INTERVIEW
FROM THE GROUND UP
ARCHITECTURE BOSTON EXPO, WID KEYNOTE BREAKFAST SUMMARY JENNIFER HARDY, AIA
“It took a great deal of skill and creativity and imagination to build the kind of situation we have, and it is going to take skill and imagination and creativity to change it. We are going to have to have people as committed to doing the right thing, to inclusiveness, as we have in the past to exclusiveness.” - Whitney Young Jr’s 1968 AIA Convention Speech Each year, the Boston Society of Architects Women in Design committee, curates a daylong symposium at Architecture Boston Expo (ABX) focused around a theme to broadcast the committee’s values and connect with the broader Boston design community, while giving a platform to great women designers’ work. The day begins with a keynote breakfast to frame the discussion, and at ABX 2018, I had the pleasure of moderating the keynote with panelists Yanel de Angel, Kristen Chin, Courtney Sharpe and Dr. Jennie Stephens, to kick-off the symposium, ‘From the Ground UP: Grassroots Initiatives.’ While planning this keynote, we were inspired by Whitney Young Jr’s 1968 AIA Convention Speech. It reminded us of another time of unprecedented turmoil, when federal money had fueled urban renewal projects and Interstate Highway programs that uprooted entire neighborhoods, damaging the plight of the poor and disenfranchised in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Whitney Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, delivered a keynote to the AIA that challenged the profession to recognize its’ role in shaping cities, criticizing architects’ silence on issues such as social inequity and civil rights. While his speech, as part of a growing movement, was successful in inspiring an era of community design and activism, his sentiments feel just as relevant today. It is because of this responsibility, our capability as a profession and the current grassroots waves we are experiencing in society, that we were inspired to dive deeper into this topic as it relates to our work today.
Jennifer Hardy: Can you start us off with the history of Community Development Corporations and Community Design Centers that began as grassroots movements? Kristen Chin: In the mid-1960’s Senator Robert Kennedy and his aides conceived of the idea of a “community development corporation” as a holistic approach to community improvement by acknowledging that housing, jobs, education, welfare reform,
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CONNECTION
Keynote breakfast panelists (from left to right): Kristen Chin, Courtney Sharpe, Yanel de Angel, Jennie Stephens, and moderator Jennifer Hardy.
health, and economic development are all related and interconnected. In partnership with the Bedford-Stuyvesant community in Brooklyn, New York, they helped set up the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation as our country’s first community development corporation, and they persuaded Congress and the administration to fund community development initiatives in urban poverty areas. Shortly thereafter, nonprofits began forming to focus on community development initiatives in both urban and rural areas, and national intermediaries such as Neighborworks, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and Enterprise Community Partners arose as technical assistance providers. Many local government agencies began to contract redevelopment work to these neighborhood nonprofits. I currently work for two community development non-profits in Boston, Urban Edge and Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, that were formed out of the momentum in the 60’s and 70’s when resident opposition halted the federal highway extension of I-95. However, early construction bulldozed homes, shut down businesses taken by eminent domain, and severed utility, street, and sidewalk connections. Urban Edge and JPNDC have been undertaking the decades-long process of preserving and developing affordable housing, incubating small businesses, forming child care and job readiness programs, embarking on health and education initiatives, and preserving the arts and culture of neighborhoods.
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM
Courtesy: Jamaica Plain Historic Society