or without my blessing, the city will continue to change, whether it is at the rapid pace of ‘new’ Nashville development or the slow pace of the ‘old’ wealth growth in Brentwood. Music hopefuls from all over the country continue to flock to Music City in hopes of becoming the next Hank Williams, Tim McGraw, or Taylor Swift. The wrecking ball hits Bobby’s Idle Hour, and a family is pushed further into the suburbs. Through it all, the Cumberland River flows.

ENDNOTES

15. Sandy Mazza, “Here is What Amazon’s New ‘Operations Center of Excellence’ Will Look Like,” The Tennessean, December 7, 2018, https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2018/12/06/ here-what-amazons-nashville-operations-center-excellence-looklike/2233813002/.

1. Karen Grigsby, “20 Things to Know About the 2010 Nashville Flood,” The Tennessean, April 30, 2015, https://www.tennessean. com/story/news/local/2015/04/30/nashville-flood-20-things-toknow/26653901/.

2 . Daniel H. Cooper, Byron F. Lutz, and Michael G. Palumbo, “The Role of Taxes in Mitigating Income Inequality,” National Tax Journal 68, no. 4 (2015): 943-947.

3. The Sycamore Institute, Tennessee State Budget Primer: A Foundation for Understanding Our State’s Public Policies (Nashville: The Sycamore Institute, 2018), 26.

4. Timothy J. Bartik, “A New Panel Database on Business Incentives for Economic Development Offered by State and Local Governments in the United States,” W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2017.

5. The Sycamore Institute, Tennessee State Budget Primer, 32.

6. Talia Lomax-O’dneal to Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County Department of Finance, January 18, 2019, https:// www.nashville.gov/Portals/0/SiteContent/Finance/docs/Finance%20 Director/FY2020%20Budget%20Message%20to%20Department%20 Heads%20and%20Elected%20Officials.pdf.

7. Kriston Capps, “Nashville’s Transit Plan Just Got Trounced,” CityLab, May 2, 2018, https://www.citylab.com/ transportation/2018/05/what-went-wrong-with-nashvilles-transitplan/559436/.

8. Bobby Allyn, “Inside Nashville’s Oddly Ugly Bus-Rapid Transit Debate,” CityLab, March 3, 2014, https://www.citylab.com/ transportation/2014/03/inside-nashvilles-oddly-ugly-bus-rapidtransit-debate/8540/.

9. “Community Facts: 2013-2017 American Community Survey,” United States Census Bureau, accessed December 7, 2018, https:// factfinder.census.gov.

10. Ann Powers, “Ke$ha Annihilates Authenticity,” NPR, September 28, 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/ therecord/2017/09/28/554264327/kesha-annihilates-authenticity.

11. “Community Facts: 2013-2017 American Community Survey.”

12. Ibid.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Janney Lockman grew up in West Virginia. After attending Oberlin College, she lived in Colorado and Nashville, where she worked in jobs from technical writing to bartending and tour managing prior to attending University of Michigan’s Master of Urban and

13. Sandy Mazza, “There’s Going to Be Nothing Left of Music Row: Residents Plead for Reprieve From Development,” The Tennessean, May 23, 2018, https://www.tennessean.com/story/ money/2018/05/23/nashville-music-row-development-bobbys-idlehour/629165002/.

14. WSMV Digital Staff, “Group Protests Forrest Statue at State Capitol,” Nashville News 4, February 13, 2019, https:// www.wsmv.com/news/group-protests-forrest-statue-atstate-capitol/article_1c520c92-2fec-11e9-9fde-3374abadd63d. html?fbclid=IwAR21xuNTVYzJP6cO4quun5umieEL4nNOiSsjdo_ hfr1ZoUe1q9noEm5_ZAo.

Regional Planning program. Her planning interests lie in rural economic development, transportation equity, and planning interventions for the opioid epidemic.

66

AGO R A 13

67

Acknowledgments: I would like to begin by thanking my professors for their valuable contribution to my learning process. A special thanks to Professor Linda Groat and Professor Yazier Henry for their sensitivity and support. A note of appreciation for Agora Journal editors Morgan Fett and Matthew Tse, as well as the rest of the Agora editing team, Julie Steiff, Michael Friese, Kimberly Higgins, and Emily Smith.

T

Narratives of Segregation Ghettos of Ahmedabad Ayesha Wahid PhD in Architecture

ABSTRACT The portrayal of Ahmedabad as one of the best cities in India blatantly celebrates the exclusion of lower caste Dalits1 and religious minorities, as manifested in their increasing ghettoization. This paper sheds light on how discourse in popular media supports dominant narratives and examines how ghettos are constructed and reinforced through state complicity. I focus on the growth of the ghetto of Juhapura in Ahmedabad and draw parallels between the Indian caste system and that of the apartheid system in South Africa. Further, I examine the responses to riots and related legislative tools, such as the Disturbed Areas Act, that perpetuated ghetto enclaves through a measure I call premeditated ghettoization. I emphasize the need to distinguish between de facto residential separateness and sites of apartheid urbanism as a step toward safeguarding the needs of the vulnerable communities that reside in these ghettos. In the 17 years since the 2002 Gujarat riots, a generation of Ahmedabad residents has grown up in the different administrative divisions of the city, as well as in its ghettos – a generation that has effectively been prevented from interacting with the ‘other.’ There is a need for narratives that speak of this unquantifiable loss.

68

he Times of India, the largest-selling English language daily in the world and the third-largest Indian newspaper by circulation, ranked Ahmedabad as the best city to live in India on the basis of the following factors: physical and civic infrastructure, social and cultural values, and peace of mind.2 Ahmedabad is home to one of the largest ghettos in India, Juhapura, in addition to the Dalit Ghetto of Azadnagar Fathewadi. Juhapura is one of the largest minority ghettos in India. At present, its population is estimated to exceed 500,000; at the time of the 2002 Gujarat riots, its population was around 50,000.3 French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot describes Juhapura as a “city within a city;” that is, a city without administrative division within Ahmedabad.4 I contend that constructing narratives that cast Ahmedabad as India’s best city to live in casts it as a model to be emulated by other cities. This narrative silences the political, social, spatial, and economic exclusion faced by the vulnerable communities residing in the ghettos of Ahmedabad. This description is part of the dominant chauvinistic nationalist narrative grounded in caste-based hierarchy, which excludes those who are dehumanized and relegated to occupying what I call sites of apartheid urbanism (SAU).

DEMOCRACY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION? India is considered to be the largest democracy in the world, and it certainly is a land of diversity. Home to more than

1.2 billion people, India has a significant population of minorities – Dalits (16.6 percent), Christians (2.3 percent), Muslims (14.2 percent), and Sikhs (1.7 percent), as well as tribal groups.5 In the last quarter of a century, the Indian economy has undergone a transformation from a socialistic structure to a global corporate economy. The Indian political sphere has also experienced transformation; the rise of chauvinistic nationalism is in stark contrast to the Gandhian principles that marked earlier decades of an Independent Indian Republic.6,7 In this framework of evolving economic and political forces, the urban centers of India – cities such as Ahmedabad – have emerged as the growth engines of India’s economy. They are also growth engines of of inequity: spatial and distributive injustice leading to deliberate ghettoization and sites of apartheid urbanism.8

AHMEDABAD: A FRAGMENTED CITY Bright lights, big city…for everyone?

Ahmedabad is the largest city in the prosperous state of Gujarat, and is home to several ghettos such as the Dalit Ghetto of Azadnagar, Fathewadi, and the Minority Ghetto of Juhapura.

The ghettos of Ahmedabad demonstrate spatial confinement, segregation, and marginalization of half a million people.

They also have other stories to tell.

The discourse that portrays Ahmedabad

AGO R A 13

69

Narratives of Segregation WAHID

as India’s best city legitimizes the violence perpetrated on the residents of its ghettos and normalizes their exclusion from the city.

To understand how this dominant narrative works and whose interests it serves, it is important to historicize contemporary political and economic relationships.

Historicizing contemporary political and economic relationships will shed light on who has power – power to legitimize certain narratives and delegitimize and silence others. It will also enable us to look at the broader picture, from India’s colonial past and ‘democratic’ present, to the dynamics of evolving political and economic forces, to the apartheid that constitutes and reinforces the Indian caste system, particularly in the states of north and central India.9

VIOLENCE AND ITS LEGACY: THE 2002 GUJARAT RIOTS Following the burning of a train coach in Godhra in 2002, in the state of Gujarat (the home state of Mahatma Gandhi) rampaging mobs belonging to the dominant castes targeted the lives, homes, and businesses of minority community members. The mob violence against minorities continued unchecked for several days. The number of of those killed is disputed, with some sources putting the figure close to 2,000.10 Ahmedabad, the state capital, also bore its fair share of riot politics.

One scholar observes how riot violence enables the dominant castes to intimidate and subjugate lower castes and minorities.11 Of those who are not part of the Aryan created caste hierarchy, Dalits are the most numerous (around 200 million), followed

by Muslims (170 million), Christians ( 27.6 million), and Sikhs (20.4 million). The Sikhs faced riot violence in 1984, while the Dalits and other minorities have been subjected to it more often. It has been observed that the most numerous ‘others’ are more often the

70

target of orchestrated riots. Riot violence thus enables the upper and middle castes to enjoy the lion’s share of the economic rewards of globalization, as well as the ability to subjugate Dalits, lower castes, and other minorities. Riot violence, besides reinforcing caste hegemony, is an exercise in excluding ‘others’ – those within lower castes or outside of the caste pyramid, such as minorities. Unsurprisingly, this exercise was also carried out on a major scale in the city of Mumbai, the financial capital of India, in 1992, a year after economic liberalization started in India. Alluding to the economic liberalization which began circa 1991 in India, writer Pankaj Mishra points out how economic globalization in India has bolstered the rise of xenophobia and authoritarian populism. Political parties that support domination on the basis of this historical Aryan stratification of society have increasingly been rewarded with electoral victories in the states where this caste hierarchy is observed. However, states in the Southern part of India, which tend to not ascribe to this Aryan classification into castes as much as their Northern counterparts, are more inclusive by comparison.

While some of the ghettos in Ahmedabad were created in the wake of the 1992 riots, after the 2002 riots and the subsequent electoral victory of apartheid-steeped ideology, Ahmedabad experienced a tremendous increase in deliberate ghettoization. The ghetto of Juhapura began to transform from an enclave of 50,000 residents to a cramped, infrastructuredeficient settlement camp of over 500,000 today, comprised of minority community members.12 The riots, in both 1992 and 2002, created a ghetto. What followed was a reinforcement of the ghetto through legislation, threats of violence, and the complicity of political leadership.

THE DALIT GHETTOS OF AHMEDABAD AND THE MINORITY GHETTO OF JUHAPURA Research has shown that a large number of Dalits were forced into living in Dalitonly societies.13 Most of those societies appeared after the 2002 Riots when people moved away from Gomtipur, Bapunagar, and the Dani Limda areas. Besides residential segregation, trade across caste lines became restricted; for instance, there are Dalit builder-contractors who only cater to the construction needs of the Dalit community, as Dalits are often denied by upper-caste builders.14 These patterns reveal deep lines of division on the basis of caste, and this ghettoization is not just confined to the Dalits.

Juhapura is the largest minority ghetto in Ahmedabad. At the time of the 2002 riots, its population was around 50,000, and it was more or less described as a slum.15 There has been a lot of migration from mixed neighborhoods within the city and the city center to Juhapura. Migrants include minority members from different economic levels of society: former bureaucrats, advocates, professors, doctors, and businessman who have started to look for safety in Juhapura.16

Figure 1: Muslim-Dominated Areas in Ahmedabad (Darshini Mahadevia, 2007).

Juhapura falls outside the boundary of the city, seven kilometers away from the city center, within the boundaries of Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA). It sprawls over the boundaries of six adjacent peripheral villages. Twelvefoot-high walls surround Juhapura on all sides. Geographically, the minority population of the city was pushed to areas outside the municipal corporation limits.

The residents of Juhapura not only face employment marginalization but also are required to purchase their own basic services and physical and social infrastructure, as the city does not provide resources for

their infrastructural development. Within the ghetto, schools, supermarkets, and healthcare facilities have been built through the philanthropic and entrepreneurial efforts of its more progressive residents.

Juhapura’s location seven kilometers west of Ahmedabad’s city center inhibits its residents from interacting with other communities.17 The creation and reinforcement of the ghetto are thus an effective tools for the dominant castes not just to gain control over the political economy, but also to preserve the purity of caste by preventing the “abhorrent pollution” caused by intermixing, even spatially.18

AGO R A 13

71

Narratives of Segregation WAHID

COLORING THE CASTE LINE: CASTE AND THE APARTHEID CITY “Jo nahi jati,woh jati hai.” (What can never be changed is the caste into which one is born).

– Hindi Proverb In many ways, a person’s caste can be as unalterable as the color of a person’s skin.

While millennia have passed since the IndoAryan Invasion, the belief in the hierarchical caste system persists, along with an abhorrence of the “pollution” caused by caste mixing.19 Chauvinistic nationalism in India is based upon this apartheid ideology.

In the last quarter of a century, this form of nationalism has gained political and economic ascendancy; it has aligned itself with the concerns of upper and middle castes to secure the benefits of economic globalization. This right-wing populism, rooted in differences of caste and creed, seeks control not just over the political economy but also over human relationships.20 This ideology seeks control over basic freedoms – from whom one can love to where one can live. This is facilitated through either the threat of violence or disguised legislation, or both.21 The ghettos that result from violent riots are sites of precarity where vulnerable communities seek shelter. These vulnerable communities have exchanged the violence of the riots for the everyday violence of deliberate ghettoization. The protection that comes with residing within these ghettos comes at a cost: spatial confinement, inadequate infrastructure, and exclusion from the centers of economic and political power in the city. Yet perhaps the most profound loss is unquantifiable: seventeen years after the 2002 riots, an entire generation has grown up in Juhapura. Though this ghetto lies within the boundaries of AUDA, those living and growing up in Juhapura have effectively been prevented from interacting

72

with the rest of Ahmedabad.

According to the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the term “the crime of apartheid” includes similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as those practiced in Southern Africa and includes “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”22 The act also describes any measures, including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by creating separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups as constituting the crime of apartheid. The resulting ghettos are thus sites of apartheid urbanism. In the Indian context, racial segregation and discrimination can be substituted with segregation and discrimination grounded in a hierarchical caste system. Are legislative measures such as the Disturbed Areas Act designed to divide the population along caste and creed lines, colluding in the creation of an apartheid city?

And do the resulting ghettos qualify as sites of apartheid urbanism?

DISTURBED AREAS ACT: APARTHEID LEGISLATION IN DISGUISE The Disturbed Areas Act in Gujarat is a law that restricts the sale of property between different communities in ‘sensitive’ areas.

The Act was introduced in 1991, the year economic liberalization started in India, with the stated objective “to avert an exodus or distress sales in neighborhoods hit by communal unrest.” Seven years after the 2002 riots, the State Government extended the reach of the Act and amended the law to give local officials greater power to decide on property sales. Only if the state-appointed

official approves property transactions in disturbed areas are the transactions approved; otherwise, they are rendered null and void.

Thus, the Disturbed Areas Act is a legislative tool implemented to divide the population along caste lines by creating separate reserves and ghettos for members of vulnerable communities. This act is a tool for the state to ghettoize the vulnerable communities in Gujarat and in the City of Ahmedabad. The state is complicit in the creation of disturbed areas and deploys legislation to decide which community is barred from which neighborhood. This legislation is one means of restricting interaction across caste lines. As a tool for social engineering, how effective has it been in protecting the purity of caste, spatially as well as otherwise? Is Ahmedabad an apartheid city? Here it becomes important to understand what an apartheid city is.

The apartheid city has been described as a system that protects and enhances the interests of apartheid nationalism and draws upon policies of discriminatory segregation and spatial management to restructure and entrench divided city form.23 It is imperative to distinguish sites of apartheid urbanism from the more generalized residential separateness that exists in most cities. While generalized residential separateness is often based on more commonplace causes such as socioeconomic or cultural factors, the ghettos of Ahmedabad are the homes of internally-displaced persons who were – and still are – systematically targeted on account of their dehumanized status as per dominant apartheid ideology. These sites of apartheid urbanism must be distinguished from generalized residential separateness. If the two continue to be conflated, the protection needs of the vulnerable communities, as well as the responsibilities that accompany such protections, will be overlooked.

The Disturbed Areas Act is a policy of discriminatory segregation. The city reflects the apartheid political ideology of the

state through the deployment of violence and policy designed to exclude Dalits and minorities from the centers of economic and political power in Ahmedabad. Through violence, policy, and widespread disregard for constitutional provisions, the state remains complicit in their ghettoization.24 By ignoring provisions designed to protect the rights of lower castes and minorities, the state prohibits those at the bottom of the apartheid hierarchical structure from permanently settling in certain urban areas, in essence dictating their access to urban residential rights as well as economic and social opportunities.

STATES OF EXCEPTION OR THE NEW NORM? The narrative that celebrates Ahmedabad as the best Indian city to live in is built upon the premise of exclusion. In this case, the narrative acts as a tool that normalizes the erasure of a violent past and present.

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has argued that the “state of exception” is a powerful strategy that can facilitate the transformation of democracies into totalitarian states.25 Agamben’s work asserts that an exception is the exception until it becomes a norm. The ghettos of Ahmedabad are states of exception that are included in the city through their very exclusion from the city; they satisfy Agamben’s assertion regarding the relation of exception by which something is included solely through its exclusion.26 The normalization of dominant narratives, such as the one used to describe Ahmedabad, holds a particular power.

Shaw’s work appears to prophesy the future of Indian cities.27 She discusses a trajectory that begins with the normalization of a dominant narrative, followed by its popularization through mainstream thought, then its idealization, and finally calls for its replication. Thus, the ghettos of Ahmedabad may serve as an indicator of what can happen

AGO R A 13

73

Narratives of Segregation WAHID

to Indian cities in the coming years.28 The question arises: what does the future hold for the ghettos of Ahmedabad? Or, if Ahmedabad is the model as the narrative contends, what does the future hold for other cities?

The ghettos of Ahmedabad are the offspring of an alliance between unbridled capitalist interests and an ideology rooted in caste purity, power, and privilege. As mentioned earlier, these ghettos need to be acknowledged as distinct from de facto residential separateness. There is a need for narratives that counter the dominant celebration of Ahmedabad as the best Indian city to live in; there is a responsibility to push back against the blatant celebration of the exclusion of lower castes and minorities and to challenge the casting of Ahmedabad

as a role model for replication. The existing literature on the ghettos of Ahmedabad is woefully inadequate, and the ghettos of Ahmedabad have also been largely invisible in popular discourse for more than a decade and a half.

Herscher asserts that architectural history has played its own role in the exclusion of marginalized groups and their spaces from disciplinary memory.29 Their invisibility in architectural history is linked to their political exclusion by nation states. The question arises: will architectural history acknowledge the ghettos of Ahmedabad and the apartheid ideology that they manifest, or will it lend itself to repetition – silent, complicit, and servile to hegemonic structures?

ENDNOTES 1. Several millennia ago, the Aryans invaded South Asia and introduced the hierarchical caste system as a means of controlling the population. In the Indian caste system, there are four levels of castes. Dalits comprise people who were excluded from this fourfold hierarchy and were seen as forming the fifth level. According to the hierarchical caste system, Dalits are considered untouchables.

74

15. Ibid.

17. Christophe Jaffrelot and Sharik Laliwala, “Inside Ahmedabad’s Juhapura: What It’s like to Live in a Ghetto,” The Wire, September 12, 2018, https://thewire.in/communalism/juhapura-ahmedabadghetto-muslims.

3. Jean-Philippe Dequen, “Review of Domination, Resistance, and Violence in Ahmedabad,” Dissertation Reviews, February 29, 2016, http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/12876.

18. Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York: Harper, 2015).

4. Christophe Jaffrelot and Charlotte Thomas, “Facing Ghettoisation in ‘Riot-City’: Old Ahmedabad and Juhapura Between Victimisation and Self-help,” in Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation, eds. Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

19. Ibid.

20. Romig, “Railing Against India’s Right Wing Nationalism Was a Calling.”

7. Ghandian principles traditionally endorse economic policies that advocate for concepts of pluralism, welfare, and upliftment for all.

21. Intercaste marriages (marriage between persons belonging to different levels of the caste pyramid) or interfaith marriages are one of the reasons behind honor killing. The pervasiveness of caste lines can be seen in its incorporation into both popular media and art. The popular Indian 2018 film Dhadhak deals with issues of caste purity through its depiction of the love story of an upper-caste girl and a lower-caste boy that ends with an honor killing. Media figure Trevor Noah’s memoir Born a Crime discusses his upbringing as a mixed-race child in apartheid South Africa. Both cases discuss the dehumanizing effects of apartheid ideology on those who cross caste and color lines.

8. Rina Chandran, “Housing Bias Against Muslims, Single Women Turning Indian Cities into Ghettos,” The Wire, January 24, 2017, https://thewire.in/uncategorised/housing-bias-against-muslimsingle-women-turning-indian-cities-into-ghettos.

22. United Nations, “International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid,” Treaty Series 245, July 18, 1976, https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%20 1015/volume-1015-i-14861-english.pdf.

9. In Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change, John Markoff (1996) points out that a place can legally be termed a democracy but may not be a democracy because of its anti-democratic practices. Applying this line of argument to India’s present raises the question: how democratic is India? The current political regime has been accused of unprecedented levels of interference in the statutory institutions of the country such as the Supreme Court, the Reserve Bank of India, the Election Commission, etc.

23. Doug Hindson, The Apartheid City: Construction, Decline and Reconstruction (Durban: University of Durban-Westville, 1995).

6. Rollo Romig, “Railing Against India’s Right Wing Nationalism Was a Calling. It Was Also a Death Sentence,” New York Times, March 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/magazine/gaurilankesh-murder-journalist.html.

Trained as an Architect and Engineering Management Professional, Ayesha Wahid has worked as a consultant, orator, researcher, and educator in the fields of Project Management, Building Engineering, and Architecture. As a doctoral student at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, her research interests lie at the intersection of urbanism and policy and are motivated by the goals of urban equity and inclusion. On a side note, she enjoys stimulating conversations over Kashmiri Chai – “Chatting over Chai,” as she calls it – and is an enthusiast when it comes to learning about other cultures and discussing the cultural legacy of her hometown, Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India.

14. Ibid.

16. Dequen, “Review of Domination, Resistance, and Violence in Ahmedabad.”

2. “Ahmedabad Best City to Live in, Pune Close Second,” Times of India, December 11, 2011, https://timesofindia.indiatimes. com/india/Ahmedabad-best-city-to-live-in-Pune-close-second/ articleshow/11066689.cms.

Social Space?”.

5. “Religious Census 2011,” Census of India, accessed March 16, 2019, www.census2011.co.in/religion.php.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

13. Sanjay Hegde, “Separate but Equal Ghettos,” India Today, November 12, 2013, https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion/story/ muslims-hindu-colonies-ghettoisation-dalits-castes-religion-discri mination-217151-2013-11-12.

24. “India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability,” BBC, June 27, 2012, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-18394914.

25. Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

26. Ibid.

10. Charlotte Thomas, “What Juhapura Tells Us About Being Muslim in Modi’s India,” The Wire, May 28, 2015, https://thewire.in/culture/ what-juhapura-tells-us-about-muslims-in-modis-india.

11. Ward Berenschot, Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

27. Mahadevia, “A City with Many Borders - Beyond Ghettoisation in Ahmedabad.”

28. Ibid.

12. Tarique Anwar, “Gujarat Polls: Juhapura, The largest Ghetto in Gujarat, Is a Picture of Deliberate Neglect,” Newsclick, November 24, 2017, https://www.newsclick.in/gujarat-polls-juhapura-largestmuslim-ghetto-gujarat-picture-deliberate-neglect.

29. Andrew Herscher, Displacements: Architecture and Refugee (Germany: Sternberg Press, 2019).

AGO R A 13

75

D

Bustees to Blots The Bangladeshi Pursuit of Community Salvador Lindquist Master of Urban Design 2020

ABSTRACT From bustees to blots, this essay traces the migration of disenfranchised Bangladeshi families from Dhaka to Queens, and finally to Banglatown, Detroit, which is home to one of the largest Bangladeshi populations outside of Dhaka. Regardless of urban context, residents face forces such as governmental neglect, rising rents, and racial scrutiny that prevent them from achieving socio-economic stability. The persistence of residents to overcome these challenges undoubtedly leaves a mark on the urban environment, where the informal appropriation of space to suit individual needs can be found across densities, architectural typologies, and geographic contexts. This informality can be more easily understood through the bustees settlements in Dhaka, although the occupation of illegally converted housing units in Queens and property expansion into vacant parcels in Detroit have provided opportunities for communities to acquire a sense of agency over their neighborhoods. The transition from Dhaka to Banglatown illustrates the need to acquire some sense of tenure and community; through this aspiration, the appropriation of habitat persists as a layered emancipatory process of adaptation where static and kinetic can coexist.

76

ebates about immigration are currently at the heart of the global political climate. Right-wing politicians in the United States have built their agenda around a narrative of exclusionary wall building – literally and figuratively – ignoring the fact that this nation was built upon immigrants.

While the history of the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock in pursuit of religious freedom is a staple of elementary school curricula, the stories of immigrants from other countries like China, India, and Spain have hardly permeated our consciousness.

The allure of prosperity and freedom has been the impetus for many wishing to pursue their own version of the American dream, and this opportunistic desire persists to this day.

The transition migrants undergo from their home country to so-called ‘developed cities’ varies wildly, from fleeing conflict and violence to seeking respite from environmental disasters. Regardless of circumstance, the innate desire to survive and improve their socioeconomic status has left its mark on the urban environment.

From bustees to blots, this essay traces the migration of Bangladeshi families from Dhaka to Queens, and finally to Banglatown, Detroit, which is home to one of the largest Bangladeshi populations outside of Dhaka. The urban conditions of these cities are vastly different, yet it seems that some sense of informality exists between geographic regions and cultural contexts.

In these instances, informality exists not as a characteristic distinct from formality, but as a means of appropriating space for inhabitation.

The notion of formal and informal as it relates to urban settlement has been described as “static and kinetic states.”1 Static formations of development are characterized by permanent materials, like concrete, steel, and brick, whereas kinetic settlements consist of temporary materials, like scrap metal, plastic sheets, and waste wood.2 While these terms reference the temporal articulation and occupation of

physical space, what I am interested in is the transition between these states and the innate desire for some material sense of stability. ‘Static’ and ‘kinetic’ are also terms that imply states of friction, which can be defined as the force resisting the relative motion between entities. In this essay, I would like to consider the forces of resistance – the friction points that hinder the potential of populations from achieving a life of freedom and opportunity – and how residents overcome these challenges to make their own imprint on the surrounding urban morphology. Exploring the appropriation of space from Dhaka to Banglatown reveals the necessity of describing the formal and informal, the static and kinetic, as less of a binary spectrum and more of an urban palimpsest, where a layered construction of formal diversities is exhibited in the residential fabric.3

DHAKA, BANGLADESH To begin, we must understand the morphology of the bustees, or informal settlements, in Dhaka. The key word in understanding this urban condition is ‘informality,’ where the kineticism is characterized by incremental development.

These settlements are often constructed by means of quotidian building materials and assembled and reassembled to best serve the immediate needs of their inhabitants.4 In developing countries where rural-to-urban migration is the primary source of population growth, it is common for migrants to seek a better life with opportunities to make a decent living. Unfortunately, there is a severe lack of housing and job opportunities in Dhaka, which forces migrants to acquire vital resources on their own. Formal institutions fail to provide solutions to these problems, leaving migrants to fend for themselves.

This creates a condition where inhabitants of these informal settlements rely on their network of family and community members to assemble their own shelters and urban

AGO R A 13

77

LINDQUIST

Bustees to Blots

environments, which leads to shoddy construction techniques and haphazard safety considerations.5 The appearance of these ‘kinetic cities’ varies from country to country, but they emerge under similar conditions. These are the spaces of the ‘everyday,’ a common ground where cultural and economic struggles are articulated. In the case of Dhaka, low income groups comprise a striking 70 percent of the population, but only have access to 20 percent of the city’s residential land, creating conditions of hyperdensity.6 Bustees are typically constructed on unauthorized government land or privately owned land, which has become very popular over the last two decades.These landowners are looking to capitalize on the tremendous demand for space, and have in some cases leveraged illegal tax collection through Mafia-like intimidation or, in the case of bustees, Mastan (muscle men) who take regular ‘taxes’ of protection money from such settlers. This is a major friction point and an impediment to the freedoms of the bustees’ inhabitants.7 The impacts of bustees can be felt and seen throughout the city. Home to almost 15 million inhabitants, Dhaka is poised to become one of the largest megacities in the world. Following the partition of British India, this economic and administrative capital of the nation saw phenomenal population growth primarily due to ruralto-urban migration.8 Lack of economic opportunity and poor protection from natural disaster have greatly contributed to this phenomenon. The population, with a Muslim majority constituting 90 percent of the total population,9 is projected to increase to 23 million by 2025.10 High rates of urbanization are primarily taking place within bustees, which currently house over 50 percent of the territory’s population.11 Access to water, transport, energy, and housing present a whole host of challenges and have been widely explored issues in

78

the realm of planning and urban policy.

The massive influx of population puts unimaginable stress on the municipality’s ability to address these issues, leaving much of the city’s infrastructure in a state of disrepair. Programs like Ghore Fera (or the “Back to Home” program) have been created to alleviate urban poverty, reduce rural-to-urban migration, and improve the city’s environment. The government encourages migrants to return to their villages by offering them loans to start businesses, stipends for transportation, and an allowance to settle back into their home communities.12 Although strongly supported by the Bangladeshi government, community leaders have criticized the program’s selection criteria and lack of transparency.

The program has been perceived to be a massive waste of resources, with a majority of the recipients of the loan returning to the slums within several months.13 In addition to the inadequacy of government programs, mass evictions have been a major source of discontentment over the last several decades. For example, in 1990 the government cleared over 20,000 homes via police brutality and bulldozers with only a day’s notice; these evictions were usually dictated over a loud speaker the night before.14 The government has claimed that the clearing out of informal settlements was a preventative measure to rid the city of terrorists, although there has been no proof that bustees ever harbored extremists in the first place. While the government lacks the resources to provide housing to all those in need, it could still ensure rehabilitation and compensation for the poor and vulnerable to establish some sense of tenure and community.15 Given the personal resources invested, where bustees inhabitants on average spend between 5,000 to 10,000 Takas on their homes (about 100-200 USD; per capita income is 350 USD), there should be a more humane protocol before destroying years of accumulated equity.16 The Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction and the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights (COHRE

destroyed our whole settlement. I was so shocked and felt like dying. I then remembered my children and somebody told me they were safe. I was so worried about my little baby who was only one andahalf years old. We had taken years to build our house. Our belongings were all destroyed – the beds – utensils, everything. All the women were crying even some of the men. We felt so devastated. We are living with our relatives. We have to start from scratch.

We have no hope in the Government.18

& ACHR) explains the communitarian aspects contained within these bustees and how forced evictions destroy these crucial networks.

It could be fetching water, taking care of children or an elderly person while the woman shops, taking a sick child to the doctor or going to earn a living or any number of good neighborly actions.

These networks are relationships with families around one’s dwelling place and are cultivated over time. These relationships are carefully interwoven into the fabric of the life of squatters and assist greatly in their survival and development. They are non-quantifiable but so important to poor people’s economic survival and development.17 This personal account of these evictions is particularly harrowing.

“We have to start from scratch:” The Story of Ayesha I was born over thirty years ago in Karwan Basti (Bustee). So, my parents were also living in this settlement. We got a notice in the evening and the next day police and bulldozers came. We did not know what was happening. We went to the police to plead with them to allow us to stay, but all they said was that they had their orders to evict us. We asked them what was the reason, and they said we were living there illegally. We have lived here for over thirty years and now we are illegal. We couldn’t understand this. We told them we had nowhere to go. But they said they had their orders to clear the land and if we did not get our belongings out, the bulldozer would destroy it. While we were still discussing this, someone threw stones at the police. The next thing I knew was the police beating me with sticks, tear gas shells were thrown. I fell unconscious.

My friends carried me to one side and when they revived me I saw the bulldozer

QUEENS, NY TO BANGLATOWN, DETROIT Some of Dhaka’s evictees, among others seeking a new life, have made their way to the United States, where the population of Bangladeshi immigrants increased from 57,000 in 1990 to 188,000 in 2015.19 Not all of the immigrants coming from Bangladesh can be traced back to bustees, but given the prevalence of informality as the prevailing mode of development, one could assume that it is deeply embedded within the Bangladeshi culture. The unfortunate irony in this pursuit is the transition from one form of oppression to another; many Americans are suspicious of Muslims as a result of major global political events. Most notable are the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City, carried out by Islamic extremists in 2001, which heightened tensions toward Muslim groups. The July 7th, 2005 London bombings, also committed by Muslim men, further compounded this state of anxiety.

Attitudes towards Muslims have resulted in hostile stigmatization and even violence.

According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early 2017, the recent rise of hate crimes has resulted in most Muslims saying their community faces discrimination.

Three-quarters of Muslim American adults (75 percent) say there is “a lot” of

AGO R A 13

79

LINDQUIST

Bustees to Blots

discrimination against Muslims in the U.S., a view shared by nearly seven in ten adults in the general public (69 percent).20 A stronger sense of collective identity has emerged as a reaction to the increased negative scrutiny, with the youth population revealing an even stronger sense of religious identification than ever before.21 This phenomenon can be observed in Queens, home to the most populous Bangladeshi diaspora in New York.

There are many Bangladeshi immigrant communities in Astoria and an area dubbed “Little Bangladesh” in the neighborhood of Jamaica, which is home to a large portion of the 74,000 Bangladeshi inhabitants in New York.22 However, life in New York can be challenging, where housing prices far exceed the capacity of the Bangladeshi working class salary, and many occupy low-paying jobs in the restaurant and taxi industries. Families have had to cram into small one-bedroom apartments in order to make ends meet.23 Culturally, the most common family unit in Bangladesh is called the ‘barhi,’ which consists of a husband and wife, their unmarried children, and their adult sons with their wives and children.24 Shared family homes have been identified as contributing to the illegal conversion of units in Queens.

According to the Pratt Center, illegally converted units are found in “stable workingand middle-class neighborhoods that are home to numerous immigrant groups... that have, on average, larger family sizes.”

The study identified 48,000 informal units in Queens created without permits from the City.25 These challenges have encouraged another transition: rising rents and racial scrutiny have sparked an exodus from Queens to a particular neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan.26 Many of the Bangladeshi migrants from Queens have settled into an area called Banglatown, just north of Hamtramck and bounded by the Davison Freeway, I-280, and Mound Road. The Bangladeshi population in Detroit and Hamtramck is

80

rapidly increasing. From the mosques and restaurants to the grocery stores, which import many Bangladeshi products from New York and Bangladesh, the presence of the Bangladeshi community is palpable. It is difficult to precisely measure the number of Bangladeshis who have left Queens for Detroit, as the census does not currently ask residents about their legal status, but sources say that the Bangladeshi population rose from a few thousand in the mid-1990s to around 20,000 by the early 2000s.27 What is it about Banglatown, Detroit that has transformed it into a population siphon from Dhaka and Queens? Perhaps it’s the abundance of available jobs in Detroit – a result of white flight over the last several decades whereover one million people have left the city since the 1950s.28 Factories that produce automobile parts and electronics have been clamoring for new employees to enter the desolate workforce, a huge opportunity for the Bangladeshis. A New York Times piece explored this population influx in 2001, featuring interviews with recent immigrants and Detroit residents who have noted the rapid growth of the Bangladeshi population. ‘’Now every week, every week, they are moving from New York,’’ said Shah Abdul Khalish, a school teacher who moved to Detroit from Bangladesh in 1982.

He mentions that when he was a child, his family had to cross the border into Canada in order to acquire imported spices from Bangladesh.29 Now, there are six Bangladeshi groceries in the area. The abundance of cheap housing also likely encourages this migration to Detroit. According to a study by Quicken Loans, Detroit has the second-most affordable housing in the United States.30 Mashud Ahmed Chowdhury lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in Queens for 11 years with his wife and two young sons; Chowdhury was able to find a home in Banglatown for nearly half the price.31 While affordable housing and an abundance of jobs are vital, I believe the biggest draw

for Bangladeshi immigrants has to do with the sense of community. Having a place to live without the potential for the government to destroy your home along with all of your accumulated belongings creates a sense of permanent and static occupancy. Additionally, the aggregation of the Bangladeshi immigrants in Banglatown has led to an increase in mosques, grocery stores, and community groups. Perhaps this is what Banglatown offers: a sense of stability, safety, and ultimately a sense of belonging, something the Bangladeshi community has longed for ever since they left Dhaka. But what does this new static occupation look like in comparison to the informal and kinetic morphology of the bustees? Is there some aspect of kineticism present in Banglatown?

A NEW MORPHOLOGY: BUSTEES TO BLOTS In many cases, the condition in Banglatown is the exact opposite of the conditions in Dhaka. The population density in Detroit is about 5,000 people per square mile, whereas Dhaka features a staggering 60,000 people per square mile – 12 times the density in Detroit.32 While Dhaka is in a state of rapid growth, Detroit has faced immense population decline, and nearly a third of its 139 square miles have become vacant.33 This phenomenon can be seen throughout the residential fabric of the city, with many homes sitting in isolation among unkempt lots and emerging ecologies reclaiming the vacant landscapes. These vacant parcels are considered to foster crime and illegal dumping, putting a strain on the city’s limited police and fire resources.34 Increasingly, homeowners are capitalizing on the availability of adjacent land by borrowing or occupying abandoned lots and appropriating them for their own individual needs. Gradually, these lots are transformed into patios, garages, play equipment,

and swimming pools, among many other potential uses. This process of property expansion into block-lots or “blots” is called “blotting” – the term was coined by the Brooklyn-based urban design firm Interboro Partners.35 According to CityLab, blotting is a process that has become more prevalent among cities dealing with urban decline.

For example, Chicago launched its sideyard expansion program in 1981, shortly followed

by Cleveland, which developed a similar program as away to reclaim large tracts of vacant land.36 The concept, part of a movement called “new-suburbanism,” is a form of smart de-urbanization where cities become “more green and less dense.”37 These neo-suburbs encourage existing residents to become stewards of available tracts of land in order to reduce the negative impacts of a neglected urban landscape. This type of urban morphology lends itself to characteristics of informality, which is interesting given the transition from the informal landscape of the bustees in Dhaka. Communities are also leveraging their existing networks in Banglatown to provide much-needed forms of production and amenities. For example, Interboro documents a case of blotting where two sisters occupied homes separated by several lots, which over time became abandoned. In a joint effort, these two sisters eventually acquired these lots to merge their properties and now operate a shared urban garden.38 These neo-suburbs have provided a template for Bangladeshi immigrants, along with many other diverse constituents of Banglatown, to establish themselves in a way that would never be possible in the dense megacity of Dhaka or Queens. Free from the potential evictions and threats of illegal taxation from Mastan, Bangladeshi families can now develop the sense of community and belonging that they have yearned for since making the transition to the United States in search of a better life. Perhaps neo-suburban smart models for de-urbanization can

AGO R A 13

81

LINDQUIST

Bustees to Blots

give residents control of their future while breathing new life into the declining urban landscape.

The notions of static and kinetic are frequently found in tandem, where the often binary representation of this concept manifests itself in a more palimpsestic form of development. It can be argued that informality is a persistent element that can be found across classes, architectural typologies, and geographic contexts. The

informal appropriation of space to suit individual needs can be seen as a way to overcome the points of friction that infringe upon one’s ability to subsist in this world. While the transition from Dhaka to Banglatown illustrates the need to acquire some sense of material stability in the static, the appropriation of habitat persists as a layered emancipatory process of adaptation, where static and kinetic can exist in the same space, always evolving, and always in motion.

ENDNOTES 1. Rahul Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities,” in Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age, ed. Andreas Huyssn (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008): 205-18.

2. Ibid., 206.

23. Ibid.

4. Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities,” 206.

25. Michael Waldrep, “Informal housing in New York City: a spatial history of squats, lofts, and illegal conversions,” (Diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014), http://hdl.handle. net/1721.1/90112

24. ”Countries and Their Culture: Bangladesh,” Countries and Their Cultures, https://www.everyculture.com/A-Bo/Bangladesh.html.

28. Thomas J. Sugrue, “A Dream Still Deferred,” The New York Times, March26, 2011,https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/ opinion/27Sugrue.html.

7. COHRE and ACHR Mission Report, We Didn’t Stand a Chance, Forced Evictions in Bangladesh (Switzerland: COHRE, 2000): 45.

29. Kershaw, “Queens to Detroit.”

8. Katrin Burkart, Oliver Gruebner, Md Mobarak Hossain Khan, and Rony Staffeld, “Megacity Dhaka-Informal Settlements, Urban Environment and Public Health,” Geographische RundschauInternational Edition 4, no. 1 (2008): 4-11.

30. Nina Semczuk, “Quicken Loans Mortgage Review 2018,” SmartAsset, June 19, 2018, smartasset.com/mortgage/quickenloans-review?year=2018#us/most-affordable.

31. Kershaw, “Queens to Detroit.”

9. ”The Future of the Global Muslim Population,” Religion & Public Life Project, Pew Research Center, accessed January 29, 2019, http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-globalmuslim-population/#/Bangladesh.

32. Al Harris, Emily Grote, and Brian Shreckengast, ”Visualizing Detroit’s Population Density,” The SpareFoot Blog, February 23, 2017, https://www.sparefoot.com/moving/moving-to-detroit-mi/ visualizing-detroits-population-density/.

10. United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision, ST/ESA/SER.A/322 (New York: United Nations, 2012).

33. Associated Press, ”Survey: A Third of All Detroit Lots Are Vacant or Abandoned,” MLive, February 20, 2010, https://www.mlive.com/ news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/02/survey_a_third_of_all_detroit.html.

11. Ipshita Basu, “Dhaka’s Invisible Inhabitants,” The Daily Star, September 17, 2012, http://www.thedailystar.net/newsdetail-250142.

34. Semczuk, “Quicken Loans.”

35. Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca, Georgeen Theodore, “Improve Your Lot! The New Suburbanism, ” Interboro Partners, 2006, www. interboropartners.com/projects/improve-your-lot.

12. COHRE and ACHR, “Mission Report: Forced Evictions in Bangladesh.” 49-50.

13. Ibid., 12-13.

82

26. Kershaw, “Queens to Detroit.”

27. Ibid.

6. Nazrul Islam, “Land, Housing and Services for the Urban Poor” in The Urban Poor in Bangladesh, ed. Nazrul Islam (Bangladesh: Centre for Urban Studies, University of Dhaka, 1996): 81-82.

Prior to enrolling in the Master of Urban Design program, Salvador Lindquist graduated from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture. As a licensed landscape architect, Lindquist practiced for several years in Ann Arbor on placemaking projects ranging in scale from urban design to site-specific design. He is interested in understanding how urban interventions can be better situated within the larger systematic context of our cities and regions and how research and speculation can frame compelling narratives surrounding urban renewal through equitable and resilient perspectives.

22. Sarah Kershaw, “Queens to Detroit: A Bangladeshi Passage,” The New York Times, March 8, 2001, www.nytimes.com/2001/03/08/ nyregion/queens-to-detroit-a-bangladeshi-passage.html.

3. Mir Azimzadehand Hans Bjur,“The Urban Palimpsest: The Interplay Between the Historically Generated Layers in Urban Spatial System and Urban Life,” International Space Syntax Symposium 6 (2007): 1, 13-14.

5. Shihabuddin Mahmudand Umut Duyar-Kienast, ”Spontaneous Settlements in Turkey and Bangladesh: Preconditions of Emergence and Environmental Quality of Gecekondu Settlements and Bustees,” Cities 18, no. 4 (2001): 271-80.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

21. Nazil Kibria, “Muslims in Motion: Islam and National Identity in the Bangladeshi Diaspora,” Journal of Asian American Studies 16, no. 1 (2013): 123-25.

36. David Lepeska, “Is Blotting the Best Solution for Shrinking Cities?” CityLab, November 10, 2011, http://www.citylab.com/ equity/2011/11/blotting-good-or-bad-shrinking-cities/470/.

14. Ibid., 14-15.

15. Ibid., 24-25.

37. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 21.

38. Armborst, D’Oca, and Theodore, “Improve Your Lot!”

17. Ibid., 21.

18. Ibid., 16-17.

19. Katayoun Kishi, “Assaults Against Muslims in U.S. Surpass 2001 Level,” Pew Research Center, November 15, 2017, http://www. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslimsin-u-s-surpass-2001-level/.

20. Ibid.

AGO R A 13

83

Sadie Marsman - Guajiru, Brazil 84

85

Emmanuel Cofie - Aguas Calientes, Peru 86

87

Emmanuel Cofie - Detroit, Michigan 88

89

I have decided to capitalize the word ‘Black’ throughout this piece when referring to Black communities because the narrative is about Black space and the experiences that Black folks have had in them. These stories are the result of their Blackness and the discrimination that they faced because of it. frequented Paradise Valley, the business and entertainment center.

DETROIT: THE MOTOR CITY RUNS OUT OF GAS

T

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities Detroit and Brixton Brittany Simmons Master of Urban and Regional Planning 2020

ABSTRACT On what basis are places compared to one another? Population? Geographic location?

Historical background? Size? Detroit, a city often associated with decay, has been categorized as a ‘dead,’ ‘empty,’ and ‘miserable’ city comparable to New Orleans, St. Louis, or Cleveland.1 On the other hand, there are places whose reputations have never been tarnished with such stark criticism. Brixton, a district in London, U.K., has had a similar trajectory as Detroit, yet it has never been considered ‘dead,’ but rather seen as an opportunity. While Detroit and Brixton both hold similar histories, their present conditions are quite different. This, I argue, is due to their geographic and population sizes. The sizes of Brixton, a district of 3.8 square miles, and Detroit, a city of 139 square miles, affect the ways in which their residents could both resist and embrace the perceptions and realities of their space.

90

he imagery of dereliction and blight produced by deindustrialization and urban decline is constantly and unforgivingly associated with the City of Detroit. Detroit became synonymous with ‘ruin porn’: abandoned factories, deserted houses, boarded-up schools and empty, vacant blocks for miles. How did Detroit, once the fourthlargest city in the nation at nearly two million inhabitants, known as the automobile capital of the world, become closely linked with downfall and decline?

There is a misconception that the decline of Detroit began with the 1967 rebellion. It is more accurate to say that Detroit rose and fell with the automobile industry.2 When the Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903, Detroit was the 13th-largest city in the nation at 285,704 residents.3 Ford and other automobile companies quickly dominated the city – hence the nickname: The Motor City. By 1930, there were 1.5 million people living in Detroit.4 Once the U.S. entered World War II (WWII), the auto industry quickly converted to assist with wartime efforts, creating another population influx that led to the city’s decentralization.3 In 1933, the New Deal housing mortgage program led people to buy homes instead of renting apartments.

The Black population was excluded from this program; they were viewed as risky investments and a threat to property values.4 As a result of this and redlining, African Americans had significantly fewer housing options, which led to the creation of Black Bottom, a self-sufficient Black neighborhood. Additionally, Black residents

These areas of Detroit served as ‘mini-cities’ for the Black population – where every business or service imaginable was owned

by Black Detroiters.7 Although there was a strong sense of community in Black Bottom, residents were cramped and the housing was subpar. Without alternate options, residents were forced to stay.

Despite severe housing shortages, highpaying manufacturing jobs brought tens of thousands of people into the city, resulting in increased racial tension during WWII. The daily injustices faced by Black people, such as malicious racism in the factories or informal segregation in housing, prompted the race riot of 1943. According to the Detroit Historical Society, 9 whites and 25 African Americans were killed in the riots. No whites were killed by police. There was about 2 million dollars in damages, most of which occurred in Black Bottom.

After the war, Detroit lost nearly 150,000 jobs to its surrounding suburbs. In the early 1960s, the construction of the Chrysler Freeway allowed whites to follow manufacturing jobs to the suburbs. In contrast, Black people were immobile due to discriminatory housing policies, but they were quickly being relocated because of urban renewal projects. While many Black Bottom residents were forced into overcrowded public housing projects, whites moved to new, spacious homes in the suburbs.

From 1950 to 1960, Detroit lost nearly 10 percent of its population while the rest of the Metro Detroit region gained 25 percent.8 Detroit witnessed regular conflicts between

AGO R A 13

91

SIMMONS

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities

the predominately white police force and the Black population, which is what led to the five-day 1967 rebellion. The 1967 rebellion came at a time when institutional racism and segregation were at a peak: deindustrialization continued and more people were deserting the city to live the ‘American Dream’ elsewhere. By the end of the five-day rebellion, 43 people were dead (33 of whom were Black), thousands were arrested, and more than 2,500 buildings were destroyed.9 After the rebellion, 40,000 whites left Detroit, and the number doubled the next year. Figures 1-3 display the drastic population changes that took place from midcentury until 2010. Today, the 1967 uprising is considered to be the third-worst riot in American history, just behind the New York draft riots in 1863 and the Los Angeles riots in 1992.10

W hite (83.6%) B la ck (1 6 . 3 %) Asi an (0 . 1 % ) O t h er (0 . 1 % ) Figure 1. Detroit Population by Race, 1950 U.S. Census.

W hite (34.4%) B l ac k (63.1%) Asi a n (0 . 6 % ) O t h er (2 . 0 % ) Figure 2. Detroit Population by Race, 1980 U.S. Census.

92

and Comerica Park, and the construction of three casinos, among other developments.

Again, while there was much growth and optimism about the future of the city, the growth did not reach average Detroiters in their neighborhoods.

W h i te ( 7.5%) Black ( 79.5%) Asian ( 1.0%) H i s p a n i c or La ti n o ( 6.6%) O th er ( 5.4%) Figure 3. Detroit Population by Race and Ethnicity, 2010 U.S. Census.

In 2010, the city was still majority Black.

White flight from the city to the suburbs left those who stayed with a suffering city, a deficient tax base, an insufficient number of jobs, and depleted resources.

Over the next 20 years after the rebellion, there was a large focus on creating a new image for the city, specifically the downtown area, but for whom is the question. Many big-ticket projects, intended to positively affect the perception of Detroit, took shape.

These included the Renaissance Center, the People Mover, Joe Louis Arena, three new department stores, a new hotel, Riverwalk Condominiums, and the restoration of the Fox Theater, among many other projects.

While the elaborate developments grew, the population continued to shrink. Detroit’s image-led development didn’t solve core problems that the city faced like poverty, crime, and loss of industrial jobs.

From the mid-1980s onward, Detroit’s image and identity revolved around it being a Black city surrounded by hostile white suburbs, a city that was considered to be “the leading symbol of social and economic failure in America.”11 Detroit’s nickname of ‘Motor Capital of the World’ had been traded in for ‘Murder Capital of America.’ Crime rates in Detroit reached

Figure 4: (Detroit Free Press,1967).

the highest point in 1991, at more than 12,400 crimes per 100,000 people.12 In the final years of Coleman Young’s administration, the ‘Detroit vs. Everybody’ mentality made itself apparent as the city settled into its identity as a Black city. The demographic shift that the city was experiencing carried over into Detroit’s leadership and authority. By 1990, Detroit had the most integrated police force in any major U.S. city.13 In November of 1990, ABC’s Primetime Live further perpetuated the negative image of Detroit in a special about the city called “Detroit’s Agony.” In this 20-minute segment, the reporter overly emphasizes Devil’s Night, drugs, and violence and villainizes Mayor Coleman Young, all the while undermining and lightheartedly discussing the role that blatant racism had on the city:

In fact, Detroit which at its peak in the 50’s was home to 2 million and 80 percent white, today has less than 1 million and about 70 percent of them Black. So now, when it’s hammer time in the city, it’s tea time in the suburbs. This is where whites went.14 Dennis Archer became the second black mayor of Detroit in 1994, succeeding Coleman Young. Similar to Young, Mayor Archer was concerned with growth and development, but he was more focused on reviving the entertainment district. Under the Archer administration, Detroit saw the revamping of the Fox Theater and the surrounding area, the additions of Ford Field

In 2006, Detroit hosted Super Bowl XL, which brought 100,000 people and plenty of revenue to the city. Some consider the hosting of the Super Bowl to have served as a catalyst for redevelopment.15 The year leading up to the Super Bowl revolved around Detroit being built, rebuilt, and beautified – a pattern that is prevelant today.

BRIXTON: “ONLY GO THERE IF YOU LIVE THERE” The average Detroiter has never heard of Brixton, possibly due to the district’s small size; however, most Brixtonites know of Detroit because of its portrayal in the media.

Unlike Detroit, Brixton has not been bogged down with a negative reputation of crime, poverty, and negligence. Brixton, a district of South London, is now known for being a trendy, welcoming, multicultural area.

On the surface, it seems as though Brixton reaped all of the benefits of gentrification without experiencing the complex and often challenging history that Detroit is known for.

Until the 19th century, the land that Brixton sits on was undeveloped and mostly used for agriculture. During the 1860s, Brixton became a popular area because of the introduction and eventually popularity of the railways and the Vauxhall Bridge, which made getting to and from the city center of London more convenient.16 Brixton quickly transformed into a suburbanized middle-class area due to its proximity to public transportation and easy access to services. By the mid 1900s, Brixton was South London’s biggest and most popular shopping center, as well as

AGO R A 13

93

SIMMONS

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities

a successful entertainment district with theatres and pubs. During this time, the district experienced a significant influx of settlers.17

1,000 people were targeted under this law (943 stops, 118 arrests, and 75 charges). The vast majority of those stopped by the police were young black men.

As Detroit was shifting from manufacturing cars to building tanks to assist with WWII efforts, Brixton was bombed. The resulting damage led to a terrible housing crisis that contributed to urban decay. Shortly thereafter, there was an aggressive push for urban renewal; however, instead of housing for the middle and upper classes, public housing was built. In the 1940s and 1950s, many immigrants, particularly from the West Indies, established roots in Brixton, mostly because it was one of the only areas in which Black people were welcome. Many other districts in London rejected the incoming immigrant population with discriminatory signage: “No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.”18

As a result of Operation Swamp 81, Brixton was made notorious for a three-day long uprising in 1981 that was ignited by the consistent mistreatment that the community faced. Five thousand people were involved in the uprising, residents and police officers sustained injuries, and almost 150 buildings were damaged. There were 82 arrests.20

In the following decades, Brixton would continue to deindustrialize, diversify, and grow. By the 1980s, Brixton had become a predominantly Afro-Caribbean area plagued with high levels of unemployment, poverty, and crime, along with poor housing options and growing tensions between the police and residents. In an attempt to reduce street crime, the Metropolitan Police began Operation Swamp 81, which allowed police officers to stop, search and potentially arrest any individual who seemed suspicious.19 Plain clothed and uniformed police officers were on duty more frequently and in higher numbers in Brixton than anywhere else in London, and in a five-day period, more than

Figure 5: (BBC News, 1981).

94

The U.K. government commissioned the Scarman Report: The Brixton Disorders. The report was released in November 1981 “to inquire urgently into the serious disorder in Brixton… and to report, with the power to make recommendations.”21 The Report found that there were indeed problems of racial disadvantage or discrimination and urban decline, and it advised urgent action to prevent discrimination from causing societal tension. Scarman recommended changes in police training and law enforcement, an increase in the number of minorities in the police force, and increased community involvement in policing. Scarman stressed the importance of the ethnic groups to have a strong sense of place and the need for people to feel a sense of responsibility for their own spaces. The public generally agreed with the content of the Scarman Report; therefore, some of these recommendations were implemented.

In 1993, the racially charged killing of an 18-year-old black man, Stephen Lawrence, by white teenagers led to the 1999 Macpherson Report, which revealed that the police force failed this case and the community. It was found that the police had further contributed to institutionalized racism in Brixton and broader. This murder, considered the highest-profile racial killing in U.K. history, raised awareness and brought profound cultural shifts in the public’s opinions and beliefs on racism and the police.

The most recent riot in Brixton history took place two years later, in 1995, after the killing of another black man, Wayne Douglas, while in police custody. This death led to a march down Brixton Road. With several hundred people involved, the riot resulted in damage to property and vehicles in the area.

There seemed to be promising changes in Brixton through in-depth reports, policy changes, and new initiatives; however, it is clear that the Black community continued to be the target of police violence. In response, the community organized riots, rebellions, and demonstrations. Over the decades, members of the minority population have done their part in maintaining their roots and fighting for justice in their communities, but what happens when that history gets wiped away or bulldozed over to make way for something new?

DETROIT’S “RISING FROM THE ASHES” While participating in Semester in Detroit, I worked in the Block Building at Cass Park.

Every day on my commute to work, I saw the construction of the new Little Caesars Arena; I watched it go from a lot surrounded by modest homes to a complete construction site with not a house in sight. After living in the Cass Corridor, now popularly known as Midtown, for only three months, I could tell that it was a neighborhood intended to appeal to young, college-educated professionals, with its bars, trendy tapas restaurants, coffee shops, dog parks, lofts, and condos. And it was working.

Since the early 1900s, Detroit’s dominant image has been firmly cast as entrepreneurial. The success that the automobile industry brought to Detroit made the city dynamic and robust. In 1951, Time Magazine published an article celebrating the city’s 250th birthday and claiming that the city

best represented the spirit of modernism in America.23 Today, the city is experiencing a similar phenomenon. Detroit has once again become a magnet.

However, gentrification involves not only physically moving others out, but also emotionally taking up space. In more recent years, the Cass Corridor has been rebranded as Midtown, which for many long-time residents strips the original meanings and purposes of these spaces that are significant to the community. Instead of newcomers moving into these areas and embracing the existing culture, these spaces are being altered and redesigned to fit the ‘new and improved’ image of the city.

Detroit is experiencing great improvement, but who are these developments intended to benefit? Inequalities have deepened in the city because of the influx of resources and opportunities in the downtown and Midtown areas, and hardly anything outside of that 7.2 square mile radius. As of 2010, 20 square miles of the city were vacant, filled with large empty fields, rundown buildings, and condemned houses. Comparatively, there are pockets of populated areas scattered throughout the city that are all experiencing different levels of opulence (or lack thereof).

Depending on whom you talk to, the city is a place that either is full of opportunity or has none at all. Relatively few Detroiters believe that investments in Midtown and Downtown benefit long-time residents. The city has become a magnet for entrepreneurs, authors, hipsters, artists, techies, and more – for those who can afford it; for those who cannot, it is still full of opportunities, most of which they cannot access.

When people say that Detroit is ‘bouncing back,’ typically they are referring to the flourishing downtown area: Campus Martius, the Riverfront, and new shops and restaurants lining Woodward Avenue, all of which have the ‘urban vibe’ that everyone loves; that is, until it becomes ‘too urban.’

When people say “Detroit Hustles Harder,”

AGO R A 13

95

SIMMONS

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities

they are referring to the rest of the city beyond downtown. The motto itself is positive and serves as a source of pride; however, the meaning stems from the hard-working residents who have continuously had to hustle to make ends meet. While downtown Detroit has been on the rise, the rest of Detroit has been dealing with water shutoffs, tax foreclosures, a crumbling education system, unreliable public transit, and lessthan-ideal public services.

Gentrification is not an inevitable phenomenon; Detroit is experiencing a prioritization of certain demographics of people. Those who are ‘wanted’ in the city are being rewarded with housing and employment incentives, tax breaks, and many other perks, while the rest are being pushed to the side. Some newcomers are receiving significantly more benefits than those who have spent their entire lives in the city, even after most abandoned it. If you work for certain companies like Quicken Loans and DTE Energy, there are a number of benefits:24

--

New homeowners receive up to a $20,000 forgivable loan toward the purchase of their primary residence.

--

New renters receive a $2,500 allowance of funding toward the cost of their apartment in the first year following the second year.

--

Existing renters receive a $1,000 allowance of funding for renewing a lease.

--

Existing homeowners receive matching funds of up to $5,000 for exterior improvements for projects of $10,000 or more.

Stipends such as these make housing much more affordable and accessible.

Unfortunately, the average Detroiter does not work at Quicken Loans or DTE Energy. All the while, long-time Detroiters are instead facing climbing rents and low-paying employment.

A study done on the city’s housing market found that 59 percent of Detroiters in 2014

96

were rent burdened; they are spending nearly one-third of their household income on housing.25

decades. The average rental unit costs £438 per week (US $588).26 Affordable housing in Brixton is essentially non-existent. Similar to current-day Detroit, as well as post-Black Bottom, the people who endured the area’s toughest times and stayed when those who could afford to abandon it are the first to be pushed out when there is a sliver of interest in development.

Is there enough room to welcome sustainable development while simultaneously maintaining the long-time resident population?

“BRIXTON MEANS CULTURE….

BRIXTON MEANS COLOR”

Figure 6:“Old” Brixton, Electric Avenue (Urban75, 2003).

First known as the shopping district of London, then characterized as the hub of immigrants, then notorious for riots, Brixton is now known as one of the trendiest places to live in London. Is this gentrification or resurgence?

In London, it is fairly common for drastic social disparities to occur within small geographic locations, like Brixton’s 3.8 square-mile frame. One justification of gentrification is that every resident’s quality of life will improve, but instead, it typically leads to the promotion of certain lifestyles at the expense of others and the separation of various groups.

One of the unique components of gentrification in Brixton is the way in which the area has been able to attract newcomers while still maintaining some original Brixtonites (and displacing others). While this contemporaneous cycle of accommodation and eviction welcomes some while resisting others, a new well-off Brixton has sprung up.

As one walks around Brixton, the mix is apparent: Electric Avenue — a street lined with traditional food markets, Black beauty supply stores, and old record shops — is just a few blocks away from Pop Brixton, a complex of shipping containers packed with trendy shops and mini-restaurants.

Brixton is a place where two different local communities (Black and white, affluent and

Figure 7: “New” Brixton,Pop Brixton (Pop Brixton, 2017).

working-class, locals and gentrifiers) exist.

Even from just a glance at the two photos below, it is clear that each of these spaces attracts different demographics and seems as though it was designed to do so.

Newcomers are not only attracted to Brixton’s celebrated multiculturalism but also drawn to the whole array of local diversity including race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, age, etc. As in Detroit, gentrifiers are drawn to the culture while being completely separated from it in neighborhoods with rising rents.

The housing market in Brixton is the leading driver for gentrification in the district. Just a few years ago, hardly anyone would move there, much less visit Brixton, because of its reputation for riots, poverty, and crime. Now Brixton is the ‘newest’ up-and-coming, highpotential neighborhood – after being invested in and built up by the Black community for

In Brixton, prices are skyrocketing not only in residential areas but also in commercial spaces. An integral component of Brixton’s character and intertwined with the district’s cultural and social history is the railway arches that line Brixton Station Road and Atlantic Road. In 2015, the landlord of the arches, Network Rails, evicted more than 30 of the independent businesses and shops that were housed there to redevelop the arches. Once they reopen, there is expected to be a 300 percent increase in rent, which will likely outprice the previous tenants.27 The Save Brixton Arches movements organized and protested for three years to prevent these evictions; however, in 2018 Network Rails succeeded. The movement’s final statement emphasized that “Tenants and traders had never at any stage resisted this redevelopment; they asked only to be a meaningful part of the process and have a place in the final outcome. Tragically, this was never granted to them.” Even though the war was lost, the movement won some battles: (1) As expected, Network Rails will increase the rent by 300 percent; however, it will slowly increase over a seven-year period.

(2) Initially, none of the 39 tenants had the right to return; now, 9 will. (3) Tenants were able to lengthen their stay and continue doing business beyond the intended few months they were given in February 2015. (4) Lastly, tenants who were initially only offered statutory compensation eventually were given discretionary compensation as well.28 Less than a five-minute walk from the location of the unjust evictions from the Arches is Pop Brixton, an attempt at ‘positive gentrification.’ Pop Brixton is a community initiative that transformed ‘disused space’

AGO R A 13

97

SIMMONS

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities

into a popular destination that supports local innovation and business by providing physical space and support for these enterprises to thrive. Pop Brixton’s website states,

We aren’t here to give high street brands another storefront… We’re here to support the little guys with the big ideas.29 Pop attempts to fight the negative aspects of gentrification by employing local people (70 percent of the tenants are from the area) and offering discounted rental rates for local, independent and first-time business owners (50 percent of the tenants are first-time entrepreneurs, all of them are independents).30 However, it is important to consider where Pop Brixton is placed – the land on which it stands was not ‘disused’ as claimed on the website but instead was a car park where many Brixton residents and the market vendors kept their cars.

On the bright side, community members were involved in the creation of the plan of this new development; however, Pop Brixton is not what the public voted for, which left many residents feeling dismissed and disengaged. It seems as though for any development to be deemed successful, it must be supported by the community, which is a large downfall with Pop Brixton and the Brixton Arches. These two prime examples of development in Brixton in a way represent the “new” and the “old” Brixton.31 Brixtonites are heavily involved and engaged with their communities, which led to the creation of Reclaim: Brixton, a movement that happened because people were losing their homes due to rapidly rising rents and outpriced businesses were being forced out.

CONCLUSION Detroit and Brixton are two sides of the same coin: both experienced growth and success in

98

the early 20th century, both dealt with decline (Brixton from World War II and Detroit from deindustrialization), and both experienced a number of rebellions due to racism, police violence, and lack of opportunity and upward mobility. While the timelines are a bit different, the trajectories are similar.

Detroit’s gentrification is not the rebirth of an entire city, but instead concentrated development in one area. In Detroit, ample opportunity and development are being sold to people who can afford it, with hardly any options or positive outcomes for the rest of the population.

Brixton, a district where a gentrification process has been underway for two decades, provides an example of both the pitfalls of and potential solutions to gentrification through the many developments and the community responses that came with them.

While the residents have been successful in their organizing efforts and in making their voices heard, the fight continues.

efforts and have experienced success in sharing their stories and perspectives, raising awareness and at times slowing development. In practice, Brixton can serve as a model for smaller communities like neighborhood associations and block club groups within Detroit, but not for the city as a whole.

Both Detroit and Brixton have great historical significance regionally and internationally, and both have cultural institutions that uphold the journeys of their longstanding communities and residents whose stories have impacted the development of the identity of their city or district. There are many organizations and individuals who will continue to fight for the longevity of their communities, and even more who identify with some piece of these narratives.

Brixtonites and Detroiters alike have faithfully stuck around when no one else would and certainly would not trade Brixton or Detroit for anywhere else.

The sizes of Brixton and Detroit (78,536 residents vs. 704,135 in 2011), may make a difference in how much change residents are able to make and actually see in their communities. Brixton is a district within the Borough of Lambeth, which is a total of 10.4 square miles, while the entire City of Detroit is 139 square miles. Understandably, Detroiters will find it more difficult than Brixtonites to organize and implement the changes that they want to see on a city-wide scale.

The future of Detroit and Brixton relies heavily on the long-time residents, newcomers, developers, government officials and policymakers; they all will play a role in the transformations that will surely continue to occur in both places. To implement sustainable change, Detroiters and Brixtonites have to have a seat at the table and have an equal part in these conversations. Brixton’s long-time residents have been unreserved in their organizing

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brittany Simmons is a first-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student at the University of Michigan. She grew up in Belleville, Michigan and earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan (2018). Her interest in urban centers and their relationship with gentrification stems from her experiences in two University of Michigan programs: Semester in Detroit and Contemporary London.

AGO R A 13

99

A Tale of Two [Gentrified] Cities

ENDNOTES 1. David Uberti, “The Death of a Great American City: Why Does Anyone Still Live in Detroit?,” April 3, 2014, I://www.theguardian. com/cities/2014/apr/03/the-death-of-a-great-american-city-whydoes-anyone-still-live-in-detroit.

2. Thomas J. Sugrue, “From Motor City to Motor Metropolis: How the Automobile Industry Reshaped Urban America,” Automobile in American Life and Society, 2004, http://www.autolife.umd.umich. edu/Race/R_Overview/R_Overview1.htm.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. “Black Bottom,” Detroit Historical Society, 2017, https:// detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/black-bottomneighborhood.

8. Shailesh N. Humad, “Detroit Population History 1900-2000,” February 3, 2017, http://www.somacon.com/p469.php.

9. Bill McGraw, “Detroit ’67: By the Numbers,” July 22, 2017, https:// www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/07/23/ detroit-67-numbers/493523001/.

10. “1967 Detroit Riots,” History, 2017, http://www.history.com/ topics/1967-detroit-riots.

11. Samantha Meinke, “Milken v. Bradley: The Northern Battle for Desegregation,” Michigan Bar Journal 90, no.9 (2011) 20-22.

12. William J.V. Neill, “Lipstick on the Gorilla: The Failure of ImageLed Planning in Coleman Young’s Detroit”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19, (1995) 639-653.

13. Ze’ev Chafets, “Devil’s Night and Other True Tales of Detroit,” (New York: Random House, 1990).

20. “Brixton Riots, 1981,”Metropolitan Police Service, 1981, https:// web.archive.org/web/20041205044315/http://www.met.police.uk/ history/brixton_riots.htm.

21. Baron Leslie George Scarman, “The Scarman Report: the Brixton Disorders, 10-12 April 1981: Report of an Inquiry” (Harmondsworth, Middlesex Penguin Publishing, 1982).

22. Brixton Riots, April 10, 1981, BBC News, London, England.

23. Neill, “Lipstick on the Gorilla.”

24. ”Live Midtown: Program Guidelines,” Midtown Detroit, Inc., April 24, 2014, http://www.livemidtown.org/wp-content/ uploads/2016/06/160622_LIVE_Midtown_Guideline.pdf.

25. “Detroit Inclusionary Housing Plan and Market Study,” The City of Detroit Housing and Revitalization Department, November 2016.

26. “Rental Values in Brixton,” Foxtons, November 2017, https:// www.foxtons.co.uk/living-in/brixton/rentals/.

27. Rachel Blundy, “Brixton Traders ‘Outraged’ as They Face Eviction in Planned Redevelopment of Railway Arches,” Evening Standard, February 4, 2015, https://www.standard.co.uk/news/ london/brixton-traders-stunned-and-outraged-over-plans-to-evictthem-over-railway-arches-redevelopment-10023869.html.

28. Daisy Bata, “Reclaim Brixton: One Neighborhood Unites Against Developers,” 2015, http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/ article/24553/1/reclaim-brixton-one-neighbourhood-unites-againstdevelopers.

29. “About Us,” Pop Brixton, 2017, https://www.popbrixton.org/ about/.

30. Ibid.

31. Charli Bristow, “Pop and Brixton Arches,” Local Level Impacts of Urban Regeneration in Brixton: Community Participation and Perceptions, 2016, https://brixtonregeneration.wordpress.com/.

14. Television Detroit, “1990 ABC Primetime Live: Detroit’s Agony Part 1,” Filmed [November 1990], YouTube video, 11:48. Posted [September 2010]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbsgLcV4o1k.

15. Rosa Palazzolo, “Detroit Shines Under Super Bowl Spotlight,” February 3, 2006, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ story?id=1575626.

16. London Borough of Lambeth, “A Short History of Brixton,” 2009, https://web.archive.org/web/20131230051452/http://www. lambeth.gov.uk/Services/LeisureCulture/LocalHistory/Local/ AShortHistoryOfBrixton.htm.

17. Ibid.

18. Sheila Patterson, “Dark Strangers: A Sociological Study of the Absorption of a recent West Indian migrant group in Brixton, South London,” (London: Tavistock Publications, 1963).

19. John Lea, “From Brixton to Bradford: Official Discourse on Race and Urban Violence in the United Kingdom,” in Crime, Truth and Justice, ed. George Gilligan and John Pratt (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2004).

Daham Marapane - El Paso, Texas 100

101

T

oday, Hurricane Katrina is considered

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina A Case of Climate Justice Carol Maione Master of Science in Natural Resources and Environment 2019

ABSTRACT Natural disasters give researchers and practitioners a unique opportunity to rebuild cities in a manner that integrates resilience and disaster risk reduction programs. However, the disaster recovery process is often unequal, and gentrification may occur in post-disaster reconstruction. Previous research reveals that urban transformations within New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina widened the gap between the rich and the poor, led to uneven representation in the City’s government during recovery planning, and pushed the most vulnerable individuals away from the city, reducing future opportunities for urban and socio-demographic diversity. This study builds upon this previous research and contends that race and ethnic components were predictors of delayed or discriminatory planning in the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This is especially true for neighborhoods that were home to high concentrations of African Americans before Katrina and experienced a rapid population decline in the aftermath, such as the Lower Ninth Ward. Using the Lower Ninth Ward as a case study, this article highlights the social, economic, and political context of post-Katrina planning and uses spatial analysis to support the theory that reconstruction efforts in the Lower Ninth Ward were discriminatory to African American communities.

102

one of the worst natural disasters in the United States in the past 90 years. Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 and caused approximately 1,836 deaths, mainly in the urban areas of New Orleans. Nearly 50 percent of the victims were 75 years old or older and unable to access private vehicles or public transportation because of sickness or infirmity.¹ Among the victims, 51 percent were African American, 42 percent were white, 2 percent were Hispanic or Latino, and 5 percent were either Indigenous American, Asian, or non-identified ethnicities.² This paper explores how social vulnerabilities that existed before the disaster served as a tool for the government to create discriminatory outcomes in the recovery process. It explores how race was a predictor of power imbalances reflected in the perpetuation of distributive and procedural injustices in post-disaster recovery. While post-disaster gentrification can have a wide array of implications, this paper explores previous studies that associate uneven rebuilding processes in New Orleans with intentional discrimination against African Americans.

This research focuses on the Lower Ninth Ward a case of environmental and climate injustice, where more than 90 percent of the neighborhood’s residents identified as African American or other minority ethnicities and lived in poor or extremely poor conditions.

This study contends that the recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward was dictated by gentrification-oriented policies to push black and poor communities out of New Orleans and prevent their relocation within the city’s boundaries. The City pursued ineffective planning policy by failing to include residents in decision-making and design processes, which yielded uneven and discriminatory effects among those living in the Lower Ninth Ward. This resulted in the destruction of many black communities that never returned to New Orleans, as well as a loss of cultural and socio-economic diversity.

THE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO KATRINA: WIDENING DISPLACEMENT AND INJUSTICE The race-class debate is prominent in disaster research. Class-oriented scholars assert that low- and high-class status – as defined by income, wealth, social ties, and access to goods – are reflected in limited or greater access to pre-disaster evacuation plans, respectively.³ In the case of Hurricane Katrina, low socio-economic status residents tended to live in the most precarious flooding areas and had little or no access to cars or public transportation. As a result, they had a more limited opportunity to escape the natural disaster. In contrast, a race-driven hypothesis proposes that racial differences produced differential responses to Hurricane Katrina in a city that was 68 percent black.

Supporters of this theory suggest that race and ethnicity rather than economic factors framed differences in how officials responded to the disaster and organized evacuation plans, and how victims received emotional support post-Katrina.4 Often, natural disasters yield unfortunate outcomes that exacerbate pre-existing class and racial disparities and emphasize mistrust in the government’s ability to ensure equal conditions for all. Hurricane Katrina brought attention to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) failure to adopt effective disaster mitigation strategies.5 FEMA demonstrated a lack of preparedness, leadership, and management decisions in efforts to enhance the resilience of the city’s neighborhoods, prepare holistic evacuation plans, and plan in advance.6 In an attempt to bridge these gaps and hasten the recovery process in the months after the storm, the federal government adopted the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which reorganized FEMA and advocated for support to evacuees and the needs of the disaster survivors.

AGO R A 13

103

The mismanagement of disaster risk is also demonstrated by the displacement and relocation of society’s most vulnerable groups. Racism and environmental injustice have been identified as major drivers of postdisaster displacement, and researchers have expressed serious concerns about how racial and social components affected the pace of recovery processes.7 Despite the efforts of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to encourage a rebuilding plan that gave priority to low-income and minority groups located in the most devastated areas, the city government favored an approach that gave rebuilding priority to the least affected areas, which were generally located in wealthy, white wards.8 Failure to provide equal opportunities in recovery decisions sheds light on the intentional exclusion of minority groups from decision-making processes.9 Lack of community engagement in rebuilding operations and mobilization of resources is consistent with the definition of “procedural injustice:” unfair procedures, uneven representation and access to benefits, and political injustice.¹0 Although this resulted in quick recovery trajectories, the lack of community input hindered minority groups’ ability to return to their pre-Katrina lives.¹¹ Residents from the Lower Ninth Ward accused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of opening the gates and letting water flood into their houses, a claim that echoed accusations of intentional levee breach following Hurricane Betsy in 1965.¹² From a macro-scale perspective, the whole City of New Orleans experienced environmental justice issues during both hurricanes. Such issues were even more visible at the micro scale in the designation of “sacrifice zones” to disaster-prone neighborhoods located in the Lower Ninth Ward.¹³ The post-disaster economic crisis inflated housing prices. Race served as a discriminant factor in the availability of house contracts or loans, which were awarded to

104

MAIONE

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina

the most powerful and politically connected individuals who belonged to the wealthy, white class.14 In contrast, African Americans were issued only small grants, which drastically reduced opportunities to repair or rebuild their houses, if they were still accessible, or access the housing market.15 Unequal distribution of recovery funds is consistent with the definition of “distributive injustice,” as disproportionately large numbers of residents, in particular African Americans, were denied the right to equal treatment in the recovery process, as well opportunities for a fast recovery.16 This resulted in the destruction of “Black New Orleans,” which drastically affected the demographic composition of the city postKatrina.17

AN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROXY This study explores recovery dynamics in the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans. The Ninth Ward is particularly prone to flooding events due to its precarious geographic location between the Mississippi River to the south, the Industrial Canal to the west, and Lake Pontchartrain to the north (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Data from City of New Orleans, (Alyson Hurt/NPR, 2015).

The Lower Ninth Ward was built as an expansion of the Ninth Ward to accommodate working classes in the 1920s and was physically divided from the Upper Ninth Ward by the construction of the Industrial Canal. It lies on historic marsh land, where construction costs for new housing development were lower than in the rest of the city.18 However, drying operations and poor management of the ward’s levees made the area more vulnerable to floods.

Previous studies recorded only minor damage to structures in the Upper Ninth Ward post-Katrina; the Lower Ninth Ward, however, staged a post-apocalyptic scene.

Delayed reconstruction operations in the Lower Ninth Ward prevented most of its residents from returning to their houses for months or, in some cases, permanently. Key impediments for residents included physical inaccessibility to the neighborhood after levee failure, a housing and economic crisis that made the housing market unaffordable, and a lack of targeted reconstruction programs that further isolated the Lower Ninth Ward from the rest of the city.19 In addition to its physical isolation, the Lower Ninth Ward has historically experienced social and cultural isolation that has yielded discriminatory outcomes for its residents.

Over the past century, the incidence of hurricanes and storms that hit the area heavily exacerbated the occurrence of white flight from the Ninth Ward to the suburbs.

Many African Americans migrated into the area following Louisiana’s Slum Clearance Act in 1952, and throughout the second half of the 20th century, the area was converted to majority black, poor and working-class neighborhoods. Segregation was exacerbated in schools and public facilities as white citizens increasingly refused to share public spaces with their black neighbors.20 By 2000, more than 90 percent of the Lower Ninth Ward residents were African American, and one in three lived in poverty.21

The demographic analysis of the City of New Orleans shows that several wards transitioned from a high percentage of African Americans before Katrina (Figure 2) to lower percentages in the years after the hurricane (Figure 3). This was not the case for the Lower Ninth Ward, where the percentage of African Americans remained constant (greater than 93 percent) before and after the hurricane.

Environmental racism also takes place through disproportionate exposure to toxic substances and pollutants. Located between the so-called “Cancer Alley” and the “Hurricane Highway,” the Lower Ninth Ward has attracted industrial facilities that, incentivized by cheap land and little resistance from local communities, clustered around the neighborhood and expose the inhabitants to a toxic cocktail of chemicals.²² The spatial concentration of facilities supports the “disparate siting” hypothesis, which suggests that the siting of hazardous facilities in areas inhabited by minority groups is a typical example of environmental injustice.²³ Today, more than 150 petrochemical plants and 2,000 hazardous dump sites are located in the surroundings of the Lower Ninth Ward. In addition, numerous offshore oil rigs are sited in Louisiana’s Outer Continental Shelf and account for about 88 percent of all US oil extractions. One hundred twenty nine million pounds of toxins are released annually, increasing the cancer rate in the ward to a level three times the national average.24 The cumulative effects of these toxic combinations yield alarming outcomes for human health that have received minimal research and policy attention.

Katrina increased the toxicity of the area at alarming rates. Flooding coated the area in mud from Lake Pontchartrain and contaminated sediments from industrial sites, which, when mixed with oil leakage, produced a dangerous toxic mixture. As the water receded, large amounts of debris

AGO R A 13

105

MAIONE

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina

Percent of B l ack or African A mer ican Pop ul at ion by Cens us Trac t ( 200 0)

Pe rce nt o f Va ca nt H o usi ng Uni ts ( 2 0 0 0 ) 5 -2 5 %

Less than 20 %

2 6 -5 0 %

20- 56%

5 1 -7 5 %

56- 83.5%

G re a te r tha n 7 5 %

83.5- 93% Greater than 93%

L owe r N i nth Wa rd C i ty L i m i t

Lower N inth Ward City Limit

Figure 2: Percent of Population Black or African American in 2000. U.S. Census, 2000. (Emily Korman, 2019).

Percent of B l ack or African A mer ican Pop ul at ion by Cens us Trac t ( 201 0)

Figure 4: Percent of Vacant Housing Units 2000. U.S. Census, 2000. (Emily Korman, 2019).

Pe rce nt o f Va ca nt H o usi ng Uni ts ( 2 0 1 0 ) N o Va ca nc y

Less than 20 %

5 -2 5 %

20- 56%

2 6 -5 0 %

56- 83.5%

5 1 -7 5 %

83.5- 93%

G re a te r tha n 7 5 %

Greater than 93% L owe r N i nth Wa rd Lower N inth Ward

C i ty L i m i t

City Limit

Figure 3: Percent of Population Black or African American in 2000. U.S. Census, 2000. (Emily Korman, 2019).

106

Figure 5: Percent of Vacant Housing Units in 2010. U.S. Census, 2010. (Emily Korman, 2019).

AGO R A 13

107

MAIONE

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina

and sediment layers left by Katrina became visible.25 Months after the hurricane, a FEMA investigation of toxic chemicals reported that the formaldehyde level of the soil was 75 times greater than government regulation allows.26

A CHANGING WARD: THE LOWER NINTH WARD BEFORE AND AFTER KATRINA Limited reconstruction efforts in the Lower Ninth Ward caused the population density to remain low after Katrina. Infrastructures and facilities were poorly managed before the hurricane, and there was little or no maintenance post-Katrina to put them back in place. The decaying conditions of the roads connecting the Lower Ninth Ward to rest of the city prevented many residents from returning to their houses.27 Many housing complexes were demolished and never reconstructed, which prevented a big share of the residents from returning to their properties. The analysis of housing occupancy before and after Katrina shows a significant increase in vacancy level. One in four houses or fewer were vacant in 2000 (Figure 4). Contrarily, after Katrina, most neighborhoods in the Lower Ninth Ward reported 50-75 percent vacancy levels, with some peaks above 75 percent vacancy (Figure 5).

A spatial analysis at block scale provides evidence for this argument. Block 0007014 depicts the general disinvestment in reconstruction, showing a significant reduction of housing density in the area. In particular, household units decreased from 40 (22 in the lower block and 18 in the upper block) in 2000 (Figure 6) to five units in 2010, all located in the lower block, of which four are existing units and one is new construction (Figure 7).

108

gentrification process after Katrina, but recovery plans also embodied ideas of “white privilege” and “racial capitalism.”28

Figure 6: Housing Density in Block 0007014, 2000, (Emily Korman, 2019).

Figure 7: Housing Density in Block 0007014, 2010, (Emily Korman, 2019).

POLICY IMPLICATIONS This study provides evidence that government policies in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina enabled the gentrification of New Orleans by prioritizing the development of tourist and higher-income neighborhoods.

Particularly interesting is the case of the Lower Ninth Ward, which received the least support from governmental institutions but a significant amount of attention from national and international media due to the extent of damage inflicted by the storm.

This study explores whether sociodemographic indicators are predictors of delayed or absent recovery post-Katrina and reconstruction in the medium- and longterm. My findings seem to align with those of previous studies stating that the hurricane served as an opportunity to relocate African Americans outside the city. Not only did New Orleans undergo a racially restrictive

Katrina opened a national debate on climate change and its potential destructive effects on local populations.29 The unprecedented hurricane damage and the slow pace of recovery that brought about different outcomes among New Orleans’ societies made it a case of climate justice. The climate justice movement addresses the social and economic impacts caused by extreme weather events to the most vulnerable groups of a society. In the aftermath of a disaster, vulnerable groups are more likely to experience stressors, health disorders, and economic crises including lack of employment, secure income, and material assets. Climate justice scholars advocate for the rights of these groups, providing them with representation in the local governments.

Second, the climate justice movement addresses climate action policy, including mitigation and adaptation strategies, by exploring how climate regulations impose inequitable impacts on low socioeconomic status groups and racial or ethnic minorities.30 Post-Katrina planning operations across the city remained fragmented and confined to prioritized areas, while other sites were demolished. In particular, governmental decisions openly encouraged the displacement and relocation of African American residents in an effort to prevent New Orleans from being “as black as it was [before Katrina] for a long time, if ever again.”³¹ During an interview, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonse Jackson expressed concerns about the reconstruction of the Ninth Ward, “a predominantly black and poor neighborhood.” Along the same lines, Baton Rouge Congressman Richard Baker celebrated the devastation of Katrina, asserting that “we finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”32

Despite several planned rebuilding interventions, implementation was slow or absent. In September 2005, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission was instituted to implement a rebuilding plan by the end of the year. However, the introduction of members from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) into the commission favored a policy of “shrinking the city’s footprint,” a heavily politicized project that advocated for the creation of a greener city through government-financed buyouts.³³ This policy entailed a major shift in land use from residential to services and public green space for some areas, including the Lower Ninth Ward. Controversies in the proposal included overly delayed recovery plans, enhancement of gentrification patterns, and fragmentation of the city’s fabric. During his political campaign, the mayor of New Orleans distanced himself from the ULI’s proposal in favor of citizen-driven reconstruction.34 Lack of trust in the commission and the City’s authorities, along with general dissatisfaction amongst residents, led to the premature end of the program. Once again, New Orleanians perceived lack of engagement and empowerment in policy and decisionmaking processes. This is especially true in the Lower Ninth Ward, where lack of public attention caused the area to lose a significant share of its residential population.

Public disinvestment served as a political instrument to target low-income and African American groups that lived in the area before Katrina, producing intentionally discriminatory outcomes and heavily affecting their rights to such an extent that a large portion never came back.35 In October 2005, the Governor created the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA), a board commission in charge of coordinating the distribution of funds among the construction sector by ensuring transparency and accountability.36 LRA’s duties included the providing policy guidance to the Community Development Block Grant funds financed by the federal government. Most of the grant went to the Road Home program, a $11.1 billion funding project that proved to

AGO R A 13

109

hold racial and discriminatory outcomes against black recipients. The program allocated grants on the basis of market values as opposed to construction costs, which restricted eligibility for many black residents.37 Because of this, residents of the Lower Ninth Ward never benefited from this program, and property and land values in the neighborhood – which even before Katrina were low relative to those of the rest of the city – dropped further as a result of the floods.

In December 2005, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission launched the Lambert Plans project, which promoted coordinated planning efforts between architects and planners to target the 49 flooded neighborhoods within the city. After FEMA refused to fund the plan, major funding sources were provided by the LRA ($7.5 million), the Rockefeller Foundation ($3.5 million), the Greater New Orleans Foundation ($1 million), and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund ($1 million).38 However, the lack of approval from the City Planning Commission, coupled with a lack of funding, presented major barriers to the project’s success, which increased dissatisfaction amongst the most impacted residents.

Shortly after the hurricane, the mayor cut the City’s planning staff drastically, leaving most of the recovery plans unmanaged and further impacting the ability of existing institutions to respond to post-Katrina challenges effectively. Therefore, remaining planning efforts massively targeted shortterm rebuilding activities by prioritizing the neighborhoods that were less damaged and more likely to return to their pre-Katrina status with minimum interventions. It was not until 2007 that LRA obtained funding to support the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP). UNOP targeted multiple audiences including the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) to spur redevelopment in prioritized areas.39 However, lack of communication with and engagement of local

110

MAIONE

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina

residents in decision making never eased the public’s demand for better planning.

CONCLUSION After natural disasters, recovery plans can yield discriminatory outcomes that exclude minority groups from the rebuilding process.

Post-Katrina planning decisions were ineffective in comprehensively addressing the entire population of New Orleans. This paper explored how racial components affected recovery efforts in the hurricane aftermath by causing many African Americans to relocate outside of the city. More specifically, the Lower Ninth Ward was regarded as one of the areas most affected by Katrina in terms of physical damages and loss of its almost entirely black population, and a socio-demographic analysis of the area demonstrates that the Lower Ninth Ward never fully recovered. Housing and population density remained low, suggesting that the City’s planning commission disinvested from the area and diverted investments and recovery efforts to more central neighborhoods that met the interests of the wealthier classes and tourists.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Carol Maione is a Master of Science candidate at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, where she majored in Urban Studies with a focus on urban metabolism and waste generation. Her research interests center on sustainable production and consumption of resources, with a specific focus on plastic materials. She is driven by her commitment to reduce ocean plastic pollution through fostering public awareness of the impacts of plastics on human and non-human communities. Ms. Maione’s future research will focus on rethinking industrial processes to align circular economy and zero-waste models.

AGO R A 13

111

ENDNOTES 1. Henry A. Giroux, “Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability,” College Literature 33, no. 3 (2006): 171-196.

2. Joan Brunkard, Namulanda Gonza and Raoult Ratard, “Hurricane Katrina Deaths, Louisiana, 2005,” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 2, no. 4 (2008): 215-223.

3. James R. Elliott and Jeremy Pais, “Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina: Social Differences in Human Responses to Disaster,” Social Science Research 35, no. 2 (2006): 295-321.

4. Ibid.

5. Russell S. Sobel and Peter T. Leeson, “Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrina: A Public Choice Analysis,” Public Choice 127, no.

1-2 (2006): 55-73.

6. Glenn S. Johnson, “Environmental Justice and Katrina: A Senseless Environmental Disaster,” Western Journal of Black Studies 32, no. 1 (2008): 42-52.

7. Tanya B. Corbin, “Leveraging Disaster: Promoting Social Justice and Holistic Recovery Through Policy Advocacy After Hurricane Katrina,” Journal of Public Management & Social Policy 22, no. 2 (2015): 1-11.

8. Ibid.

9. Rachel Morello-Frosch, Phil Brown, Mercedes Lyson, Alison Cohen and Kimberly Krupa, “Community Voice, Vision, and Resilience in Post-Hurricane Katrina Recovery,” Environmental Justice 4, no. 1 (2011): 71-80.

10. Robert Kuehn, “A Taxonomy of Environmental Justice,” Environmental Law Reporter 30, (2000): 10681-10703.

11. Robert William Kates, Craig E. Colten, Shirley Laska and Stephen P. Leatherman, “Reconstruction of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina: A Research Perspective,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103, no. 40 (2006): 14653-14660.

12. Craig E. Colten, “Environmental Justice in a Landscape of Tragedy,” Technology in Society 29, no. 2 (2007): 173-179.

13. Steve Lerner, Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States (MIT Press, 2010).

14. Beverly Wright and Earthea Nance, “Toward equity: Prioritizing Vulnerable Communities in Climate Change,” Duke FL & Soc. Change 4, no.1 (2012): 1-21.

15. Cedric Johnson, “Gentrifying New Orleans: Thoughts on Race and the Movement of Capital,” Souls 17, no. 3-4 (2015): 175-200.

16. Kuehn, A Taxonomy of Environmental Justice, 10681-10703.

17. Robert D. Bullard, Katrina and the Second Disaster: A Twentypoint Plan to Destroy Black New Orleans (Clark Atlanta University, 2005).

18. Davia C. Downey, Cities and Disasters (CRC Press, 2015).

112

MAIONE

Recovery Planning After Hurricane Katrina

19. Rebekah Green, Lisa K. Bates and Andrew Smyth, “Impediments to Recovery in New Orleans’ Upper and Lower Ninth Ward: One Year After Hurricane Katrina,” Disasters 31, no. 4 (2007): 311-335.

37. Shelby Hartman, “The Lower Ninth Ward, Ten Years After Katrina,” Vice, August 27, 2015, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdx3gb/the-lower-ninth-wardten-years-after-katrina-0826.

20. Davia C. Downey, Cities and Disasters (CRC Press, 2015).

21. Juliette Landphair, “‘The Forgotten People of New Orleans’: Community, Vulnerability, and the Lower Ninth Ward,” The Journal of American History 94, no. 3 (2007): 837-845.

22. Daina Cheyenne Harvey, “The Discourse of the Ecological Precariat: Making Sense of Social Disruption in the Lower Ninth Ward in the Long-Term Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” Sociological Forum 31 (2016): 862-884.

38. Robert B. Olshansky, Laurie A. Johnson, Jedidiah Horne and Brendan Nee, “Longer View: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans,” Journal of the American Planning Association 74, no. 3 (2008): 273-287.

39. Ibid.

23. Paul Mohai and Robin Saha, “Which Came First, People or Pollution? A Review of Theory and Evidence from Longitudinal Environmental Justice Studies,” Environmental Research Letters 10, no. 12 (2015): 1-9.

24. Harvey, “The Discourse of the Ecological Precariat,” 862-884.

25. Janell Smith and Rachel Spector, “Environmental Justice, Community Empowerment, and the Role of Lawyers in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” NY City Law Review 10 (2006): 277-297.

26. Bob Avakian, “After Katrina: Driving Black People out of NOLA’s Lower 9th Ward,” Revolution, August 24, 2015, http://revcom. us/a/401/after-katrina-lower-ninth-ward.html.

27. Michelle M. Thompson, Patrick Coyle, Kristine Dickson, John Green, Rosa Herrin, M. Johanna Leibe, Michael Lostocco, Adarian Pike, Manyuan Reffell, Tyren Snyder, Sofie Strasser and Jill Zimmerman, Market Value in the Lower 9th Ward: Evaluating Reinvestment for the New Orleans Re-development Authority (University of New Orleans, 2012).

28. Johnson, “Gentrifying New Orleans,” 175-200.

29. Corbin, “Leveraging Disaster,” 1-11.

30. David Schlosberg and Lisette B. Collins, “From Environmental to Climate Justice: Climate Change and the Discourse of Environmental Justice,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 5, no. 3 (2014): 359-374.

31. Alphonso Jackson, United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), interview released to Houston Chronicle on September 29, 2005.

32. Susan Saulny, “Clamoring to Come Home to New Orleans Projects,” The New York Times, June 6, 2006, https://www.nytimes. com/2006/06/06/us/nationalspecial/06housing.html.

33. William P. Quigley, “Obstacle to Opportunity: Housing that Working and Poor People Can Afford in New Orleans Since Katrina,” Wake Forest Law Rev. 42 (2007): 393-418.

34. Robert B. Olshansky, Laurie A. Johnson, Jedidiah Horne and Brendan Nee, “Longer view: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans,” Journal of the American Planning Association 74, no. 3 (2008): 273-287.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

AGO R A 13

113

Loraine Leung - Hong Kong, China 114

115

Jamie Lee - MedellĂ­n, Columbia 116

117

Figure 1: Since the advent of the first computer, electronic devices have dramatically influenced many different aspects of society.

Given these technological advances, what types of architecture will the future hold?

T

Wearable Society Ester Lo/Hong-Fen Lo Master of Science in Architecture – Digital and Material Technologies 2019

ABSTRACT In this piece, I grapple with several questions: What types of architecture will the future hold? How will it influence and interact with us? How will it impact urban society?

Wearable Society proposes a radical concept: future society will be the product of an intricate network of wearable units that act as manifestations of each individual citizen’s needs, which can be linked together to create adaptive and transformable spaces. This piece envisions these wearable units and theorizes what its interactions would look like on the urban scale.

118

he Internet and big data have become integral to the society in which we live.

Wearable technologies, such as the Apple Watch, Virtual Reality or Artificial Reality simulations, are slowly becoming an integral component of our aesthetic and I speculate that they have potential to enhance social connections and spatial organization on the urban scale. In imagining a future urban society, I boldly theorize that the urban form around us will be able to respond instantly to our social, physical, and emotional needs.

In this society, I propose the development of small fabricated units, which will be able to change shape and size to form objects at different scales and with different materials.

These may assemble together to form pieces of clothing and accessories, or may combine with other units to form furniture, buildings, and even cities. The Wearable Society is based on the constant interaction between scales, spaces, and people. It connects the development of architecture directly to people and their needs. In the Wearable Society, these transformable units allow people to live a nomadic lifestyle. People will be

able to build temporary spaces, such as a personal office space that can be collapsed and shifted to a new location. Beyond this, these units adopt intelligent technology and are constantly learning; when two people are attached to each other’s units, their units share information between themselves to create and develop more complex forms. With the connection of 50 people, a temporary building can be constructed and can evolve and change with its residents, creating a more permanent structure formed by the collective data of the the crowd. Scaling up, in an urban context, this means that the cityscape will reflect social harmony, conflict, and transformation. My thesis mainly emphasizes the capabilities of the digital age and how that might translate into the built world. It poses a unique opportunity to bridge the link between design and planning; how do the newest trends in architecture theory respond to the complexities of social living?

What follows is an exercise in architectural philosophy, that aims to address some of these questions.

AGO R A 13

119

Wearable Society LO

THE TRANSFORMABLE URBAN SPACE

IMAGINATION OF FUTURE LIFE: A PART OF ARCHITECTURE’S INTERIORS Figure 2: In imagining a future urban society, I boldly speculate that the urban form around us will be able to respond instantly to our social, physical and emotional needs. Spaces will be constructed, adapted, and demolished constantly to create the urban fabric society needs.

Scale: XL URBAN SCALE Urban spaces are formed by the full agglomeration of multiple space scales, coming together to define and shape the urban fabric. These, like the units they are made up of, are receptive to larger societal needs. As smart technology, they are constantly learning and growing, feeding from data and current world trends to form the urban fabric of the future.

-

Scale: L SPACE SCALE

The urban fabric is shaped by the sharing of data between multiple users, learning and evolving to form more complex networks of spaces and places.

By connecting with other people’s units, the units are capable of morphing to hold structure, slowly building upwards to facilitate more complex societal needs. The sharing of data between these units allows for constant growth and quick response to changing social relationships. This tangible architectural space will be a true reflection of social demands.

Scale: M PRODUCT SCALE By connecting 10-20 personal units, these new and more intricate units will respond to individual needs, forming products such as clothes and furniture.

Creation also leads to destruction; some portions of the urban fabric demolish themselves to be reused in the new form.

It demonstrates how this technology is sustainable and adaptable to society’s constant changing needs.

Scale: S UNIT SCALE I theorize that there will soon be a wearble technology which adapts to an individuals need.

This transformable unit will be able to learn and evolve, changing its shape, size and form to respond to basic personal requirements.

120

AGO R A 13

Figure 3: The evolution of the Wearable Society can be understood by visualizing the interaction of the smallest transformable unit across different scales. I hypothesize that future societies will create an adaptable urban space through the collaboration of these transformable units in the process outlined below.

121

Wearable Society

IMAGINING A FUTURE LIFE: PART OF ARCHITECTURE’S INTERIOR T he ur b a n fa bric, its in h a bitan ts , a nd i t s a rc h ite ctu re in te ra ct across s ca le s a nd s pace . T h e s pace a n d th e fur ni s hi ng s co m p os in g th e s pace wi l l b e s ma r t. T h e s p a ce w il l ch a n g e co nsta nt ly, fo rm in g w h a t s o cie ty ne e d s i n t he ex a ct m om e n t to m ove fo r wa rd a nd co exist.

Elizabeth Wenner - Paris, France

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ester Lo is pursuing a Master of Science in Architecture with a concentration in Digital and Material Technologies (DMT) at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. She hopes that by learning material knowledge and machine techniques she will be able to generate innovative ideas and apply them to design. Her primary research interest in the DMT program is casting complex concrete geometry by combining robotic arm technology and fabric molds in lieu of using a traditional formwork. Ester has a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Feng-Chia University in Taiwan.

122

123

Jacqueline Daniel - Barcelona, Spain 124

125

‘Black’ is capitalized throughout this piece and consistent with Oxford and Webster’s dictionaries convention. As articulated by Lori L. Tharps, associate professor of journalism at

Design is Political White Supremacy and Landscape Urbanism Jennifer Low, PLA Master of Design in Integrative Design 2020

ABSTRACT “Landscape architects, planners, and other land-use professionals can play an important role in disconnecting the nation’s racial regimes from their spatial grounding.”1 Landscape Urbanism theory gained momentum for its potential to drive new urban forms and increase the agency of landscape architecture in the design and planning of the contemporary city. However, this approach still leaves significant gaps in our design discourse surrounding issues of equity that remain since Frederick Law Olmsted and the creation of Central Park. If Landscape Urbanism seeks transformational change, landscape architecture and planning professionals must recognize their role and responsibility in breaking down the physical and spatial manifestations of structural and systemic racism that continue to disproportionately affect people based on race and contribute to the increasing inequity in our cities. The momentum and influence of Landscape Urbanism today provides landscape architects and its allied professionals an important opportunity to critique what is missing from conversations in design that can move us toward progress in addressing issues of social and environmental equity.

Environmental justice and environmental racism will be defined to frame the objectives of an environmental justice agenda for Landscape Urbanism. More specifically, Laura Pulido’s broadened definition of environmental racism that speaks to the spatial manifestations of environmental racism frames this critique. Through a review of Landscape Urbanism discourse and practice, examples of non-action, complacency, and erasure of structural and systemic racism embedded in the physical environment must be acknowledged in order to hold critical conversations on what it means to design better cities.

126

Temple University, in a 2014 New York Times Op-Ed piece, “The Case for Black with a Capital B,” “Black should always be written with a capital B. We are indeed a people, a race, a tribe.”

Furthermore, ‘white’ is not capitalized in this piece as references to white with a capital ‘W’ have been associated with expressions of white supremacy.

L

andscape Urbanism has played a prominent role in contemporary landscape architecture discourse since its formal introduction at the first Landscape Urbanism conference in 1997 in Chicago.2 Landscape Urbanism theory continues to gain traction in academic discourse and practice for its potential to drive new urban forms and increase the agency of landscape architecture in the design and planning of the contemporary city. Landscape Urbanism aspires to expand and scale up the traditional scope of landscape architecture beyond object-based design (e.g., individual plazas and parks) and speculates about the potential of landscape at the city-making level.3 Charles Waldheim, James Corner (Field Operations, High Line), Chris Reed (Stoss), Michael Van Valkenburgh (Brooklyn Bridge Park, Detroit’s West Riverfront Park), and Adriaan Gueze (West 8, Governors Island) are leading academics and practitioners whose built and speculative work employ the primary principles of Landscape Urbanism.4 Through the lens of Landscape Urbanism, landscape architects, urban designers, and architects speculate on the potential of landscape and landscape infrastructure to give new form to the urban environment.

The increased impact of scale can address the ecological, social, and economic harm of post-industrialism facing our cities and offer an alternative mechanism to shape the urban environment (i.e., landscape leads and then buildings follow).5 Landscape Urbanism leverages landscape as the medium to organize urban form and remedy past urban design grievances.6 However, this approach leaves significant gaps in our design

discourse surrounding issues of equity that have remained since Frederick Law Olmsted and the creation of Central Park. If Landscape Urbanism seeks transformational change, landscape architecture and planning professionals must recognize their role and responsibility in breaking down the physical and spatial manifestations of structural and systemic racism and contribute to the increasing inequity in our cities.

Landscape architecture and its allied professions must engage in critical discourse recognizing design’s role and responsibility in addressing issues of environmental racism and draw important connections between physical, spatial, and environmental maladies of our cities and structural racism and discrimination.7 The momentum and influence of Landscape Urbanism today provide landscape architects, designers, and planners of the built environment a critical opportunity to critique what is missing from conversations in design practice and pedagogy that can move us toward progress in addressing issues of social and environmental equity.

LANDSCAPE URBANISM AMBITIONS Landscape Urbanism theory marks a significant shift in the scale and authority of landscape architects in the design of cities. Reoccurring themes in landscape urbanism discourse can be summarized as 1) landscape as infrastructure, 2) landscape

AGO R A 13

127

Design is Political LOW

as medium and driver of city formation, and 3) landscape as a social and political actor.8,9,10 This third tenet has particularly transformative potential, yet issues of environmental justice are insufficiently addressed within the context of Landscape Urbanist discourse to effectively exert social and political change through design.

Environmental racism is rarely addressed as a structural force shaping the social, economic, and ecological ills of the current urban condition and its disproportionate effect on people based on race.11 The disproportionate impact on and exposure of Black communities to environmental hazards, urban poverty, housing segregation, and discrimination in the labor market are systemic issues that are seen and felt in the physical and spatial evolution of American cities.12 Defining environmental justice and environmental racism aids in framing the objectives of an environmental justice agenda for Landscape Urbanism. The noted qualitative social scientist and professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California, Laura Pulido, provides a broadened definition of environmental racism that speaks to the spatial manifestations of the phenomenon. Through a review of Landscape Urbanism discourse and practice, examples of non-action, complacency, and erasure of structural and systemic racism embedded in the physical environment must be acknowledged in order to begin critical conversations on designing equitable cities.

128

and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”13 The origins of the U.S. environmental justice movement can be traced back to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and linked to the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and the 1982 protests in Warren County, North Carolina where hundreds of people protested the dumping of hazardous waste in the county’s already-marginalized communities.14,15 While environmental justice seeks fair and equitable distribution of environmental protections, deliberate and discriminatory acts of environmental racism that instigate events like the protests in Memphis and Warren County explain how these injustices are physically manifested in explicit and obvious ways. A city’s social ecology and its inequities cannot be considered separate from its physical and environmental ecology.16 As our cities continue to rapidly urbanize, these inequities worsen and evolve into both explicit and implicit physical and spatial forms as they continue to be unrecognized and unchecked.

DEFINING ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

DEFINING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

In order to set forth an explicit environmental justice agenda, it is important that the concept of environmental racism be specifically acknowledged. By acknowledging environmental racism, we can make it part of the design discourse and offer important critiques about how the spatial and physical manifestations of racism have shaped past injustices in our cities and how they continue to influence the work we do as designers.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, environmental justice is defined as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation,

The term ‘environmental racism’ recognizes that marginalized communities based on race and socio-economic status are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards such as air and water pollution, proximity to industrial activities, waste

facilities, and exposure to toxins (e.g., lead, pesticides).17 Scholars have traditionally defined environmental racism as individual and intentional acts inflicted upon marginalized groups via environmental measures. Within this definition, only conscious and intentional acts of racism or discrimination by bad actors can be categorized as environmental racism.18

social system of domination.25 The following examples highlight political, economic, and social systems of domination in landscape architecture discourse and practices that obstruct the profession’s ability to enact a theory of change toward the design of equitable and inclusive cities.

Laura Pulido found that the existing definition amongst scholars did not sufficiently problematize the greater structural and systemic outcomes of environmental racism.

Pulido argues that limiting environmental racism to only explicit and overt acts minimizes the socio-spatial relationship of structural racism, discrimination, and the urban form.19 She further expands by noting that “focusing exclusively on discriminatory acts ignores the fact that all places are racialized, and that race informs all places.”20 She has since contributed a broadened definition of the term to include not only intentional acts but also the more pervasive systemic and spatial manifestations of racism.21 Pulido’s work pinpoints white privilege as the root of the problem and demonstrates how the environmental decisions benefitting white people are prioritized. These decisions continue to reinforce institutionalized racism and its spatial and physical repercussions in the urban environment. Pulido later amends her initial position to state that white supremacy is the more accurate definition to categorize the systemic and spatial manifestations of environmental racism.22 Pulido’s evolved definition is supported in the context of Robin DiAngelo’s structural definition of racism in White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.23 Attributing racism to only discrete events or actions obscures the greater call to action to examine the implications of both actions and nonactions within the broader system.24 More explicitly, “white supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and

DESIGN INSPIRATION AND ERASURE FROM PLACE Olmsted’s Central Park is a celebrated icon in landscape architecture. However, the Landscape Urbanist perspective differs slightly in that Central Park is not only an urban respite from the chaos and pollution of the city but, more significantly, a model of landscape infrastructure foundational to Manhattan’s urban form and development.26 Corner has espoused the virtues of the “green complex” model by figures such as Olmsted, Jens Jensen, and Le Corbusier, and the capacity of such environments to provide “civility, health, social equity, and economic development to the city.”27 However, Central Park was designed on a foundation of environmental racism. The discipline has historically failed to include the site’s contextual history in its critical discourse and how narratives of the oppressed are not considered in design of place. Landscape Urbanism is no exception to this gap in the discourse.

Central Park embodies the physical and spatial manifestations of white supremacy that Pulido articulates in her research.

Recent archeological findings have revealed that the land for Central Park was seized by eminent domain in 1857, which displaced over 250 residents in a community known as Seneca Village.28 Seneca Village was settled in the 1820s and located between what is now 82nd to 89th Street and 7th and 8th Avenues in Manhattan. Two-thirds of the residents were Black middle- and working-class property owners and another third consisted

AGO R A 13

129

Design is Political LOW

Figure 1: An map of Seneca Village from the Central Park Plan.

Figure 2: An aerial of the site today.

of European immigrants, mostly of Irish descent. The well-established community of Seneca Village included its own school, churches, and cemeteries far removed from the Dutch residents in lower Manhattan. Even today, there is little evidence of where these residents relocated after their displacement to make room for the park.30,31 Pulido’s elements of environmental racism – “taking” and “racial superiority” – are clearly evident in the inception of Central Park.32 Racial superiority and taking were operationalized through the physical removal of property from Black Americans, an action that suggests that the interests of nonwhites

130

are either expendable or less valuable, and thereby undermines the welfare of people that have been historically marginalized based on race.33 The only physical recognition of this past is captured by a plaque in the park.34 Olmsted’s design erased Seneca Village’s history entirely: “Central Park’s landscape near the West 85th Street entrance looks much like the rest of the Park, featuring rolling hills, rock outcrops, and towering trees.”35 The seizure of property and the subsequent erasure of Seneca Village from landscape architecture discourse is alarming and problematic. We fail to have critical conversations about place beyond the dominant historical narratives and perspectives of white supremacy and power.

As a result, we continue to perpetuate and reinforce structural inequity by non-action and complacency through the narratives we choose to uphold and the erasure of marginalized communities from our history of place.

The erasure of discriminatory actions in planning history substantially influences the cultural history, context, and stories about places from which we seek inspiration which we embed in the designs we generate. If Landscape Urbanism claims to be the antidote to the past missteps of architecture and urban planning and social change in the urban environment, recognition of past physical and spatial inequities must be acknowledged. We must engage in a conversation about the responsibility of design to address the deeply rooted structural inequalities in the built environment.

Landscape Urbanism also takes design inspiration from a team of modernist designers and planners responsible for the planning and design of Detroit’s Lafayette Park; these designers’ complacency within mid-century urban renewal projects still leaves scars of racism, discrimination, and segregation in contemporary urban neighborhoods across the country. In his book, Landscape As Urbanism, Waldheim

2016 interview, Waldheim continues to support this stance: I think Hilb [with Mies van der Rohe and Alfred Caldwell, the project’s landscape designer] produced a place that was not just socially and environmentally redemptive but had an explicitly progressive mixed-race, mixed-class program.39 A part of what I like about that story is that it imbricates a kind of environmental position – he removed the old street grid and turned the property into a lush tabula verde – but also a set of social and political conditions that I find absent today.40

Figure 3: Black Bottom before urban renewal.

Figure 4: Lafayette Park after redevelopment.

lauds Lafayette Park as a successful example of “landscape as medium for urbanism for the modern metropolis.”36 Lafayette Park was a private housing redevelopment project and one of many urban renewal projects of the New Deal, which author and activist James Baldwin referred to as “Negro Removal.”37 Lafayette Park displaced 6,000 Blacks from what used to be the Black Bottom neighborhood.38 Waldheim’s intentional dismissal of the neighborhood’s history to advocate for an open, space-driven design is an example of his privilege to uphold the concept of landscape as medium while marginalizing the site’s complex socio-spatial history of racism. In Metropolis magazine’s

Here, Waldheim advocates for erasure by advancing narratives that uphold white supremacy to justify what is valuable to preserve versus what is deemed worthy of sacrifice and destruction to create a greener and racially preferable urban vision.41 Waldheim could leverage his power and privilege to reflect on past urban planning failings to discuss the designer’s role in spatial and physical shaping of inclusion, exclusion and the right to place: concepts that are fundamental in order to address issues of environmental and social equity in our cities.

Waldheim is not alone. Other Landscape Urbanism scholars reference vacant lots, neglected open spaces, and industrial “waste landscapes” as spaces ripe with opportunity.

More specifically, Alan Berger introduces the term “drosscapes” or “waste landscapes” as a product of two processes: rapid urban sprawl and the abandonment of land after its industrial use has ended.42 These concepts further reinforce Landscape Urbanism’s opportunism and failure to recognize the embedded history and complexity of abandonment within the urban context, particularly from urban sprawl. Many of these neglected and abandoned spaces are the result of racially motivated actions of suburban white flight and racial segregation in the evolution of our industrial to post-

AGO R A 13

131

Design is Political LOW

industrial cities.43 Landscape Urbanism has received criticism for its whitewashing of history to advance its vision: “Landscape Urbanist discourse is readily interpreted as elitist and authoritarian because it turns a blind eye to the root problem: a class-based, racist social structure.”44 “Waste landscape” implies the power and privilege to dictate what is deemed waste and ready for the taking to advance a landscape-centered agenda.

LANDSCAPE URBANISM AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE Landscape Urbanism sees the potential of landscape as an active political and social mediator that “eschews formal objectmaking for the tactical work of choreography, a choreography of elements and materials in time that extends new networks, new linkages, and new opportunities.”45 However, Landscape Urbanism’s portfolio of built work provides contrary evidence. As Michael Rios articulates in Landscape Urbanism and Its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City: “The political is about making choices about what is seen and unseen in the city, a reflection of power in urbanist discourse and practice.”46 Instead, the contributions of Landscape Urbanism in urban public space have contributed to what Greg Hise refers to as “social distance:” “Often this form of association [social distance], a linking of people with space, facilitated a transition from a use of land deemed lower (and associated with lower people) to a higher use, deemed a ‘higher and best use’ for putatively better people (often called ‘the people’).” 47, 48 Social distancing and its boundaries further reinforce the racial and class divides of cities that already face significant inequality.49 The High Line in New York City is a famous early achievement in Landscape Urbanism that has generated substantial attention for landscape architecture and urban

132

design. Since the completion of its phase one construction in 2009, the High Line has inspired replications around the country: the Lowline in the Lower East Side of New York City, the Underline in Miami, the Bloomingdale Line in Chicago, and the Atlanta Beltline are a few prominent projects inspired by its success and popularity.50 While incredibly popular, projects like the High Line have been designed to express social difference and worth spatially, physically, and aesthetically: “Aesthetics is at the core of politics, not as the art of politics, but in terms of what can be seen and what can be said about it… the point is that urbanism, like art, can either repress modes of being as invisible or reveal new sensory possibilities that instigate novel forms of political subjectivity.”51 The design and imagery created by the High Line demonstrate the endless potential and imagination of a $152 million public space, elevated within a rapidly growing canopy of luxury commercial and residential buildings that serve the needs and desires of the white and wealthy. Conversely, long-standing, marginalized residents in Chelsea remain invisible and underserved. New York City Housing Authority’s Fulton Houses, Chelsea Houses, and Elliot Houses have been in the neighborhood since the 1960s and occupied by low-income Black and Hispanic families.52 Robert Hammond, co-founder and executive director of the High Line, admits

Figure 5: Photo of the beginning of the High Line in NYC.

that local residents have definitive reasons for not using the space: “They didn’t feel it was built for them; they didn’t see people who looked like them using it.”53 Projects like the High Line do not serve Landscape Urbanism’s ambitions to heal and forge new connections in the city but instead strengthen the city’s growing class and race divide while reinforcing existing inequity in the distribution of and access to public space in New York City.

Large-scale urban parks and multi-modal corridors, which build upon Landscape Urbanism precedents and philosophies such as the High Line, are rapidly accumulating as symbols of power and taking in cities already plagued by a history of structural inequality. Similar in form to the High Line but significantly larger in scale and is the Atlanta Beltline in Georgia. An adapted reuse of an abandoned freight corridor, the Beltline was first conceived as a thesis project by Ryan Gravel in 1999, a then graduate student at Georgia Tech. Today, the Atlanta Beltline includes five multi-use trails and seven parks. According to the Atlanta Beltline website, a total of 22 miles of Atlanta Streetcar expansion, 33 miles of trail, and 2,000 acres of new parks will be built through 2030.54 Early design renderings for the Beltline were dominated by primarily white pedestrians and bicyclists enjoying their new multi-modal corridor – an interesting design decision even though Atlanta’s population is majority Black. Today, photos of the newly built portions of the Beltline are very green and also remain very white. These photos are telling of the reality of the project today. In a CityLab interview, Mark Pendergast, author of City on the Verge, shared his impression “that the Eastside Trail section of the BeltLine – part of which has already been completed – does indeed appeal primarily to middle- and upper-class folks. About half the city population is white and half black, but that isn’t reflected by who you see on the Eastside Trail. It’s majority white.”55 The

Atlanta Beltline aspires to “a more socially and economically resilient Atlanta,” yet there is significant controversy surrounding the on going project and whom this new landscape infrastructure is built for.56 Cities such as Atlanta make clear that landscape is not neutral. It is a dynamic political actor that shapes a city’s social and environmental ecosystem. Landscape infrastructure as a new urban form cannot ignore that our cities visually and spatially reinforce a long history of conscious discrimination and segregation.

For landscape infrastructure to act as a remediator to these structural inequalities, there must be a more explicit conversation about design’s role and responsibility in confronting these systems. Conversations must include design’s power to foster exclusion as much as it aspires to design for inclusion.

The history of inequity in American cities continues to create severe race and class divisions in this country. The designer plays an integral role in dismantling these strong visual and spatial associations with structural and systemic racism in the urban environment. If Landscape Urbanism truly sees landscape as a social and political actor that can be leveraged to create more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous cities, it is critical that an explicit environmental justice agenda be firmly embedded into the design discourse. We must also engage in open and self-reflective discourse that includes the history of white supremacy, and how white power and privilege have intentionally shaped the design of the built environment and its continued impact on marginalized communities in place. Through both action and non-action, designers of the physical environment have the power and privilege to drive change or be complicit in the continuation of discrimination and inequity.

AGO R A 13

133

Design is Political LOW

ENDNOTES

20. Ibid., 13.

1. George Lipsitz, “The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race: Theorizing the Hidden Architecture of Landscape,” Landscape Journal 26, no. 1 (2007): 10.

2. The 1997 Landscape Urbanism conference was held at the Graham Foundation in Chicago, Illinois and hosted by architect Charles Waldheim, founder of the Landscape Urbanism program at the University of Chicago’s School of Architecture.

26. Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” 24.

27. Ibid.

5. Charles Waldheim, Landscape as Urbanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 43-45.

6. Ibid., 42.

7. Laura Pulida, “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers (2000) 90 (1): 12.

8. Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” 32.

9. Waldheim, Landscape as Urbanism, 49.

11. Michael Rios, “Marginalization and the Prospects for Urbanism in the Post-Ecological City,” Landscape Urbanism and Its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City, eds. Andrés Duany and Emily Talen (British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2013), 208.

12. Emily Talen, “The Social Apathy of Landscape Urbanism,” Landscape Urbanism and Its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City, ed. Andrés Duany and Emily Talen (British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2013), 110.

13. “Environmental Justice,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last updated February 5, 2019. https://www.epa.gov/ environmental justice.

134

28. Ibid.

29. “History of the Community,” Seneca Village Project, accessed December 12, 2018. http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_ village/.

30. Lisa Foderaro, “Unearthing Traces of African-American Village Displaced by Central Park” New York Times, July 27, 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/nyregion/ unearthing-an-african-american-village-displaced-by-centralpark.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=73F0A53EC19 8E0261B47651A48B1D332&gwt=pay.

31. Chris Dastoor, “Rediscovering Seneca Village,” NY Press, February 7, 2018, http://www.nypress.com/local-news/20180207/ rediscovering-seneca-village.

10. Ian Hamilton Thompson, “Ten Tenets and Six Questions for Landscape Urbanism,” Landscape Research 37, no. 1 (2012):13.

14. Ibid.

32. Pulido, “Geographies of race and ethnicity I,” 813-814.

33. Ibid.

34. Barbara Speed, “New York destroyed a village full of AfricanAmerican landowners to create Central Park,” Citymetric, March 30, 2015. https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/new-york-destroyedvillage-full-african-american-landowners-create-central-park-893.

35. “Seneca Village Site,” Central Park Conservancy, last modified 2018. http://www.centralparknyc.org/things-to-see-and-do/ attractions/seneca-village-site.html.

36. Waldheim, Landscape As Urbanism, 107.

37. Ryan Locke, Peter Elmlund and Michael W. Mehaffy, “Evaluating Landscape Urbanism: Evidence from Lafayette Park, Detroit,” Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability 12 no. 1 (October 2018): 43.

15. Julian Agyeman, Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 14-15.

38. Ibid., 42.

16. Talen, “The Social Apathy of Landscape Urbanism,” 110-111.

39. “Hilb” refers to Ludwig Hilbersteimer (planner) who collaborated with Mies van der Rohe and Alfred Caldwell (landscape designer) in the design of Lafayette Park.

17. Robert D. Bullard, Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (Boston: South End Press, 1993), 4.

18. Laura Pulido, “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90, no. 1, (2000): 12.

19. Ibid.

23. Robin J. DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 24.

25. Ibid., 28.

4. Charles Waldheim is currently on the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and former Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture.

Jennifer is a graduate candidate in the Master of Design in Integrative Design program in the Stamps School of Art and Design and a landscape architect with over 11 years of experience in the design and construction of urban public space in South California, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle. Most recently, she was the Program Manager of the leadership and scholarship programs at the Landscape Architecture Foundation and guest lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Department of Landscape Architecture. She seeks to explore how a more integrated approach to design research and practice can be leveraged to better address the social and environmental inequities of cities.

22. Laura Pulido, “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity I: White Supremacy vs. White Privilege in Environmental Racism Research,” Progress in Human Geography 39, no. 6 (December 2015): 810.

24. Ibid., 24.

3. James Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed. Charles Waldheim (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 28.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

21. Ibid., 12.

40. Samuel Medina, “Charles Waldheim: Landscape Urbanism All Grown Up,” Metropolis Magazine, July 5, 2016. https://www. metropolismag.com/ideas/charles-waldheim-landscape-urbanismall-grown-up/.

AGO R A 13

135

Design is Political

41. Pulido, “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity I,” 814.

42. Berger, Alan, “Drosscapes,” Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed.

Charles Waldheim (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 199.

43. Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit: With a New Preface by the Author (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005), xxxvi.

44. Talen, “The Social Apathy of Landscape Urbanism,” 111.

45. Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” 31.

46. Rios, “Marginality and the Prospects for Urbanism,” 202.

47. Greg Hise, “Identity and Social Distance in Los Angeles,” Landscape Journal 26, no. 1, (2007): 45–60.

48. Ibid., 47.

49. Dianne Harris, “Race, Space, and the Destabilization of Practice,” Landscape Journal 26, no. 1 (2007):1-9.

50. “History,” The High Line, last modified 2018, https://www. thehighline.org/history/.

51. Rios, “Marginality and the Prospects for Urbanism,” 201.

52. Steven Land and Julia Rothenberg, “Neoliberal Urbanism, Public Space, and the Greening of the Growth Machine: New York City’s High Line Park,” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 48, no. 8 (2017): 1749.

53. Laura Bliss, “The High Line’s Biggest Issue—And How Its Creators Are Learning From Their Mistakes,” CityLab, February 7, 2017. http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2017/02/the-high-lines-nextbalancing-act-fair-and-affordable-development/515391/.

54. “Atlanta Beltline Overview,” Atlanta Beltline, last modified 2019. https://beltline.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-project/atlantabeltline-overview/.

55. John McMillian, “The Atlanta BeltLine Has a Long Way to Go,” Citylab, May 30, 2017. https://www.citylab.com/design/2017/05/ atlantas-beltline-still-has-a-long-way-to-go/528354/.

56. “Atlanta Beltline Overview,” Atlanta Beltline, last modified 2019. https://beltline.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-project/atlantabeltline-overview/.

Perry Holmes - Cartagena, Colombia

136

137

Nick Curran - Hong Kong, China 138

139

Daham Marapane - El Paso, Texas 140

141

TRANSFORMATIONS