Spatial Disconnect |
Affordable housing and Socio-Cultural Centers
Abstract
Social housing practice following World War II, in combination with modernist application of modularity and simplicity, has received much criticism
and negative affects within a social, cultural, and psychological realm of its inhabitants. The negative effects of these hosing ideals, and architectural manifestations, can be analyzed both on a single buildings scale, as well as, on a scale which analyzes the orientation of past social housing examples which follow these trends, and their connectedness, or lack thereof, with existing spaces and districts which facilitate broad social interaction, diverse free forming commerce, and inevitably, create aspects of daily life which are necessary components to maintaining a sustainable life; economically, socially, culturally. This dissertation will attempt to show both direct and indirect relationships between the connectedness, or lack thereof, of post-World War II social housing projects and the social, cultural, economic centers which create and re-establish the collective identity of residents within an urban center.
North Loop | 1 : 98,128
Building Plot | 1 : 98,128
South Loop | 1 : 98,128
West Loop | 1 : 98,128
Social Housing | Large high rise urban developments which house citizens that depend on unemployment
compensation, welfare, and other social programs to provide the necessities of everyday life. Connectedness (lack of) | Both physical and visual displacement of residents from spaces and districts which create and maintain a collective identity of citizens. Collective Identity | Result of urban context; events, actions, ideas/memories which create an identity that supersedes that of cultural, economic, historical identities. | Ex= New Yorker, Chicagoan, Los Angelino| Urban Center | Spaces and districts which distinguish an urban context from others, and offer the free forming interaction between individuals from similar or different social, cultural, economic backgrounds.
Issue
Due to misguided architectural, planning and geo-political ideals, cities have disregarded negative affects of placement, and thus dis-connectivity, of affordable housing development and socio-cultural centers which inevitably establish and maintain components of individual and collective identity. More so, the resulting negative affects of cyclical dependence on programs which offer and maintain these affordable housing developments and social programs. Ultimately, the spatial placement and dis connectivity of post World War II housing developments create cyclical lifestyles of dependence on the systems whose goals are rooted in developing economic, social, and physical self-sustainability. Does the number of years one resides in social housing affect the individuals’ social well-being, physical health, and ability to self-provide in later years? Does the displacement of social housing, in relation to urban centers, create an increased negative social, cultural, and economic polarization of individuals from the rest of the urban residents?
Methods
Does the lack of connectedness between high rise social housing and the street exacerbate these negative affects?
Research criteria for the stated thesis are focused upon both quantitative and qualitative results and comparisons involving the displacement, and polarization, of past social housing projects and the negative effects such displacement has on the residents. Because of the topics relevancy within the contemporary American urban housing practice, large amounts of data have been collected regarding the destruction of past social housing, in addition to, research regarding the directly available resources available to said residents. However, where there is a large amount of quantified data regarding the negative effects of social housing practice on these residents, it seems as though a gap has developed with the creation of past social housing practice and the negative qualitative effects of such programs.
Conclusion
Although other forces may prevent the proposed integration of affordable housing with socio-cultural and economic spaces + districts, the spatial connectivity of housing with socio-cultural centers is extremely important in both creating and maintaining collective identitites, as well as, in developing citizens which both regard themselves as part of a city, as well as, maintain positive self-esteem regarding their place within the context of that city. Overall, the polarization of affordable housing from socio/cultural/economic centers has neither created adequate solutions to the housing problems cities intend to adress, in addition to, creating problems of spatial disconnectivity between citizens within affordable housing developments which inevitably creates a disconnectivity of residents and ideas of individual and collective identities essential to developing and maintaining components of a socio-cultural,economic, and physically sustainable lifestyle. CNU Charter 1996 | “physical solutions by themselves will not solve social and economic problems”...... “but neither can economic vitality, community stability, and environmental health be sustained without a coherent and supportive physical framework”.