UNEVEN GEOGRAPHIES: BETTER FUTURES FOR VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES

BHAVNA MADAPPA

Along the Detroit River, risks associated with climate change within the different cities vary greatly. Poor communities of color are more exposed and vulnerable to the risks and have less adaptive capacities.(1)

It is hence, essential to question to what extent have our design professions learned from the negative impacts of urban renewal policy decisions to “clean blight” and displace poor people of color in the past? Could climate adaptation be creating new waves of displacement and exclusion? How will our contributions as designers prioritize the needs of the underserved communities this time? What partnerships and coalitions can help co-produce more just urban futures? (2)

Rendering visible the socio-environmental vulnerabilities that communities of color face along the Detroit River, this paper studies the consequences of legal decision-making concerning environmental justice in Michigan.(3) Referring to the consequences of climate-related displacement in Boynton, White Pine, and Flint, it delves into the patterns of migration and injustice to suggest just solutions.(4) It carefully analyzes pollution through mapping, data analysis, and critical thinking. The research challenges the traditional model of large-scale master planning as adequate for tackling urban climate adaptation in the region. Instead, the research aims to learn from the racist policy making that supports these injustices and suggest implementable strategies. By addressing social and crisis urbanism at different scales of vulnerability, the industrially polluted Detroit is studied to promote techniques that must be implemented to address the coexistence with the environment.

The paper is a generative, system-based proposal designed specifically to operate within the patterns, structures, and dynamics of the urban crises facing the communities of color along the Detroit River. It imagines reorganizing these systems toward more socially productive ends, mobilizing legal decision-making to rescript the social and institutional processes through which the urban might be designed.(5)

Keywords

Climate Justice, Equitable, Vulnerability, Adaptation, Just Resilience.

URBANISMS

Social Urbanism, Crisis Urbanism.

Notes

1. Niloofar Mohtat, Luna Khirfan, The climate justice pillars vis-à-vis urban form adaptation to climate change: A review, Urban Climate, Volume 39, 2021

2. Benz, Terressa A. “Toxic Cities: Neoliberalism and Environmental Racism.” Critical Sociology 45, no. 1 (2017): 49–62. https://doi. org/10.1177/0896920517708339.

3. Taylor, DE (2014) Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility. New York, NY: New York University Press.

4. “Environmental Justice Case Study: Solution Mining in White Pine, Mi and the Bad River Reservation.” University of Michigan. Accessed April 27, 2022. http://websites.umich. edu/~snre492/pmaj.html.

5. Tuning Up the City: Cedric Price’s Detroit Think Grid, Kathy Velikov, 2015

SHREYA NAMBIAR

Who is a refugee? On account of events falling under the lens of political conflict, refugees are individuals compelled to flee their country and find asylum in new territories. War, climate change and religious conflict are some of the leading causes driving the current global refugee crisis. To become a refugee, these individuals have to prove they are subject to unconceivable hardship in their countries of origin including exposure to violence in many instances. In the process, they undergo unique experiences - confronting sudden shifts in their lifestyles. While the process to become a refugee varies from country to country, the resettlement process generally follows a similar pattern. Refugees are first situated in temporary camps, from where they are transported to new housing locations after their refugee status is approved in the host country. In reality, however, many refugees end up spending their entire lives in these ‘temporary’ camps and have limited access to resources like education, access to jobs, and adequate housing and infrastructure.

In A Refugee Camp Is a City, Ana Asensio states that “a refugee camp is an ephemeral city whose inhabitants have been placed there like pieces in a puzzle, a stand-by city that architecture has not embraced.” As designers, we are confronted with two questions: (1) How can the refugees’ housing needs be attained within a framework that accepts their past lifestyles and experiences and helps them adapt to their new environment?; and

(2) What opportunities emerge from these new settlements that mutually benefit the refugees and their host cities?

The U.S. is seeing a sudden influx of refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine at a time of divided politics and constrained resources and insufficient infrastructure to support this large scale immigration. Following a structured analysis of case studies - from the Kakuma Camp in Kenya at a global scale, to resettlement typologies in Hamtramck and Buffalo in the U.S., this research discusses the different approach to refugee camps and integrated communities, and determine which aspects can be potentially incorporated into inexorable future models to improve the refugee resettlement process.

Keywords

Adaptability, Culture Change, Integration, Accessibility, Unification.

Urbanisms

Crisis/Emergency/Conflict Urbanism, Social Urbanism.

Notes

1. “What Is a Refugee? Definition and Meaning: USA for UNHCR.” USA for UNHCR. https://www. unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee/.

2. U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Refugees,” USCIS, 2022, https://www.uscis.gov/ humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/refugees

3. Ana Asensio, “A Refugee Camp Is a City,” aaaa magazine, 2014, https://theaaaamagazine. wordpress.com/2014/02/18/a-refugee-campis-a-city/.

4. Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, “The Failure of Refugee Camps”, Boston Review, 2015, https:// bostonreview.net/articles/elizabeth-dunn-failurerefugee-camps/

5. Detroit Public TV, PBS, “Northern U.S. border experiences alarming influx of refugee crossings”, 2022, https://www.pbs. org/newshour/show/northern-u-s-borderexperiences-alarming-influx-of-refugeecrossings

6. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “Urban Refugees,” UNHCR, 2018, https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/refugees.html

ACCESSIBLE FUTURES: SPECULATING FUTURE REALITIES THROUGH URBAN TRANSIT HUBS

Accessibility plays a vital role in our daily lives, becoming a defining factor of urban life impacting cultural, economic, social, and political aspects. The multimodal hub has become more than a transportation node to introduce new community centers, event, commercial, and retail space, establishing itself as an imperative part of the urban fabric.1 Metro regions recognize the importance of such hubs in a fast-changing landscape, making it necessary for the implementation of flexible and anticipatory transit infrastructure within the urban region. Such infrastructure is necessary in providing a sustained, uninterrupted accessibility by integrating multiple modalities into regional public transit systems of highly congested urban areas.2

While the technological advances driving more efficient and reliable future transit systems are here, cities are challenged to adjust fast enough. The outdated and inadequate infrastructures systems leave cities questioning how to transform or update their current transit systems or alternatively how to plan for an entirely new transit framework. Multimodal hubs can act as nodes within the greater urban and mobility ecosystem by facilitating regeneration, economic viability, and social mobility, ultimately becoming drivers for inclusive and sustainable urban growth.3 In the case of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Station, and Mexico City’s Ciudad Azteca Multimodal Transfer Station, both transit hubs not only work toward seamless accessibility but also ensure a strong relationship to the periphery region and the hinterland’s operational landscapes. Both cases demonstrate that urban accessibility entails the integration of many different interrelated elements in the urban type of the transportation hub.4 This investigation uses four indicators to assess their main characteristics and performance: urban connectivity, operational agents, socio-economic development, and urban quality.

The uncertain futures our society faces calls for designers to look at intermodal hubs through a visionary lens, reconceptualizing future realities, while keeping in mind the importance of infrastructure as the main driver of urban transformation and overall growth. Tracing the relationships established between the hub region’s infrastructural agents and the surrounding site’s pre- and post-infrastructure application is essential to identifying the prospects and limitations for alternative methods to intervene. The transit systems of the future are likely to be very different from what exists in most of the world today.5 How can we design for unanticipated changes through models of flexibility and resilience?6

Keywords

Multimodal, Interchange(hubs), Infrastructure, Re-Conceptualize, Accessibility.

Urbanisms

Network Urbanism, Infrastructure Urbanism, Visionary Urbanism.

Notes

1. ARUP. “Svensk Forskning För Hållbar Tillväxt| Rise.” Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.ri.se/ sites/default/files/2020-12/RISE-Arup_Mobility_ hubs_report_FINAL.pdf

2. Pitsiava-Latinopoulou, Magda, and Panagiotis Iordanopoulos. “Intermodal Passengers Terminals: Design Standards for Better Level of Service.”

3. “Future of Stations.” Arup Foresight, December 3, 2020. https://foresight.arup.com/ publications/future-of-stations/.

4. “Improving Quality of Life through Transit Hubs.” Accessed February 9, 2022. https://www. arcadis.com/-/media/project/arcadiscom/com/ perspectives/global/2018

5. “The Future of Mobility ,” October 2016. https://data.bloomberglp.com/bnef/ sites/14/2016/10/BNEF_McKinsey_The-Futureof-Mobility_11-10-16.pdf.

6. O’Sullivan, Feargus. “Planning the Transit Hubs of the Future.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, July 10, 2017. https://www.bloomberg.com/ news/articles/2017-07-10/how-to-future-proofa-transit-hub.