Agora 8 by Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

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Agora

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Growth Management

2009

Change

2010

Detroit

2011

Endurance and Adaptation

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Connection

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Public | Private

ALTERNATIVES

University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning

ALTERNATIVES

Agora Journal of Planning and Urban Design Volume 8 2014

Editor in Chief Creative Director Articles Editor Production Director

Alexandria Stankovich Sergio Escudero Alexandra Markiewicz Eric Huntley

Editorial Board

Aja Bonner Cole Grisham Terra Reed Erin Royals

Editorial Staff

Tricia Pontau Shirley Rempe Katy Ryan

Creative Staff

Betsy Cooper Pier Amelia Davis Chris Herlich Brad Vogelsmeier Xiang Yan

Matthew Ritsema. M. Arch. 2014. “Broadway Cut”. New York City, New York.

Author

New Heights

Alternatives

Richard Norton

Alexandria Stankovich

Progressive Planning in Conservative Communities Cole Grisham

Crowdfunding Community Projects Elizabeth Treutel

Combining Fragments into a Vibrant Whole Jason Wong

Tribal Planning in the Face of Environmental Injustice Terra Reed

The Remembrance of a Moon Village Seul Lee

International Cooperative Housing Pamela Schaeffer

The Mortgage Interest Deduction Xiang Yan

Cleared for Development Clare Kang, Katherine Knapp, Nolan Sandberg, and Julia Stuebing

Strategic Demolition Matthew Story

Securing Neighborhoods Andrew Goddeeris

Narratives in Urban Theory Napong Tao Rugkhapan

18 24 36 48 60 72 84 96 108 112 132 11

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Author

Eric Huntley. M.U.P. 2014. “Tokyo Infrastructure”. Tokyo, Japan. AGORA 8

New Heights From the Chair

Richard Norton, JD Ph.D.

Chair, Urban and Regional Planning Program Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning

n 2006, several students approached the Chair of the Urban and Regional Planning Program in the University of Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, noting that Michigan Planning did not have its own student planning journal for disseminating the work of students and faculty. How could this be? They urged that the time had come to establish such a forum, and they offered to undertake the task of starting a journal. They chose the term Agora for its title, speaking to the agora of Athens in ancient Greece -- the central gathering place for trading ideas and goods and the center of civic life. Agora has been especially remarkable in two respects. First, it has always been a student-initiated effort. While the planning program and Taubman College have provided some financial support and faculty advising, passionate students are its heart and soul. Second, while each year the scope and quality of the journal has increased, that progress has evolved through several distinct stages. First came a substantial

increase in student participation through formalization of the editorial board. Then came a notable focus on heightening the quality of both content and presentation of the final journal. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Agora staff have taken the journal to new heights, leveraging modern multi-media fora to transform Agora into a truly modern gathering place for trading ideas through a journal, a web presence, a blog, and more. This is exciting! It speaks to the quality, passion, and initiative of our students, and it makes a real contribution to intellectual development and public service at the University of Michigan and beyond. I am immensely impressed by our studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; accomplishments, and as participants in this modern gathering place for intellectual and civic life, I hope you will be too. Sincerely, Richard

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ast year, while reviewing photography submissions for Agora 7, I wondered aloud again and again: where are all the people? I sorted through breathtaking images of infrastructure – artifacts brought to life through the juxtaposition of light and shadow; the loose fibers of our collective memory. But what I longed for was the experience, the process, and the space of human interaction. After all, we plan for people, for more ‘eyes on the street’ and more feet in the door; for better decision making, better quality of life, and meaningful social change. In short, I sought, and missed, a testimony to the humanity of the urban experience.

Alternatives From the Editor in Chief

Alexandria Stankovich

Master of Urban Planning 2014

The photographer of cities attempts to capture impossible complexity, the depth and diversity of human interaction, and the influence of the built environment, all within the constrains of a medium that lacks the benefit of explanatory words or context. Each medium of scholarship or art is, in its own way, similarly limited. Consequently, we approached this year’s journal as a compendium of multiple viewpoints. We expanded the journal’s scope by exploring new platforms and media including blogs, video interviews, salons, panels, and workshops. We probed the wisdom of Taubman faculty and visiting speakers, savored the imagination of middle and high school students, and harnessed the passion of our peers. Planning is a continuous process. We acknowledge that Agora 8 can only be a collection of snap shots, a partial cross-section of our historical moment.

However, by combining the tactics of a reflective practitioner with the knowledge of a grounded academic, we hope that the journal’s gaze might include glimpses of the past and of things to come. I thank our contributors for committing their ideas to paper and breathing life into blank pages. The authors of Agora 8 have exhibited conviction, tempered always by the willingness to meaningfully engage with the multidisciplinarity of urbanistic discourse. Though they were often forced to joust with our editorial staff, they (and we) emerge more experienced writers and scholars equipped to deal in the tricky business that is the trafficking of ideas. The articles in Agora 8 not only address long-standing issues in planning practice and research but also dare to think projectively; they are not content with things as they are. They propose alternatives to dominant models of housing, regional planning, project funding, environmental quality, and urban redevelopment. These authors ask “why not?” Why haven’t these proposed alternatives materialized in policy and practice? They explore these issues pluralistically, as issues of theory and of practice, as issues of policy and of design. By including this multiplicity of perspectives, we hope that these articles might permit a deeper understanding of our world that enables us, as planners and designers, to propose alternatives that are both hopeful and realistic.

Agora 8 began as an aspiration: to interrogate current discourse through the various lenses of our authors, editors, and collaborators and to appreciate deeply the foundational role of humanity in urbanity and urbanism. As planners and designers working to address the obstacles posed by of shrinking municipal budgets, the retrenchment of urban services, the uneven spatial distribution of economic opportunity, and heightened public concern about environmental degradation and anthropogenic climate change, it is imperative that we learn from, make use of, and disseminate alternative methods and imagine alternative futures. We hope that the articles contained in this issue inspire you are to discuss, critique, and challenge the condition of the contemporary city and to propose alternatives. Agora 8 stands on the shoulders of the staffs that preceded us. We thank them for their dedication to the journal and its mission; we also thank them for entrusting us with the continuation and expansion of the journal. Finally, we’d like to thank our faculty advisors Dr. Julie Steiff and Dr. Scott Campbell. Cheers, Alex

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Eric Huntley. M.U.P. 2014. “Kyoto Impatient Rider”. Kyoto, Japan.

Nathan Oppenheim. MArch. 2014. “Bangkok Canal”. Bangkok, Thailand.

Progressive Planning in Conservative Communities Participatory Regional Planning in Salt Lake City, Utah Cole Grisham

Master of Urban Planning 2014

Utah is becoming a leader in comprehensive, communicative regional planning in the United States through an innovative process known as Envision Utah, even though many observers view Utah as the least likely state to pursue progressive planning practices. As many urban issues spread across multiple jurisdictions, regional approaches are often needed. In a highly conservative state with a strong belief in limited government, regional planning initiatives would seem especially unlikely. Instead, Envision Utah succeeds in engaging the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stakeholders in the planning process without creating a new layer of government. Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s model fills a key gap in how planners engage communities on regional planning issues. In this study, I analyze Envision Utah as participatory regional planning in the Salt Lake City region and identify components planners might reproduce in other regions.

tah is quickly becoming a leader in comprehensive, communicative regional planning in the United States through an initiative known as Envision Utah, even though many observers view Utah as the least likely state to pursue progressive planning practices (Scheer, 2012). Envision Utah is a highly innovative program, especially in the United States where regional planning efforts are uncommon and varied. As urban issues such as environmental sustainability, spatial dislocation, inequality and other challenges spread across multiple municipalities, regional approaches are often needed. Metropolitan areas sometimes address this need by pursuing new layers of government, with only a handful of success stories. In the case of Utah, a highly conservative state with a strong belief in limited government, regional planning initiatives would seem especially unlikely. Instead, Envision Utah succeeds in engaging nearly all regional stakeholders in the planning process without creating a new layer of government. For the planning profession, Utah’s initiative and process could fill a key gap in how planners engage communities on regional planning issues. In this case study, I analyze the history, processes, and effects of the Envision Utah participatory regional planning model in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, also known as the Greater Wasatch Area. I conclude by identifying components planners might reproduce in other metropolitan regions and organizations.

Nature of Problem Regionalism is an environmental, economic, political, or social identity that reflects the scale of an entire metropolitan area and contrasts with local, state, or national identities. How a region is defined is somewhat nebulous, involving environmental, economic, administrative, or many other factors. The scale at which regionalists act, however, is usually defined as the administrative boundaries formed by the counties surrounding a central city. Regional planning, more than many other brands of urban planning, has had a difficult legacy and limited implementation in the United States. Fishman (2000, p. 108) argues that the planning profession has had a checkered history of “badly conceived, imperfectly implemented, or wholly ignorant initiatives,” exemplified by the Urban Renewal projects of the 1970s and similar failures. He argues that the root of these failures lies primarily in their top-down, technocratic implementation instead of a bottom-up, communicative origin (Fishman, 2000). Planning in the post-war years approached many urban issues in an analytical and rational manner,

seeking clear answers to clear problems. The reality is that, as Rittel and Webber (1973) would argue, urban issues are seldom clear or quickly solvable. Instead, urban issues, or ‘wicked problems’ as they refer to them, involve many interrelated variables acting on one another, creating unique, contextual, and temporal issues requiring comprehensive action. For regional planning, this includes operating across multiple competing jurisdictions simultaneously. For contemporary regional planning, Fishman summarizes three key lessons from planning’s failure: to doubt “grand design” initiatives, to incorporate local interests and diversities into the larger framework, and to approach planning as a “regional conversation” rather than a topdown imposition of policies (2000, p. 119). Other scholars have reinforced this argument, stating that planners should be “openly inviting [of] political and social values” into the planning debate (Davidoff, 2012, p. 191). In response to these lessons, some urban areas have implemented regional governance structures to address regional challenges, such as regional councils, city-county consolidations, or special service districts, with mixed success. These endeavors require a strong buy-in from residents to state-level action, as they are inherently statelevel interventions. The remaining question then is what becomes of regional action in states where large-scale government action is often distrusted or limited. This is where Utah’s model may help fill a gap in the current regional planning tool-kit.

History of Envision Utah The driving force behind Envision Utah is the Coalition for Utah’s Future, a non-profit organization formed in 1988 by a collection of public and private community leaders to address metropolitan issues. The Coalition’s original mission was to attract businesses to Utah and spur economic growth through engaging local community interests and providing a forum for consensus building (Coalition for Utah’s Future, 2009). As Utah’s economic condition picked up in the early 1990s, local leaders and residents began raising questions about how the Salt Lake City metropolitan area (Greater Wasatch Area) would accommodate future economic and population growth without compromising the area’s character, values, and goals (Coalition, 2009).

As a result, the Coalition created a task force to research and report on growth in the region, headed by local industry leader Robert Grow. His approach to the problem was to gather as AGORA 8

much public input as possible, thereby fleshing out the region’s interests and piecing together common themes for Utah’s future (Coalition, 2009). In what he referred to as the “Sherlock Holmes” model, Grow argued that the leadership should never assume it knows the complete story in a community, but instead should ask many questions and listen intently to sort out the truth (Coalition, 2009). In other words, Envision Utah is premised on the notion that a vision for the region is nested in the residents’ values, and only through conversation and dialogue can planners conceptualize this vision. This model is not unique in theory and has been practiced under other names in many municipalities in recent decades. As I

Cache

Rich

Box Elder Ogden Weber

Morgan

Davis

Summit Salt Lake Salt Lake City Wasatch

Tooele Provo

Daggett

Duchesne Uintah

Utah Juab

Carbon Sanpete

Millard

Emery

Grand

Sevier Beaver

Piute

Iron

Wayne Garfield San Juan

Washington

Kane

Major Cities Municipalities Counties Greater Wasatch Area

Fig 1.1: Utah Context

illustrate in the following sections, however, the geographic scope of Envision Utah and the lack of political coercion necessary to implement it are truly unique.

Regional Planning in Two Phases Many regional planning interventions propose a governance model with the power to influence important decisions at the local level to bring them in line with the goals of the region (Scheer, 2012), yet in the Utah model this is entirely absent. The Utah Model categorically rejects regional governance as a component of the planning process. After over two decades

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of consensus-building endeavors, the Utah Model does not even rely on inter-municipal agreements to implement goals (Scheer, 2012). Instead, Envision Utah relies on two interdependent stages of input and implementation. In the first stage, as discussed above, researchers collect extensive public input on what residents want to see for their children and grandchildren (Scheer, 2012). This process includes translating convoluted planning language into contextual, easy-to-understand language. Rather than defining ‘social justice,’ for example, concepts like ‘neighborliness’ were more tangible. Similarly, Drawing on local traditions of large family size, this model worked within an existing cultural framework where residents think of adjacent communities as part of their extended families rather than competing jurisdictions. This means concepts like neighborliness and preserving natural beauty are benefits shared by all of one’s family across the region, instead of by one municipality at the expense of another. Approaching regional visioning from a family-oriented approach, rather than a jargon-heavy planning approach, translates planning goals into the goals of the local population. This is not sleight of hand on the part of planners, but instead translates intangible concepts into tangible features of the community. The second stage is to engage regional stakeholders, including developers, politicians, planners, environmentalists, religious leaders, and many others in the implementation strategy. Envision Utah’s initial product was the Quality Growth Strategy (QGS), which outlined a series of regional goals based on community input and, more importantly, an implementation tool-kit for communities to pursue projects they choose (Envision Utah, 2011). As Brenda Scheer (2012) of the Brookings Institute makes explicit, none of Envision Utah’s initiatives were adopted in communities that did not wish to conform to the QGS. Although the QGS has been entirely voluntary, it is supported in nearly all of the 91 cities and 10 counties of the Greater Wasatch Area (Envision Utah, 2009).

Key Challenges to Replication In spite of its broad acceptance, the Utah Model of regional planning has been a unique success story under largely unique circumstances. Demographic homogeneity, cultural nuances, and dominance of the central city over the metropolitan area set Utahns apart from much of the nation, including neighboring states with similar political and demographic histories.

According to the US Census Bureau (2013) and other agencies, Utah is composed of a nearly 92 percent white and 60 percent Latter Day Saint church population (Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, 2010). This highly homogeneous population presents a unique advantage to Envision Utah proponents and a disadvantage to many other areas looking to replicate the Utah model. In Utah’s case, building consensus based on shared morals, values, and vision is not especially difficult as most households share similar beliefs and experiences As Scheer (2012) notes, states like Louisiana, Montana, Texas, and Wyoming have all attempted to replicate pieces of Envision Utah in their own states with mixed success. While each of these has higher church membership than Utah, membership is divided into a greater number of denominations, resulting in a much more diverse population (Infogroup, 2010). Similarly, none, save Wyoming, have the ethnic or racial homogeneity of Utah (US Census, 2013). In short, the ability to create a broad-based consensus to the degree Utah has achieved is less likely in other states due to more diverse value systems reflected in greater ethnic, racial, and religious heterogeneity. Scheer (2012) further underscores Utah’s contrast to the neighboring states in relation to property

Demographic homogeneity, cultural nuances, and dominance of the central city over the metropolitan area set Utahns apart from much of the nation, including neighboring states with similar political and demographic histories. rights. Like many western states’ residents, Utahns strongly value private property rights. Unlike their neighbors, however, Utahns have a legacy of community cooperation handed down from the state’s Mormon founders; this has helped bolster consensus building over competition. For private property owners, this means a greater focus on shared or communal responsibility for social, economic, and environmental issues at the potential expense of private interests. Even in more liberal and progressive urban areas like Portland, Oregon this is a difficult practice to accept, much less in states like Texas and Wyoming.

Lastly, I speculate that Salt Lake City’s cultural and economic dominance enables greater consensus, albeit a Salt Lake City-oriented consensus. Salt Lake County, in which Salt Lake City is the largest municipality, comprises 37 percent of Utah’s entire population, the state capital, the headquarters of the Mormon Church, and the single most recognizable geographic feature in the State of Utah: the Great Salt Lake. Salt Lake City is not only the economic and political center of Utah, but also its cultural center. As Fishman (2000) notes, metropolitanism, or the cultural, economic, and political dominance of the region by the urban center, is often mistaken as a synonym for regionalism, but the two should be distinguished. In Utah’s case, rather than taking a truly regionalist approach to urban issues similar to that of urban areas of comparable size, perhaps Salt Lake City exerts a cultural and identity pull similar to that of the urban areas of the Chicago School of urban studies. In the Chicago model, the central city is a densely populated regional nucleus, surrounded by satellite cities decreasing in population density and social, economic, and political influence (Judd, 2011). These satellite areas are fundamentally subordinate to and dependent upon the urban core in nearly all respects. Urban areas in this model include Chicago, as well as perhaps Portland, Oregon and other metropolitan areas with a disproportionately large central city. In contrast, urban areas of the Los Angeles School exhibit categorically opposite characteristics, with a polycentric region consisting of multiple urban nuclei acting independently of one another. In the Los Angeles metropolitan area, for example, five of California’s 15 largest cities all vie for influence and economic development in the region. To foster regional solutions in the Los Angeles model, policy makers would need a truly collaborative regionalism that emphasizes the interests of these lesser urban nuclei alongside those of Los Angeles. The literature measuring these relationships is rare or of questionable design, however. In order to further evaluate these ideas in the detail they deserve would require research beyond the scope of this case study, but I raise the question regardless. In the case of Salt Lake City, I doubt that suburban municipalities are large or influential enough to effectively counter Salt Lake City’s interests, or that their interests are all that different from those of the central city.

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Implications for the Planning Profession Scheer (2012) argues that four key, replicable lessons should be pulled from Utah’s model. First, implement capacity-building measures as a valuable alternative to new layers of governance. By working through existing institutions, Envision Utah avoided contested election or referenda battles and instead strengthened already-respected actors. Second, provide the public with usable relevant data. By tailoring information and data to issues Utahns could relate to, Envision Utah proponents ensured greater and more educated buyin from the region’s communities. Third, as illustrated earlier, appeal to shared community values. Lastly, maintain the proper political composition. In this regard, Envision Utah sought broad support from regional stakeholders first to develop the QGS and then to sell the plan to political leaders (2009). Scheer (2012) concedes that the Utah model is unique in its context and content, and thus difficult to replicate in its entirety. Due to Utah’s demographic and cultural homogeneity, large-scale export to other urban areas is not likely in the near future. I argue, however, that broad-based action through existing institutions is viable in most states. Just as the Coalition was a non-partisan growth advocate prior to Envision Utah, most states already have respected institutions capable of engaging communities across social cleavages in a similar fashion. Envision Utah proponents ensured that any planning arrangement involved all of the stakeholders necessary to put the plan into practice. State municipal leagues, non-profit consortia of concerned residents, or land-grant university extension programs could act as viable mediators between cities, synthesizing and moderating community interests into regional goals. For example, the Michigan Municipal League has recently stepped outside its role as a research and data dissemination agency to consult Michigan communities in creating or redeveloping community assets such as public spaces. This has created best practices for struggling communities across Michigan to address disinvestment in downtown areas (Michigan Municipal League, 2013). Similarly, the Center for Michigan promotes itself as a “think and do tank,” touting their commitment to broad-based community research as well as

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lobbying and advocacy (Center for Michigan, n.d.). Its three-stage model of “engage, inform, and achieve” reflects Envision Utah’s model in that it solicits input from a wide audience, providing tangible and relevant data, while synthesizing input into actionable goals it can lobby to state policy makers. Lastly, land-grant universities have a mandate from both state and federal governments to conduct applied research in communities, deriving best practices, building local capacity, and above all advising local leaders. In Oregon, for example, Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Services has a program called Citizen Participation Organizations (CPOs). In this program, OSU

In the case of Salt Lake City, I doubt that suburban municipalities are large or influential enough to effectively counter Salt Lake City’s interests or that their interests are all that different from the central city. helps build community organizations that can speak for their respective areas and connect to statewide resources. OSU uses communitydevelopment best practices from across the state to advise CPOs on how to manage growth, voice regional concerns, and connect to a larger regional growth-management conversation in Oregon. These three examples from Michigan and Oregon are not unique; every state has similar reciprocal organizations. These nonpartisan institutions are respected and have the resources to conduct research and advocacy similar to the activities of Envision Utah. Organizations engaged in communicative planning in conjunction with statewide action may not achieve consensus on the scale Envision Utah has, but they can provide coordination between and advocacy for a wide spectrum of community interests and needs. By working through organizations like these, regional planners could implement aspects of the Utah model and, most importantly, advance planning as a comprehensive regional conversation rather than state-level imposition of policies.

References Andranovich, G. and Riposa, G. (1993). Doing Urban Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Center for Michigan. (n.d.). About the Center for Michigan. The Center for Michigan: Engage, Inform, Achieve. Retrieved February 2014 from: http://thecenterformichigan.net/about/

Lewis, P. (1996). Shaping Suburbia: How Political Institutions Organize Urban Development. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press. Michigan Municipal League. (2013). Placemaking. Retrieved February 2014 from: http://placemaking.mml.org/place-plans/

Davidoff, P. (2012). Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning. In Campbell, S. and Fainstein, S. (Eds). Readings in Planning Theory, 3rd Edition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.

Ottensmann, J. (1992). Central City Dominance in Metropolitan Areas and the Availability of Affordable Housing. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 11(2), 96-104.

Envision Utah. (2009). The History of Envision Utah. Salt Lake City, UT: Coalition for Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Future. Envision Utah. (2011). The Quality Growth Strategy. Salt Lake City, UT: Coalition for Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Future.

Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life. (2010). US Religious Landscape Survey. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Rittel, H. and Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155-169.

Fishman, R. (2000). The Death and Life of American Regional Planning. In Katz, B. (Ed). Reflections on Regionalism. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute.

Rusk, D. (2000). Growth Management: The Core Regional Issue. In Katz, B. (Ed). Reflections on Regionalism. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute.

Infogroup. (2010). Religion by Tradition: 2010. Retrieved 01 April 2013 from: http://www.socialexplorer.com/

Scheer, B. (2012). The Utah Model: Lessons for Regional Planning. Las Vegas, NV: Brookings Institute Mountain West.

Judd, D. (2011). Theorizing the City. In Judd, D and Simpson, D. (Eds). The City Revisited: Urban Theory from Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

US Census Bureau. (2013). State and County Quick Facts. Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce.

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Author

Christopher Herlich. M.U.P. 2015. “La Ramblas”. Barcelona, Spain. AGORA 8

Crowdfunding Community Projects

Elizabeth Treutel

Master of Urban Planning 2014

Crowdfunding is becoming a popular method of fundraising for entrepreneurs, high-tech start-ups, non-profit projects, and, increasingly, community projects. As city governments across the country and world continue to suffer financially, community betterment projects like parks and trails become lower priorities. In turn, community organizers have begun taking matters into their own hands. This paper presents crowdfunding as both a transformative tool to catalyze community redevelopment and a potential liability for social justice and government responsibility. I describe Matireal, a crowdfunded community connector trail in Milwaukee, as a case-study for analysis.

n an era where local governments are continuously tightening budgets and cutting programs, innovative planning interventions are often the first projects cut. The poorest municipalities are often the communities with the highest level of need and the most disadvantaged populations. Crowdfunding, an online funding mechanism through which a great many individuals contribute relatively small amounts of money to support a company, project, or initiative, is quickly gaining strength with community organizers and grassroots planners as an intervention technique to finance these essential community improvements. Introduced in the late 1990s and highly popularized within the last five years, crowdfunding has primarily been used to fund start-up entrepreneurial projects that often have a creative or digital focus (Mollick, 2013). The widespread success and popularity of crowdfunding has promoted the flexible funding mechanism for everything from mission trips to real estate development. Crowdfunding for community-based projects, therefore, seems to be a natural fit. Through crowdfunding, individuals invest relatively small amounts of money into various sized projects, initiatives, or organizations in return for a pre-determined donor gift. In some cases, donors receive a share in the claim to future assets of the entity (Startup Exemption, 2013). In short, crowdfunding expands and replaces traditional “angel investors,” or persons who contribute a large sum of money to support a new company or project, with a large pool of individual investors to attain the seed capital for a project (NLCFA, 2012). Today, many non-profits, community development groups, and individuals are utilizing crowdfunding mechanisms to initiate improvement efforts in their own neighborhoods, which essentially serve as public projects. I will explore one example, a recent project in Milwaukee, Wisconsin called “Matireal, a ‘Creational Trail.’” Matireal is a multi-use trail built with a geotextile composed of recycled tires, which contains a linear, public art gallery called the “Artery” running along an old rail corridor connecting neighborhoods throughout the City. The project has utilized Kickstarter, an online crowdfunding platform, to complete the first phase of the project and

encourage government investment. In its design and concept, Matireal is a privately funded public project.

Why Crowdfunding? Matireal uses an innovative approach to address a multitude of social, economic, and environmental issues that the City’s tax revenue cannot cover. When city governments are working with lean budgets and struggling to provide basic services to residents, these types of community-based projects often go un-funded to make way for more vital budget items. Fiscal issues are no longer a problem limited to rust-belt cities of the Midwest, but a national and global phenomenon. Cities from Los Angeles to London are experiencing financial hardships similar to those of many Detroit-like cities. Municipal financial hardships can be blamed on a host of factors including poor regional tax policy, migration patterns, racial and socio-economic housing segregation, suburbanization, a weak property tax base, poor city leadership, misaligned financial priorities, and shifting land use patterns. The crowdfunding model, specifically as used for Matireal, addresses the needs and desires of the community that municipal governments are unable to meet.

About Matireal, a ‘Creational Trail’ Matireal is about connecting neighborhoods through art and recreation. The Matireal project founder, Keith Hayes, formed the organization “beintween” soon after the introduction of the design concept for Matireal with the mission to “make [art] do [work]” (Matireal, 2012). The trail, constructed of a geotextile made of recycled tire material, gravel, and grasses, was completed in November 2013. It reclaims a divested 2.4mile rail corridor and connects two diverse neighborhoods over a rail bridge. The public art gallery component of Matireal is currently in the development process. Once a more integrated community, the Harambee and Riverworks neighborhoods were severed by a four-lane highway and became segregated racially and socio-economically. The highway has also created an unsafe pattern where pedestrians frequently attempt to cross the busy thoroughfare via the divested rail bridge. When completed, Matireal will form a linear art-based park through the rail corridor and rail bridge to reconnect the neighborhoods physically and culturally. The project aims to “engage all people… and break down major

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social, cultural, economic and racial boundaries by stitching these along the artery” (Matireal, 2012). The project is a “simple, low-tech revitalization concept that works within a neighborhood” using an innovative, sustainable, and socially just planning intervention that the City would not initially fund (Matireal, 2012). Matireal launched itself into Kickstarter, the largest online crowdfunding platform, on October 29, 2012. While project planning and design had begun almost a year prior, the project hit a wall when attempts to obtain large investments or City or Federal grants to fund the project fell apart (beintween, 2013). Matireal founders needed funds for the first step in the project: to purchase a shipping container to use for material storage and advertising (Matireal, 2012). They reached their crowdfunding goal of $10,000 in less than a month with 230 backers (Matireal, 2012). With a total of $11,296 pledged, backers received various gifts dependent on their pledge levels, ranging from a “sincerely written Thank You from the founders” for a $5 contribution, to “500 square feet of the geotextile” (for use in personal driveways or other projects) for contributions of $2,500 or more (Matireal, 2012). After the crowdfunded investment allowed the group to purchase shipping containers and move forward with research and development of the geotextile, the City of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) were willing to provide some support to the project. The City and the Wisconsin DNR assisted with land acquisition, the donation of recycled tires to create the geotextile, construction permits, and safety provisions for the project. Without the initial capital investments from Kickstarter investors, the City or State would probably not have been willing or able to provide assistance. In the case of Matireal, crowdfunding investment allowed the innovative project to gain traction with the community, which encouraged government entities to provide assistance.

Other Examples of Crowdfunded Community Projects 32

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Aside from Kickstarter, one can find many other examples of crowdfunding platforms used for community projects. Spacehive is a crowdfunding platform that connects community-based project initiators with financial supporters in the United Kingdom (Spacehive, 2013). Spacehive hosts project proposals and manages internet donations for projects, as long as the project is in a public

space that anyone in the community can freely access (Spacehive, 2013). Past projects include creating a picnic area and garden in a park in Lancashire and renovating a vacant store into a community street art gallery in Bristol (Spacehive, 2013). Spacehive is unique because, unlike Kickstarter, it is geared specifically toward projects that must be open to the public. This prevents projects from discriminating against certain users or excluding traditionally allowed public uses. Fundrise, another funding method, gives individuals the ability to directly invest in their neighborhoods through local commercial real

If the crowdfunding model becomes commonplace… this could legitimize… the permanent shifting of responsibility from localities to provide basic public amenities[.] estate development. Although not necessarily a platform for funding public projects, it allows individuals to invest without the fees and middlemen of conventional real estate equity finance (Fundrise, 2013). In short, residents can invest relatively small amounts of money into commercial real estate in their neighborhoods, own a share in the action (with proportional financial returns), and help realize their visions for their communities (Fundrise, 2013). Three neighborhood projects have been funded and are now underway in Washington D.C., including the building at 406 H Street NE, which will transform a vacant building into an ethnic restaurant (Fundrise, 2013). Fundrise allows residents to take ownership of their neighborhood, literally and figuratively; however, it may also promote gentrification and, at this point, still requires leadership from larger developers to guide the management, programming, and design of the project. Citizinvestor allows municipalities to raise money through crowdfunding in order to move forward on projects shelved by budget shortfalls (Citizinvestor, 2012). To use this online crowdfunding platform, the projects require evaluation by a local government and approval by the appropriate department, and solely lack funding for implementation (Citizinvestor, 2012). Projects range from building a community garden in Philadelphia to restoring a publicly owned historical hotel in Florida (Citizinvestor, 2012). Of course, the premise behind this platform is that residents will willingly contribute to government-initiated public

projects beyond their current tax contributions. Although funded projects are still in their early stages, this platform is promising because, unlike Kickstarter, Fundrise, or Spacehive, Citizenvestor projects must undergo the typical public development phases. In many ways, Citizinvestor allows the public to decide directly which public projects to fund, which can have both positive and negative impacts.

Challenges and Risks There are many challenges and risks associated with crowdfunding community projects, although many previous challenges have diminished with the recent passing of the Federal JOBS Act. Section 4(6) of the act legalizes crowdfunding at a deeper level than previously written into law, exempting investors in forprofit projects from being officially accredited (Startup Exemption, 2013). However, the crowdfunding model still faces challenges. The likelihood of failure for a crowdfunded project is quite high despite the many celebrated successes highlighted in the media (Mollick, 3: 2013). Literature surrounding the new and understudied funding mechanism of crowdfunding lacks evidence describing why certain projects succeed or fail. While these studies are inclusive of all kinds of projects, not just community projects, they are still applicable. It is unclear whether crowdfunding efforts reinforce or contradict theories about how traditional ventures raise capital and achieve success, or what the long-term implications of crowdfunding are (Mollick, 3: 2013). Assessing crowfunding success begins with whether or not it is fully funded, as many crowdfunding platforms return funds to contributors if funding levels are not met. Of all projects initiated on Kickstarter, only 49% are ever funded, with an average goal of those funded projects being $5,604 (Mollick, 32: 2013). Other indications of success include whether or not the intended deliverable was completed and, if applicable, the length of delays in the project (Mollick, 3: 2013). Variables affecting the success of a project include a founderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s integration with social media and geographic location. In general, projects in larger cities tend to have a much higher success rate (Mollick, 32: 2013). Along with the challenges for founders, funders face uncertainty about the success or quality of the deliverable. There are no accountability systems in place to guarantee project success. Similarly, even if a project is initiated by an organization or start-up with the intention of helping or improving the community, there is no guarantee that the project will truly be public.

Benefits of and Concerns Raised by Crowdfunding for Community Projects Just as challenges exist for securing crowdfunded financing for community projects, positive and negative implications exist regarding the outcomes of the projects. Residents often initiate crowdfunding projects to take community matters into their own hands, in some cases to,fill gaps in municipal funding and services. Innovators like Keith Hayes of Matireal can utilize platforms like Kickstarter or Spacehive to open up their projects to financial support from their community, or from anyone across the globe. This provides flexibility to attain seed money for community projects and provides communities the opportunity to invest more directly in projects they support. Furthermore, crowdfunded projects can be more innovative and efficient than projects that must conform to traditional standards and regulations of the bureaucratic system. Along with the benefits of crowdfunding, there are also concerns associated with transforming public projects into private ventures. In Driven from New Orleans, John Arena dissects privatization of public goods in the case of public housing. Arena suggests that creating non-profit alternatives to public services further legitimizes public sector failures (Arena, 179: 2012). The same risks apply to other community projects such as park improvements, nature trails, and similar endeavors that are traditionally publicly funded through tax revenue. If the crowdfunding model becomes commonplace for public provisions, this could legitimize the long-term retrenchment and permanent shifting of responsibilities for our localities to provide basic public amenities such as utilities or welfare programs that government entities are better suited to provide (Arena, 183: 2012).

Plannersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Roles While crowdfunding public projects may adapt to budget shortfalls and realize residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sense of place and expression of community identity, long-term implications of crowdfunding could include shrinking government, more dependence on the free market to provide public services, and the introduction of new externalities that government intervention works to correct.

Projects like Matireal benefit the community in many ways, but there are still issues of equity AGORA 8

and prioritization. Rail to trail conversions or public art galleries may seem glamorous, but when cities are faced with aging infrastructure, water and sewer systems should take priority. For these reasons, Crowdfunded community projects should not replace traditional public works initiatives, but can fill funding gaps in cities struggling to provide services. Planners can take advantage of crowdfunding to realize change in their community. Specifically, planners can take an active role in both improving processes of crowdfunding for public projects and catalyzing relationships between the public, project founders, and government entities for crowdfunded projects. As the Matireal project in Milwaukee illustrates, crowdfunding can be used to subsidize or initiate projects that also use traditional municipal funds. Planners can connect local entrepreneurs with government officials early in the process to encourage both parties to

phase crowdfunding and public funding into a project’s investment model where each is most appropriate, thereby increasing the likelihood of success. Planners could also advocate for a crowdfunding platform similar to Spacehive, one designed specifically to address the risks and rewards that come with crowdfunding public projects. This could include the requirement that projects be publicly accessible, participation in community planning processes that ensure equity and engagement from the entire community, and involvement with public officials. Crowdfunding has the potential to create new and innovative opportunities for community projects that may not otherwise be possible. Planners could play an active role to integrate key stakeholders, provide guidance, and catalyze partnerships to increase the success and public benefits of crowdfunded community projects.

References Arena, J. (2012) Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fundrise. (2013). Crowdfund Real Estate. Retrieved April 2013 from: https://fundrise.com/about Kickstarter. (2012, Nov 28). Matireal, a ‘Creational Trail. Retrieved April 2013 from: http://www.kickstarter.com/ projects/keith-hayes/matireal-a-creational-trail

Spacehive. (2013, March 18). “Spacehive.” Retrieved April 2013 from: https://spacehive.com Startup Exemption. Crowdfunding 101. 2013. Retrieved April 2013 from: http://www.startupexemption.com/ crowdfunding-101

Mollick, E. (2013). “The Dynamics of Crowdfunding: Determinants of Success and Failure.” University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School.

Westmill Capital. (2012). 906 H Street NE. Retrieved April 2013 from: http://www.westmillcapital.com/portfolio/retaildevelopment/906-h-street-ne/

National Crowdfunding Association (NLCFA). (2012) Crowdfunding 101. Retrieved April 2013 from: http://www. nlcfa.org/crowdfund-101.html

Treutel

Shread, P. (2013, Feb 8). The Risks and Rewards of Crowdfunding. TIME Business and Money. 2013. Retrieved April 2013 from: http://business.time.com/2013/02/08/therisks-and-rewards-of-crowdfunding/

Pier Amelia Davis. M.U.P. 2015. “A Guatamalan Livelihood”. Camotán Guatamala. AGORA 8

Combining Fragments into a Vibrant Whole An Analysis and Proposal for Downtown Spokane, Washington

Jason Wong

Master of Architecture 2014

Spokane, Washington is a medium-sized city whose downtown area has seen a large amount of development over the past two decades including the development of the University District, the Convention Center District, and the Downtown Core. These districts are adjacent to a fourth â&#x20AC;&#x153;district,â&#x20AC;? which contains the natural Spokane River, Spokane Falls, and Riverfront Park. The close proximity of these four areas creates the potential for a vibrant downtown. However, these districts do not currently mesh; continued development along these lines threatens future vibrancy. Since Spokane is not fully developed, it should proactively implement strategies to create a better Downtown, before it is too late. This paper discusses those strategies.

owntown Spokane, Washington is currently characterize¬¬d by fragmentation, non-cohesion, and untapped potential since the four main districts of downtown ignore each other’s presence. The growing university district spurs development but does not engage the nearby heart of downtown. Any potential synergy between these two districts is blocked by an expanding convention center district. Furthermore, a wall of downtown development is cordoning off the Spokane River from the city as downtown grows denser. Such fragmentation between districts is not unique to Spokane’s downtown, but rather is characteristic of many medium-sized American cities. Fortunately, an opportunity exists for these cities to reach their full potential by connecting and unifying their fragmented districts, while still retaining the unique purpose and character of each, as they continue to grow. These cities do not need to be entirely reimagined, but can instead succeed through strategically using existing features, such as excessively wide roadways, existing buildings, and empty parking lots. This article analyzes specific opportunities for Spokane to integrate its fragmented districts into a unified, vibrant place, and illustrates how the proposals and ideas can act as a model for other cities to follow. Spokane is a medium-sized city of roughly 210,000 residents (600,000 metro) located near the Washington-Idaho state line. It functions as the regional hub of the Inland Northwest (which encompasses all of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho). Spokane’s downtown area occupies a very compact footprint and boasts two universities (Gonzaga and Washington State University Spokane), vast expanses of nature, and a convention center, all within a stone’s throw of the downtown core (Figure 1). These features create the potential for large-scale place and vibrancy, according to Pierre Fillion. In The Successful Few, Filion lists attributes of successful downtowns of small and mediumsized cities, which include having a university in or near the central business district (CBD), historical character, natural amenities such as bodies of water, and public buildings such as convention centers. Downtown Spokane contains all of these features. However, these four elements of Downtown Spokane are growing without careful consideration for connectivity and cohesion. Despite their adjacency, they do not respond to one another to create a vibrant downtown. As a further testament to the lack of cohesion, these districts (with the exception of the 100-acre Riverfront Park born out of the 1974 World’s

Fair) all saw major simultaneous growth in the last 15-20 years but have not yet joined to create a vibrant street life across downtown. In the University District, Gonzaga University’s enrollment nearly doubled from 1999 to its present-day enrollment of roughly 7,800 students (Lawrence-Turner, 2013), but most of the new buildings that have accommodated this growth (specifically student housing projects) turn their backs on the edges of campus. Most of the adjacent Washington State University Spokane campus was developed in the last 5-8 years and similarly faces inward. In the downtown core, a revitalization initiative in the late 1990s/early 2000s resulted in . an upscale indoor shopping mall and prominent restorations and adaptive re-uses of historic buildings such as the Davenport Hotel, Fox Theater, and Steam Plant Square. While these projects have undoubtedly attracted people back to the downtown core, they emphasize

activities and life on their insides more than engaging the streets that surround them. In the Convention Center District, the Spokane Convention Center tripled in size in 2004 and currently has two more expansion projects under construction – a 90,000 square foot expansion and a 700-room hotel. Both projects are expected to be completed by 2015 (Spokane Public Facilities District, 2013). Like the projects in the downtown core, the expanded facilities of the convention center emphasize the insides of the buildings more than the urban fabric that surrounds them. Continued development down this same fragmented, non-cohesive path threatens the future success of Downtown Spokane. Despite the fragmentation, opportunity exists since Downtown Spokane – like other mediumsized cities across the United States – is not yet fully built out. The numerous surface parking

Fig. 3.1. Downtown Spokane’s four main districts: (1) University District, (2) Convention Center District, (3) Downtown Core, (4) Nature The dotted, black oval represents an area where these four districts can coalesce. Jason Wong.

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lots and low-density developments that dot the downtown landscape provide space for future development. By developing these sites, Spokane can proactively implement placemaking strategies now, to ensure that a sense of place and vibrancy are present in the future. Creating this future depends on activating connections between Spokane’s natural assets, University District, Convention Center District, and downtown core. The sum is greater than its parts: by uniting these districts, Downtown Spokane can increase street life, friendliness, and vibrancy across its districts. To achieve this, Spokane should (1) reinforce an emphasis on nature, (2) promote “related development,” (3) blur the lines between public and private space, (4) balance the needs and experiences of tourists and residents, and (5) continue the historic preservation efforts currently in place.

Emphasis on Nature Spokane has a great natural asset, the Spokane River, which drops over a series of waterfalls

Fig. 3.2. Spokane River and Spokane Falls run through the heart of Downtown Spokane. Jason Wong.

Wong

and into a deep, scenic river gorge while flowing through the heart of Downtown Spokane. In the past, the public did not have access to the river because a large rail yard – a relic of Spokane’s railroad heritage – occupied the river frontage downtown. This changed when, in 1974, Spokane hosted Expo ’74, an environmentally themed World’s Fair. The site for the fair completely replaced the rail yards and ultimately became the 100-acre Riverfront Park – now one of the biggest integral components of Spokane’s community and culture. Most importantly, the construction of the park created public access to the river and waterfalls that flow past the Downtown Spokane skyline (Figure 2). While the establishment of Riverfront Park propelled Spokane forward, the city should do more to take full advantage of the natural setting in order to aid the creation of place. Natural spaces provide opportunities for memories to form and social experiences to occur. J. T. Spartz and B. R. Shaw (2011) speak about this in

their analysis of the University of Wisconsin’s Arboretum. They find the Arboretum evokes memories and interactions such as “birthday parties…hiking with parents and friends while looking for or coming across wildlife…and often ‘being surprised by something’ such as a pair of cranes with chicks or a flock of wild turkey” (p. 348). Nature can also provide a sense of mystery, enticing people to further explore the area (Kaplan and Kaplan, 2005, p. 276). Spokane can support its economic development by leveraging its natural assets to encourage tourists and convention attendees to explore, experience, and make memories in the city, spending their money along the way. Additionally, nature boosts the mental and physical health of people who use it. Nature has restorative properties for attention fatigue (p. 277), which can help reduce stress levels and increase civility (p. 272). Increased integration of nature would benefit all the districts in Downtown Spokane by reenergizing workers in the downtown core, aiding university students

taking a break from their studies, and providing a unique experience for convention goers who need to relax between meetings, seminars, and lectures. Considering these benefits, there are two ways Spokane can more tightly integrate nature into the experience of downtown: eliminating the hard edge that exists between nature and city and preserving views of nature. A Hard Edge

Although Riverfront Park is a valuable asset to Downtown Spokane, it has limited benefits because of the park’s distinct and hard boundaries. Nature is separated from the city; one must physically move from downtown to the park to experience nature. This can make it difficult for stressed office workers or university students to access nature for a brief mental break mid-morning; they must wait until lunchtime to take a stroll in the park.

Spokane can remediate this flaw by developing a network of nature within the built environment of downtown. Vancouver, British Columbia successfully developed a network of nature and street trees within the city (Walsh, 2013, p.14.). Spokane can easily follow suit and develop its own network of nature within pre-existing downtown infrastructure. Many of the roads downtown possess car lanes that are unnecessarily wide – many exceeding 11 feet, a width intended for high-speed roads and inappropriate for a downtown-scale street. Strategically re-allocating some of this excess right-of-way would provide enough space to create strips and networks of nature throughout Downtown Spokane. Furthermore, surface parking lots can provide space large enough to create either pocket parks within downtown or seamless transitions from the network of nature into the parking lots. Preserving Views of Nature

Another obstacle to the integration of city and nature is that recent building developments – both private and public – are creating a wall, interrupting views and limiting access to Riverfront Park. For example, the privately developed hotel currently under construction near the Spokane Convention Center will add a massive, 180-foot tall by 400-feet wide impenetrable wall less than 350 feet from the river bank (Figure 3). Although this hotel project is extremely vital to the future growth of Spokane, its location and design will block views to the river from existing development. To reclaim views to the river, any future buildings will need to be exponentially taller than this hotel. Such development disproportionately affects the general population (as opposed to a privileged group of people who live and work downtown and therefore have easier access to nature). To address this issue, Spokane should protect public views by following another one of Vancouver’s successful urban planning strategies. Vancouver has 27 protected view cones of the waterfront and mountains and has “abandoned the practice of building tallest on the parcels closest to the waterfront, instead adopting an approach in which views become available to towers several blocks further back by permitting the towers [farthest] from the water to grow the tallest” (Walsh, p. 19). Spokane should preserve the views to the river by adopting a similar strategy.

Promoting Related Development Near the Convention Center and Universities Jane Jacobs uses the term “related development” to describe how development of primary programs (i.e., building uses/activities/ functions) can spawn related development to make a district vibrant (Grodach, 2008, p. 197). In his critique of Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Carl Grodach points out that the area around the art museum lacks related development such as restaurants, retail, and art spaces (p. 203). As a result, MOCA and its surrounding area are not as vibrant and frequented as they could be because people are unable to have the “full art experience” while in that district. Spokane’s current situation somewhat resembles the situation around MOCA because, while the convention center and universities are the

Spokane’s Tallest Building (for reference)

New Hotel

primary anchors of their respective districts, they lack the related development to engage residents and visitors in a full experience of place. Currently, most of the related development for these districts is located in the core of downtown; it becomes increasingly sparse – giving way to surface parking and unrelated business types – as one moves toward the Convention Center and University Districts. Therefore, convention goers and students currently need to go to a different “neighborhood” (i.e., the downtown core) to find the activities and venues they actually seek. As these districts grow, they will create more demand for shopping, gathering, and dining venues that are conveniently located. Because the needs and desires of the University and Convention Center users are similar – they shop, gather, and dine – related development in these districts can serve both crowds, thus creating a unique opportunity to vibrantly connect the two

Spokane River

Fig. 3.3. Cross-Section Diagram of the new Convention Center Hotel. To reclaim views of the river, new buildings built behind the hotel would have to be built above the obstructed sightline. To put it in perspective, this would be nearly twice as high as the 288-foot tall Bank of America Financial Center, Spokane’s tallest building. Jason Wong.

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districts. Such new developments can occupy the many vacant lots, vacant storefronts, and surface parking lots that exist within these districts, in order to minimize the displacement of existing businesses.

Blurring of Public and Private Space As the aforementioned related developments are established, the lines between public and private space should also be blurred. An analysis of college towns across the United States shows a direct correlation between the proximity of a university to a city and the blurring of public and private space (Adhya, 2008). For example, in Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, the main campus is immediately adjacent to and mixes with the city. By contrast, East Lansing’s downtown is

Another method of blurring the lines between public and private spaces is to create what Matthew Carmona (2010) calls “third spaces”: privately owned spaces that facilitate important public functions like meeting and socializing. Such places include cafés, bookstores, and coffee shops that “host the encounters from the accidental to the organized and regular, and have become fundamental institutions of mediation between the individual and society” (p. 132). Third spaces are neutral, inclusive, low profile, taken for granted, open during and outside of business hours, psychologically supportive and comfortable, and places of conversation (pp. 132-133). Developing third spaces to blur the lines between the convention center, university, and downtown core districts will create an integrated ribbon of publicness and place – where tourists, students, and residents would feel welcome to engage with one another – that spans the entire Downtown Spokane area.

Balancing the Experience of Place Between Tourists and Residents

Fig. 3.4. The historic Peyton Building in the CBD adds character to Downtown Spokane. Additionally, because it is a historic building in the middle of more contemporary development, its aesthetic helps it stand out as a landmark, aiding in wayfinding for visitors to Spokane. Jason Wong

Wong

distinctly separate from the campus of Michigan State University. According to Adhya, “Ann Arbor’s close city-university relationship and the shared integrated experience of places are major factors in developing a quality experience of publicness” (p. 184). By blurring the lines between town and gown, the same places serve both the university crowd and the local crowd. New developments and local establishments can attract a variety of professionals, families, empty nesters, and university students. University towns are often found to facilitate pedestrian activity and generate local commercial activity. Like Ann Arbor, Spokane’s University District should take advantage of its close proximity to the downtown core.

As Spokane’s growing Convention Center draws an increasing number of visitors into the city, it will be important to strike a balance between the differing needs and experiences of tourists and those of residents. For example, conflict can emerge when residents who need to commute to work or travel through the downtown are delayed by the road closures and traffic that large conventions often bring. Frustration can also occur when tourists ask for directions, but the locals are unable to describe them clearly due to the lack of clarity in the city’s urban form. Successfully balancing the needs of both groups strengthens the sense of place because tourists and locals can interact freely without any tension between one another. Spokane can achieve this balance at both the human scale and the urban scale. Balancing Needs Through the Human Scale

Regarding human scale, the rehabilitation of Acre, Israel’s historic fabric, is a strong precedent to follow. Because the rehabilitation project emphasized balancing the needs and experiences of both local residents and visitors, citizens welcomed the tourists with open arms. The plan most notably created the framework for local residents to run bed and breakfasts as a way to proudly showcase the community’s hospitality. The ensuing social exchange between the two parties enhanced tourists’ experience of the place (Khirfan, 2006, p. 32). Spokane is not a major tourist destination, so

Fig. 3.5. Nature Strategy: Pull nature into the built environment to create a network of green spaces. At the same time, preserve public views of the river by regulating development near the shoreline.

Fig. 3.6. Related Development Strategy: The development of related program near the Convention Center and University can create a network of “third spaces” that will add to vibrancy in the area and blur the lines between private and public, creating an overall greater sense of publicness in the area.

Fig. 3.7. Wayfinding Strategy: Landmarks that currently exist in Spokane (blue sunbursts) do not aid in wayfinding for those in not in Riverfront Park. Creating a network of landmarks within the built environment (red X’s) will accommodate the wayfinding needs of visitors.

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Wong

Eric Huntley. M.U.P. 2014. “Tokyo Night”. Tokyo, Japan. AGORA 8

the city needs to provide an extra incentive to entice people to come. Spokane can follow the example set by Acre, leveraging social exchange through its local hospitality, to create a unique sense of place and further differentiate itself as a major convention and tourist destination that maintains a small-town hospitality culture. Balancing Needs Through the Urban Scale

Spokane should also balance needs at the urban scale by designing a wayfinding logic that accommodates the contrasting ways in which the groups navigate. John Montgomery (1998) explains in Making a City that, “…longterm residents produce more complex mental maps containing both paths and landmarks (environmental cues). Visitors to new places, by contrast, tend to use landmarks as anchorpoints in constructing route knowledge” (p. 101). In Spokane’s case, its downtown streets are laid out in a simple grid, which adequately caters to residents. However, without landmarks and open space to use as reference points, the efficiency of the grid may result in a repetitive and hard-to-navigate landscape for visitors. While Spokane does have landmarks, most of them (such as the historic Looff Carousel, Red Wagon, US Pavilion, and Clock Tower) are located inside Riverfront Park and not within the built part of downtown. This arrangement does not aid visitors; a local resident cannot simply direct them to the cafe that is “next to the purple apple sculpture” because such landmarks do not exist. One method to remediate this flaw is to leverage the existing stock of Spokane’s old and historic buildings to become those landmarks through the juxtaposition of architectural styles and building scales. Some of these buildings are architecturally distinctive and will stand out in contrast to future, contemporary works of architecture. This contrast will give these older buildings a more prominent place in the landscape, as illustrated by the streetscape in Figure 5., Such landmarks would help meet the navigational needs of visitors to Spokane.

Historic Preservation Efforts Preserving historic buildings has many other benefits as well. First, historic buildings are a proven attraction to downtown users. In Filion’s (2004) research, “historical character” ranked high on the list of important factors that attracted people to the downtowns of small and medium-sized cities (pp. 331-332). Therefore,

Wong

Spokane should use historic buildings to attract more people downtown and help enhance its vibrancy. Furthermore, in regards to creating place, a community that exhibits a distinct aesthetic identity sees higher self-esteem among residents, with historic towns specifically “creating a sense of pride by association” (Twigger-Ross, 1996, p. 208). For example, Santa Barbara, California is widely known for its Spanish Colonial aesthetic (Blanco, 2000, p. 56). Perhaps Spokane can become known for its historic building aesthetic. While Spokane does not have a single, distinct name for its collection of historic buildings, many are red-brick, built between 1900 and 1930, and designed by local architects such as Kirtland Cutter. The similar appearance of these historic buildings can speak for itself as a singular “aesthetic.” Many of the buildings are also on local and/ or national historic registers and are spread across the four districts of Downtown Spokane. This spread creates an opportunity to form a cohesive place identity across the entirety of Downtown Spokane. Furthermore, historic buildings played a major role in the late 1990s early 2000s revitalization of the downtown core, which saw the restorations and adaptive re-uses of the Davenport Hotel, Steam Plant Square, and Fox Theater, among others. Because of preservation’s proven track record in Spokane, it should receive ongoing attention as the region continues to develop.

Conclusion Spokane currently contains four districts and components that rank high on Filion’s list of attributes for creating a successful downtown: a university, convention center, nature, and a downtown core. Thus there is no doubt that Downtown Spokane has the right ingredients to reach a higher potential. However, these districts do not speak to one another. Disconnected and internally focused, such development will be detrimental to the future of Downtown Spokane. Because Spokane and many other medium-sized cities across the United States are not fully built out, these cities have the opportunity to integrate their fragments into vibrancy as they continue to grow. Creating a stronger place in Downtown Spokane can be achieved by better integrating nature into downtown (Figure 5), developing related programming near the university and convention center, blurring the public/private lines of those related developments (Figure 6), balancing the needs of tourists and residents (Figure 7), and continuing the historic preservation

efforts that presently exist in Downtown Spokane. Implementing these place-making strategies will help integrate these fragmented components into a better Downtown Spokane with a unique and strong sense of place for all stakeholders.

References Adhya, A. (2008) The Public Realm as a Place of Everyday Urbanism. Ann Arbor, MI: PhD. Dissertation, excerpts.

Lawrence-Turner, J. (2013, November 24). Gonzaga University’s basketball success fuels unprecedented growth. The Spokesman-Review.

Blanco, H. (2000) “Style Matters,” Places, 13(2), 56-63.

Montgomery, J. (1998) “Making a City: Urbanity, Vitality and Urban Design,” Journal of Urban Design, 3(1), 93-116.

Carmona, M. (2010) “Contemporary Public Space: Critique and Classification,” Journal of Urban Design, 15:1, pp. 123-148. Crawford, M. (2008) “Blurring the Boundaries, Public Space and Private Life.” In J. Chase, et al. (eds.) Everyday Urbanism. New York, NY: The Monacelli Press, 22-35. Filion, P. et all (2004) “The Successful Few: Healthy Downtowns of Small Metropolitan Regions,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 70(3), 328-343. Grodach, C. (2008) “Museums as Urban Catalysts: the Role of Urban Design in Flagship Cultural Development,” Journal of Urban Design, 13(2). 195-212. Kaplan, R. and Kaplan, S. (2005) “Preference, Restoration, and Meaningful Action in the Context of Nearby Nature.” In P. Bartlett (ed.) Urban Place: Reconnecting with the Natural World. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 271-298. Khirfan, L. (2006) “Three Historic Cities, Three Historic Preservation Approaches, and Three Consequences,” Paper for ACSP (Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning)

Spartz, J.T. and B.R. Shaw (2011) “Place Meanings Surrounding an Urban Natural Area: a Qualitative Inquiry,” Journal of environmental Psychology, 31, 344-352. Spokane Public Facilities District. (2013). Spokane Convention Center expansion project. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.spokanepfd. org/expansion/hotel.php Spokane Public Facilities District. (2013). Spokane Public Facilities District history. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.spokanepfd. org/history.php Twigger-Ross, C. and Uzzel, D. (1996) “Places and Identity Processes,” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16(3). Walsh, R. (2013) “Chapter 1: Introduction: the five essential elements of Vancouverism,” The Origins of Vancouverism: A historical inquiry into the architecture and urban form of Vancouver, British Columbia. Ann Arbor MI: PhD. Dissertation.

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Author

Pier Amelia Davis. M.U.P. 2015. “Bay Area Horizon”. Berkeley, CA. AGORA 8

Tribal Planning in the Face of Environmental Injustice Issues of Natural Resource Extraction on Tribal Lands

Terra Reed

Master of Urban Planning 2014

Energy resources like coal, oil, and uranium are found on many Native American reservations across North America. Historically, tribal communities have had little to no control over their extraction or production but have suffered from associated economic decline, environmental degradation, health problems, and loss of cultural heritage. This article explores the various impacts as well as some creative solutions that tribes are using to regain autonomy over their land and the resources available to them. Tribal planning is a growing field that should take into account the cultural impacts of different kinds of development on tribal communities. City market test the applicability of Granapatiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s analysis to different markets. Finally, common threads supporting successful cooperative housing markets are highlighted.

ative American sovereignty has been closely tied to and even reliant on the United States government for centuries, which has led to disproportionate control over many native communities in favor of nonnative interests. Continued federal oversight of activities like energy resource management and economic development leaves tribes with little control over job availability, financing, or decision-making. Energy resources are found on many tribal lands, particularly in the northern plains and Southwest. In most cases,

As these resources have become increasingly valuable, mineral extraction has become mired in a cycle of declining autonomy among tribal communities, contributing to economic, environmental, and cultural problems. federal and private interests govern extraction and production of those resources, reaping the economic benefits. The result has been detrimental to the economic, environmental, and social condition of tribal communities. Through a combination of federal reform and ambitious endeavors by tribes and coalitions, indigenous communities are beginning to take control of resource management and, in turn, economic development. In order to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by this new autonomy, tribal leadership needs to promote strategic and creative initiatives. This article explores the history of tribal resource management in order to understand and assess current initiatives that tribal governments and businesses are undertaking.

History of Tribal Resource Extraction Management of energy industries on tribal lands is deeply rooted in a history of exploitation, going back to early interactions between tribes and the US government. Since the discovery of the Americas, colonizers and the US government have continuously pushed native peoples out of their homelands and prevented them from maintaining traditional land management practices. Around the end of the 19th century, the US Congress mandated the creation of reservations for Native American tribes, forcing native people to follow Western

approaches to land ownership and management. Reservations were often isolated from nonnative communities and ill suited for traditional agriculture. One historian points out, That a number of reservations have a wealth of mineral resources today is not without a certain irony, because originally it was the intention of the responsible authorities to leave American Indians only isolated areas which contained no mineral resources. (Frantz, 1999, p. 192) Reservations were established in isolated and desolate areas that most likely could not otherwise profit the government or other nonIndian entities. Later, when resources like coal, oil, and uranium became valuable for energy production, the federal government realized the energy value present on previously established reservations. In fact, tribal lands account for 3 to 10% of US oil reserves, 10 to 30% of US coal reserves, and at least half of all US uranium reserves (Frantz, 1999, p. 189).

Impacts As these resources have become increasingly valuable and sought after, mineral extraction and production has become mired in a cycle of declining autonomy among tribal communities, contributing to economic, environmental, and cultural problems. The most direct impacts are economic and ecological, as a lack of autonomy means that people living on reservations gain few economic benefits from the industry. Meanwhile, the activity often destroys land and contributes to health problems for nearby communities. Indirectly, this system also contributes to declining social cohesion and cultural assets, which further contribute to difficulties maintaining autonomy. Economic

Management of energy resources on tribal lands has important direct and indirect economic consequences. Not surprisingly, given the historical treatment of native people, tribes still have little control over how their land and its resources are managed. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a federal agency that supervises tribes, was put in charge of managing tribal resources. Through this agency, non-native companies began to lease reservation land containing resources in the early 20th century. To further deprive tribes of the possible benefits of these resources, the 1938 Indian Tribal Mineral Leasing Act did not allow tribes to conduct their own extraction (Frantz, 1999, p. 195).

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The BIA, without tribal input, continues to negotiate all leases and payments between companies and tribes (Frantz, 1999, p. 194). The lack of tribal involvement in managing these resources also contributes to a lack of job opportunities on tribal lands (Frantz, 1999). The unemployment rate on reservations averages 43% (BIA, 2006), far exceeding the national average, and a number of tribes have far higher unemployment rates. For people living on reservations, the economic situation fosters poverty and dependence on whatever economic opportunities come along. A 1992 amendment of the Indian Tribal Mineral Leasing Act gave tribes the legal right to conduct their own extraction, but “reservations that intended to start the independent development of their mineral resources have failed…because of a lack of capital and expertise” (Frantz, 1999, p. 203). A long history of government control

Surface mining, a common practice on coalrich reservations in the Southwest and upper Midwest, quickly destroys the land. As one study notes, The direct impacts of mining disturbance to land surfaces are usually severe with the destruction of natural ecosystems, either through the removal of all previous soils, plants, and animals or their burial beneath waste disposal facilities. (Cooke & Johnson, 2002, p. 43) Once those lands have been destroyed, it is difficult to restore them. For example, reclamation efforts have had limited success in Montana, where only 735 of the 62,000 acres leased to coal mining “have been fully ‘reclaimed’ and released” (LaDuke, 2007, p. 1). Many coal companies claim that they have the technology and intention to fully reclaim the land they destroy, but most have yet to follow through on those promises. Meanwhile, mining continues to destroy natural ecosystems and habitats. Mining has many other environmental impacts, such as the water use and pollution associated with extraction. This is particularly dangerous in the arid Southwest, where water is already scarce. One 500-megawatt coal-powered plant uses 2.2 billion gallons of water every year (UCS, 2005). The Four Corners power plant on the Navajo reservation in northern New Mexico generates over 2,000-megawatts each year (EPA, 2006), utilizing 8.8 billion gallons of clean water that it releases back into the environment full of chemicals and heavy metals.

Fig. 4.1. Uranium Extaction and Processing Facilities (white), and Federal Reservation Lands (red)

of mineral resources and extraction fostered tribal dependence on both the US government and non-native companies that still exists, despite initiatives to do away with the legal framework that supported this relationship. This illustrates what has been described as “another not-so-subtle form of colonialism that began with the Spanish incursions and has never ceased” (Grinde & Johansen, 1995, p. 141). The US government has continuously taken steps to reduce the gains for tribes, while maximizing gains to non-native entities, thus maintaining their dominance. Environmental

Beyond contributing to struggling economies, extracting and processing energy resources can cause devastating ecological damage. Reed

On arid reservations, the use of this water is detrimental not only to the ecosystems near the mines, but also to tribal people who need water to live. Peabody’s “coal slurry pipeline swallowed more than a billion gallons of water a year, so much that the Hopis’ sacred springs, which have nourished them for at least a thousand years, began to dry up” (Grinde & Johansen, 1995, 141). Meanwhile, proposed in-situ leach (ISL) mining near Churchrock, New Mexico, would use comparable amounts of water contaminated by dangerous chemicals, which would then return to the aquifer. Proponents of ISL claim that the water is treated and brought back to pre-mining standards, but, according to one environmental lawyer, “there has never been an instance where a commercial ISL operation has restored groundwater to its pre-mining condition” (ENS, 2008). Such water abuse destroys fragile desert ecosystems as well as native peoples’ access to clean water.

Public Health

Damage to the environment on reservations contributes to declining health among tribal communities. Exposure to harmful chemicals associated with extracting and processing energy resources can lead to cancers and respiratory problems (Frantz, 1999). Beyond the direct impact on peoples’ health, loss of productive land and clean water makes it difficult for native people to practice traditional agriculture, and therefore difficult to feed themselves. For many traditional communities, the “survival of a people is tied to survival of the land,” and destruction of that land means destruction of the people (Grinde & Johansen, 1999, p. 122). The Navajo, for instance, are sheepherders—using wool for clothing and blankets and sheep for food. As Navajo grazing land was converted to mines and power plants, people lost the ability to raise sheep as they once had. This loss led to increased dependence on small general stores on reservations that sell unhealthy, incomplete, and non-traditional foods. Social Cohesion and Autonomy

In aggregate, these factors diminish social cohesion and autonomy among tribal people. When tribes do not have control over the activity on their land and cannot benefit economically from such activity, they suffer an important loss of self-determination and autonomy. When people are displaced from their

While not as quantifiable as job loss or destruction of natural resources, tribes suffer the consequences of decreased social and political cohesion as indigenous people lose their traditional practices and leave reservations. land—either directly, when mining operations push them out, or indirectly, when they are forced to seek economic opportunity off of their reservations—they lose cultural connections to family and tribe, as well as their ability to support their tribe and community. While these impacts are not as direct or quantifiable as job loss or destruction of natural resources, tribes

suffer the consequences of decreased social and political cohesion as indigenous people lose their traditional practices and leave reservations.

In Search of Autonomy Tribes have been legally able to extract and produce their own energy resources for over 20 years, but it was not until the last decade that they have received significant technical and financial support to pursue these activities in a meaningful way. As they begin to take over energy extraction, tribes are faced with an opportunity to radically change the types of resources that they exploit to better represent tribal values. They have also begun to reap benefits that allow them to improve economic, environmental, and social conditions on reservations. Title V of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 permits tribes to negotiate Tribal Energy Resource Agreements (TERAs) with energy companies and provides funds to help tribes that lack the capital for resource extraction (Miles, 2006; 25 USC, 3502). This act allows tribes more freedom to manage their land “without the oversight or approval of the federal government” (Miles, 2006, p. 469) and to gain economic independence. Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico is one example of a tribe that has taken advantage of this support. The tribe runs a facility that processes 50,000 gallons of tansmix fuel per day, which is sold in gas stations owned by the tribe’s community development corporation (LDC, n.d.). Control over energy resources is a step in the right direction for tribal sovereignty and economic independence, but it does not address the environmental or cultural problems associated with traditional energy production. Reclaiming tribal sovereignty must include ways for tribes to sustain themselves without destroying their land and cultural heritage. Renewable energy production is one approach that has gained popularity in recent decades. While it is important to recognize that each tribe has a different history and set of values, clean energy is seen to be in harmony with “Native Americans’ respect for the environment and their concern for future generations” (Council et al., 2000). 51

As tribes explore opportunities to pursue renewable energy resources, they will make many decisions about how to approach and plan for the process. Cornell and Kalt (2003) identified four economic development models for tribes applicable to energy production and other forms of economic development: federal control, tribal enterprise, private “(micro) AGORA 8

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Corey Heck. MArch. 2015. “Crow Over SF”. San Francisco, CA AGORA 8

enterprise” with tribal member ownership, and private enterprise with nontribal membership control. Federal control is the only choice that most tribes have had historically, and it implies the least amount of self-determination. Private enterprise with nontribal membership control would manifest as TERAs, where tribal governments attract non-tribal energy producers to set up infrastructure on tribal land. Tribal enterprises and private enterprises owned by tribal members are the options that provide the most autonomy to tribes, provided they can access the initial necessary funding and expertise. The US Department of Energy has a Tribal Energy Program, a valuable resource for tribes and native-owned businesses seeking this type of enterprise. The program has been providing financial and technical assistance to tribes for planning, feasibility studies, deployment, and development of renewable energy production on tribal lands since 1994. Between 2002 and 2012, the program “awarded a total of $41.8 million to fund 175 tribal energy projects,” with a significant portion of projects funded from 2010 to 2012 (OEERE, 2014). Most of the projects the Tribal Energy Program funds fall into its the Planning and Feasibility categories (OEERE, 2014). Assessing feasibility and conducting planning processes are critical steps for tribes taking on their own energy production. Many tribal communities lack the expertise to manage such operations, which is part of the reason that non-native companies have prevailed on reservations. Funding and support for strategic planning and feasibility studies allows tribes to analyze the needs of their community, as well as to identify the opportunities for resource production and economic development. For example, the Pueblo of Laguna Utility Authority received feasibility funds in 2005. Its study explored possible projects whose goals would be “to improve quality and reliability of electric service on the reservation, work to promote energy selfsufficiency, encourage economic development, as well as to contribute to environmentally clean energy” (Stewart, 2008, p. 1). The study looked at a number of possible solar power production projects on the reservation scale and at a project that would provide power for New Mexico utility companies to help them “meet their renewable energy requirements” (Stewart, 2008, p.4). These projects would benefit the tribal economy by making electricity more affordable and creating jobs for people in the community, while also producing energy in a sustainable way.

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Laguna Pueblo’s feasibility plans also include capacity building and community education and outreach elements, which were found to “ultimately provide the greatest sustainable value to Laguna” (Stewart, 2008, p. 4). One important outcome of these programs was an internship position filled by someone within the tribe who acted as a champion for the project and helped ensure that the initiatives were based on local knowledge. Throughout the feasibility study, they also identified ways to educate and reach out to their community, so that the project would gain buy-in and the community would feel represented. These elements helped the tribe prepare for energy

Reclaiming tribal sovereignty must include ways for tribes to sustain themselves without destroying their land and cultural heritage. production projects that were ultimately more effective and sustainable for the community. The Tribal Energy Program is not the only resource for tribes to develop their own energy development programs; some tribes and nativeowned companies take a more traditional business approach to the problem. In addition to using Tribal Energy Program funds, Laguna Pueblo also has a development corporation that oversees multiple economic development projects, including energy production. Sacred Power Corporation, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is another example of a successful indigenous-owned enterprise. The company does not represent a specific tribe but is “the largest Native American owned and operated renewable energy systems integration and manufacturing firm in the US” (Sacred Power, 2014). Sacred Power is “committed to the development of local pueblo economies and…energy independence while providing jobs in a rapidly evolving industry” (Sacred Power, 2014). The company’s leadership is composed of experienced businessmen and engineers who have built the company from the ground up. They work with tribal governments, non-native businesses and individuals, and government agencies to promote renewable energy. Although the corporation does not directly support a specific tribe and is a private company, it does work closely with tribes to help bring electricity and solar water heating to native communities that have no access to electricity (Sacred Power, 2014).

Other tribes and native communities can follow and have followed these methods to pursue economic development through renewable energy production. In developing plans and projects, though, they must understand and work with the ecology and available resources in their vicinity. While the desert Southwest is ideal for solar energy production, tribes in other areas are taking advantage of technologies like biomass, geothermal, hydropower, and wind, as well as projects that increase energy efficiency. In Montana, where the Northern Cheyenne have been fighting coal companies that want to open mines on tribal land, conditions are ripe for both wind and biofuel energy production. Activists like Winona LaDuke, an Anishinabe activist from Minnesota, stress that renewable energy production on reservations would be highly beneficial (La Duke, 2007, p. 3). Planning approaches like those supported by the Tribal Energy Program help tribes identify the most appropriate technologies and approaches for their context. It also helps them develop plans to integrate economic development to support their communities and maintain their culture and heritage for more long-term solutions.

Conclusion Ambitious projects to alter the way energy resources are managed on reservation land introduce a new form of autonomy to tribal communities, who have long been denied the ability and the right to provide for their people. Aided by federal reforms and investment, tribal communities are exploring renewable energy resources, while also promoting development that improves the economic, environmental, and social conditions on reservations. Tribal energy production powers homes that have never experienced electricity and opens the doors for new development and investment in nearly abandoned communities. In turn, this creates a critical need for planning to maximize the benefit to tribal members. By approaching both resource management and related economic development thoughtfully and creatively, tribal leaders can successfully develop solar arrays and wind farms that benefit their communities directly and indirectly. For tribes, planning is a critical element to improving conditions on reservations in a manner that is harmonious with their culture and addresses the harms done to their communities over centuries of nonnative imposition and control.

References Cooke, J. A., and Johnson, M. S. (2002). Ecological Restoration of Land with Particular Reference to the Mining of Metals and Industrial Minerals: A Review of Theory and Practice. Environmental Reviews, 10(1), 41-71. Cornell, S., and Kalt, J. P. (1992). Reloading the Dice: Improving the Chances for Economic Development on American Indian Reservations. In What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development (Cornell, S., and Kalt, J. P. , Eds.). Los Angeles, CA: American Indian Studies Center, UCLA, 1-59. Council, C., Pierce, L. Martin, R., and Sargent, S. (2000). Using renewable energy on Native American lands. Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference of the American Solar Energy Society, Milwaukee, WI. Retrieved 11 February 2014 from http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/tribalenergy/report_native_ lands.cfm Environment News Service. (2008). Navajo Challenge Uranium Mining Permit on Tribal Lands. Environment News Service, 19 April 2008. Retrieved 8 January 2014 from http:// www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-19-02.asp Frantz, Klaus. (1999). Indian Reservations in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Grinde, D. A., and Johansen, B. E. (1995). Ecocide of Native America. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers. LaDuke, W. (2007). Honor the Earth: Spring/Summer 2007 Newsletter. Retrieved 8 January 2014 from http://www. honorearth.org/sites/honorearth.org/files/HTEspring07news.pdf

Laguna Development Corporation. (N.D.). Laguna Development Corp [Website]. Retrieved 11 February 2014 from http://lagunadevcorp.com Melton, D. S. (2011, September 19). Sacred Power Corporation. Lecture presented in CRP 573 Class, University of New Mexico. Miles, A. S. (2006). Tribal Energy Resource Agreements: Tools for Achieving Energy Development and Tribal Self-Sufficiency or an Abdication of Federal Environmental and Trust Responsibilities? American Indian Law Review, 30(2), 461-476. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. (2014). Tribal Energy Program [Website]. U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved 11 February 2014 from http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/ tribalenergy/ Sacred Power. (2014). Sacred Power [Website]. Retrieved 13 February 2014 from http://sacredpower.com Stewart, C. (2008). Pueblo of Laguna Utility Authority renewable energy feasibility study: Final report. Phoenix, AZ: Red Mountain Tribal Energy. 55

Union of Concerned Scientists. (2005). How Coal Works. Union of Concerned Scientists, 19 September 2005. Retrieved 8 January 2014 from http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/ fossil_fuels/offmen-how-coal-works.html United Nations. (2009). United Nations declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples.

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U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. (2006). Performance and Accountability Report: Fiscal Year 2005. Retrieved 8 January 2014 from http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/ USPTOFY2005PAR.pdf U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2006). SourceSpecific Federal Implementation Plan for Four Corners Power Plant; Navajo Nation. Federal Register, 71(176), 53631-53639. Retrieved 8 January 2014 from http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/ EPA-AIR/2006/September/Day-12/a15097.htm

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U.S. Office of Surface Mining. (2005). Questions and Answers about Black Mesa/Kayenta Mine. U.S. Office of Surface Mining: Western Region. U.S. Office of Surface Mining 12 Feb. 2007 <http://www.wrcc.osmre.gov/BlkMsaQ_A/BMFAQ. htm>

Pier Amelia Davis. M.U.P. 2015. “Land’s End”. San Francisco, CA. AGORA 8

The Remembrance of a Moon Village

Seul Lee

Master of Urban Planning 2015

Lee

This article describes one of urban renewal projects in Seoul in 1990s that caused severe tragedies in the area based on the writer’s experience. Despite the criticisms of the “slum clearance” approach to urban renewal in the U.S. after the 1960s, Seoul adopted the concept to redevelop slum areas during 1970-1990s since the city government had to figure out the middle-class housing shortage as soon as possible. The urban renewal project abused the civil rights of slum residents by destroying their living foundation.

ast fall, I first faced the concept of urban renewal as a planning student. However, the concept seemed really familiar to me, as I had involuntarily experienced urban renewal in my childhood. I realized that the things that I had seen or heard about as a child had already happened in the U.S. a long time ago. Among the many urban renewal projects in the U.S. conducted during 1950s, the detrimental slum clearance in Detroit especially caught my eye because it reminded me of the neighborhood I lived in during the late 1990s. This neighborhood had replaced the largest moon village, a lower-income slum area, in Seoul. In spite of decades of time between them, the two cases closely resembled one another. I was astounded and wondered why Seoul planners followed the path of slum clearance that had clearly failed in the United States.

30 Years Later In the summer of 1995, my family moved to a brand-new apartment located in the northern part of Seoul. The apartment complex, which was one of the massive redevelopment constructions in the city, had 4,516 households in an area of 47 acres. My new apartment was the replacement of a neighborhood called “Daldongne,” a moon village. People called those kinds of neighborhoods moon village because most of the lower-income residents paid monthly rents, as they could not afford to purchase a house, and because the neighborhoods were often located on hillsides, where people could see the moon up close. In response to Seoul’s rapidly increasing population, the city designated an existing moon village as a redevelopment area and applied urban renewal methods similar to those used in the U.S. in the 1950s. Despite criticisms of the slum clearance approach to urban renewal in the U.S. after the 1960s, Seoul implemented the concept for several neighborhoods during the 1970s through the 1990s, eventually causing severe tragedies in those areas including social injustice, declining quality of life, poor public services and maintenance, and enforced displacement. Admittedly, the urban renewal redevelopment did bring some benefits to the city, such as providing more middle-class housing by building high-density apartments in the squatter settlements that had been scattered in the mountainous area of Seoul. However, the city should not have adopted the outdated method of urban renewal due to its severe equity ramifications. Although the government expected the new developments to resolve issues of equity, it failed to save the moon village residents.

Donam Slum Clearance In the early 1970s, the Seoul Metropolitan Government designated a large moon village in Donam, the northern part of Seoul, as a redevelopment area. Through slum clearance, the government sought to refurbish the area and supply affordable housing to middle-income families. Thomas and Hwang (2003) reported that to replace slums with clean and massive apartment complexes, the city contracted private developers to proceed with the plan and approved their proposal for redevelopment (p. 14). However, developers did not demolish the moon village until 1990, and then began construction in 1993. Multiple layers of conflict prolonged the village redevelopment, including long-term conflict between the private developers and the moon village residents and internal conflict between owners and renters in the village. While the owner-occupied households banded together against the forces of eminent domain to demand compensation, renters and squatters had no assets for bargaining. The developers decided to build public housing in the new town to accommodate these residents; however, they offered only homeowners, not renters, priority to purchase the public housing units. This caused a conflict between the owners, who wanted to conclude negotiations with the developers quickly, and the renters, who did not want to negotiate because they had nowhere to go. This conflict delayed the redevelopment and caused unrest. In one case, the disagreement among residents drove a homeowner to commit murder. Neighbors who had once helped each other in times of need became foes. Additionally, even though homeowners had priority in purchasing units, most of them could not afford the developers’ units. They had no choice but to leave the village, selling their priority to speculators who could actually afford to buy the units. Meanwhile, in 1990, the developers tried to raze the village faster than initially promised to shorten the redevelopment period, which led to a protest by the rest of residents who had not yet found alternative places to live. Despite a riot that caused injuries to some protestors, the private developers proceeded with the demolition. In so doing, the urban renewal project abused the civil rights of lower-income residents in the moon village. It took only two years to complete the construction of thirty-one high-rise apartment buildings. Wide and well-paved concrete roads covered all traces of the moon village; the twenty-two story modern buildings

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Eric Huntley. M.U.P. 2014. “Tokyo Family”. Tokyo, Japan. AGORA 8

accommodated a large number of middleincome families. This functional apartment complex with a fascinating panoramic view of the city was seen as exemplary for other redevelopments occurring at that time. The short construction period was also helpful to middle-income households, who suffered from a housing shortage in Seoul. The new town had excellent amenities such as a mall, a gathering space for seniors, and a playground that residents could enjoy. Moreover, the town was easy to access by public transportation, providing additional convenience for commuting workers. Unlike the slum residents, the newcomers were the sole beneficiaries of this urban renewal project. In the U.S. and Seoul, urban renewal provided a desirable aesthetic but brought unforeseen

When I transferred to a primary school near the new town, a small part of the moon village remained between the new town and my school, which most children of the apartment complex attended. We schoolchildren had to walk to school along a narrow path through a district with old, shabby houses. Since the alleyways were not paved, I complained about my shoes getting dirty during the rainy season and encountered “bottlenecks” on my way to school because many children hesitated before climbing down the slippery alleyway. In spite of these small inconveniences, I never thought this neighborhood should be destroyed because the community had existed for a long time and I had a couple of classmates who had lived there for their whole lives. I also appreciated the older neighborhood residents. Whenever I passed by the alleyway, an old lady sitting in front of her house generously welcomed me, which would make me feel warm for the rest of the day. However, the “old urban fabric” in the area was devastated in a moment: the small village was cleared out after the new town residents demanded “a safe school zone,” and the apartment children eventually got dry asphalt pavement on their walk to school. Needless to say, my friends at the moon village were forced to move out, and I never saw them again.

Isolation and Discrimination

Fig. 5.1. Source: Soobin Park

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consequences. In Seoul, those unforeseen consequences threatened the very safety of the city’s residents. In the rainy season, after all the new residents had settled into the area, the embankments supporting one building’s foundation suddenly collapsed, causing ten casualties. It was disclosed that the accident occurred because the construction company did not adhere to building and construction safety standards. In order to increase profits, the construction company used cheap and unsafe materials to reduce per-unit costs and create more housing units. This sparked a controversy among Seoul citizens, revealing other dishonest construction practices throughout the city. Urban renewal was threatening public safety for all residents.

As many urban renewal advocates claimed, the city government believed that clearing out problematic regions to build modernized and functional communities would resolve most of the city’s social problems. But these city improvements failed to resolve the complex social issues as expected. As noted above, the private developers built only one public housing unit in the apartment complex and gave priority to moon village residents as compensation for demolishing their homes. However, most of the residents could not afford to move into the building. Those who did move in faced severe discrimination in the new community. Even the site plan reflected such discrimination: their building was located at the end of the apartment complex, farthest from the main entrance and isolated from other apartments. In addition, the construction company scheduled a later move-in for the public housing residents than for the other residents of the complex. Therefore, public housing residents had little opportunity to integrate with the rest of the households in the new town.

Inherited Segregation This kind of tension in the community also carried over to the primary school. To deal with the rapid increase in the student population, the school created additional classes dedicated to incoming students from the apartment complex. As a rite of passage, students had to state their building number to classmates. Since the new town consisted of apartments in different areas, a building number identified a resident’s income class. When a newcomer introduced himself or herself as a resident of 301, a public-housing building number, he or she had difficulty making friends in the class. Even if the classmates started to get along, the parents advised their children not to hang out with children from 301. The social and economic polarization between residents of 301 and others worsened with time; one 301 resident even committed suicide in the building. Nonetheless, nobody made an effort to discuss the problem or find a solution. Rather, the new town residents became even more inclined to avoid the lower-income residents of 301. It seemed that social equity was nowhere to be found in this neighborhood.

and preserve the character of the neighborhood. If they had preserved some of the slum area, renovated the infrastructure and old houses incrementally, and held public discussions with residents, while simultaneously pursuing the high-density housing plan, Seoul would have had diverse types of neighborhoods with unique characteristics. Baeksa Village, a New Challenge

One of the last moon villages in Seoul, Baeksa Village, has the potential to incorporate some of these alternatives, as developers are currently attempting to create a sustainable and vibrant neighborhood. Created by the expelled residents who had lived in the inner-city slum area that was cleared in the 1970s. The village had been designated as a green belt for 47 years,

An Alternative Way Urban redevelopment in Seoul was inevitable given the radical population explosion of the 1960s and 1980s. However, Seoul should not have redeveloped the inner city by simply clearing out slum areas. First, the relocation of slum residents should have been a long-term project so they could have had adequate time to prepare to move to other regions. In the Donam redevelopment case, it took only three years to force residents out and completely raze the whole town. This was not enough time for lower-income people to adapt to new circumstances, as it was hard for them to find affordable new housing in the city. Also, the government should have had a more concrete and comprehensive compensation policy. Though the city gave some slum residents the right to move into new public housing in the new town, they could not afford to pay the rent and many left the area after selling their rights to those who had more money. The lower-income households in the slum therefore did not benefit from compensation. Moreover, instead of bulldozing the entire designated region and erecting high-density buildings, the city and private developers should have considered a mixedincome and mixed-density redevelopment in order to intermingle a variety of social classes

so the neighborhood has kept its original topography and the shape of the lots. When the government lifted the green belt regulation of the area in 1998, the demand for redevelopment increased, and developers proposed a typical plan to bulldoze the neighborhood and build high-density, market-rate apartments. Voicing their concern, local architects insisted that the developers consider sustainable development and keep the neighborhood’s unique topography and shape in order to respect and preserve the residents’ lifestyles. Eventually, the government accepted the local architects’ proposal, and the architects are currently working on the new site plan for a mixed-income, mixed-density, ecofriendly neighborhood.

Fig. 5.2. Source: Soobin Park

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Learning from the Past While reading about the urban renewal project in Detroit, I became preoccupied with memories of the new town where I had spent my childhood. As a child, I had a vague sense that something was wrong with the apartment complex, but I did not realize the extent of the issues. I now realize that the type of urban renewal pursued there was not suitable for comprehensive neighborhood improvements. Fortunately, people are now more aware of social justice issues, so Seoul citizens have questioned this kind of result-oriented

redevelopment plan and have tried to find better ways to improve the remaining moon villages. Although it might be difficult to make a moderate redevelopment plan that appeals to all residents and developers, plans like those for Baeska represent a step in the right direction that may enhance the quality of life for all residents of Seoul. This work is dedicated to the memory of Jong-ho Yi, my undergraduate professor at the Korean National University of Arts, who loved Seoul and was involved in the Baeksa Village Redevelopment Project.

References

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Thomas, J., & Hwang, H. (2003). Social equity in redevelopment and housing: United States and Korea. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 23.

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Scott, J. C. (2012). Authoritarian high modernism. In S. Feinstein, & S. Campbell (Eds.), Readings in Planning Theory (3rd Ed.). (pp. 54-71). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hanguk Tosi Yŏnguso [Eds.]. (1996). Tosi sŏmin ŭi sam kwa chumin undong [The life of urban working classes and their movement]. Seoul, Korea: Tosŏ Chulpan Parŏn.

Han’guk Konggan Hwan’gyŏng Yŏn’guhoe [Eds.]. (1993). Sŏul yŏngu: yuyŏnjŏk sanŏphwa wa saeroun tosi, sahoe, chŏngchi [Seoul research: Flexible industrialization and new urban, society, and politics]. Seoul: Hanul.

Kim, H. (2012, April 13). The Seoul Daldongne redevelopment affair. Hankyoreh. Retrieved from http://www.hani.co.kr

NRP Corporation. (2013). Hanshin & Hanjin Apartment Complex in Donam. In NAVER Real Estate. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/K9JxYx.

Son, C. (2003). Sŏul tosi kyehoek iyagi: Sŏul kyŏktong ŭi 50-yŏn kwa na ŭi chŭngŏn [The Seoul city planning story: My testimony to the tumultuous 50 years of Seoul] (Vols. 4-5). Seoul: Hanul.

Lee

Lim, J. (2014, January 22). Baeksa Village, the architectural experiment with a sensible approach to redevelopment. Hankyoreh. Retrieved from http://www.hani.co.kr

Pier Amelia Davis. M.U.P. 2015. “Wyoming Postcard”. Wyoming, USA. AGORA 8

Author

Pier Amelia Davis. M.U.P. 2015. “Copenhagen Housing”. Copenhagen, Denmark. AGORA 8

International Cooperative Housing Lessons for the United States

Pamela Schaeffer

Master of Urban Planning 2015 Master of Public Policy 2015

Cooperative housing has proven to be a successful housing model, particularly in providing affordable housing, stabilizing and encouraging mixed-income communities, and serving as an ownership vehicle in markets that are underserved or lack mature financial infrastructure. Despite its positive record, the model has not been favored in the United States where individual ownership of property and subsidized affordable renting are the primary policy frameworks. This article describes the cooperative model and its benefits, followed by a description of Sukumar Granapatiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s framework created in his analysis of cooperative housing models in Sweden, India and the United States. Studies of Australian and Canadian cooperative histories along with a breakout of the New York City market test the applicability of Granapatiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s analysis to different markets. Finally, I highlight common threads supporting successful cooperative housing markets.

ecovery efforts following the 2008 collapse of the housing market have focused on shoring up and restoring the home mortgage market. Intense actions to remove bad assets, tighten credit, and untangle implicit public guarantees from the mortgage market are being pursued. Unfortunately, none of these reforms get to the root of why low- and middle-income families used sub-prime loans to enter the housing market. Prior to the housing collapse, low-interest rates and sub-prime loans were touted as “new financial tools” helping previously underserved households to build wealth through housing (Chomsisengphet and Pennington-Cross, 2006; Tishman, 2007). The current mortgage reforms may restore mortgage stability at the cost of returning these families to an underserved situation with even fewer choices. In order to serve these households, options need to be expanded, and one option that US housing policies and private markets have left underutilized is cooperative housing. Cooperatives are a home-ownership vehicle widely used outside of the US and in a limited number of US cities and states. Studies of communities in Toronto, New York City, Washington DC, and Chicago have shown that the benefits of cooperatives include lower cost housing options, greater community involvement, longer tenure, flexibility in operations, finely grained household income mixes, and lower crime and vandalism rates (Cooper and Rodman, 2000; McStotts 2004; Miceli, Sazama and Sirmans, 1994; Saegert and Benitez, 2005). However, despite this list of benefits, cooperative housing makes up only 1% of the total US housing market, focused in New York City and small areas in New England, Washington DC, southeast Michigan, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Southern California. This percentage pales in comparison to global numbers that include 17% in Sweden, 15%-10% across Europe, and 11% in India (Ganapati, 2010; ICA 2012).

Research Framework This paper started as an effort to understand how cooperatives withstood the 2008 foreclosure crisis. The goal was to see if cooperatives provided more stable housing options for households than the home mortgages that were at the center of the crisis. It quickly became clear that the limited size of the US cooperative market translates to limited data: data that is often part of small, localized studies, spread over a wide time frame, and difficult to compare. The questions then became: why are cooperatives underutilized in the US

market, and what could be done to increase their presence? This paper describes the cooperative model and explores how different types of cooperatives provide affordable housing; provides a brief history of US cooperative housing and its place in national housing policy; and, lastly, uses a series of international case studies to pinpoint policies, public and private market supports, education and cooperative associations that may increase cooperative market share in the US.

Findings and Recommendations Having a large, viable, and diverse cooperative market in the US will help connect supply and demand within the housing market. With sustained private and public investment, more housing options will serve more families and could provide greater stability to the whole housing market. For housing advocates trying to expand affordable housing availability through the use of housing cooperatives, this article highlights a need to build and balance public and private investment concurrently. There are three core actions that will help to create this policy/private-market balance. First, leverage policy at all levels. Changing federal priorities of existing programs and allowing cooperatives access to existing funding pathways is crucial. Additionally, strengthening or adding preferential tax and administrative support systems at the state and city level will allow for flexibility to meet local conditions. Second, build knowledge from within. Successful cooperative ownership occurs in a “cooperative culture” where members understand the benefits and responsibilities of joint property ownership and management. Growth of the sector will not occur without creating a base of ownership skills; a strong public and private knowledge and technical support system is needed to provide aid to individual communities. Third, be broad. Throughout these examples, the most stable cooperative environments are diverse, both in purpose and in structure. Market-rate and subsidized cooperatives should be encouraged to connect with each other and reach out to cooperative corporations outside of the housing market. This broad reach increases public awareness, creates networks of political allies, and insulates cooperative housing from shifts in government policy.

The Cooperative Model and Affordable Housing History and Principles in Brief

The modern cooperative movement rose in AGORA 8

response to the displacement and changing labor conditions of industrialization in Europe. In 1844 a group of weavers in Rochdale, England pooled resources to purchase basic goods in bulk; they then sold those goods to members at low prices. Eventually membership in the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society was open to all with payment of membership fees. The society established a community doctrine, The Rochdale Principles, which still serves as the foundation of the modern cooperative community (Table 1). In the late 1800s the cooperative model was adapted to address the need for affordable and stable housing in growing industrial cities. The earliest developments were in Berlin, in Stockholm, and throughout England. They spread across Europe and remain particularly strong in Central Europe, Sweden, and Norway. Globally, the periods before the First World War, and between the First and the Second World War, saw consistent and stable growth (Ganapati, 2010; Sazama, 2000; Siegler and Levey, 1986). Continued industrialization and Definition of a Cooperative

Principles

A cooperative is an autonomous association of person united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Fig. 6.1 ICA Cooperative Identity, Values, and Principles source: ica.coop/en

Voluntary and Open Membership Democratic Member Control Member Economic Participation Autonomy and Independence Education, Training, and Information Cooperation among Cooperative Concern for Community

urbanization created housing shortages, and cooperative housing societies filled the void between need and available financing (Abbot and Doucouliagos, 2007; Ganapati, 2001). Cooperatives and Condominiums

From the mid-1800s through the 1960s, the two primary modes of multi-family residence were membership in a housing cooperative, which allowed an ownership stake, and renting. Condominiums entered the market in the 1960s when they were legally enabled in the US (Bennett, 2011; Siegler and Levey, 1986). They are now the dominant form of multi-family ownership in the US and provide a contrast to cooperatives. Basically, condominium units are individually owned and purchased with personal mortgages. Owners hold common areas jointly but otherwise have little control over the property, including little say in the selling and purchasing of units. Conversely, cooperative members own a share of a

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cooperative corporation, allowing them to reside on the property. There is usually blanket financing on the whole property, with a variety of possible individual fee structures for members. Common areas and housing units alike are part of the cooperative holdings, and cooperative boards have a strong say in the sale and purchase of cooperative shares (National Cooperative Bank, n.d.). The Benefits and Pitfalls of Cooperation

The largest difference between cooperatives and condominiums is that most cooperatives follow the Rochdale Principles. In his history of social clubs in New York City Joshua Freeman points out that many of the 1920s New York City cooperatives were founded as social, political, and cultural communities with common facilities including libraries, club rooms, and dining rooms, which provide greater opportunities for member interaction (Freeman, 2002). While the majority of cooperatives are no longer united by union membership, trade, or political philosophies, the sense of belonging is important for members. Many of the benefits of successful cooperative communities stem from the common ownership and consensus-based governance they require. This type of ownership can also cause problems. Studies in Canada show that tenure rates fall when cooperative boards cannot choose members willing to invest time in the community (Cooper and Rodman, 2000). Further, cooperatives require members to have basic knowledge about the physical and financial needs of property maintenance, and an understanding of consensus building. Successful markets have robust public, private, or community organizations that provide training, advice, or maintenance services. In turn, isolated and â&#x20AC;&#x153;untrainedâ&#x20AC;? cooperatives are threatened by collapse, as seen in a study in Washington, DC where the difference between success and failure was often traced to a lack of financial and property management knowledge in the membership (Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development, 2004). Cooperative Types and Affordable Housing

There are two primary forms of housing cooperative: one based in common property ownership, and the other based in finance and development, providing members with mortgages and/or construction services. The type of cooperative operating in a market is a response to local gaps in financial and housing services. In areas with scarce physical housing,

cooperatives form to build housing, and in areas where the mortgage market is immature, cooperatives form to provide financing. Table 2 outlines general cooperative types and the casestudy regions where they are dominant. Nothing in the character of cooperatives makes them specifically affordable housing models; however, cooperatives fill the gaps between need and conventional housing/finance and therefore have developed in ways that create affordable housing. Finance cooperatives provide home and construction financing to underserved populations and often serve working-class households. The cooperative pools the risk and provides a buffer between private banks and households. If the cooperative secures publically subsidized as well as private loans, it can offer financing to members at affordable rates. Australia made use of financial cooperatives before the home mortgage market was mature, and India still uses them to mediate between large banks and local needs (Abbott and Doucouliagos, 2007; Ganapati, 2001). Limiting equity accumulation creates affordability in property-based models. Tenure cooperatives accumulate equity with property value, and the value of member shares reflects this equity. Prices in private cooperatives mirror general housing values, and members may require private financing, similar to a mortgage, just to purchase a share. Affordability is introduced when equity is limited or eliminated, as in the limited-equity cooperative (LEC) and the non-equity or rental cooperative. In each buy-in, costs and fees are kept low since property value is not being bought and sold. LECs allow for a controlled equity accumulation, usually calculated based on tenure and fee structure. This encourages longer tenure and creates an opportunity for some wealth accumulation. Non-equity developments offer no wealth benefits but differ from subsidized rental housing in their adherence to the Rochdale Principles and the control residents have over membership and management. A mixture of tenure cooperatives makes up the bulk of the Swedish, Canadian, and US markets.

US Housing Policies Despite its positive record, the cooperative model is not favored in the United States. The lack of support stems from the complicated political balance between liberal and conservative thought about the role of government in the housing market and political suspicion of cooperative ownership versus individual participation in the market (Hays,

1995; Sazma, 2000). Current housing policy focuses on single-family home-ownership through the income tax deduction of mortgage interest and subsidized rental for the lowest income families. Policy favors single-family home-ownership: the tax deduction costs the federal government $70 billion in lost revenue versus the $17 billion directly spent on rental subsidies (Fischer and Huang, 2013; HUD 2014). Neither of these options helps working families whose income is too high for subsidized help and not high enough to qualify in the retightened mortgage market. US Cooperative Development and Policy

The first cooperative housing in the US was built in New York City in 1875. Early ventures provided an ownership option for middle and Type

Characteristics

Location*

Tenure Cooperative

Cooperative owns housing development; members own equity share

Limited-equity tenure cooperative*

Cooperative owns housing development; Sweden members own share with limits on equity United States accumulation.

Rental cooperative similar-to: Nonequity cooperative*

Cooperative owns housing development; members pay rent to coop regularly without equity accumulation.

Sweden Canada

Finance cooperative

Cooperative provides loans to members for building construction or repairs.

Australia India

Building cooperative Cooperative undertakes building construction and/or develops land on behalf of members upper class New York City residents (Siegler and Levey, 1986). The use of cooperatives for affordable housing began in 1918 when a group of Finnish artisans started the Finnish Home Building Association in Brooklyn, New York. There was no national legislation encouraging or discouraging cooperative development from 1920 to 1950. Attempts to include them in both the 1937 and 1948 National Housing Acts were made but in both cases real estate and home building interests joined with conservative politicians to defeat the efforts (Sazama, 2000). Some progress was made in 1950 with the addition of Section 213 to the National Housing Act. Section 213, which is still in effect, extends FHA loan guarantees to new housing cooperatives. In 1959 rehabilitation and extension loans for existing cooperatives were added to FHAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scope. However, the perceived leftist leanings of unions and housing advocates

India Sweden United States

India Sweden

Fig. 6.2. Housing cooperative types and location examples.

source: Ganapti (2010) * - denotes addition to table by author

AGORA 8

in the 1960s and the single-family priorities of the post-war era have kept Section 213 from being fully funded (Sazama, 2000). Despite anemic policy support, cooperatives continued to be established; during the inter-war and immediate post-WWII era, unions and labor groups successfully sponsored private developments in Detroit, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and especially New York City (Siegler and Levey, 1986). Another addition to the cooperative stock came immediately after WWII when the federal government disposed of war production worker housing. Searching for a way to meet the needs of returning veterans, cooperatives were allowed to purchase these properties with subsidized loans if the community included veterans (Sazama, 2000). The most sustained federal support came in 1961 with the Below Market Interest Rate (BMIR) program. Under BMIR, cooperatives serving low-income families had access to 40year low-interest federal loans. Cooperatives could use these loans to cover construction and rehabilitation costs when they promised to limit equity accumulation and set new member income guidelines for the life of the loan (Sazama, 2000). This program is the basis for many of the LEC developments that are still found in the United States. The BMIR programs were repealed with the 1974 Housing Act when federal policy shifted toward rental vouchers. Condominiums, the largest competitor for middle-income, private multi-family development, entered the market in the 1960s. Over time, banks, realtors and the market have shown a strong preference for condominiums. For bankers they offer a defined commodity and risk, loans are smaller and foreclosures on defaults are easier to pursue. Realtors can collect larger fees and provide greater services on the property transfers of condominiums. And lastly, owners can purchase and sell units without a cooperative board’s involvement in the transaction. This collection of differences has pushed the market toward condominium development. As of 2007, only 10% of the multiownership properties erected in the US were cooperatives (Schill, Voicu, and Miller, 2007).

The last federally supported creation of cooperative housing occurred under the HUD HOPE programs. However, rather than an encouragement of new affordable housing, these programs can be characterized as public housing “load-shedding” (McStotts, 2004). In 1980 the federal government began divesting Schaeffer

itself of public housing developments; for some properties cooperative conversion was used. While this marked a public retreat from affordable housing provision, it increased the number of LECs in the market and allowed many, although not all, residents to stay in their homes and gain an ownership stake. As part of the conversions the federal government provided funds for rehabilitating properties, and the continued success of the cooperatives often depends on their having taken advantage of this inexpensive rehabilitation (CNHED, 2004). Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, affordable cooperative housing development has suffered the same fate as all publicly subsidized housing. The 1986 tax reforms that ushered in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) have been the main vehicle for low-income housing development in the United States, but the credits are not available to cooperatives. Community sponsors have worked with the LIHTC requirements by establishing “leasehold” cooperatives that function as non-equity or LEC communities. But this is a workaround rather than a demonstration of federal support. During the last two decades, affordable cooperative development has survived on piecemeal assembly of LIHTC and Community Reinvestment funds, and the limited resources available through the National Cooperative Bank and union pension investment (Sazama, 2000). Coupled with weak and inconsistent public support for cooperative housing is the lack of a strong and independent support service sector. In the US market there are organizations like the National Cooperative Bank, the National Association of Cooperative Housing, the National Cooperative Business Association, and local associations; however, these organizations are not as well-funded, present, or active as those in more robust cooperative environments (Sazama, 2000; Siegler and Levey, 1986). The call for organizations capable of providing training, administrative support, financial advice and physical maintenance timelines is a constant within the cooperative and CDC community (CMHN, 2004; CNHED, 2004; Enterprise Foundation, 2003; Ganapati, 2001; Miceli, Sazama and Sirmans. 1994; Saegert and Benitez, 2005).

Cooperative Housing Development and Government Policies Many studies of cooperative housing are focused on single case studies. However, it is possible to draw common lessons. Sukumar Ganapati did this in his 2010 article on Sweden,

Relationship

State

Comments*

Overembeddedness Intimate ties with the state, generally accompanied by a loss of cooperative independence

India Mumbai transitioning to embedded autonomy*

Registrar controls operations at the state level, imposing administrative and objective goals on local cooperatives.

Canada* transition in: 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

With direct oversight growing and the control of resident pools Canadian cooperatives are losing independence, and becoming more tied to provincial government.

Australia* transition in: 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Majority funding from government sources forcing private cooperatives to follow state objectives

National government support, especially under Nehru, imprinted political goals and strategies on cooperatives.

The dependence on state financing and inflexible service targets made the cooperative obsolete and led to demise. Embedded Autonomy Balance between ties with the state and cooperative autonomy

Sweden

Strong national cooperatives with complementary, but independent relationship to state. Cooperatives have highly evolved internal support.

NYC*

Strong cooperative culture with government support and private investment. Cooperatives serving variety of populations.

Canada transitioning out: 1960s Australia transition out: 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Disembeddedness Few or no ties to the state but marked by high degree of cooperative independence

Relied on middle and lower class clientele with funding sources from private and public institutions. The mix allowed building socieities serve 40% of home building.

Fig. 6.3. Cooperative-State Relations.

source: Ganapti (2010) * - denotes addition to table by author

Weak support of cooperative financing, usually considered as disinvestment method from public housing programs.

Lack of state policy handicaps private cooperative operations and finance

AGORA 8

India and the United States. Borrowing from Peter Evans’ work on state-industrial relations, Ganapati classifies cooperative public policy in three categories: overembeddedness, embedded autonomy, and disembeddedness. Intimate, balanced, and weak ties between the state and cooperatives mark each level of embeddedness and reflect the cooperatives’ degree of independence from regulatory interference. As described, the US cooperative environment, with the exception of New York City, exemplifies a disembedded cooperative market, where weak public support is coupled with weak private cooperative development. A summary of “embeddedness” categories and the regions and time periods in which they are seen is provided in Table 3. The analysis of cooperative-state relations holds for all types of developments: non-equity, market rate, property, financial, and any mix of them all. Embedded autonomous cooperative-state relations are characterized by balanced public and private investments; the state supports cooperative development but allows individual cooperatives freedom to govern themselves. Ganapati holds Sweden up as the clearest example of embedded autonomy; however, there are pitfalls in replicating the Swedish model in the United States. Sweden is a small nation; with an area slightly larger than California and population similar to New York City, Sweden is comparable to state and province service areas. Further, the population of Sweden is relatively homogeneous, a characteristic that can be important in cooperative living and self-governance. Finally, Sweden’s cooperatives operated in a legally protected environment up until 2009; it is unlikely that any jurisdiction in the United States could provide such strong protection to cooperative development. Sweden’s model of publically enabled private cooperative housing is very successful, but bringing it to scale has proven difficult; advocates need to look for parallels and lessons there and in other models operating that are informative for the complex federal-state, public-private structure of the US market. Sweden 74

Swedish housing policy uses cooperative housing in support of a national objective that regards shelter as a basic right. Tenure cooperatives are the primary operators in the Swedish market. As Table 2 shows, however, a variety of cooperative types have existed in Sweden. The building societies have remained independent of the government, but Schaeffer

the government has given them preferential treatment and leveraged their capacities to provide public housing (Ganapati, 2010). There is a mixture of small and large players in the Swedish market, but it is dominated by large building cooperatives that finance and construct housing for a national membership base. When a building is complete, it is turned over to a tenant cooperative that remains tied to the support structure of the national organization. Within this set-up the tenant cooperatives have the flexibility to individually run buildings, while the national organization provides training and administrative support (Siegler and Levey, 1986). The first of Sweden’s cooperative societies, SKB, was formed in 1916 and specialized in rental cooperatives. However, 1921 and 1923 saw the creation of SCB and HSB, two tenure cooperatives. Since the early 1930’s the relationship between the cooperative housing societies and the government has been one of mutual support. During the inter-war period leaders of the national cooperatives sat on the government’s Social Housing Committee; in turn the cooperatives steered building growth, service, and housing type in support of governmental policy (Ganapati, 2010). When the government created Municipal Housing Commissions to administer public housing, they turned to the cooperatives for development and administrative capacity; though even in this relationship, national and individual cooperatives were able to maintain their independence (Ganapati, 2010). In this way private and subsidized cooperatives were woven throughout the market that served high-, middle- and low-income households. In 2009 the Swedish government legalized condominiums and official protection of the cooperative market ended; however, cooperatives still command a 50% share of the home-ownership market (Pittini and Laino, 2011). New York City

Similar to Sweden, New York City’s multifamily housing tradition is rooted in diverse cooperative developments, with supportive state and local regulations. In 2007 cooperatives provided more than 80% of multi-family housing in New York City (Schill, Voicu, and Miller, 2007). The size and growth of the city before the legalization of condominiums meant that private cooperatives met the multifamily ownership demands unmet by the rental market. However, unlike in many other American cities, there is also public support for affordable cooperative options. New York State’s

“Mitchell-Lama” Act provides tax concessions and low-interest, state-bond backed loans to cooperatives that restrict equity accumulation for the life of the loans. Additional affordability protections are provided through city laws sheltering residents in LEC’s that are at the end of the Mitchell-Lama loan period. Within the NYC market, affordable cooperatives are often used to combat gentrification and the rising costs of housing. However, the city also turned to them to counter federal disinvestment and property abandonment. In the 1970s the city started a program supporting cooperative selfmanagement efforts by tenants in underfunded public housing and abandoned apartment houses by providing administrative and financial education (Leavitt and Saegert, 2007). Upon completion of the program, members of the cooperatives had access to subsidized loans for property purchase and rehabilitation, and commenced operations with trained boards and buildings in good repair (CMHN, 2004). Overembeddedness and Disembeddedness

In Ganapati’s framework, over and under involvement by the state are destructive to cooperative stability. The US framework shows how weak public policy translates to weak cooperative markets. However, equally damaging is an overly involved government policy that sets priorities from the top down. India

India’s cooperative housing roots lay in colonization and the cooperative movements taking place in Great Britain. In 1912 the colonial government enabled the first housing cooperatives, beginning a cooperative culture that underpins current developments. The types of cooperatives developed in India vary from province to province, filling voids in bank financing by providing credit, bureaucratic, and construction support. As of 2010, cooperatives in India served 11% of the market, which constitutes over 2 million households (Ganapati, 2010). India’s Registrar of Cooperative Societies is the national-level authority that enables states to conduct the oversight and regulation of cooperatives. Prior to independence, oversight was active but did not compromise cooperative operations. However, with Indian independence in 1947, the Registrars were enhanced. Emphasizing cooperative action as a state value, cooperatives became tools of government policy and national finance and support structures were put in place – a mixed blessing to the cooperatives (Ganapati, 2010). In some states

this close relationship is a wedge between public action, private investment, and general need. Mumbai has the most active housing cooperatives and the least intrusive Registrar. In Mumbai private cooperative success with middle and low income earners proved to be a useful model for local public agencies who adapted it to organize slum dwellers into service, credit, and housing groups. The Bombay Registrar has maintained a strictly supportive role, allowing both the private and public cooperatives to define and tailor programs to meet the needs of their target members (Ganapati, 2001). With this success, the Indian government has attempted to bring these lessons to scale through the Registrar offices in other states; however, it has not achieved the same participation through top-down mandates. Australia

Starting in the 1840s private building societies existed in New South Wales (NSW); however, many were marked by mismanagement and failure. In response to a growing need for housing and a lack of bank financing, the state created financial housing cooperatives under the 1936 Housing Improvement Act. To counter previous experiences, state oversight was enhanced and a mixed public-private funding mechanism was introduced. The cooperatives secured blanket loans from banks and the government and then lent these funds to members for construction of homes; in turn members paid share fees to the cooperative. All cooperatives were registered with the Registrar of Cooperative Housing Societies, which inspected accounts and assessed homes. Once a cooperative’s loans were paid in full, it ceased to exist; it had served its purpose of mediating between funders and homeowners. Obtaining funds from private banks allowed the cooperatives to maintain independent operations under the oversight of the Registrar, and the cooperatives provided financing for 40% of the NSW homes built in 1960 (Abbott and Doucouliagos, 2007). However, in the 1960s banks began to enter the mortgage market, and funding for cooperatives shifted almost exclusively to the government. At this point the cooperatives became tools of targeted government housing policy (Abbott and Doucouliagos, 1999). This relationship persisted until 1993 when the Registrars were abolished and the private cooperatives lost their institutional support. However, the decline of the cooperatives actually started in the 1970s when majority government funding and targeted public policy goals stripped the societies of their independence.

AGORA 8

Schaeffer

Christopher Herlich. M.U.P. 2015. “La Station dans la Nuit”. Paris, France. AGORA 8

Canada

Common threads for success

Canada has made use of cooperatives in the provision of public housing, where national, provincial and local governments favor nonequity communities. This approach has proven successful in serving low-wage professionals and the working poor, especially in Ontario where 48% of this housing exists (Sousa and Quarter, 2003).

The primary lesson for US cooperative development is that public and private investment must be made in a balanced and mutually reinforcing manner (Ganapati, 2010). With that framework, national and local policy changes must be sought, private and institutional support structures are required, and economic, political and cultural alliances need to be fostered.

Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s non-equity cooperatives were established in the 1973 National Housing Act, which introduced a tiered public housing program. Within this framework the Canadian national government entered into agreements with existing cooperative sponsors and nonprofit organizations to set up mixed-income communities. In Ontario, the cooperatives were required to provide space for lowincome households in exchange for low-rate direct loans from the national, provincial, and municipal governments. While the members of these cooperatives did not earn equity, they did enjoy the other benefits of cooperatives including democratic control, self-management, membership approval and secure tenure (Sousa and Quarter, 2003). In order to maintain the low- and moderate-income focus of these cooperatives, they received government support through tenant subsidies. The cooperatives were free to decide how and in what proportion these subsidies would be applied to households (Cooper and Rodman, 2000; Sousa and Quarter, 2003).

Schaeffer

The structure of the cooperative-state relationship changed in 1993 when the national government stopped direct financing and pushed public housing responsibility to provincial governments. In Ontario, where most of the non-equity housing is located, the provincial government pushed responsibility to the municipal level in 2000. The most drastic changes for the cooperatives were the loss of membership approval and control over government subsidies. The changes in subsidy allotments motivated some long-time members to leave, and the need to fill the vacancies quickly curtailed the cooperative board interview process. This creates a situation where new residents are not always suited to participatory cooperative living. These changes, coupled with new and more stringent administrative systems and central management of some services, are affecting cooperative dynamics. While the non-equity cooperatives are not likely to disappear, some individual communities will likely fail (Cooper and Rodman, 2000).

Policy and Implementation

US cooperative housing advocates must push cooperative-state relations from the disembedded state to embedded autonomy. In the US this means a shift in priorities at the national level. The current political atmosphere of sequestration, low-level austerity and tax reform leaves little maneuvering room for cooperative advocates. However, there are programs in place that should be leveraged for cooperative use. Section 213, the FHA administered mortgage program, needs to be funded to its full potential, and cooperatives need access to LIHTC funds to begin a market transformation. Access to LIHTC funds in particular is important for existing and forming cooperatives; it makes funds more freely available, increases exposure of private markets to cooperative structures, and creates the mixed private-public financing of independent cooperatives that has proven successful in many environments. On the state and local levels, the success of the New York City experience is useful. The New York state Mitchell-Lama Laws and New York City affordable protections are proven models of cooperative encouragement. However, perhaps even more important is the program used by the city to convert public housing and abandoned private properties to tenant-controlled cooperatives. This program allowed the local housing community flexibility in private and public housing situations, and created a framework for provision of training and support services. Once a shift in policy takes place, it is important that cooperative communities guard against too large a shift. As seen in the Australian and Canadian examples, the move away from a balanced relationship can damage and even destroy established and successful cooperative institutions. In order to safeguard an embedded autonomous relationship, knowledgeable and diverse cooperative environments are required.

Support structures and knowledge bases

The lack of familiarity with cooperative housing is one of the largest obstacles to growing the market in the US. Growing the knowledge base is key to growing the private side of the publicprivate balance needed. The steps required are two-fold: public outreach to foster a “cooperative culture,” and internal technical education to build competent cooperative management. Existing national organizations are suited to the public outreach element. These groups need to make a concerted effort to collect data and reach out to private finance interests, community organizations, public housing authorities, and existing cooperative associations with access to that information. A larger effort needs to be made to increase the proficiency of cooperative boards in managing properties. The local nature of this effort, coupled with the general need, means that it has to be engaged at all levels and by public and private concerns. Options for this effort include building private capacity in property management and development companies, earmarking state funding for training, engaging public housing authorities in both training and facilitation within individual cooperatives, and increasing the capacity of existing national and regional cooperative associations. Diversity and Independence

Diversity within the cooperative environment will provide multiple benefits. First and foremost, it insulates communities from changes in government policy. The Australian and Canadian experiences show how narrow cooperative structures are vulnerable to shifts in government policy, and the Indian example highlights the failings of a narrow government focus in fostering cooperatives. Second, a variety of cooperative structures will more

closely reflect the variety of housing needs in regional and local areas. In turn the variety of housing needs demands that cooperatives resist being labeled in one way. For example, US trends currently favor LECs for their affordability. However, LECs also promote economic development, provide a stop against gentrification and displacement, and build community participation rates (McStotts, 2004; Saegert, Eizenberg, Extein, Hsieh, Benitez and Chang 2002). Each of these benefits makes funding and support of LECs attractive beyond the affordable housing arguments. The diversity of cooperatives in Sweden and New York City enhances their influence on policy and exposes the public to their function. In the larger US market, where the scale of the cooperative housing market limits the possibilities and reach of associations, reaching out to allies in retail, agriculture, utility and other cooperative markets will help housing advocates increase political influence and public familiarity.

Conclusion While it is unlikely that the US will ever embrace cooperative ownership to the degree of Sweden, it is possible to develop a stronger “third way” model. A concerted effort by advocates should begin with leveraging existing government programs, building a comprehensive understanding of cooperative housing, and making alliances across public and private cooperatives of all types. Doing these things concurrently will begin the process of building private and public investment. This investment will create experiences that can provide answers to questions surrounding housing access and stability in the housing market.

References A Study of Limited-equity Cooperatives in the District of Columbia. (2004). Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development, Washington, DC.

Alternative Financing Models- Hybrids of Homeownership Limited Equity Cooperative Housing. (2003). The Enterprise Foundation, Washington, DC.

Abbott, Malcolm, and Chris Doucouliagos. (2007). The rise and decline of the New South Wales cooperative housing societies. Urban Policy Research, 19(2), p.227-242. Abbott, Malcolm, and Chris Doucouliagos. (1999). A Long-run Analysis of Cooperative Housing Societies and Housing Construction in Victoria, Australia. Australian Economic History Review, 39(2), p.114-132.

Bennett, Donna S. (2011). Condominium Homeownership in the United States: A Selected Bibliography of Legal Sources. Law Library Journal, 103(2), p. 249-279.

Cooper, Matthew, and Margaret Rodman. (2000). Some consequences of Economic and Political Change for a Toronto Housing Cooperative. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 9(2), p.197.

Affordable Housing Cooperatives: Their Conditions and Prospects in Chicago. (2004). Chicago Mutual Housing Network, and UI-Chicago Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, Chicago. AGORA 8

Davis, John Emmeus. (2006). Shared Equity Homeownership: The Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, OwnerOccupied Housing. National Housing Institute, NJ: National Housing Institute. Fischer, Will and Chye-Ching Huang (2013, June 25) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mortgage Interest Deduction is Ripe for Reform: Accessed 16 February 2014 from http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3948 Freeman, Joshua B. (2002). Red New York. Monthly Review: 54(3), p.36-52. Goodman, Allen and John Goodman Jr. (1997). The Co-op Discount. Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 14, p.223-233. Ganapati, Sukumar. (2010). Enabling Housing Cooperatives: Policy Lessons from Sweden, India and the United States. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(2), p.365-380. Granapati, Sukumar. (2001). Institutional Potential of Housing Cooperatives for Low-Income Households: The Case of India. Habitat International, 25, p.147-174. Hays, R. Allen. (1995). The Federal Government and Urban Housing: Ideology and Change in Public Policy. Chapter 2: The Ideology Context of Housing Policy, pp. 1-56. State University of New York Press, Albany. Kazan, Abraham E. (1937). Cooperative Housing in the United States. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 191, 137-143. Keys to Successful Cooperative Housing, Service Report 44. (2004). US Department of Agriculture. Leavitt, Jacqueline and Susan Saegert. (2007). The Community-household: Responding to Housing Abandonment in New York City. Journal of the American Planning Association, 54(4), 489-500. Malone, John N. (1958). Cooperative Housing for Middle Income Groups. The Phylon Quarterly, 19(1), 82-84. McStotts, Jennifer C. (2004). Dwelling Together: Using Cooperative Housing to Abate the Affordable Housing Shortage in Canada and the United States. Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, 32, 131-165. Miceli, Thomas J., Gerald W. Sazama, and C.F. Sirmans. (1994). The Role of Limited-Equity Cooperatives in Providing Affordable Housing. Housing Policy Debate, 5(4), 469-490.

Schaeffer

Pittini, Alice and Elsa Laino. (2011). Housing Europe Review 2012: The nuts and bolts of European Social Housing. CECODHAS Housing Europe Observatory: Brussles. Rondinelli, Dennis A. (1990). Housing the Urban Poor in Developing Countries: Other Policy Options for National Shelter Strategies Are Examined Since Conventional Ones Are Inadequate. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 49(3), 257-269. Saegert, Susan, and Lymari Benitez. (2005). Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives: Defining a Niche in the Low-Income Housing Market. Journal of Planning Literature, 19, 427-439. Sazama, Gerald W. (2000). Lessons from the History of Affordable Housing Cooperatives in the United States: A Case Study in American Affordable Housing Policy. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 59(4), 573-608. Schill, Michael H., Ioan Voicu, and Jonathan Miller. (2007). The Condominium versus Cooperative Puzzle: An Empirical Analysis of Housing in New York City. The Journal of Legal Studies, 36(2), 275-324. Sousa, Jorge, and Jack Quarter. (2003). The Convergence of Nonequity Housing Models in Canada: Changes to Housing Policy Since 1990. Housing Policy Debate, 14(4), 591-620. Tilly, Hans. (2010). Swedenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s housing policy has failed. Accessed April 23, 2013 from http://www.swedishwire.com/ opinion/4987-swedens-housing-policy-has-failed?format=pdf US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Public and Indian Housing. (2014, January 28) Get Ready Letter 2014- Housing Choice Voucher Program. official communication. Online Resources www.cnyc.coop/index.htm; Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums portal.hud.gov/; Housing and Urban Development ica.coop/en; International Cooperative Alliance www.coophousing.org/; National Association of Housing Cooperatives www.ncb.coop; National Consumer Cooperative Bank uwcc.wisc.edu/; University of Wisconsin- Center for Cooperatives

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Author

Michael Howard. MArch. 2014. From the series “Alternative Southeast Asian Communities”. Bangkok & Jakarta. AGORA 8

The Mortgage Interest Deduction Debates and Possible Reforms

Xiang Yan

Master of Urban Planning 2015

The Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) has been under hot debate since before the Tax Reform Act of 1986. This paper reviews the MID debate, focusing on its efficiency in promoting homeownership and its redistributional effects. I examine whether or not the MID promotes homeownership, reveal why it is often believed to fail to achieve its intended incidence, discuss which groups of people benefit from it, and present the most referred proposals to replace it. Based on this analysis, I advocate that the MID be reformed and call for a wider public recognition of the issues surrounding it.

n “The American metropolis at century’s end: Past and future influences,” Robert Fishman (2000) ranks “Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage financing and subdivision regulation” second among the top ten influences on the American metropolis in the past 50 years. Planners commonly cite Fishman’s opinion that FHA mortgage financing and regulations, along with subdivision regulation, are largely responsible for increasing the American homeownership rate, suburbanization, and racial segregation between 1945 and 1965 (Fishman, 2000). While most planners have a general knowledge of FHA financing policies and regulations, important policies such as the Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) are not as well understood. The MID is a tax policy; planners focus more on housing policies that directly relate to community development and housing opportunities, such as the Home Choice Voucher program and Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. Nevertheless, understanding the MID and its challenges is helpful and even necessary to achieve planning goals. Through the lens of planning, this paper discusses the problems with and possible reforms of the MID’s current structure. In many cases, narrowly focusing on certain policies and subtly fine-tuning them without a structural change to the general policy framework makes little difference. For example, most planners advocate for the Voucher projects and LIHTC projects, yet they often find that, because of funding shortages, the results are merely adequate, despite many efforts to refine these projects. After all, federal funding is a zerosum game: funding some programs is done at the expense of funding others. Therefore, to better promote effective housing opportunities, planners should not only study these programs but also evaluate their funding competitors, among which the MID is the most expensive and contentious. The MID is the third-largest federal tax expenditure. Although it is charged with promoting homeownership, critics frequently claim it does not accomplish this goal. The MID has cost more than $70 billion annually during the past five years, and in 2013, a time of budget crisis in the United States, it cost approximately $100 billion. In comparison, the Voucher and LIHTC programs, two programs that effectively promote affordable housing, have budgets that combined never exceed $30 billion per year. If a costly policy like the MID is not effective in achieving its intended goals, we must reevaluate and reform or eliminate it. In fact, the MID

has been under debate since the Tax Reform Act of 1986 when most other personal interest deductions were phased out. Given this context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the MID debate, to judge the opinions of both sides, and to provide some recommendations. This paper is divided into three sections. The first section briefly introduces the MID and provides a brief overview of the debate. The second section offers a close examination of the major critiques of the MID, centering on its relationship to homeownership—that it does not promote homeownership, is regressive, and introduces a price capitalization effect. Both sides of the debate are synthesized to provide an informed argument about the MID and to shed light on the major concerns that alternative policies should address. The third section reviews some proposed alternatives to the MID. This paper concludes that the MID is a poorly designed policy and we should replace it with a mortgage interest credit.

A Brief Introduction of the MID and its Debate The Mortgage Interest Deduction

The MID allows taxpayers who purchase their homes to reduce their annual taxable income by the amount of interest paid on their home loan each year. Although it was not originally designed to promote homeownership, it is generally regarded as a tax policy that achieves this goal (Carliner, 1998). However, according to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, taxpayers must meet several conditions to qualify for the MID. First, they must itemize deductions rather than choose the standard deduction. Second, the deduction is limited to interest on debts secured by a principal residence or a second home. Third, interest is deductible on only the first $1 million of debt incurred to buy, build, or improve a home, or on other debt secured by a home, which can be used for any purpose but only to the extent that total home equity debt is $1 million or less. For qualified taxpayers, the value of the mortgage interest deduction is equal to the taxpayer’s marginal tax rate multiplied by the amount of mortgage interest paid that is in excess of the standard deduction (Morrow, 2012). For example, in 2013, married couples who jointly filed taxes received a $12,200 standard deduction. If a married couple with a marginal tax rate of 15 percent pays $12,300 in mortgage interest in 2013, the MID will save the couple $15, 15 percent of the difference between the mortgage interest paid and the standard deduction.

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The Mortgage Interest Deduction Debate

As mentioned above, the MID has been under debate for decades. Many critics argue that the bulk of its benefits go to high-income households who could afford a home without assistance, while nearly half of middle- and lowincome homeowners1 with a mortgage receive no benefit at all (Glaeser & Shapiro, 2002; Landis & McClure, 2010; Morrow, 2012; Prante, 2006). Because of its regressive nature, this extremely costly tax expenditure has no significant impact on homeownership (Morrow, 2012; Toder, Austin, Lim & Getsinger, 2010). Moreover, the MID is criticized for resulting in overinvestment in owner-occupied housing at the expense of other business investment, as the government subsidy distorts capital prices in the market (Morrow, 2012). Finally, some critics argue that the MID contributes to the foreclosure crisis by encouraging borrowing against equity while contributing to suburbanization and the plight of the inner cities, as most housing subsidized

% of MID Claimed

% of all Tax Returns Received

20.6 8.7

MID Breakdown

(Who Receives What?)

39.9 35.7

Share of MID

32.8 37.8

20.2

4.2 Under $20,000

$20,000 - 49,999

Household Income

Fig. 7.1: The MID Benefits Received by Households of Different income Levels Source: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Foundation calculations.

Yan

$50,000 - $99,999

$100,000+

by the MID is in the suburbs (Voith, 2001). They argue that this results in additional negative redistributional effects. While opponents of the MID strive to prove that it is an ineffective tax policy that we should reform or eliminate, the policy also has many proponents. Supporters argue that the MID makes homeownership more affordable, especially for young middle- and high-income families since the proportion of interest is highest in the early years of a mortgage. They argue that eliminating the MID would increase the average age for first-time homeowners. Some proponents also argue that most critics overstate both the cost and redistributional effects of the MID (Follain & Melamed, 1998; Gervais & Pandey, 2008; Woodward & Weicher, 1989). Taking into account behavioral changes, especially wealthy households reshuffling their portfolios, these studies find that the redistributional effects of the MID are much less regressive than they seem, and eliminating

it would mainly impact younger, uppermiddle-income households. As for the charge that the MID results in overinvestment in owner-occupied housing, defenders argue that it is actually the untaxed imputed rent rather than the MID that distorts the market (Follain & Melamed, 1998; Gervais & Pandey, 2008; Woodward & Weicher, 1989). Finally, proponents of the policy argue that eliminating or reducing it would cause home prices to fall and unfairly hurt existing homeowners, which is especially undesirable in a depressed housing market. Both opponents and proponents of the MID raise many valid arguments. However, the proponents’ arguments that the opponents’ studies are imprecise and that the risks of eliminating the program are too high do not justify the continuation of the current policy, especially considering that a better alternative could achieve the stated benefits of the MID with greater efficiency. Many empirical studies have shown that the MID is ineffective at promoting homeownership and at providing households with the means to successfully transition from the rental market to the owner market. These households are considered part of the homeownership margin; in theory, they are the target market for MID policy. Many alternative policies have been proposed to reform this problematic tax policy. Such a reform requires extensive public support, but, unfortunately, a 2011 New York Times poll shows that about 90 percent of Americans support the MID, indicating a lack of public recognition of its problems (McCabe, 2011). The following sections provide a more detailed discussion of critiques of the MID and proposals to reform it in order to promote a better understanding and to garner more public support towards its reform.

Critiques of the MID The MID Does Not Promote Homeownership

Although the MID is the largest source of federal assistance to housing and the most important federal policy charged with promoting homeownership, studies provide almost no direct evidence to justify the extent to which it raises the homeownership rate—if it raises it at all. Some studies have shown that the tax system’s favorable treatment of owner-occupied housing raises the rate of homeownership (Hendershott & Shilling, 1980; Rosen & Rosen, 1980). For example, Rosen & Rosen (1980) estimate that tax subsidies for owner-occupied housing, including the MID, raised the homeownership rate by about four percent in 1974 and that these subsidies

contributed to about one-quarter of the growth in homeownership since 1945. These empirical studies are considered by some proponents of the MID as indirect evidence that it promotes homeownership, but other experts argue that, rather than the MID, the critical ingredient of the homeownership subsidy is the omission of imputed rental income from taxable income (Follain, Ling, & McGill, 1993; Poterba & Sinai, 2008). The estimates of both Follain, Ling, & McGill (1993) and Poterba & Sinai (2008) show that taxing the implicit rental income would lead to substantially higher tax burdens for homeowners than eliminating the mortgage

“The MID costs about $100 billion in 2013 and ranks as the 3rd largest federal tax expenditure...” interest and property interest deduction. These empirical studies suggest that, although subsidies of owner-occupied housing increase the homeownership rate, it is more a result of the untaxed imputed rental income than the MID. In fact, most scholars believe that the MID is not a pro-homeownership policy in any meaningful sense (Glaeser & Shapiro, 2002; Hanson, 2012; Landis & McClure, 2010; Morrow, 2012). Using time series data from 1965 to 2000 to examine the relationship between homeownership rate, inflation rate, and the degree of itemization, Glaeser & Shapiro (2002) show that there was essentially no relationship between the subsidy rate and the level of homeownership. Hansen (2012), who examines how the MID affected housing purchases, finds that it was responsible for a 10.9 to 18.4 percent increase in the size of home purchased, but did not find a relationship between the MID and homeownership. By summarizing many empirical studies, Morrow (2012) concludes that international, interstate, and time-based comparisons of homeownership data and economic projections based on these data overwhelmingly suggest the MID does little to promote homeownership. Some results even show that the MID may discourage homeownership (Glaeser & Shapiro, 2002). Ironically, Glaeser & Shapiro (2002) find that states with bigger subsidies tend to have slightly lower homeownership rates than those with smaller subsidies.

The critical reason the MID fails to promote homeownership is that people on the homeownership margin rarely use the MID; the bulk of the tax money goes to high-income households whose tenure choices are barely affected by the tax policy (Fischer & Huang, 2013; Glaeser & Shapiro, 2002; Landis & McClure, 2010). As mentioned above, the MID is only available to taxpayers who itemize their deductions and, for qualified taxpayers, its value is closely related to their marginal tax rate. Most low- and middle-income households use the standard deduction because it usually exceeds or approximates their itemized deduction, whereas high-income householders tend to itemize because it benefits them. Even if lowand middle-income households itemize their taxes, the received benefits are often negligible compared to those of high-income households. Therefore, the bulk of the benefits go to the pockets of higher-income households who do not need subsidies. Conversely, households who struggle through the homeownership margin and desperately need help receive little of the assistance. The MID is Regressive

The above analysis reveals that the MID is ineffective in promoting homeownership. Many critics also raise the issue of equity—they point out that available data show that the MID is far too regressive (Fischer & Huang, 2013; Prante, 2006; Rosen, 1985). Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data from 2003 show that few low- and middle-income taxpayers benefited from the MID, while those earning over $75,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI) claimed the vast majority of deductions2 (see Table 1). According to a more recent study, homeowners with incomes above $100,000 received 77 percent of the more than $70 billion tax expenditures on the MID in 2012, while homeowners with incomes below $50,000, who face severe housing cost burdens, received only three percent of the benefits (Fisher & Huang, 2013). This study also reveals that nearly half of the homeowners who pay mortgage interest received no benefits from the MID, and only about 30 percent of eligible taxpayers actually used it.

Percentage to Income over $100k Percentage to Income under $50k

Fig. 7.2: Breakdown of Tax Expenditures on MID in 2012. source: Fisher and Huang, 2013

Prante (2006) believes that four key factors make the MID more valuable for high-income earners than low-income earners. First, as discussed above, taxpayers must itemize to claim the MID, but low-income taxpayers are less likely to itemize. Also, as itemized deductions are proportionate to the taxpayers’ tax bracket, the value of itemized deductions rises as income AGORA 8

rises. Second, high-income taxpayers are more likely than low-income taxpayers to own homes. Third, high-income homeowners tend to buy more valuable homes and thus have to pay more mortgage interest. Finally, speculators tend to earn high incomes and have a higher loanto-value ratio3 than low- and middle-income households. Whereas opponents of the MID cite these data to illustrate its regressivity, proponents believe its cost and redistributional effects are greatly overstated (Follain & Melamed, 1998; Gervais & Pandey, 2008). For example, Follain and Melamed (1998) estimate that the revenue gain from eliminating the MID in 1997 was roughly $10 billion, rather than the $40 to $50 billion estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office. Elimination of the MID will not likely affect households with the highest incomes that are Proposal

Limit on Interest Covered

Credit %

Credit for 2nd Homes

Type of Credit

Bush Tax Reform Panel

Interest on mortgages up to 125% of median price in area

Non-Refundable Owner-Claimed

Rivline-Domenici Commission

$25,000

Lended-Claimed

Bowles-Simpson Illustrative Plan

Interest on mortgage up to $500,000

Non-Refundable Owner-Claimed

Ellison Bill

Interest on mortgages up to $500,000

Yes

Non-Refundable Owner-Claimed

Viard Paper

Inerest on mortgages up to $300,000

Refundable Owner-Claimed

Fig. 7.3: Comparison of Mortgage Interest Credit Proposals Source: Fischer and Huang, 2013

considered to receive the largest amount its benefits, because such households can reshuffle their portfolios (Follain & Melamed, 1998). Proponents also argue that the MID levels the playing field between equity and debt, and thus potentially benefits the poor and young homebuyers who rely on debt to purchase houses (Gervais & Pandey, 2008; Woodward & Weicher, 1989). Woodward and Weicher (1989) promote this argument, claiming the MID accommodates the smoothing of income over time, correcting the tilt of the real payment burden of the mortgage in the beginning of the loan. While these results provide some support for the current MID policy, they do not refute its regressive nature. Even if the cost and redistributional impact of the MID are overstated, these arguments do not justify its continuation. The MID Results in Price Capitalization

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Another critique of the MID is that it leads to price capitalization, which is the increase in the price of an asset due to its increased

value caused by a subsidy or incentive. This undermines the effectiveness of the MID because it capitalizes the increased value of housing into its price. Higher home prices could offset the increased demand to own homes resulting from the MID, or even discourage housing demand by making homeownership more difficult for less well-off households that receive little or no benefit from the MID. Because those on the margin of tenure choice receive little help from the MID, price capitalization may cause the MID to negatively influence homeownership rates. The extent to which the MID increases home prices depends on the elasticity of housing supply; the effect of the MID on housing prices varies across and within regions due to differences in local housing prices, loan-to-value ratio, local income and property taxes, and the availability of new housing supply (Bourassa & Yin, 2008; Capozza, Green, & Hendershott, 1996; Hilber & Turner, 2013). While maintaining the stock of prime residential land inelastic, Capozza et al. (1996) estimate that eliminating the MID and property tax deduction4 simultaneously would reduce housing prices by two to 13 percent in 63 metropolitan areas. Bourassa and Yin (2007) estimate that, due to effects on housing prices, the MID and property tax deductions reduced the homeownership rate of urban adults between 25 and 34 years old. Hilber and Turner (2013) find that the MID had both positive and negative impacts on individual homeownership decisions, depending on the restrictiveness of land use regulations at the place of residence and the income status of the household: the MID had a positive effect on homeownership attainment for higher income groups in places with elastic housing supply, no impact on low-income households, and a negative impact on homeownership attainment in restrictive urban places. Price capitalization also demonstrates that it is better to reform or replace the MID with other alternatives than to simply eliminate it. While price capitalization certainly weakens the arguments for the MID, its elimination is risky, as it could result in a decline in home values and the potential crash of the housing market (Morrow, 2012). Some defenders use this reason to claim that existing homeowners would suffer from eliminating it, which is particularly important consideration since the U.S. housing market is still gradually recovering from the sub-prime crisis (NPR Diane Rehm Show, 2012). Conversely, opponents of the current policy believe that the current recovery makes this precisely the right time to replace it with other,

more effective policies to incentivize low- and middle-income households to become firsttime homebuyers and to serve as the potential solution to the recent foreclosure crisis. Other Critiques of the MID

This paper focuses on the relationship between the MID and homeownership, but there are a number of other critiques. Because they are tangential to my main argument, I will not go into detail, but they are worth noting. Among these, the most commonly mentioned is that the MID skews the allocation of capital across the economy by lowering taxes on owner-occupied housing investment relative to other business investments (Gale, Gruber & Stephens, 2007; Morrow, 2012). Also, Morrow (2012) argues that the MID encourages risky behaviors by incentivizing highly leveraged purchases, which led many homeowners to have high loan-to-value ratios and thus contributed to the foreclosure crisis. Moreover, the MID— usually paid out over 30 years—is insensitive to market conditions: it continues to subsidize home purchases when the market is already functioning effectively but then fails to provide timely incentives during depressed housing market conditions (Morrow, 2012). In addition, some critics accuse the MID of magnifying the impact of economic forces that lead to decentralization, disproportionally favoring homeownership in the suburbs, contributing to high concentrations of poverty in central cities, and thus discouraging the homeownership rate in these locations (Voith, 1999).

Proposals to Reform the MID The MID is problematic because it requires taxpayers to itemize deductions and its benefits increase with taxpayers’ marginal tax rate, which results in its regressive distributional effects. These challenges contribute to the policy’s ineffectiveness in promoting homeownership by limiting access and providing unequal benefits. Therefore, the simplest way to reform the MID is to replace it with a tax credit that applies to every household. Indeed, many researchers believe that a mortgage interest credit better targeted at families in need would have a modest influence on the housing market and is likely to cost less than the MID (Fischer and Huang, 2013; Morrow, 2012; Toder, Austin, Lim & Getsigner, 2010). Since the beginning of the MID debate, many alternative tax credit policies have been suggested (Carasso, 2005; Gale, Gruber, & Stephens-Davidowitz, 2007; Green & Vandell,

1999). Green and Vandell (1999) estimate that the overall homeownership rate could increase by three percent if the government replaced the mortgage interest and property tax deductions with a revenue-neutral credit of $1,173 for all homeowners. They argue that this new policy would significantly help households with an annual income of less than $40,000. Carasso et al. (2005) propose replacing the MID with a revenue-neutral, fully refundable credit equal to 1.03 percent of the first $100,000 of a home’s value. Following such a policy, they estimate that nearly 50 percent of tax units would see a tax cut. Gruber and Stephens-Davidowitz (2007) argue that a targeted tax credit—that is, a refundable first-time homebuyers credit equal to $6,000 for married couples and $3,000 for others —would more efficiently promote homeownership. These solutions would all create a more progressive system, thus addressing a major problem with the current MID. Two recent studies have evaluated and compared the effects of replacing the MID with mortgage interest credits (Fischer & Huang, 2013; Toder, Austin, Lim, & Getsinger, 2010). Toder, Austin, Lim & Getsinger (2010) use the Tax Policy Center micro-simulation model to estimate the effects of eliminating the MID, replacing it with four options that have approximately the same cost: a 20 percent, non-refundable interest credit; a 17 percent refundable interest credit; a non-refundable, 100 percent credit on the first $2,030 of mortgage interest; and a refundable, 100 percent credit on the first $1,490 of mortgage interest. Although these four options would have different consequences, they are all potentially more effective in promoting homeownership and have more even distributional effects. In other words, they would all make the tax code more progressive (Toder, Austin, Lim & Getsinger, 2010). Fischer and Huang (2013) compare five influential proposals to reform the MID, including the proposals from the Bush Tax Reform Panel, the Rivlin-Domenici Commission, the Bowles-Simpson Illustrative Plan, the Ellison Bill, and the Viard Paper (see Table 2). They concluded that “converting the deduction to a well-designed credit would be more effective in promoting homeownership while generating substantial revenues and making the tax code fairer” (Fisher & Huang, 2013, p. 6). Both of these studies have pointed out the great advantages of mortgage interest credits over the MID. While it is difficult to judge which of these alternatives is most well-designed and certainly all of them call for public deliberation, they provide some options for MID reform.

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Yan

Brad Vogelsmeier. M.U.P. 2015. “Old Toronto”. Toronto, Ontario. AGORA 8

Replacing the MID with a mortgage interest credit could give this tax policy better vertical equity; however, those who propose to completely eliminate it raise the issue of horizontal equity.5 Owner-occupants’ imputed rental income is not taxed in the United States, which lowers the after-tax cost of owneroccupied housing capital compared to that of the rental market. In fact, many find that the real tax subsidy to homeownership is not the MID or property tax deduction, but the untaxed imputed rental income (Aaron, 1972; Follain, Ling and McGill, 1993). If renters and owners are treated fairly to achieve horizontal equity, then owner-occupants’ imputed rental income should be taxed, or mortgage interest and property tax deductions should be eliminated (Green & Malpezzi, 2003). The increased burden to existing homeowners makes both choices politically contentious and extremely difficult to implement. Therefore, even though many people recognize the horizontal inequity between owners and renters, most tend to focus on the issue of vertical inequity. Moreover, the universal social norm seems to support homeownership, which means a certain amount

of homeownership subsidy is appropriate. The issue of horizontal inequity is negligible if everyone intends to become a homeowner eventually.

Conclusion While the Tax Reform Act of 1986 phased out many forms of personal interest deduction, the MID was retained as a means to promote homeownership and to preserve the part of the American Dream that homeownership symbolizes (Carliner, 1998). However, extensive studies have shown that the MID is a poorly designed policy that fails to achieve its intended incidence because rich homeowners receive the bulk of its benefits, while those on the margin of homeownership barely benefit from it. If people still consider the MID as useful for raising the homeownership rate, it is time to reconsider this ineffective yet costly tax policy and reform it. Replacing the MID with a mortgage interest credit is likely to have more progressive redistributional effects, promote homeownership more effectively, and potentially reduce federal costs and lessen the federal fiscal crisis.

Notes 1. Using 2012 as the reference year, I define low-income households as those whose annual household income is less than $50,000 (about the American median household income in 2012), middle-income households as those whose annual household income is between $50,001 and $100,000, and high-income households as those whose annual household income is more than $100,000. 2. The table shows the household income in 2003, when the median household income was $42,560; therefore households with an income above $75,000 could roughly be considered as high-income households. 3. Loan-to-value ratio is the ratio of a loan to the value of an asset purchased. In general, high-income families have a higher loan-to-value ratio than low- and middle-income families for two main reasons. The first is that they have a

better chance of borrowing money. The second is that they tend to borrow more to put their own equity into high-yield investments. 4. The property tax deduction, like the MID, is also an itemized deduction that allows homeowners to reduce their annual taxable income by the state and local property taxes paid. Together with the MID, these two deductions are the most common tax deductions for homeowners and thus are often discussed together. 5. Vertical equity implies that people with higher incomes should pay more in taxes, and tax revenues should be distributed in a progressive way. Horizontal equity implies that people at an identical income level should be treated equally (be taxed equally and receive the same amount of benefits).

References Aaron, Henry J. (1972). Shelter and Subsidies.Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. 92

Bourassa, Steven C, & Yin, Ming. (2008). Tax Deductions, Tax Credits and the Homeownership Rate of Young Urban Adults in the United States. Urban Studies, 45(5-6), 1141-1161. Brian McCabe, Despite Benefit Disparities, Middle Class Supports Mortgage Interest Deduction, N.Y. TIMES FIVETHIRTYEIGHT BLOG (July 13, 2011), http:// fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/despite-benefitdisparities-middle-class-supports-mortgage-deduction/ Yan

Capozza, Dennis R, Green, Richard K, & Hendershott, Patric H. (1996). Taxes, mortgage borrowing, and residential land prices. Economic effects of fundamental tax reform, 171-210. Carasso, Adam. (2005). Making Tax Incentives for Homeownership More Equitable and Efficient. Urban Institute, discussion paper No.21. Carliner, Michael S. (1998). Development of federal homeownership “policy”. Housing Policy Debate, 9(2), 299-321. Fischer, Will, & Huang, Chye-Ching. (2013). Mortgage Interest Deduction Is Ripe for Reform. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. <http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3948>

Follain, James R, Ling, David C, & McGill, Gary A. (1993). The preferential income tax treatment of ownerâ&#x20AC;?occupied housing: Who really benefits? Housing Policy Debate, 4(1), 1-24. Follain, James R, & Melamed, Lisa Sturman. (1998). The false messiah of tax policy: what elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction promises and a careful look at what it delivers. Journal of Housing Research, 9(2), 179-199. Gale, William, Gruber, Jonathan, & Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth. (2007). Encouraging Homeownership through the Tax Code. Tax Notes, 115(12). Gervais, Martin, & Pandey, Manish. (2008). Who Cares about Mortgage Interest Deductibility? Canadian Public Policy, 34(1), 1-23. Glaeser, Edward L, & Shapiro, Jesse M. (2002). The benefits of the home mortgage interest deduction: National Bureau of Economic Research. Green, Richard K, & Vandell, Kerry D. (1999). Giving households credit: how changes in the US tax code could promote homeownership. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 29(4), 419-444. Hanson, Andrew. (2012). Size of home, homeownership, and the mortgage interest deduction. Journal of Housing Economics, 21(3), 195-210. Hendershott, Patric H, & Shilling, James D. (1980). The Economics of Tenure Choice: 1955-79: National Bureau of Economic Research Cambridge, Mass., USA. Hilber, Christian AL, & Turner, Tracy M. (2013). The mortgage interest deduction and its impact on homeownership decisions. The review of economics and statistics. Landis, John D, & McClure, Kirk. (2010). Rethinking federal housing policy. Journal of the American planning Association, 76(3), 319-348.

Morrow, Rebecca N. (2012). Billions of Tax Dollars Spent Inflating The Housing Bubble: How and Why the Mortgage Interest Deduction Failed. Fordham J. Corp. & Fin. L., 17, 751-823. NPR Diane Rehm Show. The Mortgage Interest Deduction and The U.S. Housing Market. http://thedianerehmshow. org/shows/2012-12-10/mortgage-interestdeduction-and-ushousing-market. Dec.10, 2012. NPR. Poterba, James, & Sinai, Todd. (2008). Tax expenditures for owner-occupied Housing: Deductions for Property Taxes and mortgage interest and the exclusion of imputed rental income. The American Economic Review, 98(2), 84-89. Prante, Gerald. (2006). Who Benefits from the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction? Washington: The Tax Foundation. Rosen, Harvey S, & Rosen, Kenneth T. (1980). Federal taxes and homeownership: Evidence from time series. The Journal of Political Economy, 88(1), 59-75. Schwartz, Alex F. (2010). Housing policy in the United States. Chapter 4: Taxes and Housing: Routledge. Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2000). Economics of the public sector(third edition): Routledge. Toder, E., Austin Turner, M., Lim, K. & Getsinger, L. (2010). Reforming the Mortgage Interest Deduction. Urban Institute/ What Works Collaborative/ Tax Policy Centre. <http://www. urban.org/uploadedpdf/412099-mortgage-deduction-reform. pdf> Voith, Richard. (1999). Does the federal tax treatment of housing affect the pattern of metropolitan development? Business Review(Mar), 3-16. Woodward, Susan E, & Weicher, John C. (1989). Goring the wrong ox: A defense of the mortgage interest deduction. National Tax Journal, 42(3), 301-313.

AGORA 8

Cleared for Development

Clare Kang

Master of Architecutre 2014

Katherine Knapp

Master of Urban Planning 2014 94

Nolan Sandberg

Master of Landscape Architecture 2014

Julia Stuebing

Juris Doctor 2014

Recently planners, activists, and residents have begun asking if foreclosures have an effect on crime rates. The existence of such an effect could provide strategic guidance to community developers and organizers who are grappling with the ills of foreclosure and crime. Many community development corporations (CDCs) focus their limited resources on housing development instead of other tasks like CDCs, which has sparked debate about the proper roles of community development and organizing groups. If foreclosures and crime are linked, CDCs should develop strategies to combat foreclosure as a neighborhood safety imperative. Such strategies may take on more overt elements of community organizing and economic justice.

he Dow Sustainability Fellows Program is a result of a six year expendable gift from The Dow Chemical Company to the University of Michigan.

and mindfully about sustainability and its implications for the future, our goal was to apply our cross-disciplinary knowledge to developing solutions in Michigan.

Introduction

Our book contains three parts: first, we explored the background and interests of stakeholders in the development of the property; second, we conducted a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment simulation; and third, we examined existing development proposals and analyzed the extent to which these proposals meet the interests of stakeholders and benefit human health and the environment. Here, we present an overview of our findings. The online version of our original book is available on the University of Michigan Planet Blue website (Planet Blue University of Michigan, 2014).

A. The Opportunity

Masters and professional degree students chosen in a competitive process as fellows participate in “collaborative engagement activities and a substantial interdisciplinary team project” and receive a $20,000 stipend. In addition to participating in co-curricular activities related to the environment, Dow

“We sought to understand the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability by focusing on environmental, economic, and practical issues involved in redeveloping a ten-block Detroit neighborhood.” Fellows form interdisciplinary teams (4-6 fellows each) to draft a persuasive white paper that “develops a comprehensive stance or an analysis of options on a particular sustainability challenge of the team’s choosing, or a comparable deliverable approved in advance by the program director” (Planet Blue University of Michigan, 2014). B. Our Goal

We sought to understand the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability by focusing on environmental, economic, and practical issues involved in redeveloping a ten-block Detroit neighborhood. Studying the environmental challenges and opportunities presented by Detroit’s changing landscape responds to the Dow Sustainability Fellowship Program, which encourages interdisciplinary thinking and the consideration of diverse stakeholder perspectives. Our team is made up of University of Michigan Masters and professional students studying architecture, urban planning, law, and natural resources and the environment. For our Dow Sustainability Fellowship project, we created a book of our findings that we are sharing with stakeholders and academics in an effort to contribute to the dialogue about sustainable development and post-blight remediation in Detroit. Thinking critically

C. The Site

Our ten-block site of interest is located in Detroit’s Lower East Side. The site is bounded by Gratiot Avenue to the south, Mack Avenue to the north, Chene Street to the east, and the Eastern Market Complex and I-75 to the west. These boundaries position the site within a bleed-zone of the bustling Eastern Market and the heavily abandoned neighborhoods of the Lower East Side. A bleed-zone is the area surrounding an activity center that may benefit from proximity to the activity center but does not belong to the center. The site is not within a well-recognized neighborhood; however, it is located directly to the north of the McDougallHunt neighborhood. We chose this site because it was the first site to be cleared of blight by the newly created Detroit Blight Authority.

Methodology Our research was largely structured around the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment requirements as described in ASTM Int’l E152705, and involved reviewing records, conducting site reconnaissance, and interviewing stakeholders. Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (“ESAs”) are an essential starting point for brownfield developments. Our goal in conducting the Assessment was to illustrate redevelopment in the neighborhood and provide a springboard for stakeholders conducting Phase I ESAs in the future. The Environmental Protection Agency considers the ASTM Int’l E1527-05 document an “interim standard” for Phase I ESAs, and it is widely relied upon by practitioners.

During our site walkthrough, we inspected the outdoor area of the site. No indoor inspections AGORA 8

were conducted. To better inform our research, we asked stakeholders questions about the environmental conditions of the site and about the economic history of the area.

Findings

A. Interviews

We interviewed Detroit Blight Authority Executive Director Brian Farkas, several local stakeholders, and a national expert in sustainability. 1. Clearing Blight

In February 2013, the Detroit Blight Authority (DBA) razed eight residential structures and two church buildings. The DBA’s priority was public safety, including the risk of fires in abandoned buildings. We interviewed Mr. Farkas to learn more about the DBA’s approach to blight remediation. He claimed that crime has decreased in the areas where they have worked. The DBA first found out who had legal title to the land, and then had neighbors sign a right of entry. In addition to razing structural blight such as abandoned houses and churches, the DBA cleared non-structural blight, such as brush. “If you can’t see between blocks, then its prime for illegal dumping,” said Mr. Farkas. The DBA, which has marketed itself as being cheaper and better for development than past efforts to clear blight, clusters its activity in order to bring down the marginal cost of all of its activities. It had initially considered cutting costs by not removing basements. However, after learning that the practice was not commonly used, the DBA ultimately removed the basements as well. The areas where the home foundations once stood are now filled with soil. “The last thing we want to do is create an environmental hazard that’s going to come back and bite us and our partners,” said Mr. Farkas. According to its website, the DBA’s major benefactors include the Skillman Foundation, DTE Energy Foundation, Marjorie S. Fisher Fund, Ajax Paving, Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA), and Rock Ventures LLC (Detroit Blight Authority, March 3, 2014). With this impressive list of partners in mind, Mr. Farkas noted, “We’re not looking to cut corners.”

Kang, Knapp, Sandberg, and Steubing

Mr. Farkas made it clear that the DBA’s scope is limited to blight elimination, and that it does not have broader development ambitions. Mr. Farkas explained, “our goal is to keep our heads down, and stay in our lane.” The DBA aims to “eliminate blight in the shortest amount of time, at lowest cost possible, without endangering

public health or public safety.” When asked about the DBA’s long-term goals for the site, Mr. Farkas said “It’s up to the people in the neighborhood as to the long-term use of the land; they have a stake in it.” 2. Stakeholder Interests

We interviewed stakeholders, including many nearby business owners and the Director of School and Community Partnerships at the adjacent school. We attempted to reach additional stakeholders, including residents, city personnel, and the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, but they were unavailable. Our analysis of stakeholder interests is therefore incomplete and additional research is needed. The unavailability of these parties presents a challenge to any development plan going forward. Stakeholders that we did reach, glad to see blight cleared from the site, have identified three major interests with respect to development of the newly cleared ten-block area: bringing people into the neighborhood, assurance that the area will be kept up, and infrastructure. Certain business owners also identified specific needs for parking or access for commercial vehicles. Bringing people and businesses into the area is a major interest, as the area has been deteriorating in part due to the loss of local businesses. “Gratiot is supposed to be the gateway to downtown,” said Gary Corsi, owner of People’s Restaurant Equipment Company, which has been in operation for nearly 100 years (Corsi, 2013). “You could pretty much find anything you want on Gratiot, when things were good,” said Mr. Corsi (Corsi, 2013). Current business owners suggested that a housing development or big box stores might help increase commercial activity. They cited a Meijer superstore that recently moved into a different part of Detroit as a model. “If more people would come down here, then a lot of business would come back,” said Mr. Corsi. Frank Germack, owner of Germack Pistachio Co., which began in 1924, agreed that first and foremost the area needs to be used (Germack , 2013). Stakeholders want the site to be kept up. Several business owners stated that the neighborhood is relatively safe and that they have not experienced security issues. Still, people agree that clearing the brush and high weeds would make the area safer. “That’s a chance for people to throw garbage, throw tires away,” said Mr. Corsi (Corsi, 2013). Therefore, maintenance is needed. Specific ideas that accomplish this end, in addition to the proposals already mentioned,

include an athletic complex for Detroit Edison Public School Academy, farming, and livestock grazing. To realize its dream for a new “gateway to the Eastern Market,” Detroit Edison Public School Academy has been working with the Eastern Market Corporation, the City of Detroit, and community partners, including Greening of Detroit and RecoveryPark (Garvin, 2013). RecoveryPark was interested in expanding its farm plans to the area. However, it is no longer pursuing that option because the area is so sought-after. No specific proposals for livestock were mentioned. Infrastructure was another commonly mentioned concern. Stakeholders also mentioned improved lighting, sidewalk repairs, trash pick up, and data lines. Jim Pellerito, owner of Pellerito Foods, Inc., noted that while there is lighting in the Eastern Market area, the surrounding blocks lack sufficient streetlight (Pellerito, 2013). “That’s been a complaint all along,” said Mr. Pellerito. Frank Germack described getting quality service and data lines into the area as “a tricky time,” and that better service would be helpful (Germack, 2013).

Dan Carmody, the President of the Eastern Market Corporation, said that, except for the strip along Gratiot Street and Mack Avenue, the area has been mostly residential property. He did not know of any environmental incidents on the site. We spoke with Jim Pellerito, of Pellerito Foods, Inc., which is located at 2000 Mack Avenue, Detroit. That property was formerly a gas station, and as a result of a suspected oil spill, Pellerito Foods, Inc. has completed a Phase I and a Phase II investigation. Pellerito Foods, Inc. did not share the degree of the environmental contamination found.

3. Environmental Interests

We also asked the stakeholders about environmental conditions on the site as part of our Phase I Assessment. Notably, certain potentially important sources—one of the few remaining residents and various local government officials—did not respond to our e-mails and telephone calls. Mr. Farkas of the DBA said that the site was previously used for illegal dumping of tires, debris, mattresses, couches, and chairs. He said that the DBA first cleared non-structural blight, including the illegally dumped materials and brush, but brush is currently growing back on the land. After removing non-structural blight, the DBA removed structural blight, meaning the eight residential structures and two churches. Mr. Farkas said that the DBA removed all of the debris from demolition and removed the basements as well, filling them with soil. Mr. Farkas commented that the roads in the area are in decent condition, and that the site is connected to gas, electric, water, and sewage. Germack Pistachio Company, Inc. owns several empty parcels on the site, on Wilkins Street and on Watkins Street. Mr. Germack observed the City raze some houses in the 10-block area over time—perhaps in 2002-2003. Based on common construction practices at the time they were originally built, those houses may have contained lead paint or asbestos.

We spoke with Nancy Garvin, Director of School and Community Partnerships at Detroit Edison Public School Academy, which is located adjacent to the site. According to Ms. Garvin the area was previously a wholesale district, and the school was a tomato-ripening warehouse. When landscaping for the school began, building materials such as bricks were uncovered and carried away. The high school was previously Stroh’s Original Hops. Brownfield testing was conducted and tax credits were obtained. In the course of the testing, some contamination was found at the back corner of the property, which was remediated. Prior to being a wholesale district, the area was a sheep farm, so the soil

Fig. 8.1. Looking Downtown from Area of Study, Katherine Knapp. Fig. 8.2. Existing Landscape, Katherine Knapp.

AGORA 8

was in excellent condition. The former location of the Fredrick Douglass School may be of concern because it was stripped of its pipes and contained standing water. Additional off-the-record comments made during our interviews suggested that the types of businesses formerly located in the area may have included an incinerator and a truck repair garage. 4. Economic and Environmental Interests Aligned

Academics around the state are studying environmental sustainability in great detail. Dr. Rick Foster, Co-Director of MetroFood at Michigan State University, set out a framework of three elements to talk about land use in Detroit: food production, energy production, and a return to nature through the creating green spaces (Foster, 2013). â&#x20AC;&#x153;I also think of green spaces in an economic sense,â&#x20AC;? said Dr. Foster. Dr. Foster cited a goal of reducing the supply of homes to increase home value, which is one way to increase family wealth. B. Records Review

We reviewed records to learn about the environmental history of the area. The types of structures or businesses that existed on the site may give hints as to the potential environmental conditions that exist today. As a part of this process, we reviewed Sanborn fire insurance maps, aerial photos, and land title records; we also conducted our own reconnaissance of the site. 1. Fire Insurance Maps

We reviewed Sanborn fire insurance maps dating from as far back as 1884. The 1897 map shows the land use before the full-scale industrialization process took over most of Detroit. A basket factory and a cigar factory were located within the site, and labeled as industrial land uses. More recently, our site was mainly used as a residential area, and St. Aubin Street and Wilkins Street functioned as the dividing lines between the industrial land use and the residential land use. However, within the residential blocks on our site, there were several auto repair shops and fuel storage spaces, which may present environmental hazards.

Far Right, Fig. 8.3. Site Reconnaissance, Katherine Knapp. .

In addition the history of the site, we reviewed the Sanborn maps to learn about its surroundings. Due to the transboundary nature of environmental conditions, a hazard on a neighboring parcel could potentially affect air, water, or soil quality on our site. According

to the most recent Sanborn map from 1951, numerous coal yards were located along the railways on Dequindre. These coal storage yards present a high possibility of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination in the soil and the groundwater. 2. Aerial Photographs

We surveyed aerial photos from 1949 to 2013, and observed the rise and fall of the site. The density of houses in the neighborhood was closely correlated with the development and decline of railway transportation nearby. The Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks are visible in the aerial photos from 1949 to 1961, and from the aerial photo of 1999, the tracks are obliterated from the surface. The current location of the Detroit Edison Public School Academy was once the termination point of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks, and likely one of the more highly contaminated areas in the neighborhood. As the industry along the railway continued to decline, a drastic change in the residential blocks began. In the 1999 aerial photo, more than 50% of existing houses were demolished. By 2010, almost all of the houses in the neighborhood had disappeared from the map. Also notable is the fact that City Recycling Inc., a scrap metal recycler and processor, is located diagonally across the street from the site, and it used to be a Julius Knack Coal Company coal yard. 3. Land Title Records

Most of the site is currently owned by private individuals or their estates, churches, and the City. According to LOVELAND Technologies, started in 2011 to track the Wayne County Foreclosure Action, taxes have not been paid on sixteen of the 306 properties on the site, a little over five percent of the total properties. C. Site Reconnaissance

We visited and inventoried the site in accordance with the Phase I requirements. While conducting the inventory, we looked for possible clues to environmental conditions and potential concerns. Specifically, we recorded the inhabitation of homes as they appeared from the street, as well as the conditions of nonmotorized infrastructure. Through this process, we made first hand observations and identified what exists on the site today, including possible environmental concerns. Not all of the experiences from the site visit can be accurately

Kang, Knapp, Sandberg, and Steubing

continued on page 111

AGORA 8

STRATEGIC DEMOLITION Construction of Blight Matthew Story

Master of Architecture 2014 As noted in Cleared for Development, the Detroit Blight Authority is emerging as an important actor in blight remediation in Detroit. This inset takes a close, critical look at the organization’s larger current efforts across the city.

In February 2013 the Detroit Blight Authority (DBA), a privately funded not-for-profit group, altered the City of Detroit’s normal script of demolition. Bill Pulte IV, grandson of the largest homebuilder in the United States, William Pulte of Pulte Homes, founded the organization. The DBA stepped into a role that it calls “total blight removal,” a role that it believes the city is unable to fulfill. Blight is neither a monolithic nor specific condition; rather blight has broad and nebulous cultural and legal definitions ranging from structural degradation to property-upkeep problems specified in Detroit City Ordinances, such as long grass and inappropriately low birdfeeders. Therefore, that blight and its removal or remediation are contested territory. Within the contested territory of blight, the DBA undertakes blight removal “blitzes,” removing vegetation, trash. The DBA touts a 50% cost savings, spending from $5,000 to $10,000 per structure, by leveraging multiblock sites and having a retired Army logician with experience in Iraq and post-Katrina New Orleans run the operation (AlHajal, 2013). With powerful institutional allies such as Governor Snyder, Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans, the Mayor’s Office, the Skillman Foundation, DTE Energy, and Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP as partners, the DBA has privatized blight removal. The DBA secures a “Right to Enter” contract from home and land owners and uses its connections and logistical expertise to consolidate approvals, permits, and utility shut-offs in a target area (Zillman, 2013). This process differs from city demolitions, which are sporadic and involve difficulties in gaining permission to act on non-city owned property. The DBA does not explicitly state how it chooses sites, though its partnership indicates that the city plays a significant advisory role in the DBA’s choices. With sanction from the city, Bill Pulte speaks about deploying the DBA demolition model throughout the city to an unclear number of “blighted” buildings, somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 depending on the source (Muller, 2013).

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Author Story

In February 2013, the DBA conducted a 10-day pilot project on a 10-block site near Eastern Market on the East Side of Detroit. The project consisted of non-structural blight removal on

218 parcels and removal of eight residential structures and two commercial structures that are owned by the city (Pinho, 2013). The DBA initiated this project secretly, choosing not to inform residents near the site of its activities. Mayor Bing withheld comment until a joint press conference with the Pultes, underscoring the city’s connection with the DBA (Burns, 2013). The East Side demolition site is located in “Recovery Park,” a priority area for the city marked for future large-scale urban agriculture. The city is likely interested in this site due to its proximity to Eastern Market and its ability to connect Midtown and Downtown with the Dequindre Cut and the riverfront. (Beshouri, 2013b) This demolition site, in conjunction with the city’s September 2013 demolition of the neighboring vacant the Brewster-Douglass Homes, demonstrates the city’s emphasis on clearing a perimeter around Eastern Market. In June 2013, the DBA began its second removal project on a 14-block stretch in the Brightmoor neighborhood. Over four weeks, contractors and residents removed a self-reported 70,000 lbs of trash, 200 tires, 14 boats, and one dead body from 500 parcels on over 98 acres. The clean-up cost was $500,000, and 70 vacant structures remain on the site (Reindl, 2013b) The privatization of large-scale demolition and private enactment of public policy are the most unsettling and easily apprehended critiques of DBA. City-driven mass demolition and clearing of land would immediately generate an outspoken critique; however, when the same operation is undertaken by non-state agents like the DBA, critique and opportunities for public recourse are notably absent. It is important to extend the critique beyond the initial trauma and spectacle of demolition to the future trajectory of city. Yet the media representation of the DBA’s demolitions has been extremely positive compared to its narratives of the city’s demolitions. City demolitions lack the spectacle of mass “blight removal” and do not signify “progress” in the same way. In a media climate that portrays Detroit as inept and out of money, the privately funded DBA is touted as exactly what the city needs. Bill Pulte IV, at only 25, has become a media darling. He is the only visible figure and the primary voice speaking about the demolitions. A counter-narrative about the DBA does not exist, even though the secrecy surrounding the East Side demolition signaled a lack of democratic imperatives.

If this is indeed the model, future possible sites could include the areas surrounding University of Detroit Mercy, Marygrove University, the Northend, Morningside/East English Village, Jefferson-Chalmers, and Southwest Detroit in accordance with the city’s focus areas (Detroit Hardest Hit Fund Strategic Plan, 2013). These neighborhoods are targeted not for growth or development like Midtown and Downtown, but rather for “stabilization,” a code for retaining property values. Neighborhoods perceived to have detrimental effects on property values are the focus areas undergoing stabilization and being targeted for “blight removal.” The DBA sees Brightmoor as an effective site to test large-scale clearence. Brightmoor is located directly west of Grandmont-Rosedale, a designated priority area by Detroit Future Cities and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP3). The city, therefore, might be directing the DBA to do large-scale clearance as urban triage around the high-priority area of Grandmont-Rosedale in order to stabilize property values. The DBA has not articulated what happens to the cleared land once it serves its purpose in stabilizing adjacent neighborhoods. Since the DBA is not acquiring the land for development, the cleared land, considered a territorial drain on value around the city’s focus neighborhoods, would serve as an economic shield for land with stabilized property values. This strategy follows the city’s narrative of shrinking, or “right-sizing,” the city. Neighborhoods that are peripheral to focus areas are becoming useful to the city as “alternative use” areas. The city desires deurbanization rather than growth, so that the potential for displacement of residents is not from rising property values but rather ruralization. The cleared land, newly deurbanized and rendered unbuildable by current demolition practices, will be given over to what the Detroit Future City Plan calls alternative uses such as green or

blue infrastructure, green spaces, and lowlying lakes and ponds, respectively. These interventions effectively formalize and infrastructuralize a zone of neutral value around retained neighborhoods. The language of infrastructure, not solely its performance as infrastructure, capitalizes on the monopoly of rational corrective measures that is found in engineering and thus instrumentalizes the landscape through dominant development narratives. When the state uses the term infrastructure, it imbues a project with the power of science, rationality, and universal ambition. Yet, in the case of these future infrastructural interventions in Detroit, “infrastructure” is the transformation of poor neighborhoods into parks. This reinforces the property values of the surrounded neighborhood and replaces underserved neighborhoods with non-urban amenities that serve stable neighborhoods. Yet skepticism is less welcome when the demolition of abandoned, vacant, and destroyed houses is praised by the community leaders (those who adhere to development narratives), generates (temporary) jobs, and is done thus far without expending any public resources. The clearing of vegetation and garbage is difficult to argue against, even if the removal is an act of governance mediated through neo-liberal divestment of the state (i.e., authority no longer rests in the public realm, but in the hands of the private DBA). The “scorched earth” physical manifestations of the DBA’s demolitions should be enough to heighten the senses to detect camouflaged practices, even in the absence of direct evidence of destructive consequences. It is this absence of definitive evidence, the immediacy of the DBA’s actions, and the lack of historical distance that produces an instrumental anxiety. This anxiety of the self confronts our dispositions, skepticisms, and blind spots with blight in order to hold governing practices accountable.

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displayed in diagrams and photographs. For example, in walking through the site, multiple bicyclists and motorists waved and smiled to the team. While such experiences do not lend themselves to the Phase I assessment, they do encourage further exploration of social investments in the area. D. Phase I Environmental Site Assessment

We simulated a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) based on the scope and limitations of ASTM practice E 1527-05. We simulated a Phase I ESA for educational purposes only; because we are students and

on a property under conditions that indicate an existing release, a past release, or a material threat of a release of any hazardous substances or petroleum products into structures on the property or into the ground, ground water, or surface water of the property. The term includes hazardous substances or petroleum products even under conditions in compliance with laws. The term is not intended to include de minimis conditions that generally do not present a threat to human health or the environment and that generally would not be the subject of an enforcement action if brought to the attention of appropriate governmental agencies. Conditions determined to be de minimis are not recognized environmental conditions. (ASTM International, 2005).

Based on their potential to be harmful to human health, we found that RECs were present on the site, including abandoned houses, brick and asphalt alleys or driveways, and litter. Additional information from the City or other sources is needed about historic demolition practices on the site. If, for example, the houses historically contained asbestos and lead paint, and if the debris was left in the soil on site, the soil could be contaminated. In that scenario, cleanup may be required. Based on our findings, we recommended that a Phase II Site Investigation be completed with soil borings, soil samplings, temporary monitoring wells, and water sampling. The blighted houses should be torn down or contained so that they do not pose a risk to the site. This recommendation, of course, is based on our simulated Phase I ESA only. An official Phase I ESA needs to be conducted to determine if a Phase II ESA is in fact necessary. E. Engineering Controls

Fig. 8.4. Site Reconnaissance, Katherine Knapp. Fig. 8.5. Site Reconnaissance, Katherine Knapp.

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not environmental professionals, thus we are not qualified to perform an official Phase I ESA. Therefore, we made clear that our report should not be relied on as a legal document or otherwise evidence of the status of the site. This assessment has revealed evidence of Recognized Environmental Conditions (RECs) in connection with the Property. RECs are defined by ASTM Intâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;l E 1527-05 as: The presence or likely presence of any hazardous substances or petroleum products

Kang, Knapp, Sandberg, and Steubing

Engineering controls refer to physical modifications to the site to reduce or eliminate the potential for exposure to hazardous substances or petroleum products in the soil or ground water on the property (for example, capping, slurry walls, point of use water treatment). We studied the engineering controls for the site. The majority of the ten-block area has been residential for as long as we were able to determine. Therefore we concentrated our research on the potential hazards for residential sites. The contaminant of largest concern for former residential properties is lead. The high presence of lead in residential properties is due to the prevalence of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline used in

G. Development Opportunities 1. Detroit Future City Framework

DFC is a landmark planning framework that provides a long-term vision and sets forth ambitious goals for the City of Detroit, with generous attention to the current context and community input. In the midst of the City’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, DFC’s visions for the future seem ever more groundbreaking. While it may not be implemented immediately, it is valuable because it illustrates goals and visions that the community has for its future. For this project the DFC was extremely beneficial in that it showed what environmental, social, and economic concerns should be analyzed when planning for the future of the site.

The site is included in an area designated for Renewal and Maintenance over the next 20 years. This designation is set for: Service Level: Core service level at the same or better quality Actions: Fully maintain and renew at current level or upgrade if required Outcomes: Visible neighborhood with same or increased capacity. (Detroit Works Project, 2013, 175-176). The neighborhood east of the site is recommended to undergo Replace, Repurpose, or Decommission. Under this recommendation the city systems, such as water, sewer, and transportation systems will be removed or used for another purpose (Detroit Works Project, 2013). Because the site is on the boundary of

The DFC focuses on five topics for future development in Detroit: City Systems, Economic Growth, Land Use, Neighborhoods, and Public Land are considered (Detroit Works Project 2013). When we looked into the implications of each of these topics for our site, we discovered that the site’s future is not clearly determined within the DFC. As mentioned above, the site is situated in an interesting bleed zone of the Eastern Market anchor and the heavily abandoned lower-east side neighborhoods. Therefore, without creative, persistent advocacy and planning, it could easily miss the redevelopment and reinvestment opportunities present in the Eastern Market anchor (Detroit

“...without creative, persistent advocacy and planning, it could easily miss the redevelopment and reinvestment opportunities present in the Eastern Market anchor.” Works Project 2013, 174-177). Our study may be able to assist in determining the future of the site within the context of the DFC, as it will assist in determining the development potential of the site within the goals for City Systems. The City Systems chapter of the DFC lays out a design for Detroit to transform its landscape into the backbone for 21st Century Infrastructure. The DFC sees strategic reinvestment in Detroit’s infrastructure as essential to meeting the needs of current citizens and promoting growth in Detroit

the Eastern Market zone, if the site is found to be economically, socially, and environmentally positioned for redevelopment, it can easily be included within the investments targeted for the East Market zone. On the other hand, if the site is not well positioned, then it could be pulled into the Lower East Side Neighborhood zone. While neither zone is “good” or “bad”, they do envision drastically different futures for the site.

Fig. 8.6. Plan of Existing Infrastructure, Nolan Sandberg.

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2. Brownfield Opportunity

A developer of the property may benefit from the Brownfield Redevelopment Program administered by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. Under Michigan’s Public Act 381 of 1996, developers of contaminated, blighted, or functionally obsolete properties may be eligible for Tax Increment Financing reimbursement AGORA 8

for environmental and non-environmental activities. We did not encounter Brownfield proposals in the existing plans that we reviewed, but it may be a useful opportunity for future developers. To qualify for the program, a site must be a “facility” as defined by the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act.

Environmental Quality, 2006). This includes parcels that are “adjacent or contiguous to” a site where their development would increase the captured taxable value of the site (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, 2006). H. Development Challenges

Obtaining title, communicating among stakeholders, and funding are challenges to development of the site (see infra, Section III, Part A). In order to develop the property, a developer will need to obtain title to the entire area. However, parties have encountered difficulty determining who has title to each of the lots. Communication and combating misinformation is another challenge in the development process, creating a need for education. A developer may benefit by educating stakeholders about proposals in order to garner support and meet the various interests. Finally, funding will be needed for any developer that goes forward with the project. Many stakeholders have expressed concern that the City of Detroit may lack the capacity to support development with infrastructure improvements, due to its lack of funds and preoccupation with the current bankruptcy proceedings.

Looking Forward: Existing Plans We reviewed three existing proposals for the site. As reference materials, we also studied several proposals that address revitalization in other parts of Detroit. To get a better idea of what the proposals for the site would look like, our team created artist renderings of each plan. A. The Bloody Run Creek Greenway Redevelopment Project: Pond Confluence

Detroit Collaborative Design Center Partners: The Kresge Foundation; McCormack Baron Salazar; NTH Consultants, Ltd.; Adi Shamir; The Mannik & Smith Group, Inc.; Urban Resource Alliance; Zachary & Associates, Inc.; Wladek Fuchs

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Fig. 8.7, 8.8, and 8.9. Existing Site Plan Proposals: Pond Confluence, Greenhouses, and Soccer Fields, Nolan Sandberg.

Kang, Knapp, Sandberg, and Steubing

It also has to be a “property for which eligible activities are identified under a brownfield plan that was used or is currently used for commercial, industrial, public, or residential purposes, including personal property located on the property, to the extent included in the brownfield plan” (Michigan Department of

The Bloody Run Creek Greenway Redevelopment Project plan called for 3,500 acres of redevelopment throughout the area to address stormwater management and leverage private investment in many areas including renewable energy, food production, housing, retail, and historic preservation. The first pass of this plan included the daylighting of the Bloody Run Creek with the confluence of the two legs of the creek creating a central pond situated right on top of our site. Daylighting refers to the opening of a waterway that was previously

covered due to human activity, such as a road. This pond would serve as a central detention basin for the entire area, but also as a gathering space for events and activities. Surrounding the pond would be sustainable community housing with a walkable center near Gratiot. There would be large tracts of photovoltaics and wind turbines to power the development.

C. The City’s Plan: Soccer Fields

City of Detroit Due to its proximity to the Edison Public School Academy, the City of Detroit has identified the

After testing, it was determined that the creek was too contaminated to unearth, and a second plan developed by Mannik & Smith, which called for a reduced development of 725 acres. Instead of daylighting the creek, the plan references the creek by recycling stormwater runoff into a stream system. This would be a seasonal water system and the water would be directed along manmade canals to the same central pond, where it would be pumped back into the beginning of the stream system. The pumps would be run by the renewable energy systems, and when urban agriculture is established, irrigation water could be diverted to these areas. B. RecoveryPark Plan: Greenhouses

Mannik & Smith Group RecoveryPark Plan, developed by Mannik & Smith focuses on 32 acres of land directly north of our site. The plan emphasizes agriculture as well as aquaculture (fish farming). It is a plan for food production, but still fulfills the water management goals of other plans. In exchange for public easements in the corridor between Chene and St. Aubin streets, RecoveryPark would create detention ponds on each block. These ponds would be fed by stormwater runoff through site re-grading of the surrounding area. Surrounding the ponds would be a series of greenhouses that could be connected to irrigation water drawn from the ponds. With these ponds, over two million gallons of water can be diverted from the city’s stormwater system, thus promoting on-site stormwater quantity control and reducing the demand on the city’s stormwater system during storm events. In addition to the greenhouses, aquaculture tanks would be built to farm over five million pounds of fish annually. Food processing facilities would be set up for every 100 acres of land, and the Chene Ferry market building would be redeveloped and reopened to sell the produce and fish.

site as an excellent location for sports fields. Detroit Edison Public School Academy has already obtained a $250,000 grant in order to begin exploring a plan to build athletic fields on the site, and it is partnering with the Eastern Market Corporation and potentially other community partners (Garvin, 2013). Because of this, Mannick & Smith has restricted the

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Fig. 8.10, 8.11, and 8.12. Renderings of Existing Site Proposals, Nolan Sandberg.

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RecoveryPark plan to make room for the series of well-maintained sports fields adjacent to the school.

Evaluation We evaluated how well these plans address the economic and environmental interests that we identified in our report. Economic interests include bringing people into the neighborhood, leveraging proximity to the Eastern Market District, improving infrastructure, and making sure that the area will be maintained, which is tied closely to an environmental interest in eliminating illegal dumping. Additionally, an environmental interest is addressing lead that may potentially be located in the soil or groundwater through phytoremediation or through capping and sealing. The Bloody Run Creek Greenway Redevelopment Project may be a strong enough attraction to bring people into the neighborhood and provide additional recreation space to programmed activities in the Eastern Market District. A pond development could function as a relaxing and recreation center for visitors, workers, and neighbors visiting the Eastern Market. After getting locally produced gelato at the Market, a young family could take their treats to the pond for the afternoon. The fact that housing is included in this plan increases the likelihood that infrastructure would be improved—including repaired sidewalks and roads and the neighborhood might get more attention from utilities providers. There is a risk, however, that the pond could become a target for illegal dumping and might require a great deal of upkeep. We need to find out who would be responsible for maintaining the pond. Would the City mow the grass around the pond? What would the neighborhood be responsible for? There is also the issue of lead. If unsafe amounts

of lead are present in the soil and groundwater, research would be needed to find out whether and how the lead can be either remediated or contained from contaminating the pond. RecoveryPark and the City Plan are achievable simultaneously, so we evaluated them together. RecoveryPark and the athletic fields would likely draw people to work and play or watch games, respectively. In order to build the soccer fields, the impaired sidewalks and crumbling alleyways would need to be removed. The soccer fields may also provide incentive for the City or the school to install new streetlights in the area. The area will likely be kept up by the school, and therefore less likely to become a target for illegal dumping. The site’s safety and maintenance would benefit from school programming on weekdays and from local recreation leagues during the weekends. Beneath the athletic fields, potential lead in the soil and groundwater could be addressed through capping and sealing. In RecoveryPark, in addition to capping and sealing, phytoremediation may also be possible. In conclusion, while the existing plans appear to serve certain environmental and infrastructural interests that we identified, there is more to learn about the site and the proposals. The environmental conditions of the site have not yet been fully explored. Moving forward, planners and developers should work with the Department of Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environment on demolition, site plans and zoning. Additionally, there are considerations outside the scope of our report that merit attention by developers, such as efforts to create opportunities that engage the site’s residents and neighbors. One such method may be by leveraging existing relationships between local business owners and community leaders and residents.

Acknowledgments We are grateful for the support of the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program, and in particular Greg Bond of The Dow Chemical Company and the University of Michigan Graham Institute. We thank the following individuals for their time, knowledge, and kindness: Dan Carmody, Eastern Market Corporation; Gary Corsi, People’s Restaurant Equipment Company, Inc.; Charles Cross, Detroit-Mercy University; Rick

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Foster, Professor at Michigan State University; Nancy Garvin, Detroit Edison Public School Academy; Frank Germack, Germack Pistachio Co.; Eric Grosinger, Kaps Wholesale; Jessica Kanalos, Detroit Economic Growth Corporation; Kit McCullough, University of Michigan; Jim Pellerito, Pellerito Foods, Inc.; Virginia Stanard, Detroit-Mercy University; and Gary Wozniak, RecoveryPark.

References ASTM International. (2005). E 1527. City of Detroit. (n.d.) City of Detroit. Detroit city code, chapter 61 Corsi, G. (2013, October 11). Interview by J Stuebing. Interview with owner of People’s Restaurant Equipment Company, Inc. Detroit Blight Authority. (n.d.) Learn more. Retrieved from http://www.blightauthority.com Detroit Works Project. (2012). Detroit future city plan. Retrieved from City of Detroit website: http://detroitworksproject.com/ the-framework/ Detroit Works Project. (2012). Detroit future city plan: city systems. Retrieved from City of Detroit website: http:// detroitworksproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ DFC_Plan_City-Systems.pdf Foster, R. (2013, September 5). Interview by J Stuebing. Interview with Co-Director of Metro Food, Michigan State University. Garvin, N. (2013, November 25). Interview by J Stuebing. Interview with Director of School and Community Partnerships at Detroit Edison Public School Academy. Germack, F. (2013, October 17). Interview by J Stuebing. Interview with owner of Germack Pistachio Co. Goldowitz, I. S., & Goldowitz, G. (2006). Phytoremediation of lead-contaminated soil in the urban residential environment using seed mustard. Contaminated Soils, Sediments, and Water, 10(1007), 271-276.

Jae-Min, L., Salido, A., & Butcher, D.J. (2004). Phytoremediation of lead using Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) with EDTA and electrodics, Microchemical Journal, 76(10), 3-9. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, (2006). Frequently asked questions of the department of environmental quality about the brownfield redevelopment financing act 1996 pa 381. Retrieved from website: http://www.cityofnovi.org/resources/ Library/Minutes/Council/2007/AgendaPacket070604s/ Frequently Asked Questions.pdf Michigan State University College of Engineering. (2002, August 14). Technical outreach services for communities. Retrieved from http://www.egr.msu.edu/tosc/dutchboy/ factsheets/What is capping.pdf. Planet Blue University of Michigan. (2014). Cleared for Development. Retrieved from http://sustainability.umich.edu/ media/files/dow/Dow-Cleared-For-Development.pdf Planet Blue University of Michigan. (2014). Masters & professional degree fellowships. Retrieved from http:// sustainability.umich.edu/education/dow/masters Pellerito, J. (2013, October 10). Interview by J Stuebing. Interview with owner of Pellerito Foods, Inc.

References for Strategic Demolition AlHajal, K. (2013, February 15). Detroit Blight Authority cuts costs of demolition nearly in half as it looks to clean up the city. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from m live: http://www. mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2013/02/detroit_blight_ authority_cuts.html Beshouri, P. (2013, February 1). Confusingly Cleared. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Curbed:Detroit: http://detroit.curbed. com/archives/2013/02/confusingly-cleared.php Beshouri, P. (2013, February 14). ‘Detroit Blight Authority’ to Revolutionize and Privatize the City’s Demolition. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Curbed: Detroit: http://detroit. curbed.com/archives/2013/02/detroit-blight-authority-torevolutionizeprivatize-detroits-demolition.php

Lewis, M. (2013, October 29). On the Ground: Clearing blight, uncovering assets in Brightmoor. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from model D: http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/ ontheground102913.aspx Melchior, J. K. (2013, March 6). Balling Blight in Detroit: A new private-public partnership succeeds where government has failed. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from National Review Online: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/342267/ battling-blight-detroit-jillian-kay-melchior?splash= Muller, J. (2013, October 9). Bill Pulte: From Home Builder to Detroit’s Unlikely Blight Buster. Retrieved from Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/10/09/billpulte-detroits-unlikely-blight-buster/

Beshouri, P. (2013, August 21). Fourteen Brightmoor Blocks Saved From Blight and Brush. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Curbed: Detroit: http://detroit.curbed.com/ archives/2013/08/fourteen-brightmoor-blocks-saved-fromblight-and-brush.php#reader_comments

Pinho, K. (2013, February 21). Pulte leads nonprofit Detroit Blight Authority to clear city of vacant buildings. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Crain’s Detroit Business: http://www. crainsdetroit.com/article/20130214/NEWS/130219920/pulteleads-nonprofit-detroit-blight-authority-to-clear-city-of#

Bloomberg News. (2013, May 30). Detroit’s survival depends on destruction of housing, grassroots leaders say. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Crain’s Detroit Business: http://www. crainsdetroit.com/article/20130530/NEWS01/130539995

Reindl, J. (2013, July 1). One of Detroit’s largest private blightcleanup blitzes gets under way in Brightmoor. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep. com/article/20130701/NEWS01/307010121/

Burns, G. (2013, February 2). Mysterious land clearing underway in Detroit; Bing’s offic tight-lipped. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from m live: http://www.mlive.com/news/ detroit/index.ssf/2013/02/mysterious_land_clearing_under. html

Reindl, J. (2013, July 7). Young Bill Pulte sees a future in fighting Detroit Blight. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep.com/article/20130707/ BUSINESS06/307070057/

Carey, N. (2013, July 25). Detroit area’s battle with blight may be key to survival. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/25/us-usa-detroitblight-idUSBRE96O02T20130725 Detroit Land Band Authority. (2013, September). Detroit Hardest Hit Fund Strategic Plan. Detroit Michigan: City of Detroit.

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The Long Term Planning Steering Committee. (2012). Detroit Future City: Detroit Strategic Framework Plan. Detroit: City of Detroit. Retrieved April 2013, from http://detroitworksproject. com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/The-DFC-Plan.pdf Zillman, C. (2013, July). Cleanup crew: Honigman Miller lawyer takes a lead role in a nonoprofit’s innovative drive to clear Detoirt’s abandoned lots. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from The American Lawyer: http://clairezillman.com/?p=184

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Joseph Chemello. MArch. 2014. “Detroit Far Away”. Detroit, MI. AGORA 8

Securing Neighborhoods Foreclosure, Crime, and CDC Responses

Andrew Goddeeris

Master of Urban Planning Juris Doctor

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Recently planners, activists, and residents have begun asking if foreclosures have an effect on crime rates. The existence of such an effect could provide strategic guidance to community developers and organizers who are grappling with the ills of foreclosure and crime. Many community development corporations (CDCs) focus their limited resources on housing development instead of other tasks like CDCs, which has sparked debate about the proper roles of community development and organizing groups. The question is if there is a link between foreclosures and crime that should compel CDCs to develop strategies to combat foreclosure as a neighborhood safety imperative.

s foreclosures mount in neighborhoods across the country and homes stand vacant and often abandoned, city planners, activists, and residents have begun asking if these foreclosures have an effect on crime rates that demands attention (Jaffe, 2012). The existence of such an effect could provide strategic guidance to community developers and organizers who are grappling with the ills of foreclosure and crime. Since the 1960s, many community development corporations (CDCs) have focused their limited resources on housing development instead of other tasks like community organizing and economic

“... nevertheless considerable evidence of at least some modest relationship that makes both short- and long-term intervention worthwhile.”

term intervention worthwhile. Foreclosure is a socioeconomic condition that leads to physical abandonment, crime can have dramatic effects on people’s physical and mental well-being. Many urban neighborhoods are currently facing high rates of both. CDCs need to understand these conditions and their relationships in order to effectively serve their communities. In general, because of the unproven causal the effects of foreclosure on crime rates, CDCs currently pursuing a housing developmentcentric mission should not dramatically overhaul their operations. Rather, such CDCs should think about ways in which they can improve neighborhood safety through physical housing development while also supporting longer-term organizing efforts aimed at larger structural issues of justice and equity.

What is a Community Development Corporation?

development (Stoecker, 1997; Bratt, 1997, Keating, 1997). The idea of moving beyond housing has sparked debate regarding the critical role of community development and organizing groups (Krumholz, 2012). This is not to imply that CDCs are myopically focused on housing development and unconcerned with neighborhood safety, because the two have deeply intertwined root causes and spur similar strategic actions. Instead, this paper looks at the possible link between foreclosures and crime and considers whether or not explicitly attempting to prevent foreclosures through strategies aimed at underlying social, economic, and political conditions could have a measurable effect on the common goal of promoting safer, healthier communities. This paper explores the traditional roles of CDCs and the invisible link between housing foreclosures and crime. Despite the lack of definitive evidence to support this link, the paper argues that CDCs can and should begin to gradually and strategically shift their priorities and reallocate their resources to address underlying social, economic, and political conditions. Finally, using the Grandmont Rosdale Development Corporate as a case study, the paper provides recommendations for CDCs looking to make the shift.

Beginning in the 1960s, community activists and stakeholders began forming CDCs with the goals of revitalizing low-income communities, promoting economic enterprise, and asserting more local control over development (Vidal, 1996). They were often founded with an explicit focus serving on communities of color and promoting more socially just living conditions, neighborhoods, and development processes (Vidal, 1996). Many CDCs grew out of neighborhood organizing and protests against urban renewal development that threatened to gut low-income communities, usually of color (Vidal, 1996). By the 1980s, though, significant declines in federal funding for these organizations, coupled with an increase in the availability of funding from corporate and philanthropic sources, led new CDCS to shift their focus towards housing issues (Vidal, 1996). There are concerns that CDCs cannot effectively fight against economic disadvantage and political marginalization while relying on funding from organizations–corporations, foundations, even government–that frequently build and perpetuate those very conditions (Bratt, 1997). While many CDCs today continue to focus on community building and organizing, the vast majority are involved in creating affordable housing with small staffs, limited financial resources, and in an environment that promotes competition rather than cooperation between organizations (Vidal, 1996).

Although relevant literature does not definitively demonstrate that foreclosures have a causal relationship with crime, there is nevertheless considerable evidence of at least some modest relationship that makes both short- and long-

Given the necessary financial resources, technical knowledge, and organizational capacity, CDCs in areas with high foreclosure rates can and do acquire foreclosed homes and redevelop them in an attempt at neighborhood

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stabilization and blight reduction, without any specific intent to combat crime. If the link between foreclosures and crime is strong enough, however, CDCs must consider a preventative approach that shifts some limited resources from housing development to also strike at the roots of the foreclosure crisis–for example, by providing foreclosure counseling, lobbying for fairer lending practices, promoting job creation, or organizing community power to stand up to banks. If foreclosures and crime are linked, CDCs should develop neighborhood stabilization strategies that attempt to prevent foreclosures in addition to remedying their effects. Such efforts may take on more overt elements of community organizing and economic justice, if the CDCs are not already engaged in such practices. Although this paper necessarily makes generalizations about the missions and functions of CDCs, I recognize that there is great variation across organizations and regions in how they operate. The research and recommendations that follow are geared towards a hypothetical CDC that concentrates its resources on housing development and vacant structure rehabilitation in the interest of stabilizing and improving the neighborhoods it serves. In this case, the CDC does not explicitly treat foreclosure prevention as a strategy for promoting safety and stability. These recommendations will also have varying degrees of efficacy across neighborhoods facing different foreclosure conditions. A single CDC operating in a neighborhood with high foreclosure and crime rates will have less ability to influence neighborhood safety conditions with its policies than a CDC operating in an area with only moderate crime and a more manageable number of foreclosures. The analysis and recommendations that follow are targeted at CDCs operating in neighborhoods where the foreclosure rate, while perhaps not necessarily “manageable,” is such that a single CDC could reasonably have a meaningful effect on neighborhood stability and safety through its policies. That is not to imply that high-crime, high-foreclosure neighborhoods should be subject to triage, but rather that such an intervention may require a degree of human capital, political support, and financial resources that is beyond the capacity of a single CDC.

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Grandmont Rosedale, Detroit and the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation The Grandmont Rosedale communities in Northwest Detroit are relatively stable but still in danger of transition due to the foreclosure crisis. According to a neighborhood profile compiled in 2012 by Data Driven Detroit, from 2000 to 2010, they experienced a 7.9% drop in occupied housing units but suffered less than the rest of Detroit, which saw a 19.9% decrease. 83% of homes in 2010 were owner-occupied, down from 90% in 2000, but this rate outpaces Detroit as a whole, where only 51.1% of units are owneroccupied. The condition of the housing stock is generally significantly better than that of the city as a whole, made up almost exclusively of single-family detached dwellings. Violent crime, property crime, drug offenses, and vandalism are all increasingly important issues, but the rates of their incidence in Grandmont Rosedale are significantly below those of the city as whole (Data Driven Detroit, 2012). The neighborhood is served by the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation (GRDC), a CDC that focuses, among other things, on both vacant home renovations and neighborhood safety. Now in its 25th year, GRDC has renovated and sold 85 formerly vacant homes, constructed and sold three new housing units, and is currently rehabbing another 11 homes (Tom Goddeeris, personal communication, February 14, 2014). In addition, GRDC has provided financial assistance to 140 low-income homeowners for home repairs and renovations and operates a vacant property maintenance task force (See Figure1). GRDC also operates a community safety task forces made up of neighbors and staff, who coordinate efforts to reduce crime. GRDC is a model for the CDC this paper envisions as the target of its recommendations–a CDC that operates housing development and community safety initiatives in the service of neighborhood stabilization, but does not explicitly concentrate on foreclosure prevention as a community safety tool.

Research on Foreclosure and Crime A review of the existing research does not provide a definitive answer to whether or not there is a link between foreclosure and crime, and is murkier still on the question of causality. Studies have been conducted in different cities using different variables, models, and data. Some studies found a link between foreclosure

and total crime (Ellen, Lacoe, and Sharygin, 2013; Teasdale, Clark, and Hinkle, 2012; Stucky, Ottensmann, and Payton, 2012), some found a link with violent crime only (Immergluck and Smith, 2006; Cui, 2010), some found little to no link at all (Katz, Wallace, and Hedberg, 2013; Kirk and Hyra, 2012), and one found that results should vary between different cities (Baumer, Wolff, and Arnio, 2012). Possible explanations for such a link include the way in which vacant buildings lend themselves to criminal activity, the way foreclosures send signals to criminals, and the way physical and social disorder erode social control in neighborhoods.

blockface, but the effect was smaller than that for a foreclosure on the same blockface (p. 67). The effects of foreclosure on total crime were also larger in police precincts with moderate and high levels of crime (p. 67). In general, researchers have been unable to definitively determine causalityâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;elevated crime might trigger defaults by lowering property values or localized distress might be causing both foreclosures and crime (p. 61). A number of other researchers have found some link between increased foreclosure activity and increased crime rates. Teasdale, Clark, and Hinkle found that across a variety of crime

Dan Immergluck and Geoff Smith first examined the potential link between foreclosures and crime in a 2006 study in Chicago. Controlling for demographic and neighborhood factors, they found that the foreclosure rate was a statistically significant determinant of violent crime, but not property crime (Immergluck and Smith, 2006, p. 862). An increase in the foreclosure rate of one per 100 owner-occupied properties yielded a 2.33% increase in violent crime, with a full standard deviation increase in the foreclosure rate of 2.88 per 100, yielding an increase of 6.7% (p. 862). While the effect on property crime was not statistically significant, the relationship was positive, which they surmised might be due to unreported property crimes on vacant properties and under-reported property crimes in lowincome areas (p. 863). Ellen, Lacoe, and Sharygin compared changes in crime levels on blockfaces in New York City experiencing an increase in foreclosure activity to changes in crime levels on blockfaces that were not experiencing increased foreclosures located in the same census tract (Ellen et al., 2013, p. 62). They studied the effects of both active foreclosures and properties headed to the foreclosure auction. They found that one additional active foreclosure was associated with a 0.7% increase in total crime, a 1.4% increase in violent crime, and a 0.7% increase in public order crimes on a blockface (p. 65). An additional property headed to auction was associated with a 1.4% increase in total crime, a 2.6% increase in violent crimes, and a 2.6% increase in public order crimes (p. 65). These results contained some important qualifications. Foreclosure activity appeared linked to subsequent crime only when there had been three or more foreclosure notices issued on a blockface (p. 68). A foreclosure on an adjacent blockface was observed to have a significant, positive association with crime on a

types, foreclosures had significant and positive effects on crime in Akron, Ohio census tracts (Teasdale et al., 2012). For every foreclosure they found a 2-3% increase in crimeâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;that is, a typical Census tract experienced 40% more crime than it would have in the absence of foreclosure (p. 174). Cui found that on average in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, violent crime within 250 feet of foreclosed homes increased by more than 15% once the foreclosed home became vacant, while the initiation of foreclosure proceedings itself had no effect (Cui, 2010, p. 23). These effects were similar but less precise for property crime, indicating that the impact of foreclosures may

Fig.9.1 and 9.2: Before and After Repair

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depend on the stage of the foreclosure process (p. 23). Katz, Wallace, and Hedberg studied foreclosures in Glendale, Arizona and found that they had modest short-term effects on crime rates (Katz et al., 2013). They observed that in the first month following an increase in foreclosure, crime increased, but in subsequent months crime decreased and stabilized (p. 380). Stucky, Ottensmann, and Payton studied Indianapolis and found that foreclosures were a statistically significant predictor of a wide range of crimes, including violent crime, but the effect was greater in neighborhoods with higher percentages of owner-occupied housing units and residential stability (Stucky et al., 2012).

different cities (p. 593). For robberies, they found that foreclosure and crime were more strongly related in cities with low overall foreclosure rates and relatively high socioeconomic disadvantage (p. 593). They found a stronger association between foreclosure and burglary, especially in cities with aging housing stock and shrinking police forces (p. 593). Their key contribution was that it is misleading to draw strong conclusions about the effects of foreclosures on crime from a single city, and that the broader city context appears to influence the strength of the link.

In 2012 Kirk and Hyra pushed back against a growing body of research suggesting a connection between foreclosures and crime, positing that there were reasons to suspect that the relationships between foreclosure and crime was spurious, and that both were a result of deeper structural issues (Kirk and Hyra, 2012). Looking at large neighborhood areas in Chicago after the subprime mortgage meltdown, they concluded that rising foreclosures did not coincide with any measurable increase in crime, even in areas with concentrated foreclosures (p. 665). They concluded that residential instability, community disadvantage, and the relative political influence of a community are much more important predictors of crime (p. 664). Kirk and Hyra argue that historic disinvestment in minority urban communities–communities particularly hard hit by the foreclosure crisis– fundamentally shapes the internal community conditions that influence the prevalence of crime (p. 654). Furthermore, they argue that the political influence of a community is an important determinant of the ability to secure public goods like police patrols, and after they controlled for historic disadvantage and political influence, the effect of foreclosures on crime was nil (p. 661). Kirk and Hyra strongly advocate looking beyond what they see as a surface-level connection between foreclosure and crime to address deeper structural issues of economic justice that shape urban communities.

As demonstrated above, no research has definitively confirmed that increased foreclosures have a positive effect on crime rates, or that foreclosures cause increases in crime. However, many researchers have observed relationships between additional foreclosures and increased crime, and the most prevalent hypotheses on these relationships are useful for community developers and organizers grappling with neighborhood change and stabilization efforts.

In a study that they hoped would make sense of the myriad conclusions of researchers before them, Baumer, Wolff, and Arnio (2012) examined post-meltdown foreclosures and burglaries and robberies in subsequent years across 50 different U.S. cities. Like Kirk and Hyra, they found no significant association between neighborhood foreclosures and robbery when controlling for neighborhood conditions on a national level, but noted that their findings indicated that there was great variability in this result across

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Possible Effects of Foreclosures on Crime Rates

A common consequence of foreclosure is that a property becomes vacant. Such vacant property is theorized to facilitate crime, where squatting, drug activity, and prostitution may find a natural shelter (Spelman, 1993). Vacant buildings themselves become targets for property crime, like scrapping. Furthermore, the physical deterioration that accompanies a foreclosure may signal to potential criminals that residents are less invested in the block, which can embolden criminals (Harcourt and Ludwig, 2006). The longer a property sits vacant, therefore, the more opportunity it presents for criminal activity. Indeed, this notion was supported by some of the studies detailed above (e.g., Ellen et al., 2013, Cui, 2010). Routine criminal activity theory provides another possible explanation for how foreclosures affect crime. Foreclosures potentially change the costs and benefits of committing a crime by affecting the number of suitable targets and changing the number of perceived “capable guardians”–monitors of public spaces in neighborhoods–against crime (Ellen et al., 2013, p. 61). Criminals see physical deterioration and vacancy and calculate that there are not only fewer people on the block, but also that the remaining people may not have their eyes on the street. Foreclosures also reduce the number of “capable guardians” as households in homes going through the

foreclosure process may withdraw socially from the neighborhood, either due to stress, embarrassment, or a diminished sense of territoriality that accompanies a potential move out (Ellen et al., 2013, p. 61). This translates not only to more opportunity for property crime, but also to shelters for activities like drug and alcohol abuse that are related to violent crime (Baumer et al., 2012, p. 580). This notion is supported by the research detailed above. Disorganization theory also helps explain how foreclosures may result in increased crime. Vacant and abandoned buildings can be considered a component of the physical disorder of a neighborhood, which can undermine the ways in which communities keep social control (Skogan, 1990). The theory argues that physical disorder encourages residents to withdraw from public social interactions and social control efforts–creating social disorder–which results in unguarded areas in neighborhoods where crime can more freely take place (Baumer et al., 2012, p. 579). In addition, as conditions deteriorate and residents move out, remaining residents lose some of their ability to recognize outsiders and informal social controls lose their efficacy (Katz et al., 2013, 363). Physical and social disorganization are thought to reduce the availability of informal social control mechanisms, which limits a community’s ability to address the crime problems associated with foreclosure (Taylor, 2009).

Room for Intervention While the link debate continues overhead, the key questions for CDCs and community organizers on the ground are what opportunities for short- and long-term interventions exist, where do they exist, and who will facilitate them? In general, CDCs currently pursuing a housing development-centric mission should think about ways in which they can improve neighborhood safety through physical housing development interventions while supporting longer-term organizing efforts aimed at larger structural issues of justice and equity. There can be little doubt that vacant structures are bad for communities, and CDCs and community groups can attack this problem in a number of ways (Ellen et al., 2013, Cui, 2010, Immergluck and Smith, 2006). Loan modifications can help keep people in their homes and prevent a vacancy (Cui, 2010). GRDC, for example, takes the financing issue a step further. It provides down-payment assistance to homebuyers purchasing its renovated homes and works with a community-based lender to provide fairer finance terms. If a property

becomes vacant, CDCs and neighborhood groups can perform basic maintenance to guard against inviting vandalism, arson, and other criminal behavior. GRDC, for its part, operates a task force of concerned neighbors that monitors foreclosures, maintains the appearance of occupancy by planting flowers and mowing lawns, and boards up vacant homes. CDCs should endeavor to purchase as many foreclosed properties in their neighborhoods as possible to avoid the unfortunate result that a speculator purchases the property and sits on it or the property reverts back to the government, which then fails to maintain it. Pursuing a policy of purchasing foreclosed homes for resale is limited, obviously, by the amount of funding CDCs secure, and this is just one piece of what effective organizations must take on. CDCs can work with local governments to establish, revamp, or consolidate land banks that have the capacity to absorb foreclosures and put the structures and land to productive use. CDCs can also work with local governments to identify structures that require demolition and to work to align neighborhood and city priorities. Just as clustered investment can benefit a neighborhood, studies show that higher concentrations of foreclosure reveal links to crime. Ellen et al. specifically suggest that foreclosures are linked to criminal activity only when three or more foreclosures have occurred on a block, and that those crime rate effects are most significant on that block itself, rather than on adjacent blocks (Schuetz, Been, Ellen, 2008; Ellen et al., 2013, p. 59). CDCs should comprehensively track foreclosures in their neighborhoods and monitor these thresholds in order to better target limited resources. Perhaps a CDC has only enough capital to purchase and renovate two foreclosed homes–targeting that capital so that one block remains vacancy free might be preferable to purchasing two foreclosures on a block with ten. GRDC, for its part, monitors foreclosures in Grandmont Rosedale closely in large part to make more forceful appeals to funding. sources about the importance of shoring up housing stock and avoiding neighborhood decline tipping points. In addition to these physical interventions, CDCs should encourage the formation of block clubs and neighborhood associations that promote social interaction and a sense of investment in the community. Such organizations steel the resolve of residents in the face of decline. Promoting a sense of community and putting more eyes on the street may help guard against disorganization and create new “capable guardians” where others

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have disappeared. CDCs can provide technical support to such groups, even if it is simply in the form of meeting space or printing capabilities. GRDC is largely meeting this challenge and is a critical institution in its community. GRDC operates a neighborhood farmers’ market and community garden, organizes community beautification projects, works closely with the neighborhood associations that organize block clubs, and gives access to its office space to community groups. Rather than totally abandoning the notion of community organizing, as Stoecker (1997, p. 11) advocates, CDCs should align their development policies in ways that support extant and ongoing organizing efforts, and should lend resources and expertise to these organizing groups where possible. CDCs should allow community organizing groups to take the lead on initiatives and think critically about the extent to which they are–and by extension, their outside capital is–driving decision-making. This is necessary to avoid what Stoecker worries could amount to a disorganization of the community via the demands outside capital places on CDCs (Stoecker, 1997, p. 12). While foreclosure and crime can never truly be ameliorated without a concerted effort to address structural issues of economic justice and marginalization, a community-driven planning process with a long-term focus, as Stoecker envisions, appears feasible (Stoecker, 1997, p. 14). Building a sense of community and enhancing political power while linking immediate concerns about foreclosure and crime to long-term goals of justice and equity is wholly desirable. Stoecker’s insistence that CDCs stay away from organizing efforts and focus on housing development seems to rest on overstated, generalized fears that the people running CDCs are either ignorant about their relation to capital, uninterested in economic justice, or otherwise lack the capacity to deal with issues of power and influence. Given the housing landscape and the destabilization of many urban neighborhoods, CDCs should focus primarily on physical development. However, there is significant room for them to participate in long-term, justice-oriented organizing that should not be ignored at the risk of turning away valuable technical, financial, and human resources. A community-driven organizing process that decides establishing a land bank is a good way to promote affordable housing and remove speculators from the community could benefit tremendously from a CDCs knowledge of how land banking works, its technical ability to raise funds for property acquisition, and

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its capacity to connect organizers with the necessary lawyers and government officials to bring such a plan to fruition. CDCs can also capitalize on their political connections to local government and stakeholders to advocate for policing reforms in their areas. Community policing has shown great promise in reducing property crimes, as police and residents foster greater communication and trust, and CDCs could advocate for tactical reforms in their neighborhoods (Anderson, 2013). In addition, CDCs and neighborhood groups can marshall resources and resident involvement to provide security services that augment city protections, e.g. radio patrols or private security contractors. GRDC is, in this arena too, making strides to use its political clout to improve neighborhood safety. The neighborhoods were selected for a community policing pilot project, and GRDC is leading a charge to create a special assessment district that would allow residents to pay an extra tax to support an increased police presence. All of these strategies are feasible steps that CDCs can take in concert with neighborhood groups to critically address the potential effects of foreclosures on crime while not waylaying a CDC’s mission of housing development.

Discussion and Conclusions The research points to a possible contextspecific connection between foreclosure and certain kinds of crime, but causation is difficult to pinpoint, and the strength of the evidence does not compel CDCs to overhaul their operations in a dramatic fashion. However, this does not imply that CDCs cannot also pair their physical development aims with communityorganizing efforts that promote equity and justice to more comprehensively address foreclosure and crime in their neighborhoods– on the contrary, they should. I do not necessarily suggest that CDCs take on community organizing actions that jeopardize their funding sources or access to power. Part of what makes many CDCs valuable to the neighborhoods they operate in is precisely their access to capital and local decision-makers, and precisely that they are providing needed housing options where traditional developers would not build. But such a reality should force a reassessment of the mission and strategy of the organization, to ensure that if a CDC is committed to improving neighborhood safety in addition to housing development, that it align itself with partners in the community that allow it to serve this larger movement for economic justice and community power.

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Foreclosures appear to be most damaging to community security in that they often result in vacant buildings that harbor crime and destroy the social networks keeping neighborhoods safe. CDCs can utilize their physical development strengths to ameliorate the problems of vacancyby encouraging aesthetic and functional improvements that maintain an appearance of occupancy, purchasing foreclosed and vacant homes to keep ownership local, promoting land banks, and monitoring thresholds and targeting resources geographically. Furthermore, CDCs can support the creation and technical

capacity of community groups dedicated to monitoring vacancy and promoting safety, work with lenders for fairer financing terms and loan modifications, lobby politically for resources, and maintains a vigilant focus on whether or not their actions are supporting broader efforts to make structural, socially just change. By focusing on physical development while critically engaging in community-driven organizing processes, CDCs can open multiple fronts in the campaign to secure the future of their neighborhoods.

References Anderson, E. “Detroit to expand community policing program after decline in home invasions.” Detroit Free Press. June 27, 2013. http://www.freep.com/article/20130627/ NEWS01/306270096/ Baumer, E.P., Wolff, K.T., Arnio, A.N., 2012. A Multicity Analysis of Foreclosure and Crime. Social Science Quarterly, 93(3), 577-601. Bratt, R., 1997. CDCs: Contributions Outweight Contradictions. a Reply to Randy Stoecker. Journal of Urban Affairs, 19(1), 23-28. Cui, L., 2010. Foreclosure, Vacancy and Crime. Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh. Data Drive Detroit. Data Profile of Grandmont Rosedale, Detroit, MI. April 2012. Draft. Ellen, I.G., Lacoe, J., Sharygin, C.A., 2013. Do foreclosures cause crime? Journal of Urban Economics, 74 (2013), 59-70. Harcourt, B.E., Ludwig, J., 2006. Broken windows: new evidence from New York City and a five-city social experiment. University of Chicago Law Review, 73, 271– 320. Immergluck, D., Smith, G., 2006. The impact of single-family mortgage foreclosures on neighborhood crime. Housing Studies, 21(6), 851–866. Jaffe, E. “Do Foreclosures Increase Crime After All?” The Atlantic Cities. November 7, 2012. http://www.theatlanticcities. com/housing/2012/11/do-foreclosures-increase-crime-afterall/3828/ Katz, C.M., Wallace, D., Hedberg, E.C., 2011. A longitudinal assessment of the impact of foreclosure on neighborhood crime. Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency, 2011, 1–31. Keating, W.D., 1997. The CDC Model of Urban Development, a Reply to Randy Stoecker. Journal of Urban Affairs, 19(1), 29-33.

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Kirk, D.S., Hyra, D.S., 2012. Home Foreclosures and Community Crime: Causal or Spurious Association? Social Science Quarterly, 93(3), 648–670. Krumholz, N. and Hexter, K. (2012). Re-Thinking the Future of Cleveland’s Neighborhood Developers: Interim Report. Cleveland State University. Schuetz, J., Been, V., Ellen, I.G., 2008. Neighborhood effects of concentrated mortgage foreclosures. Journal of Housing Economics , 17(4), 306–319. Skogan, W., 1990. Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods (Berkeley: University of California Press). Spelman, W., 1993. Abandoned buildings: magnets for crime? Journal of Criminal Justice, 21, 481–495. Stoecker, R. 1997. The CDC Model of Urban Redevelopment: A Critique and an Alternative. Journal of Urban Affairs, 19(1), 1-22. Stucky, T.D., Ottensmann, J.R., Payton, S.B., 2012. The Effect of Foreclosures on Crime in Indianapolis, 2003-2008. Social Science Quarterly, 93(3), 603-624. Taylor, R. 2009. ‘‘Potential Models for Understanding Crime Impacts of High or Increasing Unoccupancy Rates in Unexpected Places, and how to Prevent them.’’ Presented at the National Institute of Justice meeting on home foreclosures and crime, Washington DC, March 31-April 1, 2009. Teasdale, B., Clark, L.M., Hinkle, J., 2012. Subprime Lending Foreclosures, Crime, and Neighborhood Disorganization: Beyond Internal Dynamics. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 37, 163-178. Vidal, A.C. 1996. CDC’s as Agents of Neighborhood Change: The State of the Art. In W.D. Keating, N. Krumholz, & P. Star (Eds.), Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods (149-163). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

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Narratives in Urban Theory

Napong Tao Rugkhapan

Doctoral Pre-Candidate in Urban and Regional Planning

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This article traces three phases urban theory: descriptive urban theory, Marxist urban theory, and postcolonial urban theory. It argues that these three types of urban writings do not only differ thematically from, but also critique directly the phase of theory that precedes them. While the descriptive theory of the Chicago School is interested in studying then-new features of urban life, the political-economy paradigm of the Marxist urban theorists argues for a structural analysis of urbanism, pointing to the role of capital accumulation vis-a-vis the production of urban space. Most recently, postcolonial urban theory argues against the political-economy paradigm and its structuralist tendency to theorize world cities in terms of economic-financial relations at the expense of other aspects of urbanism. The article concludes by reviewing the usefulness and limits of writing urban theory around a theme.

f the purpose of a theory is to enable us to understand the world, and to provide an informed explanation, urban theory is tasked with helping us make sense of the urban world in a more helpful way than we would without it. The term ‘urban’ in urban theory not only serves to distinguish itself from the rural, regional, or national; but is also an academic burden. In calling a theory urban, we expect it to provide insights into framing our urban problems. It is in this manner that a theory defines what it explains. However, this relationship is unsettled when the former fails to adequately capture, or worse yet, misrepresents the latter. Urban life is diverse, disparate, and constantly evolving. The urban world is not a whole, coherent monolith. So why should urban theory be? This article traces three phases of urban theory as they strive to explain the changing urban world around them: descriptive urban theory, Marxist urban theory, and postcolonial urban theory. These three types of urban writings not only differ in their focus on a particular aspect of the city, but also critique directly the sets of urban theories that precede them. While the descriptive theory of the Chicago School studies new features of industrial urban life at the turn of the twentieth century, the political-economy paradigm of the Marxist urban theorists champions a structuralist analysis of urbanism, pointing to the role of capital accumulation vis-a-vis the production of urban space. Most recently, postcolonial urban theory argues against the political-economy paradigm and its structuralist obsession because it sees world cities in terms of economic-financial relations, at the expense of theorizing other aspects of urbanism. The article concludes by reviewing the usefulness and limits of writing urban theory around certain narratives. I argue that urban theorists should encourage the constant pluralizing of accounts, to makes urban theory fuller and more attuned to the ever changing conditions of our urban experience.

Descriptive Urban Theory Writings on the urban conditions at the turn of the twentieth century, as exemplified by the works of Engels and Tonnies, documented the effects of the parallel processes of industrialization and urbanization. That is, these scholars are interested in the new urban experience and conditions associated with the industrializing city. Ferdinand Engels (1845) provides a literary account that captures the essence of urban life when industrialization in England was in full swing. Although cities

dates back to antiquity, the industrial city that Engels documents was a hitherto unprecedented experience. Spending two years treading the congested streets of English towns, Engels documented the debasing conditions of the working class in the mid-nineteenth century that belied the country’s grandeur. His detailed narrative gives a dramatic description of people’s clothing, food, and deteriorating domestic spaces that were “fit only for the accommodation of cattle” (Henderson, 1976, p. 318). If the pioneering work of Engels provides an ethnography of life in industrial urbanism, Tonnies’ seminal work, Community and Society, points to a dramatic shift in social organization. Written at the end of the nineteenth century amidst intense commercial exchange and the rise of modern bureaucracy, Tonnies distinguishes Gemeinschaft, a folk society, from Gesellschaft, a modern city, and posits the trajectory on which modern society progresses from the former towards the latter (Tonnies, 1887). To him, the modern city is a manifestation of Gesellschaft, where the money economy prevails and personal ties weaken. Unlike Engels who devotes his attention almost exclusively to the living conditions of the urban working class, Tonnies speaks about the coming of a new mode of social organization. This societal transformation affected every urban dweller alike. The money economy, bureaucracy, and the increasing differentiation between professional life and folk life, are among the many new conditions. Whether or not Engels and Tonnies viewed themselves as theorists and their accounts as theory, their writings attempt to capture the zeitgeist, the spirit and essence, of a new age. A group of sociologists at the University of Chicago produced similar works in the early decades of the twentieth century. These writers were interested not only in documenting the new urban life, but also in empirically studying its patterns and effects. If Engels’ concern was to document physical deterioration resulting from industrialization, the Chicago School sought to answer how the new urban life mentally and socially affected the urban population. 121

In addition to observing and documenting of the industrial urban society, the Chicago School theorists are distinct from the precedent writers in their focus on the connections between spatial patterns and social outcomes. For example, Burgess (1925) attributes traits of promiscuity and vice to the proximity to sources of those traits. He argues that districts closer to AGORA 8

these sites tend to contain more promiscuous acts. Motivated by the study of organisms in biological sciences, Burgess then argues that, as the city expands, it also allows for the dwellers to move about the city and interact with people from different backgrounds. Residential mobility from one area to another, Burgess argues, leads to social disorganization and eventually ‘confuse and demoralize’ a person as the new city lacks the primary social ties and control of preindustrial cities (Burgess, 1925: 79). Similarly, Wirth’s influential essay ‘Urbanism as a way of life’ (1930) explores the relationships between the physical and ecological components of the city, such as population size, density, and heterogeneity, and their impacts on social bonds and kinships. Like Burgess, he attributes urban problems, e.g. schizoid personalities and loss of primary ties, to the spatial characteristics of population distributions. That is, as the urban resident comes to live in a denser, more heterogenous environment, contacts with other people affect his mental and social life. The Chicago School’s focus on taking stock of new features and patterns of urban society drew criticism from later theorists. The criticisms come from two fronts. First, the Chicago School researchers assign a deterministic connection between spatial patterns and social outcomes, suggesting one’s urban environment is a definitive predictor of certain behaviors. Second, they provide a simple description of the new urban life as differentiated from the old traditional life without identifying a deep structural force that underpins them. Dismissing Wirth’s theory of urbanism, Herbert Gans (1968) argues that social demographics such as social class, race, and ethnicity, rather than size, density, and heterogeneity, have more determinant influence on urban behavior. He then points out that Wirth’s exclusive focus on the urban leaves the suburban unexplained, and argues that suburbanism, just as urbanism, is a way of life. Claude Fischer (1976) suggests that ‘urban factors’ such as density do not necessarily create ‘negative urban effects’ like the demoralized, blasé personality; in fact, close spatial proximity can generate a wide variety of subcultural groups and their creative expressions. Overall, while empirically grounded and commendable for pioneering the field of urban studies and planning, the Chicago School’s research projects are flawed. They fail to establish strict relationships between differentiation of social groups in urban space on the one hand, and social order, differentiated urban culture, and urban mental life, on the other.

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Second, the Chicago School assumes the objectivity and neutrality of place and space and presents a linear approach to describing urban issues. Instead of simply recounting urban problems, we should provide a deeper analysis of structures and processes that underlie urbanization. In describing new urban conditions and enumerating their features, the Chicago School operates on a paradigm that creates a simplified dichotomy between the preindustrial, homogenous, orderly, Gemeinschaft-like town, on the one hand, and the industrial, heterogenous, fragmented city on the other. What results is an account thrilled and excited by the unprecedented features of industrial urbanism, one that analyzes form at the expense of formation. This tendency is exemplified in Burgess’ predictive concentric model of urban form, Wirth’s study of socially differentiated neighborhoods, and Robert Park’s treatment of urbanism as a form of human ecology in which units are functionally related. The Chicago School “substituted description of the novel features of urban existence for a sustained analysis that could situate the new

While a call for a so-called postmodern urban theory may not be new or original, it should not be treated as a tired, hackneyed cry, for it has yet to be canonized in the repertoire of what we call ‘urban theory’. industrial city within a larger process of social change” (Halpern, 1997). In other words, these descriptive urban persuasions shy away from the historical process that gives rise to the new urban form in the first place.

Marxist Urban Theory Marxist sociologist Manuel Castells critiques the Chicago School researchers for their deterministic assumptions about urbanization and urban problems. Castells (2002) argues against the view that urbanization is a natural process and that urbanization leads to a certain urban culture. He dismisses their argument that the ‘urban problem’ results from urban life. What are framed as urban problems e.g. crime, poverty, or civil unrest, he argues, are in fact biases that stem from environmental determinism theories of the Chicago School, which view urban space as a determinant

of behavior and culture. In a more sustained critique than those put forth by Gans and Fischer, Castells demystifies each of the professed links between behavior patterns and spatial contexts. He argues that we cannot readily observe urban behavior at the individual residential unit, because the notion of an urban unit is arbitrary and cannot be artificially drawn. Then, unlike the propositions of the Chicago School, the city cannot be divided into discrete spatial units where each is self-contained and has its own culture. A particular spatial form does not independently create, nor do they correspond to, a social structure (Castells, 2002, p. 56-67). Rather than an explanation of the links between behavior patterns and ecological context, a connection whose causality is hard to establish, Castells calls for an explanation of historical urbanization processes that takes into account the linkages between economic processes and spatial structures. Castells dismisses the Chicago School as pervasice ‘ideology’ and argues that it stigmatizes ‘urban problems’ by ignoring the underlying social relationships and conflicts that cause these them in the first place. In order to move beyond the ideological problematic of ‘urbanization’, he asks: “What is the process of social production of the spatial forms of a society?” and “What are the relations between the space constituted and the structural transformation of a society” (Castells, 2002, p.31). In this sense, Castells conceptualizes urbanism and urbanization on a different plane than Chicago School theorists. He focuses on urbanization as a long historical process involving society’s economic classes, rather than urbanization as a predictor of behavioral symptoms. However, David Harvey develops a systematic Marxist urban theory. He directly engages Marxism with urban theory by bringing together Marx’s otherwise scattered writings on space and capital. If the central themes of the Chicago School are the description of new urban conditions and their effects on social life. Marxist urban theory deals with spatialgeographical dimensions and manifestations of what Harvey calls the “twin themes of capital accumulation and class struggle” (Harvey, 2001, p. 88). That is, while the themes of capital accumulation and class struggle run clearly throughout his writings, Marx is more focused on their time dimensions (e.g. his prediction of the eventual social revolution) and is less explicit about how they take place in space and the built environment. Harvey draws out the ‘space’ from Marx’s theory by

advancing spatial processes and consequences of capital accumulation, such as geographical expansion, uneven urban development, and the obsolete built environment. For now, Harvey’s spatial dimension of capital accumulation helps move urban theory beyond describing the urban experience to engaging with the structural dynamics that shape the urban built environment. While the Chicago School asks: ‘How is the city urban?’, Harvey asks: ‘How is the city capitalist, rather than just urban?’ (Parker, 2003). If we believe, following Harvey, that the city is not just urban, but also the site of capitalist production, we have to explain how and why the capitalist production of space is a determinant of urbanism. Harvey looks at Marx’s writings on capital accumulation and interprets how it plays out in space. To this end, Harvey presents four Marxian spatial theories: the theory of accumulation, the theory of location, the theory of imperialism, and the theory of the state (Harvey, 2001, pp. 239-278). The theory of accumulation argues that crises are endemic to the capitalist accumulation process because the capitalist system tends to overaccumulate. Capitalists constantly avoid overaccumulation by reinvesting surplus. The theory of location explains that, since there are costs inherent in produced goods not immediately entering the marketplace and finding a willing buyer, an imperative arises to shorten distances, or to ‘annihilate space by time’. This can be achieved through advances in transportation or agglomeration. The theory of imperialism argues that capitalist states will expand their capitalist activity abroad in order to avoid crises of accumulation at home. Lastly, the theory of the state explains how, in capitalist societies, the state must perform certain basic tasks to facilitate a capitalist mode of production, e.g. enforcing property rights, creating a common value such as currency, and providing public goods and infrastructure. The four Marxian explanations are encapsulated in the concept of the ‘spatial fix’, which refers to geographical expansion as a way to reinvest surplus in order to avoid the crisis of overaccumulation. Harvey’s Marxist analysis of urbanism helps explain the city as a site of production and accumulation, rather than the city as a site of coexisting neighborhoods. Urbanization can now be viewed as a form of spatial fix. The built environment, Harvey argues, can be and is used to absorb the surplus of capital accumulation in the forms of buildings, infrastructure, and landscape. Instead of seeing different neighborhoods as socially discrete fragments

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Eric Huntley. M.U.P. 2014. “Shinjuku Shopping by Night”. Tokyo, Japan. AGORA 8

in the larger urban ecology, we can begin to see them as differently positioned in the larger capitalist project. This view can shed light on why we reinvest in some neighborhoods and desert others. Marxist urban theory enables us to see ‘the city not in terms of a concentration of a new fragmented culture, but of concentration of capital and political power’ (Katznelson, 1992, p. 25 cited in Halpern, 1997). If Chicago School of urban theory operates under the paradigm of urban description and differentiation, Marxist urban theory provides a political-economy paradigm that views the city as a site of capital accumulation in its many spatial shapes and forms, all of which are uneven.

Postcolonial Urban Theory What does the political-economy paradigm of urban theory leave out? Later insights from postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and anthropology in recent decades help us see the urban conditions in a different way by incorporating various actors, voices, and processes. By privileging the role of capital in structuring space, the political-economy paradigm risks downplaying or omitting altogether the ‘local’ from the urban scene. In his critique of Harvey’s dynamic of capitalism, Michael Peter Smith (2005) argues that Harvey’s narrative privileges ‘capital’ as the superior agent of change and finds the role of the local and the people missing: “we never know who lives, works, acts, and dies in Harvey’s urban spaces since people are seldom represented as anything other than nostalgic romantics or cultural dupes” (Smith, 2005, p. 243).

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Smith’s plea for the inclusion of everyday actors in the narrative of grand structural processes such as capitalism or globalization sits well with recent trends in urban scholarship that recognize the multiplicity of actors, processes, and origins in theory. Recent works (e.g., Shatkin, 2008; Markusen, 2004; Olds, 2001; Yeoh, 1999) move away from globalization literature that privileges the Western City, often suggesting it as the model for other globalizing cities. Instead, they restore analytical clarity by emphasizing an actor-centered approach, rather than grand structural processes. These scholars encourage us to look at a wider range of urban phenomena and experiences, and at each city’s complex, non-linear engagement with economic processes. Jennifer Robinson’s (2002) work perhaps singlehandedly marks the ‘postcolonial turn’ in urban theory is. She argues that urban studies of recent decades pay attention to the phenomenon of world and global cities at the expense of other cities ‘off the map.’ In what she

calls ‘the regulating fiction of West’, most cities of the world only not aspire to but are actively judged against the standards of the global/world cities. It is as if ‘going global’ is the only worthy policy goal and the ultimate urban trajectory. This reflects a deeper problem in academia: in urban studies, between the production of ‘urban theory’ rests on the West and ‘development studies’ on the rest. The current state of theory does not have a large enough vocabulary to understand all kinds of cities. Instead, Robinson argues for urban theory without categories, a theory that is more inclusive of the diversity of experience. The essence of Robinson’s argument is her critique of a structural analysis of a small range of economic processes, e.g. global finance. The reduction of cities into narrow economic relationships, she argues, has dominated recent theoretical imagination. Examples include literature on world and global cities by Taylor (1995), Sassen (2005), and Friedman (2005), and the geographical study of capitalism that dates back to Wallerstein’s (1974) world-system theory and Frank’s (1966) view of the global economy as an exploitative relationship between métropoles and satellites. The narrow view of ‘world cities’, Robinson argues, privileges and constitutes only a small minority of ‘the world’s cities’, as not every city participates in the global circuits of finance. This resonates with Roy (2009, 2011) who explicitly argues for new geographies of theory. Building on Amin’s relational/topological readings of regions, and on Robinson’s earlier call for an end to ‘asymmetrical ignorance of urban theory’, Roy argues there is a good possibility for urban theorists to discuss a variety of dynamic processes and urbanisms beyond finance and capital accumulation. Migration, commodity exchange, and foreign migrant workers, she suggests, are equally global phenomena and are, in fact, more global than the financial centers that reside only in a few ‘global cities.’ Understanding a wide range of urbanisms not only expands the current repertoire of urban theory, but also refines it. The Global South urbanism, she argues, is in every city including those in Global North; the Global South is in poor neighborhoods, informal settlements, ghettos, and foreclosed suburbs. Therefore, Western cities are struggling with the issues that Global South cities have long experienced and negotiated. The North can very well learn from the South, thus reversing the current direction of the production and circulation of knowledge.

The Role of Narrative Urban theory has indeed always been about explaining the city from a certain theoretical standpoint: urbanism as a new social life associated with industrialization, urbanism as a historical-materialist process, and urbanism(s) as a variety of actors, processes, and geographies. This variety should not only be welcome, but actively encouraged, since different worldviews are helpful in capturing the city in different lights and thus expanding our current understanding. While a call for a so-called postmodern urban theory may not be new or original, it should not be treated as a tired, hackneyed cry, for it has yet to be canonized in the repertoire of what we call ‘urban theory’. The social sciences have long undergone the ‘postmodern turn’, marked by at least two characteristics: 1) a rejection of positivist approach and 2) a presentation of other narratives and explanations. Urban theory has been more comfortable with the former than the latter. To be sure, urban theory was alerted to the turn. Urban theory shares the rejection of a Wirthian descriptive analysis in favor of a more structuralist analysis of the city, as exemplified by the works of Harvey, Castells, Lefebvre, and their students. By contrast, the presentation of other urban existences is more limited and, more often than not, takes the form of those additional at-a-glance chapters on world cities, third world urbanization, or

We favor poetic descriptions of the city. We call it complex, diverse, layered, and multidimensional. However, we cannot call the city complex, diverse, layered, or multidimensional, and expect to understand it from one paradigmatic angle. planning in developing countries (Roy, 2009; 2011). Such inclusion, while commendable, is simply an addition. It does not create a meaningful dialogue, an internal reflection, or a productive theorizing activity. This leaves urban theory in the state of being simply aware of the postmodern turn and still late to the party, for its ‘awareness’ is perfunctory at best, noncommittal at worst.

At the heart of postmodern theory is the recognition of multiple narratives, possible explanations, or the plural others whose voices have hitherto not been heard. The discipline in which postmodern theory is comfortably at home and has long been used (although not necessarily named as such) is history. To be sure, the discipline of history as recently as the early 20th century also privileged, a totalized history. In those years of history research, the dominant belief was that a single history of the world was possible (Groat and Wang, 2013, p. 185). The major proponent was Hempel (1942), who advocated for a ‘covering law’ as a general concept that explains a historical event in the same way there is a law that explains every phenomenon in natural sciences. Similarly, the philosopher Hegel held that a historical account can capture the zeitgeist, the absolute spirit of an age as one collective consciousness. However, in the later decades of the 20th century, a growing section of history research began to emerge, expressing what the literary theorist Jean-Francois Lyotard called an ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives.’ These works cast doubt on dominant narratives in favor of various historical perspectives from gender to historically subordinated groups. It is in this mode of writing that recent scholarships in history work to expand the narratives of the past by always assuming the infinite possibility of explanations. What results is an ever-expanding corpus of stories that were once unwritten, unexplored terrains across space and time. Histories now exist in plural. Urban theory, too, can profit from historical research methods in at least two ways. First, in a somewhat pedantic way, the urban theorist can become an urban historian and approach a welltreaded, commonly acknowledged historical past from a different angle. For example, Castells demystifies Wirth’s account of Chicago, arguing that there is no systematic association between urban factors and urban effects, and the stigmatized ‘urban problem’ is not necessarily a problem unique to the urban. To supersede this ideology, Castells develops an explanation for the historical process of urbanization, one that reveals a multifaceted nature of conflict within cities (Castells, 2002, p. 18). Second, and perhaps more relevant to urban theory today, the urban theorist must accept his or her school of thought as incomplete and inadequate, the way the historian views his or her historical account of the past as but one facet of that past. In recent years, there have been accounts that study various forms of urbanism and thus provide numerous narratives, themes, and explanations. This growing body of empirical evidence takes

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account of various types of ‘paradigmatic cities’ such as postindustrial urbanism, postcolonial urbanism, fragmented urbanism, subaltern urbanism, and other emerging forms of urban life that reflect ‘a growing unease in urban studies scholarship with the current state of urban theory’ (Murray, 2013). As Shatkin (2005) writes of Manila, the city has three kinds of capitals: the colonial city, modernist city, and the global city, which policymakers often tout. These works, while multifarious in themes and diverse in locations, are exactly identical in their uncomfortable rebuttal of the dominant urban theory and their rejection of one exclusive account, for it fails to adequately account for a variety of urban experience and processes. The most important feature of pluralizing urban theories, or writing urban and planning history based on a certain narrative, is recognizing these disparate narratives on equal terms. Historians treat historical accounts as discrete, dissimilar, and different: American history, working-class history in 1960s Paris, East Asian history, and so on. History book titles like history of American female working class, or Colonial India, although relatively recent, are part of today’s historical inquiry. By contrast, works such as female urban space and Indian subaltern urbanism do not readily fit with our perception a ‘urban theory’ and are relegated instead to the historians or anthropologists. It is not surprising, then, that recent contributions to urban theoretical understandings come from works outside of

urban planning scholarship. The ‘regulating fiction of the West’ or what Roy later calls the ‘sanctioned ignorance’ is an academic symptom that ignores lives and livelihoods in other places. The importance of pluralizing urban explanations is not only the business of the self-referential scholarly community, but also has important implications for practice. Planning schools do not train just planners but also practitioners in related fields who will work in development agencies that seek to promote developmental (or ‘developmentalist’) goals. An awareness of wider urban explanations can make for wider policy imagination for urban futures. We favor poetic descriptions of the city. We call it complex, diverse, layered, and multidimensional. We call the city’s problems ‘wicked’ because they elude simple solutions (Rittel and Webber, 1973). However, we cannot call the city complex, diverse, layered, or multidimensional, and expect to understand it from one paradigmatic angle. Similarly, we cannot call urban planning a multidisciplinary field and feign surprise when someone researches a planning question from a disciplinary perspective with which we are not immediately familiar. Urban theory will retain its appeal by continuing to write about unexplored urban themes. Urban theory will gain strength by making sure, as Roy suggests, the narratives that are parochial do not circulate as universal.

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Gans, H. (2005). Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life: A Reevaluation of Definitions. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 42-50). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1968)

Castells, M. (2002). In Ida Susser (Ed.), The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Fischer, C. (2005). Theories of Urbanism. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 51-64). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1976) Frank, A. G. (1966). The development of underdevelopment. New England Free Press. Friedmann, J. (2005). The World Cities Hypothesis. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 223-235). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1987) Rugkhapan

Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of Capital Towards a Critical Geography. New York, NY: Routledge. Hempel, C. (1942). The Function of General Laws in History. Journal of Philosophy, 39, 35-48. Henderson, W. O. (1976), The life of Friedrich Engels, London : Cass, 1976. Katznelson, I. (1992). Marxism and the City. Oxford University Press, USA. J. Taylor (Eds.), World Cities in a World-System. Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Murray, M. J. (2012). Re-engaging with transnational urbanism. Locating Right to the City in the Global South, 43, 285.

Park, R. (2005). Human Ecology. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 62-71). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1936)

Shatkin, G. (2005). Colonial capital, modernist capital, global capital: The changing political symbolism of urban space in Metro Manila, the Philippines.Pacific Affairs, 577-600.

Parker, S. (2003). Urban theory and the urban experience: encountering the city. Routledge.

Smith, M. P. (2005). Power in Place: Retheorizing the Local and Global. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 241-250). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 2001)

Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). 2.3 Planning Problems are Wicked.Polity, 4, 155-69. Robinson, J. (2002). Global and world cities: a view from off the map.International journal of urban and regional research, 26(3), 531-554. Robinson, J. (2006). Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. London and New York: Routledge. Roy, A. (2009). The 21st-century metropolis: new geographies of theory.Regional Studies, 43(6), 819-830.

Tรถnnies, F. (2005). Community and Society. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 16-22). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1887) Wallerstein, I. (1974). The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. Wirth, L. (2005). Urbanism as a Way of Life. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 32-41). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1938)

Roy, A. (2011). Urbanisms, worlding practices and the theory of planning.Planning Theory, 10(1), 6-15. Sassen, S. (2005). The Urban Impact of Economic Globalization. In J. Lin & C. Mele (Eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader (pp. 236-240). London and New York: Routledge. (Original work published 2000)

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Michael Howard. MArch. 2014. From the series “Alternative Southeast Asian Communities”. Bangkok & Jakarta. AGORA 8

Andrew Goddeeris

MUP 2015 / Juris Doctor 2015

Cole Grisham MUP 2014

Claire Kang M Arch 2014

Andrew Goddeeris is a dual degree student pursuing a Juris Doctor and Master of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. He was born and raised in Detroit, MI. He is a graduate of the Detroit Public Schools system and the University of Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College of Literature, Science, and Arts. Cole Grisham is a second year student in the Masters of Urban Planning program. His concentration and research interests focus on regional planning, intraregional competition, and planning history. Claire Kang is a thesis year Master of Architecture student at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She was one of the Dow Sustainability Fellows at the University of Michigan in 2012. With her Dow Fellows team, she conducted a simulated environmental site assessment on a neighborhood in Detroit. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in architecture and art history from the University of Toronto. As a designer, she believes that design of any scale has to prescribe the needs and desires of the generations yet to come.

Katherine Knapp

Katherine Knapp will be graduating in the spring of 2014 with her Master of Urban Planning degree and Real Estate Development graduate certificate. Katherine transitioned directly to graduate school at the University of Michigan (U of M) after graduating from U of M with her Bachelor of Arts in Program in the Environment and minor in Scandinavian Studies. Katherine is grateful for the opportunities made available for students to study sustainability from interdisciplinary perspectives at U of M through the Graham Sustainability Institute. It was in part her experiences as a Graham Undergrad Sustainability Scholar that led her to pursue a Master of Urban Planning degree.

Nolan Sandberg

Nolan Sandberg is a second year Master of Landscape Architecture student at the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan. His interests include placemaking, sustainable development, and community driven urban design inspired by his time in Honduras as a Water Engineer with the Peace Corps. Nolan holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Julia Stuebing

Julia Stuebing will graduate from the University of Michigan Law School in May 2014. Julia is a 2013 Dow Sustainability Fellow and is grateful for the support of the Graham Sustainability Institute and The Dow Chemical Company. She is the Editor in Chief of the Michigan Journal of International Law. Prior to attending law school, Julia completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Israel and worked as a Project Assistant at a Washington, DC law firm. Julia received her B.A. summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Colby College and studied abroad at the University of Salamanca in Spain.

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Seul Lee

MUP 2015

Seul Lee holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the Korea National University of Art and is a first-year Master of Urban Planning student.

Terra Reed MUP 2014

Terra Reed has a Bachelor of Arts in Planning, Public Policy, and Management from the University of Oregon and is currently a second year Master of Urban Planning student at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, with a concentration in transportation.

Napong Tao Rugkhapan 1st year PhD

Napong Tao Rugkhapan is a PhD student in urban planning. His dissertation investigates the use of legal instruments such as zoning ordinance and urban design codes in historic preservation schemes in Bangkok, Saigon, and Singapore. He is interested in the use of legal plans, drawings, and images in the contested processes and symbols of urban design politics.

Pamela Schaeffer

Pamela Schaeffer is a joint Master of Urban Planning and Public Policy student with a career in architecture behind her and a desire to do planning and policy work in the creation of good affordable housing ahead of her. Ever since middle school when she took a bus that passed by a local public housing development in Rochester, New York she has known that affordable housing was important for each one of those families, and that we could do it better. As an architect she worked on multi-family housing projects and lived in a limited-equity housing cooperative in Washington, DC. Both of these experiences convinced her that she needed to work on affordable housing advocacy.

Matthew Story

Matthew is currently in his final thesis year of the Master of Architecture program at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Before completing to his current graduate work, Matthew attended Washington University in Saint Louis as a William H. Danforth Scholar where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with a minor in Urban Design.

MUP / MPP 2015

M Arch 2014

Elizabeth Treutel

Elizabeth Treutel is a second year Master of Urban Planning student at the University of Michigan. Her focus is in economic development and transportation and she is working toward the Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development. Her main interests include connecting transportation, economic development, and urban design as well as planning for shrinking cities.

Jason Wong

Jason Wong is a thesis student in the two-year Master of Architecture program at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. His interests include using architecture and design to create place identity, community, and publicness from the building scale up to the urban scale for all stakeholders involved, including the regular users, neighbors, and visitors of places/spaces. He is a native of Spokane, Washington and holds a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from Washington State University.

Xiang Yan

Xiang Yan is a first year Master of Urban Planning student at Taubman College concentrating in housing, community and economic development. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning from Nanjing University, China. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. degree in the field of urban planning and his research interests include regional economic development, housing, transportation, and China studies.

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M Arch 2014

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