The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion by Actar Publishers

The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion

Who gets to be where? The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion examines some of the policies, practices, and physical artifacts that have been used by planners, policymakers, developers, real estate brokers, community activists, and other urban actors in the United States to draw, erase, or redraw the lines that divide. The Arsenal inventories these weapons of exclusion and inclusion, describes how they have been used, and speculates about how they might be deployed (or retired) for the sake of more open cities in which more people have access to more places. With contributions from over fifty architects, planners, geographers, historians, and journalists, The Arsenal offers a wide-ranging view of the forces that shape our cities. by Interboro (Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca, Georgeen Theodore)

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by Interboro

The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion Tobias Armborst, Daniel D'Oca, Georgeen Theodore written and edited with Riley Gold

With contributions by: Baye Adofo-Wilson Robert Beauregard Julie Behrens Bill Bishop Andrew D. Blechman Lisa Brawley Marshall Brown The Center for Urban Pedagogy Jana Cephas Charles Connerly N. D. B. Connolly Margaret Crawford Gabrielle Esperdy Yael Friedman David M. P. Freund Gerald Frug James Giresi Toni Griffin V. Elaine Gross Jeff Goldenson Adam Gordon Marta Gutman Nikole Hannah-Jones Chester Hartman Joseph Heathcott Sonia A. Hirt Vincent James Jeffrey Johnson Andrew W. Kahrl John Kaliski Nicholas Korody Sharon Perlman Krefetz Kaja Kühl Michael Kubo Naa Oyo A. Kwate Matthew Lassiter Amy Lavine Cynthia Lee James W. Loewen The Los Angeles Urban Rangers Oksana Mironova Miodrag Mitrasinovic Gabriella Modan Raymond A. Mohl W. Edward Orser Ellen Pader Sharon Perlman Krefetz A. E. Peterson Antero Pietila Michael Piper Albert Pope Wendy Plotkin Quilian Riano Damon Rich Brian Ripel James Rojas Richard Rothstein David Rusk Beryl Satter Susanna F. Schaller Susanne Schindler Anthony (Tony) Schuman Theresa Schwarz Susan M. Schweik Lisa Selin Davis Gregory D. Squires Lior Jacob Strahilevitz Takako Tajima Meredith TenHoor William J. TenHoor Tom Vanderbilt Stephen Walker Rosten Woo Jennifer Yoos Andy Yan

Preface to the Second Edition The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion is a book about the spatial politics of American cities. It takes on a difficult question— who gets to be where?—by documenting policies, practices, and physical artifacts that shape access to housing and the public realm. Whether explicit or accidental, top-down or bottom-up, The Arsenal records how these “weapons” mediate between human actors to structure an ever-evolving urban battleground. You might notice that, not unlike the American city itself, this book is a sprawling collection that resists any singular narrative. Our intention was never to depict cities as immutable or pure expressions of violent hierarchies, nor to develop a prescriptive set of inherently inclusive practices that can be copied and pasted without regard for local context. Instead, The Arsenal compels us to imagine cities as messy, complex networks where programs and built forms exist in agonistic relationships and can even be appropriated in ways that exceed or contradict the intentions behind their creation. We focus on weapons, rather than specific people or ideologies, not to obscure human accountability but to better understand this interplay between the built environment and social forces. Ultimately, then, The Arsenal is driven by a fundamental belief that a politicized reading of the built environment—along with the systems that design, produce, and maintain it—enables urbanists to more strategically intervene and develop new inclusionary approaches. We trust the reader to draw novel associations and conclusions, both internal to The Arsenal and outside into their own “backyards.” We hope that when you put down this book, an arsenal unique to your environment comes into focus, which may or may not include numerous weapons outlined here. Since its initial publication, we have been happy to see The Arsenal prove useful in framing conversations about cities and power among architects, planners, and students. It has been the topic of architecture studios, appeared in college syllabi, and been cited in design publications. In early 2018, we were fortunate enough to organize The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion: New York Edition exhibition at the Center for Architecture in New York City, which also served as the book launch. III

As we described in the original introduction, with each lecture, review, and comment section comes new invaluable feedback on the project. Over time, many of the artifacts documented in these pages will become obsolete, while others will be revived or thrust into new battles. In recent years, Public Bathroom and Sanctuary City have become mainstream talking points among anti-trans and anti-immigrant policymakers, respectively; cities and entire states have gone so far as to ban Single-Family Zoning; Busing became a flashpoint during the 2020 Democratic Party primary presidential debates; new municipal laws have promoted Accessory Dwelling Units in low-density neighborhoods; and activists are increasingly turning to Rent Control and Community Land Trusts to preserve affordable housing in gentrifying cities. Meanwhile, our commander-in-chief uses divisive and misleading rhetoric to fuel support for exclusionary policy at every scale. Among many egregious examples, the Trump administration has sought to undermine the “disparate impact standard” and “affirmative furthering standard” of the Fair Housing Act—one of The Arsenal’s key weapons of inclusion and the foundation for many other progressive policies. These changes demonstrate how The Arsenal is always an inconclusive project, yet its approach to reading the city remains as relevant as ever. Therefore, rather than attempt to continuously update the text, this paperback second edition includes only very minor changes. However, a brief update on our current context does feel necessary here. Just as the first edition was completed at an uncertain time (following the election of President Trump), the second edition also goes to press at a crossroads. We write this preface from our homes, under a “shelter in place” order amidst an ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Certainly, at least until this crisis subsides, our understanding of the importance of public spaces as sites of encounter and heterogeneous sociality has been scrambled. In this state of emergency, to maintain firm boundaries between ourselves and others becomes an act of care and solidarity—not to mention selfinterest. The removal of basketball hoops (see: Hoop) or public benches is suddenly framed as a necessary precaution. At the same time, one’s ability to access resources and stable housing has only grown more urgent.

As of this writing, many of the hardest-hit neighborhoods are uncoincidentally the same communities that are repeatedly displaced, confined, and terrorized by numerous weapons of exclusion described in this book; these neighborhoods are often predominantly poor and working class and recurrently composed of Black, Latino, American Indian, immigrant, and/ or other residents of color. We are confronted with the question of how the built environment and its boundary-erecting weapons played a role in making some lives more vulnerable than others. We are further confronted with questions about not only who has the right to access what public spaces but also who has the right to stay home, to abstain from being in public, and to maintain distance from the bodies of others. Finally, we cannot look away from the violent acts that serve to reproduce and further entrench racial segregation in the public realm: from uneven police enforcement of “social distancing” across neighborhoods, to systemic police harrassment and murder in the case of George Floyd, to the vigilante kiling of Ahmaud Arbery. These anti-Black events are sometimes conceived of as aberrations in an otherwise just system, yet The Arsenal demonstrates how our neighborhoods are the products of so many explicit, undercover, and historic weapons of white supremacist exclusion. Again, it should not be overlooked that these conditions are always being contested, if not at a policy level then through tactical and everyday practices of survival, joy, and rage. So, we can definitively say that spatial boundaries and exclusion of certain types are necessary for life to flourish while those of other types dispossess and harm. The design, maintenance, and undoing of boundaries is always entangled in a broader political field. Those who work in the realms of architecture, municipal code, and public space, in their own communities and in others’, have a responsibility to grapple with these delicate balances and the weight of history. It is our sincere hope that The Arsenal can provide some assistance in thinking through this complexity toward more just, collective, and inclusive urban futures.

This paperback edition was made possible through a second generous grant by the Graham Foundation. Thank you to James Pike and the rest of the foundation for continuing to believe in this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

059 Bike Lane by Interboro

008 Introduction: Signs of the Times

020 History and Acknowledgements

“Bonus Material: “Bicycle “Scorchers” on the Lower East Side” by Interboro “The Revolution of 1987” by Interboro

028 Accessory Dwelling Unit by Takako Tajima

062 Blockbusting by W. Edward Orser Bonus Material: “The Case of Warren Shaw” by Interboro “Archie Bunker Meets a Blockbuster” by Interboro

030 Adverse Possession by Interboro

066 Blood by Interboro

032 Age-Segregated Community by Andrew Blechman

067 Bomb by Charles Connerly Bonus Material: “An Explosive Situation in Yonkers” by Interboro

ENTRIES

034 Aging Improvement District by Interboro

069 Book by Interboro

037 Americans with Disabilities Act by Interboro Bonus Material: “Capitol Crawl” by Interboro

070 Bouncer by Interboro Ask the Concierge by Interboro

039 Animal Zoning by Theresa Schwarz

074 Business Improvement District by Susanna Schaller and Gabriella Modan

041 Annexation by David Rusk Bonus Material: “Mergers and Acquisitions” by David Rusk “Dispatch from St. Louis: The Annexation of Elmwood Park” by Richard Rothstein

072 Bridge by Interboro

080 Busing by Matthew Lassiter Bonus Material: “Forced Busing” by Interboro “Busing in Boston” by Interboro

047 Anti-Snob Zoning by Sharon Perlman Krefetz

084 Busking Ban by Interboro

050 Apartment Size by Interboro

087 Camping Ordinance by Interboro

052 Armrest by Interboro Bonus Material: “Introducing the Archisuit” by Interboro

089 Campus Shuttle by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Google Bus vs. San Francisco” by Interboro

053 Audible Pedestrian Signal by Interboro

090 Chinese Exclusion Act by Cynthia Lee Bonus Material: “Chinatowns in the United States” by Andy Yan

054 Beach Tag by Andrew Kahrl Bonus Material: “Greenwich vs. TV Nation” by Interboro 058 Beach Wheelchair by Interboro Bonus Material: “Not Stuck in the Sand” by Interboro

086 Buzzer by Interboro

093 Classical Music by Interboro 095 Clear Zone by Stephen Walker 097 Code of Ethics by Interboro 098 Cold Water by Marta Gutman Table of Contents 003

Bonus Material: “Learn to Swim Campaign” by Marta Gutman

103 Common Interest Development by Interboro Bonus Material: “Dream of a Lifestyle” by Interboro 105 Community Benefit Agreement by Amy Lavine Bonus Material: “Planning and Zoning for Sale” by Interboro 107 Community Care Facilities Ordinance by Interboro Bonus Material: “Interview with Greg Spiegel” by Interboro 109 Community Land Trust by Oksana Mironova 112 Contract Selling by Beryl Satter Bonus Material: “The Contract Buyers League Takes on Exploitation” by Interboro 115 Cottage Zoning by Interboro 116 Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions by Interboro Bonus Material: “Banned in the USA” by Interboro 118 Cul-de-Sac by Albert Pope Bonus Material: “Cul-de-Sac Shortcut” by Michael Piper 122 Cultural Preservation by Toni L. Griffin 124 Curb Cut by Interboro 125 Detectable Warning Surface by Interboro 125 Dune by Interboro Bonus Material: “Privacy at Any Cost: The Bay Head Improvement Association” by James Giresi 127 Elevator by Interboro 004 Table of Contents

128 Eminent Domain by N. D. B. Connolly Bonus Material: “Kelo v. City of New London” by Interboro 131 Eruv by Michael Kubo 134 Exclusionary Amenity by Lior Jacob Strahilevitz 136 Expulsive Zoning by Interboro Bonus Material: “Dispatch from St. Louis: Expulsion Through Zoning” by Richard Rothstein 138 Fair Housing Act by Nikole Hannah-Jones Bonus Material: Interview with Fair “Housing Testers from the Fair” “Housing Justice Center” by Interboro 145 Family Definition by Ellen Pader Bonus Material: “Who Counts as Family?” by Ellen Pader 148 Famous Person’s House by Interboro 149 Farmers Market by Interboro 152 Feeding Ban by Interboro 154 Fence by James Rojas 156 Fence 2 by Interboro Bonus Material: “Hollander Ridge, Separated From Its Surroundings” by Interboro 159 Fire Truck by Interboro Bonus Material: “Two Cars” by Interboro 160 Fire Zone by Interboro Bonus Material: “Duxbury’s Superfluous Fire Hydrants” by William J. TenHoor and Meredith TenHoor 164 Flat Fare by Interboro Bonus Material: “The New York Pizza Connection” by Interboro 165 “For Sale” Sign by Interboro 166 Frat Ban by Interboro

168 Free Speech Zone by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Arsenal of “Less Lethal” Weapons” by Interboro 171 Freeway by Raymond A. Mohl 173 “Garage” by Interboro 175 Garage Sale by Margaret Crawford 176 Gate by Gabrielle Esperdy Bonus Material: “Gates of The Villages” by Interboro 179 Grid by Albert Pope 180 Halloween by Interboro 181 Home-Value Insurance by Damon Rich 182 Hoop by Interboro Bonus Material: “Hometown Hockey” by Interboro

Bonus Material: “Examples of Juan Crow Laws” by Interboro

202 Lactation Room by Interboro Bonus Material: ““Nurse-Ins” Protest the Breastfeeding Ban” by Interboro 203 Laundry Ordinance by Interboro 204 Lavender-Lining by Gabrielle Esperdy Bonus Material: “Chelsea and the Fetish Festival” by Nicholas Korody 208 Letter of Recommendation by Interboro 210 Limited-Equity Cooperative Housing by Anthony Schuman Bonus Material: “The Penn South Precedent” by Anthony Schuman 216 Local Preference by Interboro

185 Housing Court by Interboro Bonus Material: “Tenant Blacklist” by Interboro

217 Map by Interboro Bonus Material: “Malibu Public Beaches Map” by LA Urban Rangers

186 Housing Voucher by Damon Rich

220 Methane by Interboro

190 Immigrant Recruitment by Julie Behrens and Kaja Kühl Bonus Material: “Dear Somalis of Lewiston” by Interboro

221 Mitchell-Lama by Susanne Schindler

192 Inclusionary Zoning by Interboro Bonus Material: “Montgomery County Paves the Way” by David Rusk 193 Incorporation by Gerald Frug Bonus Material: “The Development of Lakewood, California” by Interboro “Dispatch from St. Louis: Incorporation as Exclusion” by Richard Rothstein 196 Insurance Redlining by Gregory D. Squires 199 Jim Crow Laws by Interboro Bonus Material: “Separate and Unequal” by Interboro 200 Juan Crow Laws by Interboro

226 Municipal ID by Interboro 227 Naturally Occurring Retirement Community by Interboro Bonus Material: “I LOVE THIS PLACE. Put It in Big Caps: An Interview with Residents of Morningside Gardens” by Interboro 231 Neighborhood Order of Protection by Interboro 232 “No Loitering” Sign by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Black Codes” by Naa Oyo A. Kwate 236 No-Cruising Zone by Interboro Bonus Material: “Legal Definitions of Cruising” by Interboro 239 Nuisance Property Ordinance by Interboro Table of Contents 005

240 Off-Leash Dog Park by A. E. Peterson

285 Questionnaire by Bill Bishop

242 One-Way Street by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Greenmount Avenue Divide” by Interboro

286 Quiet Zone by Interboro Bonus Material: “Monumental Crackdown” by Interboro

244 Open Communities by Nikole Hannah-Jones

288 Quota by Interboro

246 Parental Escort Policy by Lisa Selin Davis 250 Park by Interboro Bonus Material: “Dispatch from St. Louis: A Park to Prevent Integration” by Richard Rothstein 252 Planned Unit Development by Marshall Brown 254 Poor Door by Interboro 256 Poster by Center for Urban Pedagogy 257 Privately Owned Public Space by Miodrag Mitrasinovic Bonus Material: “High Art for POPS” by Miodrag Mitrasinovic “Global POPS” by Miodrag Mitrasinovic “Occupy POPS” by Miodrag Mitrasinovic 262 Property by Robert Beauregard 264 Public Bathroom by Jana Cephas Bonus Material: “Ally’s Law” by Interboro 269 Public Housing by Joseph Heathcott Bonus Material: “The New York City Housing Authority: Defying Conventional Wisdom” by Interboro “The Case for a Right to Housing” by Chester Hartman 277 Public Landlord by Takako Tajima 279 Public Library by Yael Friedman Bonus Material: “Library Bill of Rights” by Jeff Goldenson 282 Public Trust Doctrine by Interboro Bonus Material: “Beach Accessibility Timeline” by Interboro 006 Table of Contents

292 Racial Deed Restriction by Wendy Plotkin Bonus Material: “Examples of Racial Deed” Restrictions by Interboro 294 Racial Steering by Naa Oyo A. Kwate Bonus Material: “The Corcoran Sting” by Interboro 296 Racial Zoning by Antero Pietila Bonus Material: “Dispatch from St. Louis: The Land Use of Exclusion” by Richard Rothstein 298 Raised Crosswalk by Interboro 299 Ramp by Interboro 300 Redistricting by Rosten Woo 302 Regional Contribution Agreement by Adam Gordon 305 Regional Tax-Base Sharing by David Rusk 306 Rent Control by Wendy Plotkin 310 Reservation by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Qualla Boundary” by Interboro 312 Residential Occupancy Standards by Ellen Pader 315 Residential Parking Permit by Margaret Crawford 316 Residential Security Map by David M. P. Freund Bonus Material: “Dispatch from St. Louis: The Straw Purchase” by Richard Rothstein 325 Residents-Only Park by Interboro Bonus Material: “You Don’t Live Here!”

by Baye Adofo-Wilson

327 Right to Shelter by Interboro Bonus Material: “One-Way Ticket Out” by Interboro 329 Saggy Pants Ban by Interboro 331 Sanctuary City by Interboro 332 School District by V. Elaine Gross 338 Seating for Ticketed Passengers by Interboro 339 Sewer by Interboro 340 Shabbat Elevator by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Balconies of Brooklyn” by Susan Sloan and Brian Ripel 342 Sidewalk Management Plan by Interboro 343 Single-Family Zoning by Sonia Hirt 345 Single-Room Occupancy by Interboro Bonus Material: “Uncommon Amenities” by Interboro

360 Tenant Union by Interboro 361 Thirty-Day Limit by Interboro 363 Traffic Island by Tom Vanderbilt 365 Ugly Law by Susan M. Schweik 366 Ultrasonic Noise by Interboro 368 Unaccompanied Adult Rule by Quilian Riano 370 Urban Renewal by N. D. B. Connolly 373 Wall by Interboro Bonus Material: “Screen Planting Strip” by Interboro 375 Wall 2 by Jeffrey Johnson 377 Water by Interboro Bonus Material: “The Detroit Water Crisis” by Interboro 378 Wet Sand by Interboro 379 Wetland by Interboro 380 Youth Curfew by Interboro

346 Siren by James Loewen 347 Skywalk by Vincent James, Jennifer Yoos Bonus Material: “Skywalks, Property, and Policing” by Interboro 351 Smoking Ban by Interboro Bonus Material: “Social Life in the Smoking Zone” by Interboro 352 Sprinkler by Interboro Bonus Material: “Chilly Reception” by Interboro 353 Stop, Question, and Frisk by Interboro 355 Stroller-Free Zone by Lisa Selin Davis 357 Tax Increment Financing by Lisa Brawley Bonus Material: “Shifting Policy Landscape” by Lisa Brawley Table of Contents 007

Accessory Dwelling Unit 6

TAKAKO TAJIMA

An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a dwelling unit that is accessory to a primary dwelling unit or units on the same lot. Also referred to as a second unit, a “granny flat,” or a “mother-in-law apartment,” an ADU is often a rentable unit in the rear yard of an existing single-family residence created either anew or through the conversion of an existing accessory structure such as a garage.

As Takako Tajima writes here, accessory dwelling units have the potential to increase the availability of affordable units in affluent neighborhoods, thereby making the broad spectrum of services and conditions characteristic of these communities (good schools, good hospitals, low crime, clean air, etc.) more accessible. ADUs are also popular with suburban seniors, who may wish to age in their community but who may need to downsize from a traditional single-family house. In the Arsenal, you can find a number of housing typologies that make cities more affordable, including small apartments (see: Apartment Size), cottages (see: Cottage Zoning), and Single-Room Occupancies.

ADUs were commonplace in America’s pre-war, inner-ring suburbs. However, as the country rapidly suburbanized in the post-war era (see: Freeway), newly developed communities began to exclude ADUs, perhaps in response to perceived demand for low-density, single-family homes marketed toward nuclear families. In recent decades, some of these communities have started to reconsider the prohibitions on ADUs as they have run out of developable land and face housing shortages. In this context, certain municipalities have developed programs to legalize and increase the numbers of ADUs.

ADUs are championed as a tool to alleviate housing shortages and to provide rental units in areas that are otherwise devoid of affordable options. Those opposed to the legalization of existing ADUs and to the creation of new ones

An accessory dwelling unit, or “a mother-in-law apartment” (Courtesy of Portland Bureau of Development Services) 028 Accessory Dwelling Unit

Voices from the Battlefield: “If ADUs were to be code approved, what do the owners do when Granny or the Motherin-law are no longer with us? Considering the investment involved, the obvious conclusion is that the ADU will become rental property and we do not need or want that in St. Anthony Park on our 50 foot lots.” – Roland Gerjejansen, writing to the St. Anthony Park Community Council in opposition to ADU-friendly rezoning within St. Paul, Minnesota

“St. Anthony Park is a family-oriented community with homeowners who have invested considerable time and money into this community having chosen to live in one of the last green spaces in St. Paul. They are not willing to experience losing on their real estate investment when additional rental units are

cite the potential burden consequent population increases may cause on existing infrastructure such as roads, schools, and utilities. Owners and occupants of single-family homes may also perceive ADU renters as transients who threaten to disrupt the status quo.

built with more problems created by crowded schools, on-street parking, etc.” – Anonymous resident of St. Anthony Park in St. Paul, Minnesota

While ADU ordinances and programs have been instituted around the country, California became a hotbed of ADU battles following the 2002 passage of Assembly Bill 1866 (AB 1866). Although California legislature had already codified a law in 1982 to encourage the creation of ADUs in an effort to alleviate the state’s severe housing shortage, AB 1866 amended the law to prevent municipalities from banning outright the creation of ADUs in single-family and multi-family residential areas and to improve the predictability of the ADU application process. With the passage of AB 1866, local jurisdictions without ordinances that govern the creation of ADUs or with ordinances not in compliance with the amended legislation were suddenly required to consider applications for ADUs utilizing the state standards set forth in the same bill. AB 1866 also requires the application of accessory dwelling units to be considered ministerially and not be subject to discretionary review. Following the passage of AB 1866, many local jurisdictions throughout California enacted ordinances that set standards for ADUs. Some ordinances are less restrictive than others and allow for more inclusion of ADUs, while others are highly restrictive and promote the exclusion of ADUs.

“Imagine that you are sitting out on your deck or patio, only now, instead of enjoying a view of a neighbor’s garden, you find yourself looking directly into the windows of a granny flat. That’s something you never imagined when you bought your house, and when the time comes to put your house on the market, that will not be a strong selling point.” – Fred Foster of St. Anthony Park in St. Paul, Minnesota, writing to his neighbors in opposition of ADU-friendly rezoning

For Further Reading

· Assem. Bill 1866, 2002 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2002). ftp://www.

leginfo.ca.gov/pub/01-02/bill/asm/ab_1851-1900/ab_1866_ bill_20020131_introduced.html. · City of Santa Cruz. “Accessory Dwelling Unit Development Program.” Accessed June 2015. http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/ departments/planning-and-community-development/programs/ accessory-dwelling-unit-development-program. · City of Santa Cruz. Accessory Dwelling Unit Manual. 2003, Accessed June 2015. http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/home/ showdocument?id=8875. · Crawford, Margaret, John Chase, and John Kaliski. Everyday Urbanism. New York: Monacelli Press, 2008. · Lubell, Jeffrey. “Zoning to Expand Affordable Housing.” Zoning Practice. Chicago: American Planning Association, 2006. · Lydon Mike, et al. Tactical Urbanism. Miami: The Street Plans Collaborative, 2012. http://issuu.com/streetplanscollaborative/ docs/tactical_urbanism_vol_2_final.

“[Permitting ADUs] would be making these houses into boarding houses... It wouldn’t be a suburb anymore. It would be urban.” – Victoria Kleinschmidt, resident of North Hempstead, New York, on new law allowing homeowners to rent out apartments to tenants unrelated by blood

“It’s a win-win because there are a lot of seniors unable to pay their property taxes. By having a legal renter in the home, it provides more income and more affordable housing… [But there] are so many class and race issues, and people fear that their property value will go down.” – Lisa Tyson, Director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, discussing the benefits of, and hostility to, ADUs on Long Island, New York Accessory Dwelling Unit 029

“The economy has changed and not everyone is looking for a larger house. These units offer housing opportunities for college students, distant commuters, small families, newly married couples. We have these units available, so why not make a use out of them?” – Catherine Czerniak, Director of Community Development in Lake Forest, Illinois

1. Detached ADU created from existing garage. 2. Detached ADU next to existing garage. 3. Detached ADU constructed over existing garage. 4. ADU attached to primary structure. 5. ADU carved out of primary structure. 6. ADU attached and partially carved out of primary structure.

Adverse Possession 6

INTERBORO

As of this writing, opponents of adverse The doctrine of adverse possession, possession (particularly those affiliated with sometimes referred to as squatter’s the real estate industry) suggest that the rights, enables the legal acquisition of real weapon’s time has come and gone. Yet property through unlawful occupation.1 concurrently, the Occupy movement has emphasized the intersection of space, property, To obtain property in this manner, the and power in activism. Within this discourse, disseisor (one who dispossesses) must adverse possession becomes a potential tool exclusively, continually, and openly for undoing unequal property relations, however occupy and maintain a property for a fixed incrementally. In the Arsenal, you can also find Property, which offers a more abstract statutory period without permission or rumination on the ways in which humans map 2 challenge by its legal owner. Periods of out and lay claim to space. adverse possession range under different jurisdictions but typically fall between 5 and 21 years. In some instances, disseisors mistakenly Voices from the Battlefield: believe that the property they occupy belongs to them. Or, in “Adverse possession is a legal other cases, the occupation is in “bad faith”; it is hostile and theory whose time has come knowingly non-permitted by the true property owner.

The general reasoning behind the laws is the same as all statutes of limitations, which restrict the time a party can bring forth a claim in court. After the statutory period has 030 Accessory Dwelling Unit - Adverse Possession

and gone. There is little in the law as it stands now to stop the unscrupulous from claiming title to property they know full well is not theirs.

And it obviously penalizes the absentee owner.” – Lucas A. Ferrara, real estate lawyer in New York City

C-Squat, perhaps the most famous of New York’s Lower East Side squat houses

passed, the former property owner can no longer take legal action against the disseisor. The occupation itself should have been apparent enough that the former owner could have made a claim before time ran out. Furthermore, adverse possession is meant to encourage efficient use of land. Many adverse possession laws were drafted during earlier eras of settler colonialism, when pioneers could squat, cultivate, and eventually own land if the property owner never returned to claim it. Adverse possession, then, should also be understood as an exclusionary weapon within a larger American colonial project—one of many tools enabling dispossession and remapping of indigenous lands. Importantly, squatters can also use adverse possession to buy time. Thus, in 1994, communities of squatters on New York City’s Lower East Side were granted a temporary restraining order against their evictions once they claimed ownership rights through adverse possession.3 In other words, the squatters could not be kicked out until the court had processed their claim to the buildings they occupied. When in 2002 the city legalized 11 of the squats as limited-equity housing cooperatives (see: Limited-Equity Cooperative), its decision was informed by the potential threat of the squatters earning legal title through adverse possession. As journalist Cari Luna wrote, “By settling with the squatters in this way, the city avoided the very real possibility of losing an adverse possession claim in court, which would have established a precedent that could have meant the city losing control of many more than those eleven buildings on the Lower East Side.”4 The relevance of adverse possession laws in the 21st century is contested. In 2007, the New York State Legislature passed a bill that would have barred adverse possession claims if the

“When I first walked in here, it was basically full of debris, trash and dead animals… People don’t realize there’s a lot of sweat equity that goes into it.” – Steven Decaprio, describing his occupation of an abandoned Victorian home in West Oakland, which a decade later he would gain legal title to through adverse possession

“There’s all kinds of waste in our society. These vacant buildings are just going to waste. Why not use them?” – Anonymous squatter in Sacramento, who spent a year squatting in foreclosed homes

“Our claim represents decades of caring for and loving a particular piece of land. Every single tree and plant that’s growing here has been planted by the children in the community, with the help of members and teachers. Every plant means something.” – Kate Temple-West, president of Children’s Magical Garden (CMG) on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. The group filed a claim for adverse possession in the New York Supreme Court after a property owner fenced off about half of its garden. For the past three decades, CMG had been occupying the disputed property, even though it technically did not belong to them.

“The [adverse possession] statutes haven’t caught up with Adverse Possession 031

disseisor had “actual knowledge” of the disputed property belonging to someone else. Governor Eliot Spitzer ultimately vetoed the law, stating that it would result in “extensive litigation of virtually every adverse possession claim.” Following the 2008 home mortgage crisis, squatters in Florida claimed adverse possession so as to postpone evictions from the foreclosed and bank-owned homes they broke into.5 Needless to say, nearby property owners were not pleased. The state responded by clarifying and tightening its restrictions on trespassing, burglary, and adverse possession itself.

the historical circumstances that we find ourselves in now, with all these properties sitting here vacant.” – Mike Edmondson, spokesperson for the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office. Since the 2008 home mortgage crisis, squatters have occupied an unprecedented number of empty real estate units in the area.

Age-Segregated Community 2

ANDREW BLECHMAN

Age-segregated communities, while blatantly exclusionary, are entirely legal. When Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 (see: Fair Housing Act), many types of discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing were outlawed. But age discrimination wasn’t addressed; the act was designed to eliminate only discrimination based on race, color, religion, and national origin. It was later amended to prohibit discrimination based on sex, in 1974, but it did not address age at all until 1988, when it was further amended to prohibit discrimination based on handicap

Across the country, millions of Baby Boomers have emigrated to age-segregated communities, leaving behind more ageintegrated places that were not designed with aging bodies in mind. In this essay, excerpted from Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias, Andrew Blechman describes the origins, desirability, and social costs of the age-segregated community, with a particular focus on The Villages in Florida. In the Arsenal, you can find a range of inclusionary weapons that help older adults age in place, such as Accessory Dwelling Unit, Aging Improvement District, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Naturally Occurring Retirement Community.

A bridge enabling residents of The Villages to cross Interstate Highway US-27 in their golf carts—the most common means of transportation in the retirement community 032 Adverse Possession - Age-Segregated Community

and something referred to as “familial status”—households with children under the age of 18. Yet the new amendment exempted “housing for older persons” from the Fair Housing Act, thereby permitting an absolute ban on children aged 18 years old or younger under certain circumstances. While Congress acknowledged that discrimination against family with children was prevalent, it chose to side with the powerful landlords’ and seniors’ lobbies, thus making prohibitions against children the only type of housing discrimination specifically protected by federal law. Although religious and fraternal organizations flirted with the concept of retirement communities as early as the 1920s, the nation’s first age-segregated community was not built until the 1950s. It was called Youngtown, and it was little more than a modest housing development with a clubhouse in the middle of the Arizona desert. But its elderly inhabitants were grateful for it. Youngtown’s founder, Benjamin “Big Ben” Schleifer, wanted to build a community that would “make elderly people not feel old.” His preference for age segregation was more practical than purposefully discriminatory: children cost money. A community without kids is a community without schools and without high taxes to pay for schools. One of Schleifer’s main objectives was to ensure that Youngtown’s residents could afford to live with dignity, even if their sole income was Social Security. Today, age-segregated communities are a multibillion dollar industry. In Massachusetts alone, there are about 150. But few, if any, can compare to Florida’s The Villages. With a population of more than 100,000, The Villages is the largest gated retirement

community in the world. The colossal development spans three counties, two zip codes, and more than 20,000 acres, subdivided into dozens of separate, gated communities. As one industry consultant describes it, The Villages is a “retirement community on steroids.” It boasts countless recreation centers, dozens of pools, three artificial downtowns, a financial district, and several shopping centers all connected by nearly 100 miles of golf cart trails. The downtowns don’t have residents, but they do reflect the character of the development—a society in which leisure is the guiding principle. Because there is no real shared history, the pursuit of leisure becomes the glue that bonds the residents to the development and to one another. And despite its size, “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown” is a privately held business situated on unincorporated land. An individual must be at least 55 years old to purchase a home in The Villages, and no one under 19 may live there— period. Children may visit, but their stays are strictly limited to a total of 30 days a year, and the developer reserves the right to periodically request that residents verify their age. Children aren’t the only demographic amiss. In contrast to its Spanish-themed architecture, The Village’s community is about 97 percent white. This lack of diversity has led to embarrassing mistakes: The Village of Santo Domingo was originally spelled Santa Domingo. Many Villagers simply don’t care if they live in a fantasyland founded on a policy of segregation; they just want a place to call home, a “geritopia” where they can be comfortable among their peers. Much of life’s unpleasantness is erased in such a community. You don’t have to worry about Age-Segregated Community 033

boom boxes interrupting your sleep, or about tripping over a tricycle as you walk down your driveway, or about skyrocketing local property taxes. Nor do you have to worry about potentially volatile encounters with people who are significantly different from yourself. Real life is filled with friction; these communities attempt to remove the source of some of that friction—mainly children, troublesome neighbors, and the underclass. Furthermore, residents don’t have to grow old alone and afraid—a cheerless fate by any measure. Some of our cities and towns provide senior citizens with enough targeted services and built-in social networks, as well as conveniences accessible to pedestrians and by public transportation, but many don’t. Nor do many communities provide seniors with a critical sense of personal safety. And the alternative to an artificial “downtown” is often worse: what’s a retiree supposed to do in the car-dependent suburbs, where so many Americans now live, often with no family nearby? But America’s retirement utopias raise a number of questions. What will happen when there are thousands of these segregated communities across the country,

housing millions of aging secessionists? What happens to the rest of us—those left behind who don’t qualify in terms of age or finances? For that matter, what happens to American society in general, and our municipalities in particular, when a critical mass of mature Americans form self-contained private cities and disengage from the general population? Experience shows that these privately owned quasi-government entities often resent paying local taxes for schools as well as for municipal services that they prefer to perform for themselves. And they are potent voting blocs that can swing elections addressing these issues. Until we establish a coherent vision for addressing the needs of our senior citizens, private developers-cum-social engineers will continue to exploit this lack of cultural consensus. A society that embraces secession and escapism is clearly not a society addressing its problems and planning for a better future. Nor is it a society concerned with sustainability. Children represent the future, and a community without them is as doomed as the celibate Shakers. For Further Reading · Blechman, Andrew. Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children. New York: Grove Press, 2009.

Aging Improvement District 5

INTERBORO

In 2006, the World Health Organization charged New York City, along with 34 other metropolises, with collecting data on the well-being of its aging residents. Soon after, the city council and the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg partnered with the New 034 Age-Segregated Community - Aging Improvement District

A promising new weapon in the fight to make our cities more senior-friendly, aging improvement districts have been responsible for small-scale improvements in a number of aging neighborhoods in New York City. Taken together, these improvements—which include free cups of water at corner stores, longer traffic signals, and ramps—improve city life

York Academy of Medicine to create the Age-Friendly NYC initiative, described as a “plan to sustain and enhance [the city’s] age-friendliness for its growing population of seniors.” 1 The program’s first order of business was conducting thousands of interviews across the city (in six languages), asking older adults about their needs and concerns. It found that most interviewees desired improvements on a local level, in the neighborhoods where they spend a majority of their time and have often lived for decades.

for many older New Yorkers. However, it’s important to note that the aging improvement district debuted just as more than 100 of the city’s roughly 200 senior centers were scheduled to close their doors due to state budget cuts.1 Can the neighborhoodbased, public-private partnership model of the aging improvement district tackle the structural problems facing older New Yorkers, many of whom are financially insecure in neighborhoods with rising rents? And beyond neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan, could the model also work in the suburban, low-density neighborhoods where millions of U.S. residents are currently growing old? In the Arsenal, you can find Age-Segregated Community and Naturally Occurring Retirement Community, two other weapons with radically different approaches to making senior-friendly environments.

Thus, the aging improvement district was born: a neighborhood-centered, public-private partnership model that brings together community leaders, businesspeople, non-profits, and cultural, religious, and educational institutions to strategize on smallscale improvements that help seniors age in place in a more active and dignified way. In addition to working with city services like the Department of Transportation or Department of Parks and Recreation, a central task of the districts is to encourage local businesses to provide amenities for older adults, such as accessible bathrooms, free cups of water, or even special happy hour deals.

By 2012, pilot aging improvement districts had launched in three neighborhoods with high concentrations of older adults: East Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and the Upper West Side. The city’s first program is in East Harlem, home to over 17,000 older adults. Since its establishment, the district’s successes include enhancing laundry access in public housing, increasing seating at more than 60 local businesses, adding special hours for older adults at a neighborhood pool, and inspiring more age-friendly programming at nearby cultural institutions. Its advisory committee also focuses on making busy intersections safer and more accessible by, for example, lengthening the intervals at traffic signals. Similar low-cost upgrades are planned in the city’s other districts.

Duane Reade on the Upper West Side, one of NYC’s AIDs Aging Improvement District 035

Aging Improvement District

Americans with Disabilities Act 6

INTERBORO

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, defined as “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.”1 It addresses discrimination in the realms of employment, telecommunications, public services, and physical access to spaces of public accommodation. The latter includes sites of lodging, commerce, recreation, education, transportation, public gatherings, and public display and collection. By necessitating the physical accessibility of an expansive range of spaces, the ADA has exerted tremendous influence on the production of the built environment. New structures and modes of transportation must adhere to its codes, and those structures and modes of transportation that predate 1990 require alterations “to the maximum extent feasible” so as to be “readily accessible to and usable by” persons with disabilities. Failure to comply leaves property owners vulnerable to occasional investigations by the Department of Justice and, most threateningly, private lawsuits. These pressures have catalyzed the development and installation of numerous inclusionary design tools, many of which are catalogued in this book.

As author and disability rights activist Doris Zames Fleischer asserts, disability is “the one ‘ism’ that everyone will probably, at some point in their lives, join.”1 Stated differently, the vast majority of non-disabled people will, with age or by chance, be affected by a physical and/or mental disability in their lifetime. Thus, reducing the material and social barriers that limit life opportunities for individuals with disabilities is something that everyone has a stake in. Additionally, ADA requirements can enhance the built environment for non-disabled people as well, e.g., elevators for parents with strollers or wide automatic doors for anyone carrying large objects. Of course, not every architect is able to respond to ADA standards with designs that do so. More often than not, buildings are simply brought up to code—usually by rehashing the same old forms. The resulting unimaginative spaces are symptomatic of an antiquated, ableist approach to architecture, in which structures are not designed for a variety of publics but instead are altered in later stages to accommodate them. Accordingly, these environments reveal accessibility as an afterthought through their massively long ramps, backdoor elevators, or other perverse forms. Although countless urban spaces remain profoundly inaccessible to people with disabilities, including ones that could feasibly be made otherwise, the ADA—and its subsequent amendments—remains an enormously important weapon in this civil rights struggle. In the Arsenal, you can find a range of weapons that are influenced or made possible by the ADA, including Aging Improvement District, Audible Pedestrian Signal, Beach Wheelchair, Curb Cut, Detectable Warning Surface, Elevator, Public Bathroom, Ramp, and Raised Crosswalk.

For Further Reading · Charlton, James I. Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment. Oakland: University of California Press, 2000. · Fleischer, Doris, and Frieda James. The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. · Mahoney, Eric. 2012 ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Vista: BNi Books, 2012. · O’Brien, Ruth. Voices From the Edge: Narratives About the Americans with Disabilities Act. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. · Russell, Marta. Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract. Monroe: Common Courage Press, 2011.

Bonus Material: Capitol Crawl On March 12, 1990, more than 60 individuals with physical disabilities abandoned their mobility devices (wheelchairs, crutches, etc.) and proceeded to crawl up the 83 stone steps of the U.S. Capitol. “I’ll take all night if I have to!” declared Jennifer Keelan, a second grader with Americans with Disabilities Act

cerebral palsy and the youngest activist making the climb. Those who remained at the base of the steps held signs and shouted, “What do we want? Access! When do we want it? Now!” The Capitol Crawl marked a climactic, highly visible moment in the decades-long struggle by disability rights activists to achieve comprehensive federal protections against disability discrimination. Generations of campaigning and lobbying had already resulted in substantial victories: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 addressed equal opportunity employment at federal government and federally funded programs and equal access to public services; the Education for All Handicapped Children of 1975 improved access to public school for children with disabilities; and now, in March of 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was up for vote in Congress. The bill’s passing, however, was hardly inevitable. Some conservative lawmakers and lobbyists asserted that the ADA would result in a disastrous wave of lawsuits against small businesses. Despite this opposition, the ADA passed with a bipartisan majority, and that summer President George H. W. Bush would sign it into law.

difficulties and the barriers that we face and the breaking down of those barriers, I think society has become more open to people with disabilities than they ever have been before. We have a long way to go here, but those first steps have been taken.” – Mike Landwehr, disability rights activist and program director at KXCI-FM in Tucson, Arizona. He has used a wheelchair since he was 12 years old.

“The intent (of ADA) was sound—making sure disabled members of our community can access businesses and facilities. But it’s been so abused that it’s hurting everyone, and the only thing it’s doing is lining the pockets of greedy attorneys and those who would victimize smallbusiness owners.” – Kristin Owen, 12th District Representative of the California State Assembly

“You know a lot of things on employment ought to be done locally. You know, people finding out right or wrong locally. You know, some of the things, for example we can come up with common sense solutions— like for example if you have a three story building and you have someone apply for a job, you get them a job on the first floor if they’re in a wheelchair as opposed to making the person who owns the business put an elevator in, you know what I mean? So things like that aren’t fair to the business owner.” – Senator Rand Paul in 2010

“I now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disabilities Act and say: let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” – President George H. W. Bush, speaking to a crowd of 3,000 on the White House lawn, shortly before signing the ADA into law

Voices from the Battlefield: “I think as people see the ramped curbs and the elevators, the lifts, and the signing for deaf people at concerts and other kinds of assistance, I think it’s becoming more visible in the community as a result of the ADA. And as people become more and more aware of the 38

Americans with Disabilities Act

ADA-compliant sign and ramp at a FEMA temporary housing unit in Kansas (Courtesy of Leif Skoogfors/FEMA)

Animal Zoning 4

THERESA SCHWARZ

In this essay, Theresa Schwarz describes Zoning laws that accommodate urban agrihow the legitimization of urban farming culture, farm animals, and the sale of locally practices in Cleveland has made good use produced food products create opportuniof vacant land, addressed basic human needs for food, and encouraged interaction ties for a wide range of residents and miamong diverse publics. In the Arsenal, you cro-scale entrepreneurs. This type of zoncan also find Off-Leash Dog Park, another ing is particularly useful in older industrial weapon of inclusion for animals and humans alike. cities like Cleveland, where the availability of vacant land supports a growing interest in local food production. A new agrarian Voices from the Battlefield: model for declining cities is beginning to emerge—one that “I think we need to relax our puts vacant land to productive use and accommodates all cultural walls that relegate agrikinds of people, along with their chickens, goats, and bees. culture to the country, and that Cleveland is promoting agricultural inclusion with two includes small livestock… It’s part zoning ordinances. The first ordinance (adopted in 2009) of re-envisioning food producallows farm animals to live in urban neighborhoods, providtion in the urban landscape. You just have to keep things clean.” ed they are courteous to their human neighbors: “347.02 – Heidi Kooy, resident of San Restrictions on the Keeping of Farm Animals and Bees” Francisco and owner of two allows residents to keep chickens, ducks, rabbits, and beeNigerian dwarf goats hives but not roosters, geese, or turkeys. A typical residential lot can have up to six small animals and two beehives. Residents who keep animals and bees must apply to the “If it had been a farm area— and we do have areas like that city’s Health Department for a license. Neighbors are notihere, with horses and cows—I fied and allowed to raise objections. The second ordinance, would have said it’s O.K. But “337.02 Agriculture in Residential Districts,” permits urban they just didn’t have enough agriculture as a principle use of a vacant residential lot. space to do this.” Previously, agriculture was only allowed as an accessory – Bonnaye Mims, member of the Kansas City, Missouri, Property use. This ordinance also allows farm stands as a conditionMaintenance Appeals Board, al use on residential lots when the produce is grown on site.

Cleveland has a long tradition of farming in the city. From the 1930s through the 1960s, many elementary schools and public spaces had land for food production. Even so, both ordinances were controversial. The prevailing concern was that farm animals would scare away affluent new residents who were being wooed back to the city with upscale townhouse and loft developments and that farm stands would undermine the aesthetic character of the city. There was also great concern about the animals creating a public nuisance. However, the ordinances actually legalize activities that were already well established. Cleveland

speaking to a case in which the Board voted to remove a couple’s goats from their property

“It’s a serious issue—it’s no yolk. Chickens are really bringing us together as a community. For too long they’ve been cooped up.” – Mayor Dave Cieslewicz of Madison, Wisconsin, commenting on the city’s 2004 reversal of an earlier poultry ban Animal Zoning

Beekeepers in Cleveland, Ohio (Courtesy of Theresa Schwarz)

Councilmember Joe Cimperman (the sponsor of both ordinances) noted that many of the chickens living in his ward predated the ordinance. He compared the noise from chickens with the noise of motorcycles, noting that the latter draws more complaints. In adopting these zoning ordinances, Cleveland City Council gave greater legitimacy to the burgeoning urban agriculture movement, which is beginning to attract a new variety of more selfsufficient city dwellers. This movement was accelerated recently when the Ohio State 40

Animal Zoning

University Extension office received a grant from the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the United States Department of Agriculture. The grant supports training for new small-scale producers and an urban farm incubator in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood, one of the most economically distressed and racially segregated neighborhoods in the city. Cleveland’s agricultural zoning is helping to foster interaction among disparate populations. Food is a common need that unites us all: from the city’s many impoverished

families looking to feed their children, to eco-friendly agricultural entrepreneurs who value local food production, to the waves of recent immigrants for whom garden plots, complete with chickens, are a familiar part of city life. New agricultural operations, large and small, are beginning to emerge all over the city. If the city’s population continues to decline, there will invariably be more food-producing experiments that support the needs of a wide range of residents and create a model for retrofitting American cities to be more self-reliant and inclusive. For Further Reading · Dirksen, Kirsten. “Where It’s Legal to Raise Goats in the City.” Fair Companies. 2009, accessed September 12, 2015. http://faircompanies.com/ videos/view/where-its-legal-to-farm-goats-in-city. · Hirsch, Veronica. “Legal Protections of the Domestic Chicken in the United States and Europe.”

Michigan State University Animal Legal and Historical Center. 2003, accessed September 12, 2015. http://www.animallaw.info/articles/dduschick.htm. · Greenwood, Arin. “New Zoning Laws Allow for New Neighbors: Meet the Goats Next Door.” ABA Journal. June 24, 2011, accessed September 17, 2015. http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ new_zoning_laws_allow_for_new_neighborsmeet_ the_goats_next_door. · Mukherji, Nina, and Alfonso Morales. “Zoning for Urban Agriculture.” Zoning Practice. March 2010, accessed September 17, 2015. http://www. planning.org/zoningpractice/2010/pdf/mar.pdf. · Patel, I. C. “Gardening’s Socioeconomic Impacts: Community Gardening In An Urban Setting.” Journal of Extension 29 (1991): 7-8. · Salkin, Patricia E. “Honey, It’s all the Buzz: Regulating Neighborhood Bee Hives.” Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 39 (2012): 55. · Seeley, Thomas D. Honeybee Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. · Taylor, Owen. “The City Chicken Guide.” New York: Just Food, 2006.

Annexation 6

DAVID RUSK

In the Age of Sprawl, annexation is America’s most effective urban policy tool. In 1950, 69 million people lived in 157 urbanized areas that covered 12,715 square miles. By 2010, those same 157 urbanized areas housed 169 million residents in 60,558 square miles of developed land—well over double the population but occupying almost five times as much land.1 A city’s ability to expand its boundaries with the geographic growth of its region has been crucial to its socioeconomic and fiscal health. What I’ve called “elastic cities” (and the few suburbs around them) are less racially and economically segregated, enjoy faster

While most cities in the South and West still annex territory, most of the American cities of the Midwest and Northeast have not expanded much farther beyond their 1900s limits, as can be seen in the accompanying diagram showing the physical growth of Boston, Detroit, and Houston. This is due to a variety of factors, including new laws that made suburban incorporation easy and annexation unworkable, improved suburban services, a rising antiurbanism that perceived cities as too big, foreign, and ungovernable, and an ensuing desire for home-rule among small suburban towns. (Indeed, the “voices from the battlefield” accompanying this essay reveal just how contentious annexation can be.) Without tax-revenue sharing, small municipalities—which still relied on the big cities for working, shopping, transportation, and entertainment—depleted the cities’ tax bases and created the city/suburb divide that still plagues urban regions today. The most notorious example is Detroit, the metropolitan area of

Animal Zoning - Annexation

rates of economic growth, often consume less land for additional population, and have healthy credit ratings.

which is hyper-segregated by race, class, and jurisdictional boundaries. Consequently, city services like trash collection, street lighting, and education have all suffered in the resourcestarved city, while many suburbs have evolved into citadels of wealth and opportunity.

In two-thirds of the United States, municipal annexations are common. In this essay, David Rusk reminds us that there are During the 2000s, of an estimated 563 links between a city’s ability to expand and its fiscal central cities that could annex, 501 health. Like most weapons, however, annexation did. 2 Collectively, in just one decade can be used for very different reasons and can lead to very sinister outcomes, as Richard Rothstein they expanded their municipal territory reminds us in his anecdote about Elmwood Park. from 21,622 square miles to 24,590 In the Arsenal, you can find a number of policy square miles—about a 14 percent weapons dealing with urban/suburban divides, increase, or almost 3,000 square miles such as Incorporation (in many ways the opposite (a land area about 50 percent larger of Annexation) and Regional Tax-Base Sharing. than the entire land area of the state of Delaware). Although most annexations Bonus Material: occurred in the South and West, five dozen cities in some Mergers and Acquisitions midwestern township states did succeed in annexing a By David Rusk square mile or more of land during the decade. I’ve tabulated annexation during the past decade for all municipalities in three representative states (Michigan, Indiana, and North Carolina). Though still on the books, annexation laws in Michigan (a state with powerful townships everywhere) are practically dead letters. From 2000 to 2010, only seven Michigan municipalities (including Lansing and East Lansing) annexed one square mile or more of township land; the seven cities’ territorial growth totaled 11 square miles. Another 86 municipalities grew territorially between one-tenth of a square mile and one square mile, totaling another 25 square miles collectively. By contrast, Indiana’s annexation laws function within a state with weak townships that cannot resist municipal annexations. From 2000 to 2010, 63 municipalities (led by Fort Wayne) added one square mile or more of township land, totaling 300 square miles. Another 116 municipalities grew territorially between one-tenth of a square mile and one square mile, totaling another 42 square miles collectively. North Carolina (with no townships) has had arguably the United States’ most pro-annexation statutes. During the 42

Annexation

Since World War II, there have been 35 city-county mergers in the United States. A 2007 study of these mergers concluded that the consolidated entities fared much better than those that had not consolidated; having absorbed so much of their suburban neighborhoods through consolidation, the merged entities’ median family income in 2000 averaged 94 percent of their metro areas’ median family income comparable with 79 percent for their non-consolidated peer cities. More striking was the fiscal health of the merged cities. In 2002, they averaged Aa2 bond rating compared to an average slightly over A1 bond rating for their peer cities.1 Having an economically and fiscally healthier central city contributed to greater economic growth for their entire metro areas. From 1969 to 1999, the metro areas with consolidated cities almost doubled total employment (99

decade, 120 North Carolina municipalities each annexed more than one square mile, totaling 630 square miles of added territory, while another 166 annexed between one-tenth and one square mile, totaling another 68 square miles collectively. In short, in the Age of Sprawl, Michigan’s 532 cities and villages expanded their boundaries by only 1.9 percent during the past decade. By contrast, North Carolina’s 542 cities, villages, and towns expanded their boundaries by 22.1 percent. But with a different set of “rules of the game,” in Michigan’s neighboring state Indiana, 567 municipalities expanded 16.6 percent—roughly comparable to the 22.1 percent expansion of North Carolina’s municipalities and dwarfing fellow “township state” Michigan’s 1.9 percent performance. States should improve local annexation authority. For many small, relatively young metro areas, the central city’s ability to annex urbanizing areas will be sufficient to maintain a basic unity of local government. Even in older, more built-up areas, there are often opportunities for annexation that would benefit central cities. It is important to have good municipal annexation laws as tools to improve a city’s elasticity. Unfortunately, during the past two decades, the trend has been in the reverse direction. In many states (notably, Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee), state legislatures made annexation more difficult as newcomers moving in from the Northeast and Midwest organized to resist annexation.

For Further Reading · Leland, Suzanne M., and Kurt Thurmaier, eds. Case Studies of City-County Consolidation: Reshaping the Local Government Landscape. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. · Rusk, David. Cities Without Suburbs: A Census 2010 Perspective, 4th ed. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2013. · Rusk, David. “Changing the ‘Rules of the Game’: Tools to Revive Michigan’s Fractured Metropolitan Regions.” The Journal of Law in Society 13, no. 1, (2011), 197-266. · Rusk, David. “Governing Greater Albuquerque: A Report to the Unification Exploratory Group of the City of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County.” 2002. http://www.cabq.gov/council/documents/ completed-reports-studies/UEGreport.pdf.

percent growth) while their peer metro areas grew only 86 percent in total jobs. During the same three decades, in metro areas with consolidated cities personal income per capita increased 75 percent while personal income per capita lagged slightly behind at 69 percent growth. A cautionary note: because smaller, independent municipalities never join a merger, city-county consolidation only has significant results when the county contains substantial unincorporated land. Thus, city-county consolidation for Pittsburgh–Allegheny County, or Buffalo–Erie County, or Cleveland–Cuyahoga County— all of which have no unincorporated land—just makes no sense. City voters would just be swapping their own mayor and city council for a county executive and county legislature. Dispatch from St. Louis: The Annexation of Elmwood Park By Richard Rothstein In 1950, Olivette in St. Louis County, Missouri annexed a portion of the adjacent unincorporated community of Elmwood Park. Twenty years later, the chairman of the Olivette Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority asserted that the annexation was needed simply to “straighten” the city’s boundaries. Olivette was an all-white, solidly middle-class community where nearly two-thirds of residences were single-family; apartment dwellers in the balance were socioeconomically similar. Adjacent Elmwood Park, in contrast, was very poor, Annexation

Left: Steps of annexation for Boston, Detroit, and Houston, shown at same scale. Right: Steps of Annexation of Boston, Detroit and Houston. While the cities of Detroit and Boston steadily expanded throughout the 19th century, their physical shape is basically unchanged since the 1920s

BOSTON

DETROIT

Original city (1795) 1800 - 1819

Original city (1806) 1806 - 1819

1840 -1859 1860 - 1879 1880 - 1899

1820 - 1939

1820 - 1839

1900 - 1919

1900 - 1912

Boston Metropolitan Area

Detroit Metropolitan Area

1920 - 1926

ANNEXATION PERIODS BOSTON

1800

Annexation

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

HOUSTON 1836 - 1909 1910 - 1929 1930 - 1949 1950 -1969 1970 - 1989 1990 - 2009 1990 - 2009

Houston Metropolitan Area

DETROIT HOUSTON

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

2012

BOSTON

DETROIT

HOUSTON

Annexation

African American, subject to frequent flooding from the River Des Peres, and without paved roads or sewers; it had 37 dilapidated homes. Elmwood Park had been settled after the Civil War by laborers, formerly slaves on nearby farms. The area was bisected by railroad tracks; Olivette annexed the portion north of the city and south of the tracks, creating a physical boundary between the expanded city and unincorporated Elmwood Park. Olivette was under no legal obligation to notify affected Elmwood Park residents of the annexation, and it did not do so. After the annexation, Olivette provided no services to its new Elmwood Park neighborhood and erected a barbed-wire fence between the neighborhood and the nearest white subdivision. (Even after 1954 when schools were integrated, school buses did not come into the annexed neighborhood, so black children had to walk around the perimeter of the white subdivision, rather than taking a direct route across it, to board their school bus.) Olivette did mail tax bills to the newly annexed residents, but few Elmwood Park homeowners apparently understood the implication of these bills. Most were not aware of the annexation until 1955, when Olivette began to auction off their homes for nonpayment of taxes and other fees. The actual aim of Olivette officials was almost certainly not to “straighten boundaries” but to force Elmwood Park residents to abandon their homes (or have them seized) so the area could be redeveloped with industry, both to increase Olivette’s tax 46

Annexation - Anti-Snob Zoning

revenue and to reinforce the barrier between Olivette and the remaining African-American community in unincorporated Elmwood Park. Excerpted from “The Making of Ferguson: Public Policy at the Root of Its Troubles” by Richard Rothstein, published October 15, 2014 by The Economic Policy Institute.

Voices from the Battlefield: “Forced annexation is against every principle and idea of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution. We have to pay taxes to people we were never allowed to vote for or against.” – Keith Bost, Davidson County resident, who has been involved in a four-year battle over annexation with the town of Lexington

“For cities, continuing to annex surrounding development insures they won’t get trapped in artificial boundaries that weaken their fiscal standing and reduce their ability to support economic growth.” – Urban planners Bill Duston and Richard W. Hails

“They’re just doing it because they want more revenue. They’ll pout and say ‘We already provide services to that area.’ Well, don’t provide the services. Weeds instead of sidewalks? It’s not for everyone, but I like that.” – Clark Moran, resident of Wenatchee, Washington, on the city’s upcoming effort to encourage annexation

“We moved to the county because it was the COUNTY.... If we had wanted to live in the city we would have done so.” – Joni Tilley, Stop NC Annexation letter writer

“All of us may feel today that we are citizens of a new city. The Philadelphia we have known heretofore… has undergone a transformation which at once not only magnifies it immensely in physical proportions, but invests it with a social spirit hitherto unknown in its experience.” – Philadelphia North American, February 4, 1854, celebrating the City of Philadelphia’s consolidation with Philadelphia County—the largest single annexation in U.S. history (percentagewise), which quadrupled the city’s population and expanded its territory from 2 to 130 square miles

“Those who locate near the city limits are bound to know that the time may come when the legislature will extend the limits and take them in. No principle of right or justice or fairness places in their hands the power to stop the progress and development of the city, especially in view of the fact that the large majority of them have located near the city for the purpose of getting the benefit of transacting business or securing employment or following their profession in the city.” – Judge Henry D. Harlan of Maryland, 1917, overruling the objections of Baltimore suburbanites who did not want their towns annexed

Anti-Snob Zoning 6

SHARON PERLMAN KREFETZ

Massachusetts’s Anti-Snob Zoning is a In 1969, the Massachusetts legislature famous example of inclusionary zoning. In passed a statute aimed at addressing “an the Arsenal, you can find other approaches acute shortage of decent, safe, low and to providing and preserving affordable moderate cost housing.”1 Initially dubbed housing, including Adverse Possession, Community Land Trust, Limited-Equity the “Anti-Snob Zoning Law,” the statute Cooperative, Open Communities, Public soon became known as the Comprehensive Housing, Regional Contribution Agreement, Permit and Zoning Appeals Act, and in Rent Control, Single-Room Occupancy, and recent years it has been called Chapter Tenant Union. 40B or simply 40B, referencing its location in the Massachusetts General Laws. What makes 40B significant is the impact it has Voices from the Battlefield: had on “opening up” housing opportunities for low- and “It is time to end the fraud and moderate-income households in many Massachusetts open the doors to providing truly suburbs. It has also served as a model for similar affordable housing for those who legislation that has had notable impact on the supply and need it the most by repealing location of affordable housing in other states, specifically [Chapter 40B] and replacing it Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Illinois. 2 with something that is effective,

The first section of the statute aims to streamline and simplify what can otherwise be a long, drawn-out, and costly process in which a housing developer must secure separate approvals from numerous local boards, commissions, and departments to build affordable housing. Chapter 40B authorizes “qualified developers”— non-profit organizations, local housing authorities, or limited-dividend corporations (private developers who agree to keep their profit margins below a certain level)— to apply to a local zoning board for a comprehensive permit to build rental or homeownership housing if at least 25 percent of the units are for households whose incomes are 80 percent or less of the area median income (AMI) or, in the case of rental housing, if at least 20 percent of the units are for households whose incomes are 50 percent or less of the AMI. These affordable units must be kept affordable for at least 30 years. Chapter 40B’s second main provision grants qualified developers the right to appeal a local zoning board’s decision if the board denies the application for a comprehensive permit or approves it with conditions

equitable, and transparent.” – Frank Puopolo of Georgetown, Massachusetts

“Some towns just want to pull up the drawbridge and not let anyone in. It’s been a good law, it’s worked well all over the Commonwealth and we should just leave it alone.” – Marc Draisen, president of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations

“We will be stripped of our privacy. Our beautiful tree lined yards will be transformed into a wall of multi-story townhouses.” – Betty Gibbons, 20-year resident of Deerfield Road in Hingham, Massachusetts, whose property would abut a housing project submitted under Chapter 40B Anti-Snob Zoning

ARSENAL AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES

principal and co-founder of Interboro Partners, is an architect and urban designer. He received a Diplom Ingenieur in Architecture from RWTH Aachen and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Design School. He is an associate professor of architecture and urban studies at Vassar College. TOBIAS ARMBORST

principal and co-founder of Interboro Partners, is an urban planner. He is an associate professor in practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received a Master in Urban Planning degree. DANIEL D’OCA

BILL BISHOP lives in La Grange, Texas. He wrote The Big Sort with retired University of Texas sociologist Robert G. Cushing. Bishop has worked as a reporter at The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky; as a columnist at the Lexington, Kentucky Herald-Leader; and on the special projects staff of the Austin AmericanStatesman. Bishop and his wife, Julie Ardery, owned and operated The Bastrop County Times, a weekly newspaper in Smithville, Texas. They founded The Daily Yonder, a web-based publication covering rural America.

principal and co-founder of Interboro Partners, is a registered architect and urban designer. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Design School. She is an associate professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and the director of the Infrastructure Planning Program.

is an award-winning journalist who has been a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the Des Moines Register. His work has also appeared in Smithsonian magazine, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, among others. His first book, Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird, was widely praised in the media and featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Leisureville and Pigeons are available in paperback and have both been released in Australia and New Zealand.

is a writer and researcher living in New York City. His interests include public space, political theory, and urban and media infrastructures.

LISA BRAWLEY

ANDREW D. BLECHMAN

GEORGEEN THEODORE

RILEY GOLD

is deputy mayor/director of Economic and Housing Development in Newark, New Jersey, where he manages the departments of housing, property management, economics, small business, and planning and the office of sustainability. He is the former New Jersey director for the Regional Plan Association and is a U.S. veteran. He currently teaches as an urban design critic at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. BAYE ADOFO-WILSON

teaches critical urban studies at Vassar College, where she currently directs the American Studies Program. She is author, with Elsa Devienne, of Second Nature: Frederic Law Olmsted and Urban Modernity (Paris: Édition Fahrenheit, 2014). Her scholarship and teaching engage the processes of capitalism urbanization in the long 20th century in the U.S., exploring the relation between urban form, the politics of state legitimacy, and shifting structures of citizenship. is a licensed architect and principal of Marshall Brown Projects. He is also an associate professor at the IIT College of Architecture. Brown is a Graham Foundation grant awardee and has exhibited at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. In 2016 he appeared in the PBS documentary “Ten Towns that Changed America.” His projects and essays have appeared in several books and journals, including Metropolis, Crain’s, Architectural Record, The New York Daily News, Art Papers, The Believer, and New Directions in Sustainable Design. MARSHALL BROWN

is a professor of urban planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. He writes on cities and planning. His most recent book on the former is When America Became Suburban (University of Minnesota Press, 2006) and on the latter is Planning Matter: Acting With Things (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Delving into architecture is his “We Blame the Building! The Architecture of Distributed Responsibility,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. ROBERT BEAUREGARD

is the founder and principal of Project Urbanista, an urban planning and affordable housing consulting firm specializing in support for nonprofit organizations engaged in community-based planning and supportive housing initiatives. She is a part-time instructor of urban policy at The New School, Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, and the Urban Planning Program at Columbia University, where she teaches on the topic of migration, integration, and cities. JULIE BEHRENS

(CUP) is a nonprofit organization that uses design and art to improve civic engagement. The tools CUP creates are used by organizers and educators all over New York City and beyond to help their constituents better advocate for their own community needs. THE CENTER FOR URBAN PEDAGOGY

JANA CEPHAS is a postdoctoral scholar in the Michigan

Society of Fellows and assistant professor in architecture at the University of Michigan Taubman College of

Authors Biographies 387

Architecture and Urban Planning. She explores issues of spatial justice by analyzing the relationships between urban landscapes, emergent technologies, and new subjectivities. is professor and director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Iowa. He wrote The Most Segregated City in America: City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920–1980 (University of Virginia, 2005). The Most Segregated City was named one of the top 10 planning books in 2006 by Planetizen. In 2007, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning named the book a recipient of the Paul Davidoff Award, which recognizes an outstanding book publication promoting social justice. CHARLES CONNERLY

N. D. B. CONNOLLY is Herbert Baxter Adams Associate

Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. His first book, A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida, was published by the University of Chicago Press and won the 2015 Liberty Legacy Foundation Award from the Organization of American Historians. In both his scholarly publications and public commentary, he continues to explore questions of property rights, white supremacy, and the impact of immigration on metropolitan and political development in America. is a professor of architecture at the College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley. She teaches courses on the history and theory of architecture, urbanism, and urban history as well as urban design and planning studios on small-scale urbanity and postmodern urbanism. Her research focuses on the evolution, uses, and meanings of urban space. MARGARET CRAWFORD

is an architectural and urban historian and associate professor of architecture at NJIT. Her work examines the intersection of architecture, consumerism, and modernism in the metropolitan landscape. She is currently completing her second book, Architecture and Autopia, which looks at the ways the territory of the car shaped mid-century architectural and urban discourse. She is a columnist for Places and editor of SAH Archipedia. She blogs on “American Road Trip” at esperdy.net. GABRIELLE ESPERDY

writes about art and culture and often about sports. She is a frequent contributor to The Economist and has written for various other outlets, including Artinfo, The Daily Beast, The Moscow Times, and The Architectural League’s Urban Omnibus. She lives in Brooklyn and grew up in Tel Aviv and Rockaway (Bauhaus heaven and unapologetically homey beach town, respectively). You can find most of her original and published work at www.idapost.com. YAEL FRIEDMAN

388 Authors Biographies

is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research has focused on the intersections between metropolitan change, public policy, and popular ideas about race and inequality in the 20th century United States. He is also the author of Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America and The Modern American Metropolis: A Documentary Reader. DAVID M. P. FREUND

is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His specialty is local government law, a subject he has taught for more than 30 years. He has published dozens of articles on the topic and is the author, among other works, of a casebook—Local Government Law (6th edition, 2015, with David Barron and Richard T. Ford)— and two other books, City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation (Cornell University Press, 2008, with David Barron) and City Making: Building Communities Without Building Walls (Princeton University Press, 1999). GERALD FRUG

JAMES GIRESI’S professional work covers a broad

range of scales, ranging from high-end residential projects and higher education facilities to multistate planning projects following Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Giresi’s academic and personal research on resilient design has been published and presented to numerous municipalities and government agencies. He holds a Master of Infrastructure Planning (2014) and Bachelor of Architecture (cum laude, 2013) from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2013 USGBC-NJ Student Award. works at the intersection of libraries, technology, and fun. He’s the designer in the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, where he imagines and builds new library projects, from policy to software to experiences. He was also co-teacher of the Harvard Graduate School of Design Seminar The Library Test Kitchen. Goldenson earned a Master of Science from the MIT Media Lab and a BA in Architecture from Princeton University. JEFF GOLDENSON

ADAM GORDON is the associate director of the Fair Share

Housing Center. He has litigated at the New Jersey Supreme Court and Appellate Division and worked on state and federal policy issues, including very-lowincome housing in high-opportunity communities, Low Income Housing Tax Credit allocation, and statewide fair share allocation. Gordon is also cofounder of the magazine Next City and a non-resident fellow at the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, where he has worked on several initiatives on reshaping federal housing policy to focus on sustainable and inclusive communities.

TONI L. GRIFFIN is the founder of Urban Planning and

Design for the American City, based in New York. Through the practice, Toni served as project director of the longrange planning initiative of the Detroit Work Project and in 2013 completed and released Detroit Future City, a comprehensive citywide framework plan for urban transformation. Recent clients include the cities of Memphis, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh.

is professor and associate dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, Virginia Tech. She is the author of Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs and Privatization of Space in the Post-Socialist City and Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation and coeditor of The Urban Wisdom of Jane Jacobs. SONIA A. HIRT

is principal of VJAA, a Minneapolisbased collaborative design studio, which he founded in 1995. He is currently Cass Gilbert Professor in Practice at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. He has also taught at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Tulane University, IIT, and MIT. VINCENT JAMES

Ph.D, is professor of architecture (history and theory) at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York, and a member of the doctoral faculty in art history at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of A City for Children: Women, Architecture and the Charitable Landscapes of Oakland, 1850-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and was the editor of Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum from 2009 to 2015. Gutman is also a licensed architect. MARTA GUTMAN

is an award-winning investigative reporter who covers civil rights and racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine. In 2016, she helped found the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a news trade organization dedicated to increasing the ranks of investigative reporters of color. Prior to joining The New York Times, HannahJones worked as an investigative reporter at ProPublica in New York, where she spent three years chronicling the way official policy created and maintains segregation in housing and schools. NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES

an urban planner and author, is director of research at the Poverty & Race Research Action Council in Washington, D.C. Prior to taking his present position, he was the founding executive director of PRRAC. Before that, he was a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Harvard and served on the faculty there, as well as at Yale, the University of North Carolina, Cornell, the University of CaliforniaBerkeley, and Columbia University. He is currently serving as an adjunct professor of sociology at George Washington University. CHESTER HARTMAN

is an associate professor of urban studies at Parsons School of Design in New York. He studies the metropolis and its diverse cultures, institutions, and environments within a comparative and global perspective. His main interest is in the public role of scholarship and teaching and the civic engagement of students and teachers in the world around them. He has been awarded fellowships from U.S. Fulbright, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Erasmus Institute, the Mellon Foundation, and the Brown Center for the Humanities. JOESEPH HEATHCOTT

is the founding director of Asia Megacities Lab, an experimental research unit at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, where he also teaches. He is also a co-founding principal of SLAB, an architecture and urbanism studio based in New York. In 2013, Johnson was the curator and co-academic director for the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture in Shenzhen. JEFFREY JOHNSON

is an assistant professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of The Land Was Ours: African American Beaches From Jim Crow to the Sunbelt South (Harvard University Press, 2012). He specializes in the history of beaches, coastal real estate development, tax policy and administration, and African American landownership in the twentieth-century United States. John Kaliski is principal of John Kaliski Architects/ Urban Studio. His practice is located in Los Angeles and specializes in urban design for public agencies and architecture for nonprofits. A co-author of Everyday Urbanism (Monacelli Press, 1999), he conceives projects through participatory processes. A graduate of Yale University (B.A., M.Arch.), Kaliski has taught at SCIArc, the University of Michigan, and USC and presently leads an urban design workshop at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. ANDREW W. KAHRL

is an artist and writer currently based in Los Angeles. His writing engages with the margins of architecture, particularly its intersections with art, politics, and eco-criticism. He is a founding member of the research collective Encyclopædia, which has presented work at the Serpentine Galleries in London and the LUMA Westbau in Zürich. His visual art practice has been included in various virtual exhibitions, as well as physically in Zürich, New York, and Los Angeles. NICHOLAS KORODY

is the Andrea B. and Peter D. Klein ’64 Distinguished Professor in the political science department of Clark University. She has done SHARON PERLMAN KREFETZ

Authors Biographies 389

extensive research on policies aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing for low- and moderateincome households in U.S. cities and suburbs. A leading expert on the Massachusetts Affordable Housing and Land Use Appeals law, she has served as a consultant to the Connecticut Blue Ribbon Commission on Affordable Housing and for the American Planning Association’s Report on Regional Approaches to Affordable Housing.

is a staff attorney at the Government Law Center of Albany Law School, where she has researched Community Benefits Agreements extensively.

AMY LAVINE

KAJA KÜHL

is an urban designer and founder of youarethecity, a research, design, and planning practice in Brooklyn. She is an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University, where she coordinates the 5 Borough Studio as part of the Urban Design Program and teaches studios and seminars related to her research on migration and urban spaces.

is an exhibition developer and interpretive planner. She brings a background in community-based cultural work and oral history to create an engaging approach to public history and lifelong learning. As VP of Exhibitions, Programs, & Collections at the Museum of Chinese in America, she led the development of MOCA’s core exhibition “With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America.” She was the assistant curator for New-York Historical Society’s exhibition “Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion”; an associate producer for the documentary The Search for General Tso; and is currently an interpretive planner on Thinc Design’s project for the National Museum of Jordan.

MICHAEL KUBO is

JAMES W. LOEWEN

a Ph.D. candidate in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture at MIT and a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, where his work focuses on the rise and international extension of collective architectural practice in the United States after World War II. He is a director of pinkcomma gallery in Boston and was associate curator for OfficeUS, the U.S. Pavilion at the 2014 International Architecture Biennale in Venice. His recent publications include OfficeUS Atlas (2015) and Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston (2015). He is a founding partner of Collective-LOK, which recently completed the new street-level headquarters of Van Alen Institute in New York. His writing has appeared in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Journal of Architectural Education, Harvard Design Magazine, MAS Context, The Boston Globe, Architect, ArchitectureBoston, Volume, and CLOG. is associate professor in the departments of human ecology and Africana studies at Rutgers. She is a product of the Chicago Public Schools, Carleton College (B.A., psychology), and St. John’s University (Ph.D., Clinical Psychology). Kwate conducts research on the social determinants of African American health and well-being, and her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is an avid cyclist and burgeoning vegetable gardener. NAA OYO A. KWATE

CYNTHIA LEE

is a sociologist and the best-selling author of multiple books, including Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism and Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong. He holds a PhD in sociology from Harvard University and taught race relations for 20 years at the University of Vermont. is a collective that develops guided hikes, campfire talks, field kits, and other interpretive tools to spark creative explorations of everyday habitats, in its home megalopolis and beyond. THE LOS ANGELES URBAN RANGERS

is an independent researcher and writer. Her work has appeared in Urban Omnibus, BKLNR, Progressive Planning Magazine, Shelterforce, and Carolina Planning. OKSANA MIRONOVA

MIODRAG MITRASINOVIC is an architect, urbanist, and

author. He is associate professor of urbanism and architecture at Parsons School of Design, The New School. His research focuses on both generative capacity and infrastructural dimensions of public space, specifically at the intersections of public policy, urban and public design, and processes of privatization of public resources. He is the author of Total Landscape, Theme Parks, Public Space (Ashgate, 2006), coeditor of Travel, Space, Architecture (Ashgate, 2009), and editor of Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion (Routledge, 2015). is an associate professor of sociolinguistics in the English department at The Ohio State University. Her work focuses on the relationship between language, ethnicity, and urban identity. She is the author of Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place (Blackwell, 2007), as well as articles in journals such as Language in Society, The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, City and Society, and the Journal of Planning Education and Research. GABRIELLA MODAN

is an associate professor of history and of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan. His main field of study is 20thcentury U.S. history, with a focus on urbanization and suburbanization. Lassiter is the author of The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (2006) and co-editor of The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism (2009). MATTHEW LASSITER

390 Authors Biographies

(1939–2015) was Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He was a graduate of Hamilton College and held an MA from Yale and a Ph.D. from NYU. He was a specialist in modern U.S. urban and social history and wrote extensively on ethnicity, race relations, civil rights, urban policy, and freeways. His books include South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945–1960 (2004), The Making of Urban America, 3rd ed., co-edited with Roger Biles (2012), and Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939, 3rd ed., co-authored with Mark H. Rose (2012). W. Edward Orser is emeritus professor and former chair of the department of American studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of Blockbusting in Baltimore: The Edmondson Village Story (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994, 1997) and The Gwynns Falls: Baltimore Gateway to the Chesapeake Bay (Charleston, S.C.: the History Press, 2008). His book and article publications, as well as his teaching, focus on the racial dynamics of urban areas and the social dimensions of environmental history, with a special focus on Baltimore. RAYMOND A. MOHL

is an anthropologist and professor of urban planning at the University Massachusetts, Amherst. She has been on the board of directors of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center in Holyoke since 1992. Her research and activism focuses on housing discrimination, in particular related to residential occupancy standards and housing voucher programs. ELLEN PADER

is a writer and educator based in Tivoli, NY. She is a faculty member and writing fellow in the MA in Art Education Program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is a board member of NYC Books Through Bars, a nonprofit organization that sends books to incarcerated individuals throughout the United States. A. E. PETERSON

is the author of Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City (2010). Pietila spent 35 years with the Baltimore Sun, most of it covering the city’s neighborhoods, politics, and government. A native of Finland, he became a student of racial change during his first visit to the United States in 1964. ANTERO PIETILA

is the Gus Sessions Wortham Professor of Architecture. He has taught in the school’s Graduate Program at Rice for 15 years and is currently the director of the school’s thesis program. He is the author of Ladders (Princeton Architectural Press, 1997) and numerous articles concerning the broad implications of post-war urban development. ALBERT POPE

is a former assistant professor of history at Arizona State University and was the founding editor of H-Urban, a scholarly H-Net forum. WENDY PLOTKIN

Her research focuses on the housing dynamics of urban neighborhoods, especially on issues of class and race, as well as on the use of the internet in historical studies. is an architectural and urban designer, researcher, writer, and educator working out of Brooklyn. He is the founder and principal of DSGN AGNC, a collaborative design/research studio exploring political engagement through architecture, urbanism, and art. In practice and academia, he makes forensic research models into policies that affect urban spaces, often alongside local stakeholders and transdisciplinary teams, that in turn can be used to propose a variety of spatial designs, targeted policies, and actions that seek to increase local agency. QUILIAN RIANO

AICP PP, is an urban designer and principal of Hector Design Service. From 2008–2015, he served as planning director and chief urban designer for Newark, New Jersey, where he led efforts to make the state’s most populous municipality a prosperous, walkable, and environmentally just city, including building the city’s first riverfront parks and overhauling its zoning laws for the first time in 60 years. In 1997, he founded the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), a nonprofit that uses design and art to increase civic engagement, and was executive director for 10 years. DAMON RICH

is the principal and founder of RSVP Architecture Studio, an architectural practice located in Brooklyn. He is a registered architect in New York State. Prior to forming RSVP Studio, He was a senior associate with TEK Architects (formerly Thanhauser and Esterson Architects) in New York. In addition to his professional practice, he is an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute, where he also coordinates the Architectural Media and Communications Program in the undergraduate architecture program. BRIAN RIPEL

is an urban planner, community activist, and artist. He has developed an innovative public engagement and community visioning tool that uses art making, imagination, storytelling, and play as its media. He is an international expert in public engagement. He is also one of the few nationally recognized urban planners to examine Latino cultural influences on urban design and sustainability in the U.S. Rojas has written and lectured extensively on how culture and immigration are transforming the American front yard and landscape. He is also the founder of the Latino Urban Forum, an advocate group dedicated to increasing awareness on planning and design issues facing lowincome Latinos. JAMES ROJAS

RICHARD ROTHSTEIN is a research associate of the

Economic Policy Institute. His recent work has documented the history of state-sponsored residential Authors Biographies 391

segregation, as in his report, “The Making of Ferguson.” He is the author of several books on education policy, including Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (2008) and Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (2004). A full list of Rothstein’s recent articles, books, and online lectures about both racial segregation and education policy is available at http:// www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/. David Rusk, former mayor of Albuquerque, is an independent consultant on urban and suburban policy. He is the author of numerous books, including Cities Without Suburbs and Inside Game Outside Game: Winning Strategies for Saving Urban America.

in an effort to understand and address the implications of population decline and large-scale urban vacancy in Northeast Ohio. She teaches in the graduate design curriculum for the Kent State College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

is professor of history at Rutgers University–Newark. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 1992. Her book Family Properties: How the Struggle Over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America won the Liberty Legacy Award for civil rights history and the National Jewish Book Award in history and was a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Ron Ridenhour Book Prize. In 2015, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her new project, a history of ShoreBank.

LISA SELIN DAVIS

BERYL SATTER

is a certified planner and assistant professor in the department of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at the City College of New York, CUNY. Her research examines the neoliberalization of urban governance and urban space, specifically the use of business improvement districts as entrepreneurial placemaking strategies to revitalize and revalorize urban areas. She served as senior planner to the Municipal Art Society in New York, evaluating some of the Bloomberg Administration rezoning efforts. SUSANNA F. SCHALLER

is a registered architect and associate professor of architecture in the College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he has served as both undergraduate and graduate program director. He is a past president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. His articles on housing design and community development appear in numerous books, scholarly journals, and conference proceedings. Tony was a founding member of a series of advocacy and activist organizations in the architecture and planning professions, including Urban Deadline, The Architects’ Resistance, Homefront, and the Planners Network. ANTHONY (TONY) SCHUMAN

THERESA SCHWARZ is the director of Kent State University’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative. Her work at the CUDC includes neighborhood and campus planning, commercial and residential design guidelines, and ecological strategies for vacant land reuse. Schwarz launched the CUDC’s Shrinking Cities Institute in 2005

392 Authors Biographies

is a professor of English and associate dean of Arts and Humanities at UC Berkeley. She is currently at work on projects related to the history of IQ testing in the United States and to disability politics and representations of the effects of Agent Orange in the U.S., Vietnam, and other places. She is also the author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (New York University, 2009). SUSAN SCHWEIK

is a journalist who has written extensively on design, architecture, and urban issues. She has written for Time, The New York Times, New York magazine, Parenting, AARP, and many other publications. is a licensed architect in New York and the principal of Slo.Vis, an architecture and design studio located in Brooklyn. Susan received a BA Arch from Tulane School of Architecture in 1999 and a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in 2004. Prior to founding Slo.Vis, Susan worked at firms ranging from Architecture Research Office to Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. She also taught architecture studio courses at New York Institute of Technology from 2004–2011. She is a guest critic at architecture reviews at Columbia, Pratt, NYIT, NJIT, and City College. SUSAN SLOAN

is a professor of sociology and of public policy and public administration at George Washington University. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center in Chicago and the Social Science Advisory Board of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council in Washington, D.C. He has served as a consultant for civil rights organizations around the country, as a member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, and as a ConsumerFunded Representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. GREGORY D. SQUIRES

is Sidley Austin Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. His teaching and research interests include property and land use, privacy, intellectual property, law and technology, and motorist behavior. LIOR STRAHILEVITZ

is principal of Tajima Open Design Office (TODO) and teaches in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California. She developed the submissions for The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion while she was a principal of Bureau E.A.S.T. Takako received her Bachelor of TAKAKO TAJIMA

Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University and her Master of Landscape Architecture and Master of Urban Planning from Harvard University. She lives and works in Los Angeles. has written for many publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Popular Science, The Financial Times, Smithsonian, The London Review of Books, among many others. He is a contributing editor of Wired U.K, Outside, and Artforum. He is author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), and Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America. He has appeared on a wide range of television and radio programs, from The Today Show to the BBC’s World Service to NPR’s Fresh Air. He has been a visiting scholar at NYU’s Rudin Center for Transportation, a research fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, a fellow at the Design Trust for Public Space, and a winner of the Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant, among other honors. He lives in Brooklyn. TOM VANDERBILT

is an urban planner at Bing Thom Architects in Vancouver, Canada, with specialties in urban regeneration, applied demographics, neighborhood economic development, public outreach, and quantitative research. He has extensively worked in the nonprofit and private urban planning sectors, with projects in the metropolitan regions of Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. He is also an adjunct professor at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia and a visiting scholar at the Asian/Pacific/ American Institute at New York University. ANDY YAN

trained as an architect and worked for architectural and design practices in the UK and Spain. He has taught in the Faculty of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University, and from 2001 at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture, where he is currently director of the Graduate School. He was a founder member of the Agency Research Centre (2009) and is currently working on a project researching the architecture of traveling street fairs, with support from the RIBA Research Trust. STEPHEN WALKER

ROSTEN WOO is a designer, writer, and educator living

in Los Angeles. He produces civic-scale artworks and works as a collaborator and consultant to a variety of grassroots and nonprofit organizations. His work has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Netherlands Architectural Institute, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and various piers, public housing developments, tugboats, shopping malls, and parks in New York and Los Angeles. He is also co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). His book, Street Value, about race and retail urban development, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. JENNIFER YOOS is principal of VJAA, a Minneapolis-

based collaborative design studio. She joined VJAA as a design partner 1997 and is president of the firm. She teaches graduate-level design as an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. A graduate of the Architectural Association, she was previously a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Authors Biographies 393

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