The Agora Journal of Planning and Design is a student-run, peer-reviewed annual publication at the University of Michigan’s A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.
ISSN
2231-2823
COPYRIGHT
Agora Volume 19 2025, The Regents of the University of Michigan
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial-Share Alike 40 International License
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Inter Variable, Adobe Garamond Pro
PRINTING
Ulitho Ann Arbor, MI
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in this journal reflect only those of the individual authors and not those of the AGORA Journal of Urban Planning and Design. Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. All figures are created by authors unless otherwise noted.
Ashley E. Amey, Brooke Bulmash, Makenna Litteral, Nivedita Patel
social media, website, and outreach direction
Geoffrey Batterbee, Elyse Cote, Jordan Hunter
finance and fundraising direction
Jeewon Suh
layout editors
Shweta Chawda, Elyse Cote, Russell Lin, Nivedita Patel
contents
leisure over utility: bicycle design, class anxiety, and infrastructure in america
Alex Hull
the grid, grit, and monuments: unveiling the fabric of new york city’s urban dna
David N. Vega II
re-grand marais: reclaiming wetlands through density gradation & collective housing
Stephanie Dutan, Vanessa Lekaj & Patrick Wilton
the sharing economy and the commodification of housing: how the rise of short-term rentals affects local housing markets
Rebecca Griswold
rendering visibility: urban waste infrastructure of mumbai
Saloni Kapoor
missing mobile
Virginia Bassily, Haley Cope & Akshita Mandhyan
the camp as an urban space: implications for integrated settlements in east africa
Annie Lively
landscapes of iron: acknowledging and reimagining sites of extraction
Cameron Blakely, Yuchen Guo, Shane Herb & Srilaxmi Melkundi
michigan refugee housing crisis: refugee resettlement in the era of trump
Talia Morison-Allen
converging horizons: where nature meets the city
Nivedita Patel
tabletop role-playing games for community change
Parker Wise
public-private
a boon or bust for public infrastructure projects? Calvin
acknowledgements
The publication of Agora 19 was made possible by:
Taubman Endowment Fund
Student Affairs Director Kristen McDonough
Department of Student Affairs
We would like thank the following individuals for their time and expertise in conducting peer reviews for this years edition:
Dr. Lan Deng
Dr. Robert Goodspeed
Dr. Joe Grengs
Dr. Timothy Burke
Shubhayan Ukil
We would also like to give special thanks to our faculty advisors:
Dr. Scott Campbell
Dr. Julie Steiff
from the editors
The 19th edition of AGORA is focused on the concept of movement. More than just a byword for how we get from place to place, movement represents our access to a range of possibilities. Expanding options for movement expands an individual’s freedom of choice. Good urbanism and planning practices broaden an individual’s access to a greater range of possible outcomes through equitable, restorative, and accessible design.
This issue provides a contemporary and historical perspective on urban planning and design issues, with a guiding throughline of movement, as authored by a group of aspiring urban planners and designers. The concept of movement innately recognizes that places are more connected and alike than they may first appear. As such, contributions to this edition span the globe: an exploration of Mumbai’s waste management planning shares a common cover with a guide on how to enhance local public participation using tabletop role-playing games. Our four highlighted pieces, contained in our Symposium section, include two pieces exploring movement challenges affecting refugees in the U.S. and East Africa, and two pieces discussing movement through time — evolution and transformations — for communities in India and the Great Lakes region.
We are excited to share this edition with you, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make this possible. Without the amazing work and effort of our authors, board members, peer reviewers, layout designers, faculty advisors, and creative team, this journal would not have been possible. It truly is a team effort, and we could not have wished for a better group of contributors.
We hope you enjoy AGORA 19.
Rebecca Griswold & Calvin Blackburn Editors in Chief
Jessie Williams & Emma Berger Deputy Editors
from the faculty advisor
In 2006, an ambitious group of Michigan graduate planning students envisioned a new, student-run journal. Yes, there were skeptics: Wasn’t the era of print media over? Did students with their busy schedules even have time to run a journal — soliciting articles, recruiting collaborators, securing funding, and overseeing multiple rounds of edits?
Undeterred, this founding cohort persisted, publishing the first issue the following spring. For nearly two decades, this journal has evolved into a vital tradition within our urban planning program, shepherded yearly by a new student team of creative editors and staff. AGORA has become an essential activity of planning student life here at Michigan, along with the Urban Planning Student Association (UPSA), the Expanded Horizon trips, the LunchUP speaker series, the annual Martin Luther King Jr. event, and the capstone projects in Detroit.
At the end of each academic year, the current AGORA staff passes the baton to the next cohort, attracting (and cajoling) a remarkable and committed cadre of new staff. AGORA challenges students to carve out time beyond their studies and other commitments to bring this journal to life. It is a rare journal, notable for its substantive commitment to guiding contributing writers through collaborative editing and re-editing over a tight schedule. Importantly, the journal explores the power of writing, speculative design, and graphics as tools beyond the classroom.
I commend the editors’ decision to broaden this journal’s scope beyond urban planners to embrace diverse urbanist approaches, including urban design, architecture, environmentalism, and landscape architecture. The articles range from the richly historical to the immediate present to speculative futures, exploring scales from singular site-based projects to megacities, regions, and transnational processes. Some articles are grounded in existing community conditions, while others are more imaginatively speculative. Overall, one encounters here an open-mindedness, idealism, and courage to explore novel narratives and solutions to longstanding problems. This new generation of urbanists adeptly weaves themes of community, social inclusion, sustainability, and justice —be it social, economic, or climate — into their work. They carry on the vital tradition of planners, designers, and architects to critically examine an existing landscape — whether a megacity or a small town, refugee camp or abandoned industrial city — and not accept present conditions as fixed inevitabilities, but envision a multitude of possible better futures.
On behalf of all the urban planning faculty and staff, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the authors and editors for their tireless commitment to the journal and the ideals it represents. May the journal continue to thrive, evolve, and capture the voices and experiences of the next generation of urbanists.
Dr. Scott Campbell
Faculty Advisor, Associate Professor of Urban Planning
leisure over utility: bicycle design, class anxiety, and infrastructure in america
Alexander Hull Master of Urban and Regional Planning ‘26
ABSTRACT
Cycling rates and infrastructure quality in the United States are lower than those in countries with comparable levels of development, even in areas of the country particularly well suited to bicycle-based transportation. This article argues that class anxieties surrounding bicycle based transportation have shaped the designs of bicycles ridden in the United States, that these designs have influenced ridership behavior and socioeconomic characteristics, and that these characteristics have in turn influenced the development of American cycling infrastructure. This relationship between the class associations of bicycles, their design, and their neglect in transportation planning adds context to the conventional wisdom surrounding cycling’s decline, and provides insights that may prove useful when attempting to improve cycling in the United States.
INTRODUCTION
When urban planners discuss the low rates of cycling in North America, they often focus on the environment and infrastructure available to cyclists. Though these elements are important, the discussion does not include a key difference between cycling in North America and the rest of the world: bicycle design. Since the early 20th century, most bicycles in the United States have been designed to relieve class anxieties associated with active transportation through the use of design elements associated with motorized vehicles, modern technologies, and leisure riding. These design choices have influenced the behaviors of cyclists and noncyclists alike, discouraging the kind of utility cycling that cycling infrastructure is supposed to promote. The phrase “utility cycling” in this paper refers to nonrecreational cycling, with the bicycle acting as a tool to get from one place to another.
EVOLUTION OF THE BICYCLE
Invented in 1817, the first bicycle sought to replace horses with a simple design: two wooden wheels attached to a central beam for a rider to sit on while they pushed off the ground to move (Figure 1).1 Iterations on the original idea over the next fifty years were increasingly complex and produced a number of technologies crucial to modern life as by-products, including the pneumatic tire and radial ball bearings.2 In the late 1880s, this innovation process produced the modern bicycle: two wheels, a diamond-shaped frame, and a chain between a pair of sprockets that connected the pedals to the rear wheel (Figure 2).3 Prior to this new type of bicycle, the most popular design was the “ordinary bicycle”, more commonly called a penny farthing today. The large wheel of a penny farthing acted as a gear and as suspension, allowing the rider to travel faster and with more comfort, but they tended to throw their riders over the handlebars during sudden stops, and the high riding position meant that the falls were very dangerous. The chain drive of the first iteration of the modern bicycle allowed for speeds comparable to the penny farthing without the risk, and so it was called a “safety bicycle.” While the design has been refined since then, the basic characteristics remain
the same today. Safer and more easily manufactured than its predecessors, this new design drove a decadelong boom in United States bicycle ridership4 throughout the 1890s.
CLASS-MARKED CYCLES
Due to the rise of alternatives like cars and motorcycles, the market for bikes crashed at the beginning of the 20th century. Prior to the 1890s, bicycles were luxury items often made by hand, and their costs reflected the high labor cost and advanced technologies present in them. Prior to the boom, bicycle ownership was mostly limited to middle class men for whom bicycle ownership was a conspicuous consumption, and most riders rode for leisure.5 In the wake of the boom, although bikes became cheaper and more widely used, a new form of class-marked transportation began to gain popularity: motorized vehicles. Many of the early adopters – key drivers of the bicycle’s popularity –moved on.6 At the same time, the American public
Figure 1: A balance bicycle
Figure 2: The prototypical bycicle design
began to associate cycling with lower class workers, who in turn reduced their rates of cycling7 to reflect their aspirations for higher class status. This association dramatically strengthened as cars and motorcycles became more widely available and the United States rebuilt its physical and social infrastructure to encourage adoption, making it even more difficult for cycling to regain its status as a regular mode of transport.
Class anxiety was a major reason for the early collapse of cycling in the US, and the negative class associations with the transportation method persist today. In the years since the first bike bust, cyclists and the cycling industry sought to distance utility cycling from associations with poverty, primarily through the design of bicycles themselves. This distancing though design was achieved in two primary ways: bicycles built for children and bicycles built for recreation.
DESIGNED FOR CHILDREN
After the crash in demand, bicycles in the United States eventually came to be regarded as children’s toys, to be ridden before kids could legally drive cars and motorcycles. Bicycle design reflected this: instead of the functional and efficient designs prominent at the turn of the century, most of the bicycles sold in the 1950s were designed to resemble motorcycles.8 These “balloon bikes” were characterized by a pseudo gas tank top tube, a laid back riding position, and the fat tires that gave the bikes their name. One notable example, the 1955 Huffy radiobike, took advantage of the extra space in the top tube to include a vacuum
tube radio, with batteries mounted on the rear rack (Figure 3). These design elements made the bikes heavy and slow, roughly 20 pounds heavier than comparably sized utility bicycles,9 limiting their functionality for anything other than cruising around the neighborhood.
Designers drew from motorcycle design vernacular primarily because by the time bicycle manufacturers began to focus their marketing efforts on children, motorized transportation had become something that most working adults were expected to have access to. This access in the form of cars and motorcycles quickly became a mandatory prerequisite for full participation in American life as cities, homes, and society began to reshape themselves to accommodate these new technologies. While they had initially been primarily status symbols, this rapid expansion of highway infrastructure and the growth of the suburbs eventually turned cars into objects of “compulsory consumption.”10 While this means that not all modern vehicles function as status symbols, it does mean that riding a bicycle instead of driving a car functions almost as an anti-status symbol.
Figure 4: A Huffy Wheel bicycle with car-like features
Figure 3: A 1955 Huffy radiobike
In this context, driving is both a symbol of maturity and an indication of full participation in society. To lessen the stigma associated with adult utility cycling, bicycle manufacturers created bicycles resembling vehicles and marketed them towards children. Examples of these kinds of designs abound; one of the most extreme was the Huffy Wheel, which included a top tube shifter-style brake and steering wheel instead of handlebars (Figure 4). While the production of these bikes was stopped in 1972 by the FDA for being safety hazards,11 this fundamentally non-functional design indicated the degree to which American car culture subsumed bicycles, only deeming them valuable as precursors to cars and motorcycles. While bicycles for adults were still manufactured and sold, they represented merely 12 percent of total market share in 1969,12 and only a portion of those sales were utility bicycles.
BICYCLES DESIGNED FOR SUPPORT
Despite the strong cultural and class pressures discouraging bicycle ridership, a new cycling boom took shape in the early 1970s. One major factor contributing to the boom was a type of bicycle unfamiliar to Americans, imported from Europe: racing bikes, with brands like Bianchi and Peugeot that evoked high-performance European sports cars such as Ferrari and Porsche. This cultural pedigree was so significant that it came to the movies: a major plot point of the 1979 movie Breaking Away was the technical and, therefore, social superiority of European bicycles and cyclists. Designed for racing rather than cruising, this new style of bike was lighter, sportier, and equipped with a new 10-gear system that enabled even greater speeds.
Despite these bikes’ association with European racing, the primary movers of this second boom in bicycle ridership were environmentally conscious college students who wanted to use this rediscovered technology to end overreliance on personal automobiles and reduce pollution.13 The primarily white and affluent baby boomers advocated for better bike infrastructure like cycling highways and dedicated
lanes to facilitate greater ridership because of the environmental benefits of cycling over automobiles. For a brief period from 1972 to 1974, serious plans were made by municipalities and the federal government to give the activists what they wanted: dedicated and protected bike lanes like those in Europe. Examples of this support included $120 million designated for bikeway construction from the Federal-Aid Highway Act in 197314 and a 1971 bill in Oregon that devoted one percent of state transportation funding to bicycles.15
Then, as suddenly as it began, the second bike boom ended, and with it much of its associated activism. The exact timing of the collapse is debated, but sales declined from 1973-1974, and the boom was definitively over by 1975, with total sales falling to pre-bike boom levels. Lowered purchasing power due to the 1973 oil crisis and the passing of a bicycle fad are potential causes of this decline, but it is unclear what actually drove the downturn. Despite the collapse and whatever its origin, the distribution of the US cycling market had permanently shifted toward adult riders. In 1975, the number of adult and children’s bikes sold were roughly equal.16 Ultimately, while the boom had a limited effect on cycling infrastructure, it created a handful of dedicated bicycle activists in the form of committed sports cyclists, and its most significant legacy was that it made the “10-speed” the quintessential adult bike.
SPORTS ORIENTED BICYCLES VS UTILITY BICYCLES: MATERIALITY AND CLASS
The average person riding a bicycle for utility needs comfort, reliability, and affordability. The utility bicycle meets these needs, which is why it is ubiquitous worldwide. It has an upright riding posture, a simple and reliable drivetrain, and a generally sturdy construction. In the U.S., they are often called “dutch bicycles,” reflecting the northern European inspiration of many cycling advocates, even though they are found everywhere. The most common model is built by the Chinese state-owned Flying Pigeon, which has produced the same bicycle, the PA-02 (Figure 5), for
over 70 years, with 500 million made since 1950.17 This type of utility cycle is rare only in the US. Instead, as a result of the long absence of cycling as an adult activity between 1910 and 1970, sports-oriented bicycles (Figure 6) dominate the adult cycling market.
Despite the dramatic shift in bicycle designs that occurred during the bike boom of the 1970s, the fundamental orientation towards cycling in the United States remained the same: cycling was only acceptable if riders were doing it for a reason other than transportation. The 10-speed that drove much of the increased sales during the second bike boom was not designed to be comfortable, reliable, or affordable, but to be fast. Due to US consumer preference for recreational bicycles, the drivetrain and the riding position of American bicycles are significantly different from the utility cycles ridden in the rest of the world. These differences are present even in bicycles marketed as utility cycles, such as city or hybrid bicycles.
Much like the drivetrain in a car, a bicycle’s drivetrain allows the bicycle’s engine (the rider) to spin (or pedal) at similar rotations per minute no matter what speed the bicycle is traveling at. In utility bicycles, this is accomplished by a system inside the rear wheel called an internal gear hub. This shifting system requires very little maintenance because the shifting mechanism is completely enclosed in a protective shell, and it allows the rider to shift when they are stopped, a very convenient characteristic for riding in the stop-andgo traffic found in urban areas. Sport bicycles use a derailleur-based drivetrain, in which a cable actuates a
flexing mechanism that moves the bike chain between different sprockets, making pedaling easier or harder. The main advantage of a derailleur-based shifting system is that when it is well-maintained, the pedaling efficiency is much higher than that of a hub-based shifting system. However, derailleurs require much higher maintenance levels, break more easily, and cannot shift when the bike is not moving, making them more costly and difficult to use, especially in cities. The increased complexity of derailleurs also adds to the cost of a bike, driving up the cost of a functional, basic bike and driving down the functionality of affordable ones.
The other significant difference between the 10-speed and the utility bicycle is the riding position. On a utility bicycle, the rider is upright, with most of their weight supported by the seat. This position allows them to easily turn their head and assess their surroundings without disturbing their balance and relieves pressure on their hands and wrists. This riding position increases comfort both physically and mentally. On a 10-speed bicycle, however, the riding position is more optimized for speed and aerodynamics (Figure 7). The rider is bent over their bars, increasing their wrist strain and requiring more effort to support their cantilevered body. This posture also limits the ability of the rider to look around and assess their surroundings for hazards. Given that utility cyclists are not usually riding at high enough speeds to justify the 10-speed’s aerodynamic riding posture, and because there is no other way to safely ride the bike without losing access to the brakes(located at the far edge of the handlebars), the
Figure 6: A typical sports-oriented bicycle design
Figure 5: The Flying Pigeon PA-02
10-speed design presents a basic comfort issue for utility cyclists and inhibits non-sports riders.
THE ABSENCE OF UTILITY CYCLING OPTIONS
In the same way that cycling was viewed as a way for children to prepare for driving a car in the 1950s, cycling after the 1970s bike boom came to be viewed as a purely recreational activity for adults as well as children. Despite its design advantages for cyclists less concerned with speed, the utility bicycle never gained the same amount of popularity as sport-oriented bicycles in the United States (a market that eventually diversified to include mountain bikes). Consciously or unconsciously, American consumers chose to purchase bicycles that were just as bad for utility cycling as their predecessors, a continued reflection of America’s class anxieties over bikes.
This trend has continued for the past fifty years. Today, in the United States, of the four most prominent bike brands, Trek, Specialized, Giant, and Cannondale, only Cannondale sells a bike that is not motorized and has an internal hub shifter system. It is called the “Bad Boy” to compensate for its utilitarian hub shifter, and it has the forward leaning riding posture characteristic of mountain bikes. Described by Cannondale as having “elegantly aggressive style,” it is outfitted with “urban armor” and a “wild lefty fork with integrated light strip.”18 It also costs $2,325. Every other “city” bike sold in the US by these brands has the combination of derailleur drivetrain and forward posture, which are emblematic of the hybrid bikes common in this country. Bicycles sold by large retailers like Wal-Mart have similar characteristics, but in order to make these bikes affordable to consumers, the manufacturing quality is so poor that bicycle mechanics call them BSOs —short for “bike shaped objects”— whose maintenance costs can equal their initial price.
Looking at the “urban” focused bikes in Trek”s product line, the orientation toward sports is clear, a reflection of how dominant this design ethos is in the US. For example, with Trek”s most popular urban bike, the FX, which the company describes as an “urban fitness
bike.” As the consumer ascends the product line in cost, the design becomes more and more sportoriented, moving from a generic aluminum hybrid bicycle with a derailleur and forward posture to a full carbon sports bike, almost identical to the bikes in Trek’s gravel cycling line, resembling a road bike with wide tires. Both of the more affordable and more expensive models of this bike have some of the same design issues as the 10-speed when evaluated from a utility perspective. Furthermore, the Trek sales training actually encourages upselling along the product line, making it clear that the bicycles, presented to aspiring cyclists as suitable for both commutes and fitness, are actually intended to encourage customers to purchase sportier and more expensive bikes. While this approach reflects the fundamentally sports-oriented perspective of the industry, consumers also drive this phenomenon through their association of quality with sports bicycle characteristics like the number of gears. As an example, Trek, which sells utility bikes in its European markets, has repeatedly attempted to sell those same utility bikes in the United States without success due to a lack of consumer demand.
It should be noted though, that even cyclists not oriented towards sports cycling also express class anxiety through their bicycles, often through expensive and subculture-specific customizations. Notable examples include the lowriders, which are heavily modified and decorated bikes loosely based on the balloon bikes and children’s bikes of the 50s and 60s, and the more recent online “xbiking” community, which favors bespoke or refurbished frames and highly aestheticized accessories. Both communities elevate their bikes above mere forms of transport associated with poverty through aesthetic modifications and their associated displays of wealth. Despite their apparent visual distance from sports-oriented bicycle designs, the underlying thought process driving the customizations is the same.
EFFECTS OF UTILITARIAN DESIGN
All of the aforementioned bicycle designs, from the balloon bikes of the 50s to the 10-speed and later its mountain and road descendents, are both desirable to consumers because of their implied lack of utility and useless to them because of it. These designs serve more as a barrier to entry for people unfamiliar with cycling than as a way to encourage new riders. When the average person looks to purchase a new bike, they are subjected to a stream of technical lingo intended to upsell sportier and pricier models that offer few benefits. These barriers to entry — in the form of physical discomfort and marketing — self-select for a certain class of person. This archetypal cyclist is predominantly white, male, and college-educated.19 There are a range of subtypes, including flannel hipsters and spandex-clad white-collar workers (anecdotally, dentists) — pejoratively called “mamils” (middle-aged men in lycra) — but the base demographics of these subcultures are the same.
In a manner similar to that of the balloon bikes popular before it, the 10-speed’s design was popular because it indicated that the rider was not riding out of need but out of desire. Because it became popular among adults after a long period in which cycling was only acceptable for children, it cultivated its own, unique cycling culture in the United States. As the more utility-minded cyclists motivated by environmental concerns stopped cycling, this culture came to value the things the 10-speed facilitated: speed and exercise. Riders then continuously replicated these aspects of the 10-speed, further entrenching sports cycling as the dominant American form. The resulting cultural and physical barriers to potential riders more interested in transportation was not intentional. Still, they did serve to suppress more utilitarian forms of biking through new product designs and the ramifications of those designs, creating a feedback loop in which the only kind of good bicycle in the American imagination was one designed for sport.
CYCLISTS AGAINST BIKE INFRASTRUCTURE
While sports cyclists were not the primary roadblocks to improved cycling infrastructure in the US, their prominence in discussions regarding the implementation of new infrastructure served to suppress its expansion, by the time the bike boom died down in 1975, bike activists and traffic engineers alike believed that ideal bike infrastructure would mirror the kind present in the Netherlands, with separated bicycle paths and clear signage and rules.20 However, this infrastructure was costly to develop economically and politically since it required removing space from cars or pedestrians. With reduced levels of cycling popularity in the late 1970s, many municipalities felt less inclined to follow through on bicycle infrastructure promises,21 but they needed justification to do so. At this point, the views of a prominent cycling activist, John Forester, began to gain attention due to his formalization of existing sports cycling safety practices, which he referred to as “vehicular cycling.” Vehicular cycling is the practice of riding a bicycle on the road as if the rider were a car, and while other cycling advocates regarded this practice as the unfortunate outcome of a lack of infrastructure, Forester preferred it. Forester believed that sharing the road was faster for cyclists, and access to dedicated bike paths would infringe on cyclists’ freedom of movement.22 To support vehicular cycling, a local government only needed to let cyclists ride on the roads, where their assertiveness and speed would allow them more safety and agency.
The vehicular cycling movement was and remains fundamentally oriented against dedicated bike lanes. For instance, in a 2007 blog post published by the prominent cycling mechanic Sheldon Brown about Bogota’s new cycling infrastructure, the author takes issue with a video promoting the new bike lanes, arguing that education and destigmatization were more effective ways of improving cycling rates and that infrastructure alone was likely to fail. However, the data support the pro-cycling infrastructure position; as of 2019, Bogota was one of the top cycling cities in the world, with a modal share of nine percent.23 He characterizes the position of pro infrastructure
advocates as follows: “We cyclists simply cannot be expected to know anything about traffic! Even though we have passed written road exams and hold driver’s licenses, we’re just too dumb to learn how to operate a bicycle in traffic! (How absurd!)”24 This position is characteristic of vehicular cycling proponents: a recreational cycling perspective that claims infrastructure is useless at best and oppressive at worst. Like many of his fellow “proficient cyclists,” Forester, a suburbanite who cycled for recreation and sport, advocated for a cycling policy that prioritized speed and autonomy over apparent safety.
Despite these fundamental flaws in the arguments put forward by vehicular cycling advocates, they presented governments on every scale with an easy way out of infrastructure construction. In 1974, the federal government amended the Department of Transportation (DOT) bike infrastructure guidelines and defunded bikeway construction projects, while mayors across the US quietly dropped bike infrastructure from their goals.25 In 1981, under the influence of Forester, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials officially denounced separated bike lanes as a solution to the needs of bicycle riders.26 In this instance, recreational cyclists, riding their trusty 10-speeds, provided intellectual cover for the government, allowing it to defund dedicated bike lanes, and popularized a perspective that placed the blame for accidents on poorly-educated riders, as opposed to the infrastructure systems that facilitated collisions. Vehicular cycling remains a common behavior in the US out of necessity, due to the lack of dedicated cycling infrastructure and the reasonable resistance of would-be-cyclists to share space with increasingly large cars at high speeds at incredible personal risk contributes to lower rates of ridership.
A NEW EMPHASIS ON INFRASTRUCTURE
While cycling advocates had intentionally and inadvertently hampered the expansion of dedicated bike infrastructure for 40 years, by 2010, the vehicular cycling paradigm had begun to decline, and many
major American cities began installing 27 bike lanes. This new expansion was driven by a new rationale. While the cycling advocates of the 1970s bike boom primarily saw cycling as a solution to problems created by cars, new cycling advocates focused instead on the positive impact of placemaking and bike lanes on local economies.28 The proliferation of Citi Bikes (easily accessible rental utility bicycles) in major metro areas across the US is representative of the shift in thought. Bikes also promised a relatively affordable way to increase city density without also increasing car traffic and parking requirements.29
Shifting city demographics also contributed to a renewed emphasis on bike infrastructure. While historically white, middle-class people — those most likely to be bike advocates — traditionally moved towards the suburbs as they accumulated wealth, cities realized that expanding bike infrastructure was a good way to both attract these creative class individuals to the city and retain them, strengthening their tax base. These arguments, new to the United States, appealed to many of the pro-business, socially liberal mayors of large cities. However, to many urban residents of color, bike infrastructure and cyclists were an indicator of gentrification.30 While, in theory, expanded bike infrastructure would have a positive impact on poorer communities by providing them safer and more affordable ways to move around their cities, the association of bike lanes with gentrification led to understandable resistance from local communities. Additionally, increased policing of infrastructure in order to ensure safe habits was and is likely to result in interactions with the police, which is especially dangerous for riders of color.31
The association of biking with whiteness and wealth is unfortunate because while white and wealthy riders are by far the most visible demographic of riders, they do not represent a majority of riders.32 Many riders who use bikes as their sole transportation experience a kind of double discrimination: they lack access to protective physical infrastructure because of the arguments of wealthier sports-oriented cyclists, and they only have access to the poorly-constructed imitations of sports bikes, increasing the financial burden of riding.
CONCLUSION
When discussing and designing infrastructure for motorized vehicles, planners usually do not need to take much into account of differences between types of vehicles. Road design and law determine their use, not vehicle design, performance capacities, or cultural positioning. When the speed limit on a highway is 65 miles an hour, it doesn’t matter whether a car is a Ferrari or Honda. Similarly, from the perspective of someone driving on a city street at 30 miles an hour, their vehicle isn’t significantly altering their driving behavior. This is not the case for bicycles: because they are piloted and powered by their riders, subtle design differences can significantly impact rider behaviors. Weight, riding position, and maintenance requirements can all significantly impact cyclists’ behavior and the likelihood that people ride bicycles at all. Discussions of cycling infrastructure cannot be divorced from discussions of the bicycles people ride and their cultural and class associations. In the United States, consumers seem to prefer to buy bikes that they won’t like to ride. These unpleasant-to-ride bicycles look the way they do because riding a bike purely for utility is culturally positioned as lower class, so people want to ride something that gives them plausible deniability of economic necessity.
This cultural positioning exists in everything people interact with, but it is especially potent when tied to urban planning issues. The places people live, the type of homes they live in, and the way they move around are all deeply tied to economic status, and people choose their lifestyles partially based on their associated class status. Places with the dense, walkable urban form many planners aspire to today have these features in part because the people living there consider living in apartments and using public transit or cycling normal, middle class things to do. In places where cycling is associated with poverty, like the United States and much of the developing world, people are replacing their bikes with motorized transportation as soon as possible.
In the U.S., the cycling culture has historically resisted the implementation of bike infrastructure in an attempt to protect the type of riding behavior that indicates voluntary recreational cycling. This complicates the conventional understanding within the broader cycling community that car-focused infrastructure and urban sprawl are the sole sources of low cycling rates in the US. However, it is possible that improving the level of infrastructure for cycling planners can serve to legitimize utility cycling and open up space for people to ride bikes that are more appropriate for casual use. The rebranding of one of Bogota’s other transit success stories, the TransMilenio bus rapid transit system, is instructive: the success of the project wasn’t only a result of the improved infrastructure but also the increased status of the bus riders themselves. Above all, planners need to understand how design influences sociocultural positioning and that people’s feelings about the spaces they inhabit and use can be as influential as the actual functionality of those spaces themselves.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Hull is an Ann Arbor nativ and a first year Master’s student of Urban and Regional Planning. He studied public policy at Michigan State, focusing on Indian cities and class politics before attending Taubman College. During his undergraduate studies, he worked as a bicycle mechanic, where he gained an appreciation for the impacts of transportation infrastructure on bicycle riders. After spending time in both India and Denmark learning about their planning practices, he is interested in applying those practices to an American context, when possible.
ENDNOTES
1. David V. Herlihy. Bicycle: The History. Yale University Press, 2004, 21.
2. Herlihy, Bicycle: The History, 185.
3. Herlihy, Bicycle: The History, 235.
4. Evan Friss. The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890s. Historical Studies of Urban America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015, 11.
5. Friss, The Cycling City, 14.
6. Friss, The Cycling City, 195.
7. Friss, The Cycling City, 195.
8. Judith Crown, and Glenn Coleman. No Hands: The Rise and Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company: An American Institution. 1. ed. New York: Holt, 1996, 29.
9. Crown and Coleman. No Hands, 313.
10. Lutz, Catherine. “The U.S. Car Colossus and the Production of Inequality.” American Ethnologist, vol. 41, no. 2, 2014, pp. 232–45
11. Grace Lichtenstein, “Rise in Bicycle Mishaps Prompts U. S. Standards”, The New York Times, July 14th, 1972.
12. Kenneth D. Cross. “Bicycle Safety Education - Facts and Issues.” AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, August 1978, 7.
13. Carlton Reid. Bike Boom : The Unexpected Resurgence of Cycling. 1st ed. 2017., Island Press/Center for Resource Economics : Imprint: Island Press, 2017, 112.
14. Covington & Burling. Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 and Highway Safety Act of 1973: Public Law 93-87 (August 13, 1973) 87 Stat. 250. [Washington, D.C.]: [Covington & Burling], 1973.
15. ORS 366.514
16. Cross. “Bicycle Safety Education - Facts and Issues.”, 7.
17. Dan Koeppel. “Flight of the Pigeon”. Bicycling. Vol. 48, no. 1. Rodale. pp. 60–66, 60.
18. “Bad Boy 1,” Cannondale, last modified February 23, 2025, https://www.cannondale.com/en-us/bikes/active/urban/bad-boy/ bad-boy-1
19. John G. Stehlin. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City : Bicycle Infrastructure and Uneven Development. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019, 168.
20. Carlton Reid. Bike Boom, 135.
21. Carlton Reid. Bike Boom, 148.
22. Forester, John. Effective Cycling. 7th ed., MIT Press, 2012, xix.
23. “Bogotá,” Copenhagenize, June 27, 2019, https:// copenhagenizeindex.eu/cities/bogota/
24. Tom Revay, “Physically Separated Bike Lanes,” Sheldon Brown, May 24, 2007, https://www.sheldonbrown.com/physicallyseparated-bike-lanes.html
25. Carlton Reid. Bike Boom, 148.
26. Schultheiss, William, Rebecca L. Sanders, and Jennifer Toole. 2018. “A Historical Perspective on the AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities and the Impact of the Vehicular Cycling Movement.” Transportation Research Record 2672 (13): 38–49, 10.
27. Stehlin. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City, 1.
28. Gehl, Jan. Cities for People. Washington, DC: Island Press. 2010, 189.
29. Stehlin. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City, 85.
30. Stehlin. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City, 86.
31. Stehlin. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City, 78.
32. Stehlin. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City, xix.
the grid, grit, and monuments: unveiling the fabric of new york city’s urban dna
David N. Vega II Master of Architecture and Urban Design ‘26
ABSTRACT
New York City’s urban form is defined by the unique tensions between its structured grid and its complex communities. Through this text, I will explore how New York City’s physical layout, historical planning decisions, and cultural landscapes have been, and continue to be, shaped by systems of power, exclusion, and migration across the city’s territories. By focusing on the interplay between the grid, public monuments, and neighborhood identities, this analysis will reveal how formal elements and collective infrastructure have served as instruments of control or division and as spaces for resistance and reclamation.
Drawing from critical texts such as The Power Broker, The99%InvisibleCity:AFieldGuidetotheHidden WorldofEverydayDesign, and Manhattan’s Public
Spaces:Production,Revitalization,Commodification, to critique how the urban form has both reinforced social fragmentation and fostered new movements for equal access and inclusion founded from both communities and cultures. Focusing on the risk of erasure, which accompanies efforts of inclusion and memorialization, one must examine how places, spaces, and culture are remembered or overlooked. A central catalyst for this exploration is the emergence of new frameworks and grassroots initiatives like South Bronx Unite, which have redefined community resistance and land reclamation. By reconsidering the city’s architectural and social evolution, this analysis argues that New York’s built environment reflects past inequalities and serves as a promising context for transformation, driven by the cultural grit and resilience that has long defined the city and its people.
INTRODUCTION
The unique urban form of New York City (NYC) reflects a complex interplay of its physical structure and the sociopolitical fabrics that define its history. New York City embodies this paradoxical reality—a grid of rigid geometry at times masking the organic vibrancy of its communities. Famously, E.B. White described Manhattan as “the greatest human concentrate on Earth,” capturing the dynamism of a city built on compression and juxtaposition of people, culture, and built forms.1 However, this duality has come at a significant price—historic economic inequality, displacement, and environmental degradation. Times of hardship occurred when the city felt like a potential target for looming Cold War Threats, and this sentiment remains relevant today, as many cultures and places are vulnerable to the economic and structural power dynamics looming to eradicate those within them.
To investigate and highlight NYC’s particular urban evolution, we must consider the following: (1) the foundational role of the grid plan in the expansion of urban development, (2) how monuments exist as markers of memory and erasure, and (3) the distinct formalizing of cultural fabrics within the neighborhoods. By analyzing New York through these lenses, we can understand the urban form as a tool for inclusivity and equal opportunity, regardless of historical constraints. From post-war housing to collective infrastructure to the sites of civic and political activation, historical insights from sources such as The Power Broker,2 South Bronx Rising,3 The Intimate City,4 and The 99% Invisible City5 highlight how the city’s physical planning is deeply intertwined with systems of power, migration, and inequalities.
New York assumed its place at the top of the world’s urban hierarchy following the inception of the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan for a gridded one of a kind “megacity,” as Robert Fishman—professor of architecture and urban planning at the University of Michigan—articulates in the preface of Ana Morcillo Pallares’s Manhattan’s Public Spaces: Production, Revitalization, Commodification.6 In modern redevelopments, elements reveal how formal systems
shape cultural identities, ecological relationships, and spatial justice paradigms while simultaneously fragmenting natural and social connections. Some may argue that the city’s history of fragmentation and exclusion is counterbalanced by the collective efforts to reclaim ownership and inclusion. Understanding multifaceted generational movements demonstrates how civic bodies and forms can empower NYC citizens to reclaim ownership and maintain inclusivity while also providing suggestions for the future of urban practice and mediation.
THE GRID AS STRUCTURE
THE JEFFERSONIAN GRID.
Following the American Revolutionary War, the United States faced significant debt while possessing vast new territories to subdivide, allocate, and occupy.7 During this time, Thomas Jefferson proposed a solution to address both challenges—the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), which was a method of surveying enacted by the Land Ordinance of 1785. This initiative introduced the “Jeffersonian Grids,” an experimental method of dividing large sections of land in an organized, rigorous, and systematic manner. The plan involved rapidly selling undeveloped land to American colonists and using the proceeds to settle with creditors. The foundation of this proposition was the establishment of 36-square-mile townships subdivided into equal-sized individual plots that enabled standardized and faster sales while prioritizing small-scale republics of landowners.8 Parceling uniform plots—a concept drawing inspiration from the British “metes and bounds” system—has inspired today’s design standards, but during the American colonization period, this was an unprecedented utilization of the concept. By 1811, the Commissioners’ Plan for NYC adopted the same organizational logic with an intensity of rigidity and control, establishing a new plan and landscape of the city, allowing the transformation of Manhattan into the globally renowned “mega-city” 9 we recognize today.
THE LEGACY OF THE COMMISSIONERS’ PLAN.
The 1811 Commissioners’ Plan transformed Manhattan into a prototype of rapid urbanization, redefining its rigid grid structure as the framework that prioritized private land commodification over public access (Figure 1). With more than 14,000 acres, only 3.5 percent—approximately 500 acres—was set aside for public open spaces, thereby emphasizing the utilitarian vision that enabled economic growth while simultaneously alienating the city’s ecological systems and community dynamics.10 Focusing on the quantity of expansion rather than quality, the standardized logic of integrating large open spaces with magnificent buildings facilitated the city’s expansion and constrained its capacity for equality of space and adaptability. When shaping the framework of the mostly unoccupied Manhattan Island, the commissioners’ plan reflected a stark contrast to New York City’s pluralistic character and preference for private over public interests. North of the original 17th-century Dutch settlement, the Commissioners openly prioritized a simple, pragmatic design that they estimated would encourage rapid city-building and rising land values. Nevertheless, despite its rigid structure, the grid was later “embellished” by some of the most outstanding public spaces in the history of urban design, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s Central Park in 1858, in particular.11
AD COELUM: NYC GRID AS MATRIX.
The legal principle of ad coelum—shortened from the Latin phrase cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos (“he who owns the soil owns everything above and below, from heaven to hell”)—has shaped property law by granting landowners rights not only to the land but also to the infinite vertical column above and below the ground since the 13th century.12 Intuitive in its simplicity, this principle has historically played a potent role in shaping ownership frameworks, particularly in a city as vertically and spatially complex as New York. However, modern developments have gradually refined the concept of ad coelum, challenging its previously unquestioned dominance.
In the 20th century, the rise of the aviation industry prompted the United States government to legislate limits on airspace ownership, with laws such as the Contract Air Mail Act of 1925 and the Air Commerce Act of 1926, to ensure aircraft could traverse skies that were once considered private property.13
In the 20th century, the rise of the aviation industry prompted the United States government to legislate limits on airspace ownership, with laws such as the Contract Air Mail Act of 1925 and the Air Commerce Act of 1926, to ensure aircraft could traverse skies that were once considered private property. Similarly, mineral, water, littoral, and riparian—over bodies of
Figure 1:“NYC Grid Master Plan from 1811.”
water—rights have eroded the notion of ad inferos, or ownership of everything below the surface, further complicating the concept and legal ownership model.
In NYC, the principle of ad coelum faces unique challenges within the deep intricacies of the urban fabric. From towering skyscrapers to the smallest of parks, the city’s design and the abstractions of ownership derived from this principle have significantly dictated how we move and inhabit spaces within the city, however, for those who reside in boroughs like the Bronx, where the majority are renters rather than homeowners, owning land and its vertical or subterranean extensions is not just unattainable but also entirely irrelevant. Moreover, in a city already “bought and owned:” the ad coelum principle ceases to exist as a meaningful notion for the majority, highlighting the stark inequities of ownership and access embedded within NYC’s landscape.
EXPERIENCING THE GRID.
Due to its rigidity, the NYC grid is deeply felt by those who traverse it. As noted in The Intimate City,14 walking Manhattan reveals striking juxtapositions that shape the city’s physical, sensorial, and emotional experiences—curbs vs. skyscrapers, cracked concrete jungles, and rich community spaces. The grid’s physical structure invites reflection and demonstrates how urban topographies resist the imposition of form to offer moments of spontaneity and connection.
A walker in NYC registers topography through their body. Hills and valleys interrupt the grid’s uniformity, and the walker can physically register the city’s natural contours that neither the lengths of avenue blocks nor the inclined streets of the New York grid can fully efface.15 To walk Manhattan is to engage with the planned and the organic, the towering and the grounded, the noise and the unexpected quiet. The grid may dictate the layout, but the lived experience embodies the city’s persona: a complex, dynamic interplay of persons, cultures, sounds, smells, and sights constantly shifting, the essence of New York’s contradictions.
CASE STUDY: CROSS BRONX EXPRESSWAY
Examined in Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York,16 top-down proposals urge the grid to evolve and adapt for the accelerated age of the automobile. As much as canals and trolleys shaped NYC’s original forms, cars today dictate the shape of the urban form of many US contexts. A combination of aggressive programs of urban renewal, “slum” clearance, and infrastructure construction, made possible by policies such as the 1956 FederalAid Highway Act, were instrumental in bringing the railroad city into a modern automobile age.17 The urban renewal of NYC and many other cities, framed as a path to progress and modernization, has historically come at a great cost to predominantly African American and Hispanic communities. In areas like the South Bronx, East Tremont, and Harlem, urban renewal projects have driven waves of displacement, systematically erasing the sociocultural structures these communities weaved over generations.18 The act of federally funded urban renewal left both physical and social scars, which are encoded in the DNA of the Bronx.19
Robert Moses’ Cross Bronx Expressway is a testament to how the grid, wielded without regard for human impact, became a tool of destruction (Figure 2). Proposed in 1946, 627 miles of road sliced through vibrant neighborhoods of urban fabric, demolishing thousands of apartments, eviscerating a dozen communities, and displacing over 60,000 people in the name of transportation and infrastructure. “Within just one mile...54 apartment buildings were cleared, displacing families.”20 The execution would prove to be equally outrageous as residents were given 90 days to relocate from the so-called right of way. Meanwhile, the pressures of economic hardships made affordable renting rates scarce. Lilian Edelstein, a resident of the East Tremont neighborhood in the South Bronx, was one of thousands displaced despite presenting a more technical and feasible engineered alternative to Moses’ proposed plan. Regardless of the fight, 159 buildings were condemned, incurring $10 million more than the proposed fee, without accounting for the cost of
relocated families and cities’ loss of real estate taxes of around $200,000 per year.
MONUMENTS AS MEMORY AND ERASURE
This pattern of displacement and erasure extends beyond neighborhoods and physical buildings to the very symbols of NYC; the monuments of culture that reflect a curated history often overlook the voices and struggles of displaced communities. This phenomenon is sometimes described as “erasure by inclusion” in reference to Gealese Peebles’s theories surrounding the many figures who have suffered in the shadow of simultaneous acknowledgments and exclusion, with a particular focus on architect Norma Merrick Sklarek.23
CIVIC IDENTITY AND PUBLIC MONUMENTS.
Originally built to commemorate a presidential inauguration, the site of Washington Square park has evolved and been historically transformed into a dynamic site of public protest and civic engagement, embodying the tension between static memory and evolving uses of public space. The site, originally intended as a potter’s field or burial ground, was converted to a public park in 1826.24 1889, the connection to Washington was made when the monolithic Washington Arch was erected at the park entrance. The following generations have utilized the park and arch as a hub of political expression and activism, from the labor marches of the early 1900s
to the social justice movements of the present.25 Arguably, Washington Square Park and many of NYC’s inconspicuous monuments or public spaces have played a pivotal role in social-political agendas within the city’s history. The duality highlights how monuments, often seen as enduring symbols, can inadvertently evolve and become sites of advocacy and activation by the civic body, reinterpreting their original use or meaning.
From built form to individual identity, New York’s monuments can serve as markers of the concretizing of countless painted faces of icons whose narratives have also become forgotten. Audrey Munson, once celebrated as our “Miss Manhattan,” was the most sought-after artist’s model of the early 20th century, as she was seen to embody ideals of beauty and civic virtue during the height of the Beaux-Arts movement. She quickly became an iconic blueprint for public statuary in cities, appearing as Star Maiden, Mourning Victory, and the Priestess of Culture in over 30 sculptures across NYC alone.26 These statues can be seen at the Public Library, the Manhattan Municipal Building, and numerous bridges, fountains, and memorials. Swiftly, modernism eclipsed the adorning Beaux-Arts contributions, and Munson’s influences and name faded from public memory.27
MEMORIALIZING POVERTY AND RESISTANCE.
As significant parts of a city become memorialized in similar patterns as in Geales Peebles’s theories—as icons of history, representations of urban decay, or reminders of systemic issues like poverty and racial injustice— society risks erasing the very lives it aims to honor or aid. Glorifying these spaces or figures only through this lens fails to address the deeper systemic inequities they represent (Figure 3). Audrey Munson and the cultures of the neighborhoods mentioned—The South Bronx, Harlem—are prime iconic symbols that exemplify this paradox: celebrated in stone yet forgotten in life. Like the historical monuments, neglected neighborhoods such as the South Bronx are memorialized as symbols of decay rather than provided with the care or institutional support needed. This turns community struggles into aesthetic narratives while the true stories of people are forgotten.
Figure 2: This aerial view shows the Cross-Bronx Expressway, looking east at Webster Avenue, under construction in New York City in 1960.
CULTURAL RESILIENCE
AMIDST ADVERSITY
THE BRONX + HARLEM: SCAR TISSUE AND RENEWAL.
The South Bronx, a distinct district of the Bronx, is an aggregation of multiple neighborhoods: Melrose, Mott Haven, and Port Morris. The notorious poorest congressional district has long been treated as a peripheral space, serving as a dumping ground for industrial waste, the cities’ migrating and displaced populations, and housing experimentations. Yet, despite these social, ecological, and spatial injustices entrenched in an imposed poverty, the Bronx remains a cultural epicenter, the birthplace of hip-hop, graffiti, and various cultural and social movements/figures. Many of these moments derive from the resistance seen in cities and boroughs such as the Bronx.28 A once-thriving industrial hub of the 19th century—fed off of waves of immigrants working in the J.L. Motts Iron Foundry—the Bronx suffered from economic decline and disinvestment following the Second World War, which paved the way for widespread poverty and urban decay.29 Again, for the sake of “urban renewal,” this once-prosperous community became one of the country’s most infamous districts, an idolized embodiment of ruin, seared into the minds of those who were meant to revitalize it following generations of fetishizing struggle.
3: Urban decay is depicted through the 1980s, abandoned structures lining the east 138th Street and Cypress Avenue in the Mott Haven, Bronx area.
Parallels can be drawn to Harlem’s “El Barrio,” a cultural epicenter shaped by both Black and Hispanic migration and artistic innovation, that faces and has faced pressures similar to those of the South Bronx (Figure 4). As gentrification reshapes its landscape, Harlem’s identity remains a battleground for memory and market forces, with historical migration ties to the South Bronx. The neighborhoods encapsulate a culture’s place of refuge shaped by the waves of cultural resistance to historical racial injustice and adaptations to gentrification.
Today, megacity projects like the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan are known to follow the same patterns of questionable methodologies and intent. A Citylab report highlights that the district’s funding was connected to and bankrolled by investor visa programs. The EB-5 program is typically tied to enabling foreign investment in real estate, within distressed or rural US, urban areas, in exchange for visas.30 The New York State government economic development agency, Empire State Development, determines the boundaries for the qualifications of targeted employment areas—TEAs— indicative of EB-5 zones.31 Under NY state law, the agency can aggregate an unlimited number of census tracts to achieve its goal—the TEA unemployment threshold—which allowed for questionably combining Central Park, and several Harlem census tracts to justify and boost the overall unemployment count (Figure 5). Generations have turned a blind eye and given up on these areas despite their profound significance as part of the city, culture, and country. The Bronx and Harlem serve as a reminder for the importance of continued inquiry, empowerment of, and advocacy for the communities continuously facing urban disconnects and seeking new models of living, housing, and collectivity.
RETHINKING OWNERSHIP THROUGH A CLT FRAMEWORK.
With a spotlight on recent years, organizations like the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards have worked to redefine the Bronx narrative, particularly challenging the forces of gentrification and
Figure
displacement.32 By establishing community land trusts (CLT), these organizations are working to reclaim land ownership and guarantee long-term affordability for residents. Monxo Lopez, a founding member of South Bronx Unite and the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards. He also serves as a board member of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust in the Lower East Side, which describes its mission as follows: “The CLT in effect removes those parts of the neighborhood, owned by the community, off the speculative real estate market...ensuring permanent affordability and limiting economic speculative flux.”33 This initiative is crucial in combating gentrification by securing access to green spaces, waterfront
access, community mapping, and community-led development. However, despite these developments, the area continues to face the repetition of historical challenges. Many sites remain dominated by industrial spaces, jails, and public housing, and are often overlooked as nothing more than the next opportunity for wealthy developers to capitalize on rather than revitalize and truly tap into the community in ways that benefit its residents. CLT models reimagine land ownership by transferring land from both public and private markets into direct community control and
maintenance. Rethinking property and space through initiatives like CLT collectives, urban agriculture, and waterfront access in underutilized areas demonstrates how designers and communities can redefine design possibilities, regardless of the tight confines of NYC’s urban framework.
Referencing The Intimate City, 34 Kimmelman discusses this particular CLT—dedicated to addressing the South Bronx’s environmental justice, food insecurity,
and land use rights—with Monxo Lopez. For decades, residents of the South Bronx faced systemic neglect and exploitation, with few recreational amenities and little access to waterfronts and green spaces.35 Per capita, South Bronx residents have historically faced some of the lowest accessibility to such spaces in NYC.36 Compounding these inequities, nearly half of this population live below the poverty line, while poor respiratory health (e.g. childhood asthma) rates are among the highest in the city. Research gives insight that this health correlation is a direct consequence of favoring the collective equality for movement and expansion of the grid over the individual distinction both at the scale of person and neighborhood. Now exposed are the neighborhoods, persons, and cultures suffering as a direct consequence of the district’s longstanding role as a dumping ground for industrial waste,
Figure 4: This map made using records obtained through FOIA, shows Hudson Yards qualifies as a distressed urban area under the EB-5 program, namely by linking the luxury development to public housing projects in Harlem.
Figure 5: The street vendor mural “Aqui me Quedo”(“Here I Stay”) on 103rd street in East Harlem by an unknown street artist.
water transfer stations, and other environmentally hazardous activities and urban expansion practices.37
These systematic disparities reflect the generations of displacement, disinvestment, and socio-environmental degradation, making the community particularly vulnerable to further exploitation. Today, Mott Haven and surrounding neighborhoods continue to grapple with the looming threat of gentrification as developers scan the area for opportunities to expand beyond the Harlem River. This process, in a similar top-down manner as that of the Cross Bronx Expressway, masked as our generation’s version of redevelopment and equal opportunity to housing, threatens to displace long-standing residents, replacing local businesses and affordable housing with luxury developments that cater to wealthier populations. Through the efforts of Lopez, many activists, and Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards members, these initiatives seek to curate new collectives and parameters, reclaiming land and stitching urban wounds.
URBAN
INFILL AND “SCARCHITECTURE”.
As cities evolve, architecture often reclaims and transforms the abandoned routes of neglected infrastructure, blending urban infill with ecological restoration and public connectivity.38 Projects like the High Line in Manhattan showcase the potential of such neglected spaces to become public-private assets by repurposing industrial scars into vibrant, communitycentered landmarks. However, the narrative of urban reclamation is far from straightforward. In Manhattan’s Public Spaces, Ana Morcillo Pallarés emphasizes that projects like the High Line are deeply intertwined with the forces of money, power, and real estate, raising critical questions about the true benefactors of these transformations of contemporary city scars.39 Similarly, in the Bronx, highway infrastructure and remnants of industrial zones have left behind their architectural scar tissue or the voids in the urban fabric that disrupt spatial, cultural, and temporal connections. These scars contrast sharply with the borough’s dense urban grid, standing as markers of a complex urban history, where the physical and cultural fabric of the city bears the imprints of its ambitions, accompanied by neglect. While projects like the High Line highlight
the potential for revitalization in other boroughs, many scars in the Bronx remain shrouded in inequities, as redevelopment often aligns with gentrification and displacement rather than addressing the needs of longstanding residents.
Alternatively, the Mott Haven-Port Morris Waterfront Plan stands as an exemplary proposal to provide over a hundred thousand Bronx residents access to a public waterfront that has been inaccessible for generations. The plan has been recognized as a NYS Priority Project as part of the Department of Environmental Conservation Open Space Plan, as well as included within the NYC parks department Harlem River Watershed and Natural Resources Management Plan for the Bronx.40 Recognition of such projects stands as a true milestone, taking into account the city’s comprehensive waterfront planning initiative goals for 2030, while deriving from and providing for the underserved community in its critical proximity. This CLT project through South Bronx Unite ignites true reclamation requiring more than aesthetic improvement, combating illnesses and socialenvironmental division from the typical highway and truck intensive businesses constricting them. 41
CONCLUSION:
TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE URBAN FABRIC
New York City’s evolution, shaped by its rigid grid and the sociopolitical forces woven into its streets, offers a compelling study of urban complexity, violence, and resilience. The City’s urban fabric is a tapestry of contradictions—its grid both liberates and confines, its monuments commemorate and erase, and all the while, its neighborhoods alternate between decay and recovery. From public transit to public health and safety, each system is stifled by speculative development, corrupt governance, and the bare necessities exponentially growing out of reach. Creating necessary public spaces and infrastructure in New York City has never been easy, but it feels more precarious today than ever.
By examining the grid’s historical legacy, the
monuments’ duality, and the cultural resistance in neighborhoods like the South Bronx, one can understand the need for inclusive urban planning/ design that prioritizes community ownership within its unique and contested fabric. Lessons from Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and frameworks that resist speculative pressures provide a roadmap for equal access to ownership opportunities—one that offers hope for a future where cities serve their people, not just their markets. While studies claim that New York City oscillated between crisis and recovery during the mid20th century, I argue that the City still oscillates today, favoring crisis more than ever. Surfacing from this, are the tensions of neutrality. Can urban design ever be neutral? Frantz Fanon, a French Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist, and political philosopher, warns us in his discussions, The Wretched of the Earth (i.e, Les Damnés de la Terre):42
“Yes, everybody will have to be compromised in the fight for the common good. No one has clean hands; there are no innocents and no onlookers. We all have dirty hands; we are all soiling them in the swamps of our country and in the terrifying emptiness of our brains. Every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor.”43
I propose that designers, historians, and urban policy stakeholders bear the responsibility of ensuring that the legacy of New York City, and similar cities, is not one of fixed failure or repetition. In contexts such as New York City and the borough of the Bronx, architects, theorists, policy makers, and government officials have spent most of our last century looking the other way, becoming the very cowards and traitors Fanon speaks of. The beauty of urban design shines through navigating and unearthing what’s within the constricted parameters of our most challenging urban fabric. New York City’s physical and social-cultural fabrics’ ongoing transformation serves as both a cautionary tale and an opportunity to establish an urban evolution that preserves its cultures, communities, and histories.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vega is a third-year dual-degree master of Architecture and Urban Design student. His theoretical and design explorations have created a symbiosis with a wide array of avenues—a multifaceted integration of Biology, nature, technology, and the built environment. As a graduate student, his research explores design interventions and visualizations that contextualize the South Bronx as a space of critical proximity, examining how discrimination, disinvestment, and displacement intertwine with Federal Public Housing. While investigating the historical shifts that shaped the income inequality of 1970s New York City, his studies are focused on the intersection of policies and planning from the 1940s to the 1960s, urban decline, and subsequent grassroots responses and development efforts post-1970s. He explicitly explores these dynamics within our nation’s poorest congressional district and the impact on Hispanic and African American communities. Utilizing licensure, urban policy, and design interventions, he aims to leverage his interdisciplinary expertise to establish a multiscalar design firm that reimagines the built environment and actively addresses underlying socio-spatial inequalities.
ENDNOTES
1. Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), xv.
2. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, (Vintage Books, 1974).
3. Jill Jones, South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City, (Fordham University Press, 2022).
4. Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York.
5. Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, (Dey Street Books, 2020).
6. Ana Morcillo Pallarés, Manhattan’s Public Spaces: Production, Revitalization, Commodification, (Routledge, 2023), x.
7. Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, 254.
8. Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, 254.
9. Ana Morcillo Pallarés, Manhattan’s Public Spaces: Production, Revitalization, Commodification, x.
10. Ibid., xii.
11. Ibid., xii; 93-94.
12. Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, 186.
13. Ibid., 186-187.
14. Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York.
15. Ibid., xiii.
16. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.
17. “Here Grows New York City,” Esri Story Maps, Myles Zhang, accessed February 18, 2025, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/ stories/3a2b7b80630940a6b50dc82c72733dfa.
18. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, 858-859.
19. Jill Jones, South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City, xviii.
20. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, 850-884.
21. Ibid., 864-865.
22. Ibid., 869
23. Gealese Peebles, “Norma Merrick Sklarek: Erasure by Inclusion,” The Avery Review 57 (June 2022), http://averyreview. com/issues/57/sklarek-erasure-by-inclusion.
24. “NYC’s Vocal Point - The Fascinating History of Political Activism in Washington Square Park,” The Washington Square Association, Trevor Sumner, April 5, 2023.
25. Ibid.
26. Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, 55.
27. Ibid., 57.
28. Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York, 162.
29. Jill Jones, South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City, 14.
30. Kriston Capps, “The Visa Program That Helped Pay for Hudson Yards,” Bloomberg, April 12, 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/ news/articles/2019-04-12/the-visa-program-that-helped-pay-forhudson-yards.
31. Ibid.
32. Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York.
33. Ibid., 166.
34. Ibid., 165
35. Ibid., 166
36. “Mott Haven Port Morris Waterfront Plan,” Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards, Accessed February 28, 2025, https://www.thelandstewards.org/waterfront-plan.
37. Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York, 166.
38. Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the
Hidden World of Everyday Design, 36-37.
39. Ana Morcillo Pallarés, Manhattan’s Public Spaces: Production, Revitalization, Commodification, 167.
40. Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards, “Mott Haven Port Morris Waterfront Plan.”
45. Figure 2: Rajamani, Maya. “Adams: ‘Historic’ Study Will Reimagine the Cross Bronx Expressway.” NY1, December 19, 2022. https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/12/19/crossbronx-expressway-study.
46. Figure 3 : Gonzalez, David. By the 1980s, Abandoned Buildings Lined East 138th Street and Cypress Avenue in the Mott Haven Area of the Bronx. Photograph. The New York Times, January 20, 2022. Updated June 22, 2023. https://www.nytimes. com/2022/01/20/nyregion/bronx-fires.html.
47. Figure 4 : Capps, Kriston. “The Visa Program That Helped Pay for Hudson Yards.” Bloomberg, April 12, 2019. https://www. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-12/the-visa-program-thathelped-pay-for-hudson-yards.
48. Figure 5 : Vega, Sabrina. The Street Vendor “Aquí Me Quedo”(“Here I Stay”) on East 103rd Street. Photograph. February 24, 2025. East 103rd Street, Manhattan, NY.
re-grand marais: reclaiming wetlands through density gradation and collective housing
Stephanie Dutan
Master of Architecture ‘25
Vanessa Lekaj
Master of Architecture ‘25
Patrick Wilton
Master of Architecture ‘25
ABSTRACT
Re-Grand Marais explores density gradation as a means to celebrate the landscape’s temporal qualities, through guiding inhabitation and coexistence. The project is situated in Detroit’s Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood. Originally a swamp used by the Fox Nation Indian tribe, the land was drained in the 1800s for agriculture and later used as a ribbon farm. Previously known as the Grand Marais, the area saw commercial and residential development in the early 20th century due to booming manufacturing, with historical landmarks like the Vanity Ballroom and Detroit Driving Club. After the 1960s, as auto plants relocated, residents followed. Today, the site spans nearly 2,300 ft, with residential occupancy at less
than 10 %of its potential capacity. This vacancy has left large empty lots interspersed with scattered homes. Our strategy for reinstituting density involves five corridors along the site’s edges, grading between housing types.
The edges adjacent to Jefferson Ave, Kercheval St, Eastlawn St, and Newport St feature high-rise towers up to seven stories with arch-like openings marking monumental entries into the reclaimed wetlands. These towers house smaller households, offering studio, one- and two-bedroom units. The towers’ voids create open-air collective spaces, accented with green tiling reminiscent of Belle Isle’s aquarium. Moving inward, the towers transition into townhomes for larger households, with two- and three-bedroom layouts and similar green tile accents.
At the site’s core, lower-density single-family homes and cabins are elevated on stilts, minimizing ground contact with the central reclaimed wetlands. These wetlands honor the area’s swamp history, fostering a connection between architecture and ecology. On a macro scale, the corridors are linked by hardscapes and softscapes, shaping pathways and collective spaces. Residents create unique paths through the vegetation, reinforcing temporality in response to the seasons.
Figure 1: Vignette perspective of single-family home facades and reclaimed wetlands.
Figure 2: Site provocation diagram imagining cohabitation of urban wilded sites in Jefferson Chalmers.
Figure 3: (Top left) Site master plan showing five corridors where housing density gradually decreases moving towards the center of the site.
Figure 4: (Top right) Tower massing diagrams showing how tapering varies unit size, brings in light, and emphasizes entries.
Figure 5: (Right) Tower facade diagrams showing logic for curtain wall glazing, tile, and brise-soleil systems.
Figure 6: (Background) Axonometric view of site plan and massing.
7: Site plan denoting massing types and locations, existing tree cover, existing housing, and soft/hardscape paths.
Figure
8: (Center) Floor plan of one site corridor. (Perimeter) Individual unit plans within the tower, townhome, single-family home, and cabin typologies.
Figure
Figure 9: Softscape plan view vignettes according to seasonal changes.
10: Floor plan of one elevated pathway traversing reclaimed wetlands and connecting single-family homes, collective space, and cabin dwellings.
Figure
11: Site section through one site corridor; composite with tower perspective and vignette perspectives.
Figure
Figure 12: (Left) Vignette perspective of interior of tower studio unit interior.
Figure 13: (Middle) Vignette perspective of townhome facade and reclaimed wetlands.
Figure 14: (Right) Section through tower typology showing collective garden space and spaces of each individual unit type (studio, 1BR, and 2BR).
15: (Left) Vignette perspective of cabins and softscape paths.
16:
Vignette perspective of cabins and hardscape paths through reclaimed wetlands.
Figure
Figure
(Right)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
STEPHANIE DUTAN
Dutan is doing her Master of Architecture (2G) student graduating in May 2025. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Design with a minor in Sustainability and the Built Environment from the University of Florida. Her interests pertaining to design include utilizing architectural systems of drawing and storytelling to convey ideas pertaining to cultural preservation, social justice, and community engagement.
VANESSA LEKAJ
Lekaj is pursuing a Master of Architecture degree at the University of Michigan Taubman College. She graduated from the University of Detroit Mercy with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and a minor in Leadership. Vanessa can be found editing, designing, or deciding whether a justified margin brings order or just the illusion of it.
PATRICK WILTON
Wilton is a Master of Architecture student graduating in May 2025. He has a few particular interests relative to architectural and urban design, such as ecologically cogniscient design through the considerations of human/nonhuman mutualism and net-zero biomaterial building envelopes. He intends to work on these goals through both personal and professional work, likely based in Chicago.
the sharing economy and the commodification of housing: how the rise of short-term rentals affect local housing markets
Rebecca Griswold Master of Urban and Regional Planning & Master of Public Policy ’26
ABSTRACT
Short-term rentals have gained popularity as a means for homeowners to earn additional income through shared space. As communities across the country experience housing shortages due to the long aftermath of the foreclosure crisis, short-term rentals are on the rise and continue to push out long-term residents. This paper examines the effects of shortterm rentals on housing markets with a particular focus on the author’s rural hometown. The paper concludes with a variety of recommendations and considerations to help balance the positive and negative externalities of STRs in communities.
INTRODUCTION
The sharing economy, represented by platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, has significantly altered housing markets globally. It has redefined homes as assets capable of generating short-term rental income. While this transformation has opened new opportunities for homeowners and travelers, it has also led to the further commodification of housing in a new format. This shift prioritizes financial and investment aspects and often overshadows the social and practical importance of providing homes for community members. In Three Rivers, California, a small tourism-driven community near Sequoia National Park, the rise in short-term rentals (STR) has reshaped the town, leading to a reduction in affordable housing and the displacement of long-term residents. This paper delves into the impacts of the STR market on community housing stock, focusing on its role in housing commodification. It also examines the externalities of the STR market and the policies designed to address these challenges, such as zoning regulations, occupancy limits, and taxation on STR income.
The sharing economy, propelled by digital platforms, is a socio-economic system facilitating peer-to-peer exchange, enabling shared access to goods and services. This model promotes resource optimization and has raised significant questions about regulation, equity, and sustainability in modern markets1. The rise of the sharing economy, exemplified by platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, Uber, Lyft, Lime, Turo, and Zipcar, began in the early 2000s with Zipcar, a subscription-based carsharing service.2 It gained momentum after the 2008 Great Recession, with the introduction of Airbnb as a means for homeowners to supplement their income by temporarily renting out spare bedrooms or vacant guest houses. This shift has sparked a heated debate about its broader impacts on housing markets, including affordability, availability, and gentrification.3,4
Short-term rentals serve as both a response and a contributor to a housing market failure. The rise of platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo has transformed how people access short-term accommodations; STRs have met the demand for accommodations in tourist destinations through underutilized housing
stock. Short-term rentals emerged as an alternative to traditional hotel accommodations in urban centers and tourist destinations, allowing travelers to choose unique arrangements such as guest houses, teepees, country cottages, and urban penthouses. These provided new opportunities in communities with few hotel options or an alternative in areas that could not meet the peak tourism demand. STRs created a unique experience for travelers, and homeowners were able to supplement their income with revenue from sharing living spaces. As popularity increased, more and more short-term rental options became available, including entire homes, giving a second stream of revenue to second homeowners or an option while entire households were away on vacation.
However, the proliferation of short-term rentals (STRs) has positive and negative externalities, further complicating local governments’ regulatory systems. On the positive side, STRs can supplement homeowner incomes, boost local tourism, and provide flexibility. Yet they also have negative impacts, including reducing long-term housing supply, displacement, loss of community character, and regulatory gaps.
POSITIVE EXTERNALITIES
STR platforms allow homeowners to earn additional income by renting out unused spaces. This extra income can aid individuals facing high living costs or economic uncertainty. For instance, homeowners in tourist-heavy regions, who face a higher demand for accommodations and often face higher living costs, can offset mortgage payments or property taxes through STR revenue. Rentals also allow property owners to utilize their housing assets flexibly. This is particularly beneficial for homeowners who temporarily want to rent their properties during personal vacations or seasonal absences for second homeowners. Affordable and diverse lodging options also attract more tourists, providing an alternative option during peak demand and boosting local economies. Small businesses, such as restaurants and shops, often benefit from increased tourism driven by STRs.
NEGATIVE EXTERNALITIES
The proliferation of STRs significantly reduces the availability of long-term rental housing. Research consistently shows that STRs contribute to declining housing stock for residents, leading to rent increases and affordability challenges.5Driven by STRs, lowerincome residents or long-term renters face displacement and acceleration of gentrification. Investors purchasing properties for STR use often target neighborhoods with historically affordable housing, displacing residents who can no longer afford rising rents. In tourist destinations, STRs’ high revenue return easily exceeds monthly mortgage payments, allowing STR owners to afford property more quickly than owner-occupants or making long-term rentals less appealing.6
The systematic commercialization and conversion of residential properties into short-term rentals via digital platforms is referred to as “hotelization.” Hotelization is quantified by the significant number of units dedicated to STRs year-round in a community, mimicking the operation of hotels where multiple listings are managed by commercial operators rather than a casual host.7 The investor-driven year-round model of hotelization differs from the concept of home-sharing, where property owners occasionally rent out spare rooms or their entire home while away. For instance, in a “hotelized” neighborhood, most properties are listed on STR platforms throughout the year. Most hosts do not live on the premises, creating a transient and less community-oriented environment.
CASE STUDY: THREE RIVERS, CA
Three Rivers, California’s story mirrors the direction of many small tourist towns in recent years. As a gateway community to Sequoia National Park, Three Rivers has long been a small, unincorporated town of about 2,000 residents. It features a K-8 school, a market, and a handful of restaurants and gift shops catering to visitors heading to the park. Approximately 26 percent of the homes in Three Rivers are now STRs, which has also driven up the cost of housing, making it unaffordable for many young families, especially families with school-age children.8,9 Although the
school in Three Rivers is small, it once served around 230 students, providing enough students for an entire class of each grade. Today, enrollment has dropped to just 95 students.
Meanwhile, the Airbnb platform lists 419 short-term rental (STR) options in Three Rivers on any given day, 95 percent of which are entire home units, with 251 offering two or more bedrooms.10 A review of eight listings reveals that many hosts manage three or more properties, with one managing as many as 12.
Of the reviewed listings, only one host listed as living in Three Rivers, while others list their home locations as Encinitas, Los Angeles, or San Luis Obispo—towns three or more hours away.
Many cities face similar problems driven by the increased availability of STRs and the commodification of turning housing into an investor-based market. The commercialization of STRs in tourism bubbles has been observed globally, with studies highlighting its prevalence in cities like Barcelona, Los Angeles, and Amsterdam.11,12 The financial incentives for property owners and investors to convert homes into STRs are particularly strong in tourism-driven areas, where demand for accommodations is high and housing supply is constrained. Often, entire housing units are removed from the long-term rental market to cater exclusively to short-term guests. A small group captures most of the profits as STRs become increasingly dominated by professional investors and large-scale operators. At the same time, residents bear the brunt of the negative consequences, further widening the gap between the wealthy and the less affluent.13
IMPACT ON AFFORDABILITY
STRs consistently increase rents and house prices, particularly in high-demand and supplyconstrained markets. They also contribute to displacement, especially in gentrifying or tourist-heavy neighborhoods. However, STR-driven market changes often disproportionately affect low-income residents and renters.
Short-term rental platforms are not the sole cause of the housing crisis. However, they have contributed to the decline of long-term rentals (LTRs) in many communities, particularly those with tight housing markets and high-interest tourism areas. STR platforms have shifted housing markets from primarily residential to lucrative income-generating opportunities, appealing to homeowners seeking supplementary income and investors seeking high returns in tourist-heavy or high-demand urban areas.
As property owners shift their long-term rentals to short-term ones, the supply of available rentals for permanent residents decreases. The limited LTRs remaining also face rent increases due to the restrained demand, which makes housing less affordable (2018; Seiler, Siebert, & Yang). The decrease in affordability can force renters out of their neighborhoods, leading to displacement as property owners favor higher-income residents and tourists over long-term residents.
COMMUNITY IMPACTS OF STRS
Urban and rural areas both feel the impact of the commodification of housing. In San Diego, Supervisor Bry stated “that the rise of full-time investor-owned short-term rentals in residential areas has hurt enrollment in public schools, transformed neighborhoods into mini-hotel districts, and contributed to a citywide housing shortage.”18 In Three Rivers, there are reports of long-term residents being displaced as homeowners convert dwellings into short-term rentals. At a 2023 Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting to consider a draft STR regulation proposal, the compiled impacts of the STR market were alarming. The K-8 school has lost 35 percent of its enrollment in the last 5 years, with a current student body of 95 students; the preschool, the only pharmacy, and the dentist office have closed; and community support services have been cut back, including a veterinary office, mechanic services, and church services.19 Adjacent to Three Rivers, Sequoia National Park cannot fill vacant positions and is heavily understaffed, mainly because housing is unavailable.
In Oregon, a statewide study of 237 small cities surveyed city managers and planners regarding regulation and perceptions of STRs in their jurisdictions. Results found that the prevalence of STRs varies drastically across cities and is highest in tourism-driven areas. STRs account for over 5 percent of the housing stock in 16 cities. While hosts generated $82 million in revenue, only 11 cities and four counties charged lodging or bed taxes. In total, 38 percent of STRs are whole homes rented more than 30 days a year, signaling potential impacts on long-term rental supply.20 These findings match the experience of Three Rivers, which hosts only a sliver of the number of STRs available in California.
The hotelization of residential neighborhoods reduces community cohesion and increases conflicts between residents and short-term guests, as observed in cities like Barcelona, where STRs have been blamed for eroding traditional neighborhood dynamics.21 Disruptions in the community fabric strain relationships with neighbors, decrease the sense of community, and frustrate community members with the constant changes in community character. In Denver, residents say, “It erodes the neighborhood’s character. We moved here because it is a peaceful place where we know our neighbors, and we all say hi to each other. We know the names of each other’s dogs. That is changing because there are so many different people.”22
In February 2016, the Austin City Council voted to phase out mini-hotels — non-owner-occupied homes used exclusively as vacation rentals—in residential areas by 2022, citing their detrimental effects on housing availability and neighborhood character. In the following months, several other Texas cities passed similar restrictions.23
The influx of STR guests can put additional pressure on local infrastructure and public services, such as sanitation, parking enforcement, and emergency response. These pressures can potentially lead to increased costs for the city and reduced service quality for residents. STRs are advertised as “party houses” or places for large families to gather or events to take place, which disrupts the neighborhood dynamic by
increasing traffic and noise. Three Rivers is a rural area with many homes built on half-acre parcels or larger. Neighbors are distant; however, noise travels, and sound is amplified well past the appropriate hours of 10 pm.
Additionally, three-bedroom homes are advertised to accommodate eight or more people, putting a strain on the water and wastewater systems in an area where most access water through communal potable water wells and utilize a septic system. The engineering of these services when the home was built was not designed to handle many people regularly. Historically, California has experienced severe droughts that strain the water table. Increased potable water use in STRs is unregulated and can have lasting effects on the neighborhood, with unconscientious water users continually renting homes. In other areas, STRs put a strain on public services.
Homeowners near STR properties face significant impacts, including parking and trash accumulation. In Three Rivers, trash accumulation is a significant issue due to increased summer activity, as foraging bears target overfilled trash cans and dumpsters. Unfortunately, fed bears are challenging to dishabituate and return to the wild, and they are euthanized as a result of their continued nuisance.
The literature provides mixed evidence on the impact of STRs on property values; some research suggests that high concentrations of STRs can be a nuisance with increased noise, trash, road speeds and high turnover of unfamiliar guests creating an unappealing community cohesion and negatively affecting property values in specific neighborhoods and potentially hurting homeowners’ investments.24 In contrast, properties in central urban areas or tourist-driven areas have increased demand for accommodations due to proximity to local attractions or businesses. For example, in Los Angeles, Airbnb listings can significantly increase house prices, especially in touristheavy neighborhoods, with a 15 percent increase within 2.5km of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame and a 5.8 percent increase within 2.5km of beach access.25 Additional negative impacts on property values have resulted
from the regulation of STRs and have decreased the property owners’ “efficient use” option, reducing the opportunities to supplement income through hosting.26 Determinants of property value changes include the increased demand for properties in popular tourist destinations, driving up prices as investors and homeowners seek to capitalize on the STR market.27 Many factors impact property values: tourism demand, local housing market conditions, regulations restricting STRs, and neighborhood characteristics, including location to destinations, amenities available, and saturation of STRs.28
REGULATION OF STRS
STR platforms often operate in regulatory gray areas, bypassing traditional housing, zoning, and tax laws. Many communities have grappled with the regulation of rentals for numerous reasons, such as noise nuisances and taxation. It can be challenging for communities to regulate STRs at their actual locations, as hosting platforms often do not disclose host information or the exact locations of properties, creating hardship in enforcement for local governments. Often, these local governments need to have sufficient capacity in employee time or resources to enforce rental regulations.
In response to the growth of STR-driven housing commodification, many cities worldwide have been introducing regulations and limits on STRs, including capacity limits and zoning restrictions, licensing and registration systems, and taxation frameworks. Many cities have introduced caps on the number of days a property can be rented as an STR or restricted STR operations to specific zones. For example, Amsterdam limits STRs to 30 days per year to mitigate their impact on the housing market.29 Requiring STR operators to obtain licenses or register their properties allows cities to monitor and ensure compliance with safety standards and tax obligations.
DIFFICULTIES IN REGULATING STRS
A Voluntary Collection Agreements (VCA) is an agreement between hosting platforms and local governments to collect taxes on behalf of the host and remit directly to the local government. VCAs simplify tax collection with hosting platforms but cannot be used as an additional enforcement mechanism for zoning or building code, health, and safety inspections and prohibit cities from attempting to collect back taxes. Some also create obstacles for local agencies to identify and police hosts who list through the site. Airbnb says its VCAs are designed to help government agencies collect tax revenue rather than to help them enforce other laws related to short-term rentals. This has created an uneven playing ield for traditional hotels and challenges local governments’ enforcement. Many cities struggle to regulate STRs effectively due to limited resources or resistance from platform operators.31
Another barrier to local government efforts to address STR-related issues is the possibility of state preemption. In 2017, Texas state lawmakers introduced two bills preventing municipalities from banning short-term rentals and enforcing many STR regulations. These state statutes led to reversing the short-term rental ban imposed in Austin.32 The implications complicate regulations, enforcement, and taxes.
Taxing STR income and imposing additional fees can level the playing field between STRs and traditional accommodations. These taxes can be reinvested in affordable housing initiatives.33 However, many STR operators circumvent these taxation regulations by listing properties under multiple accounts or using informal arrangements. Cities often lack the resources to enforce rules consistently, leading to non-compliance. In response, Chicago’s City Council enacted a transformational regulatory framework in June 2016. It began receiving relevant data from Airbnb in March 2017, making it the first US city to receive data from STR platforms, enabling the city to establish enforceable regulations aimed at preserving the quality of life across the city.34
Tulare County oversees the community’s STR regulation in Three Rivers, including taxation. Currently, Airbnb does not collect bed taxes on behalf of the county.35 Tulare County hosted a well-attended town hall meeting in 2019 to gather public comments on a proposed ordinance. The next meeting was postponed due to the pandemic, but the conversation made a resurgence in 2023. In October 2023, the Tulare County Board of Supervisors directed the development of a county-wide STR ordinance. This regulation aims to create a structured approach to STR operations, including registration requirements, tax remittance, health and safety measures, capacity limits, and enforcement.36
REGULATORY OPTIONS
Typically, STRs are regulated by local governments, and most have grappled with how to regulate STRs within their jurisdictions. Some cities have banned them outright, others have imposed capacity limits, and others are still working towards a solution that fits their community. Policymakers must balance the interests of homeowners, investors, residents, and the tourism industry. Overregulation could stifle economic benefits, while underregulation exacerbates housing issues. STR platforms often resist regulatory efforts, using legal and lobbying strategies to challenge restrictions. Airbnb’s “guerrilla war” against local governments illustrates cities’ challenges in regulating these platforms.37
Short-term rentals are a complex trend that has influenced every corner of the world. While the externalities can be positive and negative, there is no argument that they require a well-balanced and tailored approach unique to each community for effective regulation. The following are more specific policies that would be adequate in rural areas and help curtail the commodification of housing.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT REGISTRATION AND TAXATION
STRs are often run like businesses, yet they operate in a grey area of licenses, taxation, and health and safety
codes. Requiring properties to register with the local government, obtain a business license, remit a transient occupancy tax equivalent and tourism tax if applicable, and pass a health and safety inspection can help protect consumers. Regulating authorities can require or issue a placard on the location to certify that the STR complies with local regulations. Failure to remit taxes, failure to pay registration fees, or a disproportionate number of nuisance violations can be reasons not to renew a permit. Tax revenue can be earmarked to help with enforcement or to subsidize the area’s affordable housing programs and projects.
RESTRICTIONS
Additional restrictions include limiting the number of occupants who can rent a space. Limiting license transfers when the property changes ownership discourages STRs as investment purchases. In Chicago, homeowners’ associations and building owners can opt into a Prohibited Building List, which limits occupants from using units for STRs. 38
LIMITING RENTALS TO OWNER-OCCUPIED UNITS
Limiting rentals to owner-occupied units redirects investment from single-family homes to spare bedrooms or guest cottages to supplement income, which was the strategy when Airbnb launched the platform in 2008.39 When registering for a business license, owners must provide proof that the home is their primary residence or that they reside on the premises.
CAPACITY LIMITS
Capacity limits can be applied in several ways, depending on the jurisdiction. Limiting the number of days per year a rental can operate can discourage properties used exclusively for STRs and encourage long-term rentals instead. An additional form of capacity limit can limit STRs to one unit per parcel if an ADU exists on the property. A limit-driven
regulatory scheme, partnered with a permitting scheme, could limit the number of permits allowed in a neighborhood or city and generate a waitlist for those interested when permits become available. This scheme still allows STR rentals to be casually hosted and continue to generate revenue while limiting the frequency of operations.
ZONING
Some cities have banned STRs from operating entirely, while others have imposed zoning code-specific regulations and restrictions in municipal codes. In Bend, Oregon, STRs cannot exceed more than two rooms in a single house and cannot use an accessory dwelling or a detached portion of the property as an STR.40 Some jurisdictions have opted to prohibit STRs in specific zones, including residential zones, which limits STRs to commercial zones, which in most cases already have extensive regulation processes for traditional hotel and lodging accommodations, including taxation structure and health and safety code. This can alleviate the heavy utilization of residential neighborhoods to transition to STR units. Still, it may also cut local governments’ tax revenue from STRs due to a potentially decreased appeal or complicated zoning regulations of locating STRs in commercial areas.
Jurisdictions may also opt to create zoning measures that limit the total number of STRs located within a measurable distance referred to as a buffer zone. These restrictions limit the concentration of STRs in residential areas without entirely banning STRs while still maintaining neighborhood integrity. In some cases, the buffer restrictions are enforced around sensitive areas such as schools, daycares, churches, and public parks, balancing tourism impacts on residential needs and community character. Other jurisdictions may restrict STRs around already established hotel districts, ensuring tourism needs are met and protecting hotel operators from non-licensed or unregulated STR competitors.
CONCLUSION
The commodification of housing driven by the short-term rental market presents opportunities and challenges for communities worldwide. While STRs provide economic benefits and increased flexibility, they contribute to housing shortages, housing affordability crises, and community disruption. Effective regulation is essential to balance these tradeoffs and ensure that housing remains accessible and affordable for all. By implementing integrated policies, enhancing enforcement, and engaging stakeholders, cities can address the negative externalities of STRs while preserving their benefits.
Short-term rentals are not the cause of the housing crisis or the cause of over-tourism in destinations; they are not the sole reason for gentrification. However, they increase the difficulty of the complicated task of supplying housing to meet the demand of a community. The complexity of the STR market has meant that it needs to be regulated to some extent. Leaving the STR market unchecked has impacted community cohesion and housing affordability, which will only worsen significantly when housing markets are tight and tourism continues. Creating a balance within the community is key to ensuring that economic revenue persists and communities can meet housing needs for long-term residents at an affordable rate.
UPDATE
Update on Three Rivers STR Draft Ordinance: The Tulare County Resource Management Agency (RMA) introduced a Draft Short-Term Rental Ordinance at a regularly scheduled meeting on July 9, 2024. The presentation was itemized as informational, with a vote planned for July 23. However, Supervisor Pete Vander Poel unexpectedly moved to reject the ordinance and halt the process entirely. The motion passed 3-2, with Supervisors Micari, Vander Poel, and Townsend voting in favor and Supervisors Shuklian and Valero opposing it.41 This abrupt vote violated the Brown Act - a California law designed to ensure transparency and accountability in government decision-making by requiring specific meetings of local legislative bodies to be open to the public and publicized in advance. The wait for regulation in Three Rivers continues.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Griswold is a dual degree Master student with a Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning at Taubman College and a Master’s of Public Policy from the Ford School of Public Policy. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management from San Francisco State. Her gap between undergrad and graduate school was filled with teaching English as a second language in Colombia and Argentina, working for the National Park Service and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and traveling to numerous international destinations. Outside of school, you can find her riding her bike, taking yoga classes, rowing the Huron, and learning to sail. Rebecca is interested in housing policy, climate change adaptation, adaptive reuse, urban parks, and green space development. After graduation, she wants to work at a regional or state-level planning department focused on climate change adaptation, adaptive reuse, and park development while empowering rural communities.
ENDNOTES
1. Sadie DiNatale, Rebecca Lewis, and Robert Parker, “Short-term rental small cities in Oregon: Impacts and regulations,” Land Use Policy 79, (2018): 407- 423, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. landusepol.2018.08.023.
2. Ginger Zhe Jin, Laid Wagman, and Mengyi Zhong, “The effects of short-term rental regulation: Insights from Chicago,” International Journal of Industrial Organization 96, (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2024.103087.
3. Soyoung Park, Lauren Mullenbach, and Jinwon Kim, “Short-term rentals, resilience and gentrification,” Annals of Tourism Research 101, (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j. annals.2023.103610.
4. Seungbee Choi and Jongho Won, “Exploring the Survival Mechanisms of Short-Term Rentals in Virgina: A Comparative Analysis of Rural versus Non-Rural Markets,” Sustainability 15, https://doi.org/10.3390/su151612651.
5. Shirley Nieuwland and Rianne van Melik, “Regulating Airbnb: How cities deal with perceived negative externalities of shortterm rentals,” Current Issues in Tourism 23, no. 7 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1504899.
6. DiNatale, Lewis, and Parker, “Short-term rental small cities in Oregon”
7. Cai Roman, “Making a Business of ‘Residential Use’: The ShortTerm-Rental Dilemma in Common Interest Communities,” Emory Law Journal 68, no. 4 (2019).
8. U.S. Census Bureau; Decennial Census, DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171), Occupancy Status, Table H1 using data.census. gov; <https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALPL2020. H1?t=Occupancy Characteristics&g=160XX00US0678638> (2020).
9. Draft BOS Agenda Item STR Ordinance 6-33, Tulare County Board of Supervisors (2023).
10. “Three Rivers, CA Stays,” Airbnb, n.d., https://www.airbnb. com/three-rivers-ca/stays.
11. Nieuwland and van Melik, “Regulating Airbnb”
12. Hans R.A. Koster, Jos van Ommeren, and Nicolas Vilkhausen, “Short-term rentals and the housing market: Quasiexperimental evidence from Airbnb in Los Angeles,” Journal of Urban Economics 124, (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jue.2021.103356.
13. Nieuwland and van Melik, “Regulating Airbnb”
14. DiNatale, Lewis, and Parker, “Short-term rental in Oregon”
15. DiNatale, Lewis, and Parker, “Short-term rental in Oregon”
16. Michael J. Seiler, Ralph B Siebert, and Liuming Yang,. “Airbnb or Not Airbnb? That is the question: How Airbnb bans disrupt rental markets,” Real Estate Economics 52, no. 1 (2024), https:// doi.org/10.1111/1540-6229.12440.
17. Koster, van Ommeren, and Vilkhausen, “Short-term rentals and Los Angeles”
18. Paris Martineau, “Inside Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments,” Wired, March 20, 2019, https://www. wired.com/story/inside-airbnbs-guerrilla-war-against-localgovernments/.
19. Tulare County BOS “Draft STR Ordinance”
20. DiNatale, Lewis, and Parker, “Short-term rental in Oregon”
21. Rebecca Mead, “The Airbnb Invasion of Barcelona,” The New Yorker, April 22, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona.
22. Nieuwland and van Melik, “Regulating Airbnb”
23. Martineau, “Inside Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’”
24. Jin, Wagman, and Zhong, “The effects Chicago short-term rental regulation”
25. Koster, van Ommeren, and Vilkhausen, “Short-term rentals and Los Angeles”
26. Koster, van Ommeren, and Vilkhausen, “Short-term rentals and Los Angeles”
27. Koster, van Ommeren, and Vilkhausen, “Short-term rentals and Los Angeles”
28. Sadie DiNatale, Rebecca Lewis, and Robert Parker, “Short-term rental small cities in Oregon: Impacts and regulations.”
29. Nieuwland and van Melik, “Regulating Airbnb”
30. Martineau, “Inside Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ ”
31. Nieuwland and van Melik, “Regulating Airbnb”
32. Martineau, “Inside Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ ”
33. DiNatale, Lewis, and Parker, “Short-term rental in Oregon”
34. 34. Jin, Wagman, and Zhong, “The effects Chicago short-term rental regulation”
35. “Areas where tax collection and remittance by Airbnb is available,” Airbnb, n.d. https://www.airbnb.com/help/ article/2509#section-heading-2.
36. Tulare County BOS “Draft STR Ordinance”
37. Martineau, “Inside Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ ”
38. Jin, Wagman, and Zhong, “The effects Chicago short-term rental regulation”
39. Jin, Wagman, and Zhong, “The effects Chicago short-term rental regulation”
40. Bend, City of. n.d. “BDC 3.6.500: Accessory dwelling units.” Bend Development Code. https://bend.municipal.codes/ BDC/3.6.500.
41. Tulare County BOS “Draft STR Ordinance”
rendering visibility: urban waste infrastructure of mumbai
Saloni Kapoor Master of Urban and Regional Planning ‘26
ABSTRACT
We prefer our waste to be invisible — tucked away in the corners of our everyday environment, invisible to the eye. When it lies visible, it exposes the unethical disposal practices of our society. The realities of these spaces are cut off from the public imagination of the city. The existing nature of the infrastructure is ambiguous, adding to its ignorance. This article, extracted from an earlier thesis, aims to address this invisibilization of the urban waste infrastructure in Mumbai. It explores how architecture and municipal planning tools can render the infrastructure ‘visible,’ bridging the mental and physical gap between the infrastructure and the everyday environment. The study uses a storytelling narrative inspired by Chris Ware’s BuildingStories to explore the existing “invisible” infrastructure and the possibilities of designing a social ecosystem for the “visible” infrastructure.
INTRODUCTION
Research process: The inquiry began by delving into the relationship between society and waste through a literature review. The ecology of waste and the spatial aspects of infrastructure were documented through field trips and stakeholder mapping, employing the lens of visibility. Formal and informal actors contributed to shaping a proposal for a “visible” and equitable infrastructure that addresses stakeholders and views waste as a resource.
WHY DO WE INVISIBILIZE OUR WASTE?
People’s behavior and the design of the infrastructure work together to render waste invisible. In the case of urban waste infrastructures, there is always the invisibilization of the “dirty.” The narratives around waste are often closely intertwined with ideas of dirt and cleanliness1. Many stigmas and taboos reside at the core of our relationship with the two. If waste lies in the same place for long, it decays. The stench sensitizes imagery of pollution and disease, thus disturbing the mundane landscape.
WHAT IS VISIBILITY?
Visibility is not a narrow term meant to signify solely observation; instead, visibility is the state of matter existing within a world that does not allow total isolation. The study uses the lens of visibility to critique the nature of the infrastructure.
Figure 1: History of the edge
The urban infrastructure for waste in Mumbai functions as a centralized network. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is the governing municipal body responsible for the civic infrastructure - sorting centers, transfer stations, and landfills.
The Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) monitors the everyday on-ground work to prepare the budget. The infrastructure is studied in four scales: the street, the neighborhood, the ward, and the city.
The D-Ward was studied as part of the research. The map marks all the spaces that serve the infrastructure at the ward level.
BMC Ward Offices - SWMD
Refuse transfer station
Scrap markets
Dumping grounds
Figure 2: Map of Mumbai
Figure 3: Research Structure
Figure 4: Map of D-Ward
THE NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE
Figure 5: The Invisibile Infrastructure - Neighborhood Scale
COLLECTION SPOTS
These are small plots of land in a neighborhood that cater to waste collection in open spaces, informal settlements (unrecognized by MCGM), and along the streets. A small chowki (municipal cabin office) is placed at the spot to supervise and maintain the area. At least two workers are stationed at the Chowki for maintenance and management. A sulabh sauchalaya (public toilet) is always built next to the spot.
STATIONARY COMPACTORS
These are waste compaction vehicles stationed along a road. Along with the vehicle, a Chowki office is set up with two or three employees to maintain the area. The vehicle acts as a collection point where small vehicles unload the refuse after street sweeping or door-to-door garbage collection.
THE WARD SCALE
REFUSE TRANSFER STATIONS (RTS)
These are spaces for temporary waste disposal. After collecting and compacting waste, the compactors are unloaded, and the contents are loaded onto dumpers. The sites identified for the stations cater to one or more wards. The work happens in three shifts.
The RTS for K-West is located in Lokhandwala Lagoon amidst the mangroves of Versova. At the junction, the BMC road splits into a narrow road leading to the transfer station.
The RTS in Kurla serves G/N, H/E, and L Ward. It is located near the Mithi River and has a railway line running on the other side.
The RTS in Mahalakshmi serves Wards A, B, C, D, F/S, F/N, G/S, and G/N. It is located near Mahalakshmi Station.
Figure 6: Illustration of the Mahalakhsmi Refuse Transfer Station
Figure 7 Mahalakshmi Transfer Station highlighted in red with the view of the Mahalakshmi Race Course
DRY WASTE COLLECTION CENTER
MCGM has set up 34 dry waste collection & sorting centers in 24 wards. The centers work as collection and sorting centers for dry waste catering to a section in a ward.
SCRAP MARKETS
These are markets where waste is sorted, segregated, and processed. Waste is handled here as a commodity. It is bought and sold in bulk and processed. The raw materials produced are sold to manufacturing plants. Here, waste is visible as material.
Figure 8: Andheri Dry Waste Collection
Figure 9: Ganesh Nagar Scrap Market
THE CITY SCALE
LANDFILLS
“Nobody wonders where, each day, they carry their load of refuse. Outside the city, surely, but each year, the city expands, and the street cleaners have to fall farther back. The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, and extend over a wider perimeter.” – Calvino, Invisible Cities.
Waste travels to landfills from barred refuse transfer stations. These landfills are ‘appropriately’ located along the city’s edges. They are generally low-lying and marshy areas (considering Mumbai’s edge condition ) with no human populations nearby. However, low-income settlements have evolved around most of Mumbai’s dumping grounds.
Waste as a resource is hidden and only visible to those familiar with waste and its socio-materiality.2 The mountain of trash, hidden from wealthy and ordinary citizens, is visible as a resource to ragpickers, slum dwellers, and other less well-off urban communities living near landfills.
Behind these walled-up grounds, the power and politics of garbage come into play. Garbage is a big business in Mumbai, estimated to be worth $38 million - $70 million yearly. Dumping grounds like Deonar are playgrounds of opportunity for katara (waste) mafias, small-scale dealers who employ and control hundreds of ragpickers as foot soldiers.
Situated along the edge of the city, the M-East Ward is largely marshy and covered in mangroves, thus providing a “suitable” site for the Deonar dumping ground. The M-East Ward has been the most neglected regarding infrastructure and human development. It represents a particular concentration of slums and urban poverty.
Figure 10: View of the Deonar dumping ground during monsoons covered in wild vegetation and the urban sprawl hugging its edges; the map shows location of dumping grounds in Mumbai; black dotted circles highlight the ones active.
1. GORAI DUMPING GROUND
The dumping ground was sealed using advanced technology, using layers of earth, gravel, and impermeable material. A onemeter-high, seven-meter-deep concrete wall prevents leachate from draining into the nearby creek. Around forty wells, twenty meters deep, carry the methane gas produced by the buried matter.3
2. CHINCHOLI-BUNDAR DUMPING GROUND
Today, the landscape has changed to a residential and commercial hub called Mindspace.
3. KANJURMARG SCIENTIFIC LANDFILL
The BMC plans to direct 80 percent of the city’s waste to Kanjurmarg4. The civic body appealed to the Mumbai High Court for environmental clearance to expand into Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary, an Ecosensitive Zone (ESZ).
4. DEONAR DUMPING GROUND
The dumping ground has reached saturation. The civic body has filed an affidavit with the Bombay High Court seeking an extension until 2022. They also propose inviting global tenders for power generation from 600 Metric tonnes of garbage collected from Deonar.
PROGRAM MENU & MODULE DIAGRAM
Figure 11: The Invisibile Infrastructure - Neighborhood Scale
THE NEW NARRATIVE
THE RESOURCE COLLECTOR
The informal workforce, once derogatorily referred to as ragpickers, has now been integrated into the new system. They are empowered to sell recyclables collected from the neighborhood at the municipal chowki for a fair price. In contrast to the past, they now possess a legal ID card that allows them to work at the refuse transfer station and grants them access to all municipal employee amenities.
12: The Invisibile Infrastructure - Neighborhood Scale
Figure
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kapoor is a first year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student at the University of Michigan. With a background in architecture from India, Kapoor’s interests lie at the intersection of climate resilience in the built environment and environmental justice. She aspires to equip herself with holistic sustainability perspectives across the planning landscapes of both the United States and India to contribute to future-proofing urban environments against climate vulnerabilities. Outside of academic and professional pursuits, she is an amateur movement practitioner perpetually fascinated by the podcast Radiolab and its soundscapes.
ENDNOTES
1. Mary Douglas, Purity, and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, (Routledge, 1966).
2. Johan Hultman and Hervé Corvellec, “The European Waste Hierarchy: From the sociomateriality of Waste to a Politics of Consumption,” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 44, no. 10 (2012), https://doi.org/10.1068/a44668.
3. Sukhada Tatke, “Gorai dumping ground all set to be a green belt,” Times of India, November 13, 2008, https://timesofindia. indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Gorai-dumping-ground-all-set-tobe-a-green-belt/articleshow/3705986.cms.
4. Vijay V. Singh, “80% of Mumbai’s waste to go to Kanjurmarg soon,” Times of India, November 7, 2018, https://timesofindia. indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/80-of-mumbais-waste-to-go-tokanjurmarg-soon/articleshow/66531402.cms.
MOVEMENT IN CONTEXT
The Symposium section of AGORA features timely and critical work in the realm of urban planning and design that best reflects the publication’s selected theme. In 2025, our theme is movement. Cities are ever-changing. Therefore, urban planning and design are defined by movement — across landscapes and waterways, through cities, over time, and within social and political contexts. To plan and design for our futures, we must acknowledge how people utilize movement to connect with their built environment and how it can be leveraged to make a positive difference in the world.
As urban planners and designers, it is an oversimplification to distill movement down solely to a question of transportation. Movement is transformative. Movement is, first and foremost, the act of change. It occurs across space, time, populations, policy, and society. Movement prompts action and reaction, shaping how the human and non-human interact with the environment and one another. It can reinforce or dismantle barriers, foster inclusion and exclusion, and invoke both progression and regression. Movement influences identity, access, and opportunity, dictating who can participate in urbanity and on what terms. As we explore this year’s theme, we must consider not only how movement is facilitated but also who it serves, who it disrupts, and how it can be harnessed to create a more just, resilient, and responsive world.
The four selections of this year’s symposium span distances, histories, and cultures. Each piece takes the idea of movement and interprets it within context. Let these pieces serve as both a reflection and an invitation to embrace the fluidity of the world, to see movement not as a challenge but as an opportunity. May these pieces inspire you to engage deeply, adapt thoughtfully, and create meaningful, lasting change for the people and places you serve.
Ashley E. Amey, Brooke Bulmash, Makenna Litteral, Nivedita Patel symposium team
missing mobile
Virginia Bassily Master of Urban Design ‘24
Haley Cope Master of Architecture ‘25
Akshita Mandhyan Master of Urban Design ‘24
ABSTRACT
This design project, in collaboration with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), is part of a studio which focused on the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of historical heritage at the Thiruppudaimaruthuur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR) in Tamil Nadu, India. The core objective was to co-design an interpretation center that aligns with the goals of ecotourism envisioned for the TBCR while responding to the unique needs of the local community. The project challenges traditional methods of interpretation by placing the villagers at the center of the process, ensuring that their perspectives are prioritized. The innovative approach, called the “Missing Mobile,” explores the concept of a mobile interpretation strategy, designed to reach the community rather than expecting the community to travel to a fixed location. This mobile center aims to engage women, children, and young adults, putting them at the forefront of interpreting while preserving their local heritage and environment.
01
Interpreting the social landscape by creating a space for socialization, oral storytelling, entertainment (film screenings), and interactive workshops such as cooking and tailoring.
02
Interpreting education and play through hands-on learning experiences, fostering sensory engagement and exposure.
03
Interpreting the complexities of transportation infrastructure at a regional scale—examining the role of bus stops within the site’s three hamlets and neighboring villages—while encouraging users to take action.
OUR ASSIGNMENT
Design an interpretation center and landscape observatory to support the ongoing development of this regional eco-tourism initiative.
OUR QUESTION
Can the Interpretation Center for TBCR function as a mobile vehicle for information, intervention, and interpretation?
URBAN DESIGN STUDIO DESCRIPTION
This project was produced as part of a studio conducted in collaboration with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a local organization in India that has been actively engaged at the site for years. ATREE is currently leading a feasibility study for an eco-tourism initiative aimed at conserving biodiversity and protecting the heritage of the Thiruppudaimaruthur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR) in Tamil Nadu, Southern India.
WHAT IS OUR INTERPRETATION CENTRE ABOUT?
One of the most significant observations from our trip—reinforced by our partners at ATREE—is the stark disparity in accessibility throughout the village. Men have greater access to village amenities, as well as natural and cultural resources, while women and children face notable limitations. Additionally, accessibility varies between hamlets, with villagers in Hamlet 1 experiencing the greatest access, whereas those in Hamlets 2 and 3 are often overlooked. Our interpretation center is not a single permanent entity but a network of multiple centers—some static, some dynamic. It embraces the impermanent, fluid nature of interpretation, allowing for a more responsive and evolving engagement with the socio-ecological complexities of the TBCR. To effectively convey meaning within this intricate system, we argue that diverse scales and experiences must be decentralized. This framework is designed by, for, and with the local community—shaped through ongoing engagement, contributions, and interactions across different genders, age groups, and skill sets. It harnesses existing social fabrics, skills, and opportunities while remaining partially open to visitors during select cultural, religious, and festive occasions.
01. WONDER WOMEN
Wonder Women is an integral part of this mobile infrastructure, addressing both shortand long-term challenges women face in the village. This mobile infrastructure system is thoughtfully designed to harness synergies of existing women-led social networks— whether it’s self-help or social groups engaged in various activities like beedi rolling. Fundamentally, it is envisioned as an initiative run by, for, and of women.
The mobile truck serves as a modular platform, equipped with adaptable components that can be reconfigured to accommodate a variety of activities, fostering both flexibility and accessibility.
COMPONENTS
The system consists of three fundamental components: a screen, a versatile pole, and a bench that can function as a seat, shelf, or pole stand when inverted.
COMPONENTS OF WONDER WOMEN
The system consists of three fundamental components: a screen, a versatile pole, and a bench that can function as a seat, shelf, or pole stand when inverted.
CONFIGURATIONS
The configurations are categorized into two types: dynamic and static. The dynamic configuration engages with women in motion giving and gathering, enabling interaction and knowledge exchange, while the static configuration is deployed at the TBCR site to foster engagement with visitors.
FIGURE 4: SKILL SHARING TO STORE
A skill-sharing configuration allows women to exchange knowledge and craft products, which are then exhibited or sold at the TBCR site. This initiative provides an alternative income stream, encouraging a shift away from beedi rolling, a practice with severe health and environmental consequences.
FIGURE 5: SCREENING, SOCIALIZING, AND STORY SHARING TO STORY FOREST
A storytelling session—through oral narratives or personal artifacts—can be transformed into a women-curated exhibit at the TBCR site, preserving and showcasing shared experiences. Screenings, whether for entertainment near women’s homes or for educational purposes at TBCR, can be facilitated through this mobile infrastructure, fostering both community engagement and awareness.
figure 4:
figure 5:
FIGURE 6: WONDER WOMEN EXPERIENCE
02. CHAMPION CHILDREN
Champion Children is a part of this mobile system about interpreting education and play through hands-on learning experiences, cultivating a space for sensory learning and exposure. It attempts to make knowledge and play more accessible. ATREE’s existing programs bring students to 5 highlighted landscapes of the watershed region: Kurinji (Mountains), Mullai (forest), Marutham (croplands), Palai (dry lands), and Neithal (seashores). These programs enable students to learn about the landscapes and organisms through hands-on experiences. However, many children are unable to participate in these programs, so how can this knowledge of landscapes and experiences through imagination and play be brought to the children? This mobile system suggests a partnership with ATREE’s existing program and knowledge that can activate existing sites, schools, and playgrounds. Additionally, it can become its own site as landscapes are presented as PLAYscapes that are interactive and engaging.
PAALI: ARIDLAND
MULLI: FOREST
MARUTHAM: FARMLAND
KURINJI: MOUNTAINS
NEITHAL: SEASHORE
Figure 7: Champion Children possible configurations
FIGURE 8.1
A group of children eagerly explores the inside of the mobile learning truck, their senses engaged by vibrant visuals of local landscapes and the soothing sounds of mammals, insects, flowing water, and rustling leaves.
FIGURE 8.2
A leader stands with a group of children beneath a canopy of trees, pointing toward a colorful bird perched high on a branch. The children are wide-eyed with curiosity. The moment is alive with discovery as the group connects with the local ecosystem, transforming the landscape into an interactive classroom.
8.3
Children climb and swing through a playscape designed to mimic the forest canopy and bamboo thickets. Immersed in imaginative play, they pretend to be elephants and the other mammals they have learned about, weaving stories of life in the forest. The vibrant playscape becomes an extension of the landscape, blending learning with play as the children activate their surroundings with creativity and joy.
FIGURE
03. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
The Mission Impossible truck focuses on some of the tensions in the village that are worth bringing to light and interpreting. These tensions may include the waste management issues repeatedly mentioned throughout onsite conversations and research from ATREE. Additional points of tension and conflict in the village involve the harms of beedi-rolling, missing infrastructure, and lack of accessibility to existing networks.
WHAT CONFLICTS?
These may include the waste management issue mentioned several times during our trip and in the research shared with us by ATREE. The truck may also choose to take on other topics of tension or conflict in the village, like the harms of beedi-rolling, missing infrastructures, or lack of accessibility to the existing ones.
COMPONENTS
We introduce a certain set of components that can be configured in different ways to promote various opportunities for interpretation. These components include empty frames, frames that are half empty, half shelves; frames that are a combination of shelves, frames that are all solid; and baskets.
CONFIGURATIONS
These activities include an opportunity for a screening, providing relevant resources to the topic, games, an artist’s installation, a moment of self-check, fact check, physical apology left behind, or space to simply converse and express Oneself.
CONCLUSION
This creates an opportunity for both locals – and possibly tourists – to come together, assemble, and participate in conversations brought up by the truck around a particular topic they find important and relevant to them.
12: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE EXPERIENCE
FIGURE
PROPOSED COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT AND ENGAGEMENT
This mobile system is designed to encourage training and building capacities of local people in a way that makes it both resilient and adaptable. Once funding is secured from companies, international or national organizations, local NGOs such as ATREE, and women’s self help groups work together to train and encourage local people to take control and run the system with minimal guidance.
Local people are trained to drive and assemble the system. In this system, local leaders would be identified and approached for guidance on how to assemble and run the trucks. The idea is for this mobile system to be of the user, by the user, and for the user.
Figure 13: The proposed management system
14: Showing speculations on possible resulting networks using the three mobiles
Figure
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this project addresses the missing mobile infrastructure that helps in ways that empower women, educate children, and create awareness on critical issues. It is an attempt to bring the Interpretation Center to the people. This project is about shifting and shaping a multitude of centers.
Bassily graduated with a Master of Urban Design in December of 2024 from the University of Michigan and has a background in Architectural Engineering from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. In her work, she explores the entanglements between the ‘informal’ and the ‘formal’ within urban settings. Her interests lie in exploring the different forms of sustainability that urban forms could achieve, not only from the environmental perspective but also from the local perspective.
HALEY COPE
Cope is in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Michigan. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from Eastern Michigan University. Her work focuses on designing educational spaces that foster engagement and play, with an emphasis on sustainable materials and community-driven design. She is particularly interested in how architecture can support learning in underserved and challenging context
AKSHITA MANDHYAN
Mandhyan graduated with a Master of Urban Design in December of 2024 from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Architecture from National Institute of Technology Raipur in India. She practiced architecture for 5 years in North and Central India working on a range of projects of varying scales and typologies. She is particularly passionate about improving safety, mobility, and accessibility (physical, psychological, social, and cultural) for women in the urban public spaces. She believes in designing and planning spaces that advocate for repair and inclusivity over renewal and exclusivity.
ENDNOTES
1. Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), ATREE’s Agasthyamalai Community Conservation Center (ACCC) Manimutharu, Nellai Neervalam, and Tirunelveli District Administration, A Detailed Project Report for the Restoration of Socio-Ecological Systems of Tamiraparani Riverscape (ATREE, 2023).
2. Vishnu V, Soubadra Devy M, Mathivanan M, Vinod M Kumar, and Maria Antony P, eds., Trails of the Tamiraparani, 1st ed. (Bengaluru, Karnataka, India: Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment [ATREE], 2021), ISBN: 978-81952895-3-0.
the camp as an urban space: implications for integrated settlements in east africa
ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, humanitarian discourse has introduced integrated settlement communities as a new approach to the persistent global refugee crisis. Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement in northwest Kenya is the first widely promoted and discussed attempt by the UNHCR, and humanitarian community more broadly, to implement this solution. To better understand the implications of efforts to achieve selfsufficient integrated communities in East Africa, it is necessary to understand the evolution of approaches to protracted refugee situations and how camps have been analyzed as an urban form. Within this context, this paper examines the Kalobeyei Integrated SocioEconomic Development Plan and its implications for urbanization.
Annie Lively Master of Urban and Regional Planning & Master of Social Work ‘26
INTRODUCTION
In 2024, East Africa was estimated to host approximately 5.1 million refugees.1 Many of these refugees are experiencing protracted displacement–living in exile for five years or longer–in emergency settlements intended for short-term relief that have evolved into long-term camps. On average, the lifespan of these camps is nearly 24 years. The Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya have persisted even longer at 33 and 32 years, respectively.2 These camps have evolved and generated significant academic and policy discussion regarding the experiences of refugees and surrounding communities, the socioeconomic context of camps, and best practices and alternatives to existing approaches to protracted refugee situations. Over the last decade, a new approach has been introduced in East Africa to reshape responses to the refugee crisis. The Kalobeyei Integrated SocioEconomic Development Plan (KISEDP) is an attempt to create an integrated settlement that achieves selfreliance for refugees and host communities. This paper draws on scholarship and policy documents from the mid-20th century through today to contextualize the formation and endurance of Dadaab and Kakuma and reflects on how scholars frame these two camps as urban forms. It further evaluates how KISEDP represents an emerging shift in both discourse and policy related to protracted refugee situations. What follows is a discussion on the urbanization of KISEDP, using the previous analysis of urban processes of Dadaab and Kakuma as a framework. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief argument as to why it is important to consider Kalobeyei’s urbanization in relation to Kenya’s current refugee camps and what questions remain as the implementation and impacts of KISEDP continue to unfold.
CREATING THE CAMP
Following the Second World War, international agencies and hosting countries began to explore and implement strategies that emphasized local integration of refugees. In East Africa, large-scale refugee camps were virtually nonexistent during the “golden age of asylum” of the 1960s through the 1990s. Instead, the
approach in Kenya—and Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly—involved policies that promoted and pursued the socio-economic inclusion of refugees into their host communities.3 During this period, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), national governments, international aid organizations, and their financial backers worked together to create over 170 rural settlements in Africa with the explicit interest in achieving the economic integration of refugees.4 Rural resettlement and integration were a principal element of the UNHCR’s approach to refugee populations, demonstrated by the overwhelming amount of funding and attention the organization focused on in Africa.5
However, by the early 1990s, African governments and the international aid community had dramatically diminished these efforts. Conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan caused increased levels of displacement, which prompted a massive inflow of refugees in East Africa, and encampments quickly became the primary response of the Kenyan national government.6 The UNHCR and partnering organizations responded to this shift by playing a major role in the creation and management of camps in Kenya. In an attempt to address the immediate pressure of this high volume of refugees arriving in the country, the UNHCR and the Kenyan national government established the refugee camps Dadaab in 1991, and Kakuma in 1992.7
In Kenya during this period, the national government affirmed both the temporary and isolated nature of refugees through its legal interpretation of refugees, which emphasized “that the status accorded to the refugees [in camps] is non-permanent, and that once the basis for their well-founded fear of persecution has been removed, then their status will be revoked.”8 Discourse around refugees in the international community also reflected the shift towards encampment policies. By the mid 1990s, the UNHCR had removed “any elements which might be seen as leading towards turning a camp into a permanent settlement” from its policies and literature.9 Framed as a temporary and emergency response, efforts to standardize the creation and management of camps revolved around immediate concerns at the expense of long-term planning of the sites. Voluntary repatriation
to home countries replaced local integration as the preferred long-term solution adopted by the UNHCR and broader humanitarian community in African refugee crises during this period.10 The UNHCR reframed newly established refugee camps like Dadaab and Kakuma as transitional spaces, intended to be used for a temporary period before repatriation. These sites were spatially and figuratively isolated from host communities, and management focused strictly on the provision of emergency aid and meeting the immediate needs of residents.
Despite becoming the dominant approach for refugees in Africa, repatriation ultimately proved challenging and was largely unsuccessful due to the ongoing conflicts in the continent in the 1990s that prevented return to home countries.11 This low rate of successful repatriation led to an increase in the prevalence of protracted refugee situations, particularly in East Africa, where refugees can experience displacement for more than five years and remain in tenuous situations.12
Protracted refugee situations fuel long-term refugee camps. The average lifespan of emergency settlements is estimated to be nearly 24 years and is trending higher.13 Dadaab and Kakuma camps in Kenya have been open for 33 and 32 years, respectively.
Recently, humanitarian discourse increasingly acknowledges the reality that refugee camps have developed beyond an immediate and emergency response to displacement. While the UNHCR and other international organizations continue to reference repatriation as an ideal solution for refugees, attention is returning to the prospects of local integration as a durable solution. The adoption of the 2016 Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) and the subsequent 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) by the UN and partners produced an updated humanitarian framework that incorporates a development agenda to achieve long-term solutions for refugees.14 The UNHCR’s most recent strategic report defined efforts to “expand, pursue and adapt options for resettlement and complementary pathways” as one of the organization’s eight strategic directions, indicating a commitment to more seriously consider options beyond repatriation for refugees.15
CAMPS AS AN URBAN FORM
The enduring reality of refugee camps has produced a growing body of literature that explores how these spaces have transformed over time. Scholars view Dadaab and Kakuma camps in Kenya as major sites of inquiry due to their position as long-standing and densely populated camps, which currently host 364,432 and 279,452 refugees and asylum seekers, respectively.16 Over the past three decades, Dadaab and Kakuma have evolved beyond their initial function as refugee camps, becoming deeply intertwined with their surrounding regions. Economic exchanges connect camp and host communities, refugees establish new relationships with both the built environment and aid systems, and governance structures are a blend of state, local, and humanitarian oversight. Of particular interest to this paper is how this evolution has transformed these camps as urban spaces rather than temporary emergency zones.
Montclos and Kagwanja argue that the population, economy, and socio-cultural dynamics of Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma camps demonstrate the features of a virtual city.17 Both the formal infrastructure provided by UNHCR and other aid organizations and the informal linkages formed by camp residents and host communities produce economic development within and beyond the borders of Dadaab and Kakuma. Trading networks emanate from the camps, resulting in the transfer of humanitarian aid from the camp to the surrounding hinterlands, while vibrant markets have emerged within the camps between refugees and the host communities. The dynamic economies in and around the camps show all the signs of a “viable market town which could possibly support some refugees when the humanitarian aid stops.”18
Despite their argument that socio-economic development in Dadaab and Kakuma is an example of the urban form, the authors emphasize that existing and future development is subject to the preservation of existing humanitarian infrastructure and national policies. Economies built around provisional aid are vulnerable to economic shocks when it is withdrawn. In addition, the Kenyan government’s lack of legal recognition for refugees and its policy of containment
penalize “any initiative by refugees for investment and settlement” that might supplant humanitarian infrastructure.19 By 2000, both Dadaab and Kakuma developed complex economies with convincing urban forms, but this urbanization remains precarious due to the legal and political realities for refugee camps in Kenya.
Michel Agier’s 2002 ethnographic research in Dadaab further explores the urbanizing process of refugee camps and articulates how the relations between camp and city are mediated by a broader legal and political context.20 Agier describes Dadaab as a paradox in which the refugee camp is only necessitated and produced by its occupants’ shared status of victimhood. This monolithic identity is used to justify the provision of care and support. Agier argues that camp occupants are not only made victims, but also rendered nameless and stripped of their individual social and political identities. Paradoxically, these camps inevitably create “opportunities for encounters, exchanges and reworkings of identity.”21 Agier uses his fieldwork in the Dadaab camp to demonstrate that these complex dynamics mirror an urban form and identifies three “sketches” produced in the camp. Emerging from his research are the “sketches of a symbolic space, social differentiation and identity change” that constitute a unique mimicry of the elements that compose a city.22
Agier’s analysis of these sketches contradicts previous arguments that camps reinforce existing forms of identity and ethnic attachment for refugees, and that only resettlement in towns will produce a notable shift in refugee self-identity. The complexities of space, social interactions, and identity in Dadaab demonstrate an innovative framework that renders it a “city-camp.”
Despite this, Agier maintains a distinction between the camp and the city, in which the camp persists in ways unique from the city. Camps, by design, are unfinished cities due to the liminal nature of displacement. Under humanitarian systems of emergency management, “the city is in the camp but always only in the form of sketches that are perpetually aborted,” and the camp itself represents a “waiting zone outside of society.”23
In later publications, Agier expands his argument of camps as distinctive spaces using three defining characteristics: extraterritoriality, exceptionality, and social exclusion.24 Camps are isolated from other settlements or cities and are often absent from territorial maps, physically and figuratively existing outside of recognized spaces. Unlike recognized territories and citizens, camps and their inhabitants are subject to politics of exception in which they are governed by a complex web of international figures and standards. This extraterritoriality and exceptionality leads to social exclusion. The physical and legal distinctions of refugee camps construct a clear demarcation where occupants are “clearly marked as different, other, unable to be integrated.”25 Agier’s early ethnographic work and subsequent publications emphasize the limiting nature of humanitarian governance for refugee camps, highlighting how the complex internal dynamics of camps are confined within their political and legal context, isolating them from the broader spatial and political landscape they are situated within.
More recently, scholarship has complicated the argument that camps are sites of exclusion and exception contained within a rigid spatial and socio-political border. Jansen acknowledges that humanitarian governance makes camps exceptional spaces but also contends that refugees demonstrate social agency through their complex relationship with the camp and its governance by humanitarian agencies, which produces a unique kind of urbanism. As opposed to being physically and socially isolated “naked cities,” over time “refugee camps in Kenya have become a ‘normal’ part of the regional socio-economic landscape.”26 This analysis challenges discussions of camp dynamics which assert that the omnipresent model of refugee care produces an incomplete urban form. Instead, Jansen argues that instead of seeing camps as unfinished urbanism, we should understand them as urbanizing “in a particular way under a powerful and effective humanitarian rationale and management” defined as “humanitarian urbanism.”27
Their integration into the Kenyan landscape is the product of the diverse and complex ways that people interact with refugee camps. Jansen’s research argues
that Kakuma is “simultaneously an emergency shelter; a point of transit; a centre of facilities such as health care and education; an emerging economy; and a last resort—governed by a functioning bureaucracy based on humanitarian ideas…the camp is an option.”28
Understood through humanitarian urbanism, Kakuma is an “accidental city” whose management and characteristics have “drifted away from a strict humanitarian necessity to one of urban management.”29 Kakuma is mediated by a complex set of formal and informal linkages between refugees, humanitarian actors, and the wider region both within and without the camp’s borders. After opening in 1992, Kakuma refugee camp grew larger as other camps in the region closed and conflict in neighboring countries continued to drive displacement. By 2005, Kakuma was an emerging urban site of humanitarian governance, where residents had access to education, healthcare, and food and water. With the protracted nature of the camp and the introduction of governance by humanitarian agencies.
The camp developed and its economy developed accordingly, and refugees explained that their reason for coming to the camp was inspired by the availability of education for themselves and their children, or to try to opt for resettlement, in addition to, or sometimes instead of, the more general fleeing of violence.30
Social changes developed alongside a camp economy that grew to provide more than just humanitarian resources: social class and forms of labor diversified, while entrepreneurs began to provide a range of products and services. As a site of both humanitarian resource provision and an increasingly vibrant informal economy, Kakuma impacted the surrounding region, increasing the number of local inhabitants in the relatively rural community around the camp.31
Jansen’s 2015 research also explores the linkages between Kakuma and Kenyan cities, noting a dynamic that shuffles between formality and informality. Despite Kenya’s encampment policy restricting the movement of refugees outside of the camp’s borders, some refugees maneuvered through legal gray areas to leave Kakuma. While many of these individuals took advantage of
government corruption to travel outside the camp, other refugees managed to obtain UNHCR-issued travel permits to bypass Kenyan legal restrictions altogether. Some refugees who left the camp and were living elsewhere only maintained ties to Kakuma through family members that remained while accessing aid provision and services available in cities or other regions. Others virtually removed themselves from humanitarian governance, returning only to maintain their status as refugees. These diverse and complex relationships between refugees, the physical camp, and Kakuma’s humanitarian governance highlight the camps’ integration within the wider socio-economic landscape.
More recently, Jansen and Bruijne explored the “humanitarian spill-over” of international actors who have become nearly permanent figures in political administration within and outside the borders of Kakuma. These actors serve “as intermediaries between the state and its citizens, both controlling and empowering the role of the state in the area and being substitute service providers.”32 While national Kenyan policy continues to restrict the movement and settlement patterns of refugees, instances of humanitarian spill-over demonstrate a nuanced relationship between state policy and humanitarian governance. This development tests the limits of camp urbanization theory as described by early 21st-century scholars. At times, international aid organizations replace state governance structures, which expand the development possibilities around refugee camps, producing a kind of humanitarian urbanism that integrates these camps into the surrounding landscape.
The endurance and growth of Dadaab and Kakuma for over thirty years resulted in linkages with their surrounding areas and beyond. Camp economies integrated into host communities, refugees created new relationships with both the physical camp and humanitarian infrastructure, and political control became increasingly hybridized between state, local, and humanitarian governance. Against this backdrop, the approach to refugee solutions is evolving.
KALOBEYEI INTEGRATED SETTLEMENT
The Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan (KISEDP) is a 2015 agreement between the Turkana local government and community leaders, the Kenyan government, and the UNHCR to develop an integrated settlement to achieve self-reliance for refugees and host communities. The settlement is located 15 miles from Kakuma in the town of Kalobeyei and targets about 250,000 refugees and 256,000 host community residents.33 This plan represents the realization of goals outlined in the CRRF and GCR, that humanitarian efforts should prioritize long-term solutions rooted in development frameworks. KISEDP is currently in phase 2 of 3 and has not yet achieved the targeted funding required for full implementation.34
In addition to complementing CRRF and GCR goals, KISEDP and the renewed focus on integrated settlements by the UNHCR and partnering organizations are also supported by economic analysis from the World Bank and other international groups. This research determined that refugees in the Kakuma camp contribute positively to economic growth and that an integrated settlement is critical to the socioeconomic development in the region.35 Yet even though the World Bank’s research justifies KISEDP, it only “examined Kalobeyei from the perspectives of concept and process, not from an outcome perspective. Neither did they examine or control for a gradual phasing out of humanitarian assistance.”36 Despite emphasizing the goal of self-sufficiency for refugees, KISEDP is supported by research that does not appear to critically engage with the impact humanitarian aid has in the region. While beyond the scope of this paper, it should be noted that the entire concept of refugee self-sufficiency pushed by agencies like the UNHCR has been problematized in recent years by scholars and activists.37
The UNHCR and partner organizations describe KISEDP as an innovative solution to the refugee crisis, even though this plan does not include any reference to the integrated settlements pursued by the UNHCR and African national governments prior to the policy shifts of the 1990s. According to Felleson, the
effectiveness of integrative solutions for refugees before policy changes at the end of the 20th century largely hinges on the host government’s strong and ongoing political commitment, supported by key international stakeholders. Additionally, for these policies to be successfully implemented, strategies aimed at fostering economic self-sufficiency must be carefully evaluated against the environmental realities of the host region.38
We can use these conclusions as a framework to evaluate KISEDP’s progress and its potential for successful integration moving forward. A number of factors affect whether the plan can achieve sustained commitment from the Kenyan government and backing from the international community. Kenya’s 2021 Refugee Act affords refugees more rights than previous legislation and outlines the goal of transitioning existing camps into urban settlements.39 While the Act loosens restrictions of movement, refugees remain required to live in “designated areas,” and the Act is vague in defining how an individual qualifies for the right to work.40 The national government has demonstrated increased recognition of refugees’ rights, but policies remain relatively unclear in terms of application.
Beyond political commitments, KISEDP should also be evaluated in terms of its approach to achieving economic self-sufficiency relative to the physical and socio-economic context of Kalobeyei and the surrounding region. KISEDP’s sixth programmatic component—agriculture, livestock, and natural resource management—runs into significant challenges due to local geography. Kalobeyei is located in an arid, drought-prone region, and agricultural activities remain extremely limited: they simply do not exist at scale near the Kakuma camp.41 In its review of existing challenges for self-sufficiency in agricultural measures, KISEDP lists significant geographical and climate barriers: prolonged drought and inadequate infrastructure, as well as insufficient funding from partner agencies.42 Although a core component of the plan, underperformance in agricultural activities may prove to be a barrier to refugee and host self-sufficiency.
Additionally, the socio-economic conditions of
Kalobeyei and the broader region pose significant challenges to achieving self-sufficiency. In 2022, UNHABITAT identified humanitarian agencies as the primary source of formal employment and high levels of poverty among both refugee and host communities in the region. This economic context requires greater attention from KISEDP to the implications of its planned scaling back of humanitarian aid. These findings support the conclusion that economies that revolve around provisional aid are unlikely to be self-sustaining, even if the community exhibits strong socio-economic linkages.43 This is exacerbated by policy: while the 2021 Refugee Act technically allows refugees to apply for work permits, significant barriers to qualifying for the permit remain in both procedure and unclear criteria.44
KISEDP represents a significant collaborative effort to reframe approaches to the refugee crisis in East Africa and is a notable departure from humanitarian discourse focused on emergency management and repatriation. Current estimates indicate there are over 600,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Dadaab and Kakuma. Ongoing conflict in the East African region continues to make it difficult or impossible for displaced people to return to their country of origin.45 Facing these challenges, KISEDP attempts to address the reality of the refugee situation in Kenya while also contributing to broader development goals of the nation. Despite this, a review of the program’s methodology and impact showcases a number of barriers to removing emergency humanitarian infrastructure and achieving selfsufficiency among refugees and host communities.
URBANIZATION IN KALOBEYEI
KISEDP has transformed and will continue to transform the urban form of Kalobeyei via population growth, expanded access to services, and economic growth.46 While KISEDP represents an alternate framework from what guided the establishment of refugee camps, evidence suggests that Kalobeyei can be understood through the lens of humanitarian urbanism, much like Dadaab and Kakuma. This is suggested by the plan’s impact to date: a 2019
comparative analysis of refugee outcomes based on five self-reliance indicators found relatively equal levels of poor performance in the Kalobeyei settlement and Kakuma refugee camp.47 While Kalobeyei is framed as a new model for approaching the refugee crisis in East Africa, a prevailing lack of refugee rights and enduring function of humanitarian governance demonstrate the continuation of processes in Kalobeyei that determine the urban form of Dadaab and Kakuma.
In 2018, formal employment accounted for only 8 percent of working refugees in Kalobeyei.48 Despite a progressive shift in political attitude towards refugees’ legal recognition since the 2021 Refugee Act, refugees remain ineligible for Kenyan citizenship and still face significant legal barriers to their freedom of movement and right to work that has maintained their low representation in the formal sector.49 According to Montclos and Kagwanja, limitations from restrictive refugee policies hinder the durability of camp economies when aid is removed.50 Thus, even though Kalobeyei’s legal recognition is less limited than that of Dadaab or Kakuma due to its mixed population of refugees and host residents, its economic urbanization remains vulnerable due to Kenya’s policy of political exclusion for refugees.
Beyond the persistent lack of refugees’ legal recognition from the state, humanitarian governance also plays a critical role in Kalobeyei’s urbanization. Spatial and social integration in Kalobeyei addresses Agier’s diagnosis of extraterritoriality in camps, and evidence suggests a slight increase in interactions between refugees and host residents relative to Kakuma.51 Yet in Kakuma, KISEDP maintains the infrastructure of humanitarian governance and possibilities for linkages identified by Jansen. KISEDP is technically defined by and implemented through collaboration between the UNHCR, the Turkana County government, the Kenyan national government, and various NGOs and private-sector partners.52 Notably, of these stakeholders, the UNHCR and partnering aid organizations have historically provided better-quality facilities and services than those administered by the state and have made a significant impact on the economic and spatial patterns of the host communities in the Kakuma-
Kalobeyei region.53
The humanitarian urbanism of the Kakuma refugee camp since its establishment in the 1990s produced multiple dimensions of “humanitarian spill-over” beyond the camp, resulting in a “subtle shift from humanitarianism towards a more general, longterm and hybrid development process and form of humanitarian governance.”54 While KISEDP is described as an innovative hybrid between the state and humanitarian actors, evidence suggests that the plan is essentially a promotion and institutionalization of existing humanitarian governance in the region. The hybridization of governance is framed within the plan as a transitional step towards self-reliance: the humanitarian presence will gradually decline as the private sector and state establish durable physical, economic, and service infrastructure.
If successful in achieving these goals, Kalobeyei will present a markedly different form of urbanization than that of Dadaab or Kakuma in Kenya. However, it is uncertain whether KISEDP has the capacity to reduce and eventually remove humanitarian aid from Kalobeyei’s urban form while increasing the role of the state and private sector in meeting residents’ needs. Existing evidence suggests that the plan has not reduced dependence on aid, and measures that produced positive socio-economic effects have not led to increased levels of self-sufficiency.55 The socioeconomic state of Kalobeyei has yet to demonstrate that the state and private sector can fulfill the current role of humanitarian governance and service provision.
CONCLUSION
Understanding urbanization in Kalobeyei relative to that in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps is important because of the implications for refugees and host communities in the region, the development of Kenya’s infrastructure and domestic economy, and the discourse and frameworks that shape the experiences of refugees facing protracted displacement worldwide. At present, Kalobeyei demonstrates the endurance of humanitarian urbanism in protracted refugee situations. This is underpinned by a series of contexts and processes already observed in Dadaab and Kakuma. Despite KISEDP’s efforts to diverge from these patterns, it seems more than likely that “humanitarian urbanism may be with us for some time to come.”56
Montclos and Kagwanja elaborated on how the political exclusion of refugees stymies the durability of camps’ urbanization, despite evidence that camp economies create virtual cities that are epicenters of regional trade and labor markets. Agier identifies the cosmopolitan production of space, new social arrangements, and identity transformation in Dadaab and explains how exclusion by the Kenyan government and the exceptionalism of humanitarian governance render these creations a perpetual waiting zone that fails to become a true city. Jansen examines how within this perpetual and liminal urban form, camps continue to evolve based on linkages between refugees, humanitarian governance, and the surrounding social, economic, and political landscape. Further, evidence indicates that rather than being mere emergency sites, refugee camps increasingly influence power and development dynamics outside of their boundaries.57
If we view Dadaab and Kakuma as cities in their own right, it reveals the challenge KISEDP and any other integrative plans will have to tackle. These sites evolved and urbanized as a result of humanitarian governance and the refugees within. Aid and its associated infrastructure are the basis for refugees’ capacity to relate with one another, integrate with the broader socio-economic landscape, and navigate the political contexts they operate within. In both Dadaab and Kakuma, aid infrastructure provided the foundation on which ties between refugees, surrounding communities,
and governance developed. In response to this, the success of KISEDP will be determined by its ability to foster durable political infrastructure and services outside the purview of humanitarianism in places like Kalobeyei.
As KISEDP continues to be implemented, several questions emerge that present opportunities for further inquiry into the future of protracted refugee solutions. Will the Kenyan government continue to relax restrictions related to refugees’ movement and ability to participate in the formal sector? How would this transform the relationship between refugees and the state, which has otherwise remained exclusionary in nature? Will the role of humanitarian governance gradually decline in Kalobeyei and the surrounding region and is that enough to determine successful achievements of self-sufficiency and integration?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lively is a second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning and Mastersof Social Work student. Her areas of interest include refugee integration and migration patterns in international urban contexts. Upon graduation, she is hoping to pursue these interests internationally. Annie studied Swahili for 3 years at Michigan State University, where she graduated from the Honors College with a degree in Social Relations and Policy and a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies.
2. Abdon Dantas and Miguel Amado, “Refugee camp: A Literature Review,” Journal of Urban Planning and Development 149, no. 4 (2023): 1-11, https://doi.org/10.1061/JUPDDM. UPENG-4311.
3. Fred N. Ikanda, “East Africa’s economic powerhouse and refugee haven, Kenya struggles with security concerns,” Migration Policy Institute, July 2, 2024, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/ kenya-migration-refugee-profile.
4. Gaim Kibreab, “Refugees and Development in Africa: A Study of Organized Land Settlements for Eritrean Refugees in Eastern Sudan 1967–1983,” PhD diss., (Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute for African Studies, 1985).
5. John R. Rogge, “Africa’s resettlement strategies,” The International Migration Review 15, no. ½ (1981): 195–212. https://doi.org/10.2307/2545336.
6. Abdullahi B. Halakhe, et al., “Lessons and recommendations for implementing Kenya’s new refugee law,” Refugees International, August 1, 2024, https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reportsbriefs/lessons-and-recommendations-for-implementing-kenyasnew-refugee-law/.
7. Abdullahi B. Halakhe, et al., “Lessons and recommendations for implementing Kenya’s new refugee law,” Refugees International, August 1, 2024, https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reportsbriefs/lessons-and-recommendations-for-implementing-kenyasnew-refugee-law/.
8. James Kennedy, “Structures for the displaced: Service and identity in refugee settlements,” PhD diss., (Delft University of Technology, 2008).
9. Kennedy, “Structures for the Displaced: Service and Identity in Refugee Settlements,” 107.
10. John Fredriksson, et al., “Resettlement in the 1990s: A Review of Policy and Practice, EVAL/RES/14, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, (December 1994), https://www.refworld.org/ reference/research/unhcr/1994/en/76734.
11. Jeff Crisp, “No Solution in Sight: the Problem of Protracted Refugee Situations in Africa,” Working Paper No. 68 (UC San Diego: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, December 2002), https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89d8r34q.
12. Sarah Dryden Peterson, et al., “Local integration as a durable solution: Refugees, host populations, and education in Uganda,” UNHCR Working Paper no. 93 (Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, September 2003), https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/ legacy-pdf/3f8189ec4.pdf.
13. Dantas and Amado, “Refugee camp: A literature review.”
16. “Kenya February 2024 Operational Update,” UNHCR, (2024). https://www.unhcr.org/ke/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/ UNHCR-Kenya-Operational-Update-February-2024.pdf.
17. Marc-Antoine Perouse De Montclos, et al., “Refugee Camps or Cities? The Socio-economic Dynamics of the Dadaab and Kakuma Camps in Northern Kenya,” Journal of Refugee Studies 13, no. 2 (2000): 205-222, https://doi.org/10.1093/ jrs/13.2.205.
18. Ibid., 213.
19. Ibid., 220.
20. Michel Agier, “Between war and city: Towards an urban anthropology of refugee camps,” Ethnography 3, no. 3 (2002): 235–366. https://doi.org/10.1177/146613802401092779.
21. Ibid., 332
22. Ibid., 324
23. Ibid., 337
24. Michel Agier, “Migrant Nation.” Le monde diplomatique, June 1, 2017, https://mondediplo.com/2017/06/08camps.
25. Ibid.
26. Bram J. Jansen, “‘Digging aid’: The camp as an option in East and the Horn of Africa,” Journal of Refugee Studies 29, no. 2 (2015): 149-165. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fev018.
27. Bram J. Jansen, “The protracted refugee camp and the consolidation of a humanitarian urbanism,” International Journal of Urban and Regoinal Research 42, no. 3 (2016): 1–16. https://edepot.wur.nl/419236.
28. Jansen, “Digging Aid: The Camp as an Option in East and the Horn of Africa.”
29. Jansen, “The protracted refugee camp and the consolidation of a humanitarian urbanism.”
30. Jansen, “Digging Aid: The Camp as an Option in East and the Horn of Africa.”
31. “Kakuma as a Marketplace: A Consumer and Market Study of a Refugee Camp and Town in Northwest Kenya,” World Bank Group, (2018) https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/ en/482761525339883916/text/Kakuma-as-a-Marketplace-AConsumer-and-Market-Study-of-a-Refugee-Camp-and-Town-
in-Northwest-Kenya.txt.
32. Bram J. Jansen and Milou de Bruijne, “Humanitarian spill-over: The expansion of hybrid humanitarian governance from camps to refugee hosting societies in East Africa,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 14, no. 4 (2020): 669–688. https://doi.org/10.1 080/17531055.2020.1832292.
33. “Kalobeyei integrated socio-economic development plan II (KISEDP II),” UNHCR, March 7, 2023. https://www.unhcr. org/ke/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/KISEDP-II-_FinalPublication_7-March-2023.pdf.
35. Apurva Sanghi, Harun Onder, and Varalakshimi Vemuru, “Yes in my backyard? The economics of refugees and their social dynamics in Kakuma, Kenya,” World Bank Group, (2016), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/308011482417763778/Yes-in-my-backyard-The-economicsof-refugees-and-their-social-dynamics-in-Kakuma-Kenya; Varalakshmi Vemuru, Rahul Chandrashekhar Oka, Rieti Giovani Gengo, and Lee Gettler, “Refugee impacts on Turkana hosts: A social impact analysis for Kakuma town and refugee camp, Turkana County, Kenya,” World Bank Group, (2016), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/359161482490953624/Refugee-impacts-on-Turkana-hostsa-social-impact-analysis-for-Kakuma-town-and-refugee-campTurkana-County-Kenya.
36. Måns Fellsson, “A sustainable solution or just a different form of humanitarian assistance? Examining the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan (KISEDP),” Refugee Survey Quarterly 42, no. 2 (2023): 158–179. https://doi.org/10.1093/ rsq/hdad001.
37. “Understanding Self-Reliance: A Study of Socio-Economic Outcomes for Refugees,” Refugee Rights Europe, August 30, 2021, http://refugee-rights.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ Understanding-Self-Reliance_Final-30082021.pdf.
38. Fellesson, “A Sustainable Solution or Just a Different Form of Humanitarian Assistance? Examining the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan (KISEDP).”
39. Abdullahi B. Halakhe and Samson Omondi, “Lessons and recommendations for implementing Kenya’s new refugee law,” Refugees International, August 1, 2024, https:// www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/lessons-andrecommendations-for-implementing-kenyas-new-refugee-law/.
40. Izza Leghtas and David Kitenge, “How Implementing the New Regulations for the 2021 Refugee Act Can Improve the Lives of Refugees in Kenya,” Refugees International, March 24, 2023, https://www.refugeesinternational.org/perspectives-andcommentaries/how-implementing-the-new-regulations-for-the2021-refugee-act-can-improve-the-lives-of-refugees-in-kenya/.
41. Måns Fellesson, “A Sustainable Solution or Just a Different Form of Humanitarian Assistance? Examining the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan (KISEDP).”
42. “Kalobeyei integrated socio-economic development plan II (KISEDP II).” UNHCR.
43. Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos and Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, “Refugee Camps or Cities? The Socio-economic Dynamics of the Dadaab and Kakuma Camps in Northern Kenya.”
44. Izza Leghtas and David Kitenge, “How Implementing the New Regulations for the 2021 Refugee Act Can Improve the Lives of Refugees in Kenya.”
45. “Kenya Operational Update February 2024,” UNHCR.
46. “Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan II (KISEDP II),” UNHCR.
47. Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata, Cory Rodgers, Oliver Sterck, and Maria Stierna, “The Kalobeyei model: Towards self-reliance for refugees?,” Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (2020): 189–223, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fez063.
48. “Understanding the socioeconomic conditions of refugees in Kenya: Volume A - Kalobeyei settlement, results from the 2018 Kalobeyei socioeconomic survey,” World Bank Group, (2019), https://documents1.worldbank.org/ curated/en/982811613626800238/pdf/Understanding-theSocioeconomic-Conditions-of-Refugees-in-Kenya-VolumeA-Kalobeyei-Settlement-Results-from-the-2018-KalobeyeiSocioeconomic-Survey.pdf.
49. Khadija Dhala, “Could Kenya Be the Next Refugee Rights Champion?,” The New Humanitarian, May 23, 2024, https:// www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2024/05/23/couldkenya-be-next-refugee-rights-champion.
50. Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos and Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, “Refugee Camps or Cities? The Socio-economic Dynamics of the Dadaab and Kakuma Camps in Northern Kenya.”
51. Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata, Cory Rodgers, Oliver Sterck, and Maria Stierna,“The Kalobeyei Model: Towards Self-Reliance for Refugees?”
52. “Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan II (KISEDP II),” UNHCR.
53. Bram J. Jansen, “‘Digging Aid’: The Camp as an Option in East and the Horn of Africa.”
54. Bram J. Jansen Milou de Bruijne, “Humanitarian Spill-Over: The Expansion of Hybrid Humanitarian Governance from Camps to Refugee Hosting Societies in East Africa.”
55. Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata, Cory Rodgers, Olivier Sterck, and Maria Stierna, “The Kalobeyei Model: Towards Self-Reliance for Refugees?”
56. Jansen, “The Protracted Refugee Camp and the Consolidation of a Humanitarian Urbanism.”
57. Jansen, et al., “Humanitarian Spill-Over: The Expansion of Hybrid Humanitarian Governance from Camps to Refugee Hosting Societies in East Africa.”
landscapes of iron: acknowledging and reimagining sites of extraction
Cameron Blakely Master of Urban Design ‘24
Yuchen Guo Master of Architecture ‘25
Shane Herb Master of Architecture ‘25
Srilaxmi Melkundi Master of Urban Design ‘24
ABSTRACT
Landscapes of Iron project a reimagining of post-extraction landscapes, incorporating models of ecological restoration, localized economies, and climate resilience. The study explores three key intervention sites: the Empire and Tilden mines, the defunct Marquette airport, and the Marquette Harbor. Through a combination of soil remediation, adaptive reuse, urban densification, and renewable energy integration, these sites are envisioned as hubs for sustainable habitation and economic revitalization. Strategies such as terraced agriculture, timber production, wind energy generation, and wetland restoration are employed to address food insecurity, energy needs, and climate adaptability.
BACKGROUND
The southern shores of Lake Superior hold some of the most iron-rich lands in the world. These so-called iron ranges produce up to 85 percent of all the iron ore in the United States.1 Among these, the Marquette Range in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was one of the most influential of these ranges during the late 19th and first half of the 20th century.2
VENTURE CAPITALISTS
Two brothers, Samuel and William Mather, were early capitalists from Cleveland. Intrigued by the opportunities found in the Upper Peninsula, and led by ideals of manifest destiny to lay claims on the Marquette Range, they began taming the land and building an empire. They formed two competing companies that together controlled most of the mining lands in the region.3
EXPANSION OF EXTRACTION
When the Soo locks opened near Sault Ste. Marie in 1855, it meant that the precious ore no longer had to be portaged around the cascades and that bigger and faster ships could be developed to carry the ore to southern markets. At the same time, new methods of steel production and a growing demand for iron ore fueled the growth of the mines over the next half century.4 Each year the mines grew wider and deeper, consuming trees, hills, and valleys in their way. As they grew, so did the surrounding population centers. In some cases, entire new towns sprung up from nothing; Negaunee and Ishpeming were mining towns owing their entire existence and urban pattern to mines. At one point, half of the city of Negaunee had to be relocated because of the encroaching mine.5 With this explosive growth across the region, rail networks were developed to connect the mines and the worker towns with the burgeoning port of Marquette. Mines spread across the landscape in tandem with the rail networks. The combined technological advances of mining and rail transportation meant that the Marquette region would become one entirely defined by extraction.6
TRANSPORTATION TRANSFORMATION
Millions of tons of ore blasted out from the rock made its way by rail to the harbor, and in turn across the vast Great Lakes by freighter. The Mathers had built an empire extending not only across Superior, but also all along the southern shores of Lake Erie.3 Most of this ore being shipped from Marquette was destined for steel mills in Cleveland. The Mathers, initially operating from two competing companies, eventually merged into the ClevelandCliffs company, and today it is the largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America.7 The company operates five active mines, runs 19 steel facilities, and has over 40 manufacturing locations across the midwest in total.8 All of this production power creates over 30 million metric tonnes of Co2 annually.9 Most of Cleveland-Cliffs steel is used for a single product: the automobile.7 With Ford leading the charge in a transportation transformation, the auto became the main means of mobility for the nation with over 1,000 cars produced every day.10 Just like the trains before, punching their way across the landscape, the automobile blasted its way through cities and across continents, creating enormous opportunity and leaving a wake of destruction in the form of freeways, redlining, and urban renewal.11
CLIMATE CRISIS
Today, we are still grappling with the impact of the last century of extraction and industrial development. Extraction sites continue to be exploited, and the situation is now compounded by a climate crisis that, in many ways, is a direct result of this legacy. The combined effects of environmental degradation, pollution, worsening human health, and severe weather and flooding are expected to result in an enormous migration of people into and around the country. Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation expert at Tulane, has talked about an inevitable movement northward away from areas most affected by climate change toward higher latitudes like Duluth and Buffalo. He has referred to these cities as potential climate havens.12 City governments and real estate markets have already begun responding by creating new branding around climate resilience. Apps like Zillow have begun leveraging climate models to show a climate risk rating for their listings. However, Keenan and other experts acknowledge that no place is climate-proof, and even so-called havens will need to become more resilient.13
OUR QUESTIONS
What does it mean to live on a damaged planet? How can we reinhabit and dwell among industrial space?
DESIGN PROVOCATION
Landscapes of Iron is a design project contemplating what it means to dwell among damaged landscapes. Nearly two centuries of resource extraction have shaped and molded the Marquette region into what it is. The industries have given Marquette a charming, gritty veneer and give many of its citizens pride in the nation building their work has accomplished. It has also left enormous and long-lasting scars on the land. Groves of White Pine were decimated for lumber, and the rumble of explosives through town signals the continuous growth of the thousand-acre open-pit mines. These practices contribute to a loss of biodiversity and pollution–especially of surface and groundwater in an area defined by its freshwater. With the challenges of an extractive past and a future of climate-driven migration, how can we think about different energy, resources, and housing models? Leaning into these new and uncertain conditions, how can the Marquette region acknowledge its damaged landscapes and find ways of repairing and preparing for the future?
DESIGN STRATEGY
If Marquette follows the status quo, more land will be swallowed up by traditional resource extraction in tandem with conventional urbanization, resulting in a degraded, low-density environment. Instead, the design team proposed a model where extracted sites can begin undergoing remediation and prepare for future development clusters. Materials used in remediation could in turn be used as building materials for future development. These urban clusters, built out over time, could reduce the environmental and spatial footprint of development while generating greater self-reliance for the region.
REGIONAL VISION
Site intervention began by first identifying extraction sites across the Marquette region, including mines, quarries, abandoned infrastructure, and logging sites. These sites informed where remediation and development clusters could occur. Then, by integrating new housing typologies, agriculture production, and energy production inside these already disturbed lands, the remaining greenfield areas can be preserved and protected via an urban growth boundary. Lastly, these clusters can be strung together by reimagining the legacy rail network as a multi-modal and multi-infrastructural spine for the region. What results is a linear city of various development and resource typologies with resources, products, and people flowing between clusters in a localized economy.
FOCUS AREAS
Within this new linear city, three sites were selected for further design development:
1. The Empire and Tilden mines:
- Focus: soil resources and agriculture.
2. The defunct Marquette airport:
- Focus: air quality and wind as an energy source.
3. The Marquette Harbor and ore docks:
- Focus: water as a resource and asset.
THE EMPIRE AND TILDEN MINES
THE DEFUNCT MARQUETTE AIRPORT
THE MARQUETTE HARBOR AND ORE DOCKS
1. THE CLOSED MINES
The Tilden and now inactive Empire mines, comprised of thousand-foot-deep pits, sprawling reservoirs, tailing basins, and processing infrastructure, create a wasteland totaling over 5,000 acres. When the Tilden mine inevitably reaches its end of life, it will bring an end to over two centuries of mining heritage in the region, raising questions about the future of the economy and cultural identity.
FOOD SCARCITY
At the same time, another risk is presenting itself. Less than one percent of all agricultural production in Michigan takes place in the Upper Peninsula with little opportunity for future growth due to poor soil conditions and a short growing season.14 Because of these challenges, an estimated 93 percent of all food must be imported to the region each year.15 In an attempt to address this food dependency, the design intervention for the mine attempts to reimagine agricultural and urban production through a logic of reuse and landscape management.
Drawing upon Southeast Asian terraced farming as a precedent, the mine site is designed as a vertical crop production system on the existing mine landforms. This is not only an efficient way of producing a variety of crop types on a slope but also a viable way to manage water flows and quality.
REMEDIATION
Phase one would require soil preparation through phytoremediation. The natural process of using plant material to draw up toxic components from the ground would restore soil stability, raise pH levels, and reduce toxic heavy metals such as lead and cadmium from the soil system.16 At the end of this process, pH levels should be around six to seven, which can adequately support widespread agricultural production.17
Areas that are too steep or not suitable for agriculture can be used to grow timber. Together, timber and food can be transported and processed via the expansive network of mining infrastructure that is already in place, in turn supplying local and regional residents with food and building materials.
COLLECTIVE LIVING
Once phase one is complete, the community can begin to think about ways of dwelling within the remediated open pit mine. With very few on-site structures suitable for human habitation, other methods must be explored wfor housing. Much of rural Michigan and the greater Midwest is characterized by the steel shed buildings primarily used for storage or industrial purposes. The mass accumulation of this typology is due to its incredible adaptability, efficiency, and structural stability. By adapting this basic enclosure, the community can create affordable, flexible, and quick housing solutions. The structural typology of the shed frames can create a multitude of domestic and communal living conditions that can scale and situate themselves within the terraced landscape.
2. THE ABANDONED AIRPORT
The Marquette County Airport closed in 1999 and now sits as an underutilized landscape marked by expansive runways and aviation infrastructure. While the airport is no longer active, its vast impervious surfaces contribute to stormwater runoff and environmental challenges. These issues present an opportunity to address ecological concerns while reimagining the site for community and regional benefit. The project for the airport site seeks to transform the airport into a sustainable, multifunctional urban space that prioritizes clean air, ecological restoration, and community well-being.
THE POWER OF WIND
By leveraging its unique geometry for redevelopment, the site can serve as a model for adaptive reuse that integrates urban development with environmental protection. Structures align with the prevailing winds, funneling airflow into a central corridor between taller and taller structures, creating and exaggerating the Venturi effect.18 As air flow and velocity increase near the middle of the urban node, air passes through wind turbines providing clean energy. Additionally, direct air capture units are designed as part of building facades where this same airflow can be cleaned and then used as ventilation within building structures.
URBAN LIVING
Former runways and tarmacs are repurposed as green corridors, agricultural strips, and active community spaces, requiring little to no construction and reducing potential waste of hardscape material. The new development would prioritize compact urban design, emphasizing walkability and accessibility. Additionally, building densely means that surrounding land can be planted with pines, which in turn are harvested for mass-timber construction on-site. Residents would help to care for these natural areas, which would serve as both open space and construction supply zones. As mature pines are cut for new mass timber construction, new pines are planted in their place.
The redeveloped airport creates a new unique urban typology for healthy living in the region, one where residents maintain easy access to nature and clean air while also playing a more active role in the shaping and development of their community.
Public space against the mass timber development
Building section highlighting direct air capture system
3. THE INACTIVE HARBOR
The Harbor was long a critical link between the mine and the steel mill. Ore docks, a thousand feet long and up to 70 feet high, reached out into the bay and facilitated the transfer of ore from train to freighter. Today, the Marquette Ore dock sits empty, a skeleton and ghost of a not-so-distant past. Rather than demolish and erase this piece of history, the harbor is instead imagined as an adapted site that reconnects the community with its precious waterfront while creating new forms of economy and resilience.
PREPARING FOR THE STORM
Climate models vary in their lake-level predictions, with some estimating several feet of rise and others predicting a lower lake surface. Despite this uncertainty, storms are predicted to become more severe in Lake Superior, a lake already known for its severe weather.20 To protect against these weather events, the area around the harbor can undergo a re-naturalization. Buildings and structures can be removed and replaced with density further inland. Sensitive plant palettes and dune reconstruction can help to clean water and create resilience to unpredictable storms and fluctuating lake levels.
Throughout the harbor’s history, multiple docks have been built, torn down, and rebuilt. The result is an underwater graveyard of concrete footings and piles. These can find new life as foundations for floating wetlands that extend like fingers into the harbor. Wetland vegetation can help calm storm surges and create new habitats for aquatic wildlife and birds. Public walkways and boardwalks can allow human access to these vibrant and evolving spaces.
RECONNECTING WITH THE LAKE
The intact dock structure can become a community space for Marquette. Visitors can move along the long, narrow structure on a series of pathways that allow them to interact with the water in a variety of ways. A water treatment plant redistributes potable water back across the region from the lake and gives community members a glimpse into the processes required for clean water. At the end of the dock sits the chapel. The quiet room opens onto the expanse of the lake and serves as a space for reflection and personal connection to the largest freshwater system in the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CAMERON BLAKELY
Blakely received a Master’s Degree in Urban Design from Taubman College in December of 2024. Prior to attending the University of Michigan, he worked as a Landscape Architect in the Intermountain West. He has a range of design interests ranging from water, historic preservation and heritage, urban mobility, and brownfield redevelopment. He is passionate about empathetic design and strives to give voice to landscapes that cannot speak for themselves.
YUCHEN GUO
Guo is a Master of Architecture student at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, graduating in May 2025. He holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Yuchen’s design interests include adaptive reuse, community-oriented design, and promoting healing and wellness through architecture. He had worked as a designer at O-Office Architects in Guangzhou, on school and park projects. He believes that design can foster a healthy coexistence between human well-being and environmental sustainability.
SHANE HERB
Herb is a Master of Architecture student at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College, graduating in May 2025. He previously earned a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture with a Minor in Construction Management from the University of Minnesota’s College of Design in 2023. His interests lie in material practices and the relationship between energy infrastructures and their byproducts, leveraging the agency of design across scales to speculate on alternative domesticities.
SRILAXMI MELKUNDI
Melkundi graduated with a Master’s Degree in Urban Design from Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning in December 2024. Previously, she worked as an architect in India. Her work is driven by a deep interest in the intersection of community planning and transportation, focusing on how mobility and urban design can create more inclusive and connected cities. She is dedicated to the power of design to shape equitable and meaningful spaces that enhance everyday life.
ENDNOTES
1. William F Cannon, “The Lake Superior Iron Ranges: Geology and Mining,” Presentation, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, 2011, https://mn.water.usgs.gov/projects/tesnar/2011/ Presentations/CannonIron%20ranges.pdf.
2. “Marquette Iron Range,” GEO 333: Geography of Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, Randall J. Schaetzl, https://project.geo. msu.edu/geogmich/Marquette-iron-range.html.
4. “The Soo Locks,” GEO 333: Geography of Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, Randall J. Schaetzl, https://project.geo.msu. edu/geogmich/SOOLOCK.html.
5. “Ishpeming and Negaunee.” GEO 333: Geography of Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, Randall J. Schaetzl, https://project. geo.msu.edu/geogmich/ishpemingnegaunee.html.
6. “Old Town Negaunee, Pt 1,” Spare Time Doesn’t Exist, November 5, 2015, https://historicadventure.blogspot. com/2015/11/old-town-negaunee-and-ore-concentration.html.
7. Randy Crouch, “Marquette Railroads: Past & Present,” The Mining Journal, February 7, 2022, https://www.miningjournal. net/news/front-page-news/2022/02/marquette-railroads-pastpresent/.
8. Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., Form 10-K 2020, Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.
9. “Cliffs Company Offices and Operations,” Cleveland-Cliffs Headquarters, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. n.d., https://d1io3yog0oux5. cloudfront.net/_bd50025392164c21076456e5c28fa2ce/ clevelandcliffs/files/docs/2024+Documents/CLF_ CorporateLocations_122024.pdf.
11. “Working at Ford’s Factory,” American Experience, PBS, November 7, 2017, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ americanexperience/features/-gallery-henryford/.
12. Daniel Herriges, “The History of Urban Freeways: Who Counts?,” Strong Towns, February 21, 2017, https://www. strongtowns.org/journal/2017/2/20/the-history-of-urbanfreeways-who-counts.
13. Timothy A. Schuler, “Climate Boomtowns and Receiver Cities,” Places Journal, October 2024, https://doi.org/10.22269/241002.
14. Adam Clark Estes, “The Shady Origins of the Climate Haven Myth,” Vox, October 9, 2024, https://www.vox.com/ climate/377199/hurricane-milton-helene-climate-haven-risk.
15. Jim Isleib and Michelle Sweeten, “A Look at Agriculture in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,” Michigan State University, May 16, 2024, https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/agricultural-statistics-inmichigans-upper-peninsula.
16. Joan Cary, “Gold Rush: Land Provides Bounty That Brings Community Together,” Lion Magazine, Winter 2023, http://digital.lionmagazine.org/article/ GOLD+RUSH/4526814/784445/article.html.
17. “Phytoremediation of Heavy Metal Contaminated Soils,” IDR Environmental Services, Dawn DeVroom, February 16, 2024, https://blog.idrenvironmental.com/phytoremediation-of-heavymetal-contaminated-soils
19. “Wind Speed Patterns in a City With Buildings,” Windcrane, https://www.windcrane.com/blog/construction/wind-speedpatterns-city-buildings.
20. “The Carbon Removal Production Waterfall,” Climeworks, November 29, 2023, https://climeworks.com/news/the-carbonremoval-production-waterfall.
21. “Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region,” GLISA - University of Michigan, NOAA, 14 February, 2019, https://glisa.umich.edu/ media/files/GLISA%202%20Pager%202019.pdf.
michigan refugee housing crisis: a literature review
Talia Morison-Allen Master of Architecture ‘26
ABSTRACT
The state of Michigan currently faces a refugee crisis that places heavy strain on the few resources available for refugee-specific housing. Those with official refugee status have access to a network of federal resources but still remain at risk for destabilization through defunded programs, loss of support systems, and eviction. Those without legal recognition lack any federal resources and rely on public programs like homeless shelters, exacerbating the crisis. Existing research suggests dramatic swings in approach to refugee policy and funding under the Trump and Biden administrations have contributed to the issue.
In his first term, Trump dramatically reduced refugee numbers and defunded resettlement infrastructure. Biden worked to quickly raise refugee numbers and funding while also implementing private sponsorship
models. Through analyzing federal administration approaches as well as existing research, this essay promotes a public and private co-sponsorship model combined with increased federal funding as the best policy approach for improving the refugee housing crisis in Michigan and nationally. Trump’s reelection to a second term signifies the likely further defunding of federal refugee programs, pushing resettlement infrastructure to rely on private funding and strengthening the case for a co-sponsorship model moving forward.
INTRODUCTION
The state of Michigan is currently facing a refugee crisis that places heavy strain on the few resources available for refugee-specific housing. The situation is threatening to spill into the creation of tent cities like those found in New York or San Francisco. One of the largest issues resettlement organizations are facing is a lack of housing that will be exacerbated by increasing numbers of incoming refugees in the coming years.1 By introducing the facts and figures of the current refugee housing crisis in Michigan, clarifying the important distinction between the designations of asylum seeker and refugee, and reviewing current literature on American refugee resettlement policy, this essay seeks to reveal how the local refugee crisis is directly tied to larger federal flaws in American refugee resettlement policy. Finally, the paper seeks to offer a few policy options for alleviating the current situation, some of which are already being enacted, though at too small of a scale.
PART I: FACTS AND FIGURES IN MICHIGAN
In 2023, 2,583 refugees arrived in Michigan seeking shelter, food, and a variety of other types of support.
In 2024, the state anticipates a total of 3,675 new refugees, a 42% increase from 2023. The majority of the incoming group are fleeing war and larger conflicts.
In 2023, 36% of the refugees were Syrian, 30% from the Dominican Republic of the Congo, and 7% Iraqi. To meet the needs of those incoming, as well as those already living in Michigan, the state anticipated offering aid to about 9,000 refugees in 2024.2
Michigan enacts this aid through a combination of government run organizations and private non-profits that are partially funded through government grants. Global Michigan is an organization created by the state to support “economic and community development and newcomer integration initiatives.”3 Freedom House is a Detroit-based organization offering transitional housing, legal aid, and a variety of other services to asylum seekers in Michigan.4
Samaritas is a Lansing-based organization helping to resettles refugees through federally allocated support. The Detroit Housing and Revitalization Department monitors the city’s state and federally funded homeless shelters. In 2023, there were 835 beds in the city with plans to increase by another 100 in 2024 specifically to support the growing refugee crisis.2
However, current support isn’t enough to withstand the growing influx, especially when it comes to housing. Local and state organizations running transitionary housing report not enough beds and immediate need for emergency housing and more funding. Freedom House, for example, reported housing 74 people in a house designed to hold 50, with an additional 76 temporarily housed in hotels. To quote the executive director of the African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs, Seydi Starr, “The only reason tents aren’t lining up along Woodward Avenue is because of community members who have stepped up to help. [...] Community members have been picking people off the street and taking them into their own homes.”5
PART II: ASYLUM SEEKERS VERSUS REFUGEES
Part of the issue is that alongside the 2,538 refugees that entered Michigan in 2023, an undocumented number of asylum seekers also entered, searching for similar resources and aid. Like refugees, asylum seekers are fleeing their home countries in search of resettlement and support, but they have not legally received the status of refugee. Their lack of legal status makes them invisible in many ways.6
For most people seeking asylum, their process of achieving refugee status happened before they entered the US. Asylum countries, who offer temporary shelterto those fleeing war or persecution, work with the American government to approve a very small number of refugees for entry into the US. Upon receiving approval, these refugees are then transported to the US where nine refugee resettlement agencies work with local organizations towards the eventual goal of making each refugee self-sufficient.7 The support
these agencies offer includes housing,food, education, translation services, and more. Refugees can be eligible for federal funding up to five years after moving to the US. In addition to refugee specific aid, their status makes them eligible for other federal aid like the Housing Tax Credit and Housing Voucher programs available through the Department for Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Public Housing Administrations (PHAs) can even specify a preference for supporting affordable housing for refugees as ways to target issues like the ongoing crisis in Michigan.8
In contrast, asylum seekers are refugees who entered the US before receiving official refugee status from the federal government. While applying and waiting for their refugee status to be approved, they have no work authorization nor federally funded support. Their only recourses for support are private nonprofit organizations or emergency public housing like homeless shelters.9
Freedom House, which is a national organization with a branch in Detroit, is one of the few, if not the only, organizations providing longer term transitional shelter, legal aid, and other comprehensive services to asylum seekers. 60% of the budget of the Detroit arm of Freedom House was provided through HUD funding allocated towards transitional housing programs, but in 2017 that funding was cut with 3 months warning.10 Freedom House was forced to scramble for private donations, more volunteers, and shutter certain programs.
Due to their semi-illegal status, the number of asylum seekers currently in the US is not tracked by any government body. No one really knows how many there are and by extension, how many need support. In practical terms, this lack of information means a crisis like the one happening in Michigan includes a visible number of refugees and an invisible number of asylum seekers. Right now, federal pathways towards financial and housing support exist for only one of the groups.
PART III: LITERATURE REVIEW OF AMERICAN REFUGEE POLICY, WITH A FOCUS ON HOUSING
The basis for the current US infrastructure for supporting refugee rehousing and settlement is the Refugee Act of 1980. Faced with the influx of refugees coming out of Vietnam with the end of the war, the government sought to create a structure resettling these and other refugees. Two central elements of the act include removing nationality as a criterion for refugeestatus, meaning that refugee cases are judged on individual merit instead, and heavily emphasizing a focus on a rapid path to self-sufficiency and quick reduction of reliance on state support. In this vein, federal resettlement agencies are funded based on a per-refugee basis, creating an infrastructure designed for the highest quantity of refugees being successfully and quickly resettled rather than the highest quality of support.11
The act led to the establishment of the US Refugee Admissions Program; the government body responsible for working with foreign governments to select refugees for integration into the US. Once refugees reach American soil, US Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration within the State Department are all responsible for different aspects of funding and governance throughout the resettlement process.
Abel Chikanda, in his policy study “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest in challenging times,” appears to argue that despite the 1980 Act’s decisions to remove nationality criteria from refugee selection, international politics have always played a role in the status of non-citizen fleeing to the US. In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration refused to accept El Salvadorians as refugees due to Cold War politics. As always, if no legal pathway is available, illegal immigrants will enter the US. In this case, Freedom House was initially established to provide housing for illegal El Salvadorian asylum seekers.
“Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest in challenging times” is an evaluative study published in 2022 in GeoJournal investigating the impact of President Trump’s immigration policies on Somali refugees being resettled in small midwestern cities.
Chikanda interviewed ten individuals from six resettlement organizations in Garden City, Kansas and sixteen individuals from eleven organizations in Minneapolis-St.Paul, Minnesota, specifically focusing on Trump policies’ impacts on Somali refugees.
Chikanda characterizes Trump’s “Muslim Ban,” the period of months when he paused all immigration from several Muslim countries into the US as a “marked continuation of racist, white supremacy-driven immigration laws that started in the 1800s with the Chinese Exclusion Laws.”12 Somali refugees were then selected for the focus group of the study as an example of an almost entirely Muslim, African population of refugees.
In addition to interviews, Chikanda offers quantitative analysis of the impact of President Trump’s antiimmigration policies. In the early 2000s, refugee quotas each year averaged about 70,000. By 2017, the Obama Administration set a goal that year for 110,000 refugee resettlements. Following Trump taking office, the actual number of refugees resettled in 2017 was 53,716. In 2018, the number decreased to 22,491, and in 2020 it hit a record low of 11,818 new refugees. In addition to these numbers, Trump suspended the US Refugee Administration Program for 120 days, and suspended all immigration for 90 days from majority Muslim countries Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, colloquially known as the Muslim Ban.13 As a note, the spring of 2017 was also when Freedom House lost the entirety of its HUD funding, which accounted for 60% of its budget.
Chikanda sought through the interviews to understand what impact these new Trump policies had on the Somali refugee populations and found disparate reactions. Some agencies reported a rise in applications for citizenship as “refugees viewed the acquisition of US citizenship as insurance against possible changes on citizenship requirements by the Trump administration.” In contrast, other agencies saw growing distrust.
He quoted the head of one non-profit housing organization saying, “there are a growing number of people who are fearful of applying for certain things. [...] I think there is a larger fear out there, just of immigration enforcement in general.”14 The quotation reveals an entirely new issue.Even when funding and legal pathways exist, distrust can continue to prevent refugees from receiving the resources that they need.
Chikanda cites a specific policy enactment by Trump which significantly unbalanced refugee resettlement infrastructure. In 2018, the government declared that only refugee resettlement agencies that resettled at least 100 refugees per year could continue to accept refugees. About 15% of resettlement agencies closed following this policy enactment. The policy particularly impacted agencies in smaller cities where proportionate population sizes meant they were unlikely to have hit the target 100 refugees per year. Through interviews, Chikanda also noted that shrinking budgets and agency sizes led to a loss of connections with longstanding partners such as landlords. In a federal press conference in 2021, former Delaware Gov. and White House Coordinator for Operation Allies Welcome Jack Markell remarked that “there are nine big resettlement agencies; they have 200 or so affiliates across the country – five years ago they had 300.”15
Kathryn Libal, Scott Harding, and Madri HallFaul had a slightly more positive take on the future of American refugee resettlement programs in “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees in the USA: Rebirth of a Model.” In their conceptual paper, the authors posit that the major defunding of the government structured system of refugee resettlement pushed private, community-based organizations to step in and try to fill the slack. Traditionally, prior to the 1980 Refugee Act, private community organizations were largely responsible for supporting refugee and general immigration through sponsorship of foreign individuals. The authors consider the positives and negatives of returning to a similar model.
Unlike Chikanda’s paper, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees in the USA: Rebirth of a
Model” was written after the beginning of the Biden Administration and thus investigates the resurgences and repair of the US refugee resettlement program rather than its dismantling. The paper argues that Biden is emphasizing a private sponsorship model, writing “the growth of other community sponsorship models in the UK, Australia, Germany, Spain, and Italy represents a way to build public support for refugees and offers a potential means to increase the number of refugees resettled (Pohlmann & Schweirtz, 2020; Tan, 2021. Most of these programs have several similar elements: shared responsibility (public and private) for financial and other support; “controlled arrival” of refugees to asylum countries; serve as a compliment to existing state-sponsored refugee resettlement; and “ultimate responsibility” for refugees “remains with the state” (Tan, 2021, p.3).”16 By looking at models in other countries, the authors suggest that pairing of private and public sector funding increases the number of refugees able to be resettled. The co-sponsorship model also helps improve sentiment towards incoming refugees by putting resettlement responsibilities in the hands of community groups, bringing refugees and existing citizens closer together. The closer community relationship with refugees has the potential to alleviate some of the “othering” white nationalist sentiment towards refugees.However, the authors point out that community groups have less experience than government organizations and still require government oversight. A successful co-sponsorship model requires both public and private bodies to commit to their roles.
Another paper makes a case study of the Connecticut resettlement agency, Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) as a successful American model of the co-sponsorship method. Due to lack of funding under the Trump administration, IRIS turned heavily towards donations and volunteers, inadvertently creating a very successful model. The authors write that “those resettled through co-sponsorship found jobs and demonstrated other forms of successful integration faster than refugees resettled directly by IRIS.” 17. The case study exemplifies the basic logic that integration and settlement into a community can happen more speedily if the community is directly involved. Additionally,
issues like lack of emergency housing shrink as residents begin volunteering rooms in existing private homes.
Other literature also cited the direct relationship between long term housing and the success of resettlement strategies.18 New refugees and immigrants rely upon neighborhood-based community support by settling long-term in the specific neighborhood where they receive help. Forced displacement out of those neighborhoods through loss of funding for rental support or other costs directly negatively impacts the ease of resettlement of a family or individual.
“A Home for All: The Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement” goes a step further, suggesting that the lack of federally enacted laws requiring housing specifically for refugees is a fundamental flaw in American refugee resettlement policy. The lack of federally funded refugee housing creates a decentralized network that is more inefficient, leaving refugees at risk of homelessness or losing their communities through sudden loss of housing. Yet, as other literature has suggested, decentralized systems of resettlement may be most successful at actually integrating new refugees within existing communities.
Following the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Biden enacted a policy called Operation Allies Welcome to evacuate over 50,000 Afghani allies to the US. Afghani refugees are officially designated as “humanitarian paroles,” a legal term used for the speedy evacuation of large groups of people. The “effort entails extensive collaboration between DHS, the State Department, and Department of Health and Human Services, as well as resettlement organizations and private sector actors.”19 The program initiated to support this evacuation is a model of private and public cosponsorship and has the potential to grow to include other refugees.
In Michigan, this co-sponsorship model for Afghani refugees is in the process of being enacted. In October of 2021, the state published a website calling for volunteers and donations to support the resettlement of Afghani refugees within the state. The website and volunteering are organized by the state-run Global
19 /// 142
Michigan, and $500,000 has been afforded towards temporary housing through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.20 Private groups like Samaritas, churches, and other religious organizations are also working to help house and sponsor individuals.
Biden also introduced Sponsor Circle, a small-scale method for volunteering and sponsoring Afghani refugees in the US. Sponsor Circles allows any group of five adults (age 18 or above) to create a “certified sponsor circle” that allows them to sponsor an individual Afghani refugee or an entire family as long as they are able to raise at least $2,275 for them and committo additional methods of community support21
The small scale of the program emphasizes the importance of individuals volunteering their time and support for refugee resettlement.
In addition to the Afghan resettlement program, Biden enacted a Uniting for Ukraine policy to support and host Ukrainian refugees following the 2022 invasion by Russia. Uniting for Ukraine is working to resettle, at least temporarily, up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees in the US. The policy includes the Temporary Protects Status (TPS) Program to which Ukrainian refugees can apply which includes up to two years of work authorization. Additionally, community organizations are invited to privately sponsor Ukrainian refugees.22
PART IV: POLICY SUGGESTIONS FOR REFUGEE HOUSING
With Trump returning to presidency in 2025, the near future for refugee resettlement and housing programs is bleak. Private sponsorship models cannot make up for dramatic funding cuts and caps on the number of incoming refugees. However, the movement towards greater privatization, co-sponsorship, and small-scale community sponsored models of refugee resettlement and housing may help protect the infrastructure of the resettlement industry over the next four years.
As both academics and people working in the field have argued, greater funding is key to supporting successful refugee resettlement. Federal funding through HUD would allow greater construction of affordable housing
aimed as refugees, reducing the need to expand temporary, short-term housing. In contrast, sudden slashes to the budgets and number of incoming refugees destabilizes the infrastructure of refugee resettlement programs, creating crises like the one currently happening in Michigan. However, as Chikanda has pointed out, President Trump’s policies are more aimed at growing his fanbase through fearmongering than creating successful programs through factually supported research.
Additionally, simply focusing on federal funding ignores evaluative studies of the effectiveness of community sponsored models of refugee resettlement and housing. Federal funding to support affordable housing, while highly effective, would not alleviate immediate short term housing issues. It may even exacerbate feelings of alienation between incoming refugees and existing communities by unintentionally physically segregating refugees to specific housing.
With the looming likelihood of funding cuts, one policy suggestion would be to focus on strengthening private sponsorship models for refugee resettlement at the state level. Creatingofficial pathways for sponsorship for communities in Michigan which are already informally providing temporary housing for refugees and asylum seekers could help to strengthen relationships and systems of resettlement in anticipation of a government more favorable towards immigration.
Finally, one of the major holes in the current system of refugee resettlement is the lack of acknowledgement and support of asylum seekers. While the federal policies seem unlikely to change, increased local support towards private organizations like Freedom House could help to support asylum seekers.
Additionally, local government organization towards recording numbers of asylum seekers would help private organizations anticipate future numbers of asylum seekers and publicize the invisible issue of housing them to the public.
CONCLUSION
President Trump’s drastic dismantling of refugee resettlement programs in the US has led to local issues like the current Michigan refugee crisis, where the state is running out of housing and financial support for the influx of refugees. A combination of local policies to support private organizations as well as increased funding at the federal level could alleviate and perhaps even improve the systems for handling refugee resettlement. However, with the Trump administration returning in 2025, past experience shows that the short-term goals for refugee resettlement agencies and organizations may simply be to try to prepare for upcoming financial difficulties and try to get through the next four years without being forced to shut down.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Talia Morison-Allen is a Master of Architecture student in the class of 2026 at the University of Michigan. Her background as an American growing up outside the US contributes to her interest in refugee policy and how to make the US a more welcoming place to immigrants and foreigners. Most days will find her on the third floor of the architecture school, grappling with the intersection of sustainability, physical craft, and design. In her free time she enjoys soccer, going to Ann Arbor’s State Theatre, and the occasional competitive card game.
ENDNOTES
1. Sarah Rahal, “Refugees, Asylum-seekers Overwhelm Michigan Shelters. Officials Fear Numbers Will Only Grow,” Detroit News, December 28, 2023, https://www.detroitnews.com/ story/news/local/michigan/2023/12/28/refugees-asylummichigan-detroit-increase-support-crisis/71910544007/.
2. Anna Gustafson, “Michigan Advance–States Newsroom: Michigan’s Afghan Refugee Resettlement is a ‘Model for the Rest of the Country’,” Michigan Advance, November 5, 2021, https://michiganadvance.com/2021/11/05/michigans-afghanrefugee-resettlement-is-a-model-for-the-rest-of-the-country/.
3. Nisa Khan, “Amid Funding Cuts, Freedom House Serves as the Nation’s Few Providers for Asylum Seekers,” Michigan Daily, March 12, 2017, https://www.michigandaily.com/news/ community-affairs/amid-funding-cuts-freedom-house-serves-asthe-nations-few-providers-for-asylum-seekers/
8. Abel Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest in challenging times,” GeoJournal 88 (2023): 920, https://doi. org/10.1007/s10708-022-10665-w.
9. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929
10. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929
11. Libal et al. “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees in the USA: Rebirth of a Model,” Journal of Policy Practice and Research 3, (2022): 259–276, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972022-00062-5.
12. “Refugee definition.” UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, accessed February 27, 2025, https://emergency.unhcr.org/ protection/legal-framework/refugee-definition.
13. “Who We Protect: Asylum-Seekers.” UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, accessed February 27, 2025, https://www. unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-protect/asylum-seekers.
14. Besty L. Fischer, “Doors to Safety: Exit West, Refugee, Resettlement, and the Right to Asylum.” Michigan Law
16. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929
17. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929
18. Andria D. Timmer, “A Home for All: The Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement” Laws 13, no. 6 (2024): 76, https://doi. org/10.3390/laws13060076.
19. “Questions and Answers Regarding Housing Assistance for Refugees Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH)” Office of Public & Indian Housing, Memo, Accessed December 6, 2024, https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/FPM/documents/PIH_New_ Americans_Website.pdf.
20. Rosen et al. “Rental Affordability, Coping Strategies, and Impacts in Diverse Immigrant Communities,” Housing Policy Debate 33, no. 6 (2022): 1313–1332, https://doi.org/10.1080/1 0511482.2021.2018011.
21. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
22. Fischer, “Refugee, Resettlement, and the Right to Asylum”.
23. Fischer, “Refugee, Resettlement, and the Right to Asylum”.
24. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
25. Neal Rubin, “Detroit’s international refugee haven spared fed cuts,” Detroit News, March 22, 2017, https://www.detroitnews. com/story/news/2017/03/22/hud-restores-funding-freedomhouse/99492944/.
26. Khan, “Amid Funding Cuts, Freedom House Serves as the Nation’s Few Providers for Asylum Seekers”.
27. Khan, “Amid Funding Cuts, Freedom House Serves as the Nation’s Few Providers for Asylum Seekers”.
28. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
29. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
30. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
31. Chikanda, Abel. “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929.
32. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
33. Y. Torbati & M. Rosenberg, “Exclusive: State Department tells refugee agencies to downsize U.S. operations,” Reuters, Dec. 21, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigrationrefugees-exclusive/exclusive-state-department-tells-refugeeagencies-to-downsize-u-s-operations-idUSKBN1EF2S5.
34. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929.
36. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
37. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 917–929.
38. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 924.
39. Chikanda, “Refugee resettlement in the American Midwest,” 924.
40. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
41. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
42. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
43. N. F. Tan, “Community sponsorship in Europe: Taking stock, policy transfer and what the future might hold,” Frontiers in Human Dynamics 3, no. 564084 (2021): 3.
44. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
45. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
46. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
47. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
48. Rosen, “Rental Affordability, Coping Strategies, and Impacts,” 1313–1332.
49. Timmer, “Challenge of Housing in Refugee Resettlement”.
51. Melissa Nann Burke, “Michigan sets up hub for volunteers to sign up, donate to Afghan Resettlement Effort,” Detroit News, Oct. 8, 2021, https://www.detroitnews. com/story/news/politics/2021/10/07/michigan-sets-uphub-volunteers-help-afghan-resettlement/6037818001/.
52. Libal, “Community and Private Sponsorship of Refugees,” 259-276.
Parker Wise Master of Urban and Regional Planning & Master of Science ‘25
ABSTRACT
Community engagement is an important part of the urban planning process. Understanding the needs of the community can help inform planners of how best to serve residents. In this article, I explore the use of games and “play” to engage residents and focus deeply on a trial run of using a table top role-playing game (TTRPG) as an engagement technique. The article discusses the use of games already used to create community change and the spaces in which TTRPGs are already used in similar settings before detailing a trial run of The Deep Forest, a TTRPG which results in a collaboratively drawn map. I summarize the game play mechanics and advise how the game could be used to create ideas for community change. The end of the article includes a facilitation and reflection guide with techniques and suggestions for a practitioner to used based on their unique settings and goals.
BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE
One of my career goals is to work in a role or with an organization with high community involvement that requires extensive community engagement. My graduate studies have focused on participatory planning and sustainability initiatives that help people and the environment. I have found myself exploring different strategies for community engagement and have been interested in utilizing “play” or fun in a participatory planning setting. I chose to explore this topic more with a particular interest in using games for ideation. This exploration includes details of the background, work to achieve the outcomes, and a final deliverable that can be used as a tool for community engagement.
To achieve this goal, I wanted to explore what types of games were already used in this space and what they looked like. I also wanted to experiment with a new game, specifically a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), to see if this particular genre of games would work in a community change setting. The purpose of this research and experiment was to see if a game could generate concrete ideas and next steps for community change and planning. I wanted to lean on previously learned facilitation techniques to see if they could work in a post-game setting and suggest a way, or ways, for a TTRPG (and potentially TTRPGs in general) to be debriefed for a practitioner to facilitate the development of actionable steps that could further a community’s goals or work towards improving the community.
My motivation for this project stems from two central experiences. First, I have worked for the University of Michigan’s Adventure Leadership program since March 2023. I facilitate games and activities to help groups connect concrete experiences to their work and lives in a relatively low-stakes environment. The activities range in size, length and scope, but they are run with certain goals in mind, such as establishing trust in a group, process improvements, reflecting on communication styles, or thinking about what different types of support might look like. Second, I have always enjoyed playing board games and card games. Games have been a good way to connect with people and have a shared experience. Using TTRPG for community
engagement is a natural combination of my hobbies and fondness for fantasy and science fiction media genres. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a TTRPG in which I have experienced collective storytelling. In the four and a half years I have been playing, I have drawn a lot of connections to themes in my coursework, including facilitating negotiations and participatory planning. It has helped me develop and maintain multiple communities. I have had the opportunity to play at a table (“table” and “game” have been used interchangeably to describe the people playing) with friends from high school, a game with friends I met in Dallas, Texas, and a game with friends I have made in graduate school.
I also listen to podcasts where casts tell stories by playing D&D and other TTRPGs. I enjoy listening to people play different types of TTRPGs alongside D&D and create a collaborative story while continuously engaging with fans. These types of games have become a large part of my life, and it seems natural to me to try and use things I enjoy doing in my work to create a better experience for myself and those I interact with. Additionally, my favorite aspect of these games is the collaborative aspect. Tensions can arise between players and game runners in actual play podcasts, and I have experienced some of them while playing. However, a story and community have been created collaboratively at the end of the episode, session, game, or campaign.
Two other aspects of TTRPGs that I enjoy are the role-playing and improvisation during the game. You can play as a single character or as multiple characters to build upon the story that has already be en created or to react to someone or a situation in the story. These two aspects can also be seen in some structured activities used in facilitation and as engagement techniques. Specifically, Liberating Structures, a book and website that offers resources to help improve meetings and engagement, incorporates some of these themes. For example, “Improv Prototyping” employs improvisation by having participants act out a scenario with little to no preparation. “Troika Consulting” uses role-playing by having participants take turns acting as clients and consulting.
Structured activities are useful facilitation tools and techniques. They can be tailored to a specific group or idea, and games can be used to form community and in team building. Games such as BaFá BaFá and those developed by the Tesa Collective (a workerowned game publisher) have also been used to advance community change initiatives and explore culture. TTRPGs have already been used in settings adjacent to and similar to community change and have been examined for use in community building in therapeutic environments and for use in understanding people’s identities and how they affect people’s interactions with the world around them. The exploration of structured activities and TTRPGs in community change work has motivated me to explore more games that could be used for participatory planning, even if they were not created with that intention.
METHODS
For this exploration, there are three main components:
• RESEARCH
• PLAY
• ADVISING
RESEARCH
Three main questions were asked to inform the research in this component. First, could TTRPGs be compatible with community change and participatory planning? Second, what types of TTRPGs might best be used for community engagement activities? Lastly, are there existing games that are used in community change settings or designed for that particular purpose? TTPRGs can be used in community change settings by creating social connectedness and helping with selfexpression. These findings demonstrate that TTRPGs could be compatible in a community change setting. Next, the type of TTRPG best suited for engagement purposes had to be determined. The ideal game would be different from D&D in two ways. First, it would
be a shorter game, not one played over multiple sessions. Second, it would primarily be about building something together rather than fighting monsters or a struggle between adventurers and villains. Several TTRPGs involve community and world-building, including some that are designed for a single, shorter session. The Quiet Year, created by Avery Alder, and its spinoff, The Quiet Year, The Deep Forest, designed by Mark Diaz Truman and Avery Alder was then further explored. The games involve players exploring and building a world together and end with players drawing a map together throughout the game. These games have the potential to be used for participatory planning, particularly given that they relate to place and physical planning. The original game has already been compared to real-world community building. However, The Quiet Year inadvertently incorporated themes of colonialism, so The Deep Forest spinoff was developed specifically with a lens of decolonization. After reading about
Figure 1: Cover page from The Quiet Year, The Deep Forest game and rule book, by Mark Diaz Truman and Avery Alder, art by Jules Silver.
The Deep Forest and its mechanics, I decided to use it during the experimental play component of this exploration.
After researching new TTRPGs, I also wanted to explore games already designed for community work to further ensure games could be used for participatory planning and to brainstorm ideas for the “advising” component. The Tesa Collective has games about cooperatives, strategies for community organizations, labor organizing, and fighting fascism. They also offer custom game design services for clients. The creator of BaFá BaFá has also created games around culture, ethics, power abuse, and current events. In addition to these more widely distributed games, others have been created for specific purposes for research and in higher education institutes. One game, developed by The Ohio State University, deals with public health issues at different levels of the community. These examples showed that games could be used for social change
Figure 2: Materials from the Tesa Collective game STRIKE! The Game of Worker Rebellion, a game specifically designed for social change showing that games, and board games in particular, can be used to address specific societal issues. Image retrieved from the webpage for STRIKE! The Game of Worker Rebellion produced by the Tesa Collective.
and for specific purposes. They also informed my ideas about adapting a game – in this case The Deep Forest – for engagement purposes by adding context and allowing for adequate reflection and debriefing.
PLAY
The play component consisted of preparation and play. After re-reading the rules of The Deep Forest, I organized game materials to begin a play-through of the game. Gameplay in The Deep Forest begins with two to four players each adding a “monster” and one player adding a central landmark to a sheet of paper which serves as the map. The monsters are coming back into their old land that has been left by past conquerors. After the initial phase of play, the players start to take turns which count as a week in the game. You start your turn by drawing a card from a standard fifty-two card deck that has been organized and split by suit. One suit represents a season of the year. The players will use the ‘Oracle’ – a supplemental document you get with the rule book – in tandem with the cards. The Oracle is a list of all fifty-two cards organized by season. Each card corresponds to a specific situation or event – sometimes the players can choose between two – that occurs during that turn. Additionally, each player takes one action and chooses one of “agree on something”, discover “something old”, or “start a project.” Further explanation of the turns – or weeks –and the actions can be seen below in Fig. 4. These are improvised and built upon previous turns. The game progresses with players drawing the cards from one season only – starting with winter – or unless a card specifies progression to the next season. This pattern continues throughout each season until fall, which has one card that will end the game.
Figure 3: Example of two cards - ace and 2 of heartsfrom one season of the year found in The Deep Forest Oracle, Mark Diaz Truman and Avery Alder, art by Jules Silver.
Figure 4: Reference card describing what each player does each week with descriptions of the actions found in The Deep Forest Oracle.
Three friends interested in community-engaged planning joined me in playing. It took us three hours to read the instructions, play one game, and share brief reflections throughout play and at the end. It served as a test run to understand the game before delving into the advising component.
ADVISING
This component consisted of creating a guide for running the game for participatory planning purposes, suggestions to use to debrief, reflection topics and tools, and potential next steps. I used my reflections, discussion points from friends who played, and feedback from colleagues and classmates to refine the final facilitation guide. Please see the end of this report for the Facilitation, Considerations, and Reflection Guide.
LIMITATIONS AND NEXT STEPS
This article proposes a guide that might assist a facilitator interested in using a map-drawing game for participatory planning. However, I ran only one limited trial of the game and did not employ any of the strategies included in the guide, which was developed after the trial. The guide has not been used or tested. Additionally, I could only explore the potential for community change ideation in the game and not use the game for that purpose.
Another limitation in this exploration is time. It takes a large amount of time to design activities, tools, and community engagement techniques. Engagement itself also takes time. It takes many iterations of using a tool in a relevant setting to see if it can fulfill a specific purpose. Lack of time has limited the scope of this article.
A final limitation is that only two rounds of feedback were given on this exploration. There was feedback from the other three players, and feedback from peers and colleagues after a presentation on this topic. The feedback spurred much of the guide’s development, including many of its most essential considerations. Feedback and others’ point of views are necessary to strengthen work and ideas. Nevertheless, this experience has further increased my desire to seek and incorporate feedback in my work.
To address these limitations, I propose seven actionable next steps to continue this project. There is potential
for more, but these seven should be completed to develop this project as a helpful tool. This tool, and the way it is facilitated and debriefed, can be continually improved upon and be done differently depending on the situation and an organization or group’s needs and goals. Community change and participatory process should be an iterative process.
ACTIONABLE NEXT STEPS
1. Facilitate a complete game with a group in a community, including time to fully debrief.
2. Facilitate shorter versions of the game and debrief.
3. Create potential banks of game items to help with game facilitation.
4. Facilitate any version of the game with multiple groups at a time and debrief.
5. Design a game that is tailored to a specific community.
6. Try different combinations of reflection and post-reflection steps in a community.
7. Get feedback on different versions of the game and debriefing strategies.
There is space to build upon the potential that this tool has shown. When I further explore this tool, I will remember the time it may take to fully develop this tool while using others’ – participants, colleagues, and observers – information and insights to help me further develop this tool and create a more powerful version of it. These lessons and those gleaned when reflecting on the limitation can be used to help future work. They can also be used when exploring other games and ways to play, including many of the games found in the research portion. There will always be ways to improve upon the facilitation of The Deep Forest, other games, and different engagement techniques. Activities need to be tried while understanding that new projects and activities may take longer to fully implement than anticipated.
THE QUIET YEAR, THE DEEP FOREST BY MARK DIAZ TRUMAN AND AVERY ALDER FACILITATION, CONSIDERATIONS, AND REFLECTION GUIDE
The game materials can be found at this link: https:// buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year/the-deep-forest. You will need the rules pdf and a pdf of the Oracle to run the game.
OTHER MATERIALS NEEDED
• One 8x11 sheet of paper.
• Pencils, erasers, and/or pens.
• Two note cards.
• 6 six-sided dice that are used to keep track of how many turns (weeks in the game) from one to six are left for a project. Anything that could be used to keep track of these numbers will work.
• Anything small that can be used as tokens (pebbles, paperclips, other dice, whatever is available).
• One standard deck of cards.
GAME FACILITATION AND ADAPTATION SUGGESTIONS
GENERAL FACILITATION CONSIDERATIONS
• You could increase the number of players. The instructions specify two to four players, but a group that is too large would be challenging to facilitate.
• If you have a larger group, have multiple tables of the game and read the instructions as one, with copies distributed to each table/group.
• Multiple games can occur simultaneously at different tables. Each table would take ownership of the rules and processes, with you as the facilitator helping as needed.
TIME CONSIDERATIONS
You may not have enough time to run an entire 3-4 hour game session, or that length would not be as effective as running a shorter game. You should understand what works best for the group and the end goals.
• The game instructions allow you to remove cards to shorten the game.
• You could break the game down into different shorter sessions or only run part of the game.
• The game is neatly broken down into seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter.
• You could run multiple sessions, using the seasons as breaks.
• This could involve reflection in between sessions
• You could also only use one or some of the seasons.
• This may need more context given to the game, including more setup in the original map or post-discussion about what happens in the remaining time. This would depend on what season(s) you choose to use; each has a theme.
Depending on needs, you may want to provide more context than the instructions offer or adapt the game. Players might not be familiar with role-playing games or might want a spark of creativity to be more comfortable with the role-playing aspect. You should understand the group’s dynamic and background to try and tailor the game to the group and the end goals.
• Providing context about the purpose of the game and understanding how communities respond to tensions and solve problems collaboratively could help achieve end goals.
• How much context is up to you.
• Additional materials could be given to help with creativity.
• A sample map to give players an idea of the end goal of the game.
• A bank of monsters, names, projects, somethings old, agreements, or taboos.
• Please make sure participants know these are only suggestions.
• Role-playing guides or instructions.
• Some adaptations could be made to make the game closer to the real world.
• You could create some potential connections to the real world already to guide gameplay and spark reflections.
• The game could be adapted and reworked to have it mimic real-world
• You could create a spinoff of this game to be more representative of the community you are working in
• Creating different situations in the Oracle (the table of each card corresponding to a specific situation that unfolds in the game).
• Changing the context and background in the instructions to reflect the real community.
REFLECTION STRATEGIES GUIDE FOR POST-GAME AND NEXT STEPS
As part of this game, there is a need for reflection and to debrief post-activity to generate ideas. I have included some suggestions below. These suggestions are not all-encompassing and are intended as a guide to spark your creativity and give them options and tools. This guide contains questions that can be used with structured facilitation techniques and become the prompts used for those or in open discussion, whichever will work best for the group.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS & PROMPTS
• How did the community evolve throughout the game?
• What behaviors did you see from the community?
• What obstacles or hardships did you observe?
• What obstacles were overcome, and how?
• Were there any obstacles that were not overcome?
• What would you suggest to the monsters to improve their community? Do you see any areas
for improvement in their community?
• What else does the community need to thrive?
• What future obstacles could you perceive the community having?
• Do you see any real parallels between the monsters and a community? Is it one of your communities? Which ones and how?
• How have similar behaviors been seen in your community?
• How have different behaviors been seen in your community?
• Did the monsters and your community have similar or different goals?
• What behaviors were most effective in the monsters’ community? Is this true in yours?
• What lessons can we learn, and how would you apply them in your community?
• Discuss how you and your community would react to specific situations in the games.
• What agreements or projects do you think need to happen in your community? Why? How can those be achieved?
• Are there any things you would consider a taboo or an adaptation in your community?
• What does this game tell us about community building and capacity in the real world?
SAMPLE FACILITATION TECHNIQUES
• 1-2-4-All
• An easy to use technique where people think as one person, then discuss in groups of two, and then in groups of 4, then share out.
• Detailed information and instructions can be found at https://www.liberatingstructures.com/1-1-2-4-all/.
• What, So What, What Now?
• A tool where you ask what happened, why it was important, and what you can do next after learning this.
• Detailed information and instructions can be found at https://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/.
• Progressive One-Word Whip
• A One Word Whip is where each person shares one word in response to a question or a prompt. You do not have to require everyone to speak. You can give the choice of passing, while emphasizing that you want to hear what everyone has to say.
• Discussion can occur after the words, or other elements can be added
• A potential structure could look like this:
• Have a round where people answer a prompt with one word. For example:
POTENTIAL NEXT STEPS
You could use these potential next steps to start with idea generation. This could work before, in the middle of, or after reflection and debriefing. It is based on when you think they would work best for their group and the group’s goals, or to pair with any parts of the reflection.
• Any visual display of ideas and thoughts.
• Post-it notes.
• Voting on ideas virtually or using post-it notes or taped paper.
• Photo storytelling.
• Draw a map of their community in the same vein of the game.
• Include the central landmark.
• Include a few other important spatial indicators: neighborhoods, blocks, specific buildings, specific or well-known features or lots, etc.
• Add ‘projects’ in areas you think they should be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wise is a Master of Urban and Regional Planning and Master of Science in the Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas Christian University. His degree granted him a comprehensive understanding of engineering and electrical principles and strong skills in mathematics and data analysis. Following graduation, Parker worked in the construction industry and gained experience in cost estimating, proposals, and project management while learning about the overall development and construction process. As a graduate student, Parker has continued to develop his research and qualitative analysis skills while also focusing on opportunities to improve his engagement skills. He wants to implement plans, policies, and programs based on the needs and desires for the community he will serve and is most interested in community-informed sustainable land uses, improving access to services and amenities in cities for all residents, community development, and environmental justice.
ENDNOTES
1. Keith McCandless and Lipmanowicz Henri, “Liberating Structures - Introduction,” accessed December 16, 2024, https:// www.liberatingstructures.com/.
2. Keith McCandless and Lipmanowicz Henri, “Liberating Structures - 15. Improv Prototyping,” accessed December 16, 2024, https://www.liberatingstructures.com/15-improvprototyping/.
3. Keith McCandless and Lipmanowicz Henri, “Liberating Structures - 8. Troika Consulting,” accessed December 16, 2024, https://www.liberatingstructures.com/8-troika-consulting/.
4. Webmaster, “BaFa’ BaFa’ - Culture/Diversity/Inclusion for Schools & Charities,” Simulation Training Systems (blog), accessed December 1, 2024, https://www. simulationtrainingsystems.com/schools-and-charities/products/ bafa-bafa/.
5. The TESA Collective. “About Us.” Accessed December 1, 2024. https://store.tesacollective.com/pages/about-us.
6. Matthew S. Abbott, Kimberly A. Stauss, and Allen F. Burnett, “Table-Top Role-Playing Games as a Therapeutic Intervention with Adults to Increase Social Connectedness,” Social Work with Groups 45, no. 1 (January 2, 2022): 16–31, https://doi.org/10.1 080/01609513.2021.1932014.
7. Sam Weigel and Justin Rudnick, “The Use and Importance of Gaming and Roleplay in Identity,” Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota 46 (2023): 100–125, https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1161&context=ctamj.
8. Abbott, Stauss, and Burnett, “Table-Top Role-Playing Games as a Therapeutic Intervention with Adults to Increase Social Connectedness”.
9. Sam Weigel and Justin Rudnick, “The Use and Importance of Gaming and Roleplay in Identity”.
10. Coleman Gailloreto, “Indie Tabletop RPGs About Community And Togetherness,” ScreenRant, January 10, 2021, https:// screenrant.com/indie-tabeltop-rpgs-about-community-andtogetherness/.
11. Adam Dixon, “Playing The Quiet Year, a Tabletop Game about Building Communities,” Kill Screen - Previously, February 19, 2015, https://killscreen.com/previously/articles/quiet-yeartabletop-game-building-communities/.
12. “The Deep Forest,” Buried Without Ceremony (blog), accessed December 16, 2024, https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/thequiet-year/the-deep-forest.
13. “Games,” The TESA Collective, accessed December 1, 2024, https://store.tesacollective.com/collections/games.
14. Webmaster, “Simulations for Schools/Charities,” Simulation Training Systems (blog), accessed December 1, 2024, https:// www.simulationtrainingsystems.com/schools-and-charities/.
15. Carol A. Smathers and Theresa M. Ferrari, “Levels of Community Change: A Game to Teach About Policy, System, and Environment Change,” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 50, no. 3 (March 1, 2018): 311-314.e1, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jneb.2017.10.004.
16. “The Deep Forest,” Buried Without Ceremony (blog).
17. Keith McCandless Lipmanowicz Henri, “Liberating Structures - 1. 1-2-4-All,” accessed December 16, 2024, https://www. liberatingstructures.com/1-1-2-4-all/.
18. Keith McCandless Lipmanowicz Henri, “Liberating Structures - 9. What, So What, Now What? W3,” accessed December 16, 2024, https://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-whatnow-what-w/.
converging horizons: where nature meets the city
Nivedita Patel Master of Urban and Regional Planning ‘26
ABSTRACT
This photojournalism series reflects on the relationship between urban life and nature across diverse settings. It reinforces the idea that no matter where we are, we appreciate nature for its beauty, solitude and existence. Yet, sometimes within our urban environment, its significance is often uncelebrated.
These images weave a story that highlights the crucial role nature plays within urban environments. With each photograph, viewers feel a deep connection to nature, evoking a sense of calm, renewal, and balance. The series underscores humanity’s constant efforts to harness and enhance nature’s presence, whether through the expansiveness of a prairie, the peaceful shores of a park, or an immersive, controlled art experience. While cities may be filled with the buzz of progress and development, nature has a unique way of grounding us, offering spaces for reflection, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Whether designed as urban parks, gardens, or thoughtfully curated spaces, these environments show that nature and city living are not opposites, but complementary forces that, when integrated effectively, can create more resilient and harmonious urban landscapes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patel is a first year Master student in Urban and Regional Planning at Taubman College. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Architecture from India. Before coming to Michigan, she worked for six years as an urban designer across three organizations, focusing on diverse large scale urban development projects. After graduation, she hopes to work at the intersection of data, sustainability, climate resilience, and inclusive city planning contributing to equitable development.
public-private partnerships: a boon or bust for public infrastructure projects?
Calvin Blackburn Master of Urban and Regional Planning ‘25
ABSTRACT
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are a form of cooperation between public and private entities, wherein one or more private entities constructs and manages public infrastructure in exchange for some form of financial compensation, usually a combination of public financing of the project and a concession from the government that allows the private actor(s) to profit from the infrastructure for a fixed period of time through user fees. Is this form of infrastructure development as efficient as its proponents claim, or is it merely a means of allowing private actors to profit from what should be public projects as its detractors argue? This paper weighs the merits of both arguments through evidentiary analysis in an attempt to answer this question.
INTRODUCTION
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are a form of cooperation between public and private entities, wherein one or more private entities constructs and manages public infrastructure in exchange for some form of financial compensation, usually a combination of public financing of the project and a concession from the government that allows the private actor(s) to profit from the infrastructure for a fixed period of time through user fees.1
Scholarly opinion on the implementation of PPPs in transportation infrastructure development can be divided into two opposing arguments: (1) A positive view represented by Ahmed M. Abel Aziz, arguing that PPPs allow governments with limited financial resources or capability to raise tax revenue to deliver large infrastructure projects with minimal risk and greater efficiency since they introduce market incentives into infrastructure development and management. (2) A negative view represented by Mohsin Ali Soomro, Yongkui Li, and Yilong Han, arguing that PPPs are vulnerable to management and oversight problems, impose excessive access costs on users to ensure the greatest return on investment, and are frequently higher-risk and higher-cost than advertised.
Consideration of the merits and drawbacks of PPPs is particularly relevant for the United States today, considering the large amount of federal money made available for infrastructure spending by the November 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.2 Is there room for PPPs in the transportation sector today? After careful consideration of evidence from both arguments, this paper concludes that PPPs can be a valuable part of infrastructure investment, but only in very specific and limited circumstances due to their aforementioned drawbacks.
HISTORY OF PPPS
Though the term PPP was only coined in the latter half of the 20th Century, this form of public-private cooperation was the dominant form of infrastructure development for many years, and its recent resurgence is a “Back to the Future” moment for public works
projects. One of the first documented examples in the United States resembling a PPP occurred in 1796, when the US Congress granted land tracts in the Ohio River Valley to entrepreneur Ebenezer Zane in exchange for Zane using the land to operate a ferry business with rates fixed by the government in what was then known as the Northwest Territory.3 Similar methods, such as land grants from the government to private actors, were used to develop rail infrastructure in the UK4 as well as the US rail network and the original version of the New York City Subway.5 PPPs were largely not used as a method of infrastructure development from the middle of the 20th century until the 1990s, when countries all over the world began implementing them in public works projects as a part of privatization initiatives.6 Though these projects can involve water purification infrastructure, public buildings, airports, and seaports, the bulk of money spent on PPPs falls in the area of ground transportation: road and rail.7
WHAT IS A PPP, AND HOW DOES IT OPERATE?
Generally, PPPs are a method of financing public works projects used by governments that do not have the financial resources or desire to support the construction and maintenance costs of infrastructure with public finances. Thus, the government seeks out private partners, typically through a competitive bidding process, offering the winning entity a concession in the public project.8 Projects built under the PPP framework typically rely on user fees or project demand for financial support.9
These concessions can take many forms, though they typically fall within one of five general definitions: (1) “Build-Operate-Transfer” (BOT), whereby one or more private entities completes the project, operates it for a fixed period of time, then transfers the project to public ownership; (2) “Build-Transfer-Operate” (BTO), whereby one or more private entities completes the project and then immediately transfers it to public ownership; (3) “Build-Own-Operate” (BOO), whereby one or more private entities acquires full ownership of the project upon completion in exchange for operating
it under certain rules for a fixed period of time; (4) “Build-Own-Operate-Transfer” (BOOT), similar to BOO, but the project is returned to public ownership after a fixed period of time; (5) “Buy-Build-Operate” (BBO), whereby one or more private entities acquires the public infrastructure for a certain amount of money on condition that they modernize or upgrade the infrastructure.10
ARGUMENTS FOR PPPS
Proponents of PPPs generally argue that this method of infrastructure development solves many of the problems currently plaguing the sector. Six of the most commonly argued benefits of PPPs include: (1) cost efficiency price benefits, since private actors are driven by the profit motive to make the most costefficient project; (2) productivity benefits due to a less politicized allocation of labor; (3) greater output, since private actors will seek to deliver the project and make it profitable in the shortest amount of time; (4) self-sustainability, since a privately operated project is profit-motivated; (5) greater flexibility in project choice and scope in periods of limited public financial resources; and (6) less political interference and public corruption in public works projects.11
Another benefit of the PPP model comes from its distribution of risk. PPPs allow the public sector to offload much of the financial risk for the project onto a private entity,12 letting the government hedge the risk of so-called ‘white elephant’ projects, a pejorative term for overly expensive public works projects that do not live up to their advertised benefits. In short, proponents of the PPP framework argue that their development model offers the government a low-risk, high-reward method of developing transportation infrastructure that produces efficient outcomes due to market incentives.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST PPPS
Opponents of the PPP framework counter that while the introduction of market forces into public works projects increases their financial efficiency, the profit motive often leads to outcomes that are less beneficial to the public as a whole. Under the PPP model, when
the government cedes control over the project and limits itself to the oversight role mandated by the framework, it removes many incentives that drive a project to meet public needs.13
Detractors also argue that PPPs are vulnerable to failure from their inception to completion, highlighting eight general categories for project failure including: (1) actual demand not meeting projected demand; (2) lack of financing capacity for the project; (3) inaccurate cost estimates; (4) financial problems at the company managing the project; (5) poor work quality harming project demand and impacting project finances; (6) lack of coordination with parallel projects impacting project viability; (7) poor project management harming financial viability during construction; and (8) ineffective business strategies harming financial viability of the project after construction.14
Another argument against PPPs fundamentally questions their utility as a means of delivering transportation infrastructure, doubting the ability of the private sector to integrate a completed project into the overall network. In essence, public works projects are best left out of the hands of the private sector because they are incredibly complex and loop in actors with very different incentives and preferred outcomes; because projects must fit into an overall transportation network, which a private actor with limited jurisdiction can fail to pursue effectively; and because the life cycle for large infrastructure projects is long, meaning any failure will have an impact on public finances for an extended period of time.15 In sum, the opponents of PPPs believe that this framework does not live up to its advertised potential in terms of efficiency and risk management.
EVALUATION FRAMEWORK
The remainder of this paper will assess these arguments using real-world examples analyzed in academic research papers. Pro-PPP arguments will be defended through evidence that questions the foundations of anti-PPP arguments, and vice versa. A successful defense of PPPs must prove that they are a more efficient and cost-effective method of producing public
infrastructure. Inversely, a successful argument against PPPs will prove that this framework is a less effective method for delivering infrastructure and does not reduce public risk when put into practice.
HOW PPPS DELIVER EFFICIENT AND COST-EFFECTIVE PROJECTS
Proponents of the PPP model must defend counterarguments that this development framework does not produce efficient outcomes and would be better managed by the public sector entirely. Several real-world examples provide evidence to this effect, offering proof that the PPP model can provide cost-effective and efficiently produced transportation infrastructure.
Value for Money (VFM) and Net Present Value (NPV) are useful metrics for assessing PPP project efficiency since they can calculate an efficiency statistic based on user demand for the project (NPV) and the value of a project relative to the amount of money invested (VFM).16
NPV statistics on two PPP road projects in British Columbia, the Okanagan Lake Bridge and the Seato-Sky Highway, demonstrate the potential efficiency PPP projects can deliver over public sector-managed projects. Though the Okanagan Lake Bridge only delivered an NPV of $170 million relative to a projected $195 million from a public sector comparator (PSC), the NPV for the Sea-to-Sky Highway was $798.8 million relative to a projected $740 million for a PSC. Both projects were further enhanced by additional out-of-scope improvements to the project delivered by the private sector operator that added $130 million in value, adding even greater VFM due to the motivation from the private sector operator to create the greatest possible demand for their project.17 Counter to the arguments from naysayers that PPPs can lead to inefficient outcomes, this example clearly demonstrates that the private sector’s profit motive will produce the greatest possible public benefit when properly utilized. In essence, a PPP will often deliver above its original projections due to unforeseen benefits and add-on efficiencies.
Furthermore, PPP advocates can counter claims that the PPP framework is vulnerable to failures that can negatively impact public finances for extended time periods by claiming these failures are due to poor governance and contract structure, not the framework of PPPs themselves. As before, objective metrics for success, particularly ‘Key Performance Indicators’ (KPIs), can help the public sector hedge its risk and are used to hold the private actor accountable for poor performance on the project.18
For example, Spain uses KPIs to measure what it defines as a well-functioning road: a low accident rate, minimal heavy vehicle usage during daytime, and effective management of winter weather conditions. Private actors are motivated to meet these metrics in order to avoid fines for poor performance and even to extend their contract in cases where they meet or exceed their KPIs. Similar incentives are used in Australia’s system, where the road operator for the EastLink toll highway is at risk of losing up to $17 million annually for poor performance.19
In sum, for PPP advocates, the problem is not PPPs themselves, but rather the system that manages them. As the old engineering axiom goes, garbage in, garbage out. In this line of reasoning, criticism for PPPs would be more properly directed at the political and governance systems that create them.
HOW PPPS ARE PRONE TO FAILURE AND HARM PUBLIC FINANCES
Opponents of the PPP framework would counter these positive assessments of PPPs with claims that these figures are only examples of the best possible outcomes and do not show the whole picture. From their perspective, history is littered with examples of PPPs that not only failed in ways that resulted in non-delivery of the project, harm to public finances, or non-efficient outcomes.
Political corruption in a contract can lead to massively inefficient outcomes, as evidenced by the D47 motorway in the Czech Republic, a PPP that was awarded to a private entity in 2001 without any
competitive bidding and without any consideration of VFM in the contract structure. In 2003, the Czech government was forced to void the contract, which cost EUR 20 million in addition to money already spent.20 While PPP advocates claim that the market framework insulates these projects from the political corruption that plagues public infrastructure projects, these projects are still vulnerable to corruption because government entities produce the contracts. If those entities are corrupt, the process will be corrupt.
Similarly, PPP transportation projects often fail to deliver efficient outcomes due to overly optimistic demand projections. In one such example, a company was contracted to build the Yen Lenh Bridge project in Vietnam, which would be paid for by toll revenues. After completion, demand for the bridge was lower than expected, and the private operator was unable to pay the interest on its bank loans. Ultimately, the government had to purchase and operate the bridge,21 defeating the purpose of utilizing a PPP framework to produce the bridge.
For PPP opponents, the problem with this development framework is that infrastructure projects are incredibly complex, feature high-up front costs, and are highly political.22 Consequently, they frequently fail in real-world situations for a wide variety of reasons. Examples include hostility within Thailand’s bureaucracy sinking a 60km road and rail network; a non-competitive bid from an inexperienced contractor leading to an abandoned road project in Serbia; the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis halting a roadway project in Indonesia until the road was finished by a state-owned entity later on; and California Transit being forced to buy an express lanes project after the operator used a loophole to charge extortionate tolls.23 Each of these failures demonstrates how PPPs can fail catastrophically, just like any other infrastructure project. Private management might make operations more efficient, but it cannot guarantee a project’s success due to the complex and highly political nature of public works.
CONCLUSION
Both PPP advocates and PPP opponents have valid perspectives on the viability and utility of the framework for transportation projects. From the evidence laid out above, this author concludes that PPPs are most useful under controlled circumstances where there are clearly defined success and failure points as well as good oversight. When there is too much risk, low accountability, high corruption, or poor regulation, they are a null proposition and public management is the better choice.
In positive cases, PPPs can offer tremendous value for money and out-of-scope benefits due to the profit motive. People will not want to drive on a poorly run road, and a private actor will deliver the best possible road in order to convince users that this road is worth whatever toll or user fee they are being charged. Similarly, positive incentives such as contract extensions for good performance as well as negative incentives like fines and payment reductions for poor performance, can induce private actors to deliver the best possible product.
However, PPPs do not always lead to positive outcomes, particularly since they are public works projects and are subject to the same corruption issues that exist in any political system. In addition, PPPs often fail to live up to their promise due to overly optimistic demand projections, financial failures, bureaucratic division on the project, and political backlash. The large number of ways a project can fail is a testament to the vulnerability and risk lurking behind transportation infrastructure projects.
Nevertheless, PPPs are a useful means of developing transportation infrastructure, provided that the risk is properly managed and the government institutes a strong oversight program. If the private entity or entities tasked with building and managing the project are not responsible for the majority of the risk in the project, then market incentives will not have a strong enough effect on the project. Like with most things, a balance and middle ground is important: a successful PPP is one where the government helps insulate a private actor from an unforeseen catastrophic failure but does not encourage risky behavior or low-quality work.
Public works agencies in the present-day United States would do well to heed these warnings. When implementing a transportation project under the PPP framework, keep the goals achievable, manage the risk, and institute a strong set of incentives to encourage good behavior.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Calvin is a second-year Master student at the University of Michigan’s Urban and Regional Planning program from New Canaan, Connecticut. Prior to enrolling at Michigan, he worked for several years as a translator and political analyst focused on China in Washington, DC. After graduation, he intends to work in roles at the intersection of transportation and land-use planning.
ENDNOTES
1. H.W. Alfen, S.N. Kalidindi, S. Ogunlana, S.Q. Wang, M.P. Abednego, A. Frank-Jungbecker, Y.C. A. Jan, Y.J. Ke, Y.W. Liu., L.B. Singh, and G.F. Zhao, Public-Private Partnership in infrastructure development: Case studies from Asia and Europe (Verlag der Bauhaus-Universität, 2009), 10.
2. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Pub. L. No. 117-58 (2021).
3. Michael J. Garvin, “Enabling Development of the Transportation Public-Private Partnership Market in the United States,” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 136, no. 4 (2010): 405, https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.19437862.00001.
4. A. Estache T. Serebrisky, “Where Do We Stand on Transport Infrastructure Deregulation and Public-Private Partnership?,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3356 (2004): 3, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/965731468779178098.
5. M.E. Gross, “Aligning Public-Private Partnership Contracts with Public Objectives for Transportation Infrastructure,” Publication No. 16850. [Doctoral Dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University] (2010): 3, http://hdl.handle. net/10919/28785.
6. Ibid.: 4.
7. S.M. Levy, Public-Private Partnerships: Case Studies in Infrastructure Development (American Society of Civil Engineers, 2013), 3.
8. H.W. Alfen et al, Public-Private Partnership in infrastructure development, 19-20.
9. A.M. Aziz, “Successful Delivery of Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure,” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 133, no. 12 (2007): 918, https://doi.org/10.1061/ (ASCE)0733-9364(2007)133:12(918).
10. O. Kravchenko, “Public-Private Partnership as a Mechanism for Financing Infrastructure Modernization,” Baltic Journal of Economic Studies 5, no. 1 (2019): 113-114, https://doi. org/10.30525/2256-0742/2019-5-1-112-117.
11. C. Ménard, “Is Public-Private Partnership Obsolete? Assessing the Obstacles and Short-comings of PPP,” in The Routledge Companion to Public-Private Partnerships, ed. P. De Vries, E.B. Yehoue, pp. 149-174, (Routledge, 2013), 6.
12. Michael J. Garvin, “Enabling Development of the Transportation Public-Private Partnership Market in the United States,” 406.
13. M.A. Soomro, Y.K. Li, and Y.L. Han, “Socioeconomic and Political Issues in Transportation Public–Private Partnership Failures,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management 69, no. 5 (2022): 2074, https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2020.2997361.
14. M.A. Soomro and Yueqing Zhang, “Roles of Private-Sector Partners in Transportation Public-Private Partnership Failures,” Journal of Management in Engineering 31, no. 4 (2015): 6-10, https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000263.
15. C. Ménard “Is Public-Private Partnership Obsolete?,” 10-11.
16. A.M. Aziz, “Successful Delivery of Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure,” 924.
17. Ibid., 925.
18. Michael J. Garvin, “Enabling Development of the Transportation Public-Private Partnership Market in the United States,” 408.
19. Ibid., 409.
20. M.A. Soomro et al, “Socioeconomic and Political Issues in Transportation Public–Private Partnership Failures,” 2075.
21. V. Likhitruangsilp, S.T. Do, M. Onishi, and T.T. Dinh Tran, “Analyzing problems affecting the performances of publicprivate partnership transportation projects – Case studies in Vietnam,” Songklanakarin Journal of Science & Technology 40, no. 6 (2017): 1417-1418, http://dx.doi.org/10.14456/sjstpsu.2018.172.
22. C. Ménard, “Is Public-Private Partnership Obsolete?,” 12.
23. M.A. Soomro et al, “Socioeconomic and Political Issues in Transportation Public–Private Partnership Failures,” 2076.
steel shorelines: tracing the great lakes steel industry
Cameron Blakely Master of Urban Design ‘24
ABSTRACT
In December 2023, Japanese giant Nippon Steel announced its plans to purchase the United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) for a whopping $14.9 billion.1 The manufacturing world immediately exploded, with people taking sides and speculating of even more job losses in what, for decades, has been a quietly declining industry. The United Steelworkers union vehemently opposed the merger, citing concerns of plant closures and layoffs – despite Nippon’s pledge to keep plants open and inject billions of dollars into operations.2 Simultaneously, the U.S. National Security Panel began reviewing the merger out of national security concerns.3 Despite this fear, many steel workers and community members have lauded the idea as an opportunity to reinvigorate the industry and provide more economic opportunities.
The steel manufactured in the Great Lakes quite literally built the nation, and in turn, the world over. Lake shorelines became production lines, and the waters facilitated the movement of millions of tons of steel-related cargo annually. Cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Gary, and Duluth all developed around major steel production centers. In fact, the Great Lakes house 10 of the 14 operating integrated plants between the United States and Canada.4 The unique physical geography of this region facilitated the rapid industrialization and urbanization that steel required, but in that same process, the lakes have fallen victim to the industry’s extractive nature and economic volatility.5 The cities these steel plants call home and the citizens who live in their shadows have become all too familiar with decline; while holding onto the memory of a gilded age, they grapple with a dubious future. Steel Shorelines responds to this decisive moment by examining the history and processes of the industry, its cultural and environmental impacts, and ultimately how steel became both creator and destroyer of a region.
THE MINE
The mine is the genesis of everything steel, sculpted terraces feed ore to the never-sleeping mills.
Samuel and William1, two brothers compete, for dominance of the ranges, iron-ore lie beneath.
A billion years blasted away in an instant, 500 ton trucks emerge from the dust, lugging their payloads off into the distance.
The mine grows deeper and wider-now measured in miles. Trees, hills, and ponds scraped away into piles.
Even whole towns must find alternative locations–a small price to pay for the fortune beneath their foundations.2
The rock is processed and crushed then loaded in hoppers. The trains squeak and groan under the weight as they crawl toward the harbors.
Left behind are the tailings, swirling orange in lakes. Stagnant and sinister waiting to be cleaned at some future date.3
THE PORT
The port reaches out into the lake greeting freighters as they position their hatches, above them the towering ore dock with chutes designed as matches.
These lakers haul cargo but one time a bride, along with William, her husband, as they honeymooned across a turquoise lakeside.4
The ore roars down the chutes in a giant dusty cloud, and disappears in the keel where conveyor belts run loud.5
Once filled it sets sail, making freshwater miles, the Soo locks mean portage around the cascades is no longer required.6
The Captain has done this more times than he cares, but still knows to respect those early November gales.
“Countless men lost to these dark frigid waters,” echoes the song through quiet crew quarters.7
Into Lake Erie the freighter glides and in Toledo the coal on train cars arrives.
Gould and Vanderbilt each bidding for these rails, at the port coal is power and money in tills.8
Enormous round dumpers flipping cars paired in twos, coal forming mountains of midnight black hues.9
THE MILL
The mill quietly hums, a mile-long maze of sheds, towers, and ovens.
Belts empty ships and whisk it out of sight, the heat now unbearable, nears 3,000 degrees fahrenheit.10
Molten glowing metal emerges. Sparks glitter across the floor. The cacophony of fire and steel echoes through the cavernous corridor.
Suddenly a hiss. Cold lake water explodes into steam as it soaks glowing casts from the throes.
Once used, the metallic brown aqua is drained, collected in basins to be recycled again.11
Carnegie built this boundless empire, he carefully surveils the thousands of men that this job requires.
No unions, no strikes, and cheap labor made sense, he now uses philanthropy as recompense.12
The enormous machine turns out tubes, sheets, and beams, rolled up and stacked to be made into a thousand different things.
THE TOWN
The town is quiet and still, night hangs heavy as workers end their shift and exit the mill.
Into the streets of “Century City” they go, neat homes and new shops not yet blackened by smoke all sit in a row.
None know of the dunes and wetlands flattened for this company town; even the Calumet flows in a different direction now.13
There is no lakefront here, far too valuable for public use. The mills, factories, and quays tighten their noose.
Elbert Gary lives far away, his namesake town administered from a New York office on Broadway.14
Uniform blocks surround two public squares. On this one a park, on the other a school filled with chairs.15
Even in here efficiency rules, lessons on labor and gender roles are being taught to the youths.16
Joe works at the mill to keep his singing sons’ dream alive; soon Motown Records introduces the world to the Jackson Five.17
Once seen as the future, Century City now decays, white flight and layoffs left fear, sorrow, and rage.
THE FACTORY
The factory churns. Assembly lines roll out 1,000 Model-T Fords in a day. Men do one job on repeat, it’s more efficient that way.18
Henry Ford left Detroit: more land and less regulation, to the Rouge River where he built his new industrial operation.19
The Army dredged and straightened the Rouge, on its concrete banks soon more factories and warehouses bloomed.
A good place to dump most people concurred, so filthy it was, that the river would burn.20
100 years on and the river remains though its smell keeps any visitors away.
The shiny steel rolls, fresh from the mill, build doors, hoods, and wheels... for America’s greatest love: the automobile.
With the market now flooded with cars, a new transportation model was set. More lanes, interstates, and spaghetti bowls met.
Asphalt blasts through Black Bottom against resident will.21 Homes everywhere soon replaced by a ceaseless traffic twirl.
THE CITY
The city is filled with the noise of those cars, to escape from the fumes, get above the boulevards.
Here is the skyscraper, steel reaching higher and higher, built to withstand the next Great Chicago Fire.22
The city rebuilding wanted a name, first came Ferris at the world’s exhibition23, and now the rising steel frames of wealthy competition.
Burnham and Sullivan were two of the best, architects and planners putting that steel to the test.24
Not just the highrise frames or autos below, now steel was everywhere from bridges, pipes, dishwashers, pots, and much more.25
Ubiquitous steel, inside and out, the grandiose city was rigid, immortalized now.
THE AIRFIELD
The airfield has a national charge, with wartime on the horizon looming large.
Those cities of steel are harder to break, more weapons, more power, more airplanes the nation must make.
Captain Hap and Wright brothers once flew alongside, and now Hap was building an air force to conquer the skies.26
He struck a deal with Ford who hired Albert Khan, titans of industry and architecture bond.
First an experimental boys’ camp called Willow Run, this was now the largest factory on earth second to none.27
Unhoused workers churned out B-24 bombers to keep the Nazis at bay, a rate of one every hour, 24 hours a day.28
Before the war, women workers were prevented, but soon Rosie the Riveter was hired after Ford finally relented.29
The U.S. leads in global defense spending by far.30 A steel economy sitting right at its heart.
With this beam we build, with this sheet destroy. In the cyclical loop, Steel Shorelines are forever employed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cameron Blakely received a masters degree in urban design from Taubman in December of 2024. Prior to attending the University of Michigan, he worked as a Landscape Architect in the Intermountain West. He has a range of design interests ranging from water, historic preservation and heritage, urban mobility, and brownfield redevelopment. He is passionate about empathetic design and strives to give voice to landscapes that cannot speak for themselves. As he re-enters private practice, Cameron continues to develop Steel Shorelines and other self-initiated projects.
ENDNOTES
1. “Samuel L Mather Jr. - Partner of Pickands Mather & Company,” Notable People, Bratenahl Historical Society, May 25, 2022, https://bratenahlhistorical.org/index.php/henrycoit-2/
2. Grace Noble, “Why Was Hibbing Moved? How the City Relocated in the 1920s,” The Minnesota Star Tribune, July 1, 2024, https://www.startribune.com/how-hibbing-minnesotamoved-entire-city/600377581.
3. “Iron Mines in Michigan,” NASA Earth Observatory, NASA, September 11, 2013, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ images/84243/iron-mines-in-michigan.
5. “Self- Unloading Bulk Carriers Conveyor System, Gravity Freeflow Concept & SUL Terminology,” Bulk Carrier Guide, last updated 2010, https://bulkcarrierguide.com/self-unloaders.html.
6. “The Soo Locks,” GEO 333: Geography of Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, Randall J. Schaetzl, https://project.geo.msu. edu/geogmich/SOOLOCK.html.
7. Gordon Lightfoot, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerland,” by Gordon Lightfoot, Reprise Records, Track 2 on Summertime Dream, 1976.
8. Bruce Boyce, “The Erie Railway War,” I Take History, May 15, 2022, https://www.itakehistory.com/post/the-erie-railway-war.
9. Erskine Ramsay, “Revolvable Car Dumping Structure,” U.S. patent 701,764, June 3, 1902.
10. Encyclopedia Britannica, “Blast Furnace,” January 30, 2025, ed., https://www.britannica.com/technology/blast-furnace.
11. Scholarly Community Encyclopedia, “Water Footprint in Steel Industries,” Atun Roy Choudhury, Neha Singh, Arutchelvan Veeraraghavan, Ayushi Gupta, Sankar Ganesh Palani, Mohammad Mehdizadeh, Anahita Omidi, and Duraid K. A. AlTaey, June 15, 2023, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/45566.
12. The HISTORY Channel, “How Carnegie Built an Empire of Steel | The Men Who Built America,” July 4, 2022, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g180A6k7814.
13. Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Calumet River System,” 2005, http:// www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/203.html.
14. Landmarks and Preservation Commission, “Empire Building,” Designation List 273 LP-1933, NYC.Gov, June 25, 1996, https://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1933.pdf.
15. “Construction of the Town,” Discover Indiana, Gary Public Library, n.d., https://discoverindianahistory.org/items/show/601.
16. Kelly Ellard, “Gary, Indiana and the Complicated History of Education in America,” Montessorium, March 2, 2022, https:// montessorium.com/blog/gary-indiana-and-the-complicatedhistory-of-education-in-america.
17. Colin Bertram, “Michael Jackson: Inside His Early Years in Gary, Indiana With His Musical Family,” Biography, September 9, 2020, https://www.biography.com/musicians/michaeljackson-growing-up-gary-indiana-jackson-5.
18. Ed., “Ford Launched the Modern Assembly Line a Century Ago and Changed Society,” Agence France-Presse, October 7, 2013, https://www.industryweek.com/innovation/processimprovement/article/21961364/ford-launched-the-modernassembly-line-a-century-ago-and-changed-society.
19. Heather B. Barrow and Shaun Allshouse, Henry Ford’s Plan for the American Suburb: Dearborn and Detroit, (Northern Illinois University Press, 2015).
20. Kelly House, “Once Beset by Industrial Pollution, Rouge River on a Slow Path to Recovery,” Great Lakes Now, May 10, 2023, https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2023/05/once-beset-industrialpollution-rouge-river-slow-path-recovery/.
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