Architecture, Hierarchy and Control by Urban Parsons

Architecture, Hierarchy and Control: The Socio-Spatial Manifestations of Neoliberalism in an American University Julia Borowicz Urban Theory Lab May 13, 2014

Columbia University, situated within West Harlem, provides an insightful and intricate site for the investigation of exclusions within space and at multiple scales in the urban context. Such an inquiry reveals complex changing realities, histories and forms of knowledge production and discourse. The evolving role of Columbia Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture and spatial design, from the protected pastoral center (Haar, 2010) to the renegotiated network campus for the knowledgebased economy, serves to signify and solidify hierarchal relations of power between the University and the community at large. Hierarchy and surveillance are further sustained and propagated within a knowledge-based economy under a neoliberal regime as the role of the university in the urban context evolves alongside an emphasis on security and transparency. This paper will explore the relationship between architecture and design, neoliberal urban governance, and various forms of control and surveillance as they impact feelings of (in)security. Here security refers not only to physical and psychological feelings of fear that arise from the presence of a direct, real or perceived, threat but also security in a broader sense of social, political, and economic wellbeing and agency. Columbia University has a long-standing history of complex relations between the institution and the surrounding community. This has played out in the evolving architectural form, from bounded campus to a more integrated network expansion. The most recent expansion reveals highly unequal power relations in which the University has been able to dictate terms of development, slating the community as blighted and setting up a hierarchy between the former light manufacturing uses, supposedly no longer relevant, and the transparent glass campus that elevates the city making it more competitive within the knowledge-economy. The processes and discourses surrounding the expansion will be broken down in order to understand the broad concept of security outlined above and the ways in which neoliberal logic permeates our common-sense understanding of everyday practices that enable such development.

METHODOLOGY The research presented in this paper draws on a variety of existing literature and research and is supported by ethnographic fieldwork, in the form of semi-structured interviews and a survey, in and around the Columbia University campus. The focus of the semi-structured interviews presented in this paper is the University’s most recent expansion plan for Manhattanville. The first interview outlined in the paper, with Steven Gregory, confronts the issues that arise out of the University being in the city and not of the city. Further, it expands Loïc Wacquant’s idea of the Charitable State to that of the Charitable University by tracing the historical relations to the present day realities between Columbia University and the community. The second interview with Mercedes Narciso engages with Eyal Weizman’s concept of Politics of Verticality, through an in depth analysis of the architecture and spatial design elements of the new campus plan. The survey focuses on the existing University campus and seeks to understand the role of its architecture in identity formation and security as it plays out in existing spaces. It looks at students’ perception of the bounded campus, security features in the built form and the factors that affect feelings of (in)security. The research methodology presented in this paper draws on the ethnographic work of Sandra Morgen and Lisa Gonzales in The Neoliberal American Dream as Daydream Counterhegemonic Perspectives on Welfare Restructuring in the United States. In this work, they combine multi-sited, multi-method, collaborative research data and insights from ethnographic fieldwork in local welfare offices, telephone surveys and in-depth, in-person interviews. Morgen and Gonzales “juxtapose the triumphalist neoliberal narrative about welfare ‘reform’ with the different logics, accents and interpretations of welfare ‘reform’ articulated by those whose families, bodies and lives have served as a living laboratory for the adherents of neoliberal public policy” (Morgen & Gonzales 221, 2008). They present the ways in which neoliberalism has seeped into common-sense understandings and practices, while simultaneously revealing, through the nuances and contradictory responses of interview participants, that neoliberalism and its hegemony are not a fait

accompli but rather vulnerable to political contestation (Morgen & Gonzales, 2008). Using a similar method I draw on interview and survey respondents’ statements in order to unpack the complexities of present day expansion practices and common understandings of security. The interview with Mercedes Narciso was the first interview I conducted and revealed my own presuppositions as a researcher and the difficulty of formulating questions that are not leading and open-ended, while providing insightful data. Upon reflection, I was asking the questions I wanted to answer in my paper rather than questions that could tell me something new and help inform my overarching research questions or perhaps more interestingly dispute them. Nonetheless, despite these shortcomings some significant insights did result from the interview that restructured my initial investigative question and hypothesis. My initial hypothesis was that the new expansion reveals a break from the past in terms of planning practices marking a transition to a more integrated campus and one that considers the urban fabric as an asset to the institution of higher education. However, I was apprehensive about the reasons for such integration. Drawing on the work of Steven Gregory and my past research, I saw this as a way to justify expansion under the banner of public good and through the provision of open ‘public’ space while concurrently heightening the community’s visibility to the institution and structures of surveillance. Yet, as suggested by Mercedes Narciso in the interview the new campus plan very much conforms to traditional Columbia planning that produces exclusive space in which integration is more a veneer than a structural shift towards openness and inclusion (Narciso, 2014). Thus, I altered the focus of my investigation to the exploration of the continuous practices of exclusion through outwardly shifting architectural strategies but spatial design and structural forms that maintain a similar level of insularity. In the second interview, with Steven Gregory, I was able to apply some of these reflections, while retaining a level of specificity that resulted from drawing on Gregory’s scholarly work and research on similar questions. Steven Gregory is a Professor of Anthropology and African-American

Studies at Columbia University; as such his responses provide a critical perspective from within the institution. Building off of my previous interview, our discussion pointed to a similar continuity in practices by the University. Steven Gregory asserted that the University should be of the city not just in the city. This means forging different forms of cooperation and collaboration. Its failure to do so has remained a constant. Structuring a survey that generates conclusive or even indicative results proved to be a major challenge. Even after several revisions, the questions yielded little useful data. However, what was more interesting was the interactions with the survey participants as they revealed highly uneven experiences of (in)security as well as a stigma around fear. When I surveyed two students I overheard their discussion of the question: Are there certain areas on or around campus you feel unsafe? Can you describe these areas? The female student identified one of the university buildings as such a space, but after the male student looked over and asked, “you feel unsafe there?” the female student said, “no, you’re right” and crossed out her response. Though only one interaction, this sheds light on the contentious nature of security and fear. In this case the female student identified feeling fear within a university building suggesting her source of fear may be students or other persons on campus. One other female student specifically indicated other students as the source of her feelings of insecurity and identified her race and class as a factor contributing to her experience of space. On the other hand, other students’ responses, and the three males who identified feelings of insecurity, indicated spaces around the campus, predominantly parks – Morningside Heights and Riverside Park– or Amsterdam Ave. Further, in response to: What do you feel can be done to increase your feelings of safety on or around campus? Apart from those who stated, “nothing” and five of which restated, “nothing, I feel secure” and one student who said, “I don’t think there is”, all the other responses involved increasing security personnel or physical security and surveillance measures. Therefore, the survey was ultimately useful in revealing small contradictions and nuances in students’ feelings of safety and security.

I am aware that being a white, heterosexual, female student and researcher must have had some kind of impact on the responses I collected from students. I came to the process with my own privilege as well as positionality, as a student who has a particular interest and stake in questions of security around campus spaces. However, I simultaneously tried to engage with multiple forms of security and insecurity that I may not directly be subject to but am cognizant of. There is the possibility that some students may have felt less comfortable discussing more structural issues of insecurity and perhaps those dealing with ‘white privilege’. Drawing on the work of Laura Pulido, It is necessary to look at the spatiality of racism as well its historical continuities of which white privilege is inherently a part. This, she argues, enables a more structural analysis that recognizes the benefits accrued by white people, their category unmarked, against which all other is measured (Pulido, 2000). Such privilege, a form of racism, coupled with overt and institutionalized racism allows us to understand how places are shaped and how (in)security may be experienced unevenly within them. On the other hand, male students may have also felt less free to discuss their fear. Nonetheless, the varied responses proved insightful and triggered questions for further investigation. It must be noted that there are significant limitations to this data. Only 35 students were surveyed and the questions asked were quite rudimentary. For the future, to start, it could be beneficial to survey an equal number of female and male students, in this case there were 23 female and 12 male respondents, and to include a question about race and ethnicity.

ARCHITECTURE + SPATIAL DESIGN Hierarchy and Imperialism –A Historical Perspective A deep historic connection permeates the relationship between the architecture and design of the American university campus and ideas around the Frontier, American exceptionalism and democracy. Further, such ideas informed planning in the 19th century, as “vacant land” became an integral part of the mission of progress and civilization, in which education became the main

methodology (Haar xxiii, 2010). Inherent to such a vision were discourses about vast open land that equated academic excellence with rural landscapes physically separated from the distraction of the chaotic city (Haar, 2010). In the case of the urban campus, clear walls and gates around the institution, ensured a separation from their context. Campus, the Latin word for field, signals this division, as the grounds of the institution, green and open, are distinct and separate from the urban (Haar, 2010). The university campus serves as an important representation of symbolic relations between academic space and the nation at large, the university is “uniquely postcolonial, serving national interests rather than a particular community” (Haar xxiii, 2010). A romantic view of the campus as a “protected pastoral center” suggests that, “the urban campus and its city are best served when they exclude one another. Toward this end, designers of urban campuses have historically used architecture—walls, gates, towers, orientation of buildings—to distinguish the space occupied by the academic community from that of the surrounding community” (Haar xxv, 2010). Today, as will be explored further in the paper, higher education and the campus take a new form. The university, and by extension the knowledge economy, is inextricably linked to the city and urban revitalization (Haar xxiii, 2010). Taking a closer look at the evolution of the building and design of the Columbia University campus, as well as the mentalities and discourses that informed it, we will see this very evolution play out. Nevertheless, the narrative that informs a clear separation between university and the community and an embedded fear of the city remain an inherent part of Columbia’s operating. This theme arose in the interview with Steven Gregory. He argued that the university should be of the city not just in the city, speaking to a long debated question of the role and responsibility of the higher education institution. This means, “forging different forms of cooperation and collaboration” in which the university adopts a “collaborative rather than charity-based model” (Gregory, 2014). We will return to this theme further in the paper.

As commented by Susan Haar, the historical architecture and spatial design of the university signal two vital connections between land and education: “The first is ‘place’ in the form of the ‘academic village,’ the complete environment for the scholar, student, and the storage of knowledge. The second is the ‘placement’ in the form of an open relationship between the center of the campus and the as-yet-uncharted (by Anglo-Americans) territories of the western frontier.” (Haar xxiii, 2010). These links are steeped in language of conquest and colonial ambitions, imperialism and acquisition, and hierarchical relations between the institution and surrounding environment that will prove a common thread throughout the evolution of the American university to come. There could not have been a more ideal setting for the announcement of plans for the construction of Columbia University atop “Morningside’s Acropolis” than that of the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition (Bergdoll, 1997). The early King’s College campus, originally located in Lower Manhattan, required a much greater lot of land thus pushing it north and finally into a section of West Harlem. This area was to be called Morningside Heights, resulting largely from the efforts of Columbia University (Bergdoll, 1997). The firm of McKim, Mead & White, at the time established as the largest American architectural firm, was commissioned to design the bounded campus, spatially and logistically serving to distinguish and protect it from the city and its immediate surrounding environment. The goal was to create a university worthy of national attention, the discourse of civic duty, public good and imposing architectural effect were inherently embedded in this vision (Bergdoll, 1997).

An Exploration Of Urban Renewal Through the Lens of Race, Class And Privilege

In the early days of the University’s presence in Morningside Heights, this vision was not at odds with the surrounding largely middle-class neighborhood. However, following WWII with federal legislation that introduced low-interest mortgages, middle-class flight to the suburbs ensued

(Marcuse & Cuz, 2005). Subsequently, with the high vacancy, African Americans and Puerto Ricans began settling in the area, along with “undesirable” elements. The neighborhood began to show growing signs of deterioration and housed an increasing number of SROs –single room occupancy buildings (Marcuse & Cuz, 2005). In order to control the new developments in the neighborhood, in 1947 the institutions in the area came together to form the Morningside Alliance Inc. As noted by Marcuse and Cuz their main objective was to halt the “encroachment of Harlem” through upgrades and slum clearance programs (Marcuse & Cuz, 2005). As such the University, supported by federal funding provisions, followed the detrimental urban planning logic of the day. Beginning in the 1950s and escalating in the 1960s Columbia University aggressively purchased buildings to enable its expansion, engaging in large-scale clearance and demolition (Marcuse & Cuz, 2005). Tensions between the community and the institution were soon to escalate. As such revealing today’s plan is built on a long history of dispossession, expansion and conflict. The actions taken by the University resulted in major community backlash as well as student protests. Columbia’s announcement of plans to build a gymnasium in Morningside Heights park, a local park used by the community and cherished as one of the few park spaces, heightened tensions and ever more clearly revealed issues around spatial control, land ownership and white privilege (Bradley, 2009). This ultimately culminated with the 1968 student riots, which remain a dark moment in the University’s history. As noted by Daphne Eviator in a New York Times article, “the standoff ended in bloodshed: police stormed the buildings, beating and arresting students. Nearly 200 were injured” (Eviator, 2006). This signaled a shift in the university’s approach to planning in the years to come and its tactics in dealing with the surrounding community. However, with the new expansion plan it is questionable whether any real shift, has actually taken place. As asserted by Stefan M. Bradley, “race and power are two key elements in the narrative of American history, and they are even more important to the story of Columbia University’s student revolt” (Bradley 1, 2009). In order to understand the historical actions taken by the university and

the continuing dynamics between Columbia and the West Harlem community, it is key to recognize the important role that race and class relations have in producing lived urban topographies. As explored by Cindi Katz, the work of topography is instrumental for providing the ground for a critique of relations that exist in spaces while also analyzing the material social relations at a variety of scales through which place is produced. Topography reveals the intersection of social and material processes and effectively situates the local experiences of individuals in specific places, while examining the context-specific continuously changing histories, realities and relations (Katz, 2001). Further, “revealing the embeddedness of these practices in place and space in turn invites the vivid revelation of social and political difference and inequality” (Katz 1228, 2001). Looking once again to Columbia’s planned gymnasium in Morningside Heights Park, rooted in the urban renewal movement, “officials believed that they had the right to use whatever land the university could afford to buy in order to improve the aesthetics and appeal of the school to current and potential students” (Bradley 1, 2009). Further, “the university assumed that the neighboring communities, mostly black and Puerto Rican, did not have the power to stop Columbia. This last belief was based on several premises, including paternalism, white privilege and class privilege” (Bradley 1, 2009). Land, ownership and race arise as important elements in the relations between the University and community. “Because of Columbia’s power and prestige in American society, many university officials did not see the need to respect the idea of ownership that black people in the nearby neighborhoods believed was so important to their survival and advancement in the United States” (Bradley 2, 2009). This kind of thought permeates Columbia’s present day expansion practices. Thus existing urban topographies must be understood in terms of historical tensions that trace back to these kinds of ideologies. With the recognition that owning land granted one greater power to affect social change, and already denied the right to choose where, Harlem’s black population protested the encroachment of a white institution and only through this lens can one begin to understand the evolving conflictual relations.

Coming back to the notion of the University being in and not of the city also manifests in its ‘charitable’ approach towards the community, revealing another articulation of the hierarchical relations. A distinct and separate built form mirrors the distance in the University’s actions and discourse. These attitudes and practices are aligned with Loïc Wacquant’s conception of the charitable state. Under such an order, poverty is understood as the result of individual failings and the state and society take on a role of moral sympathy towards ‘deserving’ poor (Wacquant, 2005). Thus, any action taken to directly serve the community is seen as an allowance or act of charity rather than a right.

ARCHITECTURE + SPATIAL DESIGN + NEOLIBERALISM Current Day Practices and the Spatial Manifestations of Neoliberalism

The most recent expansion reveals highly unequal power relations in which the University has been able to unilaterally dictate terms of development. In this section an analysis of the role of the university in a knowledge-economy, with a focus on transparency, under a neoliberal urban regime will serve to provide a framework for understanding the highly unequal power relations between the University and the community. Further, it will look at the spatial manifestations of such a regime and the ways in which its discourse becomes embedded in architecture and spatial design. Informed by present day knowledge systems and popular planning discourse, Columbia’s plan for expansion involves the development of a 17-acre site north of the present Morningside Heights campus. It consists of the four large blocks from 129th to 133rd Streets between Broadway and Twelfth Avenue, including the north side of 125th Street, as well as three properties on the east side of Broadway from 131st to 134th Streets.

Columbia’s comprehensive plan, according to the Columbia University Manhattanville in West Harlem—Neighbors site: “Limited to these blocks, moves away from past ad-hoc growth of University buildings. Gradually over the next quarter-century, this carefully considered, transparent, and predictable plan will create a new kind of urban academic environment that will be woven into the fabric of the surrounding community” (Neighbors, 2014). No longer conforming to 19th century ideas around a bounded campus, separated by walls and gates, the current sought after campus form envisions an integrated academic space that is open and transparent. Whether the architectural renderings in actuality represent a built form that is more interwoven and, outside of its physicality, more open to the community, serving the purpose it states will be further explored. However, the discourse clearly shows the University’s desire to separate itself from past practices and minimizing its impacts on the community. Further, language used such as gradual, carefully considered, transparent and predictable narrates the development to fit with common-sense neoliberal understandings of accountability and transparency. Common-sense neoliberalism refers to the ways in which neoliberalism has become an all-pervasive mode of operating and a hegemonic mode of discourse, as will be developed below. Further the University goes on to state, “this kind of smart growth will not only generate thousands of new local jobs for a diversity of people, but also result in maintaining Upper Manhattan as a world center for knowledge, creativity, and solutions for society’s challenges” (Neighbors, 2014). The University was granted the authority to implement its comprehensive plan and determine that the streetscapes in Manhattanville are no longer relevant precisely because of the framing of the issue at hand and solutions posed by Columbia that fit neatly within neoliberal urban development strategies. This also indicates the University’s increasingly important role in the new knowledge-economy and its position as a key player in urban development. As argued by Steven Gregory: “this discourse of transparency—framed as a solution to urban blight—served to elide the asymmetrical power relations than underpin urban land use decisions and, as a result,

masked the social consequences of elite-driven development policies” (Gregory 49, 2013). This raises some important questions. First, who is served by such “elite-driven development policies”? What is the responsibility of the university to the community, the city and the nation at large? How is a private institution able to use eminent domain and frame its actions within the discourse of public good? And finally, how do we then proceed to define public good? Gregory goes on to state that critically examining these discourses and their ensuing economic and political practices “can shed light on the spatial ideologies that are mobilized to support neoliberal development strategies.” Further, the same as “economic neoliberalism imagines “free” markets unencumbered by state regulation, this discourse of transparency evoked a spatial economy unencumbered by history; that is, by the spatialized interests, practices and struggles of the past” (Gregory 50, 2013). Thus, with such a selective reading of past histories and lived realities, it is not surprising that the University saw its role as a key driver in regional innovation and economic growth as necessitating and justifying large-scale campus expansion and potential negative effects on community. As indicated above, the narrative espoused by the University fits within common-sense neoliberal thought. As David Harvey explains, neoliberalism has become the dominant mode of operating that is creeping into every scale of existence; “it has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world” (Harvey 3, 2005). Further, Harvey argues that beginning in the 1970s through examining the daily-lived experiences we begin to witness how neoliberalism “penetrated ‘common-sense’ understandings” (Harvey 41, 2005). This also saw City government constructed as “an entrepreneurial rather than a social democratic or even managerial entity. Inter-urban competition for investment capital transformed government into urban governance through public–private partnerships” (Harvey 47, 2005). Despite the fact that the theoretical underpinnings of neoliberalism are not wholly consistent

or clear, it is important to understand its contradictions. As Harvey explains, “the scientific rigour of its neoclassical economics does not sit easily with its political commitment to ideals of individual freedom, nor does its supposed distrust of all state power fit with the need for a strong and if necessary coercive state that will defend the rights of private property, individual liberties, and entrepreneurial freedoms” (Harvey 21, 2005). Such focus on entrepreneurial freedom is evident in the role the university plays within urban governance. Universities increasingly participate in the redevelopment of urban spaces and become more and more integrated with the economic viability of the city. Further, as universities are deemed vital to the new knowledge economy (Haar, 2010), the expansion of their campuses and particularly of their research institutions, considered of great importance to a city’s competitiveness, become wrapped up in corporate funding and entrepreneurial strategies for development. As stated by Richard Florida, who developed the notion of creative cities, and whose work is largely representative of present day urban planning knowledge and discourse, “research universities increasingly function as a key hub institution of the knowledge economy” (Florida, 2010). This has prompted the creation of yet another evaluation of competitive and successful cities. In this case, charting the locations of the world’s leading 500 research universities by the city and metro region where they are located (Florida, 2010). These kinds of ideas and discourse not only generate a landscape of winners and losers between cities but also within them with rising inequality, displacement and gentrification. Thus, as cited earlier, the University’s appeal to creativity and the knowledge economy allowed for such a major university expansion to take place. Further, as explored by Gregory, it “made it possible for Columbia to construct the public good in abstract and future oriented terms …while ignoring, if not discounting the needs and aspirations of surrounding communities. Ultimately, before the courts, public officials and much of the public, the appeal to the knowledge economy provided justification for the exercise of eminent domain” (Gregory 56, 2013). Wrapped

up in the discussion of eminent domain were ideas of obsolescence of present uses, as well as anxieties around opacity, blocked streets, obscure and illegible built form (Gregory, 2013). This reveals, states Gregory, a modernist preoccupation with transparency, civilization and progress.

Manifestations of Control in Architecture and Spatial Design Transparency is an important tool utilized by the University both through drawing on the discourse of transparency and openness, in its planning, as well as through use of glass in the design and architecture of the new campus (Gregory, 2013). As further explained by Steven Gregory in an interview conducted for this paper, there exists a long-standing fascination with transparency. It was believed to enable democracy and glass architecture to promote an open public sphere. This discourse of transparency, he argues, was appropriated and used by Columbia (Gregory, 2014). Using the veneer of transparent architecture, Columbia assures, as part of the stated goals, that the new expansion will create a more open and accessible campus to the residents and community of Harlem. Even though the campus is private, it will be much more inviting. Moreover, public plazas are somehow supposed to attract a wide range of visitors (Gregory, 2014). Yet, as Steven Gregory argues, this has been proved to be a “sham” wherever constructed – a part of private developer construction (Gregory, 2014). Further, such ideas of transparency represent Columbia University’s desire for what Gregory calls a “utopian ideal of community” (Gregory 58, 2013). Drawing on the work of Iris Young, Gregory states that the “ideal of transparency and the more strategic claim that glass architecture would “look and feel open” to residents of Harlem and elsewhere not only privileged vision as a way of comprehending the world, but also elided the complex, historically constituted relations of power that existed between the university and its surrounding neighborhoods” (Gregory 59, 2013).

Further, expanding on Foucault, and taking into account asymmetrical power relations, Gregory continues stating that, “like Bentham’s quest for universal transparency through the carceral Panopticon, the glass campus would render the street and public space more vulnerable to surveillance than the research laboratories housed inside” (Gregory 59, 2013). Such an analysis prompts questions around fear, the emergence of glass architecture in the 20th century, and its increasing prevalence today (McQuire, 2003). It is a means of restructuring our relationship with that which is inside and that which is outside (McQuire, 2003). Reflective of more than just physical design, glass is a personal, social, psychological and political manifestation of our society (McQuire, 2003). What is the significance of glass in the context of Columbia University’s architecture? Columbia University situated in Harlem? Columbia University as a representation of larger relationship to the community, city and nation in a global context? What is the role of glass in an institution of higher education in the 21st century? What is its actual relationship with transparency in a highly complex and nuanced urban context? What is important to understand, is that “far from welcoming social differences, this will to transparency ‘represses the ontological difference of subjects,’ as Iris Young put it, discounting asymmetries in the effects of visibility between those who exercise power and those who are subject to its gaze” (Gregory 59, 2013). Another way in which Columbia exerts power over the space in Manhattanville is through the control of the layers of space below ground. This issue arose in an interview conducted with Mercedes Narciso of the Pratt Institute, hired by Community Board 9 (CB9) to assist with their plan for Manhattanville, 197-A plan. Though the campus plan appears more open and does maintain an east/west corridor and, supposedly, free circulation, Mercedes Narciso stated that a major concern is the 7-storey bunker that Columbia is building below ground (Narciso, 2014). The purpose of the bunker, or ‘bathtub’ as referred to by Columbia, is to hide the facility's more noxious needs, including parking, loading docks and energy equipment. Its planned height reaches approximately

seven levels below ground totaling about 2 million square feet, and extends 12 square blocks along the Hudson River from Broadway to the West Side Highway, and from 125th Street to 133rd Street. In addition to issues around storm surge flooding and the location of the bathtub in Manhattan Hurricane Evacuation Zone C, as well as environmental concerns and charges of environmental racism –heightened environmental impacts based on racism, (Philippidis , 2008), Mercedes Narciso raised the issue of land ownership and control. Once Columbia has ownership of the basement, they have control above ground and the concern arises over streets being closed in the future (Narciso, 2014). Thus, the impacts of architecture and spatial design are revealed, exposing the ways in which they can serve to heighten power and control. Eyal Weizman’s analysis of politics of verticality shines important light on the political and spatial facets of Columbia’s expansion plan. He explains this concept through an analysis of the Occupied Territories. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, architecture and planning have played a key strategic role in the conflict. The landscape and built environment has become the “arena of conflict” (Weizman, 2002). Further, “Occupied Territories were no longer seen as a two-dimensional surface, but as a large three dimensional volume, layered with strategic, religious and political strata” (Weizman, 2002). Palestine was given control over isolated “territorial islands” under the Oslo Interim Accord, while Israel maintained control over airspace above the land and the sub-terrain beneath (Weizman, 2002). This spatial and political landscape is what Eyal Weizman refers to as the politics of verticality. Further, it is not simply occurring within an isolated space, as a result of isolated political decisions or decision makers, but rather must be understood as “a set of ideas, policies, projects and regulations proposed by Israeli state-technocrats, generals, archaeologists, planners and road engineers since the occupation of the West Bank, severing the territory into different, discontinuous layers” (Weizman, 2002). Such a complex case study illustrates that divisions in space are not necessarily evident, manifest on a linear plane, nor fixed. Rather, power is exerted in a nuanced and flexible manner that extends its efficacy and reign both

spatially and temporally. Thus, returning to the initial analysis of the evolution of the bounded campus to the more integrated network expansion we see how the outward visible spatial manifestation of the new campus plan displays the veneer of evolving thought and practice but a deeper analysis reveals the continued practice of enclosure and control. Therefore, as expressed by Mercedes Narciso, “above ground may be free, but below ground is all Columbia” (Narciso, 2014). Huge infrastructure underground connects the entire campus and transposes operations underground–in a sense, replicating the former bounded campus (Narciso, 2014).

ARCHITECTURE + SPATIAL DESIGN + SECURITY Reordering the State and Reframing the Notion of Security Exploring architecture and spatial design sheds important light on mechanisms of control and surveillance. It also signifies specific understandings or security and insecurity, those responsible for the securitization of space and those subject to it, as well as its function of exclusion. This section will provide a frame for understanding heightened desire for security and the penal order that manifests, second it will provide a broader conception of security within the context of Columbia University and the West Harlem community, and finally explore the power and limits of architecture. Loïc Wacquant, in Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity, presents a closer examination of the law and order regime under neoliberalism. Here, the rollout of the penal state proves to be one of the major structural manifestations of the restructured yet very much present state. It acts to distort reality to the point that is grotesque and removes crime and delinquency from broader societal realities, stripping it of actual cause and meaning (Wacquant, 2005). At once it “appeases and feeds the fantasies of order” (Wacquant xiii, 2005). This order is not limited to a single party or ideology, rather, its increasingly all-pervasiveness has meant the realization of the penal state (Wacquant, 2005). The reasons for this are linked to growing social

and mental insecurity, the prison serving as an articulation and signification of power, hierarchy and control, and the fusing of inequality, identity and domination. It thus contains masses of working class and dispossessed, ensuring subjugation and preservation of the status quo, while simultaneously distinguishing between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor (Wacquant, 2005). What is paradoxical about the neoliberal state is the perception of retrenchment, the stepping back from the socio-economic responsibility of the state, in the name of a free market, alongside the reassertion of its presence and ‘heavy-handedness’ in law an order (Wacquant, 2005). Wacquant also importantly reconfigures the notion of welfare state as that of a charitable state, the goal of which is not solidarity but compassion, not the reduction of inequality but rather the diminishing of its glaring appearance through the charity of a sympathetic society. The shrinkage of the charitable state and social services, particularly in poor urban neighborhoods, leads to stigmatization and demarcation of ‘undesirable’ citizens laying the groundwork for the articulation and materialization of the penal state. “Rather than of a welfare state, one should speak here of a charitable state inasmuch as the programs aimed at vulnerable populations have at all times been limited, fragmentary, and isolated from other state activities, informed as they are by a moralistic and moralizing conception of poverty as a product of the individual failings of the poor. The guiding principle of public action in this domain is … to demonstrate society’s moral sympathy for its deprived yet deserving members” (Wacquant 42, 2009). Thus, considering notions of security within the present context and the ways in which they are shaped, and directly result from, historical understandings and practices, allows for a more complete understanding of (in)security. Looking first at security in terms of social, economic and political security, wellbeing, and agency reveals the problematic assertion made by Columbia that presupposed deindustrialization and that industrialization is dead (Gregory, 2014). These discourses serve to drown out everyday narratives of harassment, uprooting, and displacement (Gregory, 2014). The neighborhood conditions study, commissioned by Columbia, described and

made the determination that the neighborhood is blighted, basing a case on the physical built environment, without talking to people or looking at the social. As such, privileging the visual at the expense of the social, as they ways in which people actually use space doesn’t concur with elite conceptions and use of space (Gregory, 2014). The force of the neoliberal narrative is evident here as Gregory notes, everyone chimed in, politicians, elected officials, planners, council, and developers (Gregory, 2014). Returning to the importance of race and class in understanding the past and present structures and practices embedded within Columbia University and its relations with the community, serves to highlight common-sense understandings of security. The survey conducted for this paper on security and the social, spatial and political role of architecture reveals that a common-sense understanding of physical security and securitization of space pervades the space of Columbia campus as we have seen above and is effectively projected on the students’ responses. Nearly every participant, all but two, believed that the bounded campus has a beneficial role in facilitating a space of education and learning. All but one participant thought the bounded campus had a positive role in terms of creating a distinct campus identity. Further, in response to a question on the role served by the bounded campus –in which a list of functions were provided –the most cited, 29 out of 35 responses, was safety/security. In response to: which of these do you personally believe to be an important function of the bounded campus 19 said safety/security. More frequently evoked were community, 21, and identity, 20. In response to what can be done to increase your feelings of safety on or around campus? 16 participants said nothing can be done, 10 identified some measures, as follows. “Blue light system”, “More nighttime security on Amsterdam”, “More light at night”, “More light”, “More booths along Riverside”, “More security guards around campus at night”, “Public safety presence”, “More public safety officers at night”, “Guards at each gate”.

Excerpts from one survey however, reveal a very different understanding of security and highlight the key role that race and class play to complicate common-sense perceptions of (in)security: The certain areas that make me feel unsafe are spaces like Lemes, mostly because I define safety in terms of people’s actions and intention (as a poor working class woman of color) I have to deal with a lot of micro-aggression in common spaces. These spaces are small with a lot of people. As stated earlier, when discussing the notion of security it is fundamental to recognize the multifaceted implications and understandings of the term and critically look at positionality and intersectionality. Thus, such an approach acknowledges that race, class, gender, and other axes of stratification, intersect in ways that are simultaneous, interlocking and mutually constitutive (Mullings, 2005). Thus, oppression and varying experiences of (in)security of individuals and groups must be understood in such a way. Looking at present day security practices through a historical lens reveals shocking continuities. As stated by the student above, race and class continue to shape students’ experiences within university space. My feelings of safety have more to do with (undergrad) students rather than spaces. (ie. Heard about all the sexual assault cases). But occasionally, my friends and I will get stopped by public safety and asked if we attend the school (we are black and Latino). Thus, a source of security for some is a source of insecurity for others. This experience is not dissimilar to what Bradley describes in the 1960s. “Black students who chose to attend Columbia faced certain trials while on campus. For instance, they were regularly stopped by the security guards (sometimes black) to have their identification checked while most white students were not stopped” (Bradley 10, 2009). Thus, once again an intersectional approach is critical, as well as an analysis that takes into consideration the historical realities and recognizes present practices as a continuum rather than an isolated instantiation of oppression.

Securitization and Exclusion In response to an interview question on the role of architecture and spatial design in contributing to feelings of (in)security in the case of the new University campus, Gregory stated that powerful security is promoted through presence of people, diversity and “eyes on the street” (Gregory, 2014). The Morningside Heights campus beginning in 1880s, he goes on to explain, was seen as a project of building the American Acropolis –a fortified, citadel. The 1950s urban renewal was an important part of this creating this citadel. Further, the area between 116th St. to 123rd St. on Broadway is completely deserted, as there is no reason for people to be there. Such single use created one of most dangerous spaces (Gregory, 2014). Thus, Gregory argues that though the University often cites security, “they ended up shooting themselves in the foot”. If they had thought of what makes space safe in the first place –mixed-use spaces and the presence of a diversity of people –the University could have avoided the need for such security measures in the first place (Gregory, 2014). The new campus all owned by Columbia falls prey to similar thought and thus ramifications. After 9pm will be a completely deserted no person’s land, and “that’s the price you pay” stated Gregory (Gregory, 2014). Further, this reaffirms Gregory’s contention that Columbia is not unique, but consistent with past practices, of being in the city and not of the city (Gregory, 2014). This pattern, he argues, is reinforced by revenue as the University can sell the campus as seemingly secure to parents. It is also part of dominant ideology that has governed decisions on what a good university needs. Moreover, such practices are driven by real estate, security interests, and the historical ideology described above that advocates for the University as apart from the messy city –Cartesian focus, removed from physical constraints of the body (Gregory, 2014). Looking at the question of the integration of passive security into architecture form, Steven Gregory suggests that architecture matters in that it “enables and disables use of space” (Gregory, 2014). However, there are limits to which architecture can address more complicated social issues (Gregory, 2014). Looking more closely at specific architectural styles and the particularities of

spatial design, Gregory references a new building on 122nd St. and Broadway that makes no effort to integrate physically or socially into the neighborhood or surroundings. Silver and huge, it doesn’t even gesture to surrounding community, giving the community no reason to identify with it. This he suggests exposes the architectural statement of who is in charge (Gregory, 2014). Moreover, in terms of spatial design, Gregory states, the University buildings on Broadway either have no entrance on Broadway or are not used, turning their back to the main artery (Gregory, 2014). This decision is made within the discourse of security (Gregory, 2014) and exerts meaning in terms of signaling who belongs in these spaces. There are, however, limits to architecture as commented by Gregory. In an analysis of spatial and discursive practices we need to take into account: who is there, who are the actors, who has power, what forces are present (Gregory, 2014). Further, thinking temporally and looking at historical practices by the University enables a deeper understanding of present realities that reflect a continuum of highly unequal relations and exclusion. As Gregory describes, a revealing moment in history that sparks numerous questions are the events around a plan put together in 1960s by an architect at Columbia, Percival Goodman, for the exact same footprint as the expanded Morningside Heights campus but a very different conception for the space –public housing, black history and culture museum, black labour union involvement. Yet the plan was squashed –why? (Gregory, 2014) This was a historical opportunity where such a plan could have been realized. Percival Goodman was one of the most renowned architects there at the time not some marginal figure –what happened? (Gregory, 2014) Today, Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, denied that there were any alternative plans. Yet, CB9 came out with an alternative plan for a Manhattanville, and even earlier the city made a plan that was quietly put aside once Columbia came out with their plan. Thus, as argued by Gregory, there have been real alternative ways that would have made Columbia more integrated with the city (Gregory, 2014). The key now is to track the community benefits agreement.

The community benefits agreement allocates a small proportion in cash and the majority is in-kind, technical assistance (Gregory, 2014). Thus, Gregory reasserts that a lot of it is charity, going back to 19th century practices. This is informed by the kind of thinking that suggests: “You don’t know what you need. This is what you need” (Gregory, 2014). According to Jeff Mays, “Community Board 9 wants the state to investigate whether Columbia University is keeping its promises under the community benefits agreement it signed as part of a $6.3 billion campus expansion into West Harlem” (Mays, 2013). The question for further investigation is what has actually taken place to date? Four years later –this will say a lot about what it was intended to be (Gregory, 2014). It will also be telling in terms of a continuously evolving relationship between the University and the community. FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION A closer investigation into the community benefits agreement as well as appeals made by the community could allow a deeper understanding of the institution’s potential for a shift from charitable to a collaborative relationship. Additionally, a further exploration of the alternative plans such as CB9’s 197-A plan and the more historic alternative developed by Percival Goodman both shed light on differing ways in which architecture and spatial design can offer emancipatory and more equitable forms of organizing space and relations within it. For a further investigation of security and the ways in which need for heightened security and policing is constructed, the “Broken Windows” theory, coined by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in the 1980s, is a useful framework for further understanding discourses and practices around security. The theory is based on the presumption that crime and disorder are intrinsically related to one another and suggests that visual signs of disorder and neglect will produce higher rates of crime (Modley, 2009). This theory is so prevalent that it has largely seeped into our societal sub-consciousness and is rarely questioned despite research revealing no empirical support for its policing strategies (Modley, 2009).

The theory serves to heighten and legitimize borders between groups as “social divisions between rich and poor, black and white, educated and uneducated are being transposed on to the very geography of different places. Herbert and Brown demonstrate the ways in which the Broken Windows theory helps to reinforce and legitimize social and spatialized exclusion, which in turn support the hyper-punitive nature of Broken Windows policies” (Modley 119, 2009). As argued by Modley, “the creation of boundaries between safe and unsafe areas is inherently problematic because of the exclusionary practices which it fosters” (Modley 124, 2009). Further, “the spatial manifestation of fear contributes to the entrenchment and reproduction of institutions of power which privilege one class of citizens over another” (Modley 122, 2009). As found by Modley, in a study conducted on college students and the geography of fear, this produces “a spatial ‘otherness’ and, simultaneously, a racial/economic ‘Other’ ” (Modley 124, 2009). Some additional reading that shine light on difference, fear and security are Gill Valentine’s Living With Difference: Reflections On Geographies Of Encounter and Katharyne Mitchell and Katherine Beckett’s Securing the Global City: Crime, Consulting, Risk, and Ratings in the Production of Urban Space. Such findings are relevant more broadly and perhaps can provide insight on issues of security and the production of fear in the context of Columbia University. Borders, both physical, erected through walls and gates and more subtle borders created through discourse, planning and socio-political actions are all relevant here in consolidating difference and thus also in producing fear and surveillance. The role of planning theories such as Florida’s Creative Cities and the production of spaces for a competitive knowledge-based economy that privilege certain populations and does not question hyper-punitive measures in place to protect them nor mitigate the harmful effects of heightened inequality and urban landscapes of stark divisions they produce, needs to be questioned.

Despite the abundance of literature on individual issues of first, architecture, institutions of higher education and hierarchy, second, the knowledge economy, spatial design and neoliberalism, and third, architecture, security and fear, there is very little discussion, Steven Gregoryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s piece being a notable exception, on how these are intensely interrelated, dependent and generative of one another. The research conducted here has aimed to spark greater discussion in this area and provoke a more nuanced analysis. The evolving role of Columbia Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture and spatial design, from overtly bounded space to more concealed spatial practices of exclusion and boundary formation, serves to signify and solidify hierarchal relations of power between the University and the community at large. Hierarchy and surveillance are further sustained and propagated within a knowledge-based economy under a neoliberal regime as the role of the university in the urban context evolves alongside an emphasis on security and transparency. This paper has shown that architecture and design, neoliberal urban governance, and various forms of control and surveillance all come together to impact feelings of (in)security in ways that overlap and are mutually constitutive. In addition, security, as has been seen, is experienced in highly nuanced and subjective ways. Such an understanding is not reflected in constructs that foster commonsense understandings and desires for heighted physical security and control measures in place in Columbiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s present and planned campus. Such narrow understandings of (in)security are not limited to the University but rather are symptomatic of broader societal trends. Thus, it is imperative that we begin to deconstruct common-sense neoliberal thought that has contributed to a fragmentation of knowledge, spatial practices and human relations and begin to seriously seek out alternative spatial design practices and urban topographies that breakdown hierarchical orderings of spaces and people.

APPENDIX Interview One: Mercedes Narciso 1. How did you get involved with CB9? 2. What was your impression of the Columbia Expansion Plan? How did this change over the course of your work with the community? 3. What do you see as the role/responsibility of the university to the community? How is this different from its role within the city and the nation? 4. What do you think of the architectural renderings of the new campus buildings and campus spaces? Do you think it effectively integrates into existing fabric as stated in planning goals? 5. Do you support this type of more ‘integrated’ planning? Will it be more inclusive? Does it mark a break from the past when the campus was very separate from the surrounding community? 6. What is missing in popular narratives around expansion?

Interview Two: Steven Gregory 1. What do you see as the role of the university in terms of its relationship with its surrounding community, the city and the nation? 2. How does the university’s expansion plan fit into this narrative (of the role of the university)? And more specifically, within the frame of what you indicate as neoliberal development strategies and discourses of the city’s postindustrial future? 3. In your paper you explore the relations between glass architecture, transparency and asymmetrical power relations, could you please speak more to this ideal of transparency and utopian ideal of community? 4. What is the relationship between the more integrated and open campus and security and surveillance? (Panopticon) 5. How is this related to fear? What role does architecture and spatial design have in feelings of (in)security in the case of the new university campus? 6. Do you think the new plan represents an evolution in university expansion practices and relations with the community? 7. How do do you balance being a professor at Columbia but also challenging them, what have been the internal tensions on different visions? What do you consider an inclusive campus? What would have been a better process? 8. Is there contemporary architecture that does not integrate this concept of passive security?

Survey: The Evolving Role of Campus Architecture and Its Social, Spatial and Political Dimensions 1.Which do you identify with most: 1. The University/campus 2. The neighborhood/Harlem 3. New York 4. Other 2.How is this identity either 1. reinforced or 2. hindered by the physical layout and architecture of the University? (Circle one) 3.Do you believe that the bounded campus has a beneficial role in facilitating a space of education and learning? 1. Yes 2. No 4. Do you see the bounded campus as positive in terms of creating a distinct campus identity? 1. Yes 2. No 5. The bounded campus serves (circle applicable): Safety/Security

Distinction

Identity

Prestige

Community

Brand

6.Which of these do you personally believe to be an important function of the bounded campus (circle applicable): Safety/Security

Distinction

Identity

Prestige

Community

Brand

7. Do you feel safe on campus? 1. Yes 2. No 8. Does the University do a good job in terms of facilitating a feeling of safety? 1. Yes 2. No In a sentence or twoâ&#x20AC;Ś 9. What is your favorite outdoor spot on campus, and why? 10. Are there certain areas on or around campus you feel unsafe? Can you describe these areas? 11. What do you feel can be done to increase your feelings of safety on or around campus? 12. How do you feel about the new, more open and integrated plan for Manhattanville, and why?

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Bergdoll, Barry and Haswell, Holle and Parks, Janet and Low Memorial Library & McKim, Mead & White Mastering McKim’s plan: Columbia’s first century on Morningside Heights. Miriam and Ira Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, 1997. Borowicz, J. & Gregory, S. (2014) Interview with Steven Gregory Borowicz, J. & Narciso, M. (2014) Interview with Mercedes Narciso Bradley, Stefan M. Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s, Champaign, IL, USA: University of Illinois Press, 08/2009 Eviatar, Daphne (2006) ‘The Manhattanville Project,’ The New York Times 21 May 2006 [online] Last Accessed. 24 March 2014 Florida, Richard “Where the World’s Brains Are” Creative Class 19 October 2010 [online] Gregory, Steven. “The Radiant University: Space, Urban Redevelopment, and the Public Good” City & Society, Vol. 25, Issue 1, (2013): 47–69 Haar, Susan. City as Campus. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, 2005 “Manhattanville in West Harlem: Welcome” Columbia University Manhattanville in West Harlem— Neighbors Web. 24 March 2014 Marcuse, Peter and Potter Cuz. “Columbia University’s Heights: An Ivory Tower and Its Communities.” In University As Urban Developer: Case Studies and Analysis, edited by David C. Perry and Wim Wiewel, 45-64. Armonk, NY, USA: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2005 Mays, Jeff (2013) “CB9 Calls for Audit of Columbia's Promises to West Harlem Community” DNAinfo New York 22 March 2013 [online] Last Accessed 03 May 2014 McQuire, Scott “The Street”. In The Scenes of the Street and Other Essays. Anthony Vidler, ed. Pp. New York: Random House, 1920 Modley, Alexandra R. “Geography of Fear: Understanding Students’ Sense of Place” Chrestomathy, Vol. 8 (2009): 115-146 Morgen, Sandra and Gonzales, Lisa. “The Neoliberal American Dream as Daydream: Perspectives on Welfare Restructuring in the United States” Critique of Anthropology 2008 28: 219 Mullings, Leith “Resistance And Resilience: The Sojourner Syndrome And The Social Context Of Reproduction in Central Harlem” Transforming Anthropology Oct 2005; 13: 2 Philippidis, Alex (2008) “NYC Businesses Sue Columbia, City to Quash School’s 17-Acre Expansion Plan” Genomeweb 31 March 2008 [online] Last Accessed 03 May 2014

Pulido, Laura “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2000 90(1), 12-40. Wacquant, Loïc. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government Of Social Insecurity, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009 Weizman, Eyal (2002) “Politics of Verticality” openDemocracy 24 April 2002 [online] Last Accessed 27 April 2014