URBAN
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Columbia University in the City of New York Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
CONTRA
Volume. 20
TABLE OF CONTENTS
07
Letter from Editors
10
Housing & Welfare in the City
30
Somewhere under Somewhere, Somewhere in the City
32
A Haptic City
4 | Fall 2016
James Piacentini
Weiping Wu
Patrick Li
14
The Value of Housing
21
Humanizing Modernist Spaces
34
Contraflow
40
Miami Beach Bye
46
New York City’s Buried Streams
José Gabriel Lemaître
Matthias Neill
Vicente Arellano
Patrick Li
Dorothy MacAusland
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BOARD Content Editor: Sahra Mirbabaee Design+Publishing Editor: Jacquelyne Sunwoo Design+Publishing Editor: Jessica Cruz
ASSISTANT EDITORS Stephanie Chan James Piacentini Ramya Ramanathan Shruti Shubham Photo by Madeline Berry Cover Photo by Madeline Berry
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Dear Reader, Planning is a living practice. Consistently taking different shapes and roles, planners have morphed into the arbiters between the abstract and the material in our built environment. Historically, urban planning decisions have always been rooted in the fundamental lessons that trial and error have brought us. Whether it was the live-work factory schemes of the Industrial Revolution that led to public health concerns, or the Levittown patterns that fueled suburban sprawl, our practice has learned and evolved from these moments in time. And even with pure intentions, many applications have driven unsatisfactory outcomes. However, it’s meaningful to recognize that these ideas were contrary to the prevailing discourse of the time. For planners today, non-conformist practices are elemental to the enterprises of the city, and to enhance the city is to expand our definitions of the planning decorum.
We are delighted to share this semester’s result with you: a product that we hope will prompt our readers to muse upon the possibilities and interventions planners can make together. A broad range of opinions and sentiments reflect the implications of the long-term outcomes of planning and development interventions. At URBAN, we believe these conversations further contribute to the dynamic and just cities of our future. From, URBAN
In the first issue of URBAN for the 2016-2017 academic year, we strived to create a memorable compilation of ideas that will spark dialogue on the compositional planning theories and practices of our times. Suitably named, Contra, this issue looked for ideas that went against the grain and inspired agreements and arguments; discussions and silence. From identifying the true value of housing to rethinking the breed of transportation projects governments support, this magazine takes aspects of planning we take as given and reworks them for the present-day.
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Lalibela, Ethiopia
Photo by Jessica Cruz
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Housing and Welfare in an Inclusive City Professor Weiping Wu // Faculty For newcomers and the poor, urban life is precarious – lack of shelter, low and uncertain earnings, and increased exposure to diseases. Given the severe shortages of affordable housing in a large swath of the developing world, urban slums have proliferated, becoming homes to a permanent underclass that never fully integrate into the urban society. According to the United Nations, one of every three people in the world will be living in slums by 2030. But ingenuity has also arisen from this seemingly destitute landscape. There are unconventional practices in both financing the building of new units and upgrading existing substandard housing for low-income families. Innovations engaging the poor in the housing sector have the potential to affect a large proportion of the urban population and ultimately drive up economic growth, locally or nationally. A question, therefore, is whether housing should be considered a right that different groups of the urban population should have access to. This right is recognized by many nations through their constitutions and within both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The recognition of such a right is more common in the more industrialized world. While there have been concerted efforts to promote housing rights in the global south, particularly through the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UNHABITAT), overall progress has been slow.
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Informality in Rio
Photo by Ubaldo Escalante
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Perhaps positioning housing as a key element of welfare should be a new way of thinking when tackling questions about its severe shortages. In the context of the welfare state, housing is an important pillar alongside social security, education, and health care. Together, these benefits may reduce income inequalities that in turn affect housing consumption. Welfare regimes that produce high levels of inequality are likely to have high levels of homelessness because of the relatively weak purchasing power of lowerincome households (Stephens and Fitzpatrick 2007). Housing, on the other hand, differs from social security in that it is rarely considered as a universal form of public provision. Even in the most generous situations, housing is provided for only a minority of the population. Conceptually, “housing manifests a high degree of ‘embeddedness’ in social structure. Its very pervasiveness in terms of influence on life styles, urban form… and patterns of household consumption,” makes it central to understanding welfare (Kemeny 2001, p. 56). At the individual level, housing is a basic necessity and plays a major part in defining lifestyles. For migrants in particular, housing is indispensable in their adjustment to a new environment. In addition to the workplace, housing plays a role in cementing a family and kinship network, through which rural migrants make their adjustments to urban life as a resident and neighbor (Chui 2002, Hanson and Simmons 1968). Housing characteristics such as tenure or ownership, type of structure, conditions of dwelling, access to facilities and services, and geographical location are all essential to migrants’ quality of life. Attributes associated with urban living, including the higher density of urban housing and the use of community facilities (e.g. water tap and open space), also have profound social impacts on the lifestyles of migrants from rural origins (Huq-Hussain 1996). From the life course perspective, the effects of housing on other forms of welfare are seen in household cost structure. For instance, homeownership concentrates costs of housing in the early stages of the life course. In contrast, health insurance tends to be more costly 12 | Fall 2016
Even in the most generous situations, housing is provided for only a minority of the population
during later stages (Kemeny 2001). For households with severe resource constraints, trade-offs often occur between housing expenditures and paying for future social insurance. If we consider housing as a pillar of the welfare regime, how should the public sector be involved in its provision? Traditionally, different societies have conceptualized housing in various ways regarding whether it constitutes a public good. For public goods or quasi-public goods, each individual’s consumption of such a good does not subtract from any other individual’s consumption of that good (non-rivalry). It is also impossible to exclude any individuals from consuming the good (non-excludability). Examples of quasi-public goods are education, public health, transportation services, and police/fire protection. Through far-reaching housing policies in Europe and elsewhere (e.g. Singapore) where public money has been invested in building housing for workers of modest means, municipal governments often play the triple role of landowner, developer, and financier. On the other hand, the view prevalent in the U.S. is that housing should be provided by the market and the most government should do is to regulate the market.
The challenge of providing new housing for low income households by the public sector in the developing world has not been met with much success. The primary reason has been that existing building regulations have made housing unaffordable and in inappropriate locations to target populations. Attempts to lower costs through sites-and-services and upgrading schemes have also not yielded anticipated results. The supply of housing that adheres to largely unrealistic rules and regulations pertaining to plot sizes, rights-of-way, infrastructure standards, building materials, and the like has remained insufficient. As such, the majority of the urban poor live in illegal settlements or crowded slums that have little land value and are with extremely limited access to basic infrastructure and services. Informal settlements of the poor have arisen in response to acute housing shortages in low-income communities, large-scale rural-urban migration, and increased urban population.
References Chiu, Ernest. 2002. “Housing and Welfare Services in Hong Kong for New Immigrants from China: Inclusion or Exclusion?” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 11, 2: 221-245.
Hanson, Robert C. and Ozzie G. Simmons. 1968. “The Role Path: A Concept and Procedure for Studying Migration to Urban Communities.” Human Organization 27, 2 (Summer): 152-158. Huq-Hussain, Shahnaz. 1996. “Female Migrants in an Urban Setting - The Dimensions of Spatial/Physical Adaptation.” HABITAT International 20, 1: 93-107. Kemeny, Jim. 2001. “Comparing Housing and Welfare: Theorizing the Relationship.” Journal of Housing and the Build Environment 16: 53-70.
Stephens, Mark and Suzanne Fitzpatrick. 2007. “Welfare Regimes, Housing Systems and Homelessness: How are they linked?” European Observatory on Homelessness 1: 201-212.
---------------------------------------------------Weiping Wu is Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia GSAPP and Director of the M.S. Urban Planning program. Before joining Columbia in 2016, she was Professor and Chair in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University.
In comparison, the public sector has had much greater success where it has entered into partnerships with communities as in the case of slum upgrading. Community and resident participation and initiatives are critical for such successes, such as when the public sector works continuously with low-income communities to regularize land tenure. Many scholars and organizations have written about such experiences with varying success across the world. To sum up, two questions have arisen as the key to our thinking about housing and welfare in the inclusive city: 1) How can we conceptualize the inclusive city that integrates urban slums and other informal assemblage into the mainstream of urban development? and 2) What can be done to support the fermentation of small but system-challenging ideas and innovations that emerge from the slum ecology? Questions like these will help guide our future inquiries in the exploration of how municipal systems can tap into the vitality and creativity of the people living in urban slums and beyond to enable inclusive practices. URBAN | 13
The Value of Housing José Gabriel Lemaître // MSUP 2017
NYC | MIH VOTES BY COMMUNITY BOARD Approve Disapprove No Action Parks
BRONX
MANHATTAN
QUEENS
BROOKLYN
STATEN ISLAND
0
8 Miles
By Author, Data from NY Law School. Citywide Community Board Vote Tracker on ZQA & MIH Proposals
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As a concern that regularly ignites the public discourse, territorial segregation by income has historically motivated scholars across fields to reframe what Henri Lefebvre called in his eponymous book from 1967, the “Right to the City”; recalling, if not its whole dialectical significance—as the discourses of Edward Soja or David Harvey, two of the most prominent in ‘post-Marxist’ human geography, do—a propagandistic use of the term which in any case has helped to raise awareness of this collective right. In administering this right, real estate markets act as the agents of specific economic structures in urban contexts, expressed in tangible form as architecture. Within this framework, this article seeks to elucidate the tensions between the use value of housing—the functional benefits it may bring to society—and its exchange value, and calls for a reformulation in how urban planners address the function of housing in areas as diverse as the United States and Latin American countries such as Chile.
In New York City, the mixed reception given to proposals like Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) and Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) complement a highly contentious ultra-luxury real estate boom. The political debate regarding both proposals and high-end real estate growth reflects conflicting perceptions of housing as a good to be acquired by families through effort and savings as opposed to a citizen’s right. This poses a fundamental question to be answered: Should the use value of housing be eclipsed by its exchange value as a commodity? As many other physical commodities, property has an intrinsic exchange value. However, this value, constructed and abstracted through debts, interest rates, mortgage-backed securities, or other financial instruments, has overcome the ordinary use value of housing with a more fundamental one, as a mechanism for the regularized investment of capital. This notion, in combination with the de-regulation of the speculative housing market led in large part to the subprime crisis in 2008, resulting in nearly 9 million jobs lost, U.S housing prices falling 30% on average, and the net housing wealth decreasing almost U.S $8.2 trillion (Martin, Moore and Schindler 2015). The affair disproportionately affected lowincome homeowners ( Joint Center for Housing Studies 2010), evidence that the free market does not necessarily lead to an equitable society, nor a more efficient one. Decades ago, when Milton Friedman argued in Capitalism and Freedom (1962) that governments must limit themselves to enforce contracts, promote competition, and ensure stable money—which doesn’t include regulating rating agencies— neoliberalism seemed to be setting a deliberate political path towards the 2008 crisis. But Friedman knew how to sell his ideas, and subsequently his ideology not only affected opinions and policy across the US, but also spread to places like Chile, where the Pinochet regime radically adopted his model with the assistance of several institutions in Washington (Gilbert, 2002). The country now considered the free market as the final arbiter of values, and the entire Chilean system was given to for-profit corporations with little regulatory oversight. Today, inequality in Chile has become a major problem with one of the highest Gini Index scores worldwide, a condition
made visible in part through the country’s high levels of territorial segregation by income. Due to high land values and low median wages in Santiago’s Metropolitan Region, just 1.7% of people are able to choose where they want to live (Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales 2016). As a result, just an elite few consume the majority of positive externalities— such as access to quality public spaces, or proximity to jobs opportunities—while less favored groups are usually excluded to isolated outposts lacking basic infrastructure. It is from these circumstances that ELEMENTAL, a private architectural-design firm internationally renowned for its social housing typology, emerges. Responding to the government program Vivienda Social Dinámica sin Deuda (Dynamic Public Housing with no Debt) ELEMENTAL’s proposal uses the scarce resources given by the public sector in the form of subsidies to build affordable housing units in a relatively ‘decent’ location. In order to do so, they constructed a typology around ‘half a house’ (Aravena 2016). The system, with minimum government support, relies on the increasing value of the unit, which once acquired by low-income consumers at a very reduced price, is expected to increase in value through the self-provided expansion, and through the surpluses obtained by land value speculation. Recognizing the fundamental role of architecture in the battle against a multidimensional range of inequalities, the Hyatt Foundation awarded the 2016 Pritzker Prize to Alejandro Aravena, the director of ELEMENTAL, for this work and his efforts in improving the well-being of our cities. However, architecture itself, embedded in the broader urban economic framework described at the start of the article, also plays an active role in the creation of the same inequalities the project sought to combat. In order to receive the expected rates of return within a very tight budget, private developers in charge of providing the units tended to “cut-corners” and to choose places where land was cheap, often far from work opportunities, and characterized by high social problems. Moreover, after the initial units were completed, the construction of the “other half ” of the houses by non-skilled laborers ghettoized the neighborhoods, making them less attractive to private investment. Paradoxically, if these areas become highly demanded, the process of gentrification will most likely price out the current low-income residents.
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Due to high land values and low median wages in Santiago’s Metropolitan
1.7%
Region, just of people are able to choose where they want to live
Quinta Monroy (2003), ELEMENTAL, Iquique, Chile. Photograph 2014. Image courtesy of ©OnArchitecture
The Hyatt Foundation’s award to ELEMENTAL formally institutionalizes Chilean vulnerability and diverts the attention from a flawed public policy behind the proposal itself, hindering the use value of housing, and reinforcing the exchange value housing as a mechanism to capitalize its owners. Setting aside the obvious typological and physical differences, the dynamics in New York City are not so different. Even considering that NYC is mainly a rent-based market (where people don’t usually obtain capital gains from being homeowners) the bubbling housing market has driven the city towards one of the greatest affordability crises in its history. Nearly 70% of residents are renters, and more than half of all renters are rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their total income on gross rent (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). Even wealthy neighborhoods such as the Upper West Side, which are not usually seen as subject to gentrification, are today being affected (Columbia Spectator 2015). Although authorities have put in tremendous efforts to address the 16 | Fall 2016
affordability problem—from Section 8 to Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), the most common strategy today—rent burden is still a major problem for most citizens, and the initiatives referenced earlier, MIH and ZQA, were paradoxically opposed by the majority of Borough Presidents and Community Boards. One reason for this opposition is that what is offered as “affordable”—based on a percentage of Area Median Income—is still too high for most New Yorkers. However, many real estate developers argue further reductions in rent will cut too far into their expected rate of return. As the Commissioner Vicki Been recognized, “if we push too hard, we get zero housing, and 30% [the expected percentage of affordable units to be provided per private development] of zero is zero.” (Observer 2016). New York’s housing stock is mostly at the hands of the private market, giving developers advantage in compromises. Without fundamentally challenging the dynamics between housing and the real estate market, current policies may accelerate rampant gentrification; worst of all, it could actually incentivize the destruction of existing affordable housing provided by rent-
regulated units. As Samuel Stein (2016) notes: Affordable housing isn’t a mystery, it’s a contradiction: it can’t be done in a way that benefits both capital and workers in equal measure. There are ways to do it well, but they are not profitable. There are ways to do it poorly but profitably.
Territorial segregation is a shared phenomenon in almost every city, and perhaps it’s effects would not be problematic if they were not associated so strongly with social and cultural fragmentation. In order to solve the problem, Stein’s claims may be unhelpful in considering the cost and inefficiency of direct public intervention, or too radical in recognizing housing as an inalienable right which should be publicly provided not as an object of profit, but a response to social conditions. Further, they may simply be too naïve in once again propagandizing the Right to the City. However, it is in fact no more radical, unrealistic or naïve than trusting in the free market to solve the struggle in an equitable fashion.
enough people fight hard for it (Gramsci, 1947). This is why the role of planners as advocates for change is a fundamental one. While some consider this an old fashioned argument, confined to ‘70’s Advocacy Planning’ (together with Sherry Arnstein, Paul Davidoff, or Tom Angotti), the invitation is to reconsider the ethical and social obligations of the planning profession toward our cities. Only through this dialectical attention can the global debate evolve, if not completely changing the status quo, at least providing a critical evaluation about the proper value of housing. References Aravena, Alejandro. “Sustainable Development Goal Funds.” Press Conference with 2016 Pritzker Laureate Alejando Aravena hosted by the SDG Fund at the UN. April 8, 2016. https://goo.gl/nlc8Rb (accessed April 15, 2016). Columbia Spectator. “A Columbia study of Amsterdam Avenue finds evidence of hyper-gentrification.” December 13, 2015. Gilbert,Alan. “Power, Ideology and the Washington Consensus: The Development and Spread of Chilean Housing Policy”, Housing Studies, 17:2, 305-324, 2002. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. 1947. Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales. Solo el 1,7% de los santiaguinos puede elegir cualquier comuna de la capital para vivir. July 10, 2016. http://goo.gl/YXiPHV (accessed July 20, 2016).
Joint Center for Housing Studies. The State of the Nation’s Housing. Boston: GSD, Harvard Kennedy School, 2010. Martin, Reinhold, Jacob Moore, and Susanne Schindler (eds.). The Art of Inequality: Architecture, Housing, and Real Estate. A Provisional Report. City of New York: The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, 2015.
Observer. “War Over de Blasio Affordable Housing Plan Launches in Council.” Observer, 02 2016. Stein, Samuel. «De Blasio’s Doomed Housing Plan.» Jacobin Magazine Paint the Town Red, nº 15-16 (2016).
Quinta Monroy (2003), ELEMENTAL, Iquique, Chile. Photograph 2014. Image courtesy of ©OnArchitecture
Both the design solution implemented in Chile, and the policies proposed in NYC, attempt to promote the right to access the city as equally valuable as the right to profit from it. However, like Marx recognized, “between equal rights, force decides.”(Marx, 1867) While we could view this through as intellectual pessimism, it may instead be an argument for optimism in will. As Antonio Gramsci used to encourage, even the most impossible things can be changed if
U.S. Census Bureau. “2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.” Table DP04: Selected Housing Characteristics New York City. 2014. http://factfinder. census.gov (accessed 02 25, 2016). Marx, Karl. “Capital Volume I”, Section 1 The limits of the working day, 225, 1867.
------------------------------------------------------------------José Gabriel Lemaître is an architect from Universidad Católica in Chile, and a secondyear planning student from Columbia University. His main concentraion is Community and Economic Development.
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The Heart of Haussmann’s Paris
Photo by Sahra Mirbabaee
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20 | Fall 2016
Humanizing Modernist Spaces: A Photo Essay Featuring Hötorgshusen (Stockholm), The Barbican (London), and Pichação (São Paulo) Photography and commentary by Vicente Arellano // MSUP 2017
For many decades, the Modernist post-war planning approach has been largely out of favor. However, many buildings and plazas from that era (c. 1945-1975) continue to exist. Apart from demolition or extensive renovation, what are the ways in which these sites have been “retrofitted”? This photo essay presents 3 approaches. (1) Hötorgshusen, a multibuilding office and shopping center (1952-1966) in Stockholm has added features such as updated color palettes, street paintings, and pop-up retail in an effort to project a contemporary image. (2) The daunting concrete cityscape of São Paulo has emerged as the canvas for the local writing movement (also highly visible in Rio de Janeiro) known as Pichação (alternatively: ‘Pixacão). (3) The Barbican complex in London has embraced its iconic Brutalist aesthetic and features a gift shop selling branded objects as well as tangentially related items such as copies of “High-Rise” by J.G. Ballard, maps of brutalist landmarks, and pieces of concrete.
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22 | Fall 2016
Hötorgshusen, Stockholm
Photo Commentary
(From Left to Right, Clockwise)
// “Shoreditch chic” shipping containers, shipping pallet furniture, and temporary plantings // Hötorgshusen towers // Street - level entrance featuring craft-art aesthetic // Shopping center featuring pop yellow seating // Hötorgshusen in the Stockholm skyline
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The Barbican, London
Photo Commentary
(From Left to Right, Clockwise)
// The Barbican: brutalist concrete and flowers // Street level entrance to art complex; Europe’s largest multi-arts centre featuring a contemporary branding aesthetic superimposed over severe raw concrete // Barbican gift shop // Public plaza featuring updated furnishings // The Barbican: brutalist concrete and flowers (detail) // Interior space
24 | Fall 2016
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Photo by Ubaldo Escalante
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Pichação (São Paulo)
Photo Commentary
(From Left to Right, Clockwise)
// São Paulo; how many examples of Pichação can you spot? (Look around windows and rooflines) // Pichação on abandoned modernist housing project // São Paulo cityscape from the top of Edifico Martinelli
Vicente Arellano is a second-year Urban Planning student originally from Los Angeles.
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Changdeok Palace in Seoul, South Korea
Photo by Jacquelyne Sunwoo
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I’m sitting in the subway. C line. Somewhere between Fort Greene and Cathedral Parkway, somewhere free of sunlight, somewhere under somewhere. Somewhere under the city.
Somewhere under Somewhere, Somewhere in the City James Piacentini // MSUP 2018
I have to ask the attendant how to get there because Google says take the A, but the sign in the station only has a big blue C on it. She stares at me, eyes tired. It’s 12:43 AM. I’m surprised someone is still working the station this late. She says I should follow the sign to the C. I get to the platform and I wait. Far off rumbling and a soft breeze indicate a train is coming. Screeches and a bright light approach. The A comes barreling into the station and stops. I step in. There are a few people here, tired and silent like I am. Some noise, squeaking wheels, lights buzzing in rhythm with each flicker. All I can feel is the overwhelming interiority of it all. The ride is absent of buildings. There are no lit windows, brick walls and street lamps. The only columns in view are steel girders coated black with soot and the age of a life lived between train tracks twenty feet below ground, below the city. There’s no crispy curvy skyline, no air above to fill in the jagged gaps between building tops, no eight lane boulevards, no cars nor sidewalks nor front doors. Where are the grand open spaces and congested corridors? Where are the brownstones and their stoops? Where are the stop signs and street lights? The sidewalks with people shuffling and moving and bumping into each other as they fight to flag the nearest yellow cab? Where is the city? When I think of this city, I go back to 2002. I am eleven. With my parents, I visit Ground Zero. That’s what they call it, what the world calls it. War zone, construction zone, scar, mark, hole. No building anymore, no ‘city’ here, just what used to be. The structures were a city unto themselves, full of activity and action. As I stand here, I see people selling toys and trinkets and flags and t-shirts and everything else. I see flowers everywhere, candles and lights and whimpers muffled by the same winter gloves that warm hands and wipe away tears. My parents know people, my aunt and uncle and cousins - who never left this city - know people, everyone around us seems to know people they’ll never know again. But I am just a kid, and all I can think about is the simple fact that something big once stood here and now it doesn’t.
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I want to know what it looks like, so I peak like everyone else, between the shredded edges of deep blue tarps that cloak chainlink walls and hang on graffiti-laden wood panels. It’s hard to get a view, hard to get more than a fleeting glimpse through rips and holes in the tarps’ edge. Eventually the wind catches just right and a tarp spreads itself before my eyes. Then I see it: a hole cut in the city itself, an emptiness bigger than the earth. There are wires and pipes and tunnels and metal and plastic and edges sharper than diamond. Remnants of a silent violence. Scars so real I could feel them on my own skin under my coat.
Is this what it looks like underneath the city?
The city is more than the street, it’s the dirt below and the air above. And it’s the person jaywalking across it. It’s not just the building, it’s the space it leaves behind, and the space that was already there underneath. It’s the ground and the train that runs through it. It’s the bagel shop, and it’s arguing about which one is best. It’s the subway cars with orange seats, and it’s the people in them, tired and silent. I’m sitting in the subway. C line. Somewhere between Fort Greene and Cathedral Parkway, somewhere free of sunlight, somewhere under somewhere. Somewhere in the city.
-------------------------------------------------------------------James is a a first year UP student pursuing a dual degree with architecture. His concentration will be in international planning and he is interested in studying the effects of planning on the transformation of cultural spaces and historical sustainability, and the role of architecture as an agent in those transformations through a comparative international approach.
All I think to myself is one question, “Is this what it looks like underneath the city?” On the train from Fort Greene to Cathedral Parkway, a metal box with buzzing lights and squeaky wheels, I’m asking myself that same question again. Underneath the hot dog stands and red painted curbs. Underneath the buses and cop cars, the metal and glass and material made specific. Underneath the crispy and curvy skyline, the air above to fill in the jagged gaps between building tops, the eight lane boulevards, the cars, the sidewalks and front doors. Underneath the grand open spaces and congested corridors. Underneath the stop signs and street lights and restaurants and shops and people shuffling and moving and bumping into each other as they fight to flag the nearest yellow cab. Down here there’s just orange seats and linoleum walls, buzzing lights and squeaky wheels. And then, as if I’ve known it all along, I realize this isn’t what it looks like underneath the city. This is what it looks like in the city. Source: Wikimedia Commons
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A HAPTIC STREET
Stone Street, Manhattan September 25, 2016
In the current fascination and comfort with digital technologies to study our cities, we may have forgotten to take into account the feelings and emotions that created our urban environments. Our convenient digital libraries allow us to explore photographs, maps, diagrams, and textual narratives of historical sites in NYC, such as Stone Street. However, I find it much more profoundly meaningful to walk along the street and touch the stones, to notice how deep they are, and to contemplate how much of the street's charm is due to their presence. Urban planning is about the physical environment as much as it is about people, so, if we are making efforts to meet up with communities, why aren't we going out and letting our bodies interact with the city?
Photo and Text by Patrick Li // MSUP 2017
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CONTRAFLOW Transport Planners need to think more critically about working in the public interest. Matthias Neill // MSUP 2017 Peace, love, public transport, and froyo. Ignoring the lactose intolerant, most of us would probably agree that the world is better off with more of these things. Regrettably though, URBAN Magazine has yet to start a food column and this article isn’t a list of New York’s best yogurt spots. Instead, let’s think about public transit. As urban planners we tend to embrace transit projects as nearly-always good ideas.This may be in part because so few of them are implemented, at least in the US, and because the need to reduce automobility and promote eco-friendly cities are key aspirations of our work. Better transit really is part of the solution to many pressing urban issues, but some individual transit projects aren’t always great, or even good ideas. As planners looking to encourage automobile alternatives, we should remember to critically question transit projects in order to ensure that we spend money wisely and build transit that actually achieves our goals. One of the biggest challenges in planning is a lack of public funding, especially for building transit. Cities in the US and elsewhere are beset by budgetary problems that force them to neglect transit maintenance and get creative when it comes to building new infrastructure. Enter the public-private 34 | Fall 2016
partnership, seemingly the third most popular word in GSAPP at the moment after “normative” and “pedagogy” and a key tool in modern cities’ efforts to build and expand public transport. Engaging the private sector to help build transit is a good idea, especially as the private sector often reaps many of the rewards of good public transport, whether through an influx of new customers in a retail area or increased real estate development potential. But the public sector’s embrace of private partnerships in financing transit should not allow the private sector to craft transport projects that diminish the legitimacy of planning and lead to mediocre transit outcomes. And yet, this is happening right now in New York with the proposed Brooklyn-Queens-Express (BQX) light rail project. Hidden behind the glitzy renderings and political praise is the fact that the BQX proposal was the creation of real-estate developers looking to increase development opportunities along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront. Friends of the BQX, the advocacy group behind the project hosts several developers on its board, including its parent-organisation Two Trees Development. While it’s encouraging to see real-
Source: Friends of the BQX
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estate developers interested in new transit, the BQX is a project that the city DOT actually advised against in its 2011 report on light rail in Red Hook, Brooklyn (NYC DOT, 2011). The main problem with the BQX is that it would be a costly and unnecessary investment when there are many other transit needs the city should urgently address. For $2.5 billion, it will move an estimated 50,000 people per day by 2035, only 15% of whom will be travelling to destinations along the corridor (Venugopal, 2016). With that kind of money we could build a similarly effective bus rapid transit line, and still have change leftover. Worse still, BQX advocates insist this LRT project is the only logical option, going so far as to say that “unlike a bus, the BQX has the ability to move the projected 50,000 daily riders along the corridor in a single, efficient route” (Friends, 2016). Flying in the face of that logic is the fact that Bogota’s busiest BRT line carries 40,000 passengers per hour per direction (Cervero, 2013). This is not to say that the BQX is a terrible idea; indeed better transit along the waterfront probably will be needed at some point. The BQX however, is less a response to the city’s real mobility needs like subway maintenance, better bus systems, or modern airports, than it is an acceptance of the idea building anything at all is better than building things that work.
Source: http://streetcar.atlantaga.gov The small reach and inconvenient frequencies of Atlanta’s streetcar lead to low ridership.
The wider issue here is a lack, or muddling, of transit priorities. Cities and planners seem to be more interested in ad-hoc projects that look good in a tourist brochure than delivering well thought out transit systems. Another example here is the new Atlanta streetcar. Built in 2014, it operates at 15 minute intervals on a 36 | Fall 2016
2.4 mile downtown loop and carries only 700 passengers per day (Flynn, 2016). If you miss it, you might as well start walking. It’s emblematic of a widespread streetcar renaissance that’s currently sweeping the US. It came about not as a result of long term planning, but because of federal funding incentives and a disregard of real transit priorities in Atlanta. A change in federal transit finance policy in 2009 meant that funding for streetcars became readily available on the belief that streetcars make areas more livable and spur economic development. Suddenly, cities like Atlanta wanted streetcars irrespective of whether or not they had ever thought about building one before. It may be true that in some way, streetcars create the image of a nicer neighborhood and provide an alternative to cars, but so do many other transport improvements that cities actually want and need. Atlanta for example, has a long range transport plan that calls for over 90 miles of new rail, bus rapid transit routes and a revamped pedestrian realm, not a costly downtown streetcar (ARC, 2016). The BQX and Atlanta Streetcar are just two examples of planners failing to craft and prioritize effective transit policies. However, it’s easy to understand how people who are less engaged with transport take little notice of these issues. Perhaps a bigger issue that everyone should care more about is spending. As planners, we routinely act as if the amount of money spent on transit means nothing. Of course, infrastructure is expensive and we should be prepared to pay for it. But we’ve become so numb to thinking about projects in terms of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars that we rarely question what we should get in return for our investment. Too often, massive expenditures on infrastructure are justified on the grounds that they will boost economic growth or create jobs. These are good reasons to build transit but they should never be the only reasons, and should always be secondary to a project’s actual transport impact. Few government investments are let off without solid justifications and transit spending should be no different. A great example of poorly justified transit spending is High Speed 2 (HS2), a planned high speed rail line in the UK between London and cities to the north. For $67 billion, it will reduce journey times somewhat on trips that are already fairly short (Elgot, 2016). Because its transport effects will be relatively minor, HS2 is also being pushed on the grounds that it will help reduce economic inequality between the north and south of England and indeed, high speed rail has proven to be effective
at redistributing economic activity. That $67 billion though, could go towards modernizing tunnels and signaling systems to increase capacity and speeds on existing railways, achieving meaningful rail improvements at a far lower cost. It could also pay for London’s Crossrail project three times over, two new runways at Heathrow Airport or the UK National Health Service’s $30 billion deficit (Dunn, 2016). Spending so much on a HSR line when the money could go further elsewhere might be considered financial incompetence in other investment circles. Planners should at the very least uestion the appropriateness of any major investment, and in the interest of the public they need to think more strategically about how to make limited transit funding achieve the most for the public.
of neighborhoods, cities, and the planet. We need urban light rail systems and real-estate driven transit oriented development. As planners though, we need to become more critical of why and how we build transport infrastructure. Too often, external forces and poor planning priorities distort transport planning and lead to the uneconomical use of limited resources. Wasting time, money, and political capital on inefficient projects works against the public interest, not for it. Bad planning decisions have detrimental effects on transit that actually matters and serious impacts on the environment, economy and our daily lives. Transport planning is a game of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that we can’t afford to waste and we, as active or future planners, need to start realizing this.
The issues outlined in this article stem from renewed interest in public transport and that interest should be embraced and encouraged. Good public transport is absolutely vital to the future
References Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). (2016 September). Twelve Things to Know About the Atlanta Region’s Plan Transportation Element. The Atlanta Region’s Plan Transportation. Retrieved October 2016 from http://atlantaregional.com
Cervero, R. (2013, December). BRT: An Efficient and Competitive Mode of Public Transport. 20th ACEA Scientific Advisory Group Report. Retrieved October 2016 from https://www.acea.be Dunn, G. (2014, November 11). Heathrow, Gatwick Expansion Costs Underestimated: Davies. Flightglobal. Retrieved October 2016 from https://www.flightglobal.com
Elgot, J. (2016, September 13). Urgent Clarity Needed on HS2 Costs and Timescale, MPs Warn. The Guardian. Retrieved October 2016 from https://www.theguardian.com Flynn, J. (2016, February 17). Atlanta Streetcar Ridership Falls Following Fare Hike. Curbed. Retrieved October 2016 from http://atlanta.curbed.com
Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector. (2016) FAQ. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.bqx.nyc Jaffe, E. (2013, May 24). The Case for Caution When it Comes to Building Streetcars. CityLab Magazine. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.citylab.com
Kabak, B. (2016. April 27). Inside the City’s Report on the Brooklyn Queens Connector. 2nd Ave Sagas. Retrieved October 2016 from http://secondavenuesagas.com King, D. (2011, December 8). What Ever Happened to the People Mover? Or, How Federal Priorities Shape Local Transportation Investment [Web log post]. Retrieved October, 2016, from http://davidaking.blogspot.com NYC DOT. (2011). Red Hook Streetcar Feasibility Study. About DOT. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.nyc.gov
Rivolli, D. (2016, September 8). Brooklyn-Queens BQX trolley has overwhelming support, poll from pro-trolley group finds. New York Daily News. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.nydailynews.com Robbins, C. (2016, September 13). Gentrified Aquarium: De Blasio’s Streetcar and the Tail of Two Waterfronts. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.villagevoice.com Rose, J. (2016, February 23). Revived Streetcars May Be On Track For Disappoint. NPR. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.npr.org
Venugopal, N. (2016, April 25). City Releases More Details of Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Plan. Retrieved October 2016 from http://www.dnainfo.com
HS2 promises higher speeds and even higher construction costs. Source: syltp.org.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matthias is a second year student UP student, who is passionate about sustainable urbanism. He views the development of public transport as a crucial part of efforts to make cities more environmently friendly.
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Occupation in São Paulo
Photo by Ubaldo Escalante
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Source: SnovaDoma.ru
Patrick Li // MSUP 2017 How will Miami Beach be affected by rising sea levels and what can be done to solve or ameliorate the impending issues?
John F Kennedy Causeway
Biscayne Bay
Julia Tuttle Causeway
Atlantic Ocean
Ma cA
rth ur C
aus
ew
ay
1 Mile
Location: Miami Beach
“... There’s no keeping the water out... So ultimately this area has to depopulate.” Following such remarks by South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard in December 2015, spatial analysis was used to study the effects of a 2ft sea level rise on Miami Beach soils, land use, and properties in order to find safe zones for future real estate development. The analysis showed a 62 percent loss of residential land use area and found safe zones, those that are on stable rockland and less exposed to flooding risk, located further inland and away from Miami Beach. URBAN | 41
1.27
1.89
3.85
0.04
0.32
5.26
18.21
SQUARE MILES
36.16
BEFORE Sea Level Rise
1 Mile
Land Use
Ca - Coastal beach
30% total AREA
7.2 sq miles Ma - Made land
70%
1 Mile
Soils 42 | Fall 2016
AFTER Sea Level Rise Residential Use
62% LOST
Residential Use
62% LOST
1 Mile
Land Use Flooding
Ca - Coastal beach total AREA
4.1 sq miles
40% LOST
LOST Ma - Made land
65% LOST
1 Mile
Soil Flooding URBAN | 43
Large Buildings 10 Miles
10 Miles
Process of Location Analysis
Vacant Lots
Vacant Lots + Soils
Develop Here The final step of the project takes the vacant properties that are located on solid rockland and away from rising water. To narrow down the number of sites, a near analysis is carried out to select the sites that are the farthest away from areas affected by rising sea levels. For this step to be meaningful, we consider distance from water to be the most important factor affecting developments in Miami.
Vacant Lots on Rockland + Water
Vacant Lots on Rockland
Vacant Lots on Rockland + Away from Water URBAN | 45
New York City’s Buried Streams Dorothy MacAusland // MSUP 2017
Over the past 400 years, the landscape of Manhattan has transformed into an urbanscape that makes the historic geography of the island nearly unrecognizable, crowding out and paving over what were once abundant ecosystems. When Henry Hudson arrived in 1609 the island was called “Mannahatta,” home to the Lenape Native Americans and a diverse, abundant community of wildlife—so much so that it’s biodiversity per acre would have rivaled Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks (The Welikia Project, 2008). The island that was home to more than 60 miles of streams, over 20 ponds, and over 300 springs has since been reduced to urban concrete jungle. Shorelines have been modified, water bodies filled, and hills levels to make the island more hospitable for the dense development of the past two centuries (Recreating Manhattana, 2008). Despite today’s expanse of hardened surfaces and grey infrastructure, the memory of this island still survives underground. Centuries of engineering and construction have not been able to dissuade Mannahatta’s original water courses from running their historic paths. While today these features are largely out of the public’s sight and mind, their presence serves as both a lesson and an opportunity for planners and engineers in New York. With the benefit of hindsight, planners and laypeople today may agree that filling in and building atop sources of fresh water is unwise. And yet this was a recurring pattern in New York City as growth spread and populations increased. So why was the decision made time and time again, in New York and cities around the world? A cartographic depiction by Welikia Project of variety of ecological communities that historically existed on the island of Mannahatta, inclluding now-buried streams and ponds Source: Welikia Project
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The Curious Case of Canal Street The case of Canal Street is a good example of the effect urban infill has historically had on water bodies. ‘Collect Pond’ was a source of fresh water in lower Manhattan until heavy settlement took a toll on its water quality. The pond became a dumping ground for waste such as broken crockery, ash, and animal carcasses (The Collect Pond, 2009). Around the same time construction on the Erie Canal was underway, Collect Pond’s polluted water was channelized into an eight-footwide canal and eventually paved over entirely. As in New York, many communities organically spring up near water sources. Years of coexistence with bodies of water, particularly among communities with burgeoning populations and industries, has repeatedly led to the pollution and gradual infill of these precious resources. An added reason water sources were channelized and covered was to (literally) pave the way for automobiles-- much as Canal Street is today.
Photo by Author An inconspicuous plque reminds visitors to 2 Fifth Avenue that the Minnetta Brook historically flowed where they stand
catches the eye of the few that looks closely, inciting a mix of wonder and nostalgia. Self-proclaimed urban explorer and former Columbia student Steve Duncan makes it his business to explore the buried streams of NewYork City—Minnetta and others. He occasionally will lead public tours that trace streams’ historic paths, pointing out which manholes one must peer into for a glimpse of remnant fresh water meandering below ground.
Contemporary Issues
Source: NY History Walks Canal Street circa 1820
Among the residents of New York City, some of Manhattan’s buried streams now exist in the grey area between memory and lore. Take, for example, an anomaly at the apartment building at 2 Fifth Avenue. Constructed in the 1930s over what was once the bed of historic Minnetta Brook, the apartment entrance featured an unusual fountain which – as history (or rumor) has it – drew its water from the brook and bubbled when the brook, now subterranean, was running high. Though the fountain was removed roughly four years ago, a plaque still
While these small gestures are innocuous reminders of the geographic history of the island, the remnants of these buried streams emerge in other, less charming ways. Buried streams contribute to flooded basements and lead to infrastructural instability. In 1963, the construction of a school on Columbus Avenue near 83rd Street was halted for five months because the foundation began to sink into the stream that coursed below (Kurutz, 2006). Last year the Buildings Department prohibited excavation in the basement of a rowhouse at West 76th Street, partially due to the results of a soil test that had revealed water beneath the building. A Buildings Department spokesperson indicated that the department did not know whether the water was a stream, or how common buried streams are citywide, because applicants need only to indicate whether groundwater is present. To anticipate potential water-related structural issues at development sites, planners and engineers may refer to the Viele Map, which depicts historic stream beds across Manhattan. However, the map dates back to 1874 and it is unlikely to be updated or improved, as it is nearly impossible to trace the streams today (Kilgannon, 2015). URBAN | 47
The damage buried streams cause is not just infrastructural. They also combine with household sewage and contribute to combined sewer overflow (CSO) outfall volume. Tibbetts Brook, which flows out of Van Cortlandt lake in the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park, is channeled into an underground culvert, where it combines with sewage and is diverted to a treatment plant on Wards Island. In the event in which rainfall overwhelms the sewage system, raw sewage—mixed with Tibbetts Brook water—empties into the Harlem River. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is interested in separating Tibbetts Brook from combined sewer system, but the cost of separately piping the clean Tibbetts Brook water into the Harlem River, its original destination, is estimated to cost as much as $40 million dollars. In addition to the exorbitant cost of rectifying this problem, DPR is also facing the pressing problem of land acquisition. Their aspiring project would reroute the stream through land that is privately owned by CSX railroad, who is willing to sell the land only at an asking price that far surpasses DPR’s capabilities (Larson, 2016).
buried streams be uncovered and deculverted in an attempt to reduce wastewater volume (Kolb, 2016). These projects, while innovative, usually require huge time and capital investments that many cities do not have—no matter how progressive they are. The case of New York’s buried streams is a lesson planners and laypeople are learning across the globe. While those of us in New York may never see a Greenwich Village through which the daylighted Minnetta Brook freely flows, we can hope that broader awareness of the geographical and environmental history of the city will factor more prominently into plans for the city’s future.
Daylighting Integrative solutions to these problems exist, but they require political will and a great deal of financial investment. Some cities have chosen to mitigate the ecological and structural issues posed by buried streams through the practice of daylighting. As defined by Richard Pinkham in his seminal text Daylighting: New Life for Buried Streams, daylighting is a practice that deliberately exposes “some or all of the flow a previously covered river, creek, or stormwater drainage” (Pinkham, 2000). While by no means a simple solution, daylighting has emerged as a planning trend that can reduce combined sewer overflow (CSO) outfall volume, assist in urban regeneration, and restore biodiversity while improving wildlife habitat. One need only to look as far as the Saw Mill River daylighting project in Yonkers, New York for an example of a project that has had success with respect to all three of these potential outcomes. Internationally, Switzerland has taken the somewhat heavy-handed approach of mandating that all 48 | Fall 2016
Source: The New York Times Portion of Viele Map
References Kurutz, S. (2006, June 11). “When There Was Water, Water Everywhere”. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com Kilgannon, C. (2015, November 20). “An Ancient Stream Under a Manhattan Building Leads to a Dispute”. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com Kolb, Martin. (August 2016). Swiss daylighting practices interview with Dr. Martin Kolb, Department of Spatial Development and Land Use Planning, Basel. [In-person interview]. Larson, Marit. (August 2016). Daylighting Interview with Marit Larson [Telephone interview]. Overview- The Welikia Project. (2008). Retrieved September 26, 2016, from https:// welikia.org/about/overview/ Pinkham, Richard. (2000). Daylighting: New Life for Urban Streams. Rocky Mountain Institute. Retrieved from http://www.rmi.org Recreating Mannahatta- The Welikia Project. (2008). Retrieved October 10, 2016, from https://welikia.org/science/recreating-mannahatta/ The Collect Pond: New York’s First Source of Water was Filled in to Become “Five Points,” the Worst Slum in American History. (2012, November 09). Retrieved September 26, 2016, from https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com
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Dorothy is a second year UP student concentrating in environmental planning and land use. Her interest in waterfront planning issues and sea level rise led her to an internship at the New York City Department of City Planning’s Waterfront and Open Space division this past summer, where she conducted research on the feasibility of daylighting streams in New York City. Her thesis research involves waterfronts, knowledge economies, and the Dutch.
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Photo by Madeline Berry
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