The American City Final

District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801

• Debate over a permanent capital

• U.S. Constitution ratified in 1789:

  • Article 1, Section 8

  • 10 X 10 mile ‘federal capital’

• Geo Wash. picks spot along Potomac – wants to build canal to connect to Miss. river (never succeeds)

• District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801: Carved out of VA and MD

  • How would this bizarre space be governed?   no coherent plan

Alexandria retrocession of 1846

• Alexandria ‘retrocedes’ back to Virginia

• Economics – Alexandrians angry about lack of investment

  • (Ex: law forbade new federal buildings on Western side of Potomac)

• Slavery — Growing Northern abolitionist presence in DC

  • Ex: Compromise of 1850  Slave trade abolished in DC

Alexander Robey “Boss” Shepherd

• 1871, Brief “territorial government” era

• President appoints governor, council, and Board of Public Works'

• Alexander Robey “Boss” Shepherd – controversial governor of DC

• Modernizes DC (roads, sewers, streetlights)

  • But also

  • Criticized for heavy-handed tactics

    • Cronyism

    • Overspending

1880s-1950s — Era of Direct Congressional Rule

• Era of Direct Congressional Rule

• Senate and House have “Committee on District Columbia,” lowly-regarded in Congress

• House committee controlled by segregationist Southerners

• Through three appointed commissioners

• Congressional committees - complete control over city (to smallest parking tickets)

• DC transforms in 20^th C –> new pushes toward home rule

How did three 20^th century historical transformations spark a “home rule movement” in DC?

• 1910s-1920s — Women’s suffrage movement

  • D.C. residents inspired to fight for their suffrage

• 1930s, New Deal

  • Massive growth of federal workers

  • DC becomes major city

• 1950s-1960s Civil Rights Movement

  • DC first majority African-American city

  • DC branch of mv’t fights for “home rule”

1974 Home Rule Act

• Mayor – elected by residents

• 13-member Council

• But — legislation, budget still subject to approval by Congress

• Home Rule periodically retracted

Bird’s eye view vs the perspective of the flâneur

• Battle between two planning traditions

• Enlightenment tradition

  • Age of Reason, science = harmony

  • Planner → makes order out of chaos

Vs.

• Romantic tradition

  • Feelings, subjectivity

  • Local history, unique architecture

  • Vibrant cities = messy, mixed!

• The “bird’s eye view” — city planning from above

  • Jane Jacobs criticized, no sense of how cities actually work on the ground

• The “flâneur” — wandered, street view

Earlier history of U.S. planning

Be able to describe one:

• Pre-Columbian, Indigenous urban design

  • Ex: Mesoamerican cities (Tenochitlan)

  • Pueblo settlements in New Mexico

• Pre-1776, Colonial town planning

  • Ex: Spanish plaza

  • New England town commons

• Post-independence U.S.

  • Minimal city planning

  • Simple street grids

    • = easy to sell land to speculators

1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

• City Beautiful Movement

• Daniel Burnham

• “White City”

• American public awed

City Beautiful Movement

• First modern urban planning mv’t in the U.S

• 1893 “World’s Columbian Exposition”

• 1880s-1920s

• New gen. of urban reformers

• Cities need

  • Civic identity

  • Harmony and beauty

• Monumental city center, open space, grand avenues, majestic civic buildings (ex: museums, libraries)

Beaux Arts architecture

• Neo-classical architecture.

• Palatial

• Ex: NYC Public Library, DC’s Union Station

• Ex:  Daniel Burnham 1909 “Plan for Chicago”

  • Only partially realized

  • Huge influence on US planning

• Early modernist architects criticize

  • Europe and Ancient Rome?

    • America is about the future

• Progressive critics at the time

  • This is just aesthetics

  • But what about tenement reform, new housing

Daniel Burnham’s Plan for Chicago (1909)

• Beaux Arts

• Only partially realized

• Huge influence on US planning

L’Enfant Plan (1791)

• DC has City Beautiful Movement in the country

• Designed by Pierre L’Enfant

• Influenced by Versailles, French garden design

McMillan Plan (1901)

• 1800s, National Mall a mess

  • Trees, livestock, factories, mud

• 1901 McMillan Plan, City Beautiful Movement architects

• Daniel Burnham

• Reject ‘Victorian Park’ idea

• Attempt to restore original L’Enfant Plan

• Clear out clutter

• Open grand avenues

• Majestic open green

• Harmony

• Palatial, neo-classical architecture

Ebenezer Howard — “Garden Cities of Tomorrow” (1902)

• Lives in London

• Not a professional architect

• Courtroom clerk

• Active w/ middle-class reform groups

  • “How do we fix horror of industrial city?”

  • “How do we stop tragedy of rural poverty?”

• Reads: 

  • Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward → Utopian socialist novel

  • Henry George’s Progress and Poverty → Single-tax on land

  • Peter Kropotkin, anarchist writings

• Inspired to draft an idea for a utopian city – “The Garden City”

• “Third magnet”

  • Middle-ground between overcrowded city, isolated rural

• “Garden cities”

  • 30,000 people each

  • 6,000 acres – city is 1,000 acres

    • Farmland, parks 5,000 acres

• Features of “garden city”

  • Walkable

  • Ring of housing – walkable distance to factories, school, shops

  • Mixed housing types

  • Single houses for families

  • Apartments for singles and elderly   

  • Affordable

    • Low rents –> profits go into community land trust

  • Sustainable

    • Local food

    • Farms on periphery feed garden city

  • Green

    • Surrounded by parks and open space

• Biggest influence of Garden City Movement in US - DC

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward

• Influenced Ebenezer Howard

• Utopian socialist novel

• Protagonist wakes up in future

• State-run health care and kitchens

• No poverty

Henry George’s Progress and Poverty

• Read by Howard

• Single-tax on land

• More practical – simpler

• More ethical – no one should profit from land, the earth is all of ours

“Third Magnet”

• Ebenezer Howard, Garden city

• Middle-ground between overcrowded city

  • Isolated rural

Describe Howard’s proposed features of a “garden city”

• Walkable

• Ring of housing – walkable distance to factories, school, shops

• Mixed housing types

• Single houses for families

• Apartments for singles and elderly   

• Affordable

  • Low rents –> profits go into community land trust

• Sustainable

  • Local food

  • Farms on periphery feed garden city

• Green

  • Surrounded by parks and open space

• Biggest influence of Garden City Movement in US - DC

Greenbelt, MD

• Greenbelt Maryland (1930s)

• Great Depression  FDR’s New Deal

• Era of experimentation

• “Brain trust”

• Gov creates experimental cooperative town outside DC

• Program dismantled during McCarthy era → labeled “too communist”

1960s “New Town Movement”

• 1960s-1970s

• Idealistic developers around US build experimental towns outside cities

• Federal funding in the 1970s

• (Ex: Columbia, Maryland)

• Ex: Reston, Virginia

  • Developer Robert Simon

  • Sells Carnegie Hall in NYC

  • Buys ~7,000 acres farmland in No. VA

  • Builds experimental community

  • Walkable

  • Architectural mix of townhouses, taller buildings, single-family homes

  • VA’s first ‘open community’ -- racially integrated

  • Opening of Metro stop  debates about future of Reston

Telosa

• Brough up in context of New Town Movement (1960s-1970s)

• Proposed American proposed futuristic, sustainable city

Why did modernists take inspiration from Chicago’s early skyscrapers?

• Influenced by early Chicago skyscrapers (1880s-1920s)

• Proto-modernist → steel frame, big glass windows, less ornamentation

• Louis Sullivan: “Form follows function”

 Louis Sullivan – “Form follows function”

• Context of the birth of the “International Style”

• True, honest architecture has no silly frills – it embodies its pure function

Bauhaus

• Bauhaus architects flee Nazis and arrive in U.S.

• Bring modernist architectural ideas (minimalist, functional design, beauty of machines)

• Mies van der Rohe – “Less is More”

• “International Style” — peak of modernism (minimalist, boxy, lots of glass)

Mies van der Rohe – “Less is More”

• Bauhaus architect

• “International Style” — peak of modernism (minimalist, boxy, lots of glass)

“International Style” of architecture

• Influenced by early Chicago skyscrapers

  • Louis Sullivan: “Form follows function”

• European arrivals (1940s-1960s)

  • Bauhaus architects flee Nazis and arrive in U.S.

  • Bring modernist architectural ideas (minimalist, functional design, beauty of machines)

• Mies van der Rohe – “Less is More”

• “International Style”  -- peak of modernism (minimalist, boxy, lots of glass)

• Modernist urban planning

  • Le Corbusier

    • Celebrates liberating possibility of skyscraper

    • Buildings = “machines for living”

• Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)

Le Corbusier

• Modernist urban planning

• Le Corbusier  (often called “Corbu”)

• French-speaking Swiss architect

• Celebrates liberating possibility of skyscraper

• Buildings = “machines for living”

• Utopian designs – ex: the “Radiant City” (1930)

  • “Tower in the Park”

• Help found Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in 1928

“Tower in the park”

• Le Corbusier

• Modernist urban planning

• Celebrates liberating possibility of skyscraper

• Buildings = “machines for living”

• Utopian designs – ex: the “Radiant City” (1930)

• “Tower in the Park”

Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)

• Le Corbusier helped found

• Issues the “Athens Charter” in 1933

• Dominates urban planning after WWII

• Ex: urban renewal around the world

  • Global South

    • Brasilia, Brazil

    • Chandrigahr, India

    • National Parliament Building, Bangladesh

Global influence of the ‘international style’

• Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) dominated urban planning after WWII

• Urban renewal around the world

Be able to describe one example:

• Brasilia, Brazil

  • Modernist city, utopian, capital

• Chandigarh, India

  • First slum-free city, demolition of informal settlement

  • Claimed lots of public land

• National Parliament Building, Bangladesh

  • Modernist, geometric architecture

Principles of mid 20^th century urban planning vs principles of Jane Jacobs

• Takes on modernists, utopian planners

  • Sleek, minimalist buildings

  • Top-down! →  planner knows best

  • Modernize! → Cities need to be rebuilt completely from scratch

  • Master planning! → Cities need a holistic, master plan

  • Rationalize! →  create harmony and order

    • Zoning → Single-use areas

• Planning = “pseudo-science”

  • Too abstract

  • Too utopian

  • “Rules” on paper   divorced from real observations

  • Bird’s eye view → no sense of how cities actually work on the ground

• Advocated instead

  • Old city centers are not “slums” – they are the best!

    • Old buildings work! → cheap rents = incubators

      • Creativity, rehabbed for new uses

  • Narrow streets and short blocks work → High density = vibrant streetlife

    • “Eyes on the street”

  • Mixed-uses work → older cities = messiness, arhcitectural diversity

    • Single-use business district = wasteland after 5 pm

    • Mixed-use → street ballet

  • Think small → “master plans” do not work

    • Massive slum clearance is horrible for cities

    • Planning needs to be small, local, bottom-up, community design

“Street ballet”

• Improvisations

• Culmination of different people, different actors, coming together to interact in the urban space

• All these people that are there for different reasons which create a diverse landscape

Critiques of Jane Jacobs

• Is she too anti-planning? Is she basically a NIMBY?

• Don’t cities and regions have to think ‘big’ sometimes?

• Is Jane Jacobs too “New York-centric”?

  • (Ex: “LA School” scholars - “JJ doesn’t get LA!”)

• Is Jacobs a “gentrifier”?

  • (Ex: is she just describing ‘hipster’ Greenwich Village in the early stages of gentrification?)

Los Angeles school

• Emerges in 1990s in SoCal

• Attacks “Chicago School” as outdated

• They argue → “LA is the true archetype of the American City!”

• LA was dismissed by most scholars

• If Chicago in 1920 was the epitome of a ‘modern city,’ LA in 1990s was the epitome of a “postmodern city”

• “Postmodern city” → LA school makes two arguments

  • Form

    • “Chicago School concentric circles are obsolete!”

    • L.A. is new messy, polycentric metropolis

      • Multiple downtowns, no center or periphery, blurbs suburbs and city

    • Need different model

      • Reyner Banham – The Architecture of Four Ecologies

  • Theory

    • LA School draws from  “Postmodern” (PoMo) criticism – popular in 1990s

    • Theorists like Baudrillard, Foucault, etc

    • “Hey critics, you think Los Angeles is ‘fake’?

    • You are right – and that is what makes is so representative!”

    • American Cities have become “disneyfied” (a new term in 1990s)

    • LA, Las Vegas, Manhattan -- “city as theme park”

Reyner Banham – The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971)

• Early inspiration for LA School

• Osman –> Banham is the “Jane Jacobs of LA”. Loves what critics hate,

  • Messiness, car culture, space-age, ‘googie’ architecture

• Lists four ‘zones’

  • ‘Foothills’

  • ‘Surfurbia’ (beach communities)

  • ‘Plains of Id’ (the valleys)

  • ‘Autotopia’ (the freeways)

“City as theme park”

• Cities that have grown around theme parks

  • Ex: Orlando, FL

  • Las Vegas, NV → theme park economies

  • (Big debate today:  can casinos revitalize cities like Detroit?)

• Theme parks that are themselves cities

  • Ex: Disneyworld → enormous influence on urban planning

    • Ex: EPCOT

    • Imagineers

• More metaphorically, cities that have themselves transformed into theme parks

  • Theme parks = simulacra, privatopia, and panopticon

  • Ex: DC as simulacrum?

  • Las Vegas Strip vs Manhattan

    • Which is the ‘real’ New York and which is the theme park?

    • Isn’t Wall Street = casino capitalism?

EPCOT

• Theme Parks that are themselves like “cities”

• Disneyworld → enormous influence on urban planning

• Imagineers

Celebration, USA

• Suburb of Orlando

• Located near Disney World and originally developed by Disney

• “Disneyfied Theme Parks”

Jean Baudrillard’s “simulacra”

• Jean Baudrillard – postmodern theorist

• We live in world of simulations

• No more “real” landscape

• Simulacra  only symbols and signs

City as simulacra

• Branding

• Cities “rebrand” → toruism, entertainment, “culture”

• Ex: Providence, Rhode Island

  • “Creative Capital”

• 1990s → “Disneyfied” cities don’t make stuff anymore

  • Sell a brand

  • Themes districts (ex: Chinatown)

  • Compete to attract young millennials

• Ex: Las Vegas

Postmodern architecture

• Modernist architect Mies van de Rohe quote– “Less is more”

• Modernist architecture → sleek, minimalist buildings

• Jane Jacobs’ generation revolts in 60s and 70s against modernism

  • “We want authenticity, local history!”

• New gen. of PoMo architects  – “Less is bore!”

  • PoMo architecture → “retro”, quirky

  • Ex: ‘retro’ baseball stadiums

    • Old factories turned into condos

• Critics → “retro” areas are fake, theme parks

“Less is bore!”

• Post Modern architects

• PoMo architecture → “retro”, quirky

• Ex: ‘retro’ baseball stadiums

  • Old factories turned into condos

• Critics → “retro” areas are fake, theme parks

City as privatopia

• Or “death of public space”

• Public space essential to democracy

  • Place where citizens gather

  • Deliberate

  • Protest

• “Theme Parks” are completely private spaces – metaphor for city of today?

• L.A. School → “Privatization” of city = the death of public space

• Context, 1980s public-private partnerships in cities

The debate over POPS – “Privately-owned Public Spaces”

• Cities incentivize developers to include ‘public space’

• Ex: developer builds park as part of CBA (collective bargaining agreement

  • Is that POPS really a public space?

    • Proponents: “Yes! A park is a park!”

  • Critics: “No!”

• Ex: Private developers can decide what activities allowed

  • Homeless? → usually not

  • Protestors? → usually not

• Ex: 2007 downtown Silver Spring photography controversy

Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon

• Jeremy Bentham – 1700s prison design

• Prisoners can’t see if watched

• Eventually, you don’t even need a guard in the tower

• Eventually used by Foucault and in surveillance studies

Michel Foucault’s panopticon

• Used Jeremy Bentham’s prison design

• Society becoming a giant panopticon

• Surveillance society

• Constant invisible watching

• Foucault big influence on 1990s scholars

  • Surveillance studies

“Surveillance capitalism”

• Surveillance Studies

• Debates

  • Ex: Social media = giant panopticon?

    • Or site of resistance?

  • New era of “Surveillance Capitalism”?

    • Based on surveillance and personal data collection

Surveillance vs “sous-veillance” vs – “co-veillance”

• “Surveillance” →  the police monitors citizens

• “Sous-veillance” → citizens use cameras to monitor police

• “Co-veillance” → citizens monitor and film each other

The “fortress city”

• Mike Davis — Fortress City

• Panopticon city = city as prison

• Mike Davis — “Militarization of urban space”

• “Obsession with fear, militarized police”

• Carceral state → economies dependent on prisons

• Ex: National Mall – how to balance democratic public space and security?

• Ex: Big debate after Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 and 9/11

Hostile Architecture

• Targets homeless and other “undesirables”

  • Anti-homeless spikes

  • “Bum proof” benches

  • Noise (Ex: “The Mosquito”)

 “Bum-proof” benches (Mike Davis’ term)

• Targets homeless and other “undesirables”

• Mike Davis, Fortress City

The Mosquito

• Loud alarm to deter loitering

• Hostile architecture

The debate about “Fortress Washington”

• Big debate after Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 and 9/11

• National Mall – how to balance democratic public space and security

• Ex:

  • Jersey barriers, bollards, ha-ha walls, hidden cameras

Ha-ha wall

• Creates an optical illusion

• Sunk fence

• Possible way to balance democratic public space and security

Jean Gottmann’s ‘megalopolis’

• 1960s, French geographer Jean Gottman

• Cities on East Coast

  • Boston to DC, one giant city

• High population density

• Cities no longer separated from non-urban surroundings

Sprawl – what are specific characteristics

• “Exurban” – even further out than postwar suburbs

• Center city → suburbs → exurbs

• “Formless” — unplanned, haphazard

• “Spread out” — low-density, car-dependent

• “Poor connectivity” — ex: leapfrog development 

Harms caused by sprawl

(At least two)

• Environmental costs

  • Loss of natural land

  • Destruction of wetlands and floodplains

  • Surface runoff → water pollution

  • Automobile → air pollution

• Loss of farmland

  • Decline of local farms → more pollution, worse health

• Financial costs

  • Very expensive for gov.

  • Sprawl → gov has to build new infrastructure    

• Harm of autombile dependency

  • Long commutes

  • Inequality → poor elderly, less access

  • Dangerous

  • Physically unhealthy, lack of walking

  • Misery

• Harm to city centers

  • More inequity

    • Eroded tax base, declining downtown, etc

• Aesthetics

  • “Sprawl is ugly”

  • Kunster → “The Geography of Nowhere”

Defenses of sprawl

(At least two)

• “Sprawl” is a bogus term

  • What exactly is it?

  • Cities have always grown

  • Shaky evidence that sprawl has significant environmental health and financial costs

  • Scapegoat for everything

• People like it

  • People choose to live way out in exurbs

  • Choice, mobility, privacy

  • Houses more affordable and bigger

  • Cars give autonomy

  • Privacy

• Stop blaming sprawl for environmental issues

  • Anti-sprawl measures are an intrusion

  • New tech will eventually solve

    • Ex: electric cars, remote work

  • Answer is not forcing people to live in dense cities

• Aesthetic critique → snobby

  • But sprawl architecture beautiful in its own way

  • Elitist critics

• Some even argue – we need sprawl

  • Housing shortage

  • Need more housing

Examples of “smart growth” policies to control sprawl

(At least two)

• Land purchases – gov. buys land on periphery

• Urban growth boundaries

  • Gov. draws a line

  • Limits dev. outside line

• Transfer development rights

  • Ex: Developer pays money for permission to build higher skyscraper

    • City gives the money to farmer to preserve open space

• Ex: Portland, growth boundary

• Ex: Montgomery County, “Wedges and Corridors” Plan

“Aerotropolis”

• Sprawl

• Edge city

• Centered around airports

“Galactic metropolis”

• Used to describe edge cities by scholars

• Constellation of big and small “stars”

  • Each with gravity

Joel Garreau’s characteristics of “edge cities”

(Be able describe two – general idea)

• Coined in 1990s

• >5 mil. sq ft office space

• > 600,000 sq ft leasable retail space

• More jobs than bedrooms

• Perceived by population as one place

• New phenomenon (post 1970)

• Three types: uptowns, greenfields, and boomers

Uptowns

• Joel Garreau, edge city type

• Built on older rural towns

• Ex: Stamford, CT

Greenfields

• Joel Garreau, edge city type

• Planned, master communities

• Ex: Reston, VA

Boomers

• Joel Garreau, edge city type

  • One he is most fascinated by

• Spontaneous, unplanned, often at intersection of new highways

• 1) Strip boomers

  • Office – strip mall — strip mall — offices — strip mall —office

• 2) Node boomers

  • Highway — office, office, mall office, giant mall — highway

• 3) Pig in the Python

  • Combination of ‘node’ and ‘strip’

Office park architecture

(Be able to describe one)

• Fascinating architectural history – emerge in 1950s

• 3 types

  • Corporate campus – modeled after a university

  • Corporate estate – modeled after aristocratic manor

  • Office park – smaller, low cost for back office work

“Shadow governments” (in the context of edge cities)

• Who is the ‘mayor?’

• Big as a city, but no elected leaders

• Ex: Tysons Corner

• Condo associations, business associations, mall security → shadow government

Fairfax County’s “Tysons Comprehensive Plan”

(Do you think it is a good idea? Why or why not?)

• Potential solluntion to sprawl

• Develop Tysons → Fairfax County’s “new downtown”

• Dense, walkable, green, transit-oriented

  • I like it, everything I like in a city

“Narrow” (or “strict”) definition of gentrification

• Coined by Ruth Glass

• ‘Gentrification’ distinct from Southwest-style ‘urban renewal’

  • Urban renewal = massive scale, bulldozer clearance, new buildings, gov $$ subsidizes

  • Gentrification = small scale, gradual, rehabbing old buildings, little gov support

• Stage Theory

  • Pioneer stage → Consolidation stage → speculative stage

• Should displacement be included in the def?

  • Debated

“Direct” vs “indirect” displacement

• Debated whether displacement should be included in the strict definition of displacement

• “Direct” displacement

  • Eviction, harassment from landlord

  • Hard to measure

• “Indirect” displacement =  more subtle exclusion

  • Cultural displacement, political displacement, exclusionary displacement (area too expensive to move to)

Stage theory of gentrification

(What are the three stages)

• Pioneer stage

  • First arrivals – young, countercultural groups

  • College-educated but not wealthy

  • Alternative lifestyles

  • Seek cheap rents + sense of freedom and ‘authenticity’

  • Problematic language: “we are pioneers!” → but, most tolerant to urban poor

• Consolidation stage

  • Next group arrives

  • Drawn to “artsy,” “hip” scene created by “pioneers”

  • More professionalized “creative class”

    • But still not highest incomes

  • Professionalize and “consolidate” new neighborhood identity

  • Ex: rename neighborhood

  • Lukewarm relationship w/ poorer residents

• Speculative stage

  • Highest income residents and speculators move in

  • Not interested in “edginess”

  • Drawn to neighborhood identity consolidated by second stage

  • Speculation, house flipping, real estate prices soar

  • Openly hostile to poorer residents

  • First anti-gentrification groups emerge (often started by first stage ‘pioneers’)

“Broad” definition of gentrification

• Glass’s definition too narrow

  • Gentrification more multifacted

• “Stage theory” outdated

• Stages are often reversed

  • Developers are often the “pioneers”

• The state much more involved

  • “Attracting creative class” =  goal for mayors

• Global investors play bigger role

  • Gentrification is happening around the globe

• Definition of gentrification needs to be expansive as possible

  • Ex: planetary gentrification

    • The migration of global capital into city not just people

Rural gentrification

• Ex: Hollywood stars buy ranches in Montana

• Ex: Farm houses in Vermont → luxury weekend homes

• Ex: West Virginia former coal towns → ski lodges

Tourism gentrification

• Working-class residents displaced by tourist lodging and entertainment

• Ex: Venice, Italy

• Ex: “Airbnb gentrification”

Industrial gentrification

• Industrial buildings (lofts, factories) converted into luxury apartments

• Ex: NYC’s “SoHo”

Super-gentrification (or “financification”)

• A new “fourth stage” of gentrification

• Global investment firms → use real estate as piggy bank to store cash for oligarchs and billionaires

• Astronomical home prices in NYC, SF, London → even wealthiest residents displaced

• Ex: “zombie urbanism” in Manhattan

“Zombie urbanism”

• Example of super-gentrification (or “financification”)

• Empty luxury apt. buildings

  • Owned by shell compaines

• Empty store fronts — b/c rents too high

• “Undead” feel

Gentrification by marginalized groups

• Gentrification by marginalized members of middle-class

• Debate — still gentrification or something diff?

• Black gentrification

• Gente-fication (Latino)

• Gay gentrification

Demographic reasons for gentrification

• Babyboomers in 1970s

  • Marry older

  • More childless couples

  • Higher divorce rates

• Rise of DINKS = '“Double Income No Kids”

• Suburbia unattractive for singles, childless

Economic reasons for gentrification

• Decline of manufacturing → rise of service economy

• More white-collar workers → more demand for apartments near downtown offices

Cultural reasons for gentrification

• Changing tastes of American middle-class

• A“gentrification aesthetic”

• Outgrowth of the 1960s counterculture

• Anti-suburban

• Search for “authenticity”

• Center city provides

  • “Historic” architecture

  • “Hip,” “cool”

  • “Diverse” ethnic restaurants

  • “Organic”

• “Authenticity” marketed by city growth machine? “Coolness” branded for millennials?

• Scholars Debate — Is the “Gentrification Aesthetic” Progressive or Reactionary?

• The “Revanchist City” vs. The “Emancipatory City”

The gentrification aesthetic as “revanchist” vs The gentrification aesthetic as “emancipatory”

• The “Revanchist City”

  • Gentrifiers are reactionary

  • Angry language → “reconquest” and “revenge”

  • Core belief of gentrifiers → the city is ours

  • “We are ‘returning’ from the suburbs to “take the city back” from minorities and poor”

  • Colonial mentality

  • Frontier ideology → we are ‘pioneers’ battling “hostile natives”

  • Evictions, police crackdowns, “clean-up” campaigns

• The “Emancipatory City”

  • Center city → liberating for single women, LGBTQ, artists, alternative politic

  • Gentrifiers are largely politically progressive

  • Sincerely seek diversity

  • Worry about being ‘gentrifiers’

  • Often support affordable housing, environmentalism, etc.

  • Gentrifying areas are more open to diversity and difference than other areas of metropolis

Pros of gentrification

(At least two)

• Increased tax base – more revenue for city

• Increased property values for homeowners

• Reduction of sprawl

• Gentrifiers have political clout  demand better city services for all residents

• Repopulation of underpopulated areas

• Revival of impoverished retail strips  supermarkets open in ‘food deserts’

Cons of gentrification

• Direct or indirect displacement of poor

• Community resentment

• Loss of cultural landmarks and historic communities

• Rise in property taxes

• Displacement of industry that employs working-class

• Displacement of affordable stores by boutiques and high-end supermarkets

• Rise in police harassment

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

• Nativist backlash against immigration

• Starting in 1880s, door slowly closes

  • One of the first bans/halts

1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement

• Nativist backlash against immigration

• 1907-1908

• Halted Japanese immigration

Dillingham Commission

• 1911

• Infamous report

• European immigration increasingly heated issue in Congress

• Congress creates commission to study ‘immigrant problem’

• Uses new field of social science (stats, fieldwork)

• Also racist pseudo-science (ex: eugenics, measuring skull size)

• Says some positive things about immigrants

• But concludes

  • E. and S. European immigrants not assimilating

  • Calls for restriction

• Congress uses report to pass first major restrictions on Eur. Immigration

1924: National Origins Act

• Harsh imm. restricition

• New quota system based on ‘existing pop.’ of US in 1890

• No restrictions on Western Hemisphere

• But formation of Border Patrol

  • US-Mexico border pre-1920s –  informal, fluid

  • Post-1924 – more formalized, policed

1965 Hart Celler Act

• Abolishes 1924 quota system

• Equalizes cap for all countries

• New criteria:

  • Family reunification

    • About 60% of visas

  • Economic demand

    • About 30% of visas for workers

• But first cap on Western Hemisphere countries

  • Emergence of ‘undocumented immigrant’ as political issue

Hispanic vs Latino

• “Hispanic” invented by Fed. Gov in mid 1970s for statistical reasons

  • Emphasize Spanish language, connection to Spain

• “Latino” gained popularity in 1990s

  • Emphasize Latin America roots, includes Brazil

Latino vs Latinx debate

• More gender neutral

• X not a natural sound in Spanish

Pros of Latino/Hispanic term

(At least two)

• Categories are important → data helps U.S. address issues like inequality

• Unifying “Pan-Latino” category → More political power, representation

• Captures ‘latinidad’ → there is a common experience, culture that unites Latinos

Cons of Latino/Hispanic term

(At least two)

• Latin America is diverse

  • Puerto Rican culture, Bolivian culture, Mexican culture → not the same

  • Some prefer to identify by country of origin (or even region w/in country)

• “Latino/Hispanic” organizations dominated by big three

  • Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans

  • Little guys are often overshadowed

• Not all Latinos speak Spanish as mother tongue

  • Indigenous languages

  • Second, third generation Latinos might not speak Spanish

• Evades painful historic inequalities within Latin America

Unique Latino cityscapes

(At least two)

• Miami vs

  • 55% of Latinos in Miami are Cuban-American

  • Economic gateway to Lat. Am.

  • Headquarters for Lat. Am. corporations

  • Center for Spanish language TV

• New York City vs

  • Caribbean

    • Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico

  • “Latinidad” in NYC

  • Fusion of Spanish Caribbean culture

  • Fusion of Spanish Caribbean, West Indian, African-American cultural influences

• Los Angeles vs

  • Mexican-Americans

  • “Chicano” mv’t –  embrace Mexican-American hybrid identity

  • Borderlands→ SoCa as historically fluid space between Mexico and US

• Binational border cities vs

  • Ex: El Paso/Ciudad Juarez

  • NAFTA  1990s expansion of border “port” cities

  • Half on each side of US/Mexico border

  • Texas/Tejano hybrid border culture (ex: Norteño music)

• Washington D.C.

  • Unique Latino landscape

  • Two sources of DC’s unique “Latinidad”

    • Embassies, IMF, World Bank

    • El Salvadoran refugees from the 1980s civil war

1880-1920 immigrants vs post-1965 immigrants

• “Ellis Island” Immigrants

  • Mostly Eastern and Southern Europe

  • Settled in Northeast and Midwest

  • Immigrant ghettoes/enclaves in inner city

  • Unskilled, Industrial laborers

  • Mostly male, high rates of “return migration”

• “Dulles Airport” Immigrants

  • Mostly Latin America, Asia, and Africa

  • Chicago and New York still gateways, bu

  • Sunbelt → new main gateway

  • (LAX, IAD replace Ellis Island)

  • Some older enclaves still exist, but

    • More immigrants moving directly to suburbs

    • “Ethnoburbs”

  • Postindustrial cities attracts three streams of immigrants

    • Highly-educated white-collar workers, lower-wage service workers and laborers, undocumented workers

  • Mostly families, more stable and likely to stay