Agora 17

University of Michigan

A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

Agora Journal of Urban Planning and Design

Volume 17: 2023

The Agora Journal of Urban Planning and Design in 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 USA

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Agora Volume 17

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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.

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MEIYI YANG

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AGORA

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ALTERNATIVES

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PARTICIPACTION

A17 Board

Editors-in Chief

Lauren Ashley Week

Harrison Clark

Creative Directors

Manvi Nigam

Tara Grebe

Symposium Directors

Deputy Editors-in-Chief

Revati Thatte

Marisol Mendez-Vasquez

Deputy Creative Director

Upasana Roy

Deputy Symposium Director

Vaidehi Shah

Kathryn Economou

Blog & Website Manager

Diana Anda Luke Ranker

Finance & Fundraising Director

María Garcia Reyna

Outreach & Marketing Director

Srishti Jaipuria

A17 Staff

Content Editors Layout Editors

Yungyang Ma

Brooke Bulmash

Andy Larsen

Megan Wakefield

Dana Gentry

Alex Wilkinson

Arjo Mukherjee

Jack Collins

Dylan Jansen

Yunyang Ma

Brooke Bulmash

Kristina Marchand

Jutang (Daniel) Gao

Wenyi Zang

María Garcia Reyna

Kat Cameron

Sarah Fleckenstein

PREVIOUS EDITIONS

BLOG AND WEBSITE

Dr. Scott D. Campbell Faculty Advisor’s Letter

In 2006, a small and dedicated group of Michigan planning students entertained the ambitious idea of starting a student-run journal. Overcoming the odds (and skepticism) of creating a print journal in a digital era — run by volunteers amidst their hectic graduate school studies — the first Agora staff ably solicited and edited articles, raised funds, and printed their first volume the following spring. Subsequent cohorts of student volunteers have, without fail, stepped up and kept the journal going and evolving ever since. The journal has become an integral part of the graduate planning program’s culture, along with Detroit-based community service work, awardwinning capstone projects, Expanded Horizon trips, the annual Martin Luther King Jr. event, and the Urban Planning Student Association (UPSA). This considerable dedication of time and effort speaks to the generosity and community-minded spirit of planning students. As you read these articles of Agora 17, you will readily see this spirit of engagement with the complex vitality, challenges, and potential of urban life. The themes are richly varied and internationally comparative. Many focus on sustainability and the challenges of climate upheaval: Managed retreat and climate migration; innovative settlement strategies in the climate future; looking both to the future and the indigenous past (in Istanbul and in the American Southwest) for pre-industrial models

of water resources. Authors substantively and richly engage social justice: In the enduring challenge of providing affordable housing (both in the United States and in Europe), and providing safe spaces against bias and homophobia. One article engages ways to use planning (physical design and place management) to reduce crime. Another looks with a critical eye on the potential of automated vehicles to either create a more compact and sustainable future transportation network (with shared vehicles), or instead just exacerbate congestion and sprawl (and reinforce our dependence on the private automobile).

Overall, we see, in these pages, planning’s dual-path strategy of both professionally addressing short-term urban needs and critically confronting the long-term, intractable challenges of social justice, fairness, and sustainability. As a field we are pragmatic optimists, straddling both incremental problem solving and ambitious, systemic social transformation.

Let me offer, from all the urban planning faculty and staff, our admiration, appreciation and heartfelt congratulations to the authors and editors for their stalwart commitment to the journal and the larger ideals it represents.

Scott Campbell Faculty Co-adviser (with

Julie Steiff)

Harrison, Lauren, Marisol & Revati Editors’ Letter

This edition of the Agora Journal of Urban Planning and Design represents 17 years of hard work, ingenuity, and student-led and -centered scholarship. We are immensely grateful to the many students and faculty at Taubman College who made this volume possible as well as our partners from across campus who have contributed their own interdisciplinary research and writing to our beloved field of urban planning and design. More than ever, this was a group endeavor, and we are so thankful for everyone’s leadership and commitment. Furthermore, as with much of the research and work done at Taubman College, what began as academic pursuits in classrooms and studios grew into community and friendship. This year’s authors, editors, peer reviewers, photographers, and board members are some of the most creative and thoughtful we have had the pleasure to work alongside. We thank everyone involved for making Agora such a professionally and personally rewarding experience.

In reading the journal and the ten exceptional pieces published in Agora 17, we hope you will understand both the rigor and passion behind this volume. This year we sought to reimagine the built environment; in this pursuit we asked Taubman College and the larger University of Michigan community how the field of urban planning and design can take advantage of new technologies to overcome deepening divisions

and build a just future. Our symposium pieces offer two exceptional examples of the capacity of Taubman students to reimagine the built environment with diligence and skill but also empathy and equity at the forefront. We are also immensely proud of the other eight pieces — ranging from legal analysis to comparative planning to environmental design. Whether tackling the challenges of the affordable housing crisis, the ever-increasing threats posed by climate change, or the need to create public spaces that welcome all identities and communities, each of the pieces featured in this volume contribute to a reimagined urban future that is more resilient and more just.

This vision, and its ability to be successfully expressed in the pages of this volume, is wholly and fundamentally attributable to the care which this year’s participants brought to their work. We are overwhelmingly grateful to those who shared their time and talents with us throughout the semester-long editing and publication process, just as we are to past contributors and stewards of the journal. We hope you enjoy Agora 17.

Harrison Clark and Lauren Ashley Week Editors-in-Chief

Marisol Mendez and Revati Thatte

Deputy Editors

Acknowledgements

The publication of Agora 17 was made possible by the Taubman Endowment Fund.

We would also like to thank the following individuals for their time and expertise in conducting peer reviews for Agora 17:

McLain Clutter

Larissa Larsen

Jonathan Levine

Jen Maigret

Richard Norton

Naganika Sanga

Prakriti Shukla

Taru

Shubhayan Ukil

Weican Zuo

We would also like to give special thanks to our faculty advisors, Dr. Scott Campbell and Dr. Julie Steiff.

What to Do About Where to Go:

Regional Approaches to Anticipatory Managed Retreat

NATALIE PUNZAK

Juris Doctor

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of anticipatory managed retreat as a coastal climate adaptation strategy in the United States. Section One provides an overview of managed retreat, describes its challenges, and explains why anticipatory retreat is a matter of environmental justice. Section Two outlines the legal mechanisms currently available to implement managed retreat, then turns to the emerging role of regional governance as a method of effective climate planning. Case studies from California and Louisiana, which offer different models of state-enabled regional climate planning, demonstrate the capacity for regional governance to address the gaps often left by local or federal climate planning frameworks. Section Three draws lessons from existing regional climate planning governance structures and offers considerations for carrying out effective, equitable anticipatory managed retreat through state-enabled, interjurisdictional regional governance.

INTRODUCTION

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy became one of the most powerful storms to strike the most densely populated region of the country, killing 160 people and causing more than $65 billion in property damage in the tri-state area and along the Jersey Shore. In New York City alone the storm inflicted an estimated $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity across the five boroughs, damaged over 69,000 residential units, impacted 23,400 businesses, and temporarily displaced thousands of New Yorkers.1

Over the last decade, New York has rebuilt damaged infrastructure in a more resilient manner and has invested in additional resilient infrastructure to protect against future storms. These investments have been funded largely through federal programs, primarily from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery programs.

Despite the recency of catastrophic climate disasters and the awareness of the increasing threat of recurrence, waterfront development has steadily increased in New York City floodplains. Since Superstorm Sandy, real estate market values in the 100-year floodplain have increased 44 percent.2 Though new developments are built to better withstand the effects of worsening storms and sea level rise, the longevity of these properties is uncertain. An article marking the 10-year anniversary of Sandy acknowledged that “[a]t some point, city planners admit they will need to draw a hard line about where building is and is not allowed in order to truly contend with climate risks…. But the maelstrom of forces that shape development in the city isn’t there yet.”3

One community in Staten Island was hit particularly hard. In Oakwood Beach, a 14-foot

storm surge submerged homes and lifted structures from their foundation, carrying them across the surrounding area. After the storm, Oakwood Beach residents lobbied the State to pursue a long-range resilience strategy: Managed retreat. The State of New York agreed to pay pre-storm prices for 308 destroyed properties, demolish them, and never redevelop the land.4

To date, managed retreat in the United States has primarily taken the form of federally funded post-disaster recovery response, just as in Oakwood Beach. Preemptive managed retreat, by contrast, has yet to become a well-accepted and widely practiced method of climate adaptation. But as sea levels continue to rise and weather events become more extreme, coastal retreat will become inevitable for many parts of the country — it is estimated that more than 49 million housing units are located in current shoreline communities.5 Coastal communities require new integrated planning and policy frameworks if they are to avoid the ever-increasing risks of climate disaster effectively, efficiently, and equitably before they strike.

This paper examines the role of anticipatory managed retreat as a coastal climate adaptation strategy in the United States. Section One provides an overview of managed retreat, describes its challenges, and explains why anticipatory retreat is a matter of environmental justice. Section Two outlines the legal mechanisms currently available to implement managed retreat, then turns to the emerging role of regional governance as a method of effective climate planning. Case studies from California and Louisiana, which offer different models of state-enabled regional planning, demonstrate the capacity for regional governance to address the gaps often left by local or federal climate planning frameworks. Section Three draws lessons from existing regional climate planning governance structures and offers considerations for

carrying out effective, equitable anticipatory managed retreat through state-enabled, interjurisdictional regional governance.

MANAGED RETREAT IN THE UNITED STATES

Coastal adaptation strategies are often classified into one of three categories: resistance, accommodation, or retreat. Resistance measures include seawalls, berms, living shorelines, and levees — structures that aim to protect shorelines from flooding and extreme weather events by creating a physical barrier between developed coastal land and water bodies. But such structures can fail or be breached, as notoriously demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Moreover, in many cases, resistance measures will not be sufficient at higher sea levels. And, more often than not, they actually damage and degrade natural coastal resources before their eventual failure.

Adaptation by way of accommodation typically takes the form of elevated buildings and infrastructure. Though built to withstand projected sea level rise scenarios, elevation may not be enough for these structures to evade damage, contamination, or physical isolation during flood and storm events.

Managed retreat is defined as the “purposeful, coordinated movement of people and assets away from risk.”6 In some cases, assets — like buildings, roads, and public infrastructure — and land are purposefully abandoned when necessary. Thus, the term captures both retreat in anticipation of projected climate impacts and abandonment following climate disasters, including damage from storms, floods, sea level rise, shoreline erosion, drought, and wildfire. In the United States, retreat is typically voluntary and involves property acquisitions or buyouts, land swaps, and abandonment or rezoning of residential land. Managed retreat can occur at scales

ranging from a single household to an entire city. Most effective when deployed as an anticipatory coastal adaptation strategy, it is “based on a philosophy of avoiding or moving out of harm’s way and is proactive in recognizing that the coastal zone dynamics should dictate the type of management employed.”7

ANTICIPATORY MANAGED RETREAT’S INHERENT ROADBLOCKS

Currently, coastal adaptation planning focuses primarily on resistance and accommodation measures because these methods of adaptation are relatively lower cost to both individuals and governments.8 Managed retreat has been limited because its barriers are much larger — economically, politically, and psychologically.

Relocating and rebuilding any infrastructure, let alone entire neighborhoods or cities, is logistically intricate and requires extensive up-front costs. That managed retreat shrinks a jurisdiction’s population and tax base further fundamentally challenges the strategy both economically and politically. Conflicts between the planning and policy goals of different departments within a single jurisdiction — like economic development versus environment departments — result in inefficient, ad hoc investments in geographies that may simultaneously anticipate abandonment on a longer time horizon. This problem scales to conflicts between state and federal agencies, too. Large-scale managed retreat requires a cross-jurisdictional bureaucratic framework that does not yet exist in most states.

Managed retreat also faces psychological barriers. Climate change poses long-term, uncertain risks. Uncertainty and abstraction inhibit action, and the incremental impacts of sea level rise and rainfall events further obscure the threat, rendering even the mere

contemplation of retreat an absurdity to many people. Inaccuracy in risk calculation and a general lack of awareness of flood risk further impede the government’s ability to prepare for future consequences of climate change.9 Relocation itself is also socially and culturally disruptive; emotional attachments to community and geography often win out over the prospect of uncertainty. Perhaps the biggest challenge to embracing managed retreat is American ideology itself, which reveres private property rights as central to individual identity and wealth. A common corollary of strong, principled notions of private property rights is resistance to government interference with private property, which also greatly undermines coastal adaptation efforts.

“Byrne, Faculty Director of the Georgetown Climate Resource Center and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, puts it, “[t]he question...is whether retreat will occur suddenly, chaotically, and disastrously, or whether communities can develop legal tools to render that retreat relatively safe, efficient, and ecologically acceptable.”11

ANTICIPATORY MANAGED RETREAT AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Climate risks in coastal geographies threaten both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. The amenity value provided by ocean views and proximity to water produces a substantial premium on waterfront property accessible only to wealthy households, which means

...as sea levels continue to rise and weather events become more extreme, coastal retreat will become inevitable for many parts of the country — it’s estimated that more than 49 million housing units are located in current shoreline communities. Coastal communities require new integrated planning and policy frameworks if they are to avoid the ever-increasing risks of climate disaster effectively, efficiently, and equitably before they strike.

Despite these challenges, scientists, city planners, and politicians are paying increasing attention to anticipatory managed retreat as a necessity in preparing for and responding to climate change. In the latest National Climate Assessment, issued in 2018, 13 federal science agencies called the need to retreat from parts of the coast “unavoidable” in “all but the very lowest sea level rise projections.”10 This is, in large part, because it is too costly to protect every high-risk shoreline. Places where underlying geology or geography makes other forms of climate adaptation impossible or even more environmentally harmful may have no viable alternative to retreat. As J. Peter

highly valued luxury properties are often concentrated in high-risk flood zones. At the same, systematic discrimination and legal barriers for non-white households means that less expensive housing tends to be concentrated in low-lying, inland flood-prone areas.12 Flood risk, however, is not evenly distributed.

A study of exposure to flood risk found that among the census tracts in floodplains, a higher proportion of the population lived in moderate- and high-poverty tracts compared to non-floodplain areas.13 In terms of ethnicity, another study of social vulnerability in national

inland flooding hotspots found the largest disparities in characteristics of high-risk flood zones for Black and Native American households. Other disproportionate indicators in flooding hotspots include mobile homes, dependence on extractive industries, femaleheaded households, and limited English proficiency. Notably, key socioeconomic indicators of wealth, income, and higher educational attainment are all lower in hotspots. Other studies are consistent with these findings.14

Climate change preparedness is also unequal: It is widely studied and accepted that the predominant model of environmental decisionmaking, which centers scientific expertise and interest group advocacy, favors those with resources and political power over people of color and low-income communities.15 Studies show that low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be bought out, while neighborhoods with high property values can afford to implement less disruptive resistance and accommodation measures, like coastal armoring and beach nourishment.16 A study of voluntary buyouts, which are a form of managed retreat and the primary method of reactive disaster recovery in the United States, found that counties that administered buyout projects have higher income, education, population, and population density compared to counties without buyouts, and that within those counties, residents in neighborhoods where buyouts occurred have lower income, population density, education levels and English language proficiency and greater racial diversity than residents in other neighborhoods in the same county.17 In essence, where managed retreat has been implemented thus far, the wealthy get to relocate the poor to protect and preserve their own communities. Adding to this injustice is a finding by FEMA’s National Advisory Council issued in 2020 that FEMA and the buyout process have consistently increased the wealth of white communities over predominantly non-white ones.18

At the parcel level, flood risk can be accommodated through building standards, like elevating structures and building to structurally withstand flooding, but these kinds of measures can be prohibitively expensive. In the wake of disaster, federal regulation can force displacement of lowerincome residents because FEMA rules require complete compliance with current hazard mitigation building standards if a homeowner spends more than 50 percent of the value of a property in one year on repairs.

And then there is the market-economy problem: as climate risks become more frequent and visible, individuals will be less willing to buy homes in high-risk areas, and insurance companies and lending institutions will be less willing to invest in threatened regions. “[Spatial segregation] in many metro areas, low-income, Black and brown households form a disproportionate share of long-term property owners in high-risk locations, which means that property value decline as a side effect of climate impacts will exacerbate racial wealth gaps.”19

Retreat, as implemented today, poses a seemingly impossible paradox: Purposefully relocating communities is socially destructive, inequitable, and potentially harmful, but leaving communities in floodplains exposed to future hazards that are increasing in frequency and severity (even if protected by barriers) is also destructive, inequitable, and harmful. It need not be a zero-sum game, however. For as much of a threat that planned relocation poses to local community culture and wellbeing — particularly the culture of Black, Indigenous, and peoples of color — it also creates “opportunity to escape from histories and geographies of risk[,] an opportunity often denied to or complicated in the case of lowincome communities and people of color.”20

Suggestions for how to ensure that anticipatory retreat facilitates rather than impedes environmental justice are further detailed in Section Three.

THE LEGAL MECHANICS OF MANAGED RETREAT

EXISTING TOOLS: BUYOUTS, EMINENT DOMAIN, REGULATORY RESTRICTIONS, AND FEDERAL PROGRAMS

Managed retreat is not new to the United States. It is estimated that since 1989, FEMA has acquired more than 48,000 properties across 49 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands through post-disaster buyout programs.21 But this is a vanishingly small fraction of the more than 14 million properties currently located in the 100-year flood plain. Several different federal agencies and programs fund buyout programs, but generally, they are facilitated by FEMA and HUD following a presidentially declared disaster. These programs are voluntary and typically require local governments to contribute as much as a quarter of the federal investment in disaster recovery.

Buyout efforts create difficult challenges for the communities that remain, both physically and financially, because they are not comprehensively coordinated between the federal and local governments. Local governments are left to maintain parcels postbuyout and continue serving the people who remain, all while revenue shrinks as the tax base dwindles. One study of 10,000 parcels of land involved in FEMA buyouts between 1990 and 2000 found that about 35 percent of lots were left vacant.22 It is no surprise that city services become less reliable for the people who remain, either by choice or because the value offered for their property is not enough to cover an outstanding mortgage or the cost of relocation. The compounding inequities of lower-income households concentrated in higher-risk areas also mean that individuals have a hard time finding neighborhoods as affordable as the ones they have left.

The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides the government with the authority to take private property for public use with payment of just compensation, otherwise known as eminent domain. Traditionally, eminent domain has been used for public infrastructure projects, like highway construction and urban renewal. It has a contentious history and is often subject to political controversy, in part because of the subjective nature of assigning just compensation to private property laden with personal attachment. Eminent domain has been offered as a gap-filling solution for properties in high-risk areas whose owners refuse to participate in voluntary buyout programs, but it would be politically and economically untenable to rely on as a primary tool to prepare for climate adaptation. Further, current laws were not written with consideration for large-scale climate change, including adaptation to sea level rise. It remains uncertain how courts will interpret existing law as applied to public takings for climate adaptation in the coming years. Critically, eminent domain does not address one of the major social problems it creates: The relocation and support of displaced communities.

Regulatory restrictions, like easements, setbacks, and zoning, are important transitional strategies. An easement is a land use measure that requires landowners to agree to restrictions on land, like limits on future development. Setbacks require new construction to be a fixed distance inland from a reference line. In addition to private agreements, both of these measures can be imposed on future development through zoning ordinances. In some cases, land can even be zoned as a no-build area, which prohibits the construction of permanent structures at a fixed elevation above sea level.23 Because these measures do not remove development from hazard zones, they are an

important part of comprehensive anticipatory retreat planning but are insufficient as legal tools to manage retreat on their own. Additionally, like eminent domain, these regulatory measures are limited by the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits governments from taking private property for public use without providing the owner with just compensation.24

Though climate adaptation ultimately requires national support and multilevel governmental coordination, federal programs generally are not designed to address the scale and complexity of community relocation. The Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) of 1972, last substantively amended in 1996, was the first national program established to plan, protect, and manage the nation’s coastal

“AN UNDERUTILIZED TOOL: STATEENABLED REGIONAL GOVERNANCE

Collaborative regional governance structures are particularly well-suited to balance the challenges and reciprocal incentives of retreat and plan cohesively for a problem that spans jurisdictional boundaries. But selective regionalism, whereby neighboring jurisdictions may participate in regional efforts that provide advantages without having to cooperate in often costly efforts that would address problems more prevalent in central cities and inner ring suburbs, is a major impediment to the success of regional governance today. This challenge is not insurmountable, though, as demonstrated by the case studies that follow. State-level directives to develop and participate in a regional managed retreat plan could easily address this challenge.

Collaborative regional governance structures are particularly well-suited to balance the challenges and reciprocal incentives of retreat and plan cohesively for a problem that spans jurisdictional boundaries

resources. It emerged in response to record population growth and development in coastal areas and established a voluntary relationship between federal and state agencies. By design, the CZMA shifts coastal zone management responsibilities to individual states. Given the ad hoc nature of managed retreat through disaster recovery today — Congress allocates funding on an event-specific basis and has never authorized a federal agency to establish a permanent program — and the CZMA’s regulatory framework, it is unlikely that the federal government has the political or financial will to undertake a national managed retreat program.

Regional planning is often overlooked in the context of American public law, which traditionally focuses on national, state, and local governments.25 This may be, in part, because regional governance structures are limited almost exclusively to limited-purpose supramunicipal special districts or public authorities created to address a metropolitan infrastructure-intensive need, like transit, drainage, waste disposal, and general urban planning assessment. As a legal matter, the validity of regional special districts is well established. If not limited by law, it seems that the limited role of regional forms of governance is a product of politics and practicality. Specifically, Laurie Reynolds, an

expert in state and local government law and Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois, cites the narrowness of these organizations’ missions, lack of implementation coordination, attenuation of political incentives to act, and lack of public attention and accountability.26

Dr. Jenny Schuetz, an expert in urban economics and housing policy at the Brookings Institution, summarizes the insufficiency of local governments to address regional problems like housing affordability crises. The same applies to managed retreat, especially because of the need to relocate and accommodate large portions of the population. She points out that in a country as large as the United States, decision-making by elected officials at the local level has the most accountability to voters.27 Such accountability is the product of the visibility and outsized effect of local decisions on everyday life compared to decisions made at the state or federal level, as well as the influence individual voters have in local elections compared with state and federal ones. But allowing localities to plan without regard for the social, economic, and environmental effects on neighboring jurisdictions can be detrimental to regional wellbeing and entrench spatial inequality; at this scale, the virtues of localism become less clear.

Regional governance can draw on the strengths of localism while bridging existing gaps in equity and competence. Generally, it is easier for local governments to address the effects of climate planning on economic, land use, and emergency planning. In addition to the political accountability and visibility of local decisionmaking mentioned above, the comparative advantage of addressing economic, land use, and emergency planning at the most local level is an important market force guiding the division of responsibility amongst government hierarchies.28 Local governments also benefit from having a deeper knowledge of both climate issues and bespoke regulatory regimes compared to their state and federal partners.

These benefits of localism can be built into regional structures, for example, by requiring representation from local governments in an intergovernmental organization.

Philosophically, regional governance is consistent with principles of federalism. Local control over land use and property rights are fundamental state powers. Federalism encourages policy experimentation that emerges from diversity of local preferences, which is effectively explored in areas of local control.29 Enabling the formation of a regional, intergovernmental structure through state law that directs localities to collaborate in addressing one of the biggest, most complicated challenges — climate change, and what to do with the people whose land will be lost as a result of it — is consistent with these traditions. Importantly, it also allows the unique governance capacities of local and state actors to address problems that neither can solve alone.

CASE STUDIES IN REGIONAL CLIMATE PLANNING: CALIFORNIA AND LOUISIANA

Two case studies illustrate different strengths and challenges with an interjurisdictional approach to planning for managed retreat. California serves as a model for statemandated climate planning more generally. The architecture of this system allows local government — inherently most knowledgeable and proximate to constituents — to direct planning and implementation under the guidance of overarching state law. Expanding on this long-established state-local relationship, California recently began integrating local efforts through cross-jurisdictional regional climate planning, too. Louisiana, through a first-of-its-kind, community-based planning and capital investment process across six parishes, demonstrates the potential of state-enabled and regionally-led comprehensive planning for managed retreat.

CALIFORNIA: THE MANDATED STATE-LOCAL RELATIONSHIP AS A PRECURSOR TO REGIONAL GOVERNANCE

California leads the charge in state-level coordinated climate planning. State-level management of California’s coastline dates back to a 1972 voter initiative that established the California Coastal Commission (CCC), which became a permanent independent, quasi-judicial state agency that plans and regulates the use of land and water in California’s coastal zone through the California Coastal Act in 1976.30 The Coastal Act creates a partnership between the state, acting through the CCC, and local governments to manage shoreline public access, recreation, terrestrial and marine habitats, agricultural lands, industrial infrastructure, and more by regulating proposed development within the Coastal Zone through a comprehensive planning and regulatory program.31

Implementation of the Coastal Act’s policies is accomplished primarily through preparation of Local Coastal Programs (LCPs), which are plans required to be completed and reviewed every five years by each of the 15 counties and 61 cities located in the coastal zone. The CCC evaluates each LCP against the policies of the Coastal Act, thereby ensuring that statewide policy goals are enshrined in planning and future development at the local level.

LCPs are a critical tool for supporting longterm resilience planning. Upon completion and approval of an LCP, permitting authority for projects within the coastal zone is transferred to the local jurisdiction. The CCC maintains appeal authority, as well as the ability to overrule local decision making and to fine private citizens. This transfer of project review and administration serves as an effective model for an intergovernmental organization like the one envisioned for managing retreat, because it ensures that localities, who can engage most directly with their constituents, stay engaged in planning and implementation.

The broad overarching goals that each LCP must comply with allow local governments to tailor plans to their specific needs. This discretion allows localities to consider environmental justice in planning (and would be strengthened by a goal within the Coastal Act pertaining to social and economic wellbeing of people). For example, the City of Santa Cruz executed a social vulnerability to climate change assessment prior to developing its LCP, which ultimately motivated communication strategies and allowed the city to prioritize investment in underrepresented groups as well as the unique needs of these communities in its LCP.32

Because planning requirements and administrative obligations are enshrined in California’s state law, LCPs ultimately have the force of law. The directives of the Coastal Act, along with the non-binding policy guidance offered by the CCC, set clear expectations for coastal communities. This system has not been especially effective at implementing wholesale managed retreat, but momentum for this movement has been growing since California first included the approach as a recommendation in 2001. So far, most local governments have rejected managed retreat as a named strategy in their adaptation plans but have included site-specific efforts to move bike paths, parking lots, and even a highly threatened beach resort.

Though LCPs are required to include land use plans, zoning ordinances, and other legal instruments necessary to administer the plan, they ultimately fail to address the comprehensive planning needs associated with climate change because of the narrow focus on the priorities established in the Coastal Act. In response to the evolving need to plan for climate change, California has adopted numerous propositions, executive orders, and bills over recent decades, tasking new agencies with addressing climate change. What has resulted is a form of bureaucratic

environmental alphabet soup: The CCC, California State Coastal Conservancy, Ocean Protection Council, California Natural Resources Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency, and California Office of Planning and Research are among the more than 17 state agencies whose work addresses coastal resilience for California. Administrative duplication and limited authority are two sides of the same coin, which results in over-regulation and under-implementation of climate planning.

Notably missing from state-mandated coastal planning is the need to accommodate the economic effects and population change caused by climate change. Since 1969, California has required that all local governments adequately plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community through a Housing Element plan submitted to and reviewed by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The housing element does not explicitly require localities to consider climate change impacts in planning for housing needs. Thus, acknowledging the impact of sea level rise is notably absent from most plans, just as strategies to accommodate new housing development in low-risk areas are missing from LCPs. For example, a search of “housing” in Santa Barbara’s LCP returns nothing; sea level rise is mentioned only four times in its 250page housing element plan. This appears to be a consistent pattern among cities that have recently completed new LCPs and Housing Elements.

In 2014, the state began cataloging all of California’s efforts to plan for sea level rise. This work came to a culmination in 2021 when California established the California Sea Level Rise State and Regional Support Collaborative (the Collaborative) to educate the public, advise local, regional, and state governments on sea level rise adaptation efforts, and direct the CCC to incorporate

sea level rise in all planning, development, and mitigation efforts.33 The Collaborative is the first state-led effort to address climate change at regional levels. It was born out of the explicit recognition by the legislature that preparing for sea level rise “is a joint responsibility among local governments, regional[,] and state agencies” not addressed by existing legal and administrative structures.34 In 2022, the Ocean Protection Council and its agency partners released a statewide, collaborative Action Plan to guide the future efforts of the Collaborative, which will lead regional climate planning efforts. Notably, equity and social justice, including the incorporation of environmental justice and tribal cultural resources into local planning and adaptation efforts, constitute one of the seven principles now guiding coastal resilience planning across the state, including LCPs submitted to the CCC.35

California’s state-local structure of coastal climate planning demonstrates the strengths of intergovernmental planning, which include consistency, accountability, and shared responsibility. California has only just begun to develop governance structures to support regional planning across neighboring localities. The state has yet to direct holistic climate planning that would account for economic and social impacts, though, as state-mandated planning efforts for climate change, housing, and transportation needs are all siloed. Here, California can learn from efforts in Louisiana through Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments.

LOUISIANA: A TEST CASE FOR COMPREHENSIVE REGIONAL CLIMATE ADAPTATION

The devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to Louisiana in 2005 prompted the Louisiana Legislature to create the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the single state entity that addresses restorative and

protective efforts to preserve the state’s coastline. Two years later, the state released its first Coastal Master Plan.36 Revisions followed in 2012 and 2017, and future updates are to be completed every six years. These centralized efforts helped the state launch an innovative, regional approach to coastal resilience and redevelopment that serves as a model for climate planning in general as well as for anticipatory managed retreat planning.

Following Hurricane Isaac, the state developed Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE) to support disaster recovery efforts and prepare for climate change impacts in six parishes in 2016. LA SAFE is a community-based planning and capital investment process facilitated through a public-private partnership spurred by the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) and supported by HUD’s Community Development Block Grant–National Disaster Resilience (CDBG–NDR) program and the Rockefeller Foundation. The state chose Foundation for Louisiana, a racial and gender justice nonprofit, to lead the outreach and planning process. LA SAFE augments the Coastal Master Plan by offering a peopledriven approach to planning and policy, providing a holistic approach to reducing longterm risk through six strategies: Stormwater management; housing and development; transportation; education, economy, and jobs; culture; and recreation (including social and public services).

LA SAFE utilizes funding from existing federal resilience programs in partnership with private partners. The public-private partnership model allows more creativity and flexibility to address community needs that may not fit squarely within public funding allowances. The downsides to the creativity and flexibility enabled by a private-public partnership model, though, include high transaction costs and prioritization of profit-maximizing activity that private investment necessitates. In LA SAFE,

the initial round supports a portfolio of 10 projects across all six participating parishes, including stormwater management programs that increase public parks and recreation, support for mental health and substance abuse services related to the consequences of increased climate risk, business incubation focused on resilience, and prototyping affordable elevated housing in moderate-risk areas.37

In terms of managed retreat, LA SAFE acknowledges that planning for community relocation is necessary –– it is part of the mission driving the LA SAFE plan. The plan’s regional approach addresses the needs of communities facing different physical risks and demographic changes by adopting a threetiered flood risk classification system across all six parishes. More than 10,000 acres of Louisiana land are lost to the Gulf of Mexico every year and the state projects that it will lose more than one million acres of land to coastal climate change within the next 50 years.38 Low-risk areas, predicted to have zero to three feet of future flood risk, are identified as having capacity to receive populations and businesses that relocate from high- and moderate-risk areas. For these communities, development principles include eliminating existing barriers to future development and growth. One of the projects selected by the community will fund buyouts for permanent resident households in a high-risk area that is unable to be protected. It fills a gap left for a few residents who were not able to participate in the managed retreat of Isle de Jean Charles, the nation’s first HUD-supported voluntary resettlement program.39 The program will be reinforced with policies to prevent future residential development in the area, including conservation easements, restrictions on zoning, and limitations on flood insurance. Because the LA SAFE program is so new, its success has not yet been formally evaluated. It is not entirely clear to what extent local governments were required to participate or

implement planning, as is required of localities in California, since this plan was not mandated by state law. But its goals and collaborative nature, as well as its integration of private and public financing, serve as a model for the comprehensive nature of anticipatory managed retreat.

MANAGING ANTICIPATORY MANAGED RETREAT

California and Louisiana serve as the first models for regional governance of climate planning. Naturally, managed retreat structures will be shaped by local needs, but best practices can be derived from these states as test cases. The following section offers general policy considerations and recommendations to support and guide the development of regional managed retreat planning.

PLANNING FRAMEWORKS

Given the economic, political, and psychological challenges posed by long-range responses to a long-range problem, managed retreat must be planned and implemented in phases such that adaptation can be responsive to risk as risk becomes more certain and defined. This starts with the recognition, particularly by governing bodies, of the necessity of this form of climate adaptation.

• Early phases of managed retreat implement development restrictions, like zoning for lower density, increased setbacks, and even no-build zones in the most at-risk areas. This would mean that cities like New York do not double down on development in high-risk areas in the aftermath of disaster.

• In most cases, managed retreat will be a decades-long process, especially if done before disaster strikes. Phasing this process into policies and action pathways that

are contingent on physical change — like sea level rise or loss of shoreline — is essential to allowing responsive flexibility while holding communities accountable to forward-thinking planning.

STATE-ENABLED REGIONALISM

State-level directives to develop and require participation in a regional managed retreat plan would help combat the effects of selective regionalism.

• Requiring renewed planning efforts at intervals and oversight by a state-enabled regional entity supports planning efforts and allows a regional entity to hold local jurisdictions accountable.

• Regional communities need consistent approaches to shoreline monitoring, modeling, and risk calculation so that interdependent jurisdictions assess risk with the same parameters and data. Supplementing FEMA flood data and mapping, which most states currently rely on, would help participating localities better understand flood hazard, both because they would be involved in modeling and because the FEMA data that localities currently rely on can be cryptic, if not fundamentally flawed, about flood hazard. Umbrella regional governance organizations could facilitate the collection and projection of climate risk data to account for place-specific factors in more detail or with more frequency than a federal agency is able to provide.

• Formal coordination and designation of a single state agency to coordinate a unified regional response, as Louisiana initially did with its coastal plan and then supplemented with parallel people-focused adaptation planning, allows for efficient, direct, and rapid response to climate change.

• Jurisdictions should be required to participate in planning with certain parameters, as California does with LCPs. Requirements must comprehensively address the anticipated impacts of infrastructure planning on housing development, economics, public health, transit, and more. Otherwise, departments will not coordinate their efforts, as is apparent in California cities that do not assess coastal planning and housing element plans together.

COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Policymakers cannot legislate without support and direction from the public. Planning for radical climate adaptation like managed retreat also requires trust between government and its citizens.

• Messaging is critical to social and political buy-in, and one seemingly easy but necessary tactic to overcoming the psychological, political, and economic barriers to managed retreat is rebranding managed retreat.

• Focusing on psychological processes like risk perception and place attachment in the messaging of managed retreat has the dual benefit of facilitating community adaptive capacity and ensuring that planning processes consistently center the human and communal effects of retreat.40

• Inclusive planning must be inclusive of all community members. Regional organizations embarking on this work can look to the standard set by LA SAFE: In 2017, LA SAFE hosted more than 71 public meetings, offered stipends to attendees, provided childcare and food, and prioritized accessibility.41 Community leaders led table discussions, attendees

were empowered to provide their own solutions (rather than responding to a set of options), and community members made the final decision on which vetted proposals to pursue.

• Uncoordinated, duplicative planning efforts have the added consequences of taxing the public with excessive planning initiatives and degrading public trust because incompatible plans for climate and housing make each an impossibility. Enabling a regional entity to review and coordinate the plans of an interconnected region can help resolve competing interests between government departments as well as neighboring jurisdictions.

FINANCIAL AND LEGAL SOLUTIONS

Anticipatory retreat will cost a lot of money, so developing creative financial incentives and methods of financing will be vital for any coordinated regional effort.

• One interim solution that may serve to address the economic expense and social impact of buyout programs and eminent domain is the use of buyouts with rentbacks or publicly held life estates. Buyouts with rentbacks help subsidize the expense of public land acquisition by allowing residents to pay rent to remain on their former land (after it has been publicly acquired).42 In 2021, California considered legislation that would have established a loan program to support public rentbacks, but ultimately the governor vetoed it.43

• Conveying life estates to current residents similarly allows landowners to stay in their homes for the duration of their lifetime.

• Where public funding falls short, as it certainly will, given the task of large-scale relocation, governments will need to partner with private lenders to facilitate

retreat, as Louisiana modeled with LA SAFE. Careful policy development will be necessary to ensure that such strategies do not enable private companies to profit disproportionately from individuals and communities who bear the burden of relocation.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Each of these strategies must be oriented toward multiple forms of justice — distributive, procedural, recognition, and restorative — if they are to produce just outcomes. LA SAFE provides a groundbreaking model of climate planning — one focused on the human, social, and economic impacts of climate change and infrastructure planning. Self-determination is central to SAFE LA’s conception of social equity and is particularly important in the context of historic environmental injustice. This kind of planning process should be the norm, whether integrated with infrastructure planning or developed in a parallel process, as done by Louisiana. Planning and evaluation processes (and data collected to support multi-factor evaluations) should incorporate holistic metrics and assessments of individual and community health, wellbeing, and satisfaction after

managed retreat. And displaced communities should benefit from the investments made in the communities to which they relocate.

CONCLUSION

American coastal communities, as exemplified by California and Louisiana, are beginning to grapple with some of the most severe anticipated impacts of climate change: The destruction and loss of land in coastal and flood-prone communities. To prepare for these challenges effectively and equitably, planning must account for the effects of climate change not just on land, but also on the people and communities who reside in threatened areas. As climate risks accelerate and grow, governments must be proactive and realistic about the future — states must hold local jurisdictions accountable to comprehensive climate planning by enabling regional partnerships between localities to assess the macro social, economic, and population effects of climate adaptation. Because retreat is bound to happen. By planning and preparing for anticipatory managed retreat, communities can be empowered to rethink, coordinate, and plan for their own transformative futures before disaster strikes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalie Punzak is a second-year law student at the University of Michigan Law School. Her interests and research focus on the role of government in shaping land use and zoning, housing development, and spatial justice. Prior to law school, she spent several years with the Boston Planning and Development Agency as an Urban Designer. Natalie graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture in 2016.

ENDNOTES

1. “Impact of Hurricane Sandy,” City of New York Community Development Block Grant Recovery, accessed on March 16, 2023, https:// www.nyc.gov/site/cdbgdr/about/About%20 Hurricane%20Sandy.page#:~.

2. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Ten Years After Sandy: Barriers to Resilience (New York, NY: Bureau of Policy and Research, 2022), https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/ uploads/documents/Ten-Years-After-Sandy.pdf.

3. Samantha Maldonado and Kendra PierreLouis, “Hurricane Sandy Devastated Coney Island 10 Years Ago. So Why Has NYC Added Almost 2,000 Homes to the Area Since?,” The City, October 27, 2022, https://www.thecity. nyc/2022/10/27/23424718/hurricane-sandyconey-island-climate-change-development.

4. Joaquim Salles, “Left Behind: What Life Is Like for the Last Residents of Staten Island’s Oakwood Beach,” Grist, September 21, 2022, https://grist.org/equity/oakwood-beach-statenisland-buyouts-superstorm-sandy.

5. A.R. Siders, “Managed Retreat in the United States,” One Earth 1, no. 2 (2019): 216-225, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.09.008.

6. Siders, “Managed Retreat in the United States,” 216.

7. William J. Neal, David M. Bush, and Orrin H. Pilkey, “Managed Retreat,” Encyclopedia of Coastal Science (2017): 1-7, https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-48657-4_201-2.

8. Michelle Mijhuis, “When Is It Time to Retreat from Climate Change?,” New Yorker, March 27, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/ tech/annals-of-technology/when-is-it-time-toretreat-from-climate-change (citing a study in Nature Climate Change).

9. Samuel Oakford, John Muyskens, Sarah Cahlan, and Joyce Sohyun Lee, “America Underwater: Extreme Floods Expose the Flaws in FEMA’s Risk Maps,” Washington Post, December 6, 2022, https://www.

washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/ interactive/2022/fema-flood-risk-mapsfailures/; “FEMA Flood Maps: Better Planning and Analysis Needed to Address Current and Future Flood Hazards,” U.S. GAO, October 25, 2021, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22104079.

10. Christopher Flavelle, “U.S. Flood Strategy Shifts to ‘Unavoidable’ Relocation of Entire Neighborhoods,” New York Times, August 26, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/ climate/flooding-relocation-managed-retreat. html.

11. Jack Marcus Weissman, “How to Prevent a Flood Disaster: Using Law and Policy to Systematically Reduce Risk,” State of the Planet: News from the Columbia Climate School, August 20, 2021, https://news.climate. columbia.edu/2021/08/20/how-to-preventa-flood-disaster-using-law-and-policy-tosystematically-reduce-risk/.

12. Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2018); Kriston Capps and Christopher Cannon, “Redlined, Now Flooding,” Bloomberg, March 15, 2021, https:// www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-flood-riskredlining/; Siders, “Managed Retreat in the United States,” 216 (“[T]he US coast is both a playground for the wealthy and home to some of the most disadvantaged and historically marginalized people in the nation. As a result, US flood management has historically focused on enabling people and infrastructure to remain in at-risk areas: [R]esisting floods with walls and levees, adding sand to eroding beaches, or elevating homes to avoid rising tides.”).

13. Yi Qiang, “Disparities of Population Exposed to Flood Hazards in the United States,” Journal of Environmental Management 232 (2019): 295-304, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.039 (finding at

the national scale, economically disadvantaged populations are more likely to reside in flood zones than outside; at the local scale, economically disadvantaged populations tend to reside in flood zones in inland areas).

14. Eric Tate et al., “Flood Exposure and Social Vulnerability in the United States,” Natural Hazards 106 (2021): 435-457 (citing numerous studies of social vulnerability and economic and racial disparities).

15. Robert R. Kuehn, “A Taxonomy of Environmental Justice,” Environmental Law Reporter 30 (2000): 10681, 10689.

16. Salles, “Left Behind.”

17. Katharine J. Mach et al., “Managed Retreat through Voluntary Buyouts of Flood-Prone Properties,” Science Advances 5, no. 10 (2019): 1-9, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax8995; Rebecca Hersher and Robert Benincasa, “How Federal Disaster Money Favors the Rich,” NPR, March 5, 2019, https://www. npr.org/2019/03/05/688786177/how-federaldisaster-money-favors-the-rich.

18. National Advisory Council, National Advisory Council Report to the FEMA Administrator (Washginton, D.C.: FEMA, 2020), https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/ documents/fema_nac-report_11-2020.pdf.

19. Jenny Schuetz, Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America’s Broken Housing Systems (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2022), 45.

20. A. R. Siders and Idowu Ajibade, “Introduction: Managed Retreat and Environmental Justice in a Changing Climate,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 11, no. 3 (2021): pp. 287-293, https://doi. org/10.1007/s13412-021-00700-6.

21. Yuliya Panfil, “Opinion: The Case for ‘Managed Retreat,’” Politico, July 14, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/ agenda/2020/07/14/climate-change-managedretreat-341753.

22. Elise Gout, “Are Buyouts a Viable Tool for Climate Adaptation?,” State of the Planet: News from the Columbia Climate School, June 29, 2021, https://news.climate.columbia. edu/2021/06/29/are-buyouts-a-viable-tool-forclimate-adaptation/.

23. John Matuszak, “No More Mistakes On the Lake,” Herald-Palladium, November 7, 2012, https://www.heraldpalladium.com/ news/local/no-more-mistakes-on-thelake/article_07442a1b-ea73-58a0-9dd4586c01725b16.html (covering the adoption of the Edgewater Beach Overlay District, the first “no-build” zoning ordinance in the state of Michigan).

24. U.S. Const. amend. V (“[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”).

25. Brian W. Ohm, “Is There a Law of Regional Planning?,” Belmont Law Review 4, no. 1 (2017): 35-64.

26. Laurie Reynolds, “Local Governments and Regional Governance,” The Urban Lawyer 39, no. 3 (2007): 483-528.

27. Schuetz, Fixer-Upper, 126.

28. Paul E. Peterson, “Functional and Legislative Theories of Federalism,” in The Price of Federalism (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1995): 16-49.

29. Ann E. Carlson, “Reverse Preemption in Federal Water Law,” in The Law and Policy of Environmental Federalism: A Comparative Analysis, ed. Kalyani Robbins (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016): 213-242.

30. “Our Mission,” California Coastal Commission, accessed on March 23, 2023, https://www.coastal.ca.gov/whoweare.html.

31. California Coastal Commission Statewide Planning Unit, California Coastal Act Overview (Sacramento, CA: California Coastal Commission, 2021), https://documents. coastal.ca.gov/assets/our-mission/Coastal_Act_ Overview_Slide_Show.pdf.

32. Columbia Climate School, “Retreat to Justice: Dimensions of Social Equity on the California Coast,” Managed Retreat Conference 2021, Session 10A, July 15, 2021, https://youtu.be/HGKO4nbzVOg?t=1623.

33. Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 30972 (West 2021).

34. Committee Report: 2021 California Senate Bill No. 1 (Sacramento, CA: California Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water, 2021).

35. State Agency Sea-Level Rise Action Plan for California (Sacramento, CA: Ocean Protection Council, 2022), https://www.opc. ca.gov/webmaster/_media_library/2022/08/ SLR-Action-Plan-2022-508.pdf.

36. Office of Community Development and Foundation for Louisiana, Our Land and Water: A Regional Approach to Adaptation (Baton Rouge, LA: LA SAFE, 2019), https://s3.amazonaws.com/ lasafe/Final+Adaptation+Strategies/ Regional+Adaptation+Strategy.pdf.

37. Foundation for Louisiana, Summary of Strategy Development and Project Selection (Baton Rouge, LA: LA SAFE, 2018), https:// s3.amazonaws.com/lasafe/2018/N-04/2018Summary-Strategy-Development-ProjectSelection.pdf.

38. “What is LA Safe?,” LA SAFE, accessed on March 23, 2023, https://lasafe.la.gov/what-isla-safe/.

39. “The Story of Isle de Jean Charles,” Louisiana.gov, accessed on March 23, 2023, https://isledejeancharles.la.gov.

40. Kai Greenlees and Randolph Cornelius, “The Promise of Panarchy in Managed Retreat: Converging Psychological Perspectives and Complex Adaptive Systems Theory,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 11, no. 3 (2021): 503-510, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412021-00686-1.

41. Grey Moran, “Gulf Coast Communities Are Solving Their Own Flooding Crisis. It

Could Be A Model For Cities Nationwide,” Fix Solutions Lab, May 7, 2021, https://grist.org/fix/ policy/louisiana-gulf-coast-climate-adaptationcommunity-participation-la-safe/.

42. Andrew G. Keeler et al., “Buyouts With Rentbacks: A Policy Proposal for Managing Coastal Retreat,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 12 (2022): 646-651, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-022-00762-0.

43. “SB-83 Sea Level Rise Revolving Loan Program,” California Legislative Information, accessed on March 28, 2023, https:// leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient. xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB83.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK CONSUELO MENDOZA

Resurrection of the Bygone:

Reviving Istanbul’s Traditional Water Management Systems: Leveraging Urban Heritage for Water Scarcity.

SHREYA NAMBIAR + TEJAS SAIYYA

Master of Urban Design

ABSTRACT

Istanbul is a megacity of 15 million, and its population is expected to rise to 18 million within a decade.1 The city’s complex network of water infrastructure — connecting two continents — reflects the heritage and significance of the city’s built environment from its early days as Constantinople to its current urbanized form. What is the relationship between these historical sites and climate collapse? As contemporary cities increasingly become affected by water scarcity, it is crucial to interrogate the capacities of these structural remnants of the past and their contexts. The critical question is: Can historical water networks be critically conserved in a manner that brings about new forms of functionality?Analysis reveals the lost connections between the underground cistern systems and the heritage sites. A network of potentially reanimated water supply lines is buried beneath poorly designed and outdated void spaces. Although these water supply lines initially cooled the city, they now contribute to the increased Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. 2 Over time their functionality declined, and they presently serve as a tourist attraction — a subterranean shell housing standing water. In realization of the challenges of collecting, conserving, and recycling water in the current heavily built environment, this project presents a five-fold strategy of collecting, filtering, storing, distributing, and interacting with water. It realizes that the previous water capacities are insufficient for the current needs and seeks to increase capacity by extending the storage and distribution of water at a micro-scale.

BACKGROUND

Source: Drawing by Authors

The availability of sufficient clean and fresh water is a prerequisite for any society’s economic development and social wellbeing. Throughout its history, Istanbul has consistently faced water scarcity due to its distance from drinking water resources3 — especially in 2006, when the lowest precipitation levels in the last 50 years were recorded.4 Cisterns were important subterranean water storage structures built during the Byzantine era to collect and distribute water in case of

droughts or sieges. The way Istanbul’s urban development is managed has a massive impact on the city’s relationship with its surroundings, including the seven lakes that serve most people’s drinking water needs. It is crucial to manage Istanbul’s resources sustainably to ensure that the city’s water needs are met adequately, especially since the number of outlets in the Kirkcesme system has declined drastically.

Figure 1. The history of Istanbul’s water networks

ISSUES: URBAN-INDUCED WATER SCARCITY

Source: Drawing by Authors

Istanbul’s water infrastructure has been shaped by cultural and historical influences, and understanding these aspects can enable the city to address its present water management challenges and ensure a sustainable water supply for its citizens in the future. Rapid urbanization and population growth have strained the city’s aging infrastructure,

originally constructed during the Roman Empire,5 rendering them inoperable. This, in turn, has led to water scarcity, leaks, and contamination. Many of these infrastructures have been frozen in time, with untapped water sources and connections currently only serving as tourist attractions.

Figure 2. Cultural and historical influences on Istanbul’s water infrastructure

POSITION: HERITAGE WATER NETWORK

Figure 3. The history of Istanbul’s water networks

Source: Drawing by Authors

The urbanization of Istanbul’s expanding population leads to a rise in demand for residential occupation of land in the water basin areas, consequently exacerbating the demand for water.6 Amidst an era marked by precarious environmental conditions, by leveraging the visibility of heritage sites in Istanbul, this project rethinks cultural

landscapes to remediate and restore the relationship between water and people in an urban context. The project takes the opportunity to design surface environments that conscientiously engage with underground water systems, including everything from traditional water fountains to existing and planned landscapes.

STRATEGY: FIVE-FOLD FRAMEWORK

Figure 4. Framework and application of the framework in the context of heritage sites in Istanbul

Source: Drawing by Authors

The proposal is a framework of a looped system that connects revived water infrastructure to public spaces by collecting, storing, distributing, filtering, and interacting with water through pedestrian routes.7 The areas alongside the water system offer supplementary utility, such as shaded wayfinding, vendor kiosks, and digital markers. Through landscapes that actively engage with and improve the water system, the project establishes a coherent and purposeful connection by designing features that foster healthy water flow, effectively utilizing surface and underground resources. This framework redefines the conventional role of heritage sites in mitigating water scarcity within the city.

INTERVENTION

Source: Drawing by Authors

Figure 5. Urban Masterplan

CRITICAL CONSERVATION OF WATER INFRASTRUCTURE

Source: Rendering by Authors

Figure 6. Critical conservation of water infrastructure

The use of metal mesh highlights the location of previously dominant aqua structures that now exist only as ruins. The mesh structures portray a lightweight, flexible disposition and serve as directors of water flow. The proposed pavilion underscores the significance of the water pressure tower that presently stands on the site, which played a pivotal role in the past water network linking the Basilica Cistern to the Palace Complex and Hagia Sophia. Strategic locations are designated throughout the site as pause points, inviting visitors to delve deeper into the historical significance of these structures and witness the flow of water through different segments of the mesh pavilion.

INTERACTIVE

MAP TO RAISE AWARENESS OF WATER SCARCITY

7. Interactive map to raise awareness of water scarcity

Source: Rendering by Authors

Towards Hagia Sophia, an interactive map built into the ground makes visitors aware of the city’s terrain and reveals the location of the reservoirs and channels that store and supply water to urban areas. The water in the depressions of the reservoirs highlight the city’s current capacity of water with scaled markers.

Users can “walk through” Istanbul and “feel” the water flowing through the map. Visitors can access information about the water capacities of the city through an interactive digital tool that provides a self-guided experience, bringing the map to life.

Figure

EXPERIENCING ISTANBUL’S HERITAGE, HYDROLOGY, AND FLORA

Figure 8. Experiencing Istanbul through the lens of heritage, hydrology, and flora

Source: Rendering by Authors

The elevated rain garden creates visual and functional connectivity between the subterranean level and the ground level. Landscaped paths guide users through the process of rainwater harvesting and showcase the importance of flora. Through the sustainable plantation beds, the water

is filtered and guided downwards, into the tank space, through vertical metal wires for storage. Additionally, users are guided through an educational tour of Istanbul’s heritage using a digital conservation tool that provides auditory and visual cues that enhance users’ experiences, making this zone an attraction.

CONCLUSION

Rendering by Authors

Istanbul comprises seven hills, each possessing unique footprints of the city’s heritage.8

Looking at heritage sites in Istanbul one realizes the contexts they situate themselves in and contribute to. One also recognizes the immense relationship of water scarcity to the city’s sociocultural image. This proposal challenges the commodification of heritage sites and further explores the different capacities of landscapes with surface and

subterranean relationships that bridge the gap between the visible and invisible, as well as the tangible and intangible. The diversity of landscapes envisioned by this project may serve as a catalyst for heritage sites and their surroundings to create a new cultural identity that equally focuses on climate change issues. This would, in turn, generate potent and transformative momentum toward a sustainable future.

Figure 9. Demonstrating the multiplicity of water conservation in the proximity of heritage sites across the seven hills of Istanbul.

ENDNOTES

1. Dogan Altinbilek, “Water Management in Istanbul,” International Journal of Water Resources Development 22, no. 2 (2006): 241-253, https://doi. org/10.1080/07900620600709563.

2. “The Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect,” Urban Heat Islands.com, accessed on March 20, 2023, https://www.urbanheatislands.com/.

3. Esra Saatci and Ersin Akpinar, “Assessing Poverty and Related Factors in Turkey,” Croatian Medical Journal 48, no. 5 (2007): 628-635.

4. World Bank, The World Bank Annual Report 2013 (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2013).

5. Jennifer Hattam, “Why Istanbul’s Ancient Imperial Legacy Lies Hidden in Plain Sight,” National Geographic, November 30, 2020, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ article/why-istanbul-byzantine-heritage-hiddenplain-sight.

6. Akgün İlhan, “Istanbul’s Water Crisis,” Green European Journal, November 8, 2021, https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/ istanbuls-water-crisis/.

7. Jerry Lee, “Green Infrastructure as a Solution to Hydrological Problems: Bioswales and Created Wetlands,” University of Florida Journal of Undergraduate Research 21, no. 1 (2019), https://journals.flvc.org/UFJUR/article/ view/108522/116325.

8. Hülya Coskun, “The Historical Symbolizing of Istanbul City Through Its Iconic Buildings,” in Cities’ Identity Through Architecture and Arts (Oxfordshire, United Kingdom: Rutledge, 2018): 147-152.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Shreya Nambiar received her Master of Urban Design from the University of Michigan. Following an internship at SOM’s Chicago studio, she now works as a Designer for their team in Dubai, focusing on the use of sustainable infrastructure to tackle existing and potential issues in the MENA region.

Tejas Saiyya received his Master of Urban Design from the University of Michigan. He is currently a designer at SWA Group engaging in various forms of resiliency investigations, where he researched and designed for wildfire mitigation and adaptation in the California region.

SARAH FLECKENSTEIN

Microanalysis of Planning Impacts on Crime:

The Impact of Environmental Design and Property Management in a One Square Mile Area in Ypsilanti, MI

MICHELLE MARIN

Master of Urban and Regional Planning

ABSTRACT

This study assesses how planning decisions — particularly property manager responsibility and environmental design — contribute to concentrated crime areas within one-square-mile of my neighborhood in Ypsilanti, Michigan and makes recommendations for improving public safety. Crime data collected over a three-month period reveals patterns and pockets of both high and low crime. To accompany this data, I conducted a windshield survey and identified place-making and environmental design features that may contribute to or facilitate crime, including visibility issues, poor property manager accountability, and inactivated spaces. After analyzing this data, I offer a diagnosis of potential causes of the crime, supported by relevant literature. Finally, I share environmental design and local policy recommendations to improve public safety, focusing on two areas of the one-square-mile study site. The recommendations aim to increase visibility, hold place managers accountable, activate spaces that function as crime sanctuaries, and create more functional buffers between residential and commercial areas.

CRIME ANALYSIS

In addition to the impacts on those directly involved, crime has the power to influence community character, resident well-being, economic vitality, and long-term outcomes for neighborhoods. However, crime is not always something that happens to a community but something that can happen as a result of the design of the community itself. Physical design and the legal responsibility of property managers have the potential to influence the prevalence of criminal activity and public safety. Broad-scale site design and policies that influence design can impact crime, and the impacts are visible at the scale of a single city block or apartment complex.

Ypsilanti is a compact city in southeast Michigan, east of Ann Arbor. As of the 2020 Census, Ypsilanti’s population was 20,648.1 The City consists of a downtown core and a historic auxiliary area with urban aspects that include mixed uses, high-density buildings, and a lively retail and dining scene known as Depot Town. Even though many city residents rely on larger, more affluent neighboring Ann Arbor for work opportunities,2 the median household income falls far below that of

Source: Map from Google Earth

Ann Arbor at about $40,000.3 Additionally, over 65 percent of housing units are renteroccupied, and nearly 70 percent of Ypsilanti residents are renters.4 This above average proportion of renters has numerous policy and planning implications; the quality, safety, and character of both individual properties and neighborhoods are disproportionately dependent on the actions — or inactions — of rental property managers.

This one-square-mile study area is centered on the central western area of Prospect Park in Ypsilanti, with a small but significant portion of the study area lying within Ypsilanti Township (see Figure 1). Notable features in this one-square-mile area include Ypsilanti Community Schools, Historic Depot Town, Frog Island Park, and Riverside Park. A small portion of downtown Ypsilanti is also included in the study area. The area hosts a significant portion of the Ypsilanti Historic District, with many single-family homes that were built in the 1800s. Additional residential neighborhoods contain homes built in the mid-20th century, with more modern construction dispersed throughout. The area also includes the southernmost portion of Highland Cemetery. To help identify potential hotspots for criminal activity the Department of Justice has defined certain businesses and areas as risky facilities: locations that “make a disproportionately high contribution to crime and disorder.”5 Based on this definition, I identified the risky facilities in this area, which are indicated below.

I observed three months of crime data from CrimeMapping.com, a publicly available data portal that maps law enforcement interactions in communities across North America using local police records. The City of Ypsilanti and the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s office — the law enforcement jurisdictions which serve the study area — link police arrest records to CrimeMapping.com, allowing for real-time updates on police interactions.6 CrimeMapping.com does not offer information

Figure 1. One square mile study area

on charges or convictions but does offer incident numbers for each data point. The study period was from August 14 to November 14, 2022 (see Figure 2). This study period is only one snapshot of time and may not be representative of normal crime levels, and there are certainly many factors that may have influenced the crime patterns beyond those I discuss here. These numbers also do not account for unreported crimes.

Convenience Stores & Gas Stations

• Prospect Party Store

• Bogg’s Gas

• Citgo/Exxon

• Sunoco

CRIME PATTERN ANALYSIS

To determine if certain design patterns and features might facilitate crime, I compared residential neighborhoods in the study area with high and low crime rates. Jane Jacobs7 and Oscar Newman8 illustrate how design elements down to the one-foot scale have the power to impact crime. These ideas and crime research from other disciplines have

Schools

• Ypsilanti International School

Bus Stops

• Many bus stops on four bus lines

Parking Facilities

Banks No Garages, but many lots

• Huntington Bank ATM- Depot Town

• ATM- Citgo

• Bank of Ann Arbor - Downtown

Despite the presence of risky facilities throughout this one-square-mile area, as indicated in the previous table, most crimes occurred at alternate locations, with violent crime, home invasion, vehicle break-ins, and theft occurring primarily in single-family residential neighborhoods. The area with the highest concentration of crime is the Ferris View Apartment complex on Holmes Road, with nine assaults, four thefts or burglaries, one arson, and one incident of vandalism reported in the 90-day study period. This apartment complex is one of three complexes in the study area, but it is the only one with any reported criminal activity. Interestingly, the complex shares a corner with another apartment complex of similar size, Campbell Manor Apartments (see Figure 3). Campbell Manor Apartments hosted no reported crime during the study period.

• Depot Town public lots

• Frog Island Park lot

• Corner Brewery area lot

contributed to the development of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).9 This approach has informed planning and policy decisions globally for decades. Through CPTED, we learn that physical design has the power to create crime havens, divide populations in a way that influences behavior, and limit accessibility.10 I conducted a windshield survey of the neighborhoods and observed environmental design features, including housing stock and quality, lighting, landscaping, paths, landmarks, building layout, and general maintenance.

RISKY FACILITIES

One of the two high crime pockets in this study area is along Michigan Avenue, where crimes from vehicle break-ins to larceny have occurred. This portion of Michigan Avenue contains many businesses, including

Source: Map from CrimeMapping.com

restaurants, a marijuana dispensary, gas stations, several dollar stores, a car dealership, a park, public parking areas, duplex homes, and City Hall. Many of these businesses and locations are identified as risky facilities.11

Source: Maps from CrimeMapping.com and Google Earth

Arson

Assault

Burglary

Disturbing the Peace

Drugs/Alcohol Violations

DUI

Fraud

Homicide

Motor Vehicle Theft

Robbery

Sex Crimes

Theft / Larceny

Vandalism

Vehicle Break-in / Theft

Weapons

Sex Offender

Sexual Predator

Although the cause is fiercely debated, numerous studies show a positive correlation between density and crime.12 Due to the high traffic, customer, and pedestrian activity in this area along Michigan Avenue, above average crime numbers can be expected. However, risky facilities in other parts of the study area did not seem to present above average reported crime, suggesting that the concentration of risky facilities is associated with a higher frequency of crime than standalone risky facilities.

As the CrimeMapping.com data reveals, residential neighborhoods near commercial areas, including Historic Depot Town, experienced higher rates of theft, burglary, vandalism, and disturbing the peace than equally densely populated residential areas that are farther from commercial areas.

Figure 3. Campbell Manor in SW Corner, Ferris View in NE corner

Figure 2. Reported Crime, 8/14/22-11/14/22

LIGHTING

Exterior lighting is installed on nearly every single-family and multi-family residence in the United States. However, lighting does not always extend to the surrounding areas, including sidewalks and streets. Street and sidewalk lighting improves visibility and deters criminals and also assists with the identification of criminals, increases the visibility of police, encourages people to be outside at night, and generally supports feelings of safety and security among residents and visitors.13 As a result, the presence of lighting is negatively correlated with crimes of opportunity, including vehicle break-ins and home invasions facilitated by reduced visibility.14 Driving through neighborhoods with both relatively high and low crime numbers revealed that Ypsilanti is well-lit citywide, and areas of below average lighting did not seem to correlate with higher reported crime numbers.

In the 2010s, the City of Ypsilanti undertook a project to improve street lighting with LED lights citywide.15 As a result, brighter, more efficient streetlights were installed in both residential and commercial areas. Conversely, the City of Ypsilanti Historic District Commission publishes guidelines for lighting that recommend limiting unshielded, LED, or unusually bright outdoor lighting.16 However, these lighting guidelines are simply unenforceable recommendations. Crime numbers in the residential Historic District portion of the study area are comparable to those of adjacent residential neighborhoods. Ypsilanti Township, however, experienced no such lighting project, and as a result, two of the three apartment complexes within the study area lack adequate street lighting, as evident from the windshield survey. These two communities with less street lighting than the rest of the study area are the previously mentioned Ferris View apartments — high crime — and Campbell Manor apartments — low crime.

SETBACKS

Setbacks include the distance from the structure to the public right-of-way, typically a sidewalk. Built in a time before Ypsilanti’s zoning code was created, the Historic District portion of the study area contains significantly smaller setbacks than the single-family residential areas to the east and north (see Figure 4). The windshield survey also revealed that neighborhoods with smaller setbacks from the public right-of-way, particularly the Historic District, reported fewer home invasions and vehicle break-ins than areas with comparable home values but longer setbacks. Despite being farther from commercial areas of the study area, the residential neighborhood in the northwest portion of the study area experienced above average reported crime. The setbacks of these homes are the largest of the five single-family residential neighborhoods studied. Originally intended to support park-like front yards and discourage high density development, longer setbacks instead disconnect homes from the streets and sidewalk and, consequently, from their neighbors and passersby.17 My observations suggest that there may be a correlation between setback length and the probability of crime.

PLACE MANAGEMENT

As previously mentioned, one of the two high crime pockets is the Ferris View Apartment complex on the northeast portion of the study area. This apartment complex reported nine assaults, four thefts or burglaries, one arson, and one vandalism during the assessment period. Intriguingly, the neighboring Campbell Manor Apartments reported no crime during this same study period.

A visit to both complexes, Ferris View and Campbell Manor, revealed interesting similarities and differences. Both complexes consist of single-story, basic brick apartment

Source: Photo by the Author on 09/05/22

buildings of almost identical size, structure, and build year (see Figures 5 and 6).18

Additionally, as I drove through the neighborhoods, I observed that Holmes Road and Forest Avenue host similar traffic volumes within similar residential communities. Despite these similarities, there are significant variations in reported crime between the two complexes. Comparing the different features of these complexes offers possible insight into why Ferris View Apartments experiences more criminal activity than Campbell Manor Apartments. These comparisons are summarized in Table 1 and analyzed in detail in the following section.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Although many entrenched issues and policies contribute to patterns of crime, local environmental design and planning can be leveraged to limit crime, as this one-square-mile of Ypsilanti suggests. These recommendations include efforts to increase

visibility, create a stronger buffer between urban commercial and residential areas, and implement policies to increase place-manager accountability. These recommendations are outlined in the section ahead.

INCREASED VISIBILITY

Longer setbacks may be perceived as restricting access to a structure, thereby reducing the likelihood of invasion and burglary. However, police reporting and the patterns in this study area suggest that shorter setbacks correlate with lower rates of home invasions. Rather than greater setbacks functioning as a barrier, these setbacks protect invaders from the eyes of neighbors or passersby.19 Larger setbacks create more space for overgrown trees and shrubs that can further reduce visibility.20 Despite the introduction of improved street lighting in Ypsilanti, most of these lights illuminate the street rather than the sidewalk, doing little to increase visibility in sidewalk areas. Lights

Figure 4. Setbacks in Historic District

Photo by Apartments.com

directed toward sidewalks rather than just roads can improve visibility in these areas, where most pedestrian-level crime is likely to occur.

When Jane Jacobs first proposed the idea of “eyes on the streets,”21 few suburban neighborhoods followed her advice when planning their physical design.22 Elite neighborhoods often separate their homes from the street by massive front yards or

otherwise opt for walls surrounding the neighborhood or individual property, and demand for homes within gated communities is growing.23 Although these tactics can certainly inspire a feeling of privacy for the residents, they do little to protect the home and its occupants from invasion; these tactics instead create a sanctuary for invaders. When homes are built closer to one another, closer to the road, and in well-lit areas, any would-be invaders must contend with not

Source:

Figure 5. Ferris View Apartments

Source: Photo by Author on 11/30/22

Figure 6. Campbell Manor Apartments

Table 1

Community entrance

Leasing/ Management office

Parking

Tenant stability

Common areas

Ferris View Apartments

• Two separate, disconnected entrances, minimally set back from main road.

• Not present

• No indication of on-site property management.

• Residents parallel park in front of individual buildings

• No identifiable parking spots

• Eviction notices posted on at least 10 front doors

• None

Community upkeep

• Bulky trash items scattered throughout property

• About half of storm doors missing or damaged

• Plywood in place of glass window in two units.

only the occupants of the target home but with their neighbors. The historic residential areas in Ypsilanti demonstrate the importance of a neighborhood where connectivity and proximity are valued, and those craving privacy can always opt for curtains.

BUFFER RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL AREAS

To limit crimes such as disturbing the peace and vehicle break-ins, the buffer between residential and commercial areas — particularly in downtown and Depot Town — can be improved. One potential solution may be to limit unnecessary vehicle and foot traffic by converting through streets into dead-ended ones. For example, Corner Brewery (see

Campbell Manor Apartments

• Single entrance road with apartments setback from the main road

• Office at front of the community.

• Apartments.com indicates a fulltime on-site property manager

• Perpendicular, lined parking spots in front of individual buildings.

• One U-Haul truck observed

• No eviction notices posted on doors

• Grassy area with large trees and picnic table in the center of complex

• Some bulky trash items by the garbage bins

Figure 7) is a busy restaurant and bar that lies adjacent to residential neighborhoods; however, the restaurant itself is on a dark through street where the predominant land use is low-traffic industrial.

Dead-ending this street would limit vehicle traffic in the area24 and restrict the ability of a thief to exit the area. The risk of this, however, is that dead-end streets redirect crime to other neighborhood areas, creating new crime havens to replace existing ones. Reacting to crime hotspots by dead-ending streets may prove to be a never-ending task that eventually just leads to disconnected communities and inefficient traffic patterns. Further, limiting opportunities for vehicle and foot traffic also counters Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street”

theory. Instead, the buffers between the residential and commercial areas in the Depot Town and Downtown neighborhoods might be improved through place-making strategies. Actions that treat streets as destinations and encourage multiple uses within public spaces can improve opportunities for informal surveillance, improved lighting, and continuous access as a replacement for alleyways and small, dark streets.

One location in the subject area that appears to be managing to effectively do many of these place-making strategies is Prospect Park. Prospect Park, adjacent to Ypsilanti

Community Schools, is the oldest and most popular park in the City and hosts a diversity of uses.25 There are historical markers, wellkept playground equipment, a skate park, a baseball diamond, a large field space, multiple covered and uncovered picnic tables, and permanent bathrooms. The variety of facilities and amenities offers opportunities for diverse, informal surveillance.26 No crimes were reported in the 12.8 acre city park at the center of the study area. In fact, Prospect Park and the surrounding radius of one to two residential blocks are the largest contiguous portion in the one-square-mile study area without any crime reported during

Source: Google Earth

Figure 7. Corner Brewery

the three month period. Emulating some features of Prospect Park in other regions may help reduce crime. For example, two small undeveloped sites — composed of six small adjacent parcels and a vacant portion of one large parcel — are located along North River Street, separating a commercial area from a residential area. Corner Brewery owns the six small undeveloped parcels, and the largest parcel belongs to the industrial owner of 715 Norris Street (see Figure 8.)

“to be emphasized when analyzing crime data between apartment communities.28 Both of these communities have below average rents29 and cater to lower-income residents; however, the visible presence of a property manager and the subsequent effects — including a clean, well-maintained property with fewer evictions — appear to greatly impact the quality of the Campbell Manor complex. Conversely, the multiple eviction notices posted on the front doors throughout the poorly maintained

Actions which work to treat streets as destinations and encourage multiple uses within public spaces can improve opportunities for informal surveillance, improved lighting, and continuous access as a replacement for alleyways and small, dark streets.”

Closing Norris Street to through traffic at this point, connecting these undeveloped parcels, and converting them into contiguous park space would create a 6.4 acre park. Building active uses on vacant lots might decrease crime, and the development of a park in this area might further introduce some of the crime-curbing benefits currently enjoyed by residents and visitors in the vicinity of Prospect Park.27

PLACE MANAGER ACCOUNTABILITY

As the comparison between Campbell Manor Apartments and Ferris View Apartments illustrates, similarly situated and structured apartment communities can host very different lifestyles. There is evidence of minimal upkeep, maintenance, and care by the property managers of Ferris View Apartments, and it is possible that there is a causal relationship between such neglect and the very high instances of reported crime, particularly violent crime. Landlord accountability ought

Ferris View might suggest that the property manager is an absentee landlord. The message communicated by the Ferris View apartment complex is that residents are expendable, not valued, and not monitored. The instability and vulnerability of residents are exacerbated by the extremely limited number of apartment complexes in Ypsilanti and the fact that 70 percent of Ypsilanti residents are renters.30

As a landlord for multiple residences in Ypsilanti myself, I have ample direct experience with the building department, code enforcement officers, and rental certification process. The government resources are there to improve landlord accountability and increase maintenance. Since rental rates are largely responsive to the market, landlords have little choice regarding to what extent costs are passed along to residents. Furthermore, state grants are available to landlords to improve property conditions without the need to increase rental rates.31

To improve landlord accountability for allowing conditions that are conducive to crime, Ypsilanti Township or Washtenaw County can enact a policy that requires apartments with a minimum number of units to have an on-site property manager. Furthermore, code enforcement violations can be restructured so that property owners are penalized for poor maintenance of properties. Since more than half of the storm doors at Ferris View were broken or missing, fining the property owner for collective nuisance or blight violations rather than individual tenants might incentivize the property owner(s) to make repairs. Similar fines can be applied for bulky trash items strewn throughout the common areas of the property. To improve the sense of place, instead of focusing on criminalizing residents, local government officials can instead hold the property managers responsible for crafting communities that generate criminal activity.

To improve the stability of residents — especially those living in a poorly maintained complex such as Ferris View — the state or county might explore eviction filing limitations for property owners such that after a certain

number of evictions are filed, the property is investigated. Certainly, if a tenant is not paying rent, eviction may be legally justified. However, landlords have responsibilities to uphold as well, and the imbalance of power — particularly in low-rent apartments in highrenter-rate markets such as Ypsilanti — leads to predatory landlord practices that can create crime sanctuaries. Ypsilanti and surrounding municipalities should also explore benefits for developers to build additional apartment buildings or to encourage the conversion of the many large single-family homes into multiunit complexes. Flexibility like this enables smaller would-be property managers to enter the rental game, many of whom — including myself — are motivated by the prospect of creating a higher-quality community to live in.

CONCLUSION

This small-scale exploratory study, while suggestive, is subject to several caveats. The limitations of the study include the institutional biases of police interactions. Police do not interact with all demographics and community members evenly, and resulting data may not

Source: Google Earth

Figure 8. Location of Commercially owned vacant parcels, suggested for park coversion and road ending.

Current through street

Suggested road removal and park

The power to increase public safety and equity is already within every community planner’s toolkit; we just need to walk the streets to find the right corner to begin on. ”

adequately represent instances of crime or patterns of public safety. The three months of crime data that were analyzed may not reflect a typical three month period. Furthermore, planning and policy influences beyond physical design and property management practices might be influencing the observed crime patterns. Assessing the CrimeMapping.com data over a longer period of time, triangulating the data with other crime data sources, and qualitative methods of analysis such as interviews may reveal greater information on the factors influencing crime in this study area. Crime reduction is often viewed as a policing concern. However, it is illogical to assume that the institutions we have made responsible for responding to crime are the only ones with the power to reduce crime.

Physical design and place management have a substantial impact on crime rates, and microlevel crime case studies reveal patterns that inform recommendations specific to their communities. Local solutions have the power to enact change more quickly, and potentially more effectively, than broader-level solutions. Improvements in neighborhood place-making, safety, and equity need not stem from sweeping reform, state-level policy, or broadscale investment. Small changes to existing urban landscapes and local policy can improve the quality of life for current residents. The power to increase public safety and equity is already within every community planner’s toolkit; we just need to walk the streets to find the right corner to begin on.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle is a second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student and Los Angeles County native. After previously working as a high school science teacher and environmental education specialist in Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Area, Michelle relocated to Michigan to complete this program and work as a community planner in southeast Michigan. She is passionate about local economic development, creative housing development, and environmental preservation.

ENDNOTES

1. U.S. Census Bureau, “Demographic and Housing Estimates DP05 - City of Ypsilanti, MI,” 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

2. U.S. Census Bureau, “Place of Work For Workers 16 and Over B08016 - City of Ypsilanti, MI,” 2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

3. U.S. Census Bureau, “Demographic and Housing Estimates DP05 - City of Ypsilanti, MI,” 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

4. U.S. Census Bureau, “Demographic and Housing Estimates DP05 - City of Ypsilanti, MI,” 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

5. Ronald V. Clarke and John E. Eck, Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Justice, 2016), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ Publications/cops-w0047-pub.pdf.

6. “Area Crime Map,” City of Ypsilanti, accessed on December 7, 2022, https:// cityofypsilanti.com/270/Area-Crime-Map.

7. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1993).

8. Oscar Newman, “Defensible Space: A New Physical Planning Tool for Urban Revitalization,” Journal of the American Planning Association 61 (1995): 149-155.

9. Home, The International Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Association, accessed on March 24, 2023, https://www. cpted.net/.

10. Newman, “Defensible Space: A New Physical Planning Tool for Urban Revitalization.”

11. Clarke and Eck, Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps

12. Marcos Oliveira, “More Crime in

Cities? On the Scaling Laws of Crime and the Inadequacy of Per Capita Rankings — A Cross-Country Study,” Crime Science 10, no. 2 (2021): 27, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-02100155-8.

13. Margaret Scott, “Using Streetlights to Strengthen Cities,” Government Technology, August 24, 2016, https://www.govtech.com/fs/ using-streetlights-to-strengthen-cities.html.

14. Clarke and Eck, Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps

15. City of Ypsilanti, accessed on December 7, 2022, https://cityofypsilanti.com/.

16. Historic District Fact Sheet (Ypsilanti, MI: City of Ypsilanti, 2019), https://cityofypsilanti. com/DocumentCenter/View/2003/Lighting.

17. Josh Stephens, “Why Cities Should Back Off of Setbacks,” California Planning and Development Report, May 16, 2017, https://www.cp-dr.com/ articles/20170513#:~:text=They%20 supposedly%20ensure%20that%20 buildings,great%20in%20real%20estate%20 listings.

18. “Campbell Manor Apartment Homes Apartments,” Zumper, accessed on December 7, 2022, https://www.zumper.com/apartmentbuildings/p36554/campbell-manor-apartmenthomes-ypsilanti-mi.

19. Clarke and Eck, Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps.

20. Judith D. Feins, Joel C. Epstein, Rebecca Widom, Solving Crime Problems in Residential Neighborhoods: Comprehensive Changes in Design, Management, and Use (Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, 1997), https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/164488.pdf.

21. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

22. Leonard Gilroy, “Urban Planners Are Blind To What Jane Jacobs Really Saw, Wall Street

Journal, May 2, 2006, https://www.wsj.com/ articles/SB114652188543140821.

23. “Why the Demand Continues for Gated Communities,” California Builder Services (Blog), January 10, 2022, https:// cabuilderservices.com/why-the-demandcontinues-for-gated-communities/.

24. Newman, “Defensible Space: A New Physical Planning Tool for Urban Revitalization.”

25. City of Ypsilanti, accessed on December 7, 2022, https://cityofypsilanti.com/.

26. Clarke and Eck, Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps.

27. John M. MacDonald and Charles C. Branas, “Cleaning Up Vacant Lots Can Curb Urban Crime,” Manhattan Institute, September 25, 2019, https://www.manhattan-institute. org/cleaning-up-vacant-lots-can-curb-urbancrime#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20 crime%20had,after%20they%20had%20 been%20remediated.

28. Ronald V. Clarke and and Gisela BichlerRobertson, “Place Managers, Slumlords and Crime in Low Rent Apartment Buildings,” Security Journal 11, no. 1 (1998): 11-19.

29. As identified by CoStar (https://www. costar.com/) and Apartments.com (https:// www.apartments.com/) listed rental rates.

30. U.S. Census Bureau, “Demographic and Housing Estimates DP05 - City of Ypsilanti, MI,” 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

31. “Governor Whitmer Signs Bills to Expand Affordable Housing, Lower Costs,” Governor Gretchen Whitmer, December 13, 2022, https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/pressreleases/2022/12/13/governor-whitmer-signsbills-to-expand-affordable-housing-lower-costs.

LILLE, FRANCE

MARIA GARCIA REYNA

Dutch Social Housing:

A Review of the Netherlands’ Housing Sector

GRACEANNE HORTON

Master of Public Health

ABSTRACT

The Netherlands employs a unique public housing system that composes a significant portion of its housing sector. As one of the few nations that considers housing as a service the government must provide to its citizens, the Dutch government has a strong and influential role in the housing system. The government oversees the country’s housing associations, which are nonprofit organizations that own and operate social housing. This paper explores the history of the Dutch social housing sector to explain how it has evolved to its current state. Next, it provides a synthesis of the current debates surrounding the social housing sector, followed by an explanation and analysis of three proposed solutions to address these issues: expanding the housing supply, increasing affordability, and mitigating spatial segregation. Finally, this paper offers an analysis of what the United States, with its minimal public housing system, can learn from the Dutch with specific recommendations for practices that could feasibly be implemented in the American context.

INTRODUCTION

The Netherlands has one of the largest social housing sectors in the world and the largest share of social housing as a proportion of the housing sector in the European Union.1 In the Netherlands nonprofit organizations operate social housing developments that are offered to particularly vulnerable populations at belowmarket rent.2 32 percent of dwellings in the country were rented from these nonprofit housing associations in 2011.3 Housing has long been considered a critical social service in the Netherlands. Indeed, the government’s responsibility to provide its citizens with adequate housing was established in the Dutch Constitution, and the government plays a significant role in the oversight of these associations.4

Although the Netherlands has a housing system which is very distinct from that of the United States, analyzing what does and does not work in the Dutch context can offer valuable lessons to America, particularly at a local level. Observing other nations’ housing programs can help inform effective solutions and interventions beyond what the United States has historically considered appropriate. The Netherlands certainly faces its own difficulties, but the effectiveness of its attempts to solve these problems can provide insight for America.

DUTCH HOUSING

Of the 7.2 million homes in the Netherlands’ housing stock, 2.3 million, or 32 percent, are owned by housing associations — nonprofit organizations that are given the legal responsibility to supply housing to low-income households.5 These associations are overseen by the Dutch government and operate within legal frameworks but are self-financed and individually responsible for achieving their government-sanctioned mission. Housing associations have been consolidating over the

past decades: There were more than 1,000 in 1990; this number had dropped to 425 by 2010, and presently, only 398 exist.6 45 percent of social housing units are single-family homes, which is the dominant style of home in the Netherlands.7 Most of the social housing stock owned by housing associations is in urban areas, but all areas of the country have a substantial share.8 In addition to social housing there are also owner-occupied homes and private rental units in the country. All privately owned rental properties are also subject to regulation, and many also offer affordable rents.9

HISTORY OF SOCIAL HOUSING IN THE NETHERLANDS

While housing associations have existed in the Netherlands since the 1850s, social housing did not become a widespread practice until the passage of the Housing Act of 1901, which codified the role of housing associations and formed the legal basis for social housing.10

The Housing Act was a response to issues in the housing sector, including poor housing conditions, sanitation issues, and exploitative

Oude Haven, Rotterdam by Damianpicturic is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Source:

Figure 1. A housing project designed by Piet Blom in the 1980s in Rotterdam

lease agreements. It was also an attempt to increase the regulatory authority of the government over housing in the country.11 The act ultimately stimulated social housing by permitting municipalities, in collaboration with housing associations, to utilize government funds such as loans and subsidies to build and manage units. The responsibilities of these associations include housing people who are unable to secure adequate housing for themselves, upholding a reasonable level of quality in the units they provide, consulting with tenants on matters relating to their units, maintaining responsible economic affairs, contributing to the creation and maintenance of safe and desirable neighborhoods, and housing the elderly and disabled.12

The Central Housing Fund (CFV), an independent public agency, is primarily responsible for oversight and accountability of the finances of housing associations. The CFV supervises the financial well-being of the associations and has the power to extend economic support if needed when the organizations face financial difficulties; thus, it serves as a layer of security for associations.13 Housing associations also have a solidarity fund among themselves to provide support to each other, and local and national governments have the power to intervene if the crisis is especially dire.14

The target demographic of social housing is low-income households who are unable to find a unit for themselves.15 Households pursuing social housing have their incomes and household composition checked by the association to determine eligibility, with about 40 percent of households in the Netherlands qualifying for social housing.16 Individuals living in social housing tend to be older and lowerincome, live with fewer people in smaller houses, be unemployed, and have non-Dutch origins.17 The low-income population, defined as those earning less than €33,000 (US $35,126), became the intended beneficiaries

of social housing after a 2010 European Commission decision supporting the Dutch government’s proposed requirement for housing associations to allocate at least 90 percent of their rental units to households with yearly earnings below this threshold.18 Prior to this decision, however, social housing was viewed as a much more universal program, and such eligibility criteria were not enforced.19

Unlike public housing elsewhere, there is little to no stigma associated with living in social housing in the Netherlands.

While social housing construction was permitted following the Housing Act of 1901, the actual implementation of social housing did not occur on a large scale until the 1920s, and even then, the majority of the social housing stock was not built until after World War II — a construction boom facilitated by the mass housing shortages created by the destruction of the war.20 Due to the government’s role in financing a significant portion of this new construction of social housing, the dependence of the housing associations on government funding increased. However, the structure and function of housing associations changed in 1974 with the “grossing and balancing operation,” which abolished government subsidies and forced the associations to be economically independent of the government.21 As compensation for the hardship imposed by this new rule, the government canceled any outstanding debt owed to them by the housing associations. Since this restructuring, housing associations have been forced to find new funding for social housing projects. To maintain the necessary

funding, they operate as a revolving fund.22 The associations sell dwellings as a method of generating revenue and then invest this revenue in other new units to rent out. Landlords may buy and sell units as they wish, a unique characteristic of social housing in the Netherlands as other countries with social housing sectors require landlords to receive permission from the government prior to sales.23 The only requirement is that they must first offer to sell the dwelling to its renters before putting it on the market.

Also in 1974, a housing allowance was implemented that distributed money to lowincome tenants to pay to their landlords in rent, thereby enabling property owners to earn market-level rents while maintaining affordability for their tenants.24 Around 40 percent of tenants in social housing units receive this housing allowance, and tenants

in the private rental housing sector are also permitted to receive it. Eligibility for the allowance is determined by age, income, and wealth of the household, as well as household composition and cost of living.25 As another method to ensure low-income households have access to affordable units the Netherlands issues housing permits to households earning less than the national median wage for units classified as the least expensive, which are reserved for households with a permit.26

In 1991, a choice-based letting (CBL) system was created for certain parts of the country, which enabled those eligible for social housing to view all available units online and choose among the vacant units.27 This was created in response to long waitlists and is intended to allow households to find housing more quickly and easily. Before the CBL was established, households would join the waitlist before they

Source: QUBIC - social housing, student housing by Artur Salisz is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Figure 2. Social Housing in Amsterdam

actually needed social housing to build up wait time in order to be prioritized later should a need arise. There are many areas around the country where this waitlist system is still in place which makes securing a unit more complicated and less time sensitive.

THE CURRENT STATE OF SOCIAL HOUSING

In both the social and private rental sectors, the Dutch government regulates rent costs, a practice that began in the Netherlands at the end of World War II.28 These rental controls are based on the quality and location of the units, rather than tenant income. Units are categorized based on these characteristics, and each category of units has an associated maximum price per square unit.29 While the government has eased some of this regulation since the introduction of housing allowances, only about five percent of all units are not subject to some form of rent control.30

In 2015, the Dutch government passed another Housing Act that created a policy instrument called “appropriate assignment.”31 This gives housing associations the responsibility to ensure that all low-income households obtain housing affordable to them based on a government determination of appropriate rent expenses for their income level. This act additionally requires landlords of social housing to meet annually with their municipal government and representatives of their tenants to create agreements surrounding any new projects they plan to undertake, as well as to set rent prices. This is indicative of a trend of decentralization of housing policy, allowing local governments more power and control over housing in their regions.

Between private and social housing rental units there is a significant difference in rental costs. Private rental units cost, on average, at least €100 (US $107) more per month than social rental units.32 Many landlords of social housing also charge rents lower than the maximum allowed by the regulations.33 While all landlords are eligible for subsidies from the government if they charge below the maximum allowed rent, more social housing landlords do so.34 This creates a notably lower cost for social housing units than for private rental units.

Unlike public housing elsewhere, there is little to no stigma associated with living in social housing in the Netherlands.35 Most neighborhoods in the country are somewhat diverse in their offerings of social, private, and owner-occupied housing, though there has been a trend of increased spatial segregation in the past few years.36 One potential cause is the increased concentration of social housing in the Netherlands, particularly in large cities like Amsterdam, as gentrification pushes social housing into more constrained areas.37

Overall, there is general satisfaction with social housing; most tenants enjoy the units and environment in which they live and are

Source: Photo by Ruben Hanssen on Unsplash

Figure 3. Apartments in Venserpolder, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

not planning to move.38 With low rates of overcrowding and housing deprivation, the Netherlands has been shown to have highquality housing and community. This is due in part to the extensive social housing sector, which contributes to a higher quality of life

core services they are required to offer, but many argue they should resume the role of a more community-oriented organization, providing services beyond housing.43

Many housing associations before the economic crisis put considerable effort into going above and beyond their traditional responsibilities, including efforts to improve the surroundings of their units, serving clients outside of the populations they typically target, and even providing community organizations like schools and stores. As financial challenges have increased, associations have reverted to the core services they are required to offer...”

in the Netherlands than in nations of similar wealth.39 That being said, there are more complaints about safety and vandalism in social housing than in the other housing sectors.40

CURRENT DEBATE CONCERNS SURROUNDING HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS

While it is generally supported, there is debate about the role and state of social housing in the Netherlands. First, discussion has emerged recently about the potential to expand the responsibilities of housing associations.41 Supporters of this idea argue that housing associations should take responsibility for the conditions of social housing. Many housing associations before the economic crisis put considerable effort into going above and beyond their traditional responsibilities, including efforts to improve the surroundings of their units, serving clients outside of the populations they typically serve, and even providing community institutions like schools and stores.42 As financial challenges have increased, associations have reverted to the

Another concern presently facing the Netherlands’ housing sector relates to urban renewal projects. Housing associations have largely led these projects, which were indicative of the increasing power of the associations and the decreasing financial capacity of local government.44 Since the 2008 economic crisis, however, as housing associations have offered fewer additional services, these urban renewal projects have all but halted. There is very little new construction or rehabilitation of units as housing associations instead purchase cheaper units and invest minimally in maintenance.45

Next, the economic crisis also threatened the revenue that housing associations earned from selling units, as fewer households are able to purchase homes.46 To earn sufficient revenue to continue operating, housing associations have creatively identified other ways to sell units. Associations will sell the unit to individuals at significantly discounted prices (in some cases, 25 to 30 percent below market value), under two conditions. First, the individual has to offer the unit back to the

association at the market price should they wish to sell it. Second, the profits or losses on the property are shared with the housing association. As there is a substantial demand for low-cost and low-risk homeownership, this option is popular among many households, and housing associations are capitalizing on this demand.

Finally, housing associations have received a significant amount of criticism, especially from politicians, who claim that they are not using their funding efficiently.47 They argue that these organizations have sufficient funds to do more than provide basic housing services but choose not to. An important part of this argument rests on the fact that housing associations are private organizations subject to market influences and incentives. While they are

entrusted with providing some public services, they are also attempting to profit from their business.48 Many of these politicians would prefer to give municipalities power over the maintenance of the properties, rent controls, sales, and property ownership.49 While there is debate around how to handle this issue, almost all stakeholders agree that greater oversight is essential to moving forward.

Overall, there is substantial debate on what the role of social housing, as compared to private and owner-occupied housing, should be in the housing sector. Many believe these roles should be realigned to better capture and respond to the present housing needs in the country today.50

Source: Spaarndammerplantsoen housing by Steve Cadman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Figure 4. Social Housing in Amsterdam

OTHER CONCERNS

Beyond debate surrounding housing associations, the Dutch government has also acknowledged that they have a shortage of housing for middle-income households and have proposed creating smaller apartments to help solve it.51 In particular, the government recognizes a lack of support for households just above the income threshold to qualify for

Home values have also increased dramatically [in Amsterdam], up 63% by some counts, in the past decade, creating a new affordability

crisis for households seeking homeownership.”

housing permits. These households cannot access social housing but may still face affordability challenges as the cheapest units are reserved for households with permits. This issue only worsened with the passage of the Housing Act of 2015, which directed social housing to target low-income households even more directly.52 Others have rightly pointed out that this issue is not exclusive to households just above the income threshold and that affordability is an issue even for those who qualify for housing support as even the maximum subsidy does not always ensure affordability.53

Finally, in cities with particularly dense social housing, such as Amsterdam, there are numerous issues plaguing the housing market. Households seeking social housing units can wait for as long as 10 years to receive a unit in the city.54 One population in particular

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUTURE GROWTH

As these identified issues persist and threaten to continue, there have been numerous proposals to address them, both from the Dutch government and other invested parties.

SUPPLY EXPANSION

In response to the lack of middle-income housing, the Dutch government has proposed a plan to construct new small apartments in popular locations of two large cities, Amsterdam and Utrecht.60 These apartments would be allowed to charge higher rent, above the cost of the households classified as the cheapest units, but still at a reasonable price struggling to find affordable housing in Amsterdam is international students, who do not have access to national housing programs and cannot afford the otherwise high rent costs.55 Home values have also increased dramatically in the last decade, up 63 percent by some counts, which has created a new affordability crisis for households seeking homeownership.56 While the increases have been concentrated in large cities, home values have also increased nationwide; in 2020, the average price of a home in the Netherlands was up almost 12 percent from 2019.57 In response to these persistent issues, 15,000 people protested in September 2021, advocating for an end to the perceived housing crisis in Amsterdam.58 The organizers cited growing home prices, a lack of affordable housing options, and long waitlists for social housing. Additionally, protesters cited the recent decrease in the number of social housing units, many of which have been sold by their owners. They also highlighted the impact of expensive housing on other areas of their lives. These protests have continued in 2022 and 2023 as the crisis persists.59

INCREASE AFFORDABILITY

To ameliorate issues relating to affordability and access to housing for low-income populations the Dutch government has proposed that targeted programs and policies at the level of local government will be the most effective.64 Some commentators also agree that this decentralization will succeed at meeting the increasingly unique housing issues in different areas of the country.65 The call for decentralization can be seen as a critique of the national government’s inaction. But it is true that locally managed programs that hold housing associations accountable for meeting the specific needs of their communities have had success in the Netherlands.66 However, there is a risk of creating a housing system that is incongruous across the country and places certain regions and populations at a disadvantage. Thus, it remains important for the national government to maintain a role in setting and enforcing housing policy.

MITIGATE SPATIAL SEGREGATION

that the government believes will be affordable for these households. Allowing higher rents would incentivize developers to build these units, as they would earn greater profits from the units than they would earn by building elsewhere. This would fill the gap in housing by creating units that will only be affordable to middle-income households.

This, however, is not a solution that will rectify the situation quickly, as new construction takes a significant amount of time.61 Additionally, this solution is being disputed by the local governments in Amsterdam and Utrecht, who claim they already have ample housing to meet this criterion without offering extra incentives to developers.62 Local housing officials also believe that this plan would weaken tenant protections and force households into smaller units for higher prices while opening the door to unnecessary future government intervention.63

It is also essential to address spatial segregation before it grows any further. As social housing has become more targeted towards lowincome communities, areas with a high density of social housing have become less diverse, especially in income.67 This threatens to reduce the appeal of these neighborhoods, especially if housing associations are unable to maintain the area, and it can also threaten the value of other real estate in the neighborhood. Targeting those with the greatest need for social housing is important, but the Dutch government and housing associations must work against spatial segregation in areas with social housing.

As low-income housing is mostly affordable and of adequate quality, there is pressure from some environmental groups for future action to focus on the sustainability of units, prioritizing the development of energy-efficient

Source: The Peperklip by Damianpicturic is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Figure 5. The Peperklip, social housing designed by Carel Weeber in the late 1970s, is an architectural landmark

homes and homes fit for an aging population, as well as improvements in the distribution of housing to increase equity and efficiency.68 The state has begun this work, partnering with Enphase Energy, Inc. to provide renewable energy sources to social housing projects, but it will be essential to be mindful of where these projects are located and who will have access to them to ensure they do not further perpetuate spatial segregation.69

Finally, another potential solution is to invest in growing the social housing sector.70 Actions in the past decade have shrunk this sector, if anything, with the imposition of the landlord tax credit.71 Investing in and growing the social housing sector instead would use the infrastructure already established to contribute to addressing the problems currently facing the housing sector and could significantly mitigate the growth of spatial segregation. To be effective more funding would be necessary for housing associations, as well as stricter regulations about how to use this funding, which indicates this solution is likely not feasible.

LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES

Many of the issues faced in the Netherlands echo across the United States. The United States struggles with affordability for lowincome housing, and the programs that do exist are difficult to access, require an often substantial waiting period, and leave behind key populations who need assistance. The United States also has challenges with housing supply, especially of affordable units of which there is an estimated shortage of about 7 million. Similarly, government programs to incentivize affordable housing development are insufficient to meet demand and can be challenging for developers to access.72

“

...locally managed programs hold housing associations accountable

to meeting the specific needs of the community in which they

operate...”

These two nations operate within very different political and cultural contexts that account for much of the differences between their housing sectors. Americans are wary of federal social programs due to the cultural value of individualism and a general distrust of government.73 While this would certainly be a barrier to creating a comparable housing system in the United States, federal housing programs do exist and demonstrate that it is possible to garner enough political support to create such a policy.74 In addition, social housing in the Netherlands is provided by private, nonprofit institutions, although they are subject to significant regulation. This aligns with the traditional American value for social services to be provided by private organizations, which posits private social housing development with government regulation and oversight as a feasible and practical solution.

Some suggest that maintaining land ownership by the government is an essential step to increasing housing affordability.75 This argument claims that when the United States government owns land with the potential to be redeveloped, it frequently sells it to developers who create expensive homes. At best, inclusionary housing laws can require that a certain percentage of new units be sold at an affordable rent level, but if the government instead maintained ownership of the land, it could develop it and make all units within

the new development affordable.76 While the federal government does own about 28 percent of the land in the United States, the vast majority of it is used for preservation, recreation, and the development of natural resources.77 If the government-owned land for the purpose of housing, affordable housing would be more viable for developers who would no longer have to pay real estate taxes and instead could negotiate favorable land lease terms.

A unique practice in the Netherlands is the requirement for landlords, if they are going to sell a unit currently occupied by tenants, to offer to sell the unit to the tenants before attempting to sell it on the market.78 This practice is already instituted in the District of Columbia, which suggests that it is politically

feasible in America and has the potential to be expanded, particularly in cities.79 To effectively implement such a practice more broadly in the United States there would need to be protections in place to ensure renters are offered favorable terms and have funding available to purchase the home, which may pose a political barrier, but this idea remains promising due to the substantial impact it could have in promoting equity in home ownership.

Another notable and unique housing practice in the Netherlands is that developers and landlords of social housing are held accountable to the local government and the tenants for whom they provide housing. Decentralized regulation and oversight of housing are already the norms in America.

Source: Riverside Plaza and Mixed Blood Theatre at sunset by August Schwerdfeger is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Figure 6. The Riverside Plaza, subsidized housing in Minneapolis, MN, was designed Ralph Rapson in 1973

Increasing local power would strengthen the ability for policy to be adapted to fit local needs and would enforce more direct oversight of developers. Again, however, this is realistic only for states and localities that have inclusionary housing mandates. Otherwise, there will likely be too few developments with affordable housing to justify such a program, and there would be a risk of disincentivizing any affordable housing that might be developed due to such strict and direct oversight.

CONCLUSION

Although many of the housing programs and policies used by the Netherlands have the potential to transform housing in the United States, most are likely politically infeasible due to Americans’ disposition to distrust the federal government and the preference for private entities to carry out social services.80

The United States could certainly make progress, however, by borrowing the ideas of the Netherlands and integrating them into solutions that are palatable to both American political parties, as well as the population as a whole.

In the United States the most significant reforms often happen on a local level due to the relative ease of coordinating relevant stakeholders and gathering political support.81 It seems improbable, for example, that a national requirement for landlords to offer to sell units to their tenants before putting them on the market would succeed, but at a local level, the chance of success seems greater. Local governments have the capability to make meaningful efforts to improve housing in their municipalities, and they must look internationally at successful models to inspire interventions to address the problems that persist among their communities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graceanne Horton is a Master of Public Health candidate graduating in May 2023 with a concentration in Health Management and Policy. Her research and academic interests surround the social determinants of health — the upstream aspects of our lives beyond health care that influence our health outcomes —which include strong influences from the built environment. Graceanne has policy experience at various levels of government and is particularly interested in government housing programs and policies.

ENDNOTES

1. Kathleen Scanlon, Christine Whitehead, and Melissa Fernández Arrigoitia, eds., Social Housing in Europe (Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 25; “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands,” Housing Europe, March 27, 2010, https://www.housingeurope.eu/ resource-117/social-housing-in-europe.

2. “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands.”

3. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 25.

4. “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands.”

5. “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands.”

6. “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands.”

7. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 26.

8. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 25.

9. Frans Schilder and René Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands (The Hague, Netherlands: Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2018), https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/ files/downloads/PBL2018_Policy-and-practiceaffordable-housing-in-the-Netherlands_3336. pdf.

10. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 26.

11. Léon Deben, “Residential Civilization in the Netherlands 1850-1969: The Rules and Regulations Stipulated in Leases,” The Netherlands Journal of Housing and Environmental Research 4, no. 3 (1989): 289302.

12. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 35-36.

13. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández

Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 36.

14. “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands.”

15. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 33.

16. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 33.

17. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 34.

18. Hugo Priemus and Vincent Gruis, “Social Housing and Illegal State Aid: The Agreement between European Commission and Dutch Government,” European Journal of Housing Policy 11, no. 1 (2011): 89-104.

19. “Social Housing in Europe: The Netherlands.”

20. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 28.

21. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 28-29.

22. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 31.

23. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 27.

24. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 29.

25. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

26. Feargus O’Sullivan, “The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments,” Bloomberg, February 23, 2016, https://www.bloomberg. com/news/articles/2016-02-23/dutch-leaderswant-to-solve-amsterdam-s-middle-classhousing-crisis-with-smaller-apartments.

27. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 33.

28. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 32.

29. O’Sullivan, “The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments.”

30. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 32.

31. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

32. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 32.

33. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 32-33.

34. Marietta Haffner and Harry Boumeester, “Is Renting Unaffordable in the Netherlands?,” International Journal of Housing Policy 14, no. 2 (2014): 117-140.

35. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 34.

36. Peter Boelhouwer, “The Housing Market in The Netherlands as a Driver for Social Inequalities: Proposals for Reform,” International Journal of Housing Policy 20, no. 3 (2020): 447-456, https://doi.org/10.1080/194 91247.2019.1663056.

37. Hans Skifter Andersen et al., “The Impact of Housing Policies and Housing Markets on Ethnic Spatial Segregation: Comparing the Capital Cities of Four Nordic Welfare States,” International Journal of Housing Policy 16, no. 1 (2016): 1-30.

38. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 35.

39. D. Streimikiene, “Quality of Life and Housing,” International Journal of Information and Education Technology 5, no. 2 (2015): 140145, https://doi.org/10.7763/IJIET.2015.V5.491.

40. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 35.

41. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 37.

42. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 37.

43. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 37.

44. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 37.

45. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 38.

46. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 38.

47. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 38.

48. Hugo Priemus, “A New Housing Policy for the Netherlands (2000-2010): A Mixed Bag,” Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 16, no. 3/4 (2001): 319-332.

49. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 38.

50. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 39.

51. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands; O’Sullivan, “The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments.”

52. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

53. Haffner and Boumeester, “Is Renting Unaffordable in the Netherlands?.”

54. Jeffrey Jerden, “U.S. Affordable Housing Policy Could Learn from the Netherlands,” German Marshall Fund, accessed on April 5, 2023, https://www.gmfus.org/news/ us-affordable-housing-policy-could-learnnetherlands.

55. Wouter van de Klippe, “Thousands March in Amsterdam for an End to the Housing Crisis,” DutchNews.nl, September 13, 2021, https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/09/ thousands-march-in-amsterdam-for-an-end-tothe-housing-crisis/.

56. Jerden, “U.S. Affordable Housing Policy Could Learn from the Netherlands.”

57. “Dutch Property Market in Focus,” The Dutch Cooperative Association of Real Estate Agents and Valuers, 2020, https://www.nvm. nl/media/ylbarm2w/dutch-property-market-infocus-2020.pdf.

58. van de Klippe, “Thousands March in Amsterdam for an End to the Housing Crisis.”

59. “Protests Demanding Affordable Housing Continue in the Netherlands,” Peoples Dispatch, February 1, 2022, https:// peoplesdispatch.org/2022/02/01/protestsdemanding-affordable-housing-continue-in-thenetherlands/.

60. O’Sullivan, “The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments.”

61. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

62. O’Sullivan, “The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments.”

63. O’Sullivan, “The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments.”

64. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

65. Boelhouwer, “The Housing Market in The Netherlands as a Driver for Social Inequalities.”

66. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

67. Boelhouwer, “The Housing Market in The Netherlands as a Driver for Social Inequalities.”

68. Schilder and Scherpenisse, Policy and Practice: Affordable Housing in the Netherlands.

69. “Enphase Energy and Wocozon Bring Green Sustainable Living to Netherlands Social Housing,” Energy Trend, July 13, 2015, https:// www.energytrend.com/news/20150713-9086. html.

70. Boelhouwer, “The Housing Market in The Netherlands as a Driver for Social Inequalities.”

71. Boelhouwer, “The Housing Market in The Netherlands as a Driver for Social Inequalities.”

72. Matt Clarke, “The GAP: A Shortage of Affordable Homes,” National Low Income Housing Coalition, March 2023, file:///C:/ Users/laure/Downloads/Gap-Report_2023.pdf.

73. Donald F. Kettl, “The Job of Government: Interweaving Public Functions and Private Hands,” Public Administration Review 75, no. 2 (2015): 219-229, https://doi.org/10.1111/ puar.12336.

74. Alex F. Schwartz, Housing Policy in the United States, 4th ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2021).

75. Jerden, “U.S. Affordable Housing Policy Could Learn from the Netherlands.”

76. Jerden, “U.S. Affordable Housing Policy Could Learn from the Netherlands.”

77. Carol Hardy Vincent, Lucas F. Bermejo, and Laura A. Hanson, Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2020), https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42346.pdf.

78. Scanlon, Whitehead, and Fernández Arrigoitia, Social Housing in Europe, 27.

79. “Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Assistance,” D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, accessed on April 5, 2023, https://dhcd.dc.gov/service/tenantopportunity-purchase-assistance.

80. Kettl, “The Job of Government: Interweaving Public Functions and Private Hands.”

81. “What Is a Local Housing Strategy and Why Is It Important,” Local Housing Solutions, accessed on April 5, 2023, https:// localhousingsolutions.org/plan/what-is-a-localhousing-strategy-and-why-is-it-important/.

FIRST WE SHAPE CITIES THEN THEY SHAPE US

- JAN GEHL

SYMPOSIUM 2023

The symposium section of Agora showcases timely discussions in the sphere of urban planning and design professions. With the knowledge that inequity exacerbates urban challenges, this year’s theme considers innovative approaches that invoke transformative change in a rapidly urbanizing society.

The fields of urban planning and policy look different than they did before. Practitioners have more tools and technology at their disposal than ever, yet the demands of the urban environment are equally more numerous. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us just how fragile our built environment can be, but we have long been impacted by existing and deepening climate, social, political, and economic divisions. To eliminate enduring disparities, we must radically reimagine and transform our cities to serve all people. In an era of mass urbanization, cities — and the way we interact with and within them — will be fundamentally transformed. Reimagine asks the question: In a world shaped by data, climate change, inequity, and so much more, what should the urban environment of the future look like, and how can we make that vision a reality?

Our two symposium pieces discuss urban futures from distinct perspectives. “The Future of Autonomous Vehicles” explores how autonomous vehicles (AVs) may alter urban landscapes and spotlights the opportunities and challenges planners face. As AV technology evolves, their presence may dominate roadways. Preparing for AV-dominant cities and reimagining the urban fabric may soon be a priority for planners, designers, and policy-makers alike. Planners will play a critical role in navigating potential impacts on communities, shared mobility, and transportation systems. Just as AVs induce uncertainty about the time ahead for mobility, climate change also clouds the future of urban planning. From that perspective, “Living Afloat — Towards Resilient Urbanization” explores the effects of climate change upon Indigenous communities in Peru and presents sustainable design as a means of mitigating environmental impacts by fostering circular economies. Embedding Indigenous local knowledge into design processes creates opportunities for more inclusive, ecologically responsible futures. Honoring Indigenous land stewardship traditions and centering Indigenous communities in the decision-making processes is a valuable framework for conducting sustainable, culturally-informed design.

These pieces are particularly relevant as new mobility technology and climate change consume the global discourse. We hope these pieces inspire readers to imagine how innovative planning and design can cultivate more equitable and sustainable cities for all.

Kathryn Economou and Luke Ranker Symposium Co-Directors

Vaidehi Shah Symposium Deputy Director

The Future of Autonomous Vehicles:

Utopian or Dystopian?

SRISHTI JAIPURIA

Master of Urban and Regional Planning

ABSTRACT

The rise of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) may have transformative spatial impacts on urban development, density, and sprawl. This paper explores an emerging question in planning circles: Will AVs favor longer commutes that lead to urban sprawl or promote density and revitalize city centers? While AVs can increase transportation efficiency, safety, and mobility for people who have difficulty accessing transportation, they also impose new demands on the transportation system, such as drop-off areas, parking, and costly new infrastructure. This study reviews different methods to forecast the spatial implications of AVs, such as system dynamics, survey responses, agent-based modeling, and a backcasting approach, to predict the spatial impacts of adopting AVs. Studies suggest that AVs may induce urban sprawl if private ownership dominates, increasing the number of vehicles on the road, the length of travel times, and urban expansion. Conversely, AVs may also promote compact development patterns by enabling people to give up private cars and relocate to more walkable city centers better served by shared AV systems, eliminating the need for parking, and freeing up space for denser developments.

INTRODUCTION

Technology has played a significant role in shaping the urban form. During both the streetcar era (1890-1920) and the automobile era (1920-1945), changes in transportation technology spurred and reinforced suburbanization.1 As a significant technological change, autonomous vehicles (AVs) — selfdriving cars — will likely continue the legacy of technology and affect the urban development pattern of the city, but both the direction and the magnitude of the effect are still to be determined. AVs will alter how people travel and businesses function, similar to how shared mobility and digital ride-hailing services forced adaptation of the urban form. AVs could increase transportation system efficiency and safety, lower car emissions, and increase mobility for communities that are less able to access transportation. For example, elderly or disabled individuals who are unable to drive themselves could potentially use AVs to get around more easily. However, claims that AVs will cure all urban issues ignore the complex problems that the technology will bring. The necessity for drop-off areas, car storage, circulators for vehicles while AVs wait for customers, and pricey new transportation infrastructure are just a few of the new demands that AVs will impose on the system.

The most pressing question is whether AVs will spur density and revitalize city centers or favor longer commutes, and thus lead to urban sprawl. AVs’ effect on the cost and ease of mobility will inevitably impact business and residential location choices. By lowering the actual and perceived expenses of trips, AVs may also encourage urban sprawl by lowering the barrier to mobility for people to move from home to job locations. However, unlike other recent technological advances such as teleworking or electric cars, which lower marginal transportation costs, AVs have an additional benefit. They can reduce the demand for commuter parking, freeing up land

for other purposes.2 Moreover, depending on their deployment, they could also improve the accessibility of cities and close-in suburban areas relative to more peripheral locations.

This paper will explore how AVs may impact density, urban sprawl, and the location choices of commuters based on their deployment. Additionally, this study will explore how the deployment of AVs affects congestion.

TWO SPATIAL IMPACTS OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

There is a continuous discussion regarding whether AVs will lead to the re-urbanization of city centers or another wave of urban sprawl. Some transport planners believe that AVs will encourage individuals to relocate farther away from metropolitan centers, and therefore AVs have the potential to promote sprawl.3 Others have asserted that AVs might promote sprawl by making travel less expensive. Due to the higher expense of AVs’ sensors and computer systems, this is most certainly not the case in the near future. However, if AVs lead to an increase in on-demand automated mobility, they may lower travel costs per mile as the traveler will not be required to buy or maintain the vehicle. Lower financial costs will stimulate the expansion of sprawl because if the cost of travel is low, people will value travel less and spread out more. Yet it is unclear whether automated car sharing will become a popular business model or whether on-demand AVs will be less expensive than owning an automobile today. By potentially lowering the overall cost of travel (including time, stress, and money), AVs could further expand already vast communities by encouraging people to dwell farther away from crucial cities.

However, many AV technology proponents contend that the technology will encourage more compact development patterns. Due to recent trends in urbanization, younger

It is possible that AVs will make urban living even more appealing to younger generations while allowing the rest of the population to settle farther away in rural suburbs.

- SRISHTI JAIPURIA

generations own fewer cars than older generations.4 A shared-AV (SAV) system could support these emerging trends by enabling people to give up their private cars and relocate to more walkable city centers that are better served by shared AV systems. Additionally, AVs are expected to eliminate the need for parking. In American city centers, parking often takes up twenty to forty percent of all available space, typically concentrated in residential areas around the city.5 Cities may decide to minimize or eliminate the majority of Central Business Districts (CBD) commuter parking when vehicle-sharing and automated parking become commonplace with the broad adoption of AVs.6 With the introduction of AVs, narrower pavement widths and more effective vehicular rights-of-way are possible as AVs are equipped with technology that allows for more efficient use of the road. This could free up space for denser developments.

CHALLENGES

One of the biggest challenges of planning for AVs is uncertainty. Deployment of AVs will yield different results under the private and shared deployment models. Additionally, the outcomes reveal that the assumptions greatly impact the impacts of AVs on travel behaviors and land usage. The most common assumptions considered are the percentage of trips that will be substituted by SAVs, waiting time for users, changes in the value of time, growth of road capacity, and market penetration rate of AVs. Nevertheless, it is improbable that solely private or the shared scenarios will materialize. Even now, urbanization and further suburbanization are developing in different portions in our metropolitan zones at the same time. AVs may make the urban core (and urban lifestyle) more appealing to some, while exurbs and rural locations may be more appealing to others. Finally, planners must be prepared for both possibilities to occur concurrently. It is possible that AVs will make urban living even

more appealing to younger generations while allowing the rest of the population to settle farther away in rural suburbs. The potential for AVs to reinforce and magnify suburban expansion will pose a serious danger to the vibrant metropolitan neighborhoods that planners try to construct.7

EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF THE SPRAWLING EFFECT OF AVS

Some studies show that AVs may induce urban sprawl. If private ownership dominates, there is likely to be only a small reduction in the number of vehicles needed to satisfy travel demand, which would also mean smaller reductions in the number of needed parking spaces. For the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States, models predict only a 9.5 percent decrease in the number of automobiles, assuming the minimum number of AVs replace household private vehicles to still fulfill the travel demand of all household members without a trip delay.8

To examine the impact of AVs on urban growth in Copenhagen, a System Dynamics model was developed with five sub-models covering parking, land use, population demographics, modal split changes, and traffic flow.9 The model was parameterized for the area’s 860 zones, and simulations were conducted from 2015 to 2070 with different AV penetration rates.10 The aim was to study the effects of AVs on urban growth while considering uncertainties. To anticipate the expected shift in AVs, the study simulated different AV penetration rates ranging from 45 to 70 percent until 2070.11 The study by Legêne that used the system dynamics modeling technique suggests that if cars become significantly more appealing, user-friendly, and adaptable for a wider public, more private vehicles will be purchased and used. This would increase the number of vehicles on the road, the length of travel times, and urban expansion. As the demand for road surface rises, urban areas

will consequently experience more issues with a lack of space and an attempt to expand beyond the city limits.12

Similarly, another study investigated the possible shifts in home location preferences with the emergence of SAVs by utilizing transportation cost parameters obtained from a discrete-event agent-based simulation model specifically designed for SAVs.13 The study uses an integrated suite of agent-based land use and transportation modeling to analyze how the introduction and use of AVs affect land use and transportation in Munich, Germany. The models include car ownership, household migration, mode choice, and land use as factors ,but it only focuses on the effects of private AVs on household relocation and parking availability — not shared AVs. Three agent-based models were used and a random utility choice model was applied to determine relocation and car ownership decisions based on factors such as housing costs, commute times, and employment accessibility.14

AVs can also eliminate tiresome parking searches. AVs can choose a parking spot for themselves, possibly outside of town, and wait there until called again.15 This is because AVs can use sensors and mapping technology to identify available parking spots and then choose a spot that is most convenient and appropriate. This can save time and reduce frustration for the driver or passenger. Based on existing research, it is also likely that the majority of households will relocate from their workplaces to areas with more appealing locations or even higher-quality educational institutions.16

A 2017 survey conducted online among potential AV commuters in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area revealed that people who prioritized making the most of their travel time were more likely to relocate their homes and workplaces and accept longer commutes

compared to those who did not.17 Although being tech-savvy played a role in residents’ decisions to relocate, it did not have a direct impact on their tolerance for longer commutes or job relocation. The study concluded that being able to engage in information and communication technology (ICT)-based activities during commute time were not as significant as the motivation to use time productively. In terms of sociodemographic categories, those between the ages of 18 and 34 exhibit a considerable propensity for moving their homes and places of employment as well as lengthening their commutes. Their greater interest in making the most of travel time and greater levels of tech-savviness help to explain this inclination. Considering that this group of people currently represents the largest portion of the workforce in America,18 the consequences of this finding are alarming.

EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF DENSER DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS OF AVS

Research has shown that replacing private vehicle trips with SAV trips could lead to a substantial reduction in the number of vehicles needed to meet current transportation demand, possibly up to 90 percent, especially if ridesharing is considered. This reduction would also reduce the need for parking spaces.19 Many studies have calculated the effects on parking spaces using a specific parking-to-car ratio, and most of them have reported almost identical reductions in the number of parking spaces (between 80 and 90 percent) concerning the number of vehicles necessary to accommodate the current travel demand. Similarly, accounting for ridesharing in the model could significantly decrease the need for parking spaces. It is important to note that these findings are based on assumptions and should be interpreted with caution.20

Additionally, a study using system dynamics modeled the use of automated driving technology to improve a carpooling system. Vehicle use rose, which reduced idle time and parking requirements. To meet the demand for transportation fewer cars are required, which in some cases results in a reduction in the amount of road surface needed. When more individuals share one vehicle, whether as individual users or through carpooling, parking spaces and road infrastructure are freed up, and the city becomes more desirable. The land that has been released can be put to other uses. However, the empty miles would also need to be taken into consideration if the shared system is not a regular carpooling arrangement but rather some sort of transportation network company.21

The agent-based modeling considering car ownership, household relocation, mode choice, and parking availability concluded that the results are less obvious when effects from all these factors are added together. The increase in the desirability of homes located in central cities due to the elimination of parking restrictions balances out the exodus of workers from city centers to the periphery that is brought about by the reduction in the value of time that impedes travel. As a result, reducing the population of the suburbs may increase core city populations.22

Similarly, a 2021 study explored the potential impact of SAVs on people’s choices of where to live. Their research was informed by a discreteevent agent-based SAV simulation model that factored in transportation costs.23 Contrary to expectations, the model’s findings suggest that SAVs do not lead to uncontrolled urban sprawl. Instead, they can enhance the attractiveness of densely populated neighborhoods by offering better services and shorter wait times. The simulation results also reveal that older

generations tend to move closer to the CBD to avoid lengthy waiting times in suburban areas, while younger generations are likely to relocate further away from downtown. Nevertheless, the majority of younger people still prefer to live within a 25-mile radius of the CBD.24

The backcasting method suggests that the implementation of AVs could lead to more efficient use of space and resources. This approach involves creating an ideal situation and examining the present to determine the crucial choices and actions to bring about this desired future. This step also allowed definition of the core values guiding a future city with AVs. The second step constitutes the study of the opportunities and challenges presented by adopting AVs for each core value. The third step involves recognizing and establishing the significant goals and policies related to urban planning to establish the envisioned autonomous city.25 As previously noted, existing parking spaces could be repurposed for public use. However, the use of private AVs could result in congestion levels similar to or even worse than those currently experienced.

As a result, the backcasting approach suggests the need for policy goals that promote the use of SAVs rather than private AVs.26 This might be accomplished through financial incentives for automakers to create SAVs along with financial and legal measures like purchase taxes and single-occupancy levies that discourage the use of personal AVs. This could lead to a significant reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), curbing the effects of urban sprawl. These projections are undeniably affected by the fares charged for SAVs, as higher costs lead to a lower increase in average VMT. This holds true even when users are responsible for all driving-related expenses, which results in a 35 percent reduction in VMT. As a result, policy changes have the potential to curb urban sprawl.27

EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

The deployment of AVs will play a significant role in deciding their spatial implications. The impact of AV vehicles on the city’s urban form is unclear. Sprawl can be directly increased by AVs, and this effect dominates in several simulations. However, the indirect consequences of less parking space may make the city more compact. Whether parking space may be regained for other uses will ultimately depend on how AVs are deployed in the city.

Moreover, the outcomes of AVs depend on policy choices. For instance, land use plans continue to regulate development in cities and regions. Regional growth is still heavily influenced by housing, transportation, and occasionally greenbelt laws in many parts of the nation. To discourage long distance commuting in an AV world, revisions to exurban growth regulations and greenbelts

“Our urban form today is the product of technological evolutions and policy decisions.”

may be necessary. However, regionally focused policy foundations for such changes are already in place. Many municipalities have created effective growth strategies that are climate conscious and allow for sustainable development. A few places have also developed funding-based programs to encourage sensible expansion. Additionally, our current infrastructure and utilities (such as water and gas) will not support sprawl beyond a certain extent since it is expensive to provide these services outside of a certain spatial limit.

Too frequently the discussion surrounding AVs paints a picture of either a dystopian future in which AV technology will exacerbate urban sprawl to the point of gridlock or a utopian future in which technology will brilliantly solve many of the issues planners have been attempting to address for decades.28 It is crucial to remember that neither of these extreme scenarios will be brought about by technology alone, even though analyzing both scenarios could be beneficial. Our urban form today is the product of technological evolutions and policy decisions. The widespread use of the automobile was not the only factor in the creation of the auto-oriented suburban patterns that now characterize our urban regions. Infrastructure subsidies, a strong economy, and a lack of growth management all contributed to the former technological revolution. Local government decisions across the nation regarding infrastructure and planning policies will have a significant impact on how AVs are ultimately used. Backcasting also indicates that AVs can bring about a more utopian future or, at the very least, avert a dystopian future through policy measures such as incentives for SAV rather than private deployment and land use regulation promoting mixed use. Additionally, if AVs are deployed in a way that enhances the accessibility of central locations then a highly shared deployment approach will result in increased value in the core of cities. Furthermore, the deployment of AVs for ondemand services to support first- and last-mile connectivity will improve accessibility to the CBD.

The best way for planners to approach AVs is to frame our thinking on the understanding that, like any significant advancement in transportation technology, the emergence of AVs will present a new set of opportunities and challenges that we will have to address to work toward creating better communities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Srishti is a second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student with a focus on transportation planning. She is also pursuing an Graduate Certificate in Urban Informatics. Srishti is incredibly passionate about finding the right balance between social, economic, and environmental development.

ENDNOTES

1. Genevieve Giuliano and Susan Hanson, eds., The Geography of Urban Transportation, 4th edition (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 2017).

2. William Larson and Weihua Zhao, “SelfDriving Cars and the City: Effects on Sprawl, Energy Consumption, and Housing Affordability,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 81 (2020): 103484, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2019.103484.

3. Martijn F. Legêne et al., “Spatial Impact of Automated Driving in Urban Areas,” Journal of Simulation 14, no. 4 (2020): 295-303, https:// doi.org/10.1080/17477778.2020.1806747.

4. Larson and Zhao, “Self-Driving Cars and the City.”

5. Larson and Zhao, “Self-Driving Cars and the City.”

6. Jason Hawkins and Khandker Nurul Habib, “Integrated Models of Land Use and Transportation for the Autonomous Vehicle Revolution,” Transport Reviews 39, no. 1 (2019): 66-83, https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2018.1 449033.

7. Jeremy Crute et al., Planning for Autonomous Mobility, PAS Report 592 (Chicago, IL: American Planning Association, 2018).

8. Aggelos Soteropoulos, Martin Berger, and Francesco Ciari, “Impacts of Automated Vehicles on Travel Behaviour and Land Use: An International Review of Modelling Studies,” Transport Reviews 39, no. 1 (2019): 29-49, https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2018.1523253.

9. Legêne et al., “Spatial Impact of Automated Driving in Urban Areas.”

10. Legêne et al., “Spatial Impact of Automated Driving in Urban Areas.”

11. Legêne et al., “Spatial Impact of Automated Driving in Urban Areas.”

12. Legêne et al., “Spatial Impact of Automated Driving in Urban Areas.”

13. Carlos Llorca et al., “Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Household Relocation: An Agent-Based Simulation,” Cities 126 (2022): 103692, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2022.103692.

14. Llorca et al., “Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Household Relocation.”

15. Llorca et al., “Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Household Relocation.”

16. Wenwen Zhang and Subhrajit Guhathakurta, “Residential Location Choice in the Era of Shared Autonomous Vehicles,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 41, no. 2 (2021): 135-148, https://doi. org/10.1177/0739456X18776062.

17. Michael A. Moore et al., “On Investigating the Potential Effects of Private Autonomous Vehicle Use on Home/Work Relocations and Commute Times,” Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 110 (2020): 166-185, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2019.11.013.

18. Moore et al., “On Investigating the Potential Effects of Private Autonomous Vehicle Use on Home/Work Relocations and Commute Times.”

19. Soteropoulos, Berger, and Ciari, “Impacts of Automated Vehicles on Travel Behaviour and Land Use.”

20. Soteropoulos, Berger, and Ciari, “Impacts of Automated Vehicles on Travel Behaviour and Land Use.”

21. Legêne et al., “Spatial Impact of Automated Driving in Urban Areas.”

22. Llorca et al., “Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Household Relocation.”

23. Zhang and Guhathakurta, “Residential Location Choice in the Era of Shared Autonomous Vehicles.”

24. Zhang and Guhathakurta, “Residential Location Choice in the Era of Shared Autonomous Vehicles.”

25. Esther González-González, Soledad Nogués, and Dominic Stead, “Automated

Vehicles and the City of Tomorrow: A Backcasting Approach,” Cities 94 (2019): 153160, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.034.

26. González-González, Nogués, and Stead, “Automated Vehicles and the City of Tomorrow.”

27. González-González, Nogués, and Stead, “Automated Vehicles and the City of Tomorrow.”

28. Crute et al., Planning for Autonomous Mobility.

WATERLOO STATION, LONDON

KAT CAMERON

Living Afloat:

Toward Resilient Urbanization

DEVENDRA HEMANT DUGAD

Master of Urban Design

ABSTRACT

The design proposal offers an alternative form of urbanism to accommodate regional growth while considering the limitations of expanding on land and the importance of enhancing the ecological health of Lake Titicaca. It learns from the Uros indigenous and communal way of life, including sustainable utilization of local resources, as well as the decentralized infrastructure planning model and incremental and adaptable growth of Oceanix City. The design concentrates on establishing decentralized systems for communal living and recreation, material and food production, water and waste management, work, and trade to promote an ecological balance on the lake that respects its indigenous cultural history while implementing contemporary innovations. A kit-of-parts approach allows potential residents to design and modify the urban form at both the village and neighborhood level, creating different identities across the city that work together to develop a balanced water and material ecology.

Lake Titicaca, set between Peru and Bolivia, is the largest lake in South America and the highest-altitude navigable body of water in the world. The remains of cultural monuments, human-made structures, and managed land in the lake’s region suggest continuous human presence over the last 8,000 years.1 A wealthy indigenous knowledge system of land use and environmental management practices is reflected in the creation of raised fields (waru waru and suka kollas), stone terraces (andenes), sunken gardens (q’ochas), irrigated pastures (bofedales), and floating islands of totora reeds.2

THE ANTHROPOCENE: IMPACT ON LAKE TITICACA

The Anthropocene: Impact on Lake Titicaca In recent times, the ecosystem of Lake Titicaca has been damaged by pollution from various sources, such as mining in the Puno region, household waste runoff, agricultural activities, and overfishing. These activities have led to the growth of invasive species including duckweed, which has resulted in a lack of oxygen in the water through outcompeting other life below the surface. In October 2006, Peru and Bolivia joined forces to rehabilitate the most contaminated areas of the lake. Their efforts cleared 40,000 tons of duckweed and pumped oxygen into the waters to promote recovery of the area’s ecology.3

As part of an endorheic basin — a region where the water does not flow to an external body of water such as a river or ocean but only evaporates or seeps into the ground — Lake Titicaca collects and retains rain and meltwater from 27 rivers but allows for virtually no outflow. The average seasonal rise and fall of lake levels has been observed to be about two feet based on data collected between 1914 and 2000.4 Over the past century, there has been a change in water level of over 21 feet — measured by the difference between maximum and minimum levels recorded.5 A lake level

change of only three feet can inundate or expose 120,000 hectares of land surface, so this change is significant.6

Puno city, located along the Bay of Puno in Lake Titicaca, is a major hub in the southern Peru region. It has seen large-scale migration from cities and villages as migrants search for better living conditions and education. This migration, combined with the geographical limitations of the city, has led to an encroachment into protected land areas of the lake as water levels have receded over the past decade.

In response to pollution, population growth, and the limitation on land expansion, this design project develops an alternative approach to urbanism that leverages the Peruvian Uros community’s indigenous way of life on the waters of Lake Titicaca, as well as incorporating contemporary decentralized infrastructure and technological approaches –as exemplified by the Oceanix City prototype designed by Bjarke Ingels Group.

THE INDIGENOUS FLOATING ISLAND OF UROS AND THEIR COMMUNITIES

The Uros are a mixture of Aymara and Quechua ethnic groups, the former being descendants of those originally driven out to the lake by violence of the latter’s Inca forefathers. The group has been living on the lake for over 500 years.7 In 2011, about 1,200 Uros people lived across an archipelago of 60 artificial floating islands made of totora reeds.8 The totora reeds are available in abundance along the edges of the lake and are easily accessible from where the islands are located within the wetlands. They act as raw material for making homes, mats, and boats, as well as provide foraging for livestock and food for the Uros.9 A new island is built collectively through shared resources and voluntary labor by the Uros, who foster a strong community spirit

“

...with

the potential to leverage urbanism, the design proposes an alternative, sustainable and circular system.

- DUGAD

while making a living out of fishing, tourism, and selling crafts. While the Uros continue to practice many of their indigenous practices, they have also adopted technologies such as motorboats, solar panels, electric stoves, and bio toilets in an effort to draw more visitors to the islands. However, because the islands are made out of totora reeds, they require a great deal of maintenance in the form of adding new layers of dried totora reeds once during the rainy season and monthly during dry seasons. The islands are thereby restricted in their size, which makes connectivity between separate islands difficult. Other considerations for these islands include their scalability, relationship with – and independence from Puno city –ease of assembly and maintenance, water supply, waste management, and impact on the water ecology of the surrounding lake.

OCEANIX CITY: NEXT FRONTIER OF HUMAN HABITATION?

In many ways a contrast to the Uros Islands, Oceanix City is a conceptual, constructed ecosystem developed for the future. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, it is anchored by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and intended to provide a scalable framework of development for coastal cities facing land shortages and rising sea levels.10 The project channels flows of energy, water, food, and waste to create a blueprint for a modular maritime metropolis. The additive architecture can grow, transform, and adapt organically over time, evolving from a neighborhood of 300 residents to a city of 10,000 with the possibility of scaling indefinitely due to its hexagonal base unit.11 The design bases its planning of infrastructure around the movement of people on the floating islands to provide flexibility and incremental development potential to the city. However, the islands will have to be prefabricated and launched into the ocean, and thus will require extraction of materials, transportation, manufacturing, and end-of-life

processing – all resulting in a high embodied carbon development. Oceanix City also raises some questions around the contextuality of the islands due to the ubiquitous nature of design, the origin of materials and their construction site, what constitutes an ideal scale for a floating city, whether the islands should be constantly moving or anchored to a particular location, the type of economy on these islands, and what happens to these islands at the end of their lifespan.

TOWARDS A RESILIENT URBANIZATION: LIVING AFLOAT

The design proposal offers an alternative form of urbanism to accommodate regional growth while considering the limitations of expanding on land and the importance of enhancing the ecological health of Lake Titicaca. It learns from the Uros indigenous and communal way of life, including sustainable utilization of local resources, as well as the decentralized infrastructure planning model and incremental and adaptable growth of Oceanix City. The design concentrates on establishing decentralized systems for communal living and recreation, material and food production, water and waste management, work, and trade to promote an ecological balance on the lake that respects its indigenous cultural history while implementing contemporary innovations. The floating city grows incrementally, incorporating life, work, and culture using sustainably farmed totora reeds and bamboo in the immediate context of the lake. The people co-produce and maintain it, creating a layered sense of community at both village and city scales. The growth of the city depends more on the resources available and produced within the local context of the lake than on resources far away. A kit-of-parts approach allows potential residents to design and modify the urban form at both the village and neighborhood level, creating different identities across the city that work together to develop a balanced water and material ecology.

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Figure 1. Pollution and destruction of ecology in the Bay of Puno

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Figure 2. Rapid urbanization and land encroachment

Bay of Puno

Greater Lake Titicaca

Protected Zone

Protected Zone

Wetlands

Puno City

Puno City

Land encroachment with receding water levels

encroachment with receding water levels

masl Flood Level

3806 masl

Figure 3. Risk of flooding and changing water levels due to climate change Wetlands

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

3806 masl Lowest Recorded Water Level

community living units and sanitation with co-production areas of agriculture and fishing that also helps the water ecology

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Figure 4. View of

Stage 1 | Community hub starts village development

Stage 2 | Villages start getting developed

Living Type 1

Plaza

Living Type 1

Farming

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Figure 5. Development of a neighborhood with a central community hub and villages branching out

Stage 3 | Multiple villages start forming neighborhood

Stage 4 | Neighborhood developed to full potential

Aqua farming

Neighborhood Plaza Social Infrastructure

Neighborhood Community Hub

Community Living

Living Type 1 | 28 people/unit

Living Type 2 | 16 people/unit

Village Occupancy | 164 people

Community Neighborhood Hub

Central Connector to the villages with social infrastructure catering to neighboring villages and the city.

Central hubs for aquafarming

Living

Bamboo Structure

Totora Reed Walls

Totora Reed Wind

Breakers

Solar Panels

Rainwater Harvesting

Toilet and Bath

Composting Toilets

Anaerobic Digester

Wastewater Filtration System

Figure 6. Small scale infrastructures creating a circular and self-sufficient system

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Constructed Wetlands

Constructed wetlands breakwater to diminish activity in the lake or storm.

Help in addressing issues and developing balanced

Social Infrastructure

Primary schools

Markets

Crèche

Cafes

Common open spaces for celebration and

Aquafarming

Controlled cultivation of local fishes in the Orestias and Trichomycterus

Development of freshwater mussels which indicators to monitor health of aquatic environment

Wetlands act as diminish action due to storm.

Community Dining

Community Kitchen & Dining | 82 people/unit

Two dining units per village

issues of pollution balanced ecosystem. and recreation the lake like which act as bioenvironment

Plantation

Totora Reeds

Aquaculture

Water Improving water quality through absorption of excess nitrogen and phosphorous

Create aquatic habitats with native plants, organic material, insect food sources, and shelter for wildlife

Balancing ecosystem

Kitchen Solar Panels

Electric Stove

Gray Treatment Plant

Anaerobic Digester

Rainwater Harvesting

Vertical Vegetable

Garden

Community Farming

Community farms of 550 sq.ft for a family of 4/year

Village Farming Area | 22,550 sq.ft/year

Farming

Tomatoes, Quinoa, Spinach, Kale, Cucumbers, Radish, Beans, Pepper, Bell

Peppers, Herbs, Celery, Bottle Gourd, Strawberries

Figure 7. Acts of Care - Interaction between small scale infrastructures at neighborhood scale to form a circular and autonomous system over time

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Figure 8. As the neighborhoods start to grow a linear city is established within the existing transportation routes

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Puno City

Puno City

Puno City Port

Bay of Puno

Existing Boat Pathway

Floating City

Existing Boat Pathway

Wetlands

Figure 9. View of the community living units and sanitation with the co-production areas of agriculture and fishing that also help in maintaining the water ecology.

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Figure 10. View of the community kitchen and dining with the plaza for spill-out dining and recreational activities that help in creating a sense of community

Source: Devendra Hemant Dugad

Each neighborhood starts with a central community gathering space, a market, communal working spaces, and circulation pathways connecting these communitycentered venues to a few independent villages. These pathways also connect to the co-living and co-production areas for agriculture, food, work, and sanitation. These branches are modular and can be developed and modified by the community as per their preferences. A constructed wetland system around these branches also helps produce food, maintain water ecology, and protect the neighborhoods from any natural disturbances in the water. A sense of ownership and community is developed at the village level as people themselves build and maintain the decentralized infrastructure system, which then translates to both the neighborhood and city level with the interaction between people and systems. The small-scale infrastructure systems at neighborhood scale are designed to be circular rather than linear. The waste or by-product of one system feeds into the other as raw material based on ecological urbanism, creating a more extensive autonomous system over time, unlike traditional, linear, and largescale development on land.

CONCLUSION

This project addresses the issues and pressures of urbanization, as well as their effects on the water ecology of Lake Titicaca – uniquely situated in an endorheic basin. The design proposes an alternative, sustainable, and circular system inspired by the culture and way of life of Peru’s indigenous Uros community and integrated with contemporary technological approaches as exemplified by Oceanix City. The project’s attributes of co-production and incremental growth, decentralized systems, and use of local resources illustrate the possibilities of creating a layered sense of community while improving ecological systems and developing sustainable living patterns with low embodied carbon. The takeaways from this project may help conceptualize the ways in which urbanization can help adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, sea level rise, and other phenomena of nature all around the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Devendra is a recent Master of Urban Design graduate from Taubman College with background in Architecture from India. A curious urban designer, Devendra believes that urban, landscape, and ecological design are imperative agents of change that can make the built and natural environments more livable, sociable, and adaptable. He aims to tackle the issues related to climate change and development through systems thinking and a people focused approach.

ENDNOTES

1. “Lake Titicaca,” UNESCO World Heritage Convention, last modified June 17, 2005, https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5080/.

2. Clark L. Erickson, “The Lake Titicaca Basin: A Pre-Columbian Built Landscape,” in Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Precolumbian Americas, ed. D. Lentz (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 311-356.

3. Franz Chávez, “Bolivia-Peru: Major Efforts Still Needed to Clean Up Lake Titicaca,” Global Issues, July 7, 2011, https://www. globalissues.org/news/2011/07/07/10400.

4. Maria C. Bruno et al., “The Rise and Fall of Wiñaymarka: Rethinking Cultural and Environmental Interactions in the Southern Basin of Lake Titicaca,” Human Ecology 49 (2021): 131-145, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745021-00222-3.

5. Eleodoro Aquize Jaen, “Lake Titikaka: The Highest Navigable Lake in the World,” San Diego State University, https://ponce.sdsu.edu/ lake_titikaka.html.

6. Jaen, “Lake Titikaka: The Highest Navigable Lake in the World.”

7. Robert L. France, Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2011); Stefano Montali, “The Floating Homes of Lake Titicaca,” BBC Travel, August 15, 2022, https:// www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220814-thefloating-homes-of-lake-titicaca.

8. Raed Bashitialshaaer, “Solar-Energy Innovative and Sustainable Solution for Freshwater and Food Production for Lake Titicaca Islands,” European Journal of Engineering Research and Science 5, no. 4 (2020): 436-442, http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ ejers.2020.5.4.1875.

9. Erickson, “The Lake Titicaca Basin: A PreColumbian Built Landscape.”

10. Niall Patrick Walsh, “BIG and UN Collaborate on Floating, Modular EcoCity,” ArchDaily, April 5, 2019, https:// www.archdaily.com/914482/big-and-uncollaborate-on-floating-modular-eco-city?ad_ source=search&ad_medium=projects_tab&ad_ source=search&ad_medium=search_result_all.

11. “Oceanix City,” Bjarke Ingels Group, last modified 2019, https://big.dk/projects/oceanixcity-6399.

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

KENTARO KOMAZAWA

Drought Resilience in Albuquerque:

Three Planning Approaches that Follow the Indigenous Perspective

CHRISTINE SCERBAK

Bachelor of Science in Architecture

ABSTRACT

Drought in the American Southwest — a region known for its arid climate — is worsening due to human-caused climate change. This article analyzes the status of current key water resources, the impact of drought upon Indigenous communities, and the planning approaches currently employed by Southwestern states, and, more specifically, the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Furthermore, this paper evaluates the benefits and pitfalls of three planning approaches that seek to address and mitigate drought to best identify the planning approach the City of Albuquerque should employ. The approaches include: 1) implementing residential water-use reduction initiatives; 2) investing in groundwater conservation and surface water storage; and 3) investing in stormwater reclamation and wastewater reuse. After evaluating these three planning approaches, I recommend that the City of Albuquerque implement the third planning approach and invest in stormwater reclamation and wastewater reuse.

INTRODUCTION

When one considers the impacts of climate change, drought often comes to mind. Droughts constitute more than just periods of aridity or water scarcity, although these are both hazards that droughts produce.1

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines drought as “a period of abnormally dry weather long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance.”2 This article will focus on hydrological droughts, which create “reduced stream-flow and inflow to reservoirs, lakes and ponds, low groundwater levels, and reduced wetlands.”3 These recurrent periods vary in length, ranging from a

Colorado River Basin. The National Climate Assessment (NCA) reports that “high temperatures due mainly to climate change have contributed to lower runoff and to 17 to 50 percent of the record-setting streamflow reductions between 2000 and 2014.”8 This region is familiar with drought; residents of the Southwest have lived with periodic droughts for centuries. The NCA asserts that Southwestern droughts will only become more frequent and more severe — a frightening thought given the context of current river basin droughts. The American Southwest provides a glimpse of what life may look like in the coming decades for cities that are not yet affected by water shortages.

The American Southwest provides a glimpse of what life may look like in the coming decades for cities that are not yet affected by water shortages.”

few weeks to several years. Rising temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns lead to increasingly frequent droughts, which are exacerbated by groundwater depletion.4 Groundwater loss is devastating given that, in the United States, it provides more than “40 percent of the water used for agriculture (irrigation and livestock) and domestic water supplies.”5 Water shortages create a ripple of serious issues in affected areas, such as crop failure, wildfires, and habitat loss.6 Despite efforts to limit water consumption, with different agencies addressing the various components of water storage, the United States lacks effective, coordinated water management.7

The American Southwest — a region known for its arid climate — is experiencing water shortages amidst ongoing drought in the

This article will explore how hydrological droughts will impact Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico in the next century. To provide sufficient context regarding the county’s current water shortages, I will discuss the contributing factors of drought over the years. I propose three urban planning strategies to mitigate the effects of drought for cities in the American Southwest: 1) implementing residential water-use reduction initiatives; 2) groundwater conservation and surface water storage; and 3) stormwater reclamation and wastewater reuse. Of the seven sectors that use water in Albuquerque, homes and offices account for nearly half of daily usage.9 Therefore, the first strategy of providing financial incentives to residents and businesses to reduce water consumption has the potential to be particularly effective. In regard to

water conservation, the City of Albuquerque may restrict groundwater pumping to avoid future depletion. This strategy, as well as similar methods of conservation, could place Albuquerque in a strong position during future, more severe dry periods. Lastly, in addition to limiting groundwater usage, the county would make use of undervalued resources should it continue to expand its wastewater reuse and stormwater reclamation infrastructure.

BACKGROUND

The American Southwest consists of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains that “much of this region has low annual rainfall and seasonally high temperatures that contribute to its characteristic desert climate.”10

Subsequently, Southwestern states like New Mexico have incorporated various drought mitigation strategies into their planning and infrastructure. Some strategies include water

Source: Environmental Protection Agency

2022

(EPA),

Figure 1. Average Temperatures in the Southwestern United States, 2000–2020 Versus Long-Term Average

conservation and water source diversification efforts.11 Key sources of surface water in the region include the Colorado River Basin, the Rio Grande Basin, Lake Mead, and Lake Powell. These surface water sources — the lakes in particular — are prone to evaporation as temperatures rise. Figure 1 illustrates temperature changes in the Southwest from 2000 to 2020.

Concurrently with record temperature highs, the Southwest is experiencing record-low precipitation. From January 2021 to August 2021 “many areas in the region experienced three successive ‘failed’ wet seasons.”12 Without precipitation the atmosphere will absorb water from critical water sources such as the Rio Grande and Colorado River basins. This atmospheric demand for water, categorized as the vapor pressure deficit (VDP), is increasing. The aforementioned changes in the climate are not natural; scientists identify human-related climate change as a leading cause in recent droughts.13 Fallout from long periods of dry conditions have led to an increase in wildfires, food scarcity, and pest outbreaks.14 Taking active roles in addressing the impacts of climate change through mitigation practices is essential for Southwestern states as they seek to prevent a worst-case scenario from unfolding.

While much of the focus amidst the Southwest’s water crisis belongs to technical and geological discussions, drought-related social justice issues also require attention. The nation’s largest population of Indigenous Peoples — around one and a half million — resides in the region.15 Many tribes compose the Southwest’s Indigenous population, such as the Diné, the Zuni, the Hualapai, and the Pueblo.16 Historically, the United States government forced Indigenous Peoples to move to reservations purposefully located in dry regions. According to the United States Climate Resilience Toolkit, “over the last five centuries, many Indigenous peoples have either been forcibly restricted to lands with

limited water and resources or struggled to get their federally reserved water rights recognized by other users.”17 Thus, many Indigenous communities are experiencing drier conditions than other nearby communities. Worsening drought conditions in the Southwest exacerbate the consequences of such injustices through the disproportionate impact of droughts upon Indigenous communities in comparison to non-Indigenous communities. Furthermore, what little water rights they possess are subject to purchase by other entities. The United States Climate Resilience Toolkit states “projected reductions in the availability of water, coupled with water agreements that involve selling or leasing tribal water to neighboring communities, could place tribal water supplies at risk during severe shortages.”18

The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) identifies key drought impacts on Indigenous Peoples. These impacts are categorized into four sectors: cultural, economic, ecosystem and wildlife, and human health.19 While loss of water impacts all cultural groups, water plays a significant role in Indigenous cultural traditions. Dry conditions threaten plants and wildlife essential to Indigenous culture. For example, “during a drought, wild rice becomes more difficult to harvest and fewer berries are available. Warmer climates also allow invasive species to take hold (e.g., emerald ash borers are destroying ash trees, which are vital for basket making).”20 Thus, not only are many Indigenous Peoples losing their water, but they are also witnessing the decimation of native species linked to their traditions. In terms of the economic impacts of water shortages, crop failure poses a critical issue for Indigenous communities that financially rely on hunting and gathering practices. Lastly, a lack of access to water can lead to health concerns such as dehydration. With reservations in the Southwest located in the driest areas, the human health-related impacts of drought are most severe for Indigenous Peoples.

PLANNING APPROACHES

All three of the strategies I propose recognize the unique circumstances created by climate change and seek to consider the long-term future of droughts by prioritizing sustainable practices. Short-term solutions such as pumping more water from aquifers or outsourcing water from water-rich states will do nothing to ensure that future water supplies are sufficient. Albuquerque, New Mexico is paving the way for other Southwestern cities experiencing water shortages through sustainable initiatives such as the creation of a comprehensive water management plan. Thus, Albuquerque is well positioned to implement forward-thinking drought mitigation strategies.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES

The first approach seeks to mitigate the effects of climate change through the involvement of local governments enacting either restrictions on water usage, such as financial penalties, or incentivizing low water usage via financial rebates. Albuquerque may look to California as an example; the NCA writes that “in response to the recent California drought, the state

implemented a water conservation plan in 2014 that set allocations for water utilities and major users and banned wasteful practices. As a result, the people of the state reduced water use 25 percent from 2014 to 2017.”21

The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Authority (ABCWUA) outlines past successes in using financial rebates as an incentive to decrease water consumption across all sectors. Beginning in 2005, the county’s rebate program “expanded to include an increased rebate for landscapes that are supported without supplemental irrigation.”22 It also provided rebates on new dishwashers, washing machines, and other appliances so that residents could replace outdated models with more water-efficient appliances. Additionally, the program enacted fines for excess water consumption, stating that “any usage over the approved water budget will be subject to the excess use surcharge(s) defined in the Water and Sewer Rate Ordinance as currently adopted or subsequently amended.”23 The combination of these two efforts is highly effective: “Since the mid1990s, the Water Authority has reduced per capita consumption…by more than 40

Source: Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA), 2016

Figure 2. Average Water Demand Percentage by Sector

percent…. The combination of these programs has reduced overall demand to about 95,000 [acre-feet per year] in 2015, which is about the same as demand in the early 1980s.”24 Not only is the government-led regulation of water use successful in the short term, but this initiative also allows residents to become accustomed to more sustainable water use practices they can pass down for generations.

Despite its benefits, the first initiative also has several flaws that are important to acknowledge. Imposing surcharges or fines for excess water consumption may deter such behavior in many groups, but those who fall within the highest-income range may see these charges as trivial. This is common in states like California; at a certain level of wealth, the use of financial penalties or incentives to motivate behavior has proven ineffective. Additionally, expanding government-regulated water conservation initiatives may cause political opposition. Businesses that benefit from unrestricted water use will likely push back on such policies.

SURFACE WATER

The second planning approach is to invest in surface water — the renewable alternative to water pumped from aquifers — by updating and expanding current surface water collection and storage infrastructure. The county recognizes that reliance on groundwater leads to aquifer depletion and “lays out a groundwater management strategy that sets limits on how much water can be safely pumped to avoid irreversible subsidence caused when too much water is removed from the aquifer.”25 With limits in place regarding groundwater pumping, the city will need an alternative water supply to meet the demand. In the last decade, Albuquerque has shifted reliance on groundwater to surface water from sources such as the San Juan River Basin.26 However, Albuquerque’s surface water infrastructure was last updated in 2007.

Instead of pouring funds into further aquifer pumping, the county should build and repair more pipelines and canals to transport surface water.27 If the county is going to continue to lessen groundwater pumping and increase surface water collection, then it must build more surface water storage, transportation, and collection facilities.

A large, coordinated effort to expand surface water infrastructure will produce an increase in Albuquerque’s regional water supply. The increased water supply would also mean that the county could support a larger population. Thus, one concern with this approach is that infrastructure developments will lead to urban and industrial expansion. The county notes that “new industry or a change in the mix of customer classes could result in an increase in overall water usage rate.”28 Should these changes in turn produce an increase in the demand for water, they could lead to water shortages once more. To avoid this cycle of water shortages, the county should implement measures to limit urban and industrial expansion directly following the construction of surface water infrastructure. Shifting from groundwater to surface water usage will play a major role in restoring aquifers. Unlike surface water, which evaporates as temperatures rise, groundwater is relatively unaffected by climate change.29 Thus, it is extremely important to have sufficient groundwater supplies as we approach a drought-filled future.30 The proper storage of collected surface water is essential, as there is no guarantee that droughts will not negatively impact surface water availability. In times of severe drought, the county may need to deplete the surface water supply. To avoid this, it may return to groundwater usage while surface water stores are replenished. Groundwater conservation and surface water collection will work in tandem to avoid one becoming fully depleted.

In order to collect surface water, the county must involve other parties with rights to the water. New Mexico is not the only state with rights to surface water from major sources such as the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande Compact exists between New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas in regard to surface water usage. The county writes that “this Compact apportioned the amount of Rio Grande flow and established delivery obligations for the States of Colorado and New Mexico.”31

Should Albuquerque move forward with the infrastructure approach, the county must involve the state government to negotiate an increase in New Mexico’s surface water depletion allotment, which would involve lengthy political processes. However, three states working together to negotiate water rights can create compromises that benefit multiple parties. Such negotiations may also set a precedent of successful interstate collaboration — something that will certainly be important in coming years of drought.

Southwestern states must foster relationships that allow for collaboration and compromise, rather than working against each other as water resources become scarce. Unfortunately, while this collaboration strategy deals with the realities of climate change, its success relies on many political variables, which may make this approach unrealistically complex.

STORMWATER AND WASTEWATER

The final approach is for the county to invest in stormwater reclamation and recycled wastewater infrastructure to create a regenerative water supply. Indoor-use water, also known as non-consumptive water, does not evaporate during use and is therefore available for recycling and reuse. However, without proper filtration, water from these sources is unsafe to drink.32 If filtered properly, non-consumptive water can have many uses. “Recycled municipal wastewater can be a safe, reliable water supply that reduces dependence

Source: Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA), 2016

Figure 3. Consumptive and Non-Consumptive Portion of Use by Sector (Average 2012-2014)

on limited surface and groundwater supplies; reduces pollution in rivers and oceans from wastewater discharge; and even provides essential crop nutrients, thereby reducing fertilizer costs.”33 The county acknowledges the potential of this approach, asserting that investments in “stormwater capture, wastewater reuse, and other supply portfolio and water storage options can extend existing supplies for decades longer under a variety of scenarios, providing a reliable water supply for our community’s future while preserving our aquifer as an emergency reserve.”34 Like the surface water approach, wastewater reuse and stormwater reclamation help reduce the demand for groundwater. However, unlike the use of surface water, wastewater reuse draws from water sources that would have otherwise been discarded. Demand for non-consumptive water is increasing, which means the county would have more wastewater to reuse. The county breaks down the non-consumptive and consumptive water usage by sector in Figure 3.

Equally as valuable as wastewater, stormwater runoff is another water supply resource of which the county must take advantage. The county states that “currently, the NMOSE views all stormwater as ‘public waters of the State’ and utilizes this water to meet Rio Grande Compact compliance. In some years, New Mexico delivers more water than the maximum credit allowed under the Rio Grande Compact.”35 If the proper diversion or infiltration systems are not in place, stormwater runoff will go to waste instead of arriving at the designated water collection facilities. Successfully capturing the majority of stormwater runoff requires a great deal of infrastructure such as “conveyance, pump stations, check dams, and/or diversion collection. If stormwater is directly diverted, diversion, pump station, conveyance and treatment facilities may be required.”36 The path to drought mitigation and adaptation will always be expensive, but this approach will have major benefits. Not only does the return

of runoff to basins help keep surface water supplies high despite water levels shrinking, but runoff can serve as a bargaining chip within New Mexico’s compact with Colorado and Texas.

The implementation of wastewater reuse and stormwater reclamation infrastructure would require extensive funds for the construction, maintenance, and operation of necessary public facilities. Furthermore, water from stormwater reclamation and wastewater reuse efforts will likely contribute a rather small percentage to Albuquerque’s water supply in comparison to surface water and groundwater. Still, given the threat of climate change, every drop of water becomes incredibly important. In a future where both the groundwater and surface water supplies are nearly depleted, wastewater and stormwater will play an integral role in meeting the county’s water demand.

CRITIQUE

While all three strategies seek to address water shortages, they should also acknowledge a population that was historically overlooked during “greater good” decision-making processes: the Indigenous Peoples of the American Southwest. Their increased vulnerability to drought, in addition to the wealth of climate-related knowledge many communities possess, call for the county to take the Indigenous perspective into special consideration. Not only should drought planning strategies align with Indigenous cultural wisdom, but they should also account for unjust policies that designated the driest areas of the American Southwest as Indigenous lands. Such initiatives are absent from the county’s recent water plan. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss how each of the three recommended planning strategies acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples of the American Southwest and their relationship with drought.

There is a key issue with government-led water conservation initiatives and the government’s ability to properly consider Indigenous Peoples. Imposing standardized excess water-usage fines for an entire city ignores the various circumstances that may lead one group to consume more or less water than others. For example, water is often used in Indigenous ceremonies. The Zuni people of New Mexico have a deep cultural connection to water. They believe that water is a living entity that should be treated with respect and reverence.37 Zuni ceremonies, such as the Shalako ceremony, require the use of water in the form of sprinkling and bathing to purify participants.38 Implementing fines for excess water consumption is unjust to those who may use more water for sacred cultural or religious practices. In New Mexico, the government defines excess water usage as any use of water that exceeds the household water budget. The household water budget is calculated based on a number of factors, including the number of people in the household, the size of the yard, and the climate zone.39 If a household uses more water than the household water budget, it may be subject to fines. Rather than implementing excess water usage fines, the county should provide financial incentives for decreased water consumption as a slightly more equitable means of implementing this approach. In addition, it should expand rebate programs for residents who upgrade their appliances to more water-efficient models. This will create a county-wide reduction in water consumption, without inequitable fines or credits. Thus, all residents will have the potential to benefit from this arrangement. Many Indigenous communities have an intimate understanding of their surrounding ecosystems and subsequently develop sophisticated knowledge systems about the environment. These knowledge systems enable them to anticipate and respond to drought conditions. For example, the Quechan Indian Tribe implements traditional knowledge into water conservation strategies, such as

replacing “aging water pipes and service lines, and installing water meters to better measure water usage.”40 Despite the ability of many Indigenous communities to create comprehensive drought plans, they may not receive adequate funding to implement said plans. The NIDIS comments on this issue of funding: “Despite this planning, many tribal resource managers have expressed frustration that this has not always translated into action on the ground. A major reason for this has been the lack of adequate funding for implementation of drought resilience activities.”41 The combination of the first two planning scenarios — providing financial incentives and rebates — is the best way to ensure that the first planning approach properly addresses the needs of Albuquerque’s Indigenous Peoples.

The relationship between the second approach and the proper consideration of Indigenous Peoples is more nuanced. Prioritizing investments in surface water infrastructure allows the aquifers to replenish, which is beneficial to all occupants of Albuquerque. However, the state-level action required to alter the compact between New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado to accomplish such goals may exclude the input of Indigenous communities. The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer emphasizes that “an important need moving forward is enhanced coordination and joint response to drought among New Mexico Tribes, Pueblos, Nations, and the State.... In addition, it is important to recognize that... tribal communities may have a different level of economic resilience to drought.”42 Should Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico seek to expand their surface water rights, they are bound to this pact of commitment with the Indigenous Peoples of New Mexico. In the interest of further supporting Indigenous communities as they cope with the fallout of past injustices and drought the county could offset some of the water utility costs for reservations.

Wastewater reuse and stormwater reclamation are most in line with the sustainable principles many Indigenous Peoples promote, like making use of all parts of consumables and reusing what remains as much as possible. For example, the Diné people have a cultural value system that stresses the importance of using natural resources in a sustainable and respectful manner. This includes the traditional practice of ch’ééhónit’i, which translates to “use everything.” This practice involves using every part of the animal, including the bones, hide, and internal organs, to honor and respect the animal’s sacrifice and ensure that nothing goes to waste.43

Having empathy for Indigenous suffering is paramount to avoid extinguishing Southwestern Indigenous culture and perhaps our only hope to adapt to an uncertain future. All three of the planning approaches proposed in this paper possess the capacity to engage with Indigenous Communities to share and create drought mitigation resources. The NIDIS notes that Indigenous Peoples are eager to place themselves within this narrative to gain more resources for drought resilience, such as drought-monitoring data sites. Bringing light to these comments, the NIDIS states that “another key challenge voiced by tribal resource managers is that there is limited

Having empathy for Indigenous suffering is paramount to avoid extinguishing Southwestern Indigenous culture and perhaps our only hope to adapt to an uncertain future.”

Despite this consistency of values, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County must avoid burdening Indigenous communities with the costs to implement wastewater and stormwater infrastructure. The county could encourage the federal government to increase funding to these communities in the American Southwest, which would allow them to construct and control stormwater and wastewater infrastructure on tribal lands. Regarding funding for said infrastructure, Governor Randall Loretto of the Pueblo of Jimez stated “we are not a wealthy tribe; we do not have casinos or vast energy resources…. Instead, water is the key to our long-term health and stability and cultural preservation.”44 Many tribes in the Southwest are similarly pleading for water-related funding. Albuquerque, Bernalillo County may allocate county funding to local tribes or seek federal assistance in funding infrastructure projects for Indigenous communities.

reservation-specific monitoring and forecasting data available for use by tribal nations. In many cases, tribal resource managers have to rely on county-level data, which is not always reliable or reflective of drought conditions on the reservations.”45 Should the county bring tribal resource managers into the fold, reservationspecific data monitoring and forecasting will follow.

As previously explored in this piece, Indigenous Peoples are often particularly knowledgeable about drought mitigation and adaptation strategies due to their deep understanding of their local environments. The county should collaborate with local Indigenous communities to benefit all residents of a region, not just those who live on reservations. The most sincere way for any of these approaches to consider Indigenous Peoples is to promote collaboration with Indigenous communities

CONCLUSION

in order to understand what operations best support their needs. Doing so will not only allow for the creation of reservation-tailored approaches to water shortages but will foster the exchange of cultural knowledge and insight. systems, and more. Proper planning intersects with and accounts for all these systems and therefore must address such impacts in drought mitigation and adaptation strategies. Lastly, many planners value feedback and input from residents and are inclined to engage with the groups affected by planning decisions. Because drought impacts essentially everyone in the Southwest, all planning approaches should foster collaboration with affected communities such as the Tribal Nations and allow for the open participation of Albuquerque residents in decision-making.

Resilience to the impacts of climate change falls within the scope of planning as planners seek to prepare cities and settlements for an uncertain climate future while prioritizing sustainable futures. Albuquerque’s current methods of drought mitigation and adaptation have room for improvement. Circumstances appear dire in the American Southwest, but with water conservation and collaborative efforts between states and cultures, Albuquerque can garner a sufficient water supply amidst droughts of increasing severity and length. In the case of the American Southwest, Indigenous communities experience the impacts of water shortages disproportionately. Planning must account for these disproportionate impacts and adjust policies and strategies to accommodate the needs of vulnerable communities. Many systems and institutions are hurt by drought, including water-intensive manufacturing industries, agricultural systems, wildlife ecosystems, healthcare institutions, food

Of the approaches this article identifies and evaluates, investments in wastewater reuse and stormwater reclamation should take priority. Though all three approaches provide strategies to build more sustainable systems, the third approach involves recycling water to offset the depletion of both surface water and groundwater. The expansion of wastewater and stormwater reuse infrastructure can offset rising costs due to water shortages that Indigenous Peoples face while living on reservations located in the driest parts of the American Southwest. Furthermore, this approach does not burden Indigenous communities with extra costs, but rather follows their precedent of making use of all parts of a consumable resource.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christine is a senior in the Bachelor of Science in Architecture program with a minor in sustainability. She is passionate about studying the built environment in order to better understand how to incorporate sustainable design and planning practices. Christine plans to pursue a Master of Urban Planning degree after her graduation from the University of Michigan in the hopes of helping cities adapt for climate change.

ENDNOTES

1. United Nations, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Special Report on Drought 2021 (Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2021).

2. United Nations, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.

3. United Nations, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.

4. Upmanu Lall et al., “Water,” in Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, eds. David Reidmiller et al. (Washington, D.C.: United States Global Change Research Program, 2018).

5. Lall et al., “Water.”

6. Lall et al., “Water.”

7. Lall et al., “Water.”

8. Patrick Gonzalez et al., “Southwest,” in Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, eds. David Reidmiller et al. (Washington, D.C.: United States Global Change Research Program, 2018).

9. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future (Albuquerque, NM: Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, n.d.), https://www.abcwua.org/wp-content/uploads/ Your_Drinking_Water-PDFs/Water_2120_ Volume_I.pdf.

10. “A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest,” Environmental Protection Agency, last modified April 2021, https://www. epa.gov/climate-indicators/southwest.

11. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

12. Rebecca Lindsey, “NOAA-led Drought Task Force Concludes Current Southwest Drought is a Preview of Coming Attractions,”

Climate.gov, September 27, 2021, https://www. climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/noaaled-drought-task-force-concludes-currentsouthwest-drought-preview.

13. Lindsey, “NOAA-led Drought Task Force Concludes Current Southwest Drought is a Preview of Coming Attractions.”

14. “A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest,” Environmental Protection Agency.

15. “Southwest,” U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, last modified August 31, 2022, https:// toolkit.climate.gov/regions/southwest.

16. Cynthia O’Brien and Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh, “Native People of the American Southwest,” National Geographic Kids, accessed on April 6, 2023, https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ history/article/native-people-of-the-americansouthwest.

17. “Southwest,” U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.

18. “Southwest,” U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.

19. “Drought Conditions for Tribal Nations,” Drought.gov., last modified April 4, 2023, https://www.drought.gov/tribal.

20. “Drought Conditions for Tribal Nations,” Drought.gov.

21. Gonzalez et al., “Southwest.”

22. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

23. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

24. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

25. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future.

26. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future.

27. “Southwest,” U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.

28. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

29. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

30. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

31. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

32. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

33. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

34. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

35. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

36. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

37. Lawrence Buell, “The Living Waters of Zuni Pueblo,” in Poetics of Indigeneity in the Americas, eds. Amelia V. Alonso and Javier E. Medina (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2008).

38. Buell, “The Living Waters of Zuni Pueblo.”

39. “Water Conservation Program,” New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, accessed on April 6, 2023, https://www.ose.state.nm.us/ WUC/wuc_conserve.php.

40. Debra Utacia Krol, “Tribes Take a Central Role in Water Management as Drought and Climate Change Effects Worsen,” Arizona Central, August 8, 2022, https://www.azcentral. com/in-depth/news/local/arizona/2022/08/08/ tribes-play-greater-role-drought-complicateswater-management/9205607002/.

41. “Drought Conditions for Tribal Nations,” Drought.gov.

42. New Mexico Office of the State Engineer and New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute, New Mexico Drought Plan: 2018 (Santa Fe, NM: New Mexico Office of the State Engineer and New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute, 2018).

43. Melissa K. Nelson, ed., Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future (Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, 2008).

44. Kaleb Roedel, “‘Water is the Key’: New Mexico Pueblo Leaders Urge Senators to Back Tribal Water Rights Bills,” KUNR Public Radio, November 18, 2022, https://www.kunr.org/ politics-and-policy/2022-11-18/new-mexicopueblo-leaders-senators-tribal-water-rightsbills-mountain-west.

45. “Drought Conditions for Tribal Nations,” Drought.gov.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA

CHRISTIAN CARROLL

Where is Inclusionary Housing in China Going?

An Examination of Inclusionary Housing Development in China

TIANHONG GE

Master of Urban and Regional Planning

ABSTRACT

Inclusionary housing (IH) is a regulatory instrument that uses the planning system to create affordable housing and foster social inclusion by capturing resources like increased land value created through the marketplace. China has been experimenting with IH programs to provide affordable housing for lowincome groups since the early 21st century, but the government has faced numerous challenges in the implementation process. This paper compares the IH policies of the United States and China through a literature review and uncovers two challenges. First, developers have a low willingness to participate in IH. Furthermore, despite IH efforts, social and spatial exclusion continue to persist due to 1) the unequal distribution of costs and benefits and insufficient flexible alternatives available on a national scale; 2) strong government oversight of real estate companies’ debt during economic recessions; 3) the lack of regulations mandating spatial marginalization in IH projects be prevented; and 4) limited implementation of local regulations prohibiting barriers between Public Rental Housing (PRH) units and market-rate housing within IH projects. Finally, this paper discusses policy implications: local governments should bear more costs of IH as well as provide more flexible compliance alternatives for developers. Moreover, governments should develop regulations to promote social and spatial housing inclusion.

INTRODUCTION

The growth of China’s economy has been accompanied by spectacular achievements in housing consumption in recent decades: Between 1980 and 2010, the rate of homeownership in Chinese urban areas increased from 20 to 70 percent while per capita living space swelled from 43 to 312 square feet.1 Concurrent with these changes, the Tax-Sharing Reform of 1994 — which requires local governments to share a greater percentage of their tax revenue with the central government — has indirectly promulgated changes in housing policy.2 Faced with financial difficulties, local governments are forced to adopt a land finance model to obtain stable and substantial financial income for urban infrastructure investment. In this model, local governments transfer the right to use state-owned land to private developers through auctions. The premium generated by the bidding is then transferred to the buyers, which has led to skyrocketing housing prices in China. Consequently, housing affordability has emerged as one of the foremost concerns in the country. In her 2019 study, University of Michigan Professor of Urban Planning Lan Deng found that China’s nationwide average residential sales price tripled from 1999 to 2013, and the ratio of housing price to family income exceeded 10 in 12 of China’s 35 cities as of the latter year.3 As a result, low- to moderate-income households have to bear unaffordable long-term loans, even if they are able to pay for down payments on properties in urban areas, since their income does not keep pace with rising housing prices.

As the 1998 reform of the urban housing provision system transformed welfarebased housing to market-oriented housing nationwide, the Chinese central government implemented the country’s initial affordable housing system to better support residents who had long relied on state-provided accommodations. Although the housing

reform and subsequent implementation of the traditional affordable housing system have improved urban residents’ living conditions by providing a better urban environment and higher rates of homeownership, skyrocketing prices and the concurrent shortage of units remain pressing socio-economic issues, particularly for residents who cannot afford market-rate housing or do not meet the qualifications for traditional affordable housing.4

To address this problem and continue to stimulate economic growth via land financing, the central government proposed a new affordable housing program titled Public Rental Housing (PRH) in 2009.5 Furthermore, in 2010, the central government established ambitious goals for subsidizing affordable housing and producing 36 million units between 2010 and 2015 with an additional 18 million units for shanty town redevelopment between 2015 and 2018.6

In the implementation of PRH, the government faced a severe financial burden due to the huge demand and high cost of construction and operation of projects. Some local governments then turned to cooperation with private developers and proposed a new practice called pei tao jian she, i.e., the inclusionary construction model, which can be considered the beginning of inclusionary housing policy in China.

Inclusionary housing (IH), also known as inclusionary zoning in the United States, refers to local planning ordinances that require a certain share of new construction to be affordable to low-income people.7 The policies either impose requirements on or provide incentives to developers for setting aside a certain proportion of affordable housing units in a new project. The United States implemented its first IH policy in the 1970s in response to a housing affordability crisis and social and spatial segregation. Since

then, similar policies have emerged in other countries and regions including the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Canada, South Africa, etc.8 By contrast, although China has adopted an IH policy in recent years, the Chinese government solely regards IH as a strategy to increase the supply of low-income housing and ignores considerations of the inclusiveness of development projects.9

Several controversial issues have come to the forefront in China’s government during the implementation of IH. PRH units usually have less desirable locations than marketrate units within a specific project.10 In some cases, there are also physical boundaries (e.g., separation walls, different entrances, etc.) between the two types of housing. Another big concern is liu pai, i.e., the abortion of stateowned land bids due to an unsatisfactory offer from the buyers,11 which shows developers’ hesitancy to build IH projects, especially during the economic downturn and the stricter macroeconomic policy environment of recent

practice. Lastly, Section 4 provides an overview of the challenges of IH policies in China and their hidden causes from both the developer’s and the tenant’s perspective. The remainder of this section discusses future options for Chinese IH based on the analysis of issues and experiences from other countries.

INCLUSIONARY HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES

THE DEVELOPMENT OF IH IN UNITED STATES HISTORY

Zoning regulation, the principal instrument of local planning in the United States,12 has been widely viewed in recent decades as a critical contributor to the lack of housing supply, rising home prices, and racial and class segregation in the United States.13 Consequently, more and more cities are adopting IH within their local zoning schemes to provide more affordable housing and to promote the development of mixed-income neighborhoods.

...smaller cities led the way in adopting IH policies prior to 2000, while some huge cities with populations exceeding 400,000 are more recent adopters of IH.” “

years. This study responds to the above issues by comparing IH policies in the United States (and some experience in other countries and regions) and China through a literature review, in addition to rethinking IH practices in China.

This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces the development and practice of IH in the United States as well as other regions through a literature review and explains the two main incentives of IH as facilitated through the public-private partnership (P3s) model. Section 3 explains China’s IH policy and outlines its differences from United States

The concept of IH emerged during the late 1960s after the federal government cut housing subsidies,14 forcing local governments to seek out new regulatory methods to address affordable housing issues. The first IH policy was proposed by Fairfax County, Virginia in 1971, but it was eventually struck down due to the absence of state legislative permission.15 One of the earliest successfully implemented IH policies — which required private developers to provide affordable housing units in their projects — was Montgomery County, Maryland’s Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit ordinance of 1974.16 After the

IH policies gained traction in several regions including Washington, D.C., Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area during the early and mid-1970s,17 the United States experienced the rapid expansion of IH programs in the 1980s and 1990s due to affordability concerns associated with the rise in domestic housing prices.18 A nationwide study reported that there were 1,379 IH programs in 791 jurisdictions in total as of 2017. In addition, the study found that a subset of 675 jurisdictions created over 173,000 inclusionary units.19 Generally, smaller cities led the way in adopting IH policies prior to 2000, while some larger cities with populations exceeding 400,000 are more recent adopters of IH.20

LVR OR INCENTIVES?

When looking at the design of IH policies around the world, we see basically two types of mainstream approaches in different countries: Land Value Recapture (LVR) and incentives.21

LVR is commonly operated by countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain, as the basis for their affordable housing policies.22 The LVR model promotes the idea that it is fair and reasonable for private developers to share the cost of increased land values by providing a certain proportion of affordable housing to the wider community in exchange for the public sector’s permission to build new developments. In practice, LVR finances affordable housing production by taxing the increased land value and passing these costs onto developers.23 Using this approach means that landowners and/or developers bear the cost of IH programs. In the United States courts have found certain IH policies to be unconstitutional, which has made it difficult to implement the LVR model in the country. For example, in Palmer/Sixth Street Properties, L.P. v. City of Los Angeles, the court held that the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, which required developers to provide a certain

percentage of affordable housing units or pay an in-lieu fee, was an unconstitutional taking of private property without just compensation.24 Although this approach is not widely adopted in the United States, some local governments have attempted to engage in LVR mechanisms. They have tried to recapture the increased land value through affordable housing requirements or regulatory financing schemes (e.g., development impact and commercial linkage fees) to shift the cost to private developers. Providing affordable housing using the LVR approach relies on the legalization of recapturing the land value increment generated by public regulation.

In contrast, the incentive approach relies on the government providing benefits to developers (e.g., tax reduction, density bonus, etc.) in exchange for the development of affordable housing. The incentive mechanism is not only popular in the United States but is widely used in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, among other countries. The incentive approach promotes the idea that government should provide sufficient compensation to offset the cost of IH units, since providing affordable housing will impose a burden on the property rights and finances of landowners and/or developers.25 In the United States, the incentives take various forms including density bonuses, an expenditure permitting process, zoning and design flexibility, tax reduction, fee waivers, subsidies for affordable units, etc.26 The biggest concern surrounding the incentive approach is whether the government’s compensation sufficiently and effectively addresses the gap between needed affordable units and market-rate units.

MANDATORY OR VOLUNTARY

Different regions and localities in the United States have adopted either mandatory or voluntary IH. Mandatory IH refers to a mechanism that requires developers to provide affordable housing, even when the incentive

is insufficient to motivate them.27 Usually, mandatory IH clearly states the scope of programs (e.g., citywide versus defined area, all projects versus defined project type) and the required proportion of affordable units in a project. For example, the City of Los Angeles identified the scope of IH programs, the required proportion of affordable units, incentives, in-lieu alternatives, and rent restrictions.28 By contrast, the voluntary approach assumes that the local government can provide developers with enough incentive to offset the cost of affordable housing provision.29 In cities like New York, developers can voluntarily determine the provision of affordable housing in exchange for corresponding incentives or subsidies.

Mandatory IH has its advantages in rapidly increasing the affordable housing supply in certain areas, and allows governments to better arrange the spatial distribution of affordable units. However, the operation of mandatory IH heavily relies on local mandatory regulations. In voluntary programs, the incentives must be highly correlated with the amount of affordable housing provided to guarantee effective implementation of voluntary IH. In some localities voluntary IH policies do not provide incentives. Instead projects may be penalized with a reduction in floor area ratio (FAR) for failing to deliver affordable housing. From this perspective, the two approaches do not seem mutually exclusive.

FLEXIBLE ALTERNATIVES

Most IH programs in the United States provide flexible alternatives for developers to comply with mandatory set-aside requirements.30 If developers are unable or choose not to provide affordable housing in a project approved under the IH program, they usually have the alternative of constructing equivalent affordable units in other places or supporting other agencies in providing affordable housing by paying in-lieu fees or donating land.

Although these alternatives may lead to further concerns about the uneven spatial distribution of affordable housing and weaker-than-expected development of inclusionary communities, the government can then also impose spatial and space constraints on transferred affordable units through regulations. Despite some of their flaws, flexible compliance options can be effective tools to support developers in the proactive development of affordable housing, especially in a declining housing market where developers do not find it viable to produce IH units.31

CHINA’S INCLUSIONARY HOUSING POLICY

In China, IH initially emerged to relieve local governments of the burden of providing affordable housing rather than to foster social inclusion as in the western context. Early affordable housing programs included the Economical and Comfortable Housing (ECH) program, the Housing Provident Fund (HPF) program, and the Cheap Rental Housing (CRH) program, which provided the foundation for the IH program. The ECH program was established after the Tax-Sharing Reform of 1994 and was designed to provide housing to lower- and middle-income urban families who may have been unable to purchase marketrate housing.32 HPF, a contemporaneous but completely different program from ECH, is a compulsory housing savings program in which both employers and employees contribute a certain percentage of the employees’ salaries to HPF accounts administered by the state.33 In return, employees can apply for low-interest mortgage loans from the HPF for their home purchase. Unlike the two main affordable housing programs above, which focus on assisting with home purchasing, the CRH program created in 2004 was designed to strengthen the social rental housing system by subsidizing new production and rents. From the official governmental perspective, these

programs were originally enacted to address the issue of whether people could access affordable housing rather than to promote the integration of different social groups within a neighborhood. From the government’s societal point of view, there are no significant divisions between different ethnic and income groups in Chinese society, hence there is no urgency for policymakers to achieve social inclusion through these programs.

However, the Chinese government has realized the need to involve social inclusion in the affordable housing agenda as society and IH policies have developed. During decades of rapid urbanization, China has had a large number of rural-to-urban migrants. Such migrants were considered temporary and illegal in China’s cities because of hukou, i.e., the Household Registration System. This group was excluded from cities’ welfare benefits, such as public education, subsidized housing, etc.34 Unequal rights and social welfare between urban and rural residents exacerbated intergroup conflicts and dissatisfaction with the government. To respond to the problem, social inclusion is emerging as a policy paradigm for China’s government.35 Housing inclusion is a key component of social integration, and the central government has called for the inclusion of migrants in the subsidized housing system since 2010. But limited grants and the increased emphasis on using subsidized housing to attract talent has discouraged local governments from providing IH for low-income groups.

China’s IH program emerged as local governments nationwide began the provision of CRH in 2007.36 However, the Chinese government did not formally propose an IH policy during this period, and large-scale and formal IH projects only appeared during the development process of the Public Rental Housing (PRH) program. The CRH program was later integrated into the PRH program in 2014.37

In the initial stage, the central government, in cooperation with local governments, is responsible for the financing, construction, and operation of affordable units in CRH and PRH projects.38 It is a development pattern that is completely dominated by the state and private developers are usually not involved in the development of the project. In this mode, widely known as tongjian, i.e., the concentrated construction mode, the central government designs policies and provides a relatively small portion of the total investment via grants while local authorities are responsible for the remaining investment and other affairs.39 Consider, for example, the PRH projects that are operating widely across the country. The central government usually pays for 10 percent of the total investment. Thus, the required remaining investment places a huge burden on local government finances.40 In this case, local governments are seeking to engage market resources to assist them in the provision of PRH, and their collaborators are state-owned enterprises.41 Local governments provide land to state-owned enterprises, and the entrusted state-owned enterprises receive loans and social investment to build largescale PRH projects on these lands with the government’s credit guarantee.42 Tongjian has been criticized for various reasons. First, it relies heavily on local government subsidies, resulting in rapidly increasing local government leverage and the inability to afford additional projects. Second, low-income groups were excluded from the city center and places that had good public services and facilities since the free lands provided by local governments tended to be located at urban fringes. Finally, it caused residential differentiation and segregation,43 which further resulted in social problems including higher crime, an increased unemployment rate, and aggravated poverty.44

To relieve the pressure on government fiscal expenditures associated with the supply of affordable housing under the existing model many local governments started experimenting

with IH even before the national official guidelines were released. In 2005, the Bureau of Construction of Nanjing required private developers to provide around 10 percent of affordable housing (including ECH units) in market-rate housing projects that have a site area of more than 50,000 square meters.45 In 2006, the Shenzhen Municipal Government encouraged some of the private developers to build public rental housing that accounts for 10 to 15 percent of their total Gross Floor Area (GFA) of their commercial housing projects.46 After that, more cities, including Beijing, Harbin, Changzhou, and Qingdao, adopted IH practices in 2007. In the same year, the State Council officially required the new CRH and ECH programs to be provided mainly through IH in private projects. Then in 2011, the central government pronounced that PRH units should be provided mainly through IH in private commercial housing projects.47 This marks a major shift in Chinese affordable housing policy: Affordable housing supply once provided by government-led, largescale, and concentrated development is now achieved through peijian, i.e., a market-driven, inclusionary construction model.48

Inclusionary PRH requires private developers to provide a certain percentage of PRH within their commercial housing projects. Local governments subsidize developers by reducing the tax on the PRH units or applying discounts to the land sale price.49 In most commercial projects, the Chinese government requires the developer to adopt a Build-Transfer (BT) model to transfer the ownership of the PRH units to the government after construction. In this model the government takes over the ownership rights of the PRH units either after the developer has completed the construction of the project or has operated it for a certain period of time through cross subsidy.50 The proportion of PRH units, the compensation plan, and the potential transfer mode are confirmed by contract during the land bidding process. Each city has the authority to

establish regulations in adopting IH; thus, the minimum percentage of PRH units required to be allocated in IH projects varies from city to city, ranging from five to 30 percent. For example, the required percentage is five percent in Shanghai and Nanjing, while it is 30 percent in Beijing.51 The scale of programs varies among cities as well. For example, Qingdao has implemented citywide IH, while many other cities have adopted project-based IH.

In recent years, especially in the pre-pandemic era, some local governments have applied stricter regulations for land bidding in IH projects to intervene in a housing market that has suffered from rapidly growing prices. The regulation is called xian di jia, jing pei jian, i.e., controlling land price, bidding IH units.52 The regulation sets up a “reasonable maximum land price,” and it requires developers to commit to a maximum price for future commercial housing sales. When the bidding price reaches the regulated maximum price, developers will be asked to bid for the number or proportion of PRH units in their projects.53 The implementation of the new regulations has helped to curb the continuing rise in housing prices by limiting land prices but it has also further compressed profit for developers.

LVR OR INCENTIVES?

In general, it is difficult to determine whether IH policies in China follow the LVR or the incentive model since China’s IH policies seem to differ from these two mainstream approaches. However, this paper argues that IH programs in China operate more like the LVR approach. Since urban land is owned by the state and local governments have the authority to lease land to developers through open bidding, developers usually build PRH units in exchange for the right to develop commercial housing on urban land. The PRH units are then returned to the government

to support low- to moderate-income groups in society. In this case, local governments act as the representative of social interests to redistribute the increased land value they recaptured. However, local governments are also the landowner of all urban land in the legal sense in China. As the landowners, local governments, rather than developers, should undertake the cost of constructing and operating affordable units in IH projects. This replicates the practice of LVR theory in western countries.54 Currently, Chinese local governments as landowners have failed to take full responsibility for the cost. Another fact that makes China different from other countries that have adopted the LVR approach is that LVR is neither acknowledged by the actors in the housing market nor has it been written into the policy.55

China’s IH system cannot be viewed as an incentive approach, since the local governments usually fail to provide sufficient compensation to offset the cost that private developers incur to deliver PRH units. Professor Dezhi Li’s evaluation of financial sustainability in China suggests that under current policies the provision of affordable housing units in commercial projects is not financially sustainable for private developers.56 In other words, the compensation provided by the Chinese government to these developers is in fact far from being an incentive in a free market.

MANDATORY OR VOLUNTARY

China’s housing market is deeply tied to its special land system, which determines the relationship between governments and developers as well. In the state-owned and open bidding land system local governments can indirectly control the housing market by intervening in the land market. In IH programs, local governments can require developers to contribute to IH units by attaching additional

regulations to the land bidding process. Local governments monopolize all urban land and are responsible for making IH policies which gives the government absolute bargaining power in negotiations with developers. Though governments provide developers with incentives such as density bonuses, lowered development fees, and fast-tracked permits, many developers still do not have the autonomy to choose whether to build PRH on a given site or to determine the amount or percentage of PRH to provide in a competitive auction market. Based on this evidence, IH programs in China can be considered mandatory in a similar way to programs in cities like Los Angeles.

FLEXIBLE ALTERNATIVES

At the state level, the Chinese central government has so far not issued any official recommendation nor allowed local governments to provide flexible alternatives for private developers in the provision of affordable units within IH projects.57 Nevertheless, certain local governments have taken proactive measures to offer alternatives such as in-lieu fees, off-site construction, and off-site purchases to incentivize property developers to construct affordable housing units within their commercial housing projects. In 2019, the Urumqi government allowed developers to participate in IH projects through four different models, including on-site construction, off-site construction, in-lieu fees, and off-site purchase.58 In 2022, the local government of Shijiazhuang issued a notification that enables private developers who are participating in IH projects to opt for an in-lieu fee amounting to eight percent of the land sale price. This fee is in exchange for a permit that exempts the developers from constructing PRH units within their project site.59

CHALLENGES OF CHINA’S INCLUSIONARY HOUSING POLICY

During the period of rapid growth in China’s real estate market, local governments and private developers achieved a win-win situation within the IH framework. Local governments have successfully provided more PRH in urban areas with a relatively small amount of public expenditure. By consistently leasing urban land, local governments can steadily capture tax revenues that are not shared with the central government for other investments. At the same time, developers acquire development rights to urban land through participation in IH programs, and they adopt a high-turnover financing mechanism to expand rapidly and

to participate in IH projects, especially during the market downturn. In the first quarter of 2022, China’s real estate decision-making consulting system (CRIC) monitored land bidding data in key cities, revealing that approximately 36 percent of liupai, i.e., failure in land auctions, resulted due to developers’ dissatisfaction with the mandatory construction requirements for PRH units in land transfer agreements.60 The macro-control policies of the central government over the real estate market and the economic downturn caused by the pandemic have also had a significant impact on China’s IH program. After the 19th party congress in 2017, the central government established a series of regulations to constrain the high-turnover financing model of real estate companies in order to curb the

The declining housing market and restrictions on land for urban development have brought the potential risks and challenges of China’s existing IH policies to light.” “

earn a significant return on their investment. However, this collaborative model of IH projects is highly dependent on the incredible surge in housing prices and wild-urban land expansion. Real estate developers rely on high leverage and high turnover commercial models to generate significant profits from marketrate housing developments which in turn can incentivize them to construct IH projects even in the absence of sufficient government subsidies. However, the declining housing market as well as increasing restrictions on land for urban development in recent years have brought the potential risks and challenges of China’s existing IH policies to light.

For one thing, the uneven distribution of benefits between the government and developers has made many developers hesitant

bubbling financialization of real estate. In 2021, the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission implemented financing restrictions on heavily indebted real estate developers in response to debt risks in the real estate industry.61 As a result, almost all major Chinese real estate developers fell into financial crisis and were unable to participate in the construction of PRH units with longer return cycles due to insufficient funds. The economic downturn caused by the global pandemic has led to a decline in consumer confidence and made it more difficult for developers to obtain financing.62 Developers are no longer able to make enough profit from rapid expansion and reliance on rising home prices in commercial housing to support their nearly gratuitous construction of PRH units for the government.

On the other hand, developers’ inability to negotiate and the lack of flexible compliance options reveals that IH is “a governmentdriven campaign” in China.63 These factors cause tension between local governments and developers, which lead to the increasing rate of liupai. Liupai not only represents a cooling of China’s real estate market but will also severely hinder local governments’ plans to continue providing PRH to low- and middle-income people.

Another big concern is that even though local governments have already provided a great number of low-income affordable housing units through IH programs, the goal of achieving social and spatial inclusion remains a huge challenge. Many researchers point out that PRH is characterized by spatial marginalization and poor traffic accessibility, and the same problem exists in IH projects under pei jian.64 Usually, local governments are required to develop a certain number of PRH units in a certain period, and they have the financial incentive to designate sites with poorer locations and lower land sale prices as IH sites. In such a case, the government and the developer can easily reach an agreement that serves their respective interests: The revenue from the government’s land sales can be maximized while the developer’s cost of supplying PRH units will be minimized. Although PRH units under the pei jian model tend to get better locations than PRH units under the concentrated construction model, they are often built on parcels with inferior locational conditions compared to non-IH projects. When looking at neighborhoods built as IH projects, we see that PRH units are commonly built in less desirable locations both within the projects and within the city.65 It is reasonable for private developers to place commercial housing rather than PRH in locations that are more likely to be priced high since they can neither profit from PRH units nor receive adequate compensation from the government. As PRH units and other

market-rate housing are operated separately by the government and the developer a physical barrier separates the two types of housing in many IH projects. Residents of PRH units often fail to benefit from the community’s property services and facilities, and they are unable to interact with commercial housing residents.66 As a result, IH programs in China do not significantly promote social inclusion. Instead, the spatial marginalization and segregation may reinforce the social hierarchy and stigmatize low-income households.

DISCUSSION

Different political ecosystems and IH policies result in significant differences between the development of IH in the United States and China. China enjoys a comparative advantage in promoting IH development due to its superior efficiency in policy implementation. The sustained nature of Chinese government policies, combined with the central and local governments’ ownership of land and greater bargaining power with developers, contribute to this advantage over the United States. However, the power imbalance between the government and developers has gradually made developers lose interest in market-based IH development, especially as profitability of real estate companies declines for multiple reasons. Therefore, China can learn and benefit from the American experience in designing IH policies with more attractive incentives, greater consideration of financial affordability for developers, and more diverse and flexible alternatives.

This review of China’s IH programs reveals four main reasons for current challenges: 1) The distribution of costs and benefits between governments and developers is unequal, and not all local governments are offering flexible alternatives for developers to comply with mandatory set-aside requirements;67 2) the strong intervention of national financial

regulation in the housing bubble and the global economic recession have put real estate developers under tremendous financial pressure which makes them unable to continue to participate in IH projects that are not profitable; 3) the central government has provided no specific regulations to prevent local governments from spatially marginalizing IH projects; and 4) in a certain percentage of cities, there are no regulations to guarantee that residents of PRH units enjoy the same rights as residents of market-rate housing. These factors demonstrate a series of ineffective outcomes resulting from the practice of IH programs in an unequal housing market dominated by local governments.

A variety of improvements to existing Chinese IH policies would better promote affordable housing development and residential inclusion. First, IH policy needs to consider its sustainability, regardless of whether China intends to adopt the LVR or the incentives mode. Local governments should assume a greater share of the costs or provide adequate compensation to private developers to offset the expenses of providing PRH units.68 Support tools such as tax exemptions, financing and credit assistance, and flexible alternatives should be more widely provided to developers by local governments. While flexible compliance alternatives may offer some benefits and relieve the burden on developers, they have been criticized for their potential negative impacts on the effectiveness of IH policies and the integration of affordable units into new development. In the American context one main concern is that flexible compliance alternatives can lead to the segregation of affordable housing units in less desirable locations. Even though flexible compliance alternatives are not widely used in China, the segregation of affordable housing units is already occurring in many Chinese cities due to the imperfection of existing Chinese regulations for IH development. This reality may cause the Chinese government

to become more cautious in considering flexible compliance alternatives. Another big concern is that flexible compliance alternatives can create administrative burdens and inefficiencies in the implementation of IH policies. This would be a huge challenge for China, which has a centralized land management model. Generally, the Chinese government does need flexible compliance alternatives to relieve the burden on developers to ensure that IH policies continue to move forward, especially in a downward housing market. Before that, the Chinese government needs to refine relevant legislation to ensure that flexible compliance alternatives will not lead to secondary economic segregation and inefficient implementation of IH policies.

Second, the government should create fairer communication and cooperation mechanisms by engaging various stakeholders to ensure that developers are incentivized to participate in IH projects. Interventions targeting the highturnover, high-leverage business models of real estate companies could be implemented gradually or with delayed effect as suppressing the largest participant in the housing market would severely hinder the continued supply of affordable housing. Policymakers could also consider potential policies that encourage developer participation in IH projects in exchange for relatively lenient financial regulation.

Third, central and local governments can exercise strong rule-making authority, not just recommendations, over the siting of IH projects and the location of PRH units within the project. The latest central government policy document explicitly prohibits the inferior location or housing quality of PRH units. However, the policy document still provides only recommendations regarding the location selection for IH projects, which gives local governments significant autonomy and may lead to marginalization.69

In 2021, some cities have already taken some action to increase developers’ incentives to continue participating in IH projects. The policy is called jing zi chi, i.e., self-owned rental housing. It allows developers to continue to hold PRH units after construction; developers can then rent them out to low- to moderate-income groups at a restricted rate to accelerate the payback. This policy is a good experiment by the Chinese government to promote more efficient IH programs as the government cedes more profit to developers. The housing market has also responded positively to this policy change. The evidence shows a declining trend in the rate of liupai in many cities after the policy change, implying that developers are more active in participating in IH programs.70

CONCLUSION

IH is an instrument widely utilized by local governments in many countries to require developers to provide a certain proportion of affordable units in commodity housing projects. IH was first adopted by local governments in the United States in the 1970s, and then was increasingly welcomed by various countries around the world, including local governments in China. IH promotes social inclusion and provides a model for

affordable housing supply by the government in partnership with private developers, which can effectively relieve the financial pressure to provide affordable housing.

To address the problems of China’s IH policies, this study suggests multiple solutions. Local governments should take more responsibility for the construction of PRH units. They should also provide more assistance and flexible compliance alternatives to ensure that it is financially viable for developers to participate. To ensure that private developers continue to participate in IH projects it is necessary to moderate the level of interference with the debt obligations of real estate companies. Lastly, new regulations could be established to avoid the spatial marginalization of IH projects and the isolation of PRH units and low-income residents.

Adequate and affordable housing is essential for a person’s well-being, stability, and ability to fully participate in society. It is a basic need that must be met for individuals and families to lead fulfilling lives. IH policies have the potential to provide much needed relief for low-income families and communities and should be seriously considered by policymakers and governments in China.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tianhong Ge is a second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student focusing on global housing policy and data analysis. Tianhong completed his B.E. in Urban and Rural Planning at Zhejiang Gongshang University in 2021. He also has 3 years of experience working as a research assistant focusing on quantitative city analysis via remote sensing GIS technology. Tianhong interned in Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute in 2021, focusing on urban expansion study and education development strategy.

ENDNOTES

1. Chengdong Yi and Youqin Huang, “Housing Consumption and Housing Inequality in Chinese Cities during the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century,” Housing Studies 29, no. 2 (2014): 291–311.

2. Lan Deng, Qingyun Shen, and Lin Wang, “The Emerging Housing Policy Framework in China,” Journal of Planning Literature 26, no. 2 (2011): 168-183, https://doi. org/10.1177/0885412210390220.

3. Lan Deng and Jie Chen, “Market Development, State Intervention, and the Dynamics of New Housing Investment in China,” Journal of Urban Affairs 41, no. 2 (2018): 223-247, https://doi.org/10.1080/073521 66.2017.1422983.

4. Dezhi Li et al., “Evaluation and Optimization of the Financial Sustainability of Public Rental Housing Projects: A Case Study in Nanjing, China,” Sustainability 8, no. 4 (2016): 330, https://doi.org/10.3390/su8040330.

5. Li et al., “Evaluation and Optimization of the Financial Sustainability of Public Rental Housing Projects.”

6. Youqin Huang, “Low-income Housing in Chinese Cities: Policies and Practices,” The China Quarterly 212 (2012): 941-964, https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0305741012001270.

7. Nico Calavita and Alan Mallach, eds., Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective: Affordable Housing, Social Inclusion, and Land Value Recapture (Cambridge, MA : Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2010).

8. Calavita and Mallach, Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective.

9. Huang, “Low-income Housing in Chinese Cities: Policies and Practices.”

10. Juan Yan, Marietta Haffner, and Marja Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China,” Land 10, no. 3 (2021):

305, https://doi.org/10.3390/land10030305.

11. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

12. Barry Cullingworth and Roger W. Caves, Planning in the USA : Policies, Issues, and Processes, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003).

13. Vinit Mukhija et al., “The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?,” Planning Practice & Research 30, no. 2 (2015): 222-235, https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2015.10087 93.

14. Anthony Downs, ed., Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004).

15. Ruoniu Wang and Sowmya Balachandran, “Inclusionary Housing in the United States: Dynamics of Local Policy and Outcomes in Diverse Markets,” Housing Studies (2021): 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.1 929863.

16. The Urban Institute, Expanding Housing Opportunities through Inclusionary Zoning: Lessons from Two Counties (Washington, D.C.: HUD, 2012), https://www.huduser.gov/portal/ publications/hud-496_new.pdf.

17. Emily Thaden and Ruoniu Wang, “Inclusionary Housing in the United States: Prevalence, Impact, and Practices” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, September 2017, https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/ working-papers/inclusionary-housing-in-unitedstates.

18. Wang and Balachandran, “Inclusionary Housing in the United States.”

19. Thaden and Wang, “Inclusionary Housing in the United States: Prevalence, Impact, and Practices.”

20. Mukhija et al., “The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning.”

21. Calavita and Mallach, Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective

22. Calavita and Mallach, Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective

23. Nico Calavita and Alan Mallach, “Inclusionary Housing, Incentives, and Land Value Recapture,” Land Lines, January 2009, https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/ pubfiles/1552_777_Article%203.pdf.

24. Palmer/Sixth Street Properties, L.P. v. City of Los Angeles, 175 Cal. App. 4th 1396 (Cal. Ct. App. 2009).

25. Kirk McClure, “A Review of ‘Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective: Affordable Housing, Social Inclusion, and Land Value Recapture,’” Journal of the American Planning Association 78, no. 1 (2012): 110-111, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2011.644206.

26. Mukhija et al., “The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning.”

27. Mukhija et al, “The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning.”

28. “Inclusionary Housing in California: The Legal Landscape,” CivicWell, accessed on April 5, 2023, https://civicwell.org/wp-content/ uploads/2022/01/Inclusionary-Housing-inCalifornia-The-Legal-Landscape.pdf.

29. Mukhija et al., “The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning.”

30. Mukhija et al., “The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning.”

31. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

32. Lan Deng, Qingyun Shen, and Lin Wang, Housing Policy and Finance in China: A Literature Review (Washington, D.C.: HUD, 2009), file:///C:/Users/laure/Downloads/ housing-policy-and-finance-in-china-aliterature-review.pdf.

33. Deng, Shen, and Wang, Housing Policy and Finance in China.

34. Youqin Huang and Jianyu Ren, “Moving Toward an Inclusive Housing Policy?: Migrants’ Access to Subsidized Housing in Urban China,” Housing Policy Debate 32, no. 4-5 (2022): 579606, https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2021.19 96430.

35. Huang and Ren, “Moving Toward an Inclusive Housing Policy?.”

36. Regulations on the Guarantee of Affordable Housing (Beijing, China: State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2007), http://www.gov.cn/flfg/2007-11/27/ content_816644.htm.

37. Notification on Integrating the Management of Public Rental Housing and Affordable Housing (Beijing, China: State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2013), http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-12/09/ content_2544854.htm.

38. Regulations on the Guarantee of Affordable Housing; Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Public Rental Housing (Beijing, China: Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, 2010), http:// www.gov.cn/gzdt/2010-06/13/content_1627138. htm.

39. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

40. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

41. Yonghua Zou, “Contradictions in China’s Affordable Housing Policy: Goals vs. Structure,” Habitat International 41 (2014): 8-16, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. habitatint.2013.06.001.

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

43. D. Deng and D. Zhu, “Exploration on the Compulsory Index Mixed Building Mode of Public Housing’s Provision: Based on Housing Properties (Baozhangxing Zhufang Tigong de

Qiangzhixing Zhibiao Peijian Moshi Tantao: Jiyu Zhufang de Shuxing),” Chengshi Fazhan Yanjiu (Urban Development Studies) 16, no. 1 (2009): 5-8.

44. Zhigang Chen, Youqin Huang, and Xianjin Huang, “Public Support for Inclusionary Housing in Urban China,” International Journal of Housing Policy 19, no. 4 (2019): 457-482, https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2018.1560543.

45. Youqin Huang, “Bolstering Inclusionary Housing in Chinese Cities,” Paulson Policy Memorandum, March 2015, http:// www.paulsoninstitute.org/wp-content/ uploads/2015/04/PPM_Inclusionary-Housing_ Huang_English.pdf.

46. Shenzhen Municipal Housing Construction Plan (2006-2010) (Shenzen, China: Shenzhen Municipal Government, 2006), http:// www.sz.gov.cn/zfgb/2006/gb521/content/ post_4950763.html.

47. Notification of State Council on Construction and Management of Affordable Housing Projects (Beijing, China: State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2011), http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2011-09/30/ content_1960086.htm.

48. Chen, Huang, and Huang, “Public Support for Inclusionary Housing in Urban China.”

49. Dan Luo, Harry van der Heijden, and Peter J. Boelhouwer, “Policy Design and Implementation of a New Public Rental Housing Management Scheme in China: A Step Forward or an Uncertain Fate?,” Sustainability 12, no. 15 (2020): 6,090, https:// doi.org/10.3390/su12156090.

50. Ting Liu, Albert Chan, and Shouqing Wang, “PPP Framework for Public Rental Housing Projects in China,” ICCREM (2014): 573-581, https://doi. org/10.1061/9780784413777.067.

51. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

52. Huang, “Bolstering Inclusionary Housing in Chinese Cities.”

53. Huang, “Bolstering Inclusionary Housing in Chinese Cities.”

54. Nicky Morrison and Gemma Burgess, “Inclusionary Housing Policy in England: The Impact of the Downturn on the Delivery of Affordable Housing through Section 106,” Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 29, no. 3 (2014): 423-438, https://doi. org/10.1007/s10901-013-9360-7.

55. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

56. Li et al., “Evaluation and Optimization of the Financial Sustainability of Public Rental Housing Projects.”

57. Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Guaranteed Rental Housing (Beijing, China: State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2021), http:// www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2021-07/02/ content_5622027.htm.

58. Measures for the Management of Public Rental Housing Allocation in Urumqi (Urumqi, China: Urumqi Municipal Government, 2019), http://www.wlmq.gov.cn/gk/zfwj/2019/420376. htm.

59. Notification of the Government of Shijiazhuang Municipality on Adjusting the Policy of Supporting Housing in Commodity Housing Projects (Shijiazhuang, China: Shijiazhuang Municipal Government General Office, 2022), http://www.sjz.gov.cn/col/164145 8703734/2022/09/23/1663902456418.html.

60. “China’s Real Estate Decision-Making Consulting System,” CCRC China, accessed on March 23, 2023, http://www.cricchina.com/ research/.

61. Notification of the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission on Establishing a Concentration Management System for

Real Estate Loans of Banking Financial Institutions (Beijing, China: People’s Bank of China and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, 2021), http://www. gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-01/01/ content_5576085.htm.

62. The World Bank, “Gross Domestic Savings (% of GDP),” accessed on March 23, 2023, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDS. TOTL.ZS.

63. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

64. Lan Feng and Yan Bi-fan, “The Mismatch Degree of Affordable Housing and Its Influencing Factors: An Empirical Study of Xi’an,” Journal of East China Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 50, no. 1 (2018): 168-176; Ting Shi, “A Study on Spatial Segregation in Public Rental Housing Built with Commercial Buildings” (Masters diss., Shenzhen University, 2019), https://cdmd.cnki. com.cn/Article/CDMD-10590-1019909408. htm.

65. Shi, “A Study on Spatial Segregation in Public Rental Housing Built with Commercial Buildings.”

66. Di Yu, “Residential Segregation and Social Integration in Public Rental Housing Construction” (Masters diss., Tsinghua University, 2015), https://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/ Article/CDMD-10003-1016712563.htm.

67. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

68. Yan, Haffner, and Elsinga, “Inclusionary Housing: An Evaluation of a New Public Rental Housing Governance Instrument in China.”

69. Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Guaranteed Rental Housing.

70. Tian Dong and Zhu Cheng, “Multiple Regions Complete the Third Round of

Centralized Land Leasing with a Lower Rate of Liupai,” China Economic Net, October 20, 2022, http://www.ce.cn/cysc/fdc/fc/202210/20/ t20221020_38182936.shtml.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

SARAH FLECKENSTEIN

Safely Visible:

An Investigation into Polish Queer Space

LUCJAN ROSTKOWSKI-COVINGTON

Master of Architecture

ABSTRACT

Poland ranked last in the European Union for LGBTQ+ rights and protections in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Thus, the existence of queer spaces in Poland is incredibly important. Queer spaces are transient for a multitude of reasons, making it imperative to document them while they still exist. In this research project, I first distributed a survey to ask Polish LGBTQ+ people how they define a safe queer space. Next, I conducted case studies of six queer community incubator spaces in Warsaw, Poland followed by mini studies of queer spaces in Poznań as well as one outdoor event, the Warsaw Equality Parade. The results of the distributed survey show that Poles describe safe queer spaces as spaces where: 1) Pronouns and gender identities are respected; 2) LGBTQ+ people feel free to be themselves; 3) it is known that LGBTQ+ people frequent such spaces; 4) there are events geared toward LGBTQ+ people; and 5) the space is visibly queer with emblems such as flags and stickers. The case and mini studies show that prohibiting alcohol consumption, thinking through physical safety measures, asking for people’s pronouns, encouraging employees and customers to look out for each other to make sure event attendees act in a respectful manner, and training all employees, including bouncers, in LGBTQ+ diversity create a safe queer space.

INTRODUCTION

In June 2020, Polish President Andrzej Duda compared LGBTQ+ “ideology” to communism.1 Two months later, 48 queer activists were arrested at or after a peaceful demonstration in Warsaw.2 Duda’s statement is particularly alarming because Poland faced systemic oppression under communist rule for four decades. From 1952 to 1989, the country was subjugated by the Soviet Union; for Poles, this meant being “watched, censored, and deprived of basic necessities.”3 These incidents and numerous others illustrate why the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) ranked Poland last in the European Union (EU) for LGBTQ+ rights and protections in 2020, 2021, and 2022.4 It is easy to focus on disparity when discussing the state of LGBTQ+ Polish people. Political leaders have created undeniably hostile environments (such as “LGBT Free Zones”),5 but in no way have they been able to fully deter queer people from creating their own vibrant spaces. It is imperative to celebrate the amazing organizations, public spaces, people, and movements that are creating a safer environment for queer people to exist in Poland every day.

This research project intends to uplift and promote queer and queer-allied spaces in Warsaw in which the owners and employees of these spaces genuinely care about creating a safe, inclusive, and participatory environment for all people to frequent. Though some of the selected spaces are well known and have been around for over 20 years, some of them have opened within just the past year.

Given the state of LGBTQ+ issues and oppressive systems across Poland, the existence of queer spaces and social infrastructure is more important than ever. People seek out queer spaces when they feel they are not able to express themselves authentically elsewhere for fear of being

ostracized or worse.6 These spaces are “lifegiving, and often life-saving,”7 and they give people the opportunity to create community by way of events, concerts, performance, food, and friends.

Queer public spaces are often transient due to systemic issues such as gentrification, government legislation, and queerphobia, making it imperative to document them while they still exist. For example, in 2013, Russia criminalized the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations.”8 This law led to the forced closure of the largest Russian LGBTQ+ rights organization, Sphere Foundation, in September 2022.9 In Poland, a popular and well-respected queer-allied establishment called Klub Pogłos closed its doors and was demolished in October 2022 due to a developer-driven apartment tower taking over its space. Due to the lack of affordable commercial spaces in Warsaw it is unclear if, when, or where Klub Pogłos will be able to reopen.

While numerous compounding forces can fail to protect or even threaten queer spaces, their transient nature makes it so that almost any space can become a queer space. In this way, queer people have agency to reclaim spaces that are theirs. Some spaces are D.I.Y. and more quickly established than others. Polish D.I.Y. culture is rooted in post-communist anarchist punk culture. Some characteristics of these spaces include removal of monetary barriers to entry for events, removal of physical barriers between the audience and the performer, and an overall culture of communal care for the space.10 For example, one of these D.I.Y. spaces is a former private tenement house in downtown Warsaw that was abandoned and later turned into an autonomous cultural center for LGBTQ+ people called Syrena. Organizers established Syrena as an act of protest with the goal of creating a public cultural center in a building that was previously privatized by developers. Unfortunately, attacks and forcible removal

led queer people to cease living there in December 2021, but this transience once again underscores the need to document these spaces while they exist.11

In this essay, “queer” will be used to denote a “destabilization of the norm”12 — a “cosmopolitan canopy”13 — a place where people of varying backgrounds come together with acceptance regardless of whether or not they fully understand each other.14 I use the word queer not only to denote the LGBTQ+ community but also to highlight public spaces that practice “difference without exclusion.”15 I wish to see spaces that are integrated into Polish society, spaces that are safely visible, so that they may start to draw in the general Polish public and move the needle on LGBTQ+ discourse in Poland. In this research project, I conduct mixed methods research through interview and observation-informed case studies as well as survey analysis to investigate the types of adaptations necessary for a person to feel safe in a queer space in Poland.

I hope this essay will act as a “spur to further investigate the spaces shown.”16 Secondly, I hope to motivate public space owners, employees, and customers to foster more diverse and participatory environments. Finally, I hope that queer people will take initiative in creating their own events and spaces to fill voids they see in their local communities.

RECENT HISTORY

Systemic oppression has subjugated queer people in Poland for decades — often under the pretext of upholding traditional values.17 While there are few to no protections or rights for LGBTQ+ people in Poland, it has been possible for a transgender individual to legally change the sex and name recorded on their birth certificate to reflect their transition since 1978.18 Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1932, Polish post-war

communist authorities continued to treat homosexuality as a “social pathology.”19

The Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs spearheaded a secret mass operation to create a national database documenting all homosexuals living in Poland.20 Known as Operation Hyacinth, the documentation took place between 1985 and 1987 and registered approximately 11,000 people.21 Communist police called it a measure to “counteract sex work” and “homosexual criminal gangs.”22 In reality, it was a method of developing compromising evidence to blackmail a large number of individuals so they would stay compliant with the communist government.23 The registration files are now known as the “Pink Files.”24 Due to the operation, many gay individuals felt the need to go even further underground to cover up their identity.25 The collected data stayed in the database and was never erased, even after Campaign Against Homophobia asked for them to be destroyed in 2004.26

New hope for potential human rights protections in Poland increased with the fall of communism in 1989 and EU accession in 2004.27 The events ushered in the opportunity for democracy, the free market, and free speech in the country. However, upon EU accession, Poland became the only EU member alongside former member, the United Kingdom, to opt out of the Fundamental Rights Charter.28 It is also important to note that the Catholic Church holds a lot of power in Poland; over 33 million of 38 million total Poles are registered Catholics.29 Politics are often discussed during mass, and priests talk in favor of the conservative ruling party, the Law and Justice Party (PiS).30

THE RISE OF PiS (THE LAW & JUSTICE PARTY)

PiS was founded in 2001 by former President Lech Kaczyński and his brother Jarosław Kaczyński.31 The party garnered a lot of power in 2015 when it won the Polish parliamentary elections with an outright majority, marking “the first time that a single group will command a majority since Poland returned to democracy in 1989.”32 Since 2015, the party has systematically inhibited human rights and democracy in Poland by endangering the rule of law, “bringing NGOs and commercial media to heel through restrictive regulatory measures, and limiting citizens’ freedoms

of speech and assembly,’’ among many other actions.33 The party has been deemed authoritarian and, as noted by scholars, is undertaking a “constitutional breakdown.”34 LGBTQ+ media, organizations, and activists have also been met with extreme hostility.35 For example, during a 2018 campaign rally, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, stated “no homosexual marriages will be allowed in Poland…. Europe has to sober up” with regard to LGBTQ+ rights.36 Three years later, he continued his hate campaign on national television when asserting that “homosexuality is an ideology that dominates the world today and radically limits the freedom of those who are terrorized to accept it.”37

Source: Jakub Gawron, Atlas of Hate Team

Note: This shows “LGBT Free Zones” across Poland. The red zones are in existence today, the yellow ones are currently in litigation, and the green ones were recently thrown out.

Figure 1. “Atlas of Hate“

Note: Project created by Warsaw LGBTQ+ activist Bart Staszewski

LGBT FREE ZONES

Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski signed a declaration to support LGBTQ+ equality in February 2019.38 This declaration included adhering to World Health Organization guidelines in which LGBT issues are allowed to be discussed in Warsaw educational settings. This declaration angered and mobilized powerful leaders in Polish conservative politics and media.39 In retaliation, counties, municipalities, and provinces initiated “LGBT Free Zones” across southeastern Poland.40 There are no legal ramifications related to “LGBT Free Zones,” as they are symbolic acts by local authorities attempting to prevent LGBT ideology from existing in their areas.41 They have, however, created hostile environments for LGBTQ+ people in a country that has no protections from hate crimes and hate speech against queer people.42 Lublin, a city in southeastern Poland, went so far as to organize a “safety walk” in August 2020 with the intention of exposing and purging queer people.43 Since Poland opted out of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter, the EU holds little power to combat queerphobia in Poland. The EU has, however, threatened to stop funding

Note: Under the post, they organized a “safety walk” through the city with a caption that reads “The more people, the better. We will show everyone that our streets are for tradition and not for freaks.”

counties, municipalities, and provinces if their “LGBT Free Zones” continue to exist.44 In September 2021, four provinces withdrew their status due to EU pressure.45 Unfortunately, the Polish government agreed to provide funding to places that lost their funding from the EU, which offsets the consequences they experienced for discriminatory actions.46

Source: Photo by Bart Staszewski

Source: Facebook, Narodowy Lublin

Figure 2. an “LGBT Free Zone” sign placed below the city limit sign in Świdnik, Poland

Figure 3. Poster, “Lublin, A City Without Freaks.”

2019 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The 2019 Polish presidential election campaign was a hostile one that saw LGBTQ+ people in Poland scapegoated for the purpose of reelection.47 Incumbent President Andrzej Duda’s hateful rhetoric on the campaign trail created an environment that incited violence towards queer people. In 2019, stones were thrown at Białystok Equality Marchers, and a homemade bomb was brought to an Equality March in Lublin.48 In February 2022, alleged leaked emails from Michał Dworczyk, the Head of the Chancellery of the Prime Ministers Council, revealed that during the 2019 presidential campaign there was an organized effort between conservative media and authorities to direct hatred towards queer people.49 In June 2020, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) released a Special Election Assessment stating that TVP, Poland’s largest public national news station, failed to “ensure balanced and impartial coverage” and, instead, provided a “campaign tool” that was biased in favor of the incumbent.50 ODIHR’s essay also stated that the campaign was characterized by “negative and intolerant rhetoric,” which had the impact of “further polarizing” a political environmental that was already adversarial.51 Even with the state media firmly behind him, Andrzej Duda only narrowly won re-election against the opposition candidate, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski.

2019 BIALYSTOK EQUALITY MARCH

Białystok is the tenth largest city in Poland and is located in the northeastern part of the country.52 The province that encompasses it, the Podlaskie Voivodeship, is a conservative stronghold of PiS.53 Białystok county was declared an “LGBT Free Zone” in 2019.54 The anti-LGBTQ+ vitriol from President Andrzej Duda, the state-run media, and the Catholic Church created an environment in Bialystok in 2019 that allowed the first pride march to turn violent in unprecedented ways.

Posters were placed around the city ahead of the event that stated that streets would become “contaminated with LGBT bacteria.” Additionally, “LGBT Free Zone” stickers were created and distributed by the pro-PiS newspaper Gazeta Polska.55 The march was held on July 20, 2019 with approximately 1,000 pride marchers in attendance.56 The march turned violent when about 4,000 counterdemonstrators attended and threw stones,

Note: Printed by Gazeta Polska, handed out 3 days before the March.

Note: The moment that 4000 counter demonstrators showed up and overpowered police officers who were there to protect equality marchers from being attacked.

Source: Photo by Gazeta Polska

Source: Photo by Bart Staszewski

Figure 4. the “LGBT Free Zone” stickers

Figure 5. Counter demonstrators confronting the police

bottles, and firecrackers at pride marchers.57 Amnesty International Poland showed that Białystok police failed to protect marchers, resulting in several injuries and the assaults of two individuals, one of whom was a minor who was trampled by counter-demonstrators.58

United States news media outlets such as the New York Times equated the 2019 Białystok Equality March with the 2017 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.59 Since LGBTQ+ people in Poland have no legal protections from hate crime and hate speech, law enforcement agencies are not effectively prosecuting those responsible for committing crimes.60

“RAINBOW NIGHT”

“Rainbow Night” took place on August 7, 2020. The march began peacefully in response to the arrest of Polish nonbinary activist Margot Szutowicz, who uses she/her pronouns.61 Margot was arrested for slashing the tires of a truck with homophobic slogans on it, called a “homophobus,” that was driving through Warsaw.62 In response to the resulting peaceful demonstration, police used an immense amount of force to arrest and disperse protesters.63 A total of 48 people were arrested, including some bystanders.64 Those arrested were taken into custody without being told why they were arrested. They were not allowed legal counsel or permitted to speak to relatives.65 Many refer to this night as the “Polish Stonewall.”66 In April 2022, 41 of the

Source: Diagram by Amnesty International Poland

Figure 6. Rainbow Night Map

protesters’ cases were dropped; however, these cases could be reopened if new evidence were to come forward.67

The map shown is courtesy of Amnesty International Poland, who pieced together the events of Rainbow Night by interviewing dozens of people who were present. Margot began the night at Campaign Against Homophobia’s (CAH) office where she was expected to be arrested.68 Police officers refused to arrest her there, so protesters moved from the CAH office to Nowy Swiat Street, in front of the Copernicus Monument.69 This is where police showed up again and arrested Margot.70 Some protesters tried to block the police from leaving with her by getting on top of the hood of their car.71 Protesters were then arrested and taken to several police precincts all over the city of Warsaw.72

SURVEY

Titled “What does queer safe space mean to you?,” this survey is a hybrid of qualitative and quantitative research methods. It serves as the precursor to my case study of participatory spaces occupied by queer individuals in Warsaw, Poland. I asked queer Polish people and allies how they define safe queer space to understand the types of adaptations that would be necessary for them to feel safe. It presented an opportunity for me to hear from queer people all over Poland, and not just from those who are located in Warsaw. Respondents used the survey to state where they felt safest being themselves — whether this is around close friends, in their own home, or at their favorite bubble tea shop.

The survey was compiled and developed in May 2022 and then released on June 1, 2022, just in time for the start of LGBTQ+ pride month. It was translated into Polish with the help of Anna Roszman. Responses could be submitted in either English or Polish. The

survey collected responses for the entire month of June, and response collection was turned off on July 1. A total of 113 people responded.

SURVEY PROMOTION

The survey was promoted using multiple avenues, including on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter and in person at Parada Równości (Warsaw Pride) and the Młodsza Siostra Cafe. Social media was an important approach to gathering responses. To kick-start survey responses, activist Maja Heban posted the survey on her Twitter page to her more than 20,000 followers during the first week of June. Fundusz Feministyczny, a Warsaw-based feminist organization supporting trans and nonbinary people, sent the survey out as a link in one of its email newsletters. Next, I posted the survey in a few Polish queer Facebook and Reddit groups that I learned of from other queer Polish people. The Facebook groups included “Grupa Wsparcia dla Osób Transpłciowych” (a group supporting trans people), “HRTawka” (a group for trans people who are taking HRT), “Sypialniawka Miesiąc Dumy” (a sex-positive pride month group) and “LGBT Architects/Engineers/Designers” (comprised of LGBTQ+ architects, engineers, and designers from all across Poland, with a majority of the group residing in Warsaw). The Reddit group “Tęczowa Polska” (Rainbow Poland) also served as a place for response collection. Lastly, I printed and laminated 100 QR codes on three-by-three inch squares with a link to the survey and handed them out in person at Warsaw Pride on June 25 and also posted them up on a table in the entry of Młodsza Siostra Cafe. Młodsza Siostra is a queer-friendly cafe in Warsaw that also served as the site of one of my case studies. The cafe is a space where people come and post different personal items such as surveys, posters, QR codes, and informational brochures.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The target audience for the survey was all Polish LGBTQ+ people and their allies. I aimed to make sure the survey reached a diverse audience. Because there are no public spaces for trans and gender nonconforming people to gather in Warsaw or anywhere in Poland, I particularly wanted to hear about how they define queer space and where they feel safest. In addition to the absence of safe spaces that are publically designated for queer people, this community is often left out of the conversation about rights and protections for queer people.

BIAS

Questions in the survey were developed with the intention to mitigate respondent bias. Respondents were not encouraged to provide any particular responses to survey questions since the survey was not incentivized. The questions were written as neutrally as possible; they were easy to understand and devoid of subjective adjectives, loaded questions, and double negatives. I want to stress my positionality within this project as a PolishAmerican, queer, young, and white individual. I acknowledge that any of these identities could potentially influence the outcome of my research.

SURVEY ORGANIZATION

The survey was assembled using Google Forms so that it could be easily accessed by survey respondents via a link. It began with a disclaimer and a bit of informational text that described my research project: “The information provided will be used exclusively for an essay on Polish queer safe space. This survey will not collect any personal identifiable information such as email addresses or names. This survey is safely secured on a university email account and on a password protected computer. This survey is a student project called “Safely

Visible: An Investigation into Polish Queer Space” for the University of Michigan Polish Studies Department as part of the 2022 Copernicus Graduate Fellowship position. For more information or to engage more with the project, please contact Lucjan RostkowskiCovington. The information will not be used or distributed for profit and use other than anything academically related. If these questions are difficult or uncomfortable for you in any way, or if you would prefer not to answer them, you can choose to leave them blank.”

The disclaimer was important to include in order to build trust between myself and the respondents. My contact information was also included in case respondents wanted to reach out to me.

Beyond this disclaimer there were a total of eight questions, four of which were multiple choice, two short answers, and two long answers. The first five questions were demographic questions that dealt with age, sexuality, gender identity, and nationality. They were designed to provide some context for the sixth and seventh questions. The sixth question was the most important in the survey, where I asked respondents to define what a queer safe space means to them. The seventh question allowed for respondents to write in anything they wanted that they felt was not previously covered. The final question asked respondents if they consented to the information provided to be used in this essay. I wanted to keep the survey concise to increase engagement and responses. Starting on the following section, each survey question is analyzed with charts, graphs, quotes, and commentary.

QUESTION 1

The first question in the survey asked respondents, “What is your age?” This was a write-in question where respondents could answer how they wished. The youngest

respondent was 13 and the oldest respondent was 47. I organized the information into five-year intervals. The largest number of respondents were between the ages of 18 and 22 at 50 responses, or 44.2 percent. The second highest number of responses came from people between the ages of 23 and 27 at 26 responses or 23 percent. The respondents tend to skew younger, most likely because Polish young people are more open about how they identify and tend to frequent social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

QUESTION 2

The second question in the survey asked respondents, “What is your nationality, citizenship, or legal status?” I decided to make this a write-in question because this question is tricky. Individuals could have Polish citizenship but they might not have been born in Poland, or they may be working towards obtaining Polish citizenship. Responses varied a lot based on the multiple ways of saying a similar word in Polish, but I grouped the responses into four categories: Polish, Polish citizenship, Polish nationality, and Ukrainian. 100 people, or 89.3 percent, of respondents answered that they are Polish. Seven people, or 6.3 percent, said they have Polish citizenship, four people, or 3.6 percent, said they have Polish nationality, and one person said they are Ukrainian.

QUESTION 3

The third question in the survey asked respondents the question, “What is your gender identity?” I provided respondents with the answer choices: Woman, man, nonbinary, gender fluid, genderqueer, and intersex. There was also a choice to write in a response if you didn’t identify with these selections. One person wrote in “agender” and another person wrote in “doesn’t identify.” In general, I was surprised to receive a relatively equal distribution of responses between men, women, and individuals who are gender

7. “What is your age?”

Source: Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

8. “What is your nationality, citizenship, or legal status?”

Source: Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

Figure 9. “What is your gender identity?”

Source: Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

Figure

Figure

nonconforming. This question gathered a total of 113 responses with the same number of responses coming from men and women, 41 for both, or 36.2 percent each.

QUESTION 4

The fourth question in the survey asked respondents to clarify their response to the third question. “Do you identify as cisgender or transgender?” A majority of the respondents answered “transgender,” specifically 58, or 52.3 percent. This high number of responses from trans individuals can be attributed to how I promoted the survey. Maja Heban posted my survey on her Twitter to her 20,000 followers. I also posted my survey in Facebook groups supporting trans people such as “Grupa Wsparcia dla Osób Transpłciowych” and “HRTawka.” Lastly, Fundusz Feministyczny posted my survey in an email newsletter. I wanted my survey to gather as many responses from transgender individuals as possible, since they are the most marginalized group in Poland and there are no public gathering spaces for them.

Figure 10. “Do you identify as cisgender or transgender?”

Source: Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

QUESTION 5

The fifth question in the survey asked respondents, “Are you an LGBTQ+ person or an LGBTQ+ ally?” This question was important because not everyone might be an LGBTQ+ person. While this survey is intended for queer people, it’s important to hear how LGBTQ+ allies understand the need for safe queer spaces. Respondents were given a choice between two answers: “LGBTQ+ Person” and “LGBTQ+ Ally.” This question garnered 112 responses with 105, or 93.8 percent, coming from LGBTQ+ people and seven, or 6.3 percent, coming from LGBTQ+ allies.

QUESTION 6

The sixth question in the survey asked respondents, “In your own words, how would you define a safe queer space?” This question prompted 112 responses with varying answers. People feel as though a safe queer space is one where their pronouns and gender identity are respected, they can feel free to be themselves, the spaces are primarily occupied

Figure 11. “Are you an LGBTQ+ person or an LGBTQ+ ally?”

Source: Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

“A place where people acknowledge and respect my pronouns, name, and identity... A good example...is a bubble tea shop [called] “Pij Herbatę” in Warsaw.” (Polish, gender fluid, trans individual)

by LGBTQ+ people, there are events geared towards LGBTQ+ people, and it’s visibly queer with emblems such as flags or stickers. First, I will highlight some of the most pertinent responses, followed by an analysis.

“A place where people acknowledge and respect my pronouns, name, and identity…. A good example...is a bubble tea shop [called] ‘Pij Herbatę’ in Warsaw.” (Polish, gender fluid, trans individual)

The person above makes an important point about the people who occupy queer safe spaces. They state that the staff have to walk the walk. A mere pride flag in the window means nothing to them. If they are misgendered by staff, it is not a safe space. Staff must have diversity training and understand how to address customers properly. If a situation arises where they are disrespected by another customer, then they expect to be backed up by staff. Since the identity of gender fluid individuals shifts, it’s important to respect how they identify in the present — this is why respecting pronouns is important to the individual quoted above.

“A space where there are no gendered toilets or gendered spaces...” (Polish, trans man)

The person quoted above needs the design of the space to be inclusive. One of the ways of doing this is to establish genderneutral bathrooms and de-gender any other common spaces. This affirms individuals who are gender nonconforming and those who are on their transition journey. In a

traditional binary bathroom typology it can feel uncomfortable for trans people, especially those beginning their transition journey, to use the bathroom associated with their gender identity due to fear of hostility towards them. Since the individual above stated that they are transgender, it makes sense that this adaptation would make them feel safe in a public space.

“...a place where they can be safely open about their queerness and have a guarantee that if someone was to act hostile towards them, that person would be removed.” (Polish, trans man)

The person quoted above says that the customers in a safe queer space are an integral part of creating its safety — they shouldn’t tolerate any hostility towards queer people. This is important because trans people around the world can experience violence, especially if they are perceived as being trans by the general public.

QUESTION 7

The seventh question in the survey asked respondents, “Is there anything you would like to mention that wasn’t asked previously.” This question garnered 48 responses, also with varying answers. This is where many respondents shared where they feel safest as a queer person in Poland and described the current climate of queer acceptance in Poland.

”I think that the safest places for queer people are in their homes with family and friends. There are queer-friendly cafes and restaurants,

but at the end of day, anyone can come in and create an unsafe environment...” (Polish, cisgender, LGBTQ+ woman)

The person quoted above questions the safety of spaces that are considered safe queer spaces. It is true that any public space that’s deemed safe can become unsafe due to a particular person or group of people wanting to cause trouble in the space. There is no true safe public space, but we can make strides towards creating a safe environment by employees having LGBTQ+ diversity training, hidden spaces, and customers and employees willing to step in to remove hateful people if a queerphobic situation arises. Having supportive family and friends also makes a huge difference when existing as a queer person; you tend to feel the safest around people who support you and have your best intentions at heart.

“We don’t even notice that LGBTQIA+ people are around us. We pass them on the street, in a shop, at school, and we work next to them. I want everyone to see that they are no different from one another except for their sexual orientation or gender identity.” (Polish, cisgender, LGBTQ+, woman)

While I agree with the statement above to a certain extent, LGBTQ+ individuals are not able to visually express themselves as authentically as they generally would like to in Poland, and therefore they may not be as noticeable to the general public as they would otherwise. Individuals also feel as though they can’t express their affection to their significant other in public. I want to see a Poland where queer people are noticeable in the way they would like to be. I want people to be accepted, and not just tolerated or invisible.

“Just think how much [LGBTQ+] people could achieve if they received the support they deserved. I bet that many people could change the world, help others, and create new breakthroughs in technology and innovation.” (Polish, cisgender, LGBTQ+, woman)

“...a place where they can be safely open about their queerness and have a guarantee that if someone was to act hostile towards them, that person would be removed.” (Polish, trans man)

Support starts at the familial and friendship level; it is crucial for queer people to have a support system. A 2019 survey produced by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that just “18 percent of LGBTQ+ teenage respondents (15-17 years old) in Poland said their school education at some point addressed LGBTQ+ issues in a balanced way.”73 A 2020 essay from Warsaw LGBTQ+ organization Campaign Against Homophobia and Lambda Warszawa found that “61% of mothers who are aware of the LGBTQ+ identity of their child, accept them.”74 “The percentage is even lower among fathers,

Note: A bubble tea shop, located in downtown Warsaw.

Source: Photo by Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

Figure 12. Pij Herbate

just 54%.”75 The essay also stated that 44% of LGBTQ+ people in Poland experience depression.76

“The phrase ‘safe space’ has a lot of different interpretations. An LGBTQ+ club in Poznań is a safer space than an LGBTQ+ club in Rzeszów. The truth is that I don’t think there are ‘safe spaces’ in Poland like there are in the West — but there are certainly places where things are worse or better.” (Polish, nonbinary individual)

It is true that the prevalence and safety of queer spaces in Poland largely depends on where they are located. Poznań is located in the western part of Poland, just three hours away from Berlin, Germany by train. Western Poland is much more progressive than eastern Poland, where Rzeszów is located. I think queer spaces will function in a safe way, but the probability of a queerphobic individual inflicting harm in the space is much higher in a conservative area or in a smaller community, especially in ones that have declared themselves “LGBT Free Zones.” Since the person above identifies as nonbinary, and nonbinary people have been under public scrutiny — mis-gendered and made fun of by Polish news media and the general public — it is possible that they feel ostracized and unwelcome in Polish public space.

“I would love there to be more spaces that are not queer, but prioritizing particular groups. For example, since the closing of the only lesbian bar in my city...I don’t have anywhere to go. [Can we focus] on needs and experiences of different groups instead of trying to create some kind of a one-size-fitsall situation?” (Polish, cisgender, LGBTQ+, woman)

The individual above is stating that they would like more niche spaces for smaller groups within the LGBTQ+ community to gather — they would like spaces for lesbians. I think it

is important to have both spaces for niche groups of people to meet and also spaces for everyone. While there are no lesbian bars left in Poland, there is a group called Twin Heart Poland that organizes parties strictly for lesbians around the country. There are also several online groups on Facebook and Reddit, for example, for lesbians to meet, and many of these groups also organize meet-ups in person. Finally, as will be illustrated in the next section, the case study spaces are for everyone but they also have events that cater to specific communities and groups of people.

CASE STUDIES

Following the survey, it was important to conduct case studies of participatory queer and queer-allied spaces in Warsaw, Poland. The case studies were conducted in two parts: First using participant observation of the space and second using semi-structured interviews with the owners, employees, and collective members of the spaces.

Case selections were chosen from a list of over 20 queer and queer-allied spaces that I visited in Warsaw. After visiting all of these spaces, I narrowed down my research to focus only on participatory queer and queer-allied safe spaces. It was apparent to me that these spaces were more focused on creating a safe, inclusive, and culture-forming environment rather than just simply running a business to turn a profit. The six cases include Lambda Warszawa, Margines Barber, Klub Pogłos, ADA Puławska, Młodsza Siostra, and Inclusive.buzz (Inclsv).

CONCLUSION

INTERIOR SAFETY

The following adaptations presented are road maps that I think all public spaces, across Poland, should follow to help queer people feel welcome in their spaces. When speaking about interior safety, it is not a physical adaptation, but a social one. What can the individuals in a public space collectively do to help foster an inclusive environment? I will point out one adaptation that stood out to me from each case. Inclusive.buzz creates a safe space for queer people by prohibiting alcohol consumption. This is a tough measure to take, as other people, such as the owner of Młodsza Siostra, revealed that the majority of their profits come from alcohol sales. Is it possible to safely manage the consumption of alcohol and also turn a profit? Młodsza Siostra has considered the safety of their customers by making an intentional decision not to hire security. They feel that the overt

presence of security could change the dynamic of their space and cause people to question the safety of it. The employees and owner at Margines Barber respect people’s pronouns by asking them upon entry — this was the only instance where I experienced this happen first hand. In all spaces, and particularly at ADA Puławska, members and regulars look out for each other to make sure the people attending events are being respectful of one another. Any instance of xenophobia, queerphobia, or racism will lead to removal from the space. At Pogłos, the owners have made sure that all employees, including bouncers, have received LGBTQ+ diversity training, so people’s gender identity and expression are respected. This is particularly rare and possibly the only instance of Warsaw club bouncers having had diversity training. Many queer people revealed to me that there are specific clubs they stay away from — even queer ones — because of bouncer hostility towards their self-expression.

Source: Photo by Lucjan Rostkowski-Covington

Figure 13. Parada Równości in Warsaw, Poland

EXTERIOR SAFETY + VIOLENCE

The need for the physical safety of a queer space in Warsaw depends on its activities and its visibility. Social service and advocacy organizations like Lambda Warszawa are much more visible with the type of work they do, which makes them a target and in turn creates a need for them to be hidden from the public’s eye. Lambda Warszawa is located on the third floor of a building and doesn’t publicize its exact address to protect itself from attacks, though they have experienced some. In comparison, queer businesses like Młodsza Siostra, Inclusive.buzz, Margines Barber, and Klub Pogłos have not experienced any violence and are not intentionally hidden from the public’s view. While ADA Puławska is not intentionally hidden either, collective members have expressed that they would have experienced attacks if their space were more visible and less protected. This may be because it is an autonomous cultural space geared towards very specific groups of people that are marginalized in Polish society. All spaces in the case study are apprehensive about the violence they could potentially face from nationalists and far-right groups on November 11, the Polish Independence Day.

DESIGN: DECOR + CIRCULATION + SPACE ORGANIZATION

The design of each space is of course unique, but there are several overlaps in decor, circulation, and space organization. In general, Lambda Warszawa, Młodsza Siostra, Pogłos, Margines Barber, and ADA Puławska have either a minimal, grungy, or D.I.Y. aesthetic in their interior design and decor. The people who are a part of these organizations typically do not have a lot of money for renovations when moving in, or are not willing to spend money on renovations given their lease terms. The outlier is Inclusive.buzz, which is the newest of all the spaces listed. They had a significant amount of money to put

into renovating the space because they had a private investor. Their space has a fresh contemporary feel on the inside. As for circulation, I urge all the proprietors of public spaces in Warsaw to take steps to become more wheelchair accessible by implementing elevators, ramps, and accessible bathrooms. Inclusive.buzz had the only wheelchair accessible bathroom that I observed. While a few of the spaces shown are all on one level, I did not see elevators or ramps in any of the spaces that have multiple floors. The extent to which spaces are for public or private use depends largely on the use of that space at a particular moment, since all of the spaces shown are for multipurpose use.

PEOPLE + LOCATION + PROGRAMS

Due to the plethora of programs and events offered, a wide range of people exist in all the spaces. It is affirming to see that all ages and nationalities frequent the six places studied. As far as the location of queer spaces in Warsaw, the majority of them tend to be located in the city center, especially bars, clubs, restaurants, and saunas. The six spaces that I examined are not all located in the city center; a few of them are located farther out, such as Pogłos and ADA Puławska. None of the six spaces studied are located on the right side of the Wisła river. One place on the right side of the river that comes to mind is Chmury, which is a queer-friendly bar and music venue. I perceive this space to be an outlier on this side of the city. Queer spaces on the right side of the river in neighborhoods such as Praga are less frequented, either because people do not feel safe being in them, they are not centrally located, or people simply do not yet know about them. Typically, these places tend to draw more of a local audience instead of pulling people from other parts of Warsaw. Another important aspect to point out would be the treatment of refugees. I applaud Lambda Warszawa and Inclusive.buzz for helping Ukrainian refugees in a time of crisis.

Lambda Warszawa runs an emergency housing shelter for LGBTQ+ Ukrainian refugees and also helps them with financial, legal, and psychological support services. Inclusive. buzz won a grant from the German embassy in Warsaw in August 2022 for the creation of programs for Ukrainian refugee youth. They also currently employ refugees from countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Rwanda.

COMPARISON OF WARSAW + POZNAN QUEER SPACES

Warsaw, as the largest city in Poland, undoubtedly has more queer spaces than any other city in the country. While Poznań has a lot of specific queer spaces that are a first in Poland, such as a bookstore, heath clinic, and a hostel, they are all run by the same organization — Stonewall Group. The city is often associated with rainbow capitalism, but in defense of Poznań, all of the queer spaces run by Stonewall Group are financially supporting the organization so that it can provide queer people in crisis with financial, legal, and psychological help. That being said, Poznań does lack participatory queer cultural hubs and collectively run spaces that Warsaw and other cities in Poland have.

Participatory queer social infrastructures are vital to a city’s fabric. A queer space is one that’s rebellious, discursive, and continual.77 It allows for anyone to have agency to build their

city and create their vision of inclusion. These types of spaces must be cherished, promoted, and expanded upon due to their transient nature. Without them, cities will become or stay cultural deserts. My hope for Polish queer space is that it continues to welcome more people into the fold regardless of race, sexuality, or gender identity, so that more people can start to exchange ideas, beliefs, culture, and art with respect.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Special thanks to Sarian Jarosz for advising me throughout the entire research process — without his help, this project would not have been possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lucjan is an architecture student based in Ann Arbor, Michigan of Polish and British descent. In April 2023, they will complete their Master’s degree from the University of Michigan’s Taubman College. Lucjan’s interests span forensic architectural reconstruction, LGBTQ+ ethnographic research, and memorialization of space.

ENDNOTES

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BALI, INDONESIA MITCH HODIONO

Community-Led Housing:

The State of Collaborative Living and Collective Ownership in the Age of the Current Affordable Housing Crisis

KIMBERLY SWINEHART

Master of Urban and Regional Planning

ABSTRACT

The United States is experiencing an affordable housing crisis due to rising expenses and rigid singlefamily zoning laws. In order to combat the current affordable housing crisis, it is imperative to look at alternative forms of tenure outside of the current system we have. This includes drawing inspiration from community-led housing (CLH) and collective ownership models outside of the normal mortgage or rental system that is currently used in the United States, both of which contain varying degrees of “collective self-organization.” This literature review covers three different types of community-led housing: Cohousing, community land trusts, and housing cooperatives. According to past research done in both the United States and Europe, CLH and collective ownership models have resulted in decreased housing costs, increased tenant power, and improvements in mental health. It is not going to be easy to implement these and similar alternative housing models in the United States. It will only be possible with a change in how Americans look at housing — from a tradable commodity, like food or furniture, to a human right that cannot be substituted.

INTRODUCTION

Housing affordability remains a serious issue for thousands of families nationwide. In 1981, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set the threshold for housing affordability in the United States at 30 percent of one’s income. This percentage is meant to leave households enough disposable income to pay for other costs of living. Households that pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing are considered cost-burdened,1 and almost half of all renters in the United States meet this criterion. This figure increases to more than 70 percent for renters whose income is less than $30,000 annually.2 This has resulted in lower rates of home ownership among young people, increased residence in units that may be substandard or in need of major repairs, and greater rates of homelessness.3

Much of the current affordable housing crisis can be attributed to the lack of units available, especially in places like New York City and the Bay Area. According to estimates from Freddie Mac and the affordable housing group Up for Growth, the United States needs to construct approximately 3.8 million new housing units to meet current demand.4 Not only does the demand for housing outweigh the supply, but corporate investors are buying up large quantities of homes and placing them on the rental market, removing the possibility of homeownership for many potential buyers.5 Even though housing construction increased by a greater rate last year than any time in the past decade, most newly constructed units are not affordable for average Americans, with more than 50 percent of newly constructed homes selling for more than $400,000 in the last two years.6

Unfortunately, it is difficult to fix housing shortages in many municipalities because of strict zoning laws and outdated land use policies. Single-family zoning, usually referred

to as R1 in municipal zoning codes, accounts for large portions of land in urban areas and is omnipresent in suburban and rural areas. Allowing only single-family homes on large lots takes up room in highly desirable areas with high-quality amenities, and these homes are not affordable for many first-time homebuyers or renters. Eliminating, or at the very least, decreasing this type of zoning could result in higher density housing in places where it has not been previously considered.7 Higher density housing tends to be less expensive per unit. It also allows residents to be in close proximity to each other, which has been shown to improve mental health by decreasing loneliness.8

States like California and Oregon, as well as cities like Minneapolis, have taken steps to allow for higher density housing in areas previously designated as R1.9 Bills like Oregon’s HB 2001 and California’s SB 9 as well as Minneapolis’s updated city master plan allow varying forms of higher density. This may take a number of forms, such as splitting lots for new construction or allowing “missing middle” housing like duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units.10 However, the scope of these zoning changes is small in terms of both development and location.

WHAT IS COMMUNITY-LED HOUSING?

To combat the current affordable housing crisis, it is imperative to seek alternatives to the current system. Individuals and families should not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a small single-family home, nor should low-income renters be forced to spend years on a waitlist for a housing choice voucher, only to be constrained in their housing choices and discriminated against by landlords.11

Several grassroots housing movements based on collaborative living and collective

ownership have recently emerged throughout Europe. Both collaborative living and collective ownership fall under the umbrella of “community-led housing” (CLH),12 which is housing that deviates from the standard mortgage or rental structure that is typically seen in the United States, and contains varying degrees of “collective self-organization.”13 This paper relies on the examples provided by English housing researchers in “A Slow Build-Up of a History of Kindness” to sort CLH into three variations: Cohousing (sometimes referred to as coliving), community land trusts, and housing cooperatives (sometimes referred to as co-ops).14 This is not a perfect division, as some of these may fall into multiple categories (e.g., a housing co-op can be on land “owned” by a community land trust). However, this schema provides a succinct means of categorizing the different types of CLH.

“collective ownership models decrease housing costs, increase tenant power, and improve mental health.

EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITYLED HOUSING AND COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP

Cohousing is a type of collaborative living alternative that has four main tenets: 1) housing design that fosters social interactions; 2) communal common spaces as opposed to private ones; 3) residential involvement in the creation and maintenance of the cohousing community; and 4) general lifestyles that promote interdependence and social relationships between residents. Unlike community land trusts and housing cooperatives, ownership is not necessarily

People want to be able to have the power to choose where they want to live, who they want to live with, and how their housing situation should be run without interference from landlords or the market in general.”

These housing variations deviate from the standard mortgage or rental structure that is typically seen in the United States and contain varying degrees of collective self-organization. Whether it is through collective ownership, living with others who are not family, or a combination of both, these models illustrate a clear need to create affordable housing. Autonomy in one’s own housing situation is among the main motivations for living in CLH. People want to be able to have the power to choose where, with whom, and how they live, without feeling constrained by landlords or markets.15 Past research in both the United States and Europe shows that CLH and

a central tenet of this form of CLH. Even though each household usually has its own separate living spaces, such as bedrooms and living rooms (as opposed to communal living where everyone shares everything), cohousing residents share common spaces such as yards, recreation rooms, laundry rooms, and even kitchens. Private living spaces are usually smaller than the average single-family household to make room for larger common spaces as a way to cut costs and promote social interactions between residents.16

The community land trust (CLT) is a form of collective ownership that has several models

but is most notably characterized by the transfer of land from the private market to a trust, usually run by a non-profit organization whose purpose is to keep the housing affordable. CLTs are predominantly used for affordable housing but can also be effective for commercial, agricultural, and recreational uses. The first CLT in the United States, New Communities, Inc., was created in 1969 by Black farmers in order to maintain control of land that was quickly becoming unavailable due to private land ownership. The model that they implemented was explicitly collective, as the members of New Communities, Inc. believed that the private ownership of land was inequitable.17

Housing cooperatives are a type of collective ownership in which member-residents pool their resources so that each member of the co-op has an approximately equal share in fiscal equity. Co-ops generally have a board of directors, many of whom are residents, elected by the residents themselves. This board creates a governing structure within the co-op and rules and regulations that members must abide by when living there. Since all resources from participating members are pooled, any repair and maintenance costs are usually paid for by the cooperative and not the individual members. This may also be the case for amenities such as groceries and utilities. Housing co-ops can come in many different

Source: Roland Bernath, world-architects.com

Figure 1. Brüggliäcker Housing Estate cooperative in Zurich, Switzerland

forms, with some being single-family homes, apartment buildings, or even communal living situations.18

ALLEVIATING HOUSING COSTS AND PROMOTING TENANT POWER

Forms of CLH have historically been common in countries like Switzerland, housing co-ops in particular. As in the United States, housing in Europe may be owned publicly, privately, or by a non-profit. Housing co-ops are part of the non-profit “third sector” and have recently become more prevalent in Switzerland due to the public sector withdrawing funding for

housing subsidies.19 This is contrary to the United States, where control of the housing market is dominated largely by the private sector.

Ivo Balmer and Jean-David Gerber from the University of Bern argue that the neoliberalization of the Swiss government and economy has resulted in housing being treated as a commodity no different than other tradable goods, such as food or furniture, rather than a social good that cannot be substituted. Through an overview of citizens’ initiatives in five cities in Switzerland, Balmer and Gerber looked at affordable housing in the country (with an emphasis on housing co-ops),

Source: Kim Swinehart

Figure 2. Robert Owen Cooperative House in Ann Arbor

and how it has progressed in recent years since the Swiss federal government suspended the release of direct loans for housing in 2003.20

Non-profit housing developers in Switzerland are allocated land by the government to create housing.21 Even though cities in the United States will occasionally purchase land with the intention of using it for public interest-related goals, it is much more common for land to be zoned based on its various uses (residential, commercial, etc.) for private developers to buy and eventually build on.22 In Switzerland, the municipality will usually own the land parcel, while the non-profit owns the buildings on the land (similar to a community land trust). Rental costs for non-profit housing co-ops in the five Swiss cities studied were all below the average market-rate for the area. This is attributable to the requirement that non-profit housing co-ops in the country use the cost-rent model, meaning that the cost of rent cannot exceed the cost of capital used to invest in the project, operating costs, and maintenance. In brief, no extra profit can be made with rent.23

Housing co-ops tend to work in Switzerland due to their nonpartisan political appeal. Liberals in Switzerland support co-ops because they give tenants a way to build wealth for themselves while avoiding extractive landlords. Conservatives in the country also tend to support housing co-ops because, even though they lead to the decommodification of housing as a product, the state is not involved in creating them. While the municipality may provide land, the people themselves are forming housing through their own means. This framing of the housing co-op model could appeal to both liberals and conservatives in the United States.24

Collective ownership through cooperatives and CLTs also increases access to financial resources and tenant power among residents of manufactured housing communities (MHC)

(colloquially known as mobile homes or trailer parks) in the United States. Generally, the land, infrastructure, and facilities of the MHC are owned by a private investor, while residents own or rent their unit and pay monthly fees. Collective ownership of MHCs has become more common in recent years as residents work to avoid rent increases and evictions that are common when private investors own them. Residents of these communities have different financing than single-family homeowners, as manufactured homes are usually treated as personal property rather than real estate. Manufactured homeowners receive loans with shorter term limits (often only 10 to 20 years), pay higher interest rates, have fewer lenders to choose from, and are not given the same foreclosure warnings afforded to mortgage borrowers.25

Established in 2008, ROC (resident-owned communities) USA is a national non-profit organization that provides debt financing for acquisitions, refinancing, and capital improvements for residents of MHCs who want to collaborate and create a housing co-op or CLT on their land. This cooperative model allows residents of these communities to build equity in their homes while also preserving affordability and residential stability through collective ownership. Studies of multiple ROC USA-associated communities found that the organization helped residents with complex real estate transactions that they likely would not have had the technical knowledge to make without its support. The organization also uses informal strategies to build relationships and trust among residents through social activities and community organizing efforts. Residents interviewed for the study overwhelmingly stated that efforts by ROC USA to build social cohesion among residents enabled them to address problems in the community more effectively, become better at decision-making, and gain more control over their own living arrangements.26

COMMUNITY-LED HOUSING AND ITS ROLE IN LONELINESS AND IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH

Though CLH is most often used to decrease the costs associated with housing, it is also associated with social and emotional benefits. Living in CLH has been shown to decrease loneliness and improve one’s mental health. This is especially relevant since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to increased isolation as a result of social distancing. Prime examples of CLH include retirement communities and senior living. A recent study from the Netherlands looked at eight different senior CLH communities from March through June 2018 to determine what advantages and disadvantages the housing style offered them. Researchers collected data via

“loneliness, given to people both living in and associating with CLH, as well as a control group of people in non-CLH; and 2) qualitative data using interviews and case studies of members of five different CLH communities. Thus, this study provides more in-depth and personal accounts of how this type of housing structure affected respondents’ social lives and overall well-being.28

Results from the initial survey showed that respondents who lived in CLH were significantly less likely to feel lonely than control respondents who did not, even when researchers controlled for the possibility that those living in CLH may be more extroverted and involved in more social clubs and activities than the general population. Interviews with members of the five CLH communities provided further context. Though

It is imperative that people begin to understand that housing is a human right, and is not something that should be commodified.”

interviews and focus groups with residents and caregivers, as well as through observational studies. Most respondents had positive experiences living in CLH, with social contact between housemates contributing to feelings of reduced loneliness. Respondents enjoyed being able to rely on other housemates for a sense of community and social investment.27

Housing researchers from the United Kingdom conducted an empirical study that measured levels of loneliness among members of CLH for all ages. This study was conducted on members of CLH in England and Wales between March and June 2020, coinciding with the onset of the pandemic. Data was collected in two different ways: 1) a selfreport measure with questions pertaining to

members discussed different aspects of their particular CLH, most agreed that CLH helped eliminate loneliness through its design. These elements include physical design (designing the housing in a way that promotes more social interaction), social design (creating informal policies and governance among CLH members), and social processes (generally seeing, eating with, and spending time with other members due to close proximity). Survey respondents also stated that the pandemic made members realize how important these communities were in terms of social support — something that individuals not living in CLH lacked due to social distancing.29

DISCUSSION

AND CONCLUSION

Even though there are obvious benefits to CLH, this alternative to affordable housing is not going to be easy to implement in the United States. Current land use regulations in most urban areas and almost all suburban and rural areas do not support this kind of housing, and movement towards changing zoning to accommodate CLH is slow and limited. Even though cohousing, housing co-ops, and CLTs can be achieved in the context of single-family homes, most often they are done in larger multi-family developments and apartment complexes, as well as MHCs. For different types of CLH to be implemented, zoning laws in most American cities need to change to accommodate these types of alternative housing in all areas.

In addition to ending or reducing single-family zoning, using collective ownership models requires an understanding of its roots in order to implement such housing frameworks in a way that decreases costs for residents. One of the main concerns among collective ownership models recently, and CLTs in particular, has been the loss of community control and engagement. As CLTs become more well-established, they tend to stray from the community-controlled goals held during the creation of the trust by associating more with the private sector. CLTs are instead putting more of a focus on land acquisition and

wealth building as a way to receive funding, rather than focusing exclusively on keeping land and housing affordable.30 To overcome this challenge, members of CLTs and other types of collective ownership housing may consider holding semi-regular training sessions to reaffirm commitment to the tenets of their establishment. Hopefully this will result in keeping community control within trusts insteading of succumbing to pressures of the market.

Supply-side and demand-side subsidies are needed to increase the amount of housing stock available in the United States, but that is not enough. The design of neighborhoods, what types of uses they allow, and who residents think they should contain all need to shift. The field of urban planning, housing policy in particular, also needs to change to address these issues. Planners need to participate in more radical forms of planning, such as participatory planning and community organizing, to make these changes. They already have many solutions to the affordable housing crisis, as demonstrated by the multiple benefits of CLH as well as thousands of other studies. With the right amount of organizing, bottom-up approaches to planning can change people’s perceptions around housing, help bring new policies to state and federal governments, and end the current affordable housing crisis once and for all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kim (she/they) is currently a Master of Urban and Regional Planning student. She has a wide range of planning interests including housing, land use and zoning reform, urban design, historic preservation, geographic information systems, and environmental justice. They also attended Michigan for their undergraduate degree, earning a Bachelor of Art in Psychology and Urban Studies. In her free time, she enjoys volunteering at animal shelters and anything related to pop culture.

ENDNOTES

1. “Defining Housing Affordability,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research, August 14, 2017, https://www. huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-featdarticle-081417.html.

2. “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2022,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2022, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/ sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_ State_Nations_Housing_2022.pdf.

3. Annie Lowrey, “The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine,” The Atlantic, November 21, 2022, https:// www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/ us-housing-gap-cost-affordability-bigcities/672184/.

4. Lowrey, “The U.S. Needs More Housing.”

5. Emma Ockerman, “Institutional Investors have Bought Hundreds of Thousands of Homes, Many in Black Communities. Critics Say it’s Creating a ‘Generation of Renters,’” Market Watch, July 5, 2022, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ institutional-investors-have-bought-hundredsof-thousands-of-single-family-homes-many-inblack-communities-critics-say-its-creating-ageneration-of-renters-11656514935.

6. “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2022,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

7. Michael Manville, Paavo Monkkonen, and Michael Lens, “It’s Time to End Single-Family Zoning,” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (2020): 106-112.

8. Jim Hudson et al., “‘A Slow Build-Up of a History of Kindness’: Exploring the Potential of Community-Led Housing in Alleviating Loneliness,” Sustainability 13, no. 20 (2021); Katja Rusinovic, Marianne van Bochove, and Jolien van de Sande, “Senior Co-Housing in the Netherlands: Benefits and Drawbacks

for its Residents,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16, no. 19 (2019).

9. “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2022,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

10. “SB 9: The California H.O.M.E. Act,” California State Senate, accessed on April 7, 2023, https://focus.senate.ca.gov/sb9; Jelena G., “This Revolutionary New Zoning Law Could Help Solve Oregon’s Housing Crisis,” Consolidated Living, accessed on April 7, 2023, https://consolidatedliving.com/2021/12/13/ this-revolutionary-new-zoning-law-could-helpsolve-oregons-housing-crisis/; Justin Fox, “What Happened When Minneapolis Ended Single-Family Zoning,” Bloomberg. August 20, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ articles/2022-08-20/what-happened-whenminneapolis-ended-single-family-zoning.

11. Gregg Colburn, “The Use of Markets in Housing Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Housing Subsidy Programs,” Housing Studies 36, no. 1 (2021): 46-79.

12. Hudson et al., “‘A Slow Build-Up of a History of Kindness.’”

13. Darinka Czischke, Claire Carriou, and Richard Lang, “Collaborative Housing in Europe: Conceptualizing the Field,” Housing, Theory, and Society 37, no. 1 (2020): 1-9.

14. Hudson et al., “‘A Slow Build-Up of a History of Kindness.’”

15. Czischke, Carriou, and Lang, “Collaborative Housing in Europe.”

16. Jo Williams, “Predicting an American Future for Cohousing,” Futures 40, no. 3 (2008): 268-286.

17. James DeFilippis, Brian Stromberg, and Olivia R. Williams, “W(h)ither the Community in Community Land Trusts?,” Journal of Urban Affairs 40, no. 6 (2018): 755-769.

18. “The Characteristics of Housing Cooperatives,” National Cooperative Law

Center, accessed on December 17, 2022, https://nationalcooperativelawcenter. com/what-is-a-housing-cooperative/thecharacteristics-of-housing-cooperatives/.

19. Ivo Balmer and Jean-David Gerber, “Why are Housing Cooperatives Successful? Insights from Swiss Affordable Housing Policy,” Housing Studies 33, no. 3 (2018): 361-385.

20. Balmer and Gerber, “Why are Housing Cooperatives Successful?.”

21. Balmer and Gerber, “Why are Housing Cooperatives Successful?.”

22. Vanessa Brown Calder, “Zoning, Land-Use Planning, and Housing Affordability,” Cato Institute, October 18, 2017, https://www.cato. org/policy-analysis/zoning-land-use-planninghousing-affordability.

23. Balmer and Gerber, “Why are Housing Cooperatives Successful?.”

24. Balmer and Gerber, “Why are Housing Cooperatives Successful?.”

25. Zachary Lamb et al., “Resident-Owned Resilience: Can Cooperative Land Ownership Enable Transformative Climate Adaptation for Manufactured Housing Communities?,” Housing Policy Debate (2022): 1-23.

26. Lamb et al., “Resident-Owned Resilience.”

27. Rusinovic, van Bochove, and van de Sande, “Senior Co-Housing in the Netherlands.”

28. Hudson et al., “‘A Slow Build-Up of a History of Kindness.’”

29. Hudson et al., “‘A Slow Build-Up of a History of Kindness.’”

30. DeFilippis, Stromberg, and Williams, “W(h)ither the Community in Community Land Trusts?.”

DOTONBORI, JAPAN

MITCH HODIONO