The Demolition ISSUE - Spring 2015 by ISSUES Magazine

the demolition

issues magazine

Issue number seven / March 27, 2015 / Washington University in St. Louis 3

letter from THE EDITORS president Keaton Wetzel

editor-in-chief Victoria Sgarro

design chief Libby Perold

senior editors Anna Bernard Emma LaPlante Carrick Reddin

visual editor Leora Baum

social media director Laken Sylvander

Dear readers, Sometimes we all need a fresh start, a clean slate from which to begin again. This line of thinking does not only apply to personal matters or an ever-growing pile of homework assignments, but is also at the heart of urban planning and community development. Sometimes we must demolish what exists in order to improve and rebuild. However, this notion becomes more complicated when you consider what must be destroyed. What happens when it’s not just an old homework assignment or a poor test grade, but a whole community or space? In the pages that follow, we explore the implications of this act of demolition. We seek to shed light on what it means to decimate communities of people, from tent cities and abandoned houses in St. Louis to favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Does the end justify the means when we take into account the identities of these dismantled places? Acts of demolition are not all negative — some even lead to resurrection. As the differing fates of St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe and Benton Place reveal, what happens after demolition can be just as defining for a community as the very action of destruction. The reconstruction of a place, or a memory, can affect that thing’s legacy and consequently, how it operates today. Sometimes, demolition can lead to something unexpected and beautiful, such as a community garden in downtown St. Louis. This issue presents a diversified collection of ideas on this significant topic. You will find critical articles, our first short story ever, an exclusive interview with the founder of the first community garden in downtown St. Louis, and, where words fail to describe the destruction which acts of demolition can bring, photo essays and illustrations. Enjoy, Victoria Sgarro, Editor-in-Chief Keaton Wetzel, President

Front & Back Cover Illustration by Yuwei Qiu Inside Cover Photography by Libby Perold & Victoria Sgarro Letter from the Editor Illustration by Leora Baum

contents 10

Community Development & Identity Erasure

86’d

The Destruction of Homeless Tent Cities

Demolishing the World’s Slums: Para Quem?

Demolition of Memory

The Demolition & Reconstruction of Legacy in “Selma”

Demolished Homes in St. Louis

The Living: A Demolition Short Story

After Demolition: The Hidden Undertones of Public Commemoration

The Nomadic Gardeners of Downtown St. Louis: Growing a Grounded Community Out of Empty Space

A case study of the relationship between community development and the demolition of minority identities in St. Louis.

A photo essay of demolition in American cities.

A critique of St. Louis’ demolition of homeless tent communities.

A critique of the demolition of urban slums in megacities around the world.

An illustration exploring the demolition of memory.

A commentary on the role of legacy in the 2014 film “Selma.”

A photo essay of demolition in St. Louis.

A short story featuring a protagonist who demolishes buildings for a living.

A comparison of the differing fates of St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe and Benton Place.

An interview with Mary Ostafi of Urban Harvest STL.

Why Ferguson Protesters Shut Down Highways Across America An explanation of highway shutdowns as a form of protest against America’s problematic history of urban demolition.

34 42

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Community Development

Identity Erasure

The concept of community development originated in the late nineteenth century when socially engaged Americans discovered the nation’s “backward” areas: the tenement apartments and shacks inhabited by poorly paid immigrants and racial minorities.1 These social “do-gooders” were committed to saving America’s blighted areas, often employing idealistic, well-intentioned programs whose implementations were undemocratic. Top-down processes continue to dominate the community development landscape, forsaking human need for profit and efficiency. The result of these community development practices is the demolition of the cultural history of a neighborhood: the erasure of identity.

Louis Board of Alderman voted on a bill that would clear about 50 homes and businesses in an effort to keep the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency within the city’s borders.

The history of St. Louis reveals the systematic erasure of minority identities under the guise of “community development” projects. The 1955 demolition of Mill Creek Valley, a historically African American neighborhood, was introduced as “the city’s biggest urban-renewal project.” Local newspapers hailed the vision as a sweeping solution to big problems.2 The demolition of Mill Creek Valley allowed for the introduction of highways into the fabric of St. Louis, which brought with it top-down division of existing neighborhoods. The effects of these projects can be seen in the landscape of our city today — existing in the racial and economic fault lines that still fracture our collective identity. Yet it seems we have

The bill enables the city to use eminent domain to buy up any property north of Cass Avenue in the redevelopment area to Montgomery Street.5 While keeping major businesses in the city is an important task, the idea that members of this community have no say in the matter further reinforces the erasure of local identity for profit. What’s more is that the project is being portrayed as a formative investment for north St. Louis — “an anchor for a struggling area.” If we are to consider this project as an asset to the community, it is crucial that residents are incorporated into the planning and implementation processes.

Written by Carrick Reddin Photography by Neena Wang not learned from the past; proposed projects like Riverfront Stadium and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are using the same top-down processes that are advertised as community development, yet systematically disregard local context. In the first weeks of 2015, the former president of AnheuserBusch, Dave Peacock, announced plans for a new open-air football stadium on the St. Louis riverfront. Peacock called the project more than a football stadium: “We are talking about a revitalization of our downtown.” Citing the proposed buildings and green areas, Peacock said the plan would eradicate blight and turn the area into a crown jewel.3 While the rhetoric surrounding this project suggests that community development is central to the vision, stadiums rarely have beneficial effects on surrounding areas. Economists have long known stadiums to be poor public investments. Most of the jobs created by stadium-building projects are temporary, low-paying or out-of-state contracting jobs — none of which contribute greatly to the local economy.4 By describing this stadium project as a tool for revitalizing the area, the developers behind the project receive public funding for the erasure of local identity. Unfortunately, this paradigm is not rare; in February, the St.

The history of St. Louis reveals the systematic erasure of minority identities under the guise of ‘community development’ work.

Current community development practices contribute to the cycle of poverty and detract from the economic vibrancy of our country. Our past and present approaches to revitalizing communities often favor profit over community voice. We have the opportunity to shape a built environment that promotes equity, justice and empowerment. It has been shown that community collaboration on projects leads to a more equitable country. In planning processes for more than 143 communities, community outreach and integration resulted in outcomes that improved environmental justice, employment opportunity and education attainment.6 A study of the work of KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit organization which works with communities to build playgrounds, shows that collaborative design and planning processes have led to less violent neighborhoods with greater levels of childhood creativity and social skills.7 In order to stop the erasure of identity in neighborhoods around the country, we must embrace the integration of community voice in community development projects. Sources: 1. Hoffman, Alexander V. “The Past, Present, and Future of Community Development in the United States.”Investing in What Works for America’s Communities (2012): 10-46. Web. 15 Feb. 2015. 2. O’Neil, Tim. “A Look Back • Clearing of Mill Creek Valley Changed the Face of the City.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9 Aug. 2009: n. pag. Print. 3. Hunn, David. “Planners Announce Open-air, Riverfront NFL Stadium.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9 Jan. 2015: n. pag. Print. 4. Gordon, Aaron. “America Has a Stadium Problem.” PSMag. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. 5. Pistor, Nicholas J.C. “St. Louis Aldermen Approve Clearing Homes for National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. N.p., 13 Feb. 2015. Web. 15 Feb. 2015. 6. Policy Link. “Sustainabe Communities.” Sustainable Communities Policylink.org. Center for Infrastructure Equity, n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2015. 7. Knight Foundation, KaBoom, and PPV.org. “Playgrounds That Build Communities: An Evaluation of KaBoom! in Eight Cities.” America’s Promise. N.p., 29 Aug. 2011. Web. 7 Jan. 2015. 11

86’d A Photo Essay by Libby Perold

‘86’d’ is a term commonly associated with what’s been thrown away, rejected. In encountering this term, I started making connections between the word and the world I saw around me: dusty buildings, boarded up windows, peeling paint. Unfortunately I did not have to travel far to find these subjects. But the goal of this photo project was to find unusual views of demolition. In the end, 86’d is a mixture of many things. It combines 4x5 film and digital, St. Louis and newer places (such as Anniston, AL) and the beautiful and the ugly.

The Destruction

of homeless Tent Cities 16

Written by Miranda Hines Illustration by Libby Perold

The demolition of unused and unrepairable structures seems a socioeconomic bonus: if a space already has no financial or community value, then destroying it for the purpose of redeveloping the space is a boon for the surrounding residents. However, the issue is complicated by the question of who decides whether or not the structure scheduled for demolition is truly of less worth in its current state than whatever is planned to be its replacement. The demolition of St. Louis homeless tent communities known as Hopeville, Dignity Harbor and Sparda in 2012 highlights this concern: when should something that has some degree of social importance be demolished for an apparent greater good?1 The tent communities were deemed a threat both to the community at large and to the homeless individuals who inhabited them. The local government’s decision to dissolve them was based upon the presence of high crime rates and health risks; the government deemed the most effective way to protect the people was to relocate them into a more permanent housing situation rather than attempting to police the makeshift settlements.2 Given the government’s attempt to relocate the homeless in tandem with the demolition of their tent communities, from a broad view the decision was the right one.

is the catalyst then so be it. But on the other hand, it seems wrong to destroy people’s homes, however meager, and potentially deny them shelter to return to should their futures not pan out the way the political authorities assume they will. The issue is that it is unclear who these cites are being demolished for: the local community who fear the health risks and crime could spill over, the business companies who may wish to develop those spaces, or the homeless people themselves who are genuinely in need of aid. Furthermore, authorities admit that finding permanent residences for the substantial homeless community in St. Louis will be a challenge,5 and it is unclear how long the window of time is for the homeless to move out prior to the tent city’s demolition — although local authorities recognize the difficulty and seem willing to postpone demolition to give the residents time. But what happens after this demolition? Individuals from the tent cities destroyed three years ago inhabit this new tent city, and it seems that for every settlement the city disbands, another one is created by the homeless population. In this case demolition seems to treat the symptoms — the crime and spread of disease — by frequently disrupting homeless settlements rather than directly dealing with the problem, that of homelessness itself. Despite the crime and risk of illness, Hopeville was an organized community: food was stockpiled and the settlement was democratically run, with individuals collectively voting on whether or not to allow new residents into their settlement.6 Although not ideal, Hopeville was a better option than living on the streets in total isolation. At worst, destroying the tent communities may force those who fail to remain in permanent housing to face homelessness alone, and at best those individuals will simply create a new tent community elsewhere and the process will repeat itself. Destroying the tent communities is only a partial and temporary solution to the risks facing the homeless; a better solution would be to improve and protect the settlements, rather than playing Whac-A-Mole with them. The city’s efforts to assist the homeless in getting off the streets are admirable, but it does not seem to be their first priority. Bettering the homeless community seems like an afterthought of the demolition process, despite claims that it is the impetus.

Despite the government’s offer to assist the homeless improve their circumstances, the issue is complex because some residents identify the tent city as home.

However, upon closer examination the demolition of homeless tent communities is not a simple or watertight solution to the problem. This year another St. Louis tent community near the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge is also being forcibly disbanded. A Washington Times article highlights the fact that, despite the government again offering to assist the homeless improve their circumstances, the issue is less clear cut because some of the residents identify the tent city as home; they do not trust the authorities responsible for the demolition of their tent communities and they do not wish to leave them behind.3 Chad Bergman, the unofficial leader of the encampment, was a resident of Hopeville prior to its destruction — for a short time he lived in the permanent housing arranged for him and had a paying job, however he left both and returned to living on the streets.4 Undoubtedly, some of the residents of Hopeville, Dignity Harbor and Sparda made the transition off of the streets successfully and consequently benefited from their disbandment — although the change was government mandated rather than individually decided, the individuals received permanent housing opportunities. However, the circumstances of Chad Bergman and his concerns for the other residents of the tent communities highlight a potential problem: if the individuals are unable to reintegrate themselves fully into the mainstream community and return to being homeless, then the demolition of the tent communities may leave them without a shelter they identify with. On the one hand, it is undeniable that the homeless community deserves the opportunity to improve their living situations, and if the destruction of their tent settlements

Sources: 1. Killeen, Kevin. “Hopeville Wiped Off the Map — Homeless Relocated to Apartments and Motel.” CBS St. Louis. 11 May, 2012. Web. 2. Kevin. “Hopeville.” 3. Salter, Jim. “St. Louis to take down homeless tent city near downtown.” Washington Times. 27 January, 2015. Web. 4. Salter. “St. Louis to take down homeless tent city.” 5. Salter. “St. Louis to take down homeless tent city.” 6 Salter. “St. Louis to take down homeless tent city.” 17

demolishing

the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slums: para quem?

Written & Illustrated by Victoria Sgarro 18

In 2007, FIFA named Brazil the host of the 2014 World Cup finals, offering the developing country a chance to showcase its cultural and economic prowess on the world stage. However, a planning process rife with corruption, disregard for budgets or deadlines, and short-sightedness soon bogged down the event’s initial promise. The Brazilian government’s mishandling of the World Cup preparations inadvertently placed the nation’s deep-seated social problems under an international microscope — perhaps most notably shedding light on the stark inequality manifest in the country’s thousands of urban slums, or “favelas” in Portuguese. As Brazil’s government demolished favelas and evicted residents in order to make way for lavish stadiums and the influx of one million foreign visitors, the country’s lower class seemed powerless to slow the process of “development.” By the time the World Cup took place, authorities had forcibly relocated 15,000 families. Since then, this number — estimated to reach 100,000 — has only increased as the country prepares to host the 2016 Olympics. In the midst of this “development,” a popular saying can be heard throughout the streets of favelas, voicing the collective mood of a stifled lower class: “Para Quem?” (“For whom?”) Yet looking to other developing megacities — cities with a population over 10 million people — reveals that forced evictions are not only brought about by international events like the World Cup or the Olympics. About one billion people, over 10 percent of the world’s population today, live in “slums” — a term which currently defines about 200,000 communities worldwide. By 2030, this statistic is estimated to double. Regardless of location or context, slum dwellers by definition suffer from inadequate housing, poor sanitation, little access to clean water or electricity, overcrowding, violence, and perhaps worst of all, the constant fear that their homes and communities will be demolished with little or no warning. As the Global South continues to urbanize at an exponential rate, governments use the tactic of demolition to wipe out poor infrastructure and establish a clean slate for modernization. But as the protest slogan scrawled on the streets of Brazilian favelas asks: at what cost, and for whom? To compensate evicted residents, the Brazilian government offers demolition victims monetary

payment or free housing in new complexes. However, the government-provided sum of money is likely less than the cost of renting new housing in Rio, as real estate prices are driven up by this development process. And the housing

Governments use the tactic of demolition to wipe out poor infrastructure and establish a clean slate for modernization. But as the protest slogan scrawled on the streets of Brazilian favelas asks: at what cost, and for whom? compensation is low quality at best, with the additional cost of relocating away from established communities, support networks and jobs. What’s worse is that the residents have no choice of whether they would like to take this losing deal or not. Yet slum dwellers in other parts of the world are often not even this lucky. Such is the case in Lagos, Nigeria, the world’s fastest growing megacity. In an attempt to improve the city’s aesthetic and image, Lagos’ state government has been demolishing informal slum communities — which house 70 percent of its 15 million inhabitants — under the guise of “redevelopment.” In July 2012, residents of Makoko, a slum community of fisherman which floats on a lagoon, were given 72 hours notice before demolition. At the end of three days, government workers wielding chainsaws and machetes destroyed 500 homes, leaving 3,000 people displaced and homeless with no compensation of any kind.

Despite developing states’ determination to eradicate slum settlements, harnessing the economic potential of slums could actually facilitate effective development. In Mumbai, India, another megacity experiencing an unprecedented rate of urbanization, slum residents account for 60 percent of the population and a large

Rather than demolishing slums, granting slum dwellers property rights and improving the slum model which already exists is the key to ‘development.’ part of the city’s cheap labor workforce. Within the past decade, the land on which generations of slum dwellers have built informal settlements has been transformed into some of the most valuable real estate in the world — a characteristic attractive to both the state government and private developers. Moreover, because all slums built after 2000 on public land are unprotected under law, Mumbai’s government can destroy them without much thought to the rights of residents or local businesses. Residents left homeless after demolition are then crowded into a small portion of high-density housing, freeing the rest of the land for use in profitable private business ventures. In an effort to accelerate development, Mumbai’s government is currently planning the “redevelopment” of Dharavi, southern Asia’s largest slum and the inspiration for the 2008 movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” Under the current plan proposed by architect Mukesh Mehta, residents who can prove residency dating back to before 2000 will receive only 25 square meters of space each for their mandatory resettlement. But local activists are

cultivating a resistance movement, fighting for a place in the city they built. Rather than demolishing slums, they argue, granting slum dwellers property rights and improving the slum model which already exists is the key to “development.” In the most recent battle of the war on Rio de Janeiro’s slums, 450 families have been forced out of the Vila Autodromo favela to clear land for the Olympic Park. However, 50 determined families refuse to comply with the government’s evictions, despite increasingly sporadic access to water and electricity. Hoping to leverage their situation to win more money for relocation, their resilience conjures up the same rebellious spirit of the protests leading up to the World Cup. During the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2013, a kind of dress rehearsal for the real thing, one million demonstrators demanded the reallocation of government spending to the needs of the country’s urban poor: education, sanitation, transportation, health care. Although experts do not expect to see the same level of resistance to the Olympics as was exhibited in the protests of only a few years ago, the 50 Vila Autodromo families prove that Brazilians have not given up on their rights. A small but strong resistance still seeks an answer to the question: demolition para quem? Sources: 1. Eisenhammer, Stephen. “Amid rubble, Rio residents fight Olympic evictions.” Thomson Reuters. 5 February, 2015. Web. 2. “Everything you need to know about Brazil’s massively flawed World Cup Preparations.” The Week. 7 June, 2014. Web. 3. “Housing and Forced Evictions.” Amnesty International. Web. 4. Leon, Joshua K. “Make Way for High Rises: Who Benefits from Slum Demolitions in Mumbai?” Dissent Magazine. 13 March, 2013. Web. 5. Melhem, Yaara Bou. “Lagos Rising.” SBS TV. 9 September, 2014. Web. 6. “Mumbai — where being poor is a crime.” Aljazeera. 23 Oct., 2012. Web. 7. “Nigeria forces thousands from floating slum.” Aljazeera. 29 July, 2012. Web.

“Demolition of Memory” by Yuwei Qiu

The Demolition & Reconstruction of Legacy in

S E L M A 22

Written by Anna Bernard

Illustration by Audrey Cole

Ultimately, accuracy is not at the heart of the controversy — legacy is.

In the middle of the 2014 film “Selma,” Dr. Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo) and President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) meet yet again to try to negotiate an agreement. Johnson wants King to back down on his protests for voting rights in Selma, AL; King wants Johnson to introduce legislation that will make it impossible for the South to deny African Americans the right to vote. Johnson, frustrated with King, explains that he cannot pass more legislation so soon after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. King, in turn, responds, “You are dismantling your legacy with each passing day.” How “Selma” deals with legacy is what has sparked recent criticism over the film. After the film premiered, Joseph A. Califano, Jr., President Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs, asserted that the somewhat antagonistic relationship between Johnson and King portrayed in the film is not historically accurate. Califano also took issue with the depiction of Johnson’s reluctance to support voting rights legislation and the Selma protests. “Did they consider themselves free to fill the screen with falsehoods, immune from any responsibility to the dead?” Califano asked in a Washington Post op-ed, urging viewers and awards givers to “rule out” the film due to its so-called inaccuracies. We can have a conversation about whether or not “Selma” is historically accurate (and many journalists, bloggers and commentators have defended the film’s portrayal of Johnson), but ultimately, accuracy is not at the heart of the controversy — legacy is. Legacy is born of history, but in this case, history only matters because of how it operates in the present. When

Califano and other journalists express anxiety over Johnson not getting enough credit in “Selma,” their concern shouldn’t be over the reputation of someone who passed away over 40 years ago, but instead over how Johnson’s decisions are still affecting us today. Whatever strides Johnson made towards improving Civil Rights for African Americans, others accomplished ten times as much, and their work is still not done. When Califano called for audiences to rule out “Selma” because of its perceived inaccuracies, he demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the movie. In fact, “Selma” cannot be concerned with Johnson’s legacy when its primary concern is repairing the legacies of King and the Selma protesters. Perhaps “repairing” isn’t the right word when the film’s main subject is a man who is widely revered as the leader of the 1960s’ Civil Rights Movement. Nevertheless, “Selma” does make the effort to correct our misconceptions about King — that he wasn’t a radical, that he was devoted to nonviolence for nonviolence’s sake. In the film, King is angry at criticism leveled against him by Malcolm X that he is “being paid by the white man.” King does not compromise for the sake of appeasing those in power; instead, he makes strategic decisions to achieve his goals. King also explains to the Selma protesters the political necessity of nonviolence (the media is more likely to cover instances of police brutality against passive protesters, inspiring widespread sympathy and support for their cause). And though King is central to the film, and the protest, “Selma” is not a biopic. We see Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) try to register to vote, only to be denied when she is unable to name all

When Califano called for audiences to rule out ‘Selma’ because of its perceived inaccuracies, he demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the movie. In fact, ‘Selma’ cannot be concerned with Johnson’s legacy when its primary concern is repairing the legacies of King and the Selma protesters.

67 county judges. We see Jimmie Lee Jackson (Keith Stanfield) brutally shot in a restaurant by a policeman after participating in a night march. “Selma” is told in vignettes, each integral to the movement’s success. “Selma” is not “MLK”; “Selma” is the legacy of many. And despite what Califano might say, the film grants Johnson access to a part of that legacy. While the filmmakers do not support Califano’s claim that Selma was “LBJ’s idea” and King was Johnson’s “partner,” Johnson’s narrative in “Selma” ends on a positive note. The film shows Johnson begging Alabama Governor George Wallace to allow African Americans to vote. Rather than caring about what will happen to their political careers in 1965, Johnson argues that they should care about what will be said in 1985. When Wallace refuses, Johnson finally realizes the importance of making sure his legacy is one that promotes change: “I’ll be damned if history puts me with the likes of you.”

In an interview with PBS, “Selma” director Ava DuVernay says she is not “a custodian of anyone’s legacy.” One film cannot mend or even demolish a person’s legacy, but it can make us think about how that legacy operates today. The protests in Ferguson, New York City, and nationwide are reminiscent of the protests that occurred in Selma. “This is perpetual. Ferguson isn’t anything new,” actor Oyelowo said in an interview with The Guardian. “What ‘Selma’ represents is an effective way of dealing with it in the past ... Back then it was voter registration, now it’s police reform.” Rather than worrying about demolishing the legacy of Johnson, and figures like him, we should use “Selma” to acknowledge America’s “dark past” and focus on demolishing the inequality that still exists 50 years later.

demolished homes in st. louis A Photo Essay by Hannah Landman and Raissa Xie

12.6 miles from campus â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Townhouse complex 27

28 7.8 miles from campus â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Gas station (Ferguson QuikTrip)

7.8 miles from campus — Gas station (Ferguson QuikTrip)

9.5 miles from campus — Single-family home

9.6 miles from campus — Single-family home

9.7 miles from campus — Driveway

12 miles from campus — Public greenspace 29

30 9.51 miles from campus â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Single-family home

31 12.6 miles from campus â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Townhouse complex

THE LIVING

A DEMOLITION SHORT STORY 32

At the end of your first day of work, you found yourself on the top floor of a vacant office building. You stood in a room that had, just that morning, been full of cubicles, several broken desk chairs, and an ancient water cooler somehow still managing to leak fluid as it rested on its side in the corner, broken and forlorn. Your eyes passed over the now stark expanse, glancing around for any last items to be removed. In a window sill on the other side of the room, you noticed a small terra cotta pot. Upon closer inspection, you saw that the potted plant before you was long gone, a set of formerly green leaves now shriveled and gray amidst a background of stiff, dry dirt. Later that night, you sat quietly on the sofa in your living room, staring at your own potted fern, a housewarming gift left by your neighbor, perched on the little table by the window. It’s your profession, the deconstruction of lived in spaces. You approach these formerly inhabited places with a careful methodology of demolition meant to ensure high quality work and detachment from the job, though the latter still manages to elude you. The team enters, armed with boxes, rolling carts, trash bins, even forklifts for the larger remnants of life. People would be surprised how much gets left behind. You’ve seen rooms fully furnished, the paint flaking off a dingy white crib, tattered curtains hanging limply in the window, and the wallpaper beginning to peel away, revealing the deteriorating plaster beneath. A room is just a room, but after hours in a building, even for a professional, it’s difficult not to picture the large family once settled happily in one apartment, smiling children playing with their father on the tattered rug by the window, watched by their mother a few steps away as she prepares dinner on the sturdy, old stove. Next door, you might see a pile of empty record sleeves and women’s magazines, once brightly colored but now encased in dusty, faded pastels, along with a mismatched set of coffee cups, a cast of inanimate objects that quickly conjure two young women living together, out on their own for the first time, along with the bachelor neighbor who stops by on Sunday afternoons for coffee and conversation. Down the hall, you encounter what may once have been the space of an elderly

Written by Gemma Baugh

man, lonely and curious about the noise, who peers from his doorway to investigate after refilling the dish full of cat food that now lies discarded in a corner. Sometimes you feel as if they may suddenly walk back into the rooms, shouting at the intruder who has begun to dismantle their world. You picture them demanding to know what is going on, screaming, crying, while you stand before them, speechless. This fear is always in the back of your mind, though you know it will never be realized. They are all absent, these past occupants all seemingly plucked from their lives like plague victims or alien abductees. The leftovers of their existences remain, allowing the surrounding building to decay but never truly to die. Until you enter, stripping the last bits of life from the walls and closets and corners. Once a building is empty, as empty as it can be after swift hands in rubber gloves make their way through, collecting everything in their path using big, black, plastic bags and transporting them out in the aforementioned boxes, rolling carts, and so on, it’s time for the next stage. You make certain every last soul has exited before the real destruction begins. Then, instantly, irreversibly, the building disintegrates before your eyes, an extraordinary spectacle. You used to think of death as a silent thing, life soundlessly disappearing at random, but this display is accompanied by a thunderous cacophony of windows cracking into glittering shards of glass, walls toppling and crumbling under crashing hammers and invincible, steel, wrecking balls, explosions breaking stone into jagged pieces, and wood sizzling to black, splintering in the high pressure heat. Eventually, you get used to the noise. It becomes another part of the business, part of the method. And you are not fooled by the presence of such sounds; you must admit, albeit reluctantly, that you are a reaper in search of space. It’s a unique breed of death you bring, but death, nonetheless. At night, you sink into your bed, listening to the sound of small, shaky breaths escaping from the back of your throat. You stare up at the ceiling of your bedroom, imagining the lives you’ve taken.

Illustration by Chanel Luu Hai

After Demolition: The Hidden Undertones of Public Commemoration

Written & Photographed by David Gilmore

Monuments and public memorials can define a place. Think about St. Louis. Probably one of the first things that pops into your head is the St. Louis Arch. The Arch and its grounds, formally known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, offer a recreational space and create an emblem for St. Louis. But at its roots, the Arch is an act of public commemoration. According to the National Park Service’s website, “The Gateway Arch reflects St. Louis’ role in the Westward Expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century. The park is a memorial to Thomas Jefferson’s role in opening the West, to the pioneers who helped shape its history, and to Dred Scott who sued for his freedom in the Old Courthouse.” Thus, the Arch is an articulation of these ideas on a grand scale, and a form of public commemoration to them. In his book “Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy,” Kenneth Foote explores a spectrum of American public memorials, centering on sites of trauma. Foote sorts each into one of four main categories: Sanctification, Designation, Rectification, and Obliteration. According to Foote, the highest form of commemoration is sanctification. Sanctification occurs when the goal of a commemorative act is to venerate a person, site or occurrence, resulting in a “sacred place” which stands out from the landscape around it. This process usually manifests in a publicly maintained marker, building or other area. For example, the seal embedded in the floor of Brookings arch — while not your typical act of sanctification — fits the criteria. Urban legend warns that anyone who steps on the seal will not graduate, and so Washington University students dogmatically avoid it. This stigma sanctifies the seal, as well as the founding of the university.

Designation is on the next rung down on the ladder of public commemoration. While similar to sanctification in that a site is still outwardly marked for some kind of cultural significance, designation differs because the affected site is not deemed “sacred.” According to this definition, every building, meeting room, courtyard, quadrangle, plaza and chapel that has been named after someone or something is an instance of designation on campus. Although many of these sites of designation have very little connection to the person whom they commemorate, Washington University has still chosen to commemorate each individual – from Nobel Prize nominees to generous donors. While sanctification and designation can stem from either a positive or a negative event, the lower rungs of commemoration involve a requisite amount of shame. Through rectification, the site of trauma is returned to its original state with little or no deference to the event. In obliteration, the landscape is completely cleared, and no evidence or official commemoration occurs. As one might imagine, instances of rectification and obliteration are difficult to find on Wash. U.’s campus — an institution very concerned with its public image. Yet acts of rectification and obliteration have far more salient political messages than those of sanctification or designation. This is illustrated in the comparison of two sites in downtown St. Louis: the site of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development, and Benton Place, a historic private place near Lafayette Square. The 57-acre plot in north St. Louis that used to be the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project bears very little resemblance to what it once was. An over grown, untamed urban forest stands in the place

Why did one survive its period of hardship, while the other did not? These two sites represent the city’s drastically differing means to reach the same end: to cover up sites of past poverty. 36

of Pruitt-Igoe’s 33 high-rise housing structures. While the remnants of infrastructure – crumbling roads, the occasional manhole cover, an old electric hub building – poke up through the detritus, no monument gestures to the thousands of lives that passed through the housing project, which housed residents for just over two decades. The lot is currently owned by developer Paul McKee, but with no official residents or clear purpose. If a person did not already know the lot’s history, they certainly could not glean it from the abandoned space that exists today. Benton Place falls on the opposite end of the spectrum of restoration. The private place, named for Senator Thomas Hart Benton, represented a cultural landmark of affluence during the end of the nineteenth century. Around the turn of the century, the city urbanized and factories popped up in the following decades. Many of the area’s original residents fled the polluted air of the city, and Benton Place homes were converted into high-capacity housing for low-wage factory workers. No longer under the care of well-to-do owners and their zoning laws, many homes decayed under the burden of over-population. When the area’s industrial golden age came to an end, the homes were no longer needed for high-capacity housing. Thus, Benton Place came to a vulnerable crossroads, its fate threatening to imitate that of Pruitt-Igoe. Nevertheless, the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee, founded in 1969, decided to restore the homes of Benton Place, instead of demolishing and then replacing them. Today single families occupy these homes. While some creative liberties were taken in façade color schemes, the homes have been kept in good condition, and arguably would be recognizable to its original constituents — a common metric of restoration. Except for what was destroyed in

a tornado, the structures still stand, and the road still has no outlet. Thus, the overarching goals of city planners saved Benton Place from Pruitt-Igoe’s fate. But why did one survive its period of hardship, while the other did not? These two sites represent the city’s drastically differing means to reach the same end: to cover up sites of past poverty. For Benton Place, the city’s efforts of restoration returned prosperity to the area. But PruittIgoe — a site of dense over-population, and social, racial and economic injustices — was not so lucky. The inverted disparity between the city’s treatment of Benton Place and Pruitt-Igoe illustrates a good deal about St. Louis’ planning initiatives and history, and the different implications of Foote’s rectification and obliteration. The affluent and privately owned Benton Place is in an area that St. Louis city planners have tried to highlight, while Pruitt-Igoe is in the dreaded north St. Louis abyss. These two sites are physical representations of the notorious north/south St. Louis dichotomy. Thus, these sites and their differing histories of demolition and commemoration, directly further the racial disparity by which St. Louis is often characterized.

For Benton Place, the city’s efforts of restoration returned prosperity to the area. But Pruitt-Igoe — a site of dense over-population, and social, racial and economic injustices — was not so lucky. 37

The Nomadic Gardeners of Downtown St. Louis Growing A Grounded Community Out Of Empty Space Written by Emma LaPlante Photography by Ophelia Ji

When Mary Ostafi moved to a high-rise loft in downtown St. Louis in 2011, she had never gardened before in her life. Within a year, she became the founding director of the first community garden in downtown St. Louis. “It didn’t take me too long to figure out that there was absolutely no green space, and there was really no opportunity to grow any food,” she told me in an interview in early February. “So I just kind of started along this path of wanting to start up a community garden because I felt like the neighborhood needed it.” Mary works in the Office of Sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis, but in her other life she leads a volunteer-run organization called Urban Harvest STL as its Founding Director and Chair. Mary, a chic young urbanite from Chicago with no prior farming experience to speak of, may appear an unlikely candidate to lead the charge for community gardens in downtown St. Louis. (Although there are over 200 community gardens within St. Louis’s boundaries, before Mary arrived, the grand total of farms in the downtown area was zero.) In fact, when I asked her where she found her inspiration for this radical new undertaking, she laughed. 38

“That’s a great question,” she said. “The funny thing is…”

She went on to explain how she got from Point A — a St. Louis newcomer, struggling with an inexplicable desire to grow things — to Point B, a polished, experienced urban gardener who teaches other people how to farm their own food. A self-proclaimed “health nut,” she has always been passionate about health and well-being. Eventually she came to understand that the only way she could truly control the food she was putting into her body was if she grew it herself. But she wasn’t interested in doing things halfway — instead of simply growing tomatoes in a hydroponic tower on her windowsill, Mary decided to create a community garden. “It’s great going to Farmers’ Markets, and it’s great supporting other local food, but I want to create that opportunity for my neighborhood,” she told me. After her stroke of clarity, she held a community meeting to gauge interest. Over 50 people showed up, all people in her neighborhood who had seen her Facebook page or the flyers she had hung in a grocery store. The word spread fast, and before long, she didn’t just have takers — she had

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‘If we can grow food first on a vacant lot downtown, second on the top deck of a parking garage, and third on a rooftop downtown, we’re trying to say, wherever your opportunity is, you can take back that space and do it.’

a waiting list. Around this time, Mary was taking part in a nine-month organic apprenticeship program through EarthDance Farms, which lasted for the entire growing season. For Mary, it was an invaluable crash course that taught her all the skills she would need to become a successful gardener, skills that she now teaches to firsttime gardeners. “Very quickly I learned that most people who live in the urban environment don’t have those skills, and never had an opportunity to garden,” she told me. She mentors these people now, paying forward the lessons that EarthDance Farms taught her — everything from choosing what crops to plant to learning how to harvest them. When I asked what crops the gardeners at Urban Harvest typically plant, Mary’s face lit up. “There are probably over, like, thirty,” she said. “Everything from your typical, you know, green-leaf vegetables, various lettuces, spinach, kale, chards, probably ten different varieties of tomatoes,

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a lot of root vegetables, carrots, beets, turnips, radish, onions, eggplant, pumpkin squash, a ton of different herbs … yeah.” It was around this point in our conversation that I began to wonder about the gardeners themselves. In my limited experience observing gentrification, I have learned of the unfortunate tendency of community projects in St. Louis to cater exclusively to one group of people at the expense of others. I was relieved to hear that Mary shares my concerns. She admitted that, while the gardeners at Urban Harvest STL are a fair representation of the diversity in their neighborhood, “we don’t have a hugely diverse neighborhood.” But that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. “Different community gardens are governed differently,” she said. As for Urban Harvest, it tries to make leasing a plot as accessible as possible for all types of individuals 39

and families. “The way that we’ve structured our community garden in the past is we kind of set a sliding scale — just kind of telling people to pay what you want. Like, here’s a suggested price, pay less, pay more, pay whatever you want, so that way anybody really had the opportunity to be a part of it.” She went on to point out, “It really [caters] to people mostly who had interest in healthy living and food, and I’m not sure if that really fits into one certain socioeconomic class.” They also allocate certain plots to growing food exclusively for donations, which they deliver once a week to St. Patrick’s Center downtown, where homeless people and veterans are trained in skills for the restaurant business. In this way, they can give back to the community whose support enables them to exist. But as Mary pointed out, it’s difficult to make generalized statements, because Urban Harvest STL has changed a lot throughout the years, perhaps most significantly in its location. “We’re nomadic gardeners,” she said, laughing. In the beginning of Urban Harvest’s existence, it was located on a rooftop with twenty 4x10 raised garden plots, two blocks off of Washington Avenue and 14th Street. After two years, the lease was up, so it moved to the top deck of a parking garage on Olive and 6th Street — “right in the middle of the high-rises.” (Part of Urban Harvest’s commitment to accessibility means locating its garden within walking distance of most of its downtown gardeners.) And then, one day before our interview, the folks at Urban Harvest had just signed a lease for a 10,000 square foot rooftop space a block off of Washington Avenue on 14th Street, a space that they hope will become a more permanent home. The nomadic nature of their community garden is something that Urban Harvest has come to embrace. In many ways, it echoes how Mary feels about the city at large. “That’s the beautiful thing about downtown. It’s primarily a bunch of transients that live there. It’s transplants, like me,” she said. “And I think we bring a new perspective to the city.” So how do you create a community, the most essential requirement for a community garden, out of a city of transients? Community gardens, it would appear, are a solution. “I would not have met half of these, I mean, probably any of these people that I’m now either good friends with or make connections with if it wasn’t for this project,” Mary told me when I asked about a community garden’s ability to strengthen a neighborhood’s sense of collective identity. “I think it really brings a community together, because it’s something that you can grow together, and learn together, and evolve and just kind of enhance your neighborhood. It creates a place for people to convene.” 40

A community garden is, at its most fundamental level, the product of a group of people taking back their city. It’s people seizing ownership of space — abandoned, demolished, unused space — and turning it into something beautiful, something productive. Mary used the phrase, “taking abandoned lots or hardscapes and turning them into greenscapes.” The environmental benefits of implementing this type of action on a large scale are transformative: introducing new ecosystems, enhancing biodiversity, and reducing the heat island effective, just to name a few. But studies show that community gardens also reduce crime and enhance the longevity and health of their members. Mary is also adamant that community gardens help foster a sense of local pride. “Definitely for the people involved, who have created it, there’s a tremendous sense of pride of the accomplishments,” she said. “But then also people that aren’t involved, just to see that happening, I think it makes them proud to see that people care enough to build something like this, to enhance their community in that way to provide another asset to St. Louis. So I think it’s just a win-win for everybody, no matter what level of engagement they have in the project.” After witnessing such resoundingly positive effects, a top priority for community gardeners is to expand and get as much of a city involved as possible. That’s why, this time, Urban Harvest isn’t just relocating — it’s scaling up. While in the past Urban Harvest has been necessarily limited to being a community garden, now it’s embarking on the impossibly exciting task of tackling urban farming, or the Food Roof Farm, as it will be called.

The idea for the Food Roof Farm was born out of the realization that, not only were there many people sitting on the waiting list for the community garden, there were also many people who wanted access to fresh, local food without necessarily having to grow it themselves. The Food Roof Farm, which is 10,000 square feet and is set to open to the community this summer, will address these needs by incorporating a larger community garden into a working CSA farm that sells community-supported agriculture shares. It will also expand on its educational purpose, designating a built-in space for classes and workshops. Urban farms of this kind also have a more tangible economic influence than smaller community gardens, because they sell food to the public and create jobs. They can also help to combat the problems of food deserts, or areas that don’t have ready access to healthy, affordable foods. In a brilliantly understated pun, Mary said, “It’s just kind of taking the seed that we started with and growing it to the next level.” She added, “Making it more accessible to everybody in the community.” The fact that Urban Harvest STL has grown from a small rooftop farm into a 10,000 square foot urban farm while staying true to its community values demonstrates a resilience and adaptability that St. Louis, a city in desperate need of a major overhaul, needs. Change, especially socioeconomic change, will only be successful if it starts at a grassroots level, just as Mary feels a community garden will only be successful if it is neighborbased. Community gardens may not be able to fix all of St. Louis’ problems, but they certainly are a start.

“I think that this is just kind of the pilot project,” Mary mused during our interview. “We’re going to get this one up and running, and we’re going to experiment with it, and, you know, learn from it over the next couple years, and then we hope to scale up to more areas downtown — rooftops, vacant lots, whatever the opportunity we can find, and grow more.” Mary also believes in this project because she thinks everyone can be a gardener. As she said, “It’s to incorporate more people that want to grow their own food and then just show people that you can grow food, anywhere. If we can grow food first on a vacant lot downtown, second on the top deck of a parking garage, and third on a rooftop downtown, we’re trying to say, you know, if you have an interest, wherever your opportunity is, you can take back that space and do it.” The community garden at the heart of Urban Harvest STL inspires people to do more with the city they live in. Every city is full of unproductive and forgotten spaces— demolished lots, eroding parking spaces, unused rooftops and empty parks. A community gardener looks at those spaces, squints a little, and sees potential. She digs her roots into the ground and blooms where she’s planted. If she’s lucky, a community of grounded people will follow her example, growing their roots around her. For upcoming volunteer opportunities and how to get involved with Urban Harvest STL, please visit www.urbanharveststl.org.

why ferguson protestors

SHUT DOWN highways across america

Written by Keaton Wetzel

Illustration by Chelsea Lin

Underlying the logic of the Ferguson highway shutdowns is an indictment of the racist history of American transportation and housing policy.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch feature boasts about the city’s plans for urban freeways.

The Ferguson protests which began shortly after the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown have been characterized by mass mobilizations which momentarily shut down urban and suburban centers. In cities from Oakland to Los Angeles, Dallas to Chicago, and Atlanta to Detroit, many of our country’s most congested urban freeways were slowed to a halt by impassioned citizens disrupting circulation routes in order to call attention to the decades-long history of police violence against unarmed black people. This particular form of protest is highly symbolic. Our nation’s intracity expressways and freeways are constructed on the remnants of once-vibrant urban black neighborhoods; our highways have been and continue to be the agents of segregation and the enablers of white flight. The shutdown of these freeways is a rejection of the normalized spatial structuring of America’s metropolitan areas. They momentarily halt the very streets which enable racial and spatial inequalities. Underlying the logic of these highway shutdowns is an indictment of the racist history of American transportation and housing policy. The auto-dependent suburban sprawl that emerged at the fringes of America’s cities in the mid 20th-century was the direct result of federal

economic, land use and social policy. Enabled by the intercity highway and the downtownpenetrating parkway, land use control in the form of exclusionary zoning laws, federal housing loans, and advancements in home construction, the American suburb experienced its highest rate of population growth during the baby boom of the postwar era. For most of its existence, the American suburb has been highly segregated and mostly exclusive to white, middle- and upperclass families able to afford at least one car. This sprawling built form uses land inefficiently and for most of its early history forbade black and poor citizens through racist restrictive covenants deeds. Redlining, a scheme which excluded poor black neighborhoods from federal housing loans, as well as limited public housing availability in the suburbs, enforced this racial segregation. As white families moved to the suburbs during the post-war era, city planners constructed highways to enable swift automobile access to downtown. Henry Ford made possible the mass motorization of America in the 1920s, when cars were so affordable that one of every five people were able to purchase a vehicle. New York City’s parkways, built during Robert Moses’ reign as chief builder under Mayor LaGuardia, provided a national prototype for the urban freeways deemed

Opposite top: A St. Louis city planner enjoys a privileged view over the soon-to-be demolished rooftops of Mill Creek Valley. Opposite bottom: An aerial image of the demolished Mill Creek Valley just after completion of Interstate 64.

necessary to carry all of these new cars. His were the first urban-to-rural motorways built for the many new car owners of America’s emerging suburbs. Their design demonstrates an early exclusion of the lower classes that would continue as a theme of American land use for at least another half century: the parkway bridges were deliberately built too low for buses, meaning only those who could afford personal automobiles could enjoy the recreation zones available just outside of the city. Rising congestion from individual automobile use and a systematic demolition of the nation’s many robust streetcar networks further disenfranchised

converted them into bus operations. Through the monopolization of electric rail networks, General Motors and its partners effectively captured and profited from “motorizing” a very successful and efficient component of public transit. By forcing people onto cramped and slow buses, this conspiracy pushed Americans towards the purchase of record numbers of automobiles. Those who couldn’t buy vehicles to commute had been disenfranchised by this Great Streetcar Scandal. This pattern of automobile-oriented urban growth has come to define American living. Vast freeway networks gave “roughly equal accessibility from anywhere to anywhere,” opening up land once

The urban renewal of St. Louis’s Mill Creek Valley embodies an elitist notion of redevelopment, clearing impoverished neighborhoods to make way for highways instead of investing the necessary resources to bring about a decent quality of living for existing residents. inner-city residents who still depended on public transportation. The 1996 documentary “Taken for a Ride” describes the “Great Streetcar Scandal,” which occurred from 1936 to 1950. According to the film, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines — with investment from General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation — bought over 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland and San Diego and

only useful for farmers.1 So wherever highways went, developers followed as a “natural result of orthodox market assumptions and locational principles.”2 As early as the late 1940s, the effects of these highways on commuting patterns became evident in places like Southern California. Exemplifying the urban explosion ignited by the construction of motorways providing rapid access out of a city’s historic commercial center, LA’s urban area tripled in population three times during the 1930s and 1940s while downtown traffic remained constant. The 1956 Federal Aid

HANDS UP 46

Highway Act confirmed that these highways were to be a permanent fixture in urban centers; $41 billion was allocated for 41,000 miles of roads built through urban areas and extended outward. Suburbs were definitively for car owners now that cities expanded well beyond the limits of their public transportation networks. In St. Louis, urban freeway networks were built along historical and legally-enforced racial boundaries, the riverfront and railyards. Mill Creek Vally, the thriving and densely populated African American neighborhood once situated in the area now occupied by the campus of St. Louis University, was demolished to make way for Interstate 40/64, the congested strip of pavement that extends from downtown to access St. Louis’ most wealthy neighborhoods. The Mill Creek Valley area housed a large African American population, and was at one time the home to such famous African Americans as Scott Joplin and Josephine Baker. At the start of the 1950s, the Mill Creek Valley housed 20,000 inhabitants (95 percent African American) and included over 800 businesses and institutions. Everything the residents needed — from grocery, clothing and hardware stores to restaurants, schools and churches — was within walking distance of their homes. The area was also home to the prominent African American newspaper, The St. Louis Argus. However, many of these residences and institutions were unsanitary and in need of repair; more than half the dwellings lacked running water, and 80 percent didn’t have interior bathrooms. In 1951, Missouri Governor Forrest Smith signed the Municipal Land Clearance for Redevelopment Law, which brought state aid to the urban renewal efforts of Missouri’s cities. The law also created the St. Louis Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, tasked with overseeing urban renewal in Saint Louis and managing federal funding. Under the 1954 Federal Housing Act — which provided federal aid for renewal projects — and a

$110 million bond issue passed in 1955, the city of St. Louis began the clearance and demolition of Mill Creek Valley. Under the NAACP-approved plan, 5,600 dwelling units were demolished; “bulldozers swiftly transformed the city’s ‘No. 1 Eyesore” into an area derided as ‘Hiroshima Flats.’”3 In St. Louis City, interstate highways removed approximately 1.7 square miles of urban land. Overall, more than 30,000 residents of the city were relocated.4 The “urban renewal” which characterizes the history of St. Louis’s Mill Creek Valley embodies an elitist notion of urban redevelopment, clearing impoverished neighborhoods to make way for highways and new construction instead of investing the necessary resources to bring about a decent quality of living for existing residents. In Mill Creek Valley under the redevelopment plan, this neighborhood, instead of being invested in and improved, was totally cleared to enable wealthy suburbanites quicker access to the financial jobs and retail outlets available downtown. America’s racist urban history is embodied in the demolition of Mill Creek Valley. Where thousands of black households and businesses once stood, a massive urban highway now carries thousands of white wealthy suburbanites to their downtown jobs. Imposing and segregating by their very nature, urban freeways lay claim to the demolished sites of African American urban neighborhoods. Urban highways enabled the mass white exodus to the suburbs, where families could live a comfortable distance from the primarily African American inner city. The ticket to the suburb is the expensive, inefficient, dangerous and environmentally destructive personal automobile, basically ensuring that the suburbs remained white while the inner city, further marginalized by the construction of urban freeways, remained black and poor.

When Ferguson protesters last year sat defiantly in front of highway traffic, they were not just taking a stand against police brutality. By requiring that the very agent of metropolitan segregation be ground to a halt, they were protesting the racist history of urban segregation itself. Inner-city highways in many ways are the manifestations of white supremacy — permitting the mass movement of white suburbanites across land taken from African Americans confined to urban slums. Our city leaders have sacrificed inner-city communities to allow its privileged citizens to pass through in private automobiles. Forcing a pause on these thoroughfares is a powerful and meaningful statement. Sources: 1. Hall, Peter. Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design since 1880. Fourth ed. Print. 2. Checkoway, Barry. “Large Builders, Federal Housing Programmes, and Postwar Suburbanization.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research: 21-45. Print. 3. Ihnen, Alex. “The Powerful Symbolism of Shutting Down an interstate.” nextSTL. 24 November, 2014. Web. 4. O’Neil, Tim. “A look back: Clearing of Mill Creek Valley changed the face of the city.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 9 August, 2009. Web. All images hosted on nextSTL.com.

By requiring that the very agent of metropolitan segregation be ground to a halt, Ferguson protesters were protesting the racist history of urban segregation itself.

Our Contributors Gemma Baugh is a freshman planning to

Duyen (Chanel) Luu Hai is a junior,

Leora Baum is the Visual Editor for ISSUES.

Libby Perold is the Design Chief of ISSUES

pursue a Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology major. Contact her at gemmbaugh@wustl.edu.

She is a junior majoring in the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities and Spanish, and minoring in Art. Contact her at leora.i.baum@wustl.edu.

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studying Landscape Architecture and Architecture in Sam Fox School. Feel free to contact her at yutingji@wustl.edu.

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Communication Design. Feel free to contact her at mirandakalish@wustl.edu.

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English and Political Science, in the hopes of one day becoming Sam Seaborn from “The West Wing.” She’d love to hear from you at emmalaplante@wustl.edu.

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Magazine. She majors in Comparative Arts with a focus in Photography, and minors in Design.

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49 Illustration by Leora Baum

Illustration by Laken Sylvander