vOL .6 + nO.2 + sPRING 2003

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY URBAN PLANNING PROGRAM NEWSLETTER

In Whose Public Interest?

Military conflict often leaves an indelible stain that is not easily wiped clean. The devastation levied is wide-ranging and nearly immeasurable. The most visible results of war include the loss of human life, the destruction of infrastructure and property, along with social and political turmoil. In light of the current situation, as planners it may give us pause to reflect on what makes for livable and peaceful cities based on principles of participation, equity and justice. As Paul Davidoff states, “Determina-tions of what serves the public interest, in a society containing many diverse interest groups, are almost always of a highly contentious nature.” With this in mind, this issue of URBAN focuses on the ways in which planners and organizations work to address the needs of the public – in other words, an attempt to give a tangible meaning to the term, “the public interest.” As, planners, we provide technical assistance and attempt to ensure that the public have a greater say in the shaping – and especially, reshaping – of their own neighborhoods, impacting both the social and built environment.

The articles in this issue cover a wide range of concerns, geographies, and areas of specialization, displaying the multitude of ways that planners can work for and with the public, as well as the proliferation of multifarious “public” concerns. Submissions had a truly global scope, from a call for a GSAP studio in cities with concentrations of immigrant populations, to a search for practical solutions for garbage collection in Guatemala. Other articles carry out such diverse tasks as drawing connections between coffee production and processes of globalization and environmental degra-dation; and addressing issues of power and knowledge in the crossover between the public and planning realms. Andrew Coamey shares how Housing Works has success-fully acclimated to shifting socio-political conditions, in order to assist homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS; an op-ed piece calls for a more proactive role for the planner; and a graduating URBAN editor says goodbye.

Also in this issue are profiles of the four first-year planning studios. The local studio is based in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, while the two regional studios work with issues in Hartford, Connecticut and Brewster, New York. The international studio focuses on disaster resistance planning in Accra, Ghana.

In Whose Public Interest?:

Table of Contents

FELLOW PLANNERS,

jENNIFER dICKSON + cYNTHIA gOLEMBESKI [eDITORS]

jENNIFER mOST [aRT dIRECTOR]

lISA fISHER, bRENDA cHO, gRACE hAN + eMILY kARPEL

URBAN STAFF

Somewhat closer to home, Dean Bernard Tschumi, who has been praised for making Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation into an interna-tional model for architectural education, will step down as dean on June 30, 2003. Tschumi began his term as dean in 1988 and will continue to serve on the faculty. Tschumi designed Alfred Lerner Hall and also worked with the Urban Planning division of the school to start the Urban Technical Assistance Project (UTAP), which helps revitalize distressed commu-nities through planning projects. On behalf of all students, we would like to thank Dean Tschumi for his vision, ingenuity and leadership.

As new editors, we are very grateful for the active support and contributions that we have received in relation to the publication of this issue. Best of luck to all graduating second-year and PhD Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation students. To all of those who will return next year, we hope that your summer will bring you both adven-ture and experience and perhaps ideas for the Fall 2003 issue of URBAN. p

2 Attempting to Plan for the Public Interest [jENNIFER dICKSON]

5 Globalization & Coffee: A Potentially Beneficial Relationship [lISA fISHER]

9 Gay New York 2000 [cHRISTINE gRIMANDO]

11 On the Brink [eLDAD gOTHELF]

13 The American Dream: The Reality of Land Use Planning [mAYA sARKAR]

15 Smart Growth and Affordable Housing in Arlington, Virginia [rYAN dEVLIN]

17 A Discussion on Trash in San Pedro, Guatemala [sETH mYERS]

19 The Merging of Maps, the Consumption of Creativity [jOEL fERREE]

21 Interview with Andrew Coamey at Housing Works [cYNTHIA gOLEMBESKI]

25 Israeli Public Housing: Who Benefits and Who Settles? [gURI nADLER]

29 Local Studio - Chinatown, NYC [mELISSA nEUMAN]

30 Regional Studio - Brewster, New York [gARY rOTH]

31 Regional Studio - Hartford, Connecticut [jOEL fERREE + eLDAD gOTHELF]

32 International Studio - Accra, Ghana [mOLLY pRICE + mORIAH mCgRATH]

33 An Exercise in Collaboration: The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition [sAILAJA kURELLA, eLOISE pAUL + oFELIA rODRIGUEZ

36 A Personal Perspective on Planning [bRENDA cHO]

37 The Role of the Planner in the Media [dAVID rECHT]

cYNTHIA + jEN

Cover Photo Credit: Joshua Benson

2

j ENN IFER d ICKSON

Attempting to Plan for the Public Interest

> …although it is not necessary for all planners to come to a consensus on a specific definition of the public interest and the issues that surround it, it is possible,

and probably adv isable , for the ind iv idual p lanner to come to a work ing conclusion as to who one believes the public interest to be and how it can best be served. <

The “public interest” is one of the more elusive concepts in the world of urban planning. As ProfessorSusan Fainstein asks in her Planning Theory course at Columbia University, is the “public interest” the “appropriate criterion for planning effectiveness?” And in what sense? Assuming that one were to come to an acceptable definition ofwho actually constitutes the public in the public interest, would a plan only be effective if it met thisdefined group’s approval? If it bettered their situation? Or if it were actually conceived by this aforementioned defined public?

Despite the ambiguity of the term “public interest,” it is necessary for the planner to search for answers to these questions. The first ethical principle of the American Planning Association is to serve the public interest. The APA – a widely acknowledged institution of which many respected planners are members – surely believes that the public interest is an important determinant of an effective plan. However, William H. Lucy states that this principle is not useful unless elaborated (Lucy 2003). Because I think he goes too far, I disagree. I feel that although it is not necessary for all planners to come to a consensus on a specific definition of the public interest and the issues that surround it, it is possible, and probably advis-able, for the individual planner to come to a working definition as to what, in a given situation, is the public interest, and furthermore, how it can best be served. This internal discourse will result in more effective and successful planning.

WORKING EXPLANATION OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Patsy Healy attempts to outline a process of planning which would seemingly both consult with and satisfy the public interest. She describes the process of communicative planning as a “new wave of ideas” in urban planning designed to facilitate our ability to “coexist in shared spaces” by learning how to “discuss issues in the public realm” (Healy 2003). Healy describes several steps by which “common concerns” can be raised and presumably addressed.

The discussion should take place among the “community,” a group that Healy defines as both “spatially based,” those who are affected by what happens in a particular area, and “stake based,” those who have an interest in what is taking place in that particular area (Healy 2003). Healy describes how to sort through the different points of view. This process, which mainly involves the stakeholders entering into a discourse among themselves, is one that is facilitated, but not influenced, by planners and other professionals. The planner is not an advocate or a director in this situation, but simply a mediator. Con-sequently, Healy envisions the community coming to a consensus that will presumably serve the public interest. One of the problems with this methodology is that it basically allows for the most persuasive argument to dominate and represent itself as the public interest, regardless of whether it is the majority viewpoint or the “best” solution. Nevertheless, her discussion introduces a process by which the players and concerns that make up the public interest start to become fleshed out.

To think more concretely about the public, in New York City, part of our governing structure involves groups referred to as Community Boards. The city is divided into 59 Community Districts, each of which is represented by a board comprised of members half appointed by the Borough President, and half appointed by members of the City Council. Although the boards “cannot order any city agency or official to perform any task” (“Mayor’s… 2003) most actions that will affect the physical or social makeup of the respective communities (e.g. the construction of a large facility) are presented and subse-quently approved or rejected by the board at its monthly public meetings. Furthermore, “any application for a change in or variance from the zoning resolution must come before the Board for review, and the Board’s position is considered in the final determination of these applications” (“Mayor’s… 2003). This is touted as one of the great democratic institutions of New York City’s local government, since through

3Attempting to Plan for the Public Interest [ continued ]

this process, it seems as if the public interest is being directly acknowledged and addressed. The “community” is exercising its power.

Power is an important factor in the determina-tion and consequent voice of the public inter-est. The influence of power relationships is one of the important elements missing in Healy’s article, “The Communicative Turn in Planning Theory,” and also skews the effectiveness of the Community Boards. To elaborate, in class last semester, we heard representatives from Manhattan’s Community Board 4 (CB 4) speak about how their board’s foresight and excellent organizational structure allowed them to bargain with the city whenever the city wanted to con-struct or change anything within the boundaries of their district. CB 4 suggested that other boards were not as well organized as they were in their demands, lamenting the other boards’ inabili-ties to manipulate the goodwill of the city. For example, as all boards have the ability to oppose major construction projects (although with no binding legal authority), when one is proposed for their area, CB 4 usually uses their power to bargain with the city to satisfy their own needs,

such as improvements to local infrastructure and schools. However, no mention was made of the connection between the property values contained within Community District 4, which overlays some of the most prime real estate in New York City, and the city’s willingness to con-sider the board’s every request, more closely than say, Community Board 16 in Brooklyn, which represents Brownsville, an NYC neighborhood with noticeably lower land values than that of West Midtown. Although the advanced organiza-tional skills of CB 4 surely sets them ahead in the bargaining process, so does the power resulting from their district’s prime location.

In quoting Iris Marion Young, David Harvey affirms that powerlessness is a form of oppres-sion, which is “an even more widespread prob-

lem than marginality” (Harvey 2003). Harvey is referring to both political power and the ability to express oneself in the appropriate arenas. Although the Community Boards are certainly one voice of the public interest, it must be acknowledged that in some places, their voice is louder than in others.

To consider another community-based ele-ment of planning, when a city agency under-takes a planning project, in some instances funding sources require that a “technical advi-sory committee” (TAC) be formed. Despite the official-sounding name, this is usually a list of names of people from other related city agencies, together with representatives from the community board, city council, and other groups whose jurisdiction overlaps with the project study area. The purpose of the TAC, from the funding perspective, is to both enhance a plan with outside technical assistance, and to also ensure an element of public participation. There are usually about three TAC meetings per project, where the planners present the details for the project and ask for input from the committee. Since

public announcements are not usually made for such meetings (invitations are mailed to the committee members) the turnout is usu-ally sparse.

An interesting phenomenon at TAC meetings is that when it is time for the public to speak, people quite frequently raise issues that are only marginally related to the matter at hand. For example, at a recent information session given by a city agency about a traffic study being undertaken in Brooklyn, members of the public were most concerned with buses that did not properly follow their routes. Even after the agency representatives explained that they are not responsible for the bus schedules, the issue was still raised numerous times. Despite the fact that the TAC meetings are

> [No] mention was made of the connection between the property value contained within CB 4, which is some of the most expensive real estate in New York City, and the city’s willingness to consider the board’s every request, more closely, than say, Community Board 16 in Brooklyn, which has jurisdiction over Brownsville, an NYC neighborhood with noticeably lower land values than that of West Midtown. Of course, the organization of CB 4 surely sets them ahead in the bargaining process, but so does the power resulting from their district’s prime location. <

j ENN IFER d ICKSON

> If planners truly do value and would l ike to take into consideration what the publ ic has to say, I would suggest (at the risk of simpl ifyingthe issue) that planners, especially those who work in a complex city where the real issues can easily be buried under a confusing heap ofagencies, would be better off involving the public as early as possible. <

REFERENCES

Harvey, David. 1993. Social Justice, Postmodernism, and the City. Pp. 386-402 in Scott Campbell and Susan S. Fain-stein, eds. Readings in Urban Theory. Rev. edit. Oxford: Blackwell.

Healy, Patsy. 1996. The Communicative Turn in Planning Theory and its Implications for Spatial Strategy Formation. Pp. 237-258 in Scott Campbell and Susan S. Fainstein, eds. Readings in Planning Theory. Rev. edit. Oxford: Blackwell.

Fischer, Frank. 1991. Risk Assessment and Environmental Crisis: Toward an Integration of Science and Participation. Pp. 418-434 in Scott Campbell and Susan S. Fainstein, eds. Readings in Planning Theory. Rev. edit. Oxford: Blackwell.

Lucy, William. 1988. APA’s Ethical Principles Include Simplistic Planning Theories. Pp. 413-417 in Scott Campbell and Susan S. Fainstein, eds. Readings in Planning Theory. Rev. edit. Oxford: Blackwell.

“Mayor’s Community Assistance Unit.” 2003. Online at <http://www.nyc.gov/html/cau/html>.

designed to ensure an element of public partici-pation within the planning process, it seems as if planners at times exalt form over substance without gaining any useful insight of the public’s concerns. Within the short window of the meet-ing, it seems as if the public interest is only relevant, or even existent, when it pertains to current planning projects. Planners are presented with information that may be valuable to other future or concurrent projects, but they have no way to assimilate this information usefully. This perspective does not seem to be very worth-while for the public or for the planners.

ATTEMPTING TO PLAN FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST

This dilemma harks back to an important ques-tion: what is the most pressing issue in the public interest, and how can the planner turn this into a useful working directive? Are the people who wanted to talk about issues not on the meeting agenda simply impeding a speedy planning process? Are they raising an issue that is more important than pedestrian safety, since that is the one that they want to talk about? Who knows best, the people or the planners?

This quandary reminds me of Harvey’s work when he refers to “fragmented discourses” (Harvey 2003). The separate issues and interests of the public and planners, somewhat absurdly, frequently do not seem to have any common ground. Of course, this is not always the case, and not necessarily true at the root of the issue. In other words, both planners and the community are interested in making neighborhoods more livable, but they often have differing opinions as to how to accomplish that goal. However, that very difference of opinion concerning how to get things done can become problematic when a planner is proposing a neighborhood improve-ment that the public does not see as an improve-ment at all. If planners truly do value and would like to take into consideration what the public has to say, I would suggest (at the risk of simplify-ing the issue) that planners, especially those who work in a complex city where the real issues can easily be buried under a confusing heap of agen-cies, would be better off involving the public as early as possible.

Frank Fischer raises the idea that, among other things, citizen participation can validate plans and professional research findings (Fischer 2003). Perhaps if citizens were involved from the beginning, they would not need to raise issues totally unrelated to the topic of the community planning meeting. A systemic change is needed within the structure of govern-ment planning projects – more time to discern the public’s needs will allow planners to more

effectively serve the public. The lack of time, and perhaps money, to properly carry out proj-ects and studies is a global issue and certainly not the fault of the individual planner or the agency. Currently, planners are caught in a dilemma that is not of their making.

How does the planner accomplish this compre-hensive level of community involvement and still retain a creative, proactive role? The answer to that question lies in an unwritten book. But to ask the earlier question of “who knows best?,” the answer is both the planner and the public. Each one has a unique point of view, whether through professional expertise or first-hand knowledge, that will improve the quality of the city. Planners in New York City (and elsewhere) are currently producing excellent and creative plans. Furthermore, obviously what the public says depends on the context, for there is no one particular public interest as is demonstrated by what takes place at TAC meetings. However, planners who are not conscious of this public and its multi-faceted levels of power and perceptions are leaving out a major chunk of the process, to the detriment of the public interest.

5

forests for short-term agriculture and exacerbate grave environmental harms, such as deforestation and water pollution from pesticides. Last summer in Latin America, I observed the prevalence of haphazardly developed maize crops. Many were located on dangerously steep slopes or in-between fallen logs that had been left in the hurry. Tropical land is fragile. Deforestation exposes the shallow layer of nutrient-rich topsoil to wind and water erosion; as a result these plots can usually only sustain crops for one season while the next piece of virgin forest is already cleared. Today, the average annual deforestation in Central America is over 17.3 million acres, and trees are replanted on less then 0.5 acres each year (Davidson 2000).

The preposterous levels of consumption and waste of many devel-oped nations encour-age increased habitat destruction in the Third World. Responding to

the demands of market economics, multi-national corporations rapidly expand their production, and corresponding resource consumption, to stressed environments in the developing world. Development plans for poor countries are often determined by the World Bank, in conjunction with funding, financial systems, and debt sched-ules prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (NGO 2002). World Bank and IMF-dictated policies and funding programs have resulted in rampant land abuses, as impoverished nations work to secure promised economic gains through increased production. Vulnerable coun-tries are also urged to spend natural and capital resources to develop the latest “target” industries while simultaneously cutting spending on social services, including environmental protection. Therefore, if the market price for their new export plummets, they are left without any resources to respond to the crisis. The vicious cycle continues as they turn back to the lending agency for more

“If the goal of production is to meet human needs, then performance requirements applied to economic entities should primarily protect not capital, but workers, consumers, communities, and the rest of the living environment” (tabb 2001).

GLOBALIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

“Globalization [is] one of the principal causes of global insecurity, poverty, and environmental degradation,” and poor nations have been known to lower their environmental protection standards and exploit their natural resources in efforts to generate foreign investment—often encouraged to do so by international financial agencies (NGO 2002 &Welch 2001). In 1993, poverty in devel-oping countries was mentioned for the first time as one the leading causes of environmental deg-radation (Streeten 1993). “The challenge for the global [environmental] movement in the twenty-first century is to articulate an inclusive version of sustainable development and articulate the goals, widen the consciousness raising, and build the activism to achieve it” (Tabb 2001).

An even bigger challenge would be to con-vince the world’s major actors, governments, multi-national corporations, and international agencies, to actively support environmental protection and sustainable land use, i.e. develop alternative livelihoods for people in need while preserving natural resources. The recent Central American coffee crisis clearly illustrates the link between increased environmental deterioration and globalization. International agencies and multi-national corporations influence and often mandate land use practices that disregard the environment. These same noxious forces, if con-vinced that future capital growth is dependent on natural resource sustainability, could instead become the environment’s greatest allies.

Developing nations often scramble to produce massive quantities of the current, highest-priced commodity in an attempt to receive immediate financial gains promised by the market. Bothillegal squatters and legitimate farmers clear

> . . . poor nat ions have been known to lower the ir env ironmental protect ion standards and explo it the ir natural resources in efforts to generate fore ign investment , often encouraged to do so by internat ional f inanc ia l agenc ies . <

Globalization and Coffee

A POTENTIALLY BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIP

l ISA f ISHER

money, and are then given directives for even stricter policy changes (NGO 2002).

THE RECENT CENTRAL AMERICAN COFFEE CRISIS

Throughout the world, 50% of developing countries depend on less than four commodi-ties to supply more then half of their incomes (Bounds 2001). Roughly 20 million people around the world base their livelihoods on the production and processing of coffee, the world’s second most traded commodity (Brody 2002). “Over the past two years, coffee prices have dropped to their lowest levels in 30 years, (100 years when adjusted for inflation) (Informa 2002). This economic disaster has been linked to worldwide overproduction; coffee produc-tion now costs many independent farmers more then it yields.

Some Central American farmers blame recent catastrophes on the market-driven successes of the 1990s, which resulted in the discontinua-tion of government-provided farm subsidies and international commodity price agreements. Critics have implicated the World Bank as a con-tributor and conspirator in this chain of events. Prior to the collapse, they had supplied Viet-nam with $300 million worth of investments for irrigation, agricul-tural diversification, rural transport, and energy. Although they claim that it was not intended to fund the coffee export market, Vietnam’s overproduc-tion of coffee has been held liable for certain parts of the mess (Foote 2002). World Bank economists have been quoted as saying that the Guatemalan farmers who make $3 a day, cannot compete with the $1 per day wages in Vietnam and the automated technol-ogy in Brazil, and should pursue other options. However, in a recent press release the World Bank claimed that it is not their policy or mission to expand coffee plantations merely for the sake

of profits, but rather to assist in their sustain-ability. They also caution that these historic lows in the market are not confined to coffee and that they are proactively pursuing solutions.

COFFEE SHOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THE WORLD

It seems almost inconceivable that while con-sumers in the developed world, especially in the United States, continue to pay upwards of $5 for a cup of java, coffee growers are being forced into poverty from the rock-bottom market prices. Prior to the 1990s, the four major international coffee roasters, fought to control the market and lower prices, which in the end lowered product quality. Coffee began to loose out to the increas-ing growth of soft drinks and Coca-Cola prod-ucts until the 1990s, when the specialty coffee market sprung into action. This niche, increasing approximately 10% each year, helped revitalize the specialty coffee bean industry in Central America, which grows 80% of the world’s most flavorful beans known as “arabica.” As previ-ously mentioned, the World Bank and friends were simultaneously increasing investments in low-grade “robusta” coffee development proj-ects in South East Asia and Africa. Here it is

important to note that this type of development was actively pursued and promoted, despite the fact that the market for these “robusta” beans had been dropping for years. Although spe-cialty coffee manufacturers rejected this inferior product, the ensuing over-supply of robusta coffee (also aided from Brazil’s mid-90s coffee recovery) functioned to glut the overall interna-

Coffee Plantations in Central Costa Rica (left) and maize growing between fallen logs in Guatemala (right).

Photo Credits:

Lisa Fisher

Globalization and Coffee

7Globalization and Coffee: A Potentially Beneficial Relationship [continued]

tional market, and crash prices across the entire coffee spectrum (The Economist 2001).

The disparaging disconnect between coffee growers, the multi-national corporations that purchase, package, and distribute the prod-uct, and the consumers creates problems. For example, when the U.S.A. National Coffee Asso-

ciation met in the spring of 2002 to discuss the coffee glut and plummeting prices, neither coffee growers or NGO human rights and sustainabilty advocates were represented (Brody 2002).

Today, the world produces approximately 1.4 billion more pounds of coffee beans than it consumes, which helps explain the drastic down-shift from $1.34 per pound in 1997 (Foote 2002) to $0.40 on September 24, 2001 (The Economist 2001). The World Bank estimates that between Mexico and Central America, “…600,000 per-manent and temporary coffee workers have lost their jobs in the past two years” (Fritsch 2002). In traditionally war-torn areas, such circum-stances can often spark social unrest, illegal immigration, and even drug production. These

harsh living conditions have been worsened by the coinciding economic slumps, reductions in gov-ernment social spending, and a regional drought (The Economist 2001). It is a disastrous cycle.

THE CURRENT AND POTENTIAL ROLE OF MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS

Controversy rages in anti-globalization debates over the consequences of multi-national corpora-tions presence in the Third World. Currently, if one coffee farmer goes under as a result of the price glut, the current trend leads buyers to simply move on to the next willing supplier. The four largest coffee producers, Kraft, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, and Sara Lee, say that although they do not make efforts to raise the value of coffee beans in the world market, or direct partial profits back to farmers, they help out growers in other ways. Some fund local schools and community health centers, while others commit to buying a certain percentage of beans from small-grower cooperatives, or directly from independent farmers (Fritsch 2002). While it is unclear what benefits these efforts actually produce for Cen-tral American coffee growers, it seems obvious from the current state of affairs, that they are not doing enough. The only solution multi-nation-als have posed, in response to the crisis, is to somehow increase world coffee demand. Unfor-tunately, these giants fail to understand that by convincing grower-countries to ignore environ-

mental regulations and pursue overproduction in hope of short-term profits, they under-mine these countries’ future sustainability. In the end, this degradation will cost the poor far more then they will ever

earn from selling to the multi-national corpora-tions (Davidson 2000).

Many consumers are willing to pay more for their coffee if they have assurance that the money is getting back to the local farmer, rather then corporate pockets. Sales for “free trade” coffees (which assure farmers a fair price) have increased, as has public demand for these socially-conscious brews; Starbucks even has a line of these coffees, as well as “shade grown” and “organic” versions. If organic coffee production is made more viable, through appro-

Hillsides of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, stripped for haphazard farming.

> . . . these g iants fa i l to understand that by conv inc ing grower-countr ies to ignore env ironmental regulat ions and pursue overproduct ion in hope of short-term prof its , they undermine these countr ies ’ future susta inab i l i ty . <

priate valuation of natural resources, social costs, and economic regulations that would discourage unsustainable agriculture, there could be hope for these beans to move beyond specialty mar-kets and into institutions, work places, and on grocery shelves for mass consumption at comparable prices.

POTENTIAL HELP FROM INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES

An international constitution for a globalized economy, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, could effectively mandate the protection of natural resources in the pursuit of economic growth (Tabb 2001). This treaty could also outline reliable methods for accurately pric-ing these same resources for use in cost benefit analysis that influence policy decisions and busi-ness investments. International agencies could establish worldwide standards for minimum maintenance of forest cover and incentives for preservation; and encourage sustainable agricul-ture as mainstream practice to reduce fertilizer and promote smart land use practices, i.e. crop rotation and topsoil protection (Davidson 2000). The World Bank Rural Development Department recently released a report entitled, “Towards More Sustainable Coffee” that outlines the nec-essary components involved in its development and success. If these efforts are implemented on a large scale, higher land values and associated higher crop prices could result.

Perhaps even a global environmental protection agency is in order, to limit both corporate domi-nation and national sovereignty, and enforce the above-mentioned initiatives (Streeten 1993). The IMF could begin requiring environmental impact statements in conjunction with their loan programs, and encourage transparency among countries to report their environmental protection spending. In addition, they could help countries set up regulatory systems for taxing socially- or environmentally-harmful imports, which would level prices for sustainable products and increase public demand (Welch 2001). There is indeed potential for the international influence of glo-balization to yield environmental benefits instead of harms; little else reaches as far, has as much money, and affects so many things.

REFERENCES

Bounds, Andrew. (2001). World Bank and Market Options for Risk Management for Farmers. The Financial Times Limited. London: Financial Times.

Brody, Liam. (2002) Letter to the National Coffee Association U.S.A.

Davidson, Eric A. (2000). You Can’t Eat GNP; Economics as if Ecology Mattered. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publishing.

The Economist. (2001). The Americas: Drowning in Cheap Coffee; Latin America’s Economy.

Foote, William Fulbright. (2001). Mexican Coffee and Asian Politics. The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California.

Fritsch, Peter. (2002). Coffee-bean Oversupply Deepens Latin America’s Woes. The Wall Street Journal.

Informa Publishing Group, Ltd. (2002). Insurance Day.

NGO Press Conference on Sustainable Development. (2001). United Nations Web site. http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2002/DESAPressConf.doc.htm,

Streeten, Paul. (1993). Institutions for Sustainable development. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. Volume 18 (4): 350-358.

Tabb, William K. (2001). The Amoral Elephant: Globalization and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Welch, Carol. (2001). The IMF and the Environment. Friends of the Earth, U.S.

CONCLUSION

However these varying players view themselves, and whatever their roles are today, it is impera-tive that they begin to recognize and appreciate the causes and effects of their decisions and actions. The environment suffers every day from over-production and over-consumption, despite the valiant efforts of many. If real cooperation between all disparate actors is nurtured, a great potential for positive change could occur—for the largest amount of people, using the utmost efficiency, and incurring the least amount of conflict. p

l ISA f ISHER

Hillsides of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, stripped for haphazard farming.

On examining the results of the population survey, certain residential settlement patterns emerge for gay men and gay women, across the United States. The ability to calculate these groups at a small geographic unit will provide a vital source of information about the spatial relationships of places throughout the five boroughs, not just in the most easily perceived enclaves. This topic provides a heretofore unparalleled glimpse into any existing spatial patterns and differences across gender in the gay population. In particular, lesbian urban spaces have been largely unexamined from a planning perspective. In the literature that addresses gay male urban neighborhoods, gay women’s urban pres-ence has been overtly discarded as irrelevant to the studies at hand. Consequently, women’s spatial experience has been subsumed under the category of gay, which is generally not broken down to a more finely grained examination of settlement patterns across genders.

INITIAL FINDINGS

Initial evaluation of the same sex couple data shows a strikingpattern across the United States in relation to both gay male and gay female couples. The number of couples reportingis nearly the same, with 2% more gay men reporting than gay women. However, when analyzed at the smaller geographic unit level there is a larger discrepancy between the percentage of reporting male same-sex couples and reporting female same-sex couples, thusindicating that female couples are less densely clustered. For instance, 2% more gay men than gay women report at a national level, compared with 11% at the New York State level, and 38% at the New York City level. A calculation of the location quotient, which is a measure of relative con-centration, of male same sex couples and female same sex couples per census tract in New York City, shows remarkably different results for each population. Gay men are concentrated in a contiguous pattern along the west side of Manhattan, but are oth-erwise less strikingly represented throughout the rest of the five boroughs. However, gay women are most heavily represented in clusters such as Chelsea and Park Slope, with the remainder of the population spread fairly evenly throughout the city.

9

Gay New York 2000

The U.S. Census recently released same-sex couple data, disaggregated to the census tract level for the entire United States. Though an assortment of gay population surveys have been conducted over the last 60 years or so, this one is the most thorough. Furthermore, due to its inclusion in the Census, this survey data will be the most likely to be built upon in consistent andcomparable ways over time.

> In the l i terature that addresses gay male urban ne ighborhoods, gay women’s urban presence has been overt ly d iscarded as irre levant to the stud ies at hand . <

Photo Credits: Christine Grimando

Chelsea Hotel in Chelsea (above)Park Slope in Brooklyn (below)

Gay New York 2000

cHRIST INE gRIMANDO

PLANNING IMPLICATIONS

Examining the chartable gay population across gender lines will highlight the possibility that the pat-terns of these specific groups may intersect with overarching gender disparities. Such examples may include differences in transportation needs between men and women, or gender inequity in terms of housing affordability. Additionally, there are figures that could also impact housing demands, child care needs, spatial needs, along with political representation.

Furthermore, a San Francisco public official recently stated that the difficulty with assessing the cost or possible scope of workplace benefits for same sex couples was due to the lack of knowledge of the total number of these couples or where they reside. This statement raises several planning issues, which include the need for a better understanding of how to approach planning for populations that may be difficult to perceive. Gay neighborhoods are not where the entire gay population of New York City is living, but merely the most visible indicators of that population. Moreover, resources offered by gay neighborhoods, such as social services, health centers, entertainment, and romantic opportuni-ties, are not solely utilized by a single male or female gay population. Men, women, and the public at large visit these areas, as they also serve as large service cores nested in heterogeneous and desirable neighborhoods. p

> Examin ing the chartable gay populat ion across gender l ines wi l l h ighl ight the poss ib i l i ty that the patterns of these spec if i c groups may intersect with overarch ing gender d ispar it ies . <

Relative Concentration of Reporting Same Sex Couples in NYCGIS Map: US Census 2000 (by census tract)

Map Credit: Christine Grimando

11

On the Brink

The profession of urban planning materialized as a response to the shortcomings of technology. The industrialized city came with a downside. We were killing ourselves. The necessity of planning came from our desire to stay alive; our innate, animal-istic survival instinct. Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation. We must be saved from losing our humanity. Again, we have a desperate need for planning.

We live in a culture where binarism rules. Questions are framed with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as the only responses. Our president says that we are either with him or against him. In the world of urban planning, this concept is exhibited in the question surrounding Manhattan’s 42nd Street. The option is either pornographic movie houses or cheesy tourist traps. The debate is framed with only two possible outcomes. People can only choose only from the options they are presented. But is this really a choice when each option is a form of exploitation? We must move beyond this narrow way of viewing the world, transcend mindless sce-narios, and plan with the big picture in mind. We need planning to help us regain those qualities that make us human.

> ...The option is either pornographic movie houses or cheesy tourist traps. The debate is framed with only two possible outcomes...But is this really a choice when each option is a form of exploitation? <

For these things to happen, two important actions must take place. The first is that planning must take on a larger role in society. The planner should be highly regarded, while at the same time the actual planning of cities and the imple-mentation of these plans should not be limited to one person or department. It should come from every direction. The second critical action that must occur for our humanity to remain in tact is the abandonment of binary attitudes. We can no longer pit one extreme option against another. We must rise above this model and create some-thing greater.

In her article “Stumbling Toward Tomorrow”, Ada Louise Huxtable discusses the role of plan-ning commissions and master plans. Huxtable understands the importance of planning bodies having “teeth”. The New York City charter revi-sions in the 1930’s created the Planning Com-mission and gave it the duty of preparing the annual city budget. Huxtable says, “the point

of the process was to provide a budget with a broad overview of the city’s needs and priorities; charter reformers visualized a Solomon-like role for the planners in which they would adjudicate disputes and guarantee a long view” (Huxtable: 1987). This concept of having a Planning Com-mission prepare the city budget makes brilliant sense. Who better to have a big picture view of the city’s needs than the planner? The idea that the planner is somehow in a position to guide the city needs to be strengthened.

This power of budgetary preparation was removed from the planning commission in the 1970’s. As Huxtable explains, “the broad and interrelated concerns of the planning process have been subverted and reduced to revenue-producing operations. Whether this is con-scious policy or not, it is real policy, of a most shortsighted and dangerous kind.” (Huxtable: 1987). She goes on to discuss how the Planning Commission was once proactive but is now merely a passive body that responds to others’ plans. She says, “It functions reactively to the proposals of others, reviewing them only after the developer’s horse has left the barn at a fast trot.” (Huxtable: 1987). Huxtable understands that for hope and true democracy to flourish a city planning commission must both actively plan as well as have a strong voice at the decision making table.

Paul Davidoff agrees with this notion that the city planner must move beyond reacting. In “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning”, he says that the planner “should be an advocate for what he deems proper” (Davidoff: 1965). The plan-ner must be at the forefront of policy decisions leading the push. Not only should planners be advocates, says Davidoff, but planners should also be everywhere - throughout government and throughout society. It is a rarity that citizens care about future plans to their surroundings. “There is something very shameful to our society in the necessity to have organized ‘citizen participa-tion’. Such participation should be the norm in an enlightened democracy” (Davidoff: 1965). Davidoff goes on to discuss the scope of plan-ning and how it is much more than physical plan-ning, but a multi-disciplinary subject that must take socio-economic factors into account. This

eLDAD gOTHELF

> Exploitation of the Earth and exploitation of our souls is becoming the rule and not the exception. We need planning to save us <

concept truly elevates the role of the planner and those that chose to take on that role.

The second element to regaining our humanity is moving beyond binarism. Framing ideological questions in this yes/no manner avoids dealing with the core issues of the problem and merely creates winners and losers. This can be clearly seen in the sprawl debate. It is set up as the inner city vs. the sprawling suburbs. If you do not sup-port the failing inner city, then you must be in favor of sprawl. The debate is not set up to allow questions that dig deeper. There are those, however, that are making efforts to break free of this model.

“New Urbanists” like Peter Calthorpe have some good ideas in creating a new type of community. While many of the criticisms of “New Urban-ism” are quite accurate (i.e. a lack of racial and economic integration), there are many aspects of the concept that have great value and should not be overlooked. The idea of a dense urban environment with an emphasis on pedestrians and mass transit is quite appealing. The regional planning ideas are also noteworthy. Calthorpe says, “Pedestrian Pockets are intended to form a network offering long-range growth within a region” (Calthorpe: 1993).

Although some aspects of the big picture and attempts to reach the root cause of the problem are missing in “New Urbanism”, the attempt to separate from more traditional planning meth-ods is to be admired. Bruce Katz and Amy Liu are good examples of planners making the leap beyond binarism. They say, “The current smart growth discussion must move beyond questions of traffic congestion and the loss of open space to take into account the full array of forces that drive growth in some parts of a region and not in others. To curb sprawl and balance growth,

regions must wrestle, first of all, with the problem of affordable housing” (Katz and Liu: 2000). They are asking questions that address the real issues, such as the necessity for stable, mixed income neighborhoods.

Furthermore, Katz and Liu have real ideas for real people. Understanding that “keeping resi-dential, commercial, office, and industrial land uses separate has all but dictated congestion” (Katz and Liu: 2000) is a revolutionary way

to view land use. Also, Katz and Liu advocate for public-private partnerships. This type of partnership defies the conventional wisdom of separating the two, but is gaining in popularity and oftentimes is not only quite successful but also the only way to complete a project. This type of forward, transcendent thinking is necessary if planners are to be successful in enacting change.

Our culture needs saving. It is not our lives that are in peril, but our humanity. The things about us that make us human – the social interaction, the community, the integration, the diversity, the character – are all being threatened and on the verge of extinction. Exploitation of the Earth and exploitation of our souls is becoming the rule and not the exception. We need planning to save us. For this to happen, two elements must be incorporated. Planning must become a high profile, well-respected profession with all types of people using it to the advantage of the whole. The next element is the abandonment of the binary framework. If these two elements are incorporated, I feel some hope will be restored and the role of the planner in the process of urban and social change will be solidified. p

REFERENCES

Calthorpe, Peter. The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Commu-nity and the American Dream. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993.

Huxtable, Ada Louise. “Stumbling Toward Tomorrow: the Decline and Fall of the New York Vision.” Dissent. Fall 1987. p.453-462.

Davidoff, Paul. “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning.” The City Reader ed. Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout. 1967. p. 423-433.

Katz, Bruce and Amy Liu. “Moving Beyond Sprawl: Towards a Broader Metropolitan Agenda.” Brookings Review Spring 2000. p. 31-34.

15

Smart Growth and Affordable Housing in Arlington, Virginia

Late one night last summer, I was sitting with two friends on the stoop of an apartment building back home in Arlington, VA. We were sitting outside because we couldn’t use my friend Marco’s living room. His aunt, uncle and grandparents were all sleeping on couches in the living room, victims of Arlington’s affordable housing crises. As we were staring at the forest of skyscrapers that stand only a couple blocks from Marco’s apartment,I remarked how good it was that Arlington was building up, rather than sprawling outwards. “Yeah good for the yuppies” Marco, the son of Filipino immigrants replied, “but I liked Arlington the way it used to be, when we could afford to live here”. It was that moment that sparked my interest in the other side of Smart Growth policy-that smart growth initiatives tend to price poorer residents out of the housing market.

Arlington County, Virginia is an inner ring suburb of Washington DC, situated just across the Potomac River from the Nation’s Capital. In the last twenty years, Arlington experienced two booms that drastically changed the face of the community. One was in high-density smart growth development, and the other in immigra-tion. These two factors converged to transform the once sleepy bedroom community into a vibrant, ethnically diverse urban community. Both factors also created a serious housing crisis that hit the immigrant community the hardest. Today, Arlington is struggling to reconcile its award winning smart growth initiatives with the goal of remaining an economically diverse and multiethnic community.

Despite the benefits associated with smart growth, one of the unfortunate side effects is that it tends to drive up land values and consequen-

tially increase the cost of housing (Downs 1992). Poorer residents can find themselves priced out of the hous-ing market in com-munities that institute smart growth policies. Arlington is a good example of what can happen to the housing market when smart growth initiatives are enacted in a densely developed, multiethnic

community.

Since 1980, Arlington County has been the desti-nation of choice for many of the new immigrants that come to the Washington, DC area. Salva-doran, Bolivian, and Vietnamese immigrants, in particular, have established strong communities here during the last twenty years. Currently, Latinos make up about 25% of the population of Arlington. Asians and African Americans both comprise roughly 10% of the population (Singer 2001).

During this same period of massive immigration, Arlington enacted smart growth regulations to refocus development along its Metro corridors. Arlington’s smart growth plan is basically the Portland region’s model crammed into 26 square miles. Similar to Portland, Arlington focuses development on designated downtown areas such as the Orange Line Metro corridor (Metro being the DC subway system). Along this corridor, the Arlington General Land Use Plan encourages dense, mixed-use infill development, creating “vibrant urban villages” (EPA 2002).

Concentrating intense development along this corridor has allowed Arlington to preserve most of its neighborhoods of detached single-family homes. This, in effect, is Arlington’s version of an urban growth boundary. Most new apartment development is directed towards the Metro corri-dor. The problem is that the Metro corridors have become such popular places to live, that almost all of the new apartment buildings are priced out of the range of lower income residents.

Today, the affordable housing problem in Arling-ton is at a crisis level. In 2000, the vacancy rate for apartments in Arlington was 1.4%. For comparison, according to the 1999 Housing and Vacancy Survey, New York City’s rental vacancy rate in 1999 was 3.2%. A vacancy rate below 5% constitutes a housing emergency. The vacancy rate for garden apartments, the most common form of housing for immigrants and minorities

> It is obvious that Arlington is in the midst of a serious housing crisis. If Arlington is committed to the goal of remaining a diverse community, measures must be taken to solve the problem of affordable housing in the county. <

A glimpse of the Arlington skyline.Photo Credit: <http:www.clarendon.org>

Smart Growth and Affordable Housing in Arlington, VirginiarYAN dEVLIN

in Arlington is at an even more critical level, an astounding 0.8% (Affordable Housing Task Force 2000).

It is obvious that Arlington is in the midst of a serious housing crisis. If Arlington is committed to the goal of remaining a diverse community, measures must be taken to solve the problem of affordable housing in the county. To solve the problem, one must first identify the causes of the crisis. The housing crisis in Arlington seems to be a result of two interacting factors. One has to do with the limited supply of new affordable housing in the region, while the other involves the growing demand to live in neo-traditional communities.

Building affordable units in this area does not make financial sense to developers. Why build affordable apartments along the Metro Corridor that rent for $500 a month, when one could easily get $1500-2000 a month by building luxury apartments geared towards young professionals? Due to restrictions in the General Land Use Plan, the Metro Corridor is one of the few places that apartments can be built. This leads to a dwindling supply of affordable housing units.

The demand side of the issue is also a major problem. The demand for reasonably priced housing is so high, that young professionals increasingly choose to “slum it” and move into lower quality housing in lower income, immi-grant neighborhoods, many of which hug the fringes of the Metro Corridor. This trend has led to renovation, and has driven up the rents of many of these formerly low-income units. Along with renovation, wholesale destruction of low-income apartments and replacement with luxury units is also common.

Arlington recognizes the problem and has tried to come up with solutions. However, these solu-tions do not go far enough to provide affordable housing to low-income residents. Arlington’s pri-mary method of providing low income housing is to attach affordable housing development to the market rate housing boom using a system known as Community Benefit Units, a plan akin to New York City’s 80/20 program. Developers can receive density bonuses if their buildings contain affordable housing units. However, participation in the program is entirely voluntary. There is

no law requiring developers to provide afford-able housing, and the Community Benefit Unit program has not been successful in supplying an adequate number of affordable units.

The significant lack of affordable housing units in Arlington demonstrates the problems inher-ent in relying on the private market to supply affordable housing. The provision of affordable housing is simply not an attractive endeavor for developers in Arlington’s hot housing market. Not only are developers failing to build new affordable units, they are renovating or destroy-ing older affordable units.

Arlington County’s smart growth initiatives have made it such a desirable place to live, that the county should not be afraid to make developers responsible for providing affordable housing, especially if the county is not willing to take on the responsibility itself. Tying affordable housing to new development is a good idea, especially in a hot housing market. Due to the desirability of living in Arlington, the county should not be afraid to explore how much it can extract from developers who want to build in Arlington. If Arlington wishes to remain an eth-nically diverse community, policy makers must do more to exploit the benefits of smart growth as a way to strengthen the county’s affordable housing policy. p

> The provision of affordable housing is simply not an attractive endeavor for developers in Arlington’s hot housing market. Not only are developers failing to build new affordable units, they are renovating or destroying older affordable units. <

REFERENCES

Affordable Housing Task Force-Report to the County Board, January 21, 2000. <http://www.co.arlington.va.us/cphd/housing/pdf/ahtf_report.pdf>

Arlington County Proposed Outcome Measure for Affordable Housing Goals, August 22 2001. <www.co.arlington.va.us/cphd/housing/pdf/booklet.pdf>

Arlington Historical Society Arlington Charleston, SC ArcadiaPublishing 2000

Downs, Anthony “Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing” Journal of the American Planning Association Vol 58, #4 1992.

Lang, Robert E & Hornburg, Steven P. “Planning Portland Style: Pitfalls and Possibilities” Housing Policy Debate 8(1):1-10.

National Award for Smart Growth Achievement 2002 Winners-Arling-ton County, VA. Environmental Protection Agency Website <http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/arlington.htm>

Singer, Audrey et al. The World in a Zip Code: Greater Washington, DC as a New Region of Immigration Washington, DC The Brookings Institution 2001.

17

A Discussion on Trash in San Pedro, Guatemala

Tim and I had hiked up to the central market, to buy some breakfast. While the village was quaint, it was also downright dirty in places. At the market, women in brightly colored out-fits waved flyswatters, haggled and laughed, or carried large bags of produce on their head. But under their very feet were massive amounts of garbage. Plastics bags, fruit peels, bottles, pieces of wood, torn up clothing, and a seemingly end-less amounts of newspaper lined the sides of the dirt road.

When I first arrived in Central America I was shocked at how everyone seemed so cavalier about the amount of litter and detri-tus on the ground. I watched people toss plastic bottles or soda cans out of bus windows, fling bones or napkins from their dinner plate out into the

gutter, and generally show a disdain for pubic cleanliness. But eventually, I too stopped notic-ing the litter and filth everywhere. It simply was there, and I tried not to step in rotting papaya or diapers on the curb.

So, Tim and I negotiated our way into acquiring a great backpacker breakfast: two rolls of bread, two avocadoes, and a very large pineapple. We sat down on a high curb and wolfed down the food. I bought two cups of coffee for about 25

It was early one morning, and Tim the Bartender and I were about to take a hike. Tim and I were in the small Indian village of San Pedro alongside of Lago Atitlan, nestled in Guatemala’s central highlands. The little village is mostly populated by indigenous people (aside from a small but loud population of gringo backpackers and hippies) who live in small houses along the rocky shores of the lake. Volcanoes, shrouded in thick green jungle, soar over the bright blue water, and steep hills tower overhead.

cents from a little boy carrying a large thermos on his back.

We sat back, savoring the coffee, and the early morning sun. It was time to go hike, and Tim stood up to start picking up the Styrofoam cups and peels from the avacodoes and pineapple and putting them in a plastic bag.

“Dude, just leave it there.” I said to him “Look at this place. It’s full of trash. Let’s just go.” “No way,” said Tim. “People here might litter, but I don’t. I’m going to find a place to throw this out.”

Tim always had a good sense of right and wrong, and I felt a little sheepish about my lousy attitude. So I decided to get philosophical as Tim picked up our trash.

“Why do you think these people litter like this? Don’t you think they want a clean place to live?”

“Boy oh boy, here comes Seth with his big American values! Look at these ‘dirty Indians’!Maybe they’d clean up if they weren’t so stupid.”

“Tim, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m just curiousif the people here live like this because it’s a cultural thing to throw out your trash in the street, or if they really like to have things clean, but just can’t seem to be organized for political, economic or bureaucratic reasons.”

Tim, who is a good deal smarter than me, had an answer right away. “Well, the creation of non-bio-degradable goods really changed things. When packaging in San Pedro consisted of nothing

> “...the creation of non-biodegradable goods really changed things. When packaging in San Pedro consisted of nothing more than banana leaves or fruit peels, it was really no big deal to litter. Everything dissolved in a few weeks. Now, people throw a plastic bag in the street, and it’s there for years.” <

Crowded marketplace in Guatemala.

A Discussion on Trash in San Pedro, Guatemala

more than banana leaves or fruit peels, it was really no big deal to litter. Everything dissolved in a few weeks. Now, people throw a plastic bag in the street, and it’s there for years.”

We started looking for a trash can to throw out our little bundle of breakfast trash. I continued the discussion with the thought that perhaps if people hadn’t changed their cultural tradition of throwing trash in the street, it could be possible that the stress of the recent civil war and crushingpoverty, caused people to be only marginally interested in the trivial problem of litter.

Tim responded as we rounded a corner that perhaps the leaders of San Pedro didn’t plan properly for the population, and business of the village, and so there weren’t enough trash cans. Indeed, Tim and I had been walking around for nearly five minutes unsuccessfully looking for a trash can of any kind. Maybe if they placed more trash cans, he continued, they could change the cultural norms of the people, and help them deal with non-disintegrating plastic waste products.

Yes, I thought, that was it. Here the government could just step in and make more trash cans and everything would fall into place. San Pedro could be resplendent, litter-free and all would be right in the world.

At that moment we spotted a trash can suspended from a telephone pole.

“Here we go,” I said stepping up to the can. As I let go of the bag of trash, I watched it fall into the can, and through its empty bottom. It plopped onto a pile of trash beneath the trash can.

Over the next five months backpacking, I learned a lot. I learned that just because you build munic-ipal trash cans, people might not use them. They certainly won’t use them if they do not have a bottom. Just because people are dirty, doesn’t mean they want to be, and sometimes it doesn’t mean they want to change.

That conversation I had with Tim about culture and municipal governments, the values we each carried, and our ponderings on the attitudes of the Quiche’ people of San Pedro made me think of how nothing is really simple. And that trash can missing its bottom told me that nothing is really that complicated. p

> Yes, I thought, that was it. Here the government could just step in and make more trash cans and everything would fall into place. San Pedro could be resplendent, litter-free and all would be right in the world. <

Photo Credits: Seth Myers

sETH mYERS

19

The Merging of Maps, the Consumption of Creativity

Chasing a rash of Chelsea gallery openings last January, I stumbled onto the trail of something subtly shocking. I was at Gavin Brown Enterprises’ “20th Anniversary Celebration,” and the air was, well,celebratory. The fact that the painfully hip Chelsea art gallery wasn’t even a decade old wasn’t what was out of sorts. It has always exercised bizarre and subversive media tactics to further promote itself and its shifty stable of young artists. What was weird was that a group of young revo-lutionaries had occupied the gallery’s bathroom. Taped to the door, was a manifesto aptly titled “Our Life in the Toilet.” The following is an excerpt:

“Dear Sirs and madams of Gavin Brown Enterprises,

As of the time this notice was posted, we have claimed your toilet as our own and declared it as a separate country. We have brought with us a few essential possessions with which we plan onmaintaining our physical, emotional, and creative well being while we pen the declaration of our new national ideals. Please do not be alarmed as we are neither crooks nor criminals and would in no way jeopardize the functioning state of your establishment. We simply have an unstoppable urge to live our lives in a new found land which is founded on absolute honesty… a land which truly reflects the state of humanity in which we exist. We have found that building a country on hope and promise will only result in failure and disaster (re: AMERICA), therefore our country will be built solely on the urine soaked floor of your bathroom with no ego and no empty promises of freedomor evolution…”

The note went on to explain that the group would remain inside until they were driven out by physical force or starvation,and then concluded with contact infor-mation and a warning that if they were arrested they would consider the gallery “a fascist and artless regime.” Next to it

was a list of supplies that the insurgents had brought with them, including: one twenty pound dumbbell, one typewriter with pink typing paper, one Danzig/Samhain CD, three pints of Jim Beam, two boxes of Smaks cereal, The Wreckers of Civilization, and one chess set.

The last item is of particular interest, for it could be taken as a nod toward Marcel Duchamp, who along with Gertrude Drick, John Sloan and three actors, occupied the Washington Square Arch in 1913. Seated upon hot water bags, the group lit Chinese lanterns, drank wine, released red balloons, fired cap pistols and declared Greenwich Village a “Free Republic.” Yet Duchamp et al. abandoned their nation unscathed, sometime before dawn. Our friends at Gavin Brown Enterprises met a less fortunate fate, compliments of Mr. Gavin Brown. Discovering the miscreants holding his loo under siege, the gallerist did his part in making the artist occupation au courant.

Brown bolted them in from the outside and then cut the power. In seconds, the nation of “abso-lute honesty” became a prison of cultural consumption. Of course this sounds a little dramatic, but to be frank, all that was missing was a “PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS” sign.Spectators were banging on the door much in the same way hyperactive toddlers knock on aquariums.

> We have found that building a country on hope and promise will only result in failure and disaster (re: AMERICA), therefore our country will be built solely on the urine soaked floor of your bathroom with no ego and no empty promises of freedom or evolution… <

Book Cover: Wreckers of Civilization by Simon Ford

Lacking their agency, the “forefathers” were now a part of the sensational woodwork. They were flattened and incorporated into the gleaming surface of the larger institution.

Maybe I was just paranoid, but in the following weeks, this turning of the tables became a recurring theme. A strange anxiety overcame me as I walked into Ryan McGinley’s “The Kids are Alright” opening at the Whitney Museum. A weird tension existed between the institutional space of the museum and the crowd of predominantly Lower East Side habitués, whose vivid subculture had been so obsessively photographed. Just about everyone there was younger than 33, and a field trip vibe was going on, but the problem was that no one knew where we were going. The “kids” didn’t know if the celebration signified the storming of the bastion of institutional art or if their subculture had merely been incorpo-

rated into its program.

Navigating the huge fortress of granite clad, reinforced concrete, I couldn’t stop thinking about “Session the Bowl,” a show that was up at Deitch Projects. A skate-boarding extravaganza, it centered on a giant wooden bowl constructed for skateboarders to display their talents, and more importantly, allowed for the gallery to display the skateboarders. What the hell was going on? Perhaps this was what it was like growing up in the ghetto-fabulous age of mass cultural consumption. After all, the phenomenon was nothing new. Neil Smith writes in The New Urban Frontier:

“The unprecedented commodification of art in the 1980s engendered an equally ubiquitous aestheticization of culture and politics: graffiti came off the trains and into the galleries, while the most outrageous punk and new wave styles moved rapidly from the streets to full page advertisement in the New York Times.”

As the role of the artist drifts more and more into the domain of cultural purveyor, there is a tendency to let the matter rest and to tacitly assume the position of creative cog in the machine of wholesale cultural production.Since the machine’s strength lies in the sum of its parts, this is where new forms of creativity will be produced. The new creativity must be able to look commerce in the face, since there is no longer anywhere for it to hide. Writing on Bohemia, Luc Sante describes two separate cities that its citizens had to simultaneously inhabit. One was an imaginary realm of free thought and grand ideas, while the other was a physical world of material certainty complete with its respective hardships and fears. The goal, Sante explains, was to align these two worlds into one, thus alleviating the need to use two maps at once. Whether or not artists agree with the surrounding circum-stances, globalizing forces of the media have merged these two worlds. Now that these maps are one, the big question is where to go? p

jOEL fERREE

The Merging of Maps, the Consumption of Creativity

REFERENCES

Sante, Luac. Low Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Smith, Neil. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. New York: Routledge Press, 1996.

> The “kids” didn’t know if the celebration signified the storming of the bastion of institutional art or if their subculture had been merely incorporated into its program. <

Book Cover: Wreckers of Civilization by Simon Ford

Photo Credit: Collection of the artist.

Lizzy, 2002 (Photo by Ryan McGinley)

Whitney Museum

21Interview with Andrew Coamey: Senior Vice-President for Housing Development & Operations at Housing Works

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING AT HOUSING WORKS AND HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS?

I have been at Housing Works on and off for about 10 years. In 1989, I applied to work with the City’s Department of Children and Family Services and they forwarded my resume to the NYC Division of AIDS services, which is now called the HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA). After staying at HASA for a year and a half, I decided that I did not want to be at a City agency, because the bureaucracy limited my ability to do certain things.

I was greatly impacted by witnessing the struggles that my HASA clients faced, which led me to apply for a job at Housing Works in 1991. I became their first paid employee, and moved through the ranks to eventually become deputy director of their day treatment program. In 1998, I left Housing Works to do housing developmentat a non-profit consulting firm called the Hudson Development Group. After two and a half years, I decided to return to Housing Works to assist with their housing projects, and have remained here ever since.

YOU MUST HAVE WITNESSED MANY CHANGES DURING YOUR TIME HERE.

When I started working for the City in 1989, oftentimes I could not even get people Medicaid and food stamps before they died. At that time, people with AIDS died so quickly. I’d get an appoint-ment, go out for a home visit, and a month or two after the initial contact, the person was dead. So, the most dramatic shift that I have seen between 1991 and 2000 is that people do live longer and are also able to achieve a better quality of life.

Throughout the year and a half that I worked for the City, my co-workers wore gloves and masks when dealing with clients because they were afraid of people with AIDS. I think that the level of public fear has changed over time, but discrimination and phobia still remain. Fortunately, we have come leaps and bounds from the days when people talked about quarantining people with AIDS.

So that is the positive stuff, but I think that most notably, hous-ing availability for people with AIDS has not changed much. The experience that I had as a case manager showed me all of the prob-lems associated with gaining access to housing for people with AIDS, as well as for homeless people in general. Affordable hous-ing availability and access has certainly not changed in a positive way. I think that is the main issue. Many homeless people living with AIDS could live in their own apartment and independently

manage their lives if they could get a decent, affordable place to live.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE UNIQUE ASPECTS OF HOUSING WORKS AS A COM-MUNITY-BASED HOUSING PROVIDER THAT OPERATES UNDER A HARM-REDUC-TION MODEL?

We have always believed in the Housing First approach. Meet a homeless person in the subways or sleeping on the street, take them into your offices, dust them off, get them something to eat, and hand them keys to an apartment that evening. Put people in housing first and then wrap all of the services that they need around them, regardless of their mental health, their progression of HIV, or their drug dependency issues. Providing people with direct services or a one-stop service environment is the core of our mission. Many other housing providers require some kind of transitional time before they place people in permanent housing. We don’t believe that people need to wait, and we trust that housing is the foundation to help people get many other things in place.

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON WHAT YOU PERCEIVE TO BE THE ROLE OF SUPPORT-IVE HOUSING, ESPECIALLY IN RELATION TO CLIENTS WHO ARE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS?

In my perspective, supportive housing is when people have social services easily available to them, whether that is case management, drug treatment services, or mental health services. We recently

Housing Works, the nation’s largest community-based AIDS service organization, is a minority-controlled organization dedicated to providing housing, healthcare, job training, and vital support services to home-less people with HIV and AIDS. Andrew Coamey is Senior Vice-President of Housing Development & Oper-ations, and has worked on behalf of issues related to HIV/AIDS and homelessness throughout his career. It is truly an honor to gain his unique insight and to learn more about the inspiring nature of his work.

ADVOCACY AND RESPECT AS MEDICINE FOR HIV AND HOMELESSNESS

Housing Works clients and employees rally for a worthy cause.

Interview with Andrew Coamey: Senior Vice-President for Housing Development & Operations at Housing Works

cYNTHIA gOLEMBESKI

conducted a focus group study for our family housing units located in Harlem. Parents did not want services in the building because they wanted their children to feel like they are living in a private apartment just like anybody else. They wanted to be able to put a key in the door, walk in, and then walk into their apartment without passing a case manager or security guard. That’s all well and good, but our families need services.

So how do we do this? We put staffing and services, such as after school programs and kitchen facilities, in the renovated downstairs area of two brownstones located right across the street.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE ROLE OF ACTIVISM IN THE HISTORY OF HOUSING WORKS’ ADVOCACY EFFORTS?

Our advocacy efforts are somewhat unique and perhaps legendary in that we believe in grassroots old-fashioned community organiz-ing and civil disobedience. Our legal department files class-action lawsuits on behalf of homeless people with AIDS when federal, state, or city policies are discriminatory or hurtful. We have also showed up at the White House and have refused to go home after we asked to speak to the president and were told that he was not available. Interestingly, much of the action that we see happening around the war are things that Housing Works has been doing for many years around HIV and AIDS. Our founders were all member of ACT UP, so we have this history of trying to change policy and perception through direct action.

DO YOU FEEL THAT ALL OF YOUR ADVOCACY TACTICS HAVE BEEN WORTHWHILE?

Such advocacy is definitely worthwhile, but I think that we have paid a price for it as an institution. At one time, Housing Works had over 250 housing units supported by a city contract. In response to a very aggressive advocacy campaign that we took against the Giuliani campaign, the City launched a series of audits and then claimed that they found some fiscal impropriety. As a result, we were unable to get any city contracts and were a hair short of filing for bankruptcy in 1996. We reduced our business portfolio and managed to slowly get our way out of it, mostly due to the revenue from the thrift stores that the government could not regulate.

We have been engaged in litigation with the City of New York since 1996 over the City’s violation of our right to free speech. Various judges have stated that the Giuliani administration took away our contracts because they basically did not like what we were saying in

our advocacy campaign. That incident highlights the most dramatic effect of our advocacy efforts. During the Giuliani administration, we were constantly under attack and scrutiny. While there have never been such barriers at the state and federal level, on some occasions it is clear that we do not get funding because of who we are. We know this to be true, but that does not deter us from what we do. People come to work at Housing Works because they are attracted to an organization where they can engage in political

protest to change policy.

IS HOUSING WORKS A CLIENT CENTERED AND MINORITY-CONTROLLED AGENCY?

We truly are a minority-controlled agency. Our board of directors and our executive team are overwhelmingly made up of people of color. Furthermore, most of our staff and clients are people of color. At least a third of our board is comprised of clients, giving them a pretty significant voting block on any decision that we make. Client involvement is also encouraged through client advisory boards.

HOW MANY HOUSING UNITS DOES HOUSING WORKS CURRENTLY OPERATE? HOW MANY ARE PRESENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT?

We have a total of 103 units of housing in operation, of which 83 are permanent residences and 20 are transitional residences.

Units Currently In Operation # of unitsFamilies 3Single Adults 68Furnished rooms for single adults 12Transitional for female ex-offenders 20TOTAL 111 103

Units Currently Under Development # of unitsTransitional for transgender individuals 24Permanent residences in Staten Island 20Permanent residences in Harlem 16TOTAL 60

So, we should soon have a total of 119 units for permanent resi-dents and 44 units for transitional residents.

> During the Giuliani administration, we were constantly under attack and scrutiny. While there have never been such barriers at the state and federal level, on some occasions it is clear that we do not get funding because of who we are. We know this to be true, but it’s not going to deter us from what we do. <

23

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES RELATED TO AIDS AND HOMELESSNESS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF NEW YORK CITY?

Simply put, there is just not enough housing. That’s the short answer. For instance, HASA has placed people with emergency housing needs in these Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units or hotels, which have become permanent residences for many clients. Currently, there are close to 3000 people living in these types of units. Aside from the shortage of available appropriate units, HASA has no coordinated housing placement system.

What do I mean by that? Well, if you could ever figure out how to reach someone at HASA’s housing unit, they would not be able to tell you how many housing vacancies are available for people with AIDS in New York City. Although they contract with non-profits to provide housing, they have no mechanism to identify the client’s needs and to match them up with an appropriate provider. To their credit, they are beginning to reach out to solicit feedback for system improvements. The agency could probably make better placements for 25-30% of the clients currently in hotels, simply through better coordination and vacancy tracking.

HAS THE CITY ADEQUATELY PROVIDED BUILDINGS FOR AFFORDABLE

HOUSING DEVELOPMENT THAT IS MEDICALLY APPROPRIATE FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH AIDS?

Prior to Giuliani’s term, when the City took over a property because the owner did not pay taxes, they would sell it to non-profit developers for a ridiculously low amount of money. These units could then be developed into affordable housing. However, Giuliani regarded these properties as valuable assets and thought that the related tax breaks were needed, so in the last eight to ten years, he basically auctioned off every piece of City-owned prop-erty to the highest bidder.

HAVE YOU SEEN AN INCREASE IN THE NEED TO DEVELOP HOUSING AND SER-VICES THAT FOCUS ON FAMILIES LIVING WITH AIDS?

Absolutely, especially for younger parents who are testing posi-tive. Young mothers with HIV face extreme difficulties keeping their household together, especially in light of today’s economy and welfare reform measures. We are further developing two and three bedroom housing for families with children. In addition, we are setting up a system so that if a parent dies and there is a caregiver that is not HIV positive, the family can keep the house. Unfortunately most funding streams require that once the head of household has passed away, the family will have to be relocated. A death in the family is bad enough, but being suddenly forced to find a new place to live is even more traumatic.

WOULD YOU PLEASE TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT THE HISTORY BEHIND HOUSING

WORKS’ CENTRAL HARLEM AIDS SUPPORTIVE HOUSING INITIATIVE?

The founder of Stand up Harlem identified a housing need for Harlem residents with HIV. He purchased brownstones in the early 1990s, and later received money from the U.S. Department of Housing (HUD) to renovate the units for people with AIDS. Soon thereafter, both he and his organization fell on rough times. HUD asked Housing Works and Harlem United to step in and assume the development of the properties. We worked with Stand up Harlem to assume the debts, mortgages, and liens on two properties, and are currently in the process of doing that for another building. We secured $2.5 million from HHAP to renovate the buildings.

Since 1998, we have been embroiled in community opposition and bureaucracy. As recent as January of 2001, we got our HHAP grant and were then sued by some elected officials and small property owners in Harlem who tried to prevent development of the proper-ties. Their solution was to offer seven other properties, which were too expensive for us to purchase, yet located only two blocks away. We won that lawsuit and after finishing a year and a half process with HPD, are now finally awaiting approval for transfer of the final building from the New York State Attorney General’s office. We hope to begin development of these projects really soon.

Interview with Andrew Coamey: Senior Vice-President for Housing Development & Operations at Housing Works [ continued ]

> Affordable hous ing ava i lab i l i ty and access has certa in ly not changed in a pos it ive way . Many homeless people l iv ing with AIDS could l ive in the ir own apartment and independently manage the ir l ives if they could get a decent , affordable place to l ive . <

Photo Credits: Carolina Kroon

DO YOU ENCOUNTER PROBLEMS WITH SITING A NEW FACILITY, PERHAPS DUE TO A NIMBY LIKE RESPONSE FROM EXISTING RESIDENTS?

NIMBYism is the story behind the Central Harlem AIDS Support-ive Housing Initiative. There are not too many communities that want to welcome homeless people into their neighborhood. The perception still exists that we will ruin the area, and therefore drive down the property values. However, people can be educated and people can also change. I believe that people are inherently good and when given the chance, they will rise to the occasion.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN FUNDING SOURCES FOR HOUSING REHABILITATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS?

City, state, and federal sources of funding are available for home-less housing. The HIV Planning Council, which is a local group, sets the priorities for AIDS funding in the City. Money is also allo-cated to localities each year through the federal HUD-McKinney rental homeless assistance program. Community-based agencies can then apply to the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) and the HIV Planning Council in order to access the money.

Although there is not much money solely designated for AIDS housing, funds for housing the home-less can be directed toward people with AIDS. The only dedi-cated housing funding source for people with AIDS is called Hous-

ing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA), which is issued to the City who then issues a request for proposals from non-profit agencies.

I HAVE HEARD SOME HIV/AIDS AND HOUSING ADVOCATES CRITICIZE THE CITY OF NEW YORK FOR HOW IT HAS DECIDED TO SPEND ITS FEDERAL DOLLARS SPECIFICALLY EARMARKED FOR AIDS HOUSING. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS?

NYC has not appropriately spent their HOPWA money and has done the infamous “HOPWA swap.” Advocates have informed the public that the City used HOPWA money to pay for case manage-ment services instead of affordable housing. In addition, HOPWA funds have been used for projects altogether unrelated to HIV/AIDS or homeless services. The Giuliani administration promised that they would use tax revenues to pay back this $25 million that they misallocated, yet Giuliani failed to do so. HUD has noted that the City has a history of mishandling its HOPWA money, and the City could not show how it spent these funds when requested to do

so by the federal government. We hope that the Bloomberg admin-istration will figure out a way to undo this “swap.”

THE CENTER FOR AN URBAN FUTURE RECENTLY PUBLISHED A REPORT STAT-ING THAT “AIDS PLANNING IN NYC FACES MANY THORNY CHALLENGES, A LACK OF COORDINATION AND TOO LITTLE INFORMATION ABOUT SERVICE GAPS.” DO YOU THINK THAT NYC WOULD BENEFIT FROM A BETTER ANALY-SIS OF HOW HIV/AIDS RELATED SERVICES SUPPORTED BY DIFFERENT FUNDING STREAMS OVERLAP OR WHERE THEY LEAVE GAPS IN CARE?

The Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy’s (MOAP) role as policy coordinators should be to map out a comprehensive strategy for AIDS services in New York City. There is no organized plan for addressing such problems as HIV prevention, housing needs, and case management. Without a comprehensive strategy, you have non-profit agencies struggling to serve clients that end up on their doorsteps and the City placing people in these terrible hotels. It is a disjointed system and we have often asked, “What is NYC’s AIDS policy?”

Unfortunately until about a month ago, Bloomberg never men-tioned the word AIDS in any single public setting. He recently laid out a New York City AIDS policy that contains some disconcert-ing aspects along with some good points. Hopefully, the City will use the mayor’s office to bring advocates and community groups together to come up with a comprehensive plan.

THERE IS A PUBLIC PERCEPTION THAT THE HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC IS INCREASINGLY UNDER CONTROL. DOES THIS PERCEPTION IMPACT PREVEN-TION AND SERVICE PROVISION EFFORTS?

Absolutely. To some degree people take for granted that this epi-demic is over. We have seen an increase in AIDS related deaths over the last couple of years, and I think that the public percep-tion is that when you get AIDS, you take medication, and then you live a good, long life. People forget that the bottom line is that we still have no cure. Yes, to some degree AIDS can be man-aged better than before, but you will still die from this disease.

This perception that people with AIDS are doing fine, living long, and no longer in need of services, has taken away a sense of urgency for people, particularly in relation to funding. In addition, private funding sources for AIDS related services have diminished since September 11, as money has been channeled into 9/11 proj-ects. AIDS funding was the place where people with wealth felt as though they could make a difference. I wish that more of them would hear what we have to say, so that they could still make a difference. Come spend a year with us and you will see that there is still a need for housing, services and funding. p

Interview with Andrew Coamey: Senior Vice-President for Housing Development & Operations at Housing Works [ continued ]

cYNTHIA gOLEMBESKI

25

Israeli Public Housing

fundamental social justice” and that the goal was to eliminate public housing in Israel (Walla News 2000).

The “Public Housing Law”, the “My Home” program, and the “Buy your Home” program were each designed to achieve the same declared policy, which was to reduce the volume of public housing in Israel and to create a more equitable hous-ing market by selling tenants their public housing units. This policy was based on the assumption that many of the residents could and would buy their apartments, and that ownership would lead to better neighborhoods. The notion of buying the housing units as a homeowner investment was

never discussed by the govern-ment or the public.

While the sales predictions for both the law and the regulations were 10,000 apartments per year (from the total 108,000 units in 1998), less than 10,000 apartments were sold in the first 2 years. Half of the units that were actually sold came from the Jewish Agency stock, and

To understand the context in which Israeli Public Housing programs operate, we must understand first the uniqueness of the Israeli housing market, and the way that the Israeli public thinks about housing and homeownership.

the government had to subsi-dize the costs of the discounts.

To understand the context in which these programs operate, we must first understand the uniqueness of the Israeli hous-ing market, and the way that the Israeli public thinks about housing and homeownership.

THE PLAYERS IN THE ISRAELI PUBLIC HOUSING MARKET

The Israeli government is the major player in both the free housing market and the public housing sector. The cost of housing in the free market is extremely high due to the heavy taxation borne by the construc-tion sector and the fact that the central government controls more than 90% of the land.

The government owns most of the public housing units through the Amidar Company, which is the national corpora-tion for immigrant housing in Israel. Amidar handles about 70,000 units and is the biggest public housing company. The second biggest public housing company is Amigur, which handles approximately 30,000 units and is owned by the Jewish Agency. There are five other small housing companies jointly owned by the central and local government, which handle a combined total of 8,000 units.

The issue of transferring land ownership from the govern-ment to the public was first raised by the Kibbutzim, which are cooperative communities, and the agriculture sector in the beginning of the 1990’s. In this instance, the negotiation

THE STATE OF ISREALI PUBLIC HOUSING

> The new state absorbed significant waves of immigrants, and the Jewish population grew from 650,000 in 1948 to 1,810,000 in 1958. The private market was unable to meet housing needs, so the government became responsible for planning, building and providing housing....<

In 1998, approximately 250,000Israeli citizens, 3.5 percent of the state’s population, lived in public housing. About 67% of the units were owned by the central government while most of the remaining units belonged to the Jewish Agency, an inter-national Jewish organization.In the same year the Israeli gov-ernment enacted the “Public Housing Law: Acquisition Rights Act,” allowing all public housing tenants to buy the apart-ments they live in for only a portion of their actual value (Knesset 2003). In some cases, the discount would reach 90% of the apartment’s value. However, before the law could go into effect, its implementation was frozen until 2000. In the interim, the

government created the “My Home” program, which made it possible to buy apartments in different conditions and at smaller discounts.

After the 1999 election, the new administration created the “Buy Your Home” program. Ehud Barak, the new Israeli prime minister at the time, stated that “this law is aimed at achieving

WHO BENEFITS AND WHO SETTLES?

with the government included changing the land use from agricultural to both residential and commercial, as well as buying the land at a discounted price. Until 2000, the agree-ment between the Kibbutzim and the government was not signed.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

From 1900 through the 1930’s,urban development in Israel’s Jewish cities was private, focused on renters, and reflected dominant middle class European immigrant culture. A tenant protection act, infla-tion, generous mortgages and the influx of Holocaust sur-vivors, changed this situation completely during the 1940’s. When the state of Israel was established in 1948, rental units comprised only 12% of the housing market.

The new state absorbed sig-nificant waves of immigrants, and the Jewish population grew from 650,000 in 1948 to 1,810,000 in 1958. The private market was unable to meet housing needs, so the government became respon-sible for planning, building and providing housing to the new immigrants. The govern-ment established the Amidar Company, which was respon-sible for constructing housing, providing housing solutions for eligible families, and manag-ing the stock of government owned apartments. By 1963, the Amidar Company had built about 200,000 apartments.

In 1948, most of the Jewish population was Ashkenazi (from Eastern Europe) and

gURI nADLER

Israeli Public Housing

lived in the central region. Since the policy sought to evenly disperse the population throughout the state, most of the construction was located in remote areas, creating a separate housing market. The first wave of immigrants who also came from Eastern Europe, managed to find housing in the central

cities. However, later waves of immigrants who were mostly Sephardic (Jewish people from Moslem and North African countries), were sent to the remote areas. Previously, this segregation reinforced the con-nection between class, ethnicity and housing.

Since the early years, tenants could receive a 25% discount on the purchase price of their apartments. If tenants were eligible for a rent subsidy, they could exchange it for a higher discount rate. By 1990, about 180,000 apartments were sold this way.

Over the last few decades, the shortage in public housing units in the center of Israel created a waiting list of eligible families that were unable to get an apart-ment. The government provided these families with monthly financial assistance of about $250-300, which is little more than 50% of the average rent of $500 for the whole country, but less than 50% of the aver-age rent of $600 in the central areas.

During the 1990s, there was a new wave of immigration. Nearly 1,000,000 new immi-grants came from the former USSR and Ethiopia, creating new demands in the public housing market. Private com-panies constructed most of the new housing units. The numbers of apartments from

public housing stock that were sold to the tenants continued to decline. For instance, Amidar sold 5,200 units in 1990, 1,200 units in 1994, and only 500 units in 1997.

WHAT DOES ISRAELI PUBLIC HOUSING LOOK LIKE?

When an Israeli thinks about public housing, (s)he usually imagines a four-story building

with four separate entrances. Each entrance leads to sixteen individual apartments. Public housing buildings are usually located in the poorest neighbor-hoods, in the outer parts of the central cities, or in other parts of the country.

HOUSING AND HOME OWNERSHIP IN THE ISRAELI CULTURE

Since its foundation, the state of Israel has been committed to the absorption of Jewish immigrants. According to the “law of return,” every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel and to become a citizen entitled to all benefits accompanying citizenship. Upon arrival, the state provides allowances, Hebrew language education, job training and generous hous-ing assistance in the form of subsidies and loans.

In an immigrant society, owning a house or apartment

is considered an important step towards successful integration into the new country (Elm-elech et al. 1997). Although the Israeli government has always tried to help new immigrants become homeowners, many families were not able to do so and began their life in Israel living in public housing.

Many Israelis perceive their home as mainly a place to live, rather than as an investment. This perception may have resulted from the fact that for many years the government controlled the state housing markets, while many fami-lies obtained or bought their apartment from the govern-ment instead of from the free market.

In 2000, the homeownership rate in Israel was 71%. How-ever, homeownership rates are much lower for lower-income families, who are mostly Sep-hardic and live in the remote parts of the country.

> .The shortage of units in the central region, ethnic segregation, and the needs of the poorest families were not addressed through these programs. <

A picture from 2001 (right), and a picture from the 1970’s (left), shows that this image of a building

with the laundry hanging outside, has not changed much over the years.

Picture credit: Elisha Efrat, Development Towns In Israel: Past or Future?, Achisasaf Publishing house Ltd. , Israel, 1987.

27Israeli Public Housing [ continued ]

THE PUBLIC HOUSING MARKET IN 1998

At the beginning of 1998, the housing companies managed about 108,000 apartments that housed 250,000 people. The average rent for these units was $55. About 2,200 other eligible families on a waiting list for public housing received monthly financial assistance of $250-300 toward the rent of an apartment on the free

market, until a suitable public housing unit became available (Bar 2000). While most of the financial assistance was given to residents in the central area, the majority of public housing units were located in other parts of the country.

The slowdown in sales along with issues related to land trans-fer from the government to the public led to the proposal of a few bills dealing with new ways to transfer public housing units to their residents.

THE THREE PROPOSALS

THE ACQUISITION RIGHTS ACT

As the sales of apartments slowed and the Kibbutzim started to negotiate with the government on land issues, Ran Cohen, a left wing Me’eritz party member of the Knesset, the unicameral parliament of

Israel, presented a new bill to regulate the sale of public hous-ing apartments to residents. A group of Knesset members from the left supported and campaigned for this bill, which proposed discounts up to 85% of the apartment value.

Public Housing residents that lived in their apartments for more than 5 years and did not own another apartment or land

worth more than $70,000, were eligible for the discount. Only the length of time spent living in the unit could increase the discount rate. This bill became law in October 1998, and was supposed to be implemented in January, 1999.

THE “MY HOME” PROGRAM

Simultaneously with Cohen’s proposal, the government established a committee to propose guidelines for financial assistance for housing. The committee recommended that the assistance be based on indi-vidual eligibility, and that not all apartments should be sold. In addition, it was felt that a small stock of apartments in the country’s central region should be kept under government own-ership for families with both financial problems and physical disabilities.

The government had a few reasons for establishing the committee. First, the Finance Ministry determined that Cohen’s bill was too costly. Secondly, the right wing gov-ernment wanted to be the politi-cal power that would grant any generous offers, rather that have the left do so.

Meir Sheetrit, a Knesset member from the right wing Likud party, had also proposed a new bill based on the commit-tee’s recommendations. After the Cohen bill became law, the right wing government delayed its implementation and pro-posed the “My Home” program based on Sheetrit’s proposed bill. The “My Home” program offered smaller discounts, of 40-60% with a maximum of 75%, and discount rates were based on years of residence as well as the location of the unit. Units located in towns on hostile borders, urban renewal neighborhoods, and other areas of national priority got higher discounts than the rest of the country. The eligibility criterion was lowered to three years.

In order to include the units that were owned by the Amigur Company and the Jewish Agency, Sheetrit had to prom-ise to compensate these organi-zations for the discount costs. A condition of the incentive was that Amigur would have to sell at least 5,000 units in the first three years of the program. Amigur sold more units than all the other housing companies combined, although it owned only 30% of the total units in the market.

THE “BUY YOUR HOME”PROGRAM

After the 1999 election, the new Prime Minister Ehud Barak appointed Ran Cohen to his cabinet, and the new government announced that Cohen’s law would be imple-mented in January of 2001. The “My Home” program was ter-minated and in 2000, the new administration offered those who wanted to buy their apart-ment a new program called “Buy Your Home.”

The eligibility criterion for the “Buy Your Home” program was 12 years of residence, and the highest discount was set to 90% of the unit value. The 12 years criterion made the pro-gram relevant to only 40% of the tenants.

RESULTS

By July 2000, only 4,197 apartments had been sold. By February 2001, more than two years after the first program was started, the number of sales reached 10,485. It is important to note that half of these came from the Jewish Agency stock that was managed by Amigur. As mentioned earlier, these organizations had an agreement with the government. Intensive marketing assisted them in achieving their goal of selling 5,000 units and getting the discount costs back from the central government. Without this special effort, the original goal of selling 10,000 units a year would never have been achieved (Ha’aretz English Edition 2000).

> ...Public housing buildings are usually located in the poorest neighborhoods, in the outer parts of the central cities, or in the other parts of the country. <

WHO BENEFITS AND WHO SETTLES?

REFERENCES

From the Knesset web site at <http://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/heb/hok_306.htm>

Walla news at <http://news.wall.co.il/ts.cgi?tsscript=item&id=20654>

Noah Lewin-Epstein; Yuval Elmelech; Moshe Semyonov; “The inequality in home ownership and the value of housing: The case of immigrants in Israel". Social Forces; Chapel Hill; Jun 1997.

Dadon Bar, Public Housing In Israel: A Pro-posal for Reform, Institute For Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, 2000. on line at <http:www.israeleconomy.org/policystudies/ps46.pdf>

EVALUATION OF THE POLICIES AND PROGRAMS

IN TERMS OF EQUITY

All program costs are paid by taxpayer money. The units belong to the central govern-ment, and the cost of paying the discount costs to the Jewish Agency is the same as the cost incurred by the central govern-ment buying units from this organization and selling it to the tenants for the same price. So, the question of equity is more about who benefits from these programs.

Those eligible for public housing that did not get an apartment, are now worse off. This group is paying a higher monthly rent than the residents in public housing. Moreover, the programs did not give this group an opportunity to become homeowners, and if the number of public housing units is reduced through homeown-ership sales, there is less of a chance that they ever will.

The programs were designed to create a more equitable situa-tion among the public housing residents. Except for in the “My Home Program,” the rate of discount was determined only by years of living in the unit, without considering location, or family income. With the high rates of discount, almost all families should have been able to buy their apartment.

However, in the real market, many of the poorest families could not afford to buy their apartments even with the high-est discounts rates. In the central area where buying an apartment could mean an opportunity for investment, the prices were prohibitively high.

IN TERMS OF EFFICIENCY

Without considering the pay-ments to the Jewish Agency, selling the units may seem like an efficient policy. Government ownership of the units meant losing money, because the rent

did cover maintenance costs and subsidies, and the govern-ment rarely evicted non-paying residents. Although the govern-ment calculated the discounts as costs of the programs, in fact it could be understood as a stop-loss approach (Ha’aretz English Edition 2000). On the other hand, paying the Jewish Agency, was the real expense of the programs.

The original design of the programs did not offer any solutions to new low-income families that needed housing assistance after most of the units were sold. But in reality, when only 10,000 apartments were sold, the situation did not change much.

Another basic problem with all three of these programs was that they did not offer a

gURi nAdLeR

real incentive for homeowner-ship. Since most of the public housing tenants were paying an average rent of $55, they knew that they could stay in the unit as long as they wished, and that most of the apartments located outside of the central region were not a good investment.

In order for the programs to achieve their aims of chang-ing neighborhoods, a majority of the units in a neighborhood would have to be purchased for this goal to happen. Since only 10,000 units were sold, this goal was not achieved.

CONCLUSION

The Israeli government’s policy of reducing the number of public housing residents by selling the units to their ten-ants was too narrow and did not address problems of public housing at large. The shortage of units in the central region, ethnic segregation, and the needs of the poorest families were not addressed through these programs.

A unique opportunity existed for those who lived in gov-ernment owned units in the central region for the amount of time necessary to receive a substantial discount, and with a financial ability to pay the dis-counted price. In addition these opportunities were created at a low price to society as a whole. But the number of families who could substantially benefit was small, and the programs had no significant impact on the rest of the public housing tenants and eligible families. Although the public discussions about the programs dealt mainly with

> ...”In an immigrant society, owning a house or apartment is considered an important step towards successful integration into the new country.” Yuval Elmelech <

political and social issues, it is not surprising that the finan-cial factors determined their relatively low success level. When the financial incentive was sufficient, like in the case of some families or in the case of the Amigur Company, the programs worked well.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Israel is moving towards a market-driven econ-omy, and new public housing policies should relate to that fact. In terms of transferring most of the land to the citizens, it is a good idea to include the public housing tenants in the process, and to use the oppor-tunity to create a more equal society. Developing and pro-moting homeownership as an equitable financial investment strategy could help in achiev-ing this goal. p

29

mEL ISSA nEUMAN

Manhattan’s Chinatown today resembles the immigrant neighborhoods of New York City a century ago. Many Chi-natown residents are recent immigrants who work, shop, and reside within the neighborhood. This close-knit com-munity offers opportunity for newly arrived Americans, as well as a uniquely vibrant cultural environment attracting tourists and New Yorkers alike. However, today’s immi-grant center is not immune to the problems which faced the city a century ago. Overcrowded housing, inadequate sanitation and transportation facilities, and unstable employment plague today’s immigrants.

Contemporary issues, including the increased globalization of the garment industry, the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, and the ongoing economic recession have also weakened the manu-facturing and retail sectors in Chinatown. Finally, gentrification of the immigrant centers of the twentieth century, namely the neighbor-hoods of the Lower East Side and Little Italy, threatens to spillover into Chinatown, causing land values and rents to rise beyond thereach of recent immigrants.

The 2003 spring Chinatown studio will attack these issues from a variety of angles. Manufacturing, commercial, and residential uses in this live-work area are tightly integrated; disentangling and codifying land use in the area is therefore an important prior-ity. Housing, economic, and transportation analyses will assess existing conditions in the neighborhood. The studio will produce

a report which includes demographic and eco-nomic trends in the neighborhood and analysis of relationships among the study area, other Asian enclaves in the city, and geographically proximate neighborhoods. It will propose alternatives for the future of Chinatown by identifying potential development sites, sug-gesting changes in zoning and other regula-tion, and reporting on the resources available to realize these changes. p

Local Studio

CHINATOWN, NEW YORK CITY

gARY rOTH

The Spring 2003 Brewster Studio has been working closely with the Mayor and Village Board of Trustees, to develop a set of recommendations which will be used to influence the Village of Brewster Comprehensive Plan. The Village of Brewster is a small municipality, located approximately 50 miles north of New York City. Just a half square mile in area, the Village is situated along the Metro-North Harlem Line, off the intersection of two major highways. Brewster is also an integral part of the Croton Reservoir System and home to a number of natural parks and historic resources. Owing to its distinctive scenic beauty and its proximity to an excellent transportation network, the Village of Brew-ster has always been a village of opportunity. However, the Village of Brewster also has a complexity of planning issues surprising for a village of its size.

In recent years, Brewster’s Main Street has lost much of its vitality to the sprawling township that surrounds it. As a result, within the last decade alone, residents have wit-nessed the closing of the Post Office, bank, pharmacy, movie theatre and even the local hardware store. The Village of Brewster furthermore suffers under numerous constraints on development, both internally and externally. Internally, the Vil-lage zoning code, enacted in 1971, seems to have been designed around a vision for a car friendly village, at the expense of Brewster’s pedestrian-friendly capabilities. Externally, an agreement between the Village and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which resulted in a $25 mil-lion grant for Brewster to build and maintain a wastewater

treatment plant for the Croton Reservoir System, has imposed further restriction on the Village by prohibiting additional imper-vious surfaces or increases to usage densities within the Village limits. This combination of factors has lead to a stagnation, and perhaps even a deterioration, of the Village’s built form.

Other issues the Brewster Studio will study relate to a recent influx of immigrants to the area, who have brought the Village an opportunity to thrive from ethnic diversity. Not all of Brewster’s residents regard the newcomers in such a positive light, however. Many neighborhood residents can only associate Brewster’s Hispanic and Latino community with the scores of day laborers who gather daily on the streets looking for contracted employ-ment. This dichotomy of opinion is representative of many of the issues that arise in the Village of Brewster: Is the new immigrant population indeed an asset to the Village? Does the DEP grant present an opportunity to make much-needed upgrades to declin-ing infrastructure, or unnecessarily restrict a municipality badly in need of economic growth? Is there adequate representation across ethnicity, gender and age groups in the Village government structure? Will more parking lead to the economic salvation of the neighborhood? These issues and others have been the major focus of the Spring 2003 Brewster Studio, and will serve as the basis of our recommendations for the future of the Village p .

Regional Studio

BREWSTER, NEW YORK

31

Regional Studio

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUTjOEL fERREE & eLDAD gOTHELF

After many rumors, much jockeying for placement, and countless back room deals, the Columbia Urban Planning studio groups were selected. Some were pleased, others dis-appointed, but the six lucky students chosen for the Hartford Studio were eager to sink their teeth into the task at hand.

The mission of the Hartford Studio, led by Professor Lance Free-man, is to try to understand the how, why, where, and so what of affordable housing developments – specifically, those developed through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program (LIHTC). The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) has hired the studio to provide them with information to aid them in their lawsuit against the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA). The CCLU is representing a minority homeowner and a neighborhood association from the Asylum Hill neighborhood of Hartford in claiming that the CHFA is unfairly siting affordable housing developments, in the form of LIHTC Developments, in poor, minority communities. According to their Superior Court Complaint filed in the Judicial District of Hartford on December 23, 2002, the CCLU’s lawsuit “challenges the failure of the CHFA to take affirmative steps to prevent racial segregation and high concentrations of poverty in its administration of the LIHTC Program.” The CCLU is seeking to obtain a court order forcing the CHFA to change its siting policies and procedures. The CCLU would like all LIHTC developments approved by the CHFA to be placed in economically and racially diverse communities, as they feel that the current policy furthers racial segregation and perpetuates poverty.

At first glance, the studio thought this was an open and shut case. The CCLU was defending the little guy against the injustices of a bureaucratic state agency. Upon further investigation, however, it turned out that the case was not so black and white. Will a victory by the CCLU turn into a loss for affordable housing? Is it possible that as a result of this case the creation of affordable housing will greatly diminish? Are affordable housing developments necessarily bad for a neighborhood? These questions (and many more) will be answered by the Hartford studio. p

Fourteen people with an array of specialties – designing drainage sys-tems, estimating seismic risk, deciphering countless strings of acronyms, analyzing transportation plans, devouring coconut water in two minutes flat, discussing intestinal parasites over Chinese food in Africa, map-ping anything in GIS, community organizing, displaying superhumanpatience in airport lines – should have a lot to offer the city of Accra as it encounters the challenges of rapid development.

One week in Accra under the magnificent guidance of William Ahadzie, research fellow at University of Ghana’s Center for Social Policy Studies, was a humbling start to learning about Ghana. Dr. Ahadzie ferried the group between sessions with researchers and policy-makers from the Departments of Hydrology, Disaster Management, Waste Management, Town and Country Planning, Social Statistics, and Urban Roads.

Aid organizations, like the Ghana Red Cross and the Agence Française de Développement, addressed our questions related to the role of non-governmental organizations. A brief session with students attending the University of Ghana gave some insight into residents’ ideas about how to approach the city’s problems.

What problems? Building on the disaster-resistant theme ini-tiated by lead faculty Sig Grava (GSAPP) and Klaus Jacob (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory), studio participants asked many questions about flooding – which disrupts life in Accra almost every year – and earthquakes – Accra’s last big one having been in 1939.

mOLLY pRICE & mORIAH mCgRATH

International Studio

The Earth Institute sponsored the trip as part of 21st Century Cities, a project of the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Develop-ment. After returning to the States, a debriefing with the director of the center emphasized concerns about the structure of the national economy, which felt distant from our glimpses of daily life in Accra. Accra residents face the daily challenges of living and working in a rapidly urbanizing city.

In one of the more intense moments of the trip, we walked through the low-income neighborhood of Alajo, contending with hordes of children excitedly shouting “Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!” [“foreigner”] as we attempted to interview community leaders about the state of affairs. Despite our concerns about water privatization and contamination within the existing water delivery system, residents were far more worried about food security. We observed plastic and human waste choking the gutters, while Alajo residents expressed concerns about the spike in malaria that follows flooding.

The challenge for the studio group lies in prioritizing development concerns based on our cursory visit and limited understanding of life in Accra, not to mention limited availability of data from resource-strapped agencies. Over the semester, we will develop several potential metropolitan plans as well as recommendations specific to neighbor-hoods such as Alajo.

The final report will be presented to the government and university officials in Accra. The ideas and recommendations of the studio will be tested under the conditions of the rainy season. In addition, the report will be used as briefing material for a group of professors from the Earth Institute, who will travel to Accra in mid-June, in the midst of flood season. p

ACCRA, GHANA

33An Exercise in Collaboration: The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition

When emails advertising a $50,000 prize for a short urban design competition were sent out, I jumped at the chance to have some fun outside of my classes. I didn’t know what I was get-ting myself into. Ahead of me were 10 full days of debate, sleeplessness, and stress.

oFEL IA rODRIGUEZ

The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition is an ideas competition using a real site, in this case Washington D.C. The competition was created to honor the urban development pioneer Gerald D. Hines, chairman of the Hines real estate organization and 2002 recipient of the Urban Land Institute J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionary Urban Development. The Nichols prize recognizes a person whose career demonstrates a commitment to the highest standards of responsible development. It includes a $100,000 honorarium, which Hines declined, and which ULI chose to devote to the competition. Gerald Hines contributed an additional $100,000 toward the establishment of the competition. The purpose of the competition is to “raise awareness— particularly among the next generation—of the important role high-quality urban design plays in creating not just beautiful buildings, but living environments,” Hines said. Gerald D. Hines, founder and chairman of the world-renowned Hines real estate organization, is widely known as an industry leader who pioneered the use of high-quality architecture as a marketable feature of development, in both signature skyscrapers and multi-faceted communities combining a variety of uses.

The competition was particularly interesting in the way that it was organized. One of the requirements was that the teams be interdis-ciplinary. My team consisted of an urban designer (Saul Hayutin), an architect (Edu Navarro), a historic preservationist (Flora Chow), a real estate developer (William Etheridge), and an urban planner (myself). All teams became involved without any knowledge of the site or scope of the project. The teams received a competition brief Friday, February 21st, and were given exactly 10 days to produce a solution to the given problem. Surprisingly, there was little knowledge about what the other disciplines simply did (planning seemed to be the most mysterious), so the first days were spent figuring out what role each team member was to take.

After many hours of debate and discussion, a design concept was formed. The last 4 days were spent in production, through endless hours spent in the urban design studio, where we watched the sunset and sunrise more than once. In the end, we produced something we were proud of—an organic, mixed-use, mixed-income development strategy for a 70-acre portion of South Capitol Street in Washington D.C. We called it “Capitol Yards.” The finalists were announced on March 21, 2003. Despite the valiant effort we put forth, our team had to settle for an “honorable mention,” not so shabby for a group of people who hardly knew each other. Even though we got no money in the end, the competition was an extremely fun and educational experience. Planners will ultimately have to deal with architects and real estate developers, and this was a great exercise in the kind of real-life situations that lay ahead of us. p

TEAM ONE

M Street Section

REFERENCES

The Urban Land Institute Student Design Competi-tion web site at http://udcompetition.uli.org/

An Exercise in Collaboration: The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition

Two teams from Columbia entered the ULI Hines Urban Design Competition, and we (Sailaja and Eloise) were fortunate enough to work as a team within a team. Representing the plan-ning perspective, we worked with two students in Urban Design, Sang Woo Lee and John Tran. Sang Woo graduated from Michigan with a masters degree in planning where he focused on urban design, and John had significant experience in urban design as a student and profes-sional. Our fifth team member, Matthew Jacobs, is a first year business student with consider-able experience in real estate development and a knack for laying out spatial plans.

TEAM TWOeLOISE pAUL & sAILAJA kURELLA

Our differences in perspective were clear by day two of the competition, when we all piled in to a rented car and drove to the project site, southeast of the Capitol in Washington, DC. The day we spent together in the car and on-site was integral to our ability to work together and understand each other’s disciplines. While Sang Woo and John homed in on issues such as traffic flows and spatial structure, Matt began his analysis of potential market responses to our still inchoate master plan. The two of us, in true planner fashion, were focused on the social issues this neighborhood faced: severe poverty, crime, racial segregation, deteriorating infrastructure, and scant resources to deal with the issues at hand.

A general description of the group dynamic goes something like this: Eloise and Sailaja voiced concerns about programmatic issues such as where the community center(s) would go, what services would be offered, and where we could find space for positive, open social interaction. John and Sang Woo listened to our diatribes, brainstormed about spatial flows, along with nodal destinations within the site area and the city as a whole, and then let these sometimes conflicting issues converge and then emerge as beautifully depicted plans, sections, elevations and diagrams. Watching their thought process was an incredible opportunity, and it made us both feel that the lack of physical planning in Columbia’s program is a hindrance to our education. We came away craving to learn more about how to manipulate physical space.

Throughout this process, Matt, who was also the “team leader,” involved himself with all aspects of the debate, but placing it always in the realm of economic feasibility. One of the most interesting exercises that he led was an analysis of development phasing that would occur over the 7 years that our proposed plan would, in theory, be put into place. He taught us how to imagine, incrementally and over time, how our plan would change the area, elicit private investment, and ultimately lead to a reinvigorated “South Capitol Quarter.”

In the end, our dialogue allowed us to create a comprehensive plan of which we were all extremely proud. We appreciated the chance to engage in an interdisciplinary, educational exercise, learn from our colleagues in Urban Design and Business, and make a few new friends within the University. p

35

Media coverage tends to focus on the sexy aspects of globalization, money and power. We read about trillions of dollars in capital sloshing around the globe on a daily basis, and we hear about oil executives destroying countries with the flick of their left pinky finger. Saskia Sassen informs us that global cities serve as the physical nexus for the control of the global economy. She also, however, identifies another funda-mental tidal flow of capital often overlooked by the media, the transnational migration of human capital. People ebb across national boundaries in search of opportunity and employment and return a subsequent flow of remittances to their home countries, a flow that exceeds $80 billion each year. As these workers come from the largest industrialized cities and the smallest agricultural hamlets in developing countries to the largest industrial cities and the most remote agricultural hamlets in the developed world, globalization is steadily diffusing outward from its concentrated urban nexus and becoming a thin film that envelops every street corner of the world.

Urban centers as agglomerations, however, still concentrate immigrant populations, giving rise to a new incarnation of a traditional immigrant organization: the hometown association (HTA). HTAs are groups of immigrants from the same hometown who come together to socialize and in charity efforts raise money to send back to their hometowns for anything from school uniforms and soccer balls to sewer systems and electricity provision. This phenomenon, known under the rubric of "dias-pora philanthropy", has only recently been recognized as a valuable development tool. Leveraging these efforts of HTAs through matching funds and technical assistance now lies at the cutting edge of approaches being developed by development non-profits and holds much promise for the implemen-tation of sounder and more sustainable development.

I see in the HTA movement an intersection of developing and developed, of here and there, of Gradu-ate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAP) programs and CU schools. Imagine, if you will, an international studio on Jacmel, a small city of 15,000 on the southern coast of Haiti, the western hemisphere’s poorest country, to pick one possible example. Jacmel has a great number of deteriorating, colonial era buildings and no provisions for preservation. The expansive stretches of slum hous-ing are still in search of environmentally sensitive, cost-effective, architectural design solutions. These areas are further threatened by the flooding that has resulted from Haiti’s rampant deforestation. The current infrastructure is inadequate, in need of redesign, and hampers economic development. The studio might incorporate an exploration of how residents, Haitian HTAs and hometown officials engage in the plan-ning process through community needs assessments.

These concerns do not stand in isolation. They must be tackled in detail and in tandem. Property ownership and infrastructure direct settlement. Housing design and environmental hazards determine infrastructure burdens. Preservation plays into economic development through tour-ism. And economic development dictates the pace at which improve-ments can be made. This rough proposal would draw on the diverse strengths of the GSAP and Columbia community. It would provide a fertile ground for exploring the interrelations of the disciplines of archi-tecture, preservation, real estate and planning. It could deepen GSAP’s growing ties with Lamont-Doherty, Engineering, and SIPA, which has a memorandum of understanding with Haiti. And it would ensure that GSAP remains at the forefront of international development.

cUZ pOTTER

Cities of Intersection

A PROPOSAL FOR A JOINT INTERNATIONAL STUDIO

Colonial era buildings in Jacmel, Haiti.

A Personal Perspective on PlanningbRENDA cHO

For the past two issues of URBAN, the former co-editors, including myself, wrote the Editors’ Letter to introduce the issue, make note of program changes, and detail the issue’s theme. The Editors’ Letter, through the medium of URBAN, is a primary communicative tool to the students on part of the editors, since URBAN is and remains a student-run publication. The succinct and confident letters did not allow much room to relieve planning concerns and issues, and to stim-ulate discussion. However, I wanted to fill in those blanks from my perspective as a graduating student and uncertain future planner.

When I graduated from college, I knew that I wanted to be a planner after studying architecture and becoming uneasy with the profession’s view of the city as a mere map of topography, lots, and streets where one could interject fancy gelatinous, bulbous buildings and transform the city. Many architects claim to be urbanists and even planners, but there simply is not much discussion in most architecture studios about who lives in cities, what makes a city socially and economically vibrant, and other veins of conversation essential to understanding cities. Monumental buildings and a towering skyline are both ubiquitous and essential elements of a city, but physical structures alone cannot support, much less save, a city. The untouched discussions were meant to be found in planning school, I realized, and I applied, fully assure of my passion and career plans.

A couple of weeks after I moved to New York City, the tragic events of September 11 occurred, and sud-denly, the term “planning” was written or quoted in newspapers, TV, and magazines all over the world in the momentum to rebuild here. As a stranger to the city, I felt personally needed in this time of crisis, as my education and profession would serve the city in an indispensable way. The subsequent months of intense study through classes, studios and forums of the site and the city itself tied all of us in the program to the ongoing process, and it still does. As second-year students, our studies and lives were profoundly affected, especially since most of us were in class, without notification of what was happen-ing, from 9 to 11am that morning, and we walked out of class unknowingly as changed people.

With this experience, it would seem certain that I know how I fit into the local rebuilding process, the city’s rezoning plans in Brooklyn, and the nation’s strategy to make cities safe from future attacks. Unfortunately, I have been confused and overwhelmed. We are in a profession that thrives on being comprehensive and broad and in a program that pretty much eschews the rigor of specialization or tracks, but these points are not meant to be complaints. I am simply trying to reconcile the job listings I see that usually do not state “seeking planner who knows a little about everything.” Increasingly, I notice how specific the planning job descriptions are, ranging from environmental consulting to transportation planning, and it is a little disconcerting to try and fit myself into these varied positions. I cannot help but wonder, “What do planners do?”

I have interned at private and public planning firms and agencies, and with each experience, I gained a lot of insight and skills, but there always remained the uneasy undercurrent of trying to distinguish my particular niche. Luckily, I do think that I have found some solace in my current internship at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), the borough’s arts council that supports artists and arts group, promotes cultural programming for the public, as well as other arts-based advocacy services. People might question its relevance to traditional urban planning, but at LMCC, I am starting to understand what planning truly means and what roles we carry. I am not doing land use studies, drawing up zoning maps, or counting cars, but I am actively working to help make Manhattan and the city at large, richer and more enjoyable through the arts. And that is exactly what planners do. They help make cities wonderful places to live in whatever capacity they can, and as long as we maintain that general, yet distinctive enthusiasm, there is no need to fill a professional niche or be confused at all. p

> ...I am simply trying to reconcile the job listings I see that usually do not state “seeking planner who knows a little about everything.” <

37

The Role of the Planner in the Media

Editor’s note: David Recht’s guest commentary first appeared in The DallasMorning News on January 24, 2002. David Recht is a first-year planning student who is originally from the Dallas, Texas area. The article that he wrote for The Dallas Morning News demonstrates the way in which plannerscan engage in and stimulate public discussion around planning related issues in one’s own community.

Abusive drinkers shouldn’t drive on safe roads, but they most certainly shouldn’t drive on dan-gerous ones. Spur 348, which connects State Highway 114 in Las Colinas with Northwest Highway in Dallas, is one such road. Once the eastbound river crosses the Trinity River, he leaves Irving and enters Dallas, an area that is landmarked by numerous beer, wine and liquor stores. Why? Because the city of Irving prohibits them, and Dallas does not.

The merchants who run these establishments have a regular clientele, established not by price, but by geography and nothing else. Spur 348 is the place to buy booze for Irving residents living roughly north of 183, east of Belt Line, west of O’Connor, and south of 114—about 10 square miles of urban development, with a popula-tion of roughly 30,000. Since 6.5 percent of the American population are abusive drinkers, according to the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Home Medi-cal Guide, this means that 1,950 alcohol abusers regularly cross the Trinity River into Dallas to buy alcohol.

Last Friday, at 6 pm, I was curious. I drove to Centennial Beer and Wine, and settled into the parking lot. I counted cars for 10 minutes—cars turning west out of the store, cars turning east out of the store, cars traveling east on Spur 348, and cars traveling west on Spur 348. I calculated that of a projected 150 motorists leaving the store per hour, at least 6.5 percent of them are abusive drinkers—a total of 10 drivers.

A driver turning east onto 348 faces one oncom-ing car per 10 seconds. A driver turning west onto 348 crosses not only eastbound traffic, but westbound traffic as well. If he is lucky enough to make it past the eastbound traffic, he then has the formidable westbound volume of traffic to contend with—one car every six seconds.

It took me four seconds to accelerate from the parking lot to 35 mph into the nearest westbound lane of traffic, which shows that there is little margin for error when merging with traffic of such high volume. Any route that accompanies 10 motorists who are abusive drinkers in one hour needs a greater allowable margin of error for its traveling population.

What’s the solution? The owner of the store might advocate installation of a traffic light, but that’s the oldest trick in the book. If 10 cars per minute stop in front of a beer store, the odds are that some of them will think, “I need to stop in and buy a six pack, so I can have a couple beers with dinner tonight,” hence increasing sales.

That’s not the solution. How about lobbying for the city of Irving to permit beer and wine sales within properties that are zoned “neighborhood commercial”—the zone where gasoline sales are permitted? Beer and wine at gas stations will minimize the amount of driving on our roads for one of its most dangerous inhabitants: abusive drinkers. Anybody interested? p

dAVID rECHTDRY LAW CREATES DANGEROUS SITUATION

Centennial Liquors, located on Spur 348.

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