2020 M.Arch Thesis Reviews

Page 6

Priced Out of Paradise: Reconsidering Cooperatives in Response to Climate Gentrification in Miami’s Communities of Color Adiel Alexis Benitez Advisor: Miho Mazereeuw Readers: Marisa Morán Jahn, Susanne Schindler Our current global health crisis has clearly rendered

redlining, and urban renewal in its most vulnerable

how a lack of stable housing, access to care, and the

communities. Today, the city’s muddled past has been

effects of climate change, disproportionately affect our

compounded with its uncertain future.

communities of color. Contemporary development

Despite palpable climate change, construction con-

patterns demonstrate the inadequacies of unchecked

tinues along the Miami waterfront, fueled by foreign

neoliberalism, and its adverse effect on the develop-

investors who park capital in luxury real estate. For

ment of equitable housing. Within this context, Miami

local residents, both low and mid income, the cost of

presents itself as a vulnerable coastal city exemplar. A

living continues to rise along with sea levels. Miami,

growing city, Miami struggles with an endemic afford-

outwardly marketed as a tropical oasis, is now regard-

ability crisis, and the long lasting scars of segregation,

ed as one of the country’s most inequitable cities. This thesis takes issue with the commodification of housing, and its adverse effects on the vulnerable communities of greater Miami. While Miami’s surplus of luxury real estate swells, climate change and speculative development have combined to threaten the stability of the city’s multi-ethnic core. Instead, it re-considers the cooperative as a mechanism by which communities can reclaim agency within hostile markets, and open up access to stabilize housing in 6


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