Author: lrp339

The chapter on Loisaida by Nandini Bagchee and the essay by Bill Weinberg helped solidify the histories and concepts we were introduced to by the Weinberg himself on our trip to the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space. The in-depth historical background given by Bagchee was nicely contextualized by my experiences seeing many of the actual locations described in the text. After reading these texts, I have all the more appreciation and respect for the way the social/cultural reclamation of this section of the Lower East Side by the Puerto Rican community has been preserved through the years.

I think could be reasonably difficult for some to understand the purpose of protecting an empty lot-turned-community garden from speculation and development. The gardens could be perceived as a relic of a nearly unimaginable time when land in the Lower East Side was once considered undesirable. When one looks into the history, however, the symbolism behind the gardens becomes clearer; the area is an example of what Bagchee terms “property as resistance.” The neighborhood has always been, as phrased in the chapter, a stepping stone to a better life for immigrant families. The employment, housing and education crisis of the 1970s encouraged activism in the community, especially giving new agency to the large Puerto Rican community, who renamed part of the neighborhood Loisaida. The community, helped by groups such as AAD and CHARAS, planted gardens in vacant lots, and turned tenements into cooperative housing. Ultimately their movement encompassed the reclamation of public spaces that had been abandoned, “piecing together a fragmented city scape with acts of public participation.” I was moved to read about the artistic community that arose out of this movement, especially around El Bohio (the reclaimed old schoolhouse that served as a community center). Loisaida represents the powerful ties between land and community; by reshaping the land into purposeful public spaces, the public became engaged in the art and activism of and for their community.

Weinberg’s frustration with the government’s overall dismissal of the community history is palpable in “Viva Loisaida Libre.” He expresses his dismay at the privatization of public spaces by private administration and heavy policing that is “antithetical to this vision”– a vision that not only represents the ideals of the grassroots DIY ethic, hard work, and de-commodification of labor that Loisaida supported, but Weinberg’s vision of public spaces. He describes public spaces like parks to be neighborhood meeting places where, when necessary, “forums for free speech and protest” are “available to anyone, regardless of income or social status.” I wanted to note in this post that Weinberg mentions the privatization of part of the East River Park, which is relevant to my project on the East River Coastal Resiliency project–recently, there has been community backlash against the developers, who initially planned the construction around the park with community members. Community plans were thrown out behind their backs, their input ultimately ignored–the East River Park is now set to be buried under a landfill, with a new park build atop it. I can imagine the disrespect a community member might feel from the city when their voices, arguably the most important voices in cases regarding their community, are not listened to.

Weinberg also mourns the social-cultural losses he has seen firsthand, describing something that I have noticed before but have been thus far unable to articulate: “It is not a city of neighborhoods and working people,” he claims, and goes further to say that cities like New York are now “merely centers for elite global management and electronic paperwork.” The turn of events in the community was something that I recall even Mr. Weinberg saying to have been unable to foresee, summarized in a sentence by Bagchee that I found particularly enlightening: “Whereas during the 70s community groups had focused on laying a physical claim to an unwanted neighborhood, the next decade was about preserving these gains.”

Two things stood out to me in the Angotti/Jagu and Gray texts, one being the fact that I’m still working through how exactly a CLT is maintained financially over time, the other being the biases and debates surrounding the pros and cons of homeownership versus ‘rentership’. Before delving into these topics further, I will summarize the concept behind a Community Land Trust as I understand it: Residential buildings for low income families and individuals owned by a mutual housing organization or cooperative (nonprofit and tax exempt organizations) which tenants control democratically. By various means, CLTs are able to keep the rent affordable, and aim to maintain a low cost of living indefinitely.

The why is fairly clear to me: Mainly, CLTs limit the increasing value of property, which allows low income families to afford housing and stabilizes neighborhoods against the threat of speculative development and gentrification. Not only does this give low-income families a place to live, it also gives them an opportunity to save capital and hopefully exit poverty. The how is a little more complicated. To maintain perpetual affordability, as is the goal of most CLTs, sounds like a nearly impossible task in a location like the Lower East Side. Here is the information I’ve gathered as to methodology: The buildings are often bought for a lower price after being abandoned (rehabilitation), then many rely heavily on subsidies from the government to fund development (this can benefit the government as it limits the need for future subsidies). In the case of the Cooper Square, the developer does not have any land or finance costs, and doesn’t need substantial public subsidies to operate–the rent is so low that most tenants don’t require “Section 8 Vouchers” from the government (part of the federal government’s program for assisting low income families). Therefore most of the few subsidies received by the Cooper Square CLT are through property tax abatements.

Both readings address notions around homeownership and renting. Agnotti acknowledges the ways in which homeownership has been framed as more desirable than renting since the Reagan era; homeownership is a priority of public policy over constructing low income rental housing. Angotti and Gray both acknowledge the mythology around homeownership, citing ideologies such as that homeownership is the “panacea for all urban ills” (Angotti). Gray writes that “Hypothetically, homeownership promotes wealth accumulation, property maintenance, and neighborhood stability and participation,” to which she responds, “however, there are few empirical studies to support these claims.” Renting has historically been portrayed as something for the poor, owning a home as a sign that one has “made it,” despite the fact as Angotti notes that most expensive properties on the Upper East Side are rented. The Cooper Square CLT stresses the benefits of renting for low income families, stating that homeownership, regardless of its possible benefits, is often inaccessible. Gray stresses the idea of renting in a CLT as a means to homeownership, once enough capital is saved, as she acknowledges the known psychological benefits of homeownership including increased happiness and a lower risk of a child dropping out of school or teen pregnancy. The Cooper Square seems to advertise itself as a long-term rental situation, and I wasn’t able to immediately decipher whether/how it also encourages a financial journey to eventual homeownership.

Additionally, Angotti writes that “by producing more housing in multifamily buildings CLTs can achieve economies of scale.” The phrase “economy of scale” refers to the concept in which proportionate savings are gained through an increase in production (I had to look that one up). Because CLT’s help limit speculative development, in theory they limit increases in property value. If housing costs are in relation to the income of the tenants and not in relation to the market at large, does this mean that to maintain economies of scale CLTs have to continuously expand to keep up with the market? And if so, is this actually viable in a place like NYC for the long term? I could really use an economics-informed friend to tell me if I’m on the right track here.

The “frontier myth” discussed in the Smith reading helped me greatly to understand how the culture of the East Village was marketed to developers and buyers, it’s “personality” commodified to attract and justify gentrification in the neighborhood. This sort of miniature wave of manifest destiny relied heavily on an irresistible motif pushed in the media, the notion of rediscovering New York, the underlying desire to “tame the wild city.” While this story is historically commonplace, is is interesting to see it play out in such a relatively miniscule area of land. Developers found ways to create a “new social geography,” in which culture and place are synonymous, turning the small Manhattan neighborhood into a piece of “geographical performance art.”

These texts gave a clearer picture of the two perspectives at hand: the ‘indigenous’ neighborhood population and squatters, and the developers and wealthier members of society. While the wealthy arguably frame themselves as modern cowboys and conquerors of new and uncivilized lands, there is an unexpected yet somewhat pervasive theme of the squatters and protestors comparing their situation with Russian history. Local residents described actions of police during  “class war” at Tompkins Square Park as “cossack-like” (Smith). One envisions something akin to the rows of cossack soldiers descending the Odessa steps in Battleship Potemkin, police batons replacing bayonets. At the same time in an interview in the Starecheski reading, a resident at the (unofficially occupied) Thirteenth Street building described some residents as having a Communist rationality: “Represented in the public eye by John the Communist, these squatters explained their occupation as a rejection of private property, a taking of land in the service of building a revolutionary movement.” Later, in Stanley Cohen’s recounting of the trial in which Elliot Wilk claimed that the The Thirteenth Street Tenants Association owns the buildings, Cohen recalls reactions such as “What is this, fucking post-Tsarist Russia?” Of course, those against Wilk’s decision made this analogy in a negative light. Nevertheless, I found it worth noting that historical events such as the Russian Revolution were made relevant to contemporary class struggles in the East Village.

Mayor Dinkins allegation that Tompkins Square Park had been stolen from the community by the homeless is telling of the ways in which gentrification was justified in the East Village. The accounts documented by Abu-Lughod show the government’s consistent decisions to turn a blind eye to local community boards. Those in power chose to ignore the fact that the city had failed to cope with its homeless population (Smith). This way of justification does not take into account the ways in which the system itself has failed the homeless, it does not consider the vulnerability of the homeless population. While it was true that some squatters dealt various issues such as drug addiction, those justifying their displacement ignored the fact that these people were victims of a system that failed them.

 

(Liam Pitt)

From my initial introduction to the term “Commons,” I recognized immediately that there didn’t appear to be one unanimously agreed upon its definition. I struggled to understand exactly what was meant by a commons, whether it was a physical place, a hypothetical situation, or a philosophy or ideology. Does a commons refer to a problem, or a solution? Or does it refer to both?

A commons from my understanding is a hypothetical but arguably existant (from Caffentzis and Federicis perspective) ideology (or arguably impossible according to Hardin) surrounding the governance of shared natural resources amongst a group of individuals. It is evidently a fairly abstract idea, with endless complications that inevitably tie-in questions and assertions of human morality. A commons relies in many ways on human morality; it depends to an extent on the hope that human beings can act individually in a way that benefits a larger community. Therefore, it doesn’t come as a surprise that when economic theory comes into conversation with commons, the ideology is almost always seen as a threat, an inevitable path to “ruin.”

When I began to read Hardin’s piece, I found myself in shock at his pessimistic view of the nature of human beings. Hardin appears to be unable to accept the idea that humans can find a way to share and cooperate fairly, seeming to believe that we will always inevitably act on our own good before considering others. It became apparent that this perspective echoes his alignment with the persistent tragedy paradigm that trails the idea of Commons throughout economic theory. I found his assertions about human behavior to be bold and presumptuous, however, I was relieved to read counterarguments in the Bollier text that gave me insight into the cultural significance of Hardin’s argument, especially in relation to economics. This sentence summarize my thoughts perfectly: that “economic theory and policy often presume a rather crude, archaic model of human being.”

At the same time, I find it difficult to discuss Commons without bringing economics or capitalism into the conversation. In the Caffentzis and Federicis article, I found some aspects of the proposed anti-capitalist commons to possibly be somewhat paradoxical. In the article, part of the definition of a commons is the involvement of a “common wealth, in the form of shared natural or social resources: lands, forests, waters, urban spaces, systems of knowledge and communication, all to be used for non-commercial purposes.” The sharing of resources as a group without individuals exploiting the resources for their own benefit relies on a similar optimism towards human morality as a capitalist or “commodity-producing commons.” In both cases, human beings are required not to be selfish. This is where I do not fully understand how the idea of a commons is a viable argument, even if capitalism is discarded entirely.

I do not find Hardin’s ideas to be entirely incomprehensible. In fact, his philosophy sounds more ‘realistic’ to me—a terrible word to use, I know. But I use the term in part to exemplify the ways that this sort of economically based argument has infiltrated our minds from the beginning. Capitalism is taught to be a natural and unchangeable model, and so we often don’t make room for the possibility of good moral judgement on the part of individuals for a whole.

I hope I haven’t fundamentally misunderstood these readings, but I am completely open to this possibility. It’s a lot to wrap one’s head around.