no. 164 summer 2005 progressive … · 2019-01-07 · 4 • progressive planning • no. 164 •...

By Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly

In the shadow of the sparkling skyscrapers of Buenos Aires’s newly redevelopedPuerto Madero waterfront area, we picked our way along the muddy paths of a villamiseria, the Argentinean word for a squatter settlement.The houses ranged fromsmall, spartan brick boxes with cement floors to subhuman hovels with mud floorsand shallow ditches, only partially concealed, for outhouses.The city government’sresponse: erecting a 25-foot-high wall of dirt to hide the villa from the glitzy clubs,offices and apartments of Puerto Madero. In addition, the government has made nosecret of its plan to evict the squatters to make way for a new gated luxury devel-opment. In Argentina’s capital, as in much of Latin America, stark divergences inhousing conditions mirror growing inequality.

No. 164 www.plannersnetwork.org Summer 2005

PPROGRESSIVE

The Magazine of Planners NetworkLANNING

INSIDE:

VIETNAM

GOING GLOBAL

ZONING FOR

ETHNIC CLEANSING

SOCIAL HOUSING

IN ONTARIO

LIVABLE

NEIGHBORHOODS

MANY OTHERS...[Cont. on page 7]

Participatory Housing Cooperatives: An Argentinean Experiment

A squatter settlement in Buenos Aires contrasts with the city’s newly redeveloped waterfront skyline.

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Minnesota, or more specifically the Twin Cities, iswell-known nationally for its regional planning,having a number of innovative programs in oper-ation. Progressive planning practice in the TwinCities, however, reaches further than regionalefforts. In particular, a vibrant non-profit sector isa setting for testing new ideas.

The seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan areais already large, with 189 cities and towns andforty-one school districts. It is governed, in part,by a creature of the state government, the MetCouncil. William Johnson’s terrific 1999 book,Growth Management in the Twin CitiesRegion, outlines the basics of the system. TheCouncil itself is appointed by the governor andits level of influence varies directly with thegovernor’s interest in regional issues. TheCouncil then guides a large staff that conductsthe day-to-day operations of regional planningand infrastructure investment.

The Met Council was formed in 1967, and itspowers have generally expanded over the years,supported by Democrats interested in the equi-ty benefits of regionalism and Republicans inter-ested in the fiscal benefits of more coordinatedinfrastructure provision. An important date was1976, when the Metropolitan Land Planning Actwas passed, requiring local governments to pre-pare comprehensive plans that fit within theMet Council’s overall policies and plans. Plansare to be completed every ten years, with thenext round due in 2008.

In the early 1990s, transit was added to theMet Council’s control—its Metro Transit pro-vides 95 percent of bus rides. Since 1994, 90percent of wastewater in the Twin Cities hasbeen provided by the Met Council. It uses

this power to shape development, creating aMetropolitan Urban Services Area (MUSA)line outside which development is more dif-ficult. For 134 suburban local governments,the Met Council also manages the Section 8housing program. It plans the regional openspace system and provides GIS resources.Finally, it operates a number of smaller pro-grams, including the Livable CommunitiesDemonstration Account, which has been apopular way of funding urban revitalizationranging from brownfields redevelopment inthe urban core to new suburban downtownsin the larger metropolitan region.

Obviously the Met Council has a lot of roles—thedebates are over how seriously it takes its rolesand whether it is overstepping its mandate oravoiding it. For instance, it has seldom exercisedits power to review regionally significant proj-ects. It has also had different emphases in moni-toring comprehensive plans; it used to focus onaffordable housing, but now emphasizes land useand transportation connections.While local com-prehensive plans are required every ten years,and while zoning has to conform to these plansand they in turn have to conform to the MetCouncil’s plans, local governments often resist,delaying the process of coordination.

In addition, not everyone likes the currentMetropolitan Framework 2030.This document isa marginal reworking—under the Republicanadministration—of the earlier MetropolitanBlueprint created when Jesse Ventura was gover-nor and Democrat Ted Mondale was head of theMet Council. The big idea behind the plan is tointensify development along existing corridors toenable better transit retrofit and to limit the needfor sewer expansion. There is

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” - From the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

The EVENTH ENERATIONGS

2 • Progressive Planning • No. 164 • Summer 2005

[Cont. on page 6]

Progressive Regional Planning in the Twin Cities

By Ann Forsyth

PROGRESSIVE PLANNING

EDITORIAL OFFICE Hunter College Dept of UrbanPlanning, 695 Park Ave.New York, NY 10021http://www.plannersnetwork.orgemail: [email protected]: 212-650-3130 Fx: 212-772-5593MEMBERSHIP OFFICE1 Rapson Hall89 Church Street SEMinneapolis, MN 55455-0109Ph: 612-624-3596 Fx: 612-626-0600Email: [email protected] Tom Angotti and Ann ForsythEDITORIAL BOARDEve Baron, Kara Heffernan, Norma Rantisi, Chester Hartman, JasonBlackman, Marie KennedyCONTRIBUTING EDITORS Katharine Rankin, Alejandro Rofman

LAYOUTDonovan Finn

Progressive Planning is published quarterlyby Planners Network, Inc., a non-profit cor-poration in the State of New York.Copyright 2005 by Planners Network.Reprinting and distribution of portions ofthis magazine for non-commercial purpos-es are encouraged. Reprints for commer-cial purposes require written permissionfrom the publisher. Progressive Planning isindexed in the Alternative Press Index.

STEERING COMMITTEETom Angotti, Josh Lerner, RichardMilgrom, Norma Rantisi, Ken Reardon,Amy Siciliano, Alex Schafran

ADVISORY COMMITTEEChester Hartman, Chair, TeresaCórdova, Dana R. Driskell, AnnForsyth, Marie Kennedy, PatriciaNolan, Arturo Sanchez, Peg Seip, RuthYabes, Ayse Yonder

Statement of PrinciplesThe Planners Network is an association of pro-fessionals, activists, academics, and studentsinvolved in physical, social, economic, and envi-ronmental planning in urban and rural areas,who promote fundamental change in our politi-cal and economic systems. We believe thatplanning should be a tool for allocatingresources and developing the environment toeliminate the great inequalities of wealth andpower in our society, rather than to maintain andjustify the status quo. We are committed toopposing racial, economic, and environmentalinjustice, and discrimination by gender and sex-ual orientation. We believe that planning shouldbe used to assure adequate food, clothing,housing, medical care, jobs, safe working condi-tions, and a healthful environment. We advocatepublic responsibility for meeting these needs,because the private market has proven inca-pable of doing so.

PPROGRESSIVE

LANNINGThe Magazine of Planners Network

No. 164 www.plannersnetwork.org Summer 2005

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORSProgressive Planning seeks articles that describe and analyze progressive physical, social,economic and environmental planning in urban and rural areas. Articles may be up to 2,000words. They should be addressed to PN’s broad audience of professionals, activists, stu-dents and academics, and be straightforward and jargon-free. Following a journalistic style,the first paragraph should summarize the main ideas in the article. A few suggested read-ings may be mentioned in the text, but do not submit footnotes or a bibliography. The edi-tors may make minor style changes, but any substantial rewriting or changes will bechecked with the author. A photograph or illustration may be included. Submissions on diskor by email are greatly appreciated. Send to the Editor at [email protected] orPlanners Network, c/o Hunter College Dept of Urban Planning, 695 Park Ave., New York, NY10021. Fax: 212-772-5593. Deadlines are January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1.

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Progressive Planning • No. 164 • Summer 2005 • 3

FEATURESParticipatory Housing Cooperatives:An Argentinean Experimen Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly 17th Generation Ann Forsyth 2Vietnam Going Global without a Plan:Welcome to the Capitalist World Tom Angotti 4Good Design Alone Can’t Change Society Kimberly Libman, Lauren Tenney and Susan Saegert 12Zoning for Ethnic Cleansing Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions 15Neoliberal Ideas and Social Housing Realities in Ontario Jason Hackworth 17Livable Neighborhoods:Rethinking New York City Planning Micaéla Birmingham and Eve Baron 20Creating and Maintaining Affordability with Housing Co-ops Kerstin Larson 24Redefining Best Practice in Indian Country John A. Koepke 272005 Planners Network Confererence Photo Recap 29

DEPARTMENTSPlanners Network Updates 31Resources: Jobs, Events, Publications 33How To Join, Purchase Back Issues, etc. 35


In the Jan/Feb 1998 issue of the PlannersNetwork newsletter (the forerunner ofProgressive Planning Magazine), I wrote, “Ifyou love livable cities, hurry up to Hanoi”because new development “threatens thecity’s greatest asset, its street life.”Unfortunately, it’s now too late.

I recently spent three weeks in Hanoi studyingthe region and planning. As Vietnam’s economicczars race to catch up with China, they are cre-ating gaping inequalities that the old planningapparatus is hard-pressed to deal with. The new

entrepreneurial class is building wealthyenclaves all around the region, including gatedcommunities where houses sell at prices compa-rable to Boston or San Francisco. Poor people arebeing moved out of old urban neighborhoodsthat are replaced by mammoth superblocks ofcommercial space and luxury housing. Peasantsare leaving farms and artesan communities towork in new urban industries and commerce,where they encounter unsanitary, crowded liv-ing conditions, high rents and, all too frequently,

unemployment. Such a pattern is familiar in lessdeveloped countries, but Vietnam’s socialist ori-entation had previously excluded such excessesof capitalist urbanization.

Ciputra Hanoi International City is a giant newgated community going up in the fashionableWest Lake neighborhood of Hanoi. AnIndonesian investor bought from the govern-ment the right to build on land that was beingused to grow flowers. He then fleeced individu-als in the new cash-laden Vietnamese elite andexpanding expatriate community to pay for theirhouses up front. Many of them bought withexpectations of speculative windfalls, not out ofa need for a place to live.

Ciputra’s landed gentry will enter their newcommunity through a giant Baroque arch, wherethey may muse upon the glorious days of Frenchcolonialism. They can park their SUVs in thedriveways of their Greek Revival mini-mansions,where they will forget the discomforts of theovercrowded, noisy, polluted city.They can sendtheir children to the nearby InternationalSchool, where they receive instruction inEnglish, and drive to Ciputra’s mall for everydayGucci goods. Ciputra’s architects may well haveseen pictures of new urbanist experiments, forthey included sidewalks, should any one dare towalk, and a few Asian design signatures.

The Revolution is Over, the Fight Begins

I opposed the Vietnam war (for the Vietnameseit was the American war) and, like many otherswho did so, I have always been reluctant tocriticize the revolutionary movement and lead-ership that sacrificed so much to end theoccupation by the most powerful military inthe world and establish an independentnation. Millions of Vietnamese died, many ofthem civilians, in the bombings and “searchand destroy” missions of the US military; fromland mines and Agent Orange (a chemicalweapon made in the US); and from the pro-gram of forced urbanization that producedconcentration camps known as “strategic ham-lets.” After the war, the Vietnamese followed

Vietnam Going Global without a Plan: Welcome to the Capitalist World

By Tom Angotti

The gated community of Ciputra Hanoi International City.

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the path set out by Ho Chi Minh, who foundedthe Republic in 1945 to rebuild Vietnam alongsocialist lines.

But Uncle Ho’s generation is mostly gone now,and the young generations have no memory ofthe war and a new set of aspirations. The col-lapse of the Soviet Union and the inability ofVietnam’s economy and institutions to addressthese aspirations led to a dramatic opening upto the global capitalist economy in 1993. In ascenario all too familiar elsewhere, Vietnam’splanning institutions caved under the influenceof massive investments from Hong Kong,Singapore, Japan, Europe and the United States.Investors got cheap land and labor in industrialparks located along the highways the govern-ment built and maintained. Internationallenders rushed in to back the construction of anew urban infrastructure to support new devel-opment. In this climate, master plans follow thegrowth instead of leading it. Government andparty leaders make the deals and prime thegrowth machine with huge infrastructure proj-ects. Environmental impact statements are derigeur, but government has little ability toenforce the rules or plan for long-term environ-mental quality. A giant informal economy hasgrown right along with the new industrialeconomy, and Vietnam’s economic planners areincreasingly unable or unwilling to deal with itas long as the global marketplace benefits fromit. Urban planning in Vietnam is becoming as

irrelevant as it is everywhere that rapid “freemarket” growth is idolized and economic andphysical planning are divorced from each other.

Government and party leaders, alarmed by thesocial and environmental consequences of thenew capitalist bloom, call for balance and passlaws. The World Bank talks about “povertyreduction” and sustainable cities. But Vietnam’s“market socialism” seems to be mostly free-mar-ket capitalism; it is creating structural poverty,segregated cities and environmental destruc-tion. The historic balance between agriculture,industry and urban life is being destroyed.A richstreet life is being wiped out by the car andmotorbike industries. Perhaps the best hope isin the scores of spontaneous protests againstmassive urban renewal and displacementwhich, for the moment, tend to be settled withbigger relocation benefits; the wildcat strikesagainst sweatshop conditions; and above all themen and women of the new generation whorealize that quality of life can’t be bought fromtransnational corporations. Hopefully progres-sive Vietnamese will join the twenty-first centu-ry search for an alternative to global capitalismnow that their government leaders haveembraced it.

Tom Angotti is Co-Editor of ProgressivePlanning and Professor of Urban Affairs andPlanning at Hunter College, City University ofNew York.

A number of people made contributions to Planners Network to honor Walter Thabit who recently died. We thank the following fortheir generous gifts.

Jill Hamberg

Peter Marcuse

Chester Hartman

Donna Semenza

Lewis Lubka


also an emphasis on more housing diversity.Overall, approximately one-third of the estimat-ed one million more people living in the TwinCities by 2030 will be housed in areas that arealready developed. Although having significantinput from regional planning superstar andMondale-favorite Peter Calthorpe, theFramework is not uniformly popular. Some,such as Myron Orfield, don’t like the fact thatthe plan includes a set of satellite rural growthcenters, which can be seen as the thin edge ofthe wedge of increased suburban sprawl. Incontrast, some suburban areas have been furi-ous that they would have to take more housingunits, with a particularly vehement conflictbetween the Met Council and suburban LakeElmo only recently resolved. In addition, withthe growth of the Twin Cities, the actual metro-politan area is now reaching out further thanthe official seven-county metropolitan area,with suburban growth skipping across the St.Croix River into Wisconsin, outside of thepurview of the plan.

From the perspective of an outsider, however,there is surprising agreement from across themetropolitan area that the costs and benefits ofgrowth should be shared. After years of con-centrated public investment in their down-towns, both St. Paul and Minneapolis are expe-riencing a boom in housing construction; newcondominiums are popping up almost every-where served by reasonable transportation—reflecting a local-scale emphasis on puttinghousing along transportation corridors. Indowntown Minneapolis, and adjacent high-amenity areas (such as along the MississippiRiver), numerous high-rise condominium tow-ers have been constructed, are under construc-tion or are working their way through theapprovals process.

Still, Ed Goetz, Karen Chappel and BarbaraLukerman (Journal of Planning Educationand Research, 2003) have documented howsuburban areas are not being forced to providetheir fair share of affordable housing as theywere in the past. Instead, the Met Councilemphasis is on housing supply, increased densi-ty and urban form. In addition, in its overallwork the Met Council certainly has been fearfulof taking actions like charging new suburbancustomers more for sewers. Barbara Lukerman,Thomas Luce and Herbert Mohring have shownin a 1995 article in the CURA Reporter that thecore subsidizes the periphery.

Other Regional Groups

The Met Council, however, is not the only organi-zation with a regional focus.The Twin Cities is alsofamous for its regional tax sharing, which operatesthrough the 1971 Fiscal Disparities Act that redis-tributes 40 percent of new commercial/industrialtax base to a region-wide pool based on popula-tion. As several analysts have pointed out, mostfamously Myron Orfield in AmericanMetropolitics, quoting studies by many otherresearchers, without it the difference in per capitatax dollars between the richest and poorest munic-ipalities would be 25 to 1;with it, it is 5 to 1.A num-ber of citizen groups and initiatives also operate atthe metropolitan level, from the very activeMetropolitan Interfaith Council on AffordableHousing (MICAH) to Embrace Open Space, an edu-cational campaign initiated by the local McKnightFoundation.The McKnight-convened Itasca Projectis also of interest; this is a group of CEOs convenedto look at the region with an initial focus on theincreasing problem of traffic congestion.

In fact, it is in the non-profit area where many ofthe most innovative ideas are tested. Part of thisis an offshoot of the significant corporate philan-thropy in the area, initiated in the 1960s by thegroup of corporate leaders who pledged to eachgive 5 percent of their pre-tax profits to charity.While things have loosened over the years, theTwin Cities undoubtedly has money for innova-tive projects. From housing to open space, manyhave a regional flair.

The Future

So where is the region heading? People do per-ceive that there are regional problems in the TwinCities—sprawl, for example, is front page news.Metropolitan planning,however, is still going aheadand the Met Council has institutionalized a region-al planning process in which local comprehensiveplans must conform to regional goals in a processthat has teeth due to the Met Council’s controlover sewer provision. Beyond regulation, the MetCouncil’s Livable Communities program has creat-ed large-scale demonstration projects that have cre-ated new suburban downtowns and cleaned uplarge brownfields. The history of innovation—among governments, foundations and non-prof-its—provides some hope that the Twin Cities willdepart from the generic path of growth.

Ann Forsyth was co-organizer of the 2005Planners Network Conference.

7th Generation [Cont. from page 2]


But, in Argentina—as in much of Latin Americatoday—scrappy grassroots housing movements areworking hard to move beyond survival and beginclosing economic and social gaps. Slum-dwellers,squatters, homeless people and tenants haveopened varied fronts in a struggle for decent,affordable housing.A particularly Argentinean con-tribution to the mix is a small but determinedgroup of movements committed to horizontali-dad—horizontality, meaning highly participatorydemocracy and consensus decision-making. DanielBetti, the architect,urban planner and Buenos Airescity councilor who was our guide through VillaCostanera Sur, gave us a crash course on one suchcurrent, a cooperative housing movement that haslaunched 5,000 families on the way to buildinghousing co-ops.

According to Betti, one in seven of BuenosAires’s 2.8 million inhabitants is experiencing ahousing emergency.This includes 120,000 livingin villas miserias, and 140,000 squatting, prima-rily in abandoned industrial buildings. Tens ofthousands more live in government subsidizedhomeless hotels, often ten to twelve to a room.Others live in “legal” but barely livable housingor on the street.

Crisis and Resistance

Argentina’s poor and working-class residents havelived through economic hard times since the mid-1990s. President Carlos Menem, who governedfrom 1989-99, presided over neoliberal free tradeand privatization policies that resulted in waves oflayoffs and plant closings. But the country’s pow-der keg exploded in 2001,when investor panic anddevaluation of the peso suddenly wiped out muchof the assets and purchasing power of Argentina’slarge and, until then, prosperous middle class. Intwo days of massive street demonstrations,Argentina’s people drove out then-presidentFernando de la Rua.A series of short-lived caretak-er presidencies followed, and finally, in 2003, elec-tions brought the current president, center-leftNestor Kirchner, to power. Kirchner has flauntedpopulist rhetoric, taken a tough bargaining linewith international lenders seeking to collect thecountry’s huge debt and shunned repression ofprotestors. But, he has stopped short of supportingthe development of a grassroots “social economy,”leading many in the horizontal left to view himwith skepticism.

The 1990s incubated a variety of new types oforganizations, such as community-based unem-

ployment movements and groups of workersoccupying their shuttered factories—in manycases, at least initially, experimenting with prin-ciples of horizontalidad. The 2001 crisis thenled to an exponential increase in these andother organizations, although levels of partici-pation have subsided since their peak.

Despite limited economic recovery since 2001,misery remains widespread. A nighttime walkthrough Buenos Aires reveals armies ofcartoneros—cardboard scavengers diggingthrough garbage bags to retrieve cardboard they

can trade for a few centavos.At the same time, thecity’s rents are climbing, shooting up at an annualrate of 27 percent in May,with some lease renewalsas high as 100 percent. While desperate familiescontinue to crowd into vacant factories,young pro-fessionals are buying and rehabbing them, pushingrents up. Spokeswoman Noemí Caracciolo of theTenant Association of the Argentine Republicprotested, “We want a rent freeze,” but glumlyadmitted,“we don’t know to what extent the gov-ernment will be able to respond to us.”

A Cooperative Way Out?

Argentina has a long cooperative tradition,extending back to agricultural and consumer

Kennedy and Tilly [Cont. from page 1]

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Example of a common street in the Villa.

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cooperatives formed early in the last century. So,it’s not surprising that the city of Buenos Aires,which is a freestanding jurisdiction like theDistrict of Columbia, passed Law 341 in 2000,

which encourages formation of housing coopera-tives. What’s more surprising, according to CityCouncilor Betti, is that nobody used the law for ayear. “In 2001, I was hired onto a team for theHousing Institute,” explained Betti, who was notelected councilor until 2003.“I pulled the law outof a chest,” he said with a broad smile.

Law 341 provides for government-financed, low-interest thirty-year loans to finance land acquisi-tion and construction. It also mandates participa-tory design and planning by the members of eachco-op and allocates limited funds for technical

assistance. With a boost from the charismatic,high-energy Betti, use of the law has taken off.When we spoke in June, there were over 200housing co-ops in Buenos Aires, encompassing 15to 16,000 persons. Most are in the early stages.Twenty co-ops are engaged in construction andforty others have acquired land; none have com-pleted their projects yet.

Housing co-ops range from ten to fifty families, andinclude groups from the villas miseries, squattergroups and groups in homeless hotels. There iseven a group of forty worker-owners at the work-er-occupied Hotel Bauen who can’t afford housingand are quietly camping out with their families inrooms on the upper floors of the hotel (during ourstay at that hotel we periodically saw unaccompa-nied children taking the elevator to the top floor).In describing how the formation of cooperativeshas moved these groups forward, Betti remarked,“All of these groups were resistance movements inthe sense that they were asking for subsidies fromthe government. Our task is to help them movefrom resistance to self-management, to making apositive proposal.” He had few good words forwhat Argentineans call “assistentialist” movementsthat simply protest in order to continue a flow ofgovernment aid, without fighting to change theconditions that make the aid necessary.“Assistancefrom the state turns you into an idiot,” he growled.“The struggle must be to transform people, not toget a check.”

The Struggle to Transform People

That’s where the participatory process comes in.The law is vague about the nature of participa-tion and different organizations have approachedparticipation in very distinct ways. For example,the Argentine Communist Party’s PiqueteroBranch (piqueteros is a generic name for move-ments of unemployed people who use street andhighway blockages to press their demands)builds housing rapidly, with little emphasis onparticipation along the way, according to Bettiand Maiqui Pixton, a social psychologist on oneof the technical assistance teams working withhousing co-ops. “That’s because the CommunistParty is part of the political establishment—theyhave a bank!”Betti noted. Pixton added that oftenwhen worker cooperatives develop housing, oneleader drives the process and makes the deci-sions. Betti characterizes this approach as “verti-cal work, though it may appear horizontal. Thehierarchy of the organizations gets reproduced inthe housing work.”

On the other hand, said Pixton,“Some organiza-tions work with cooperatives in a long process

Some of the best housing in the Villa.

The Villa’s health center.

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of social development and maturation beforethey start developing housing.” The Movementof Tenant Squatters is one such organization.“They started out by occupying buildings,demanding to either receive credit or be giventhe buildings, and forming cooperatives,” saidSoledad of the Unemployed Workers’ Movementof La Matanza, a horizontal piquetero organiza-tion based in Buenos Aires’s industrial ring (likemany horizontal activists, she prefers to just beidentified by her first name). “But they discov-ered that once people got the title to the hous-ing, they dropped out. So now they organize acooperative first, do consciousness-raising andonly then take the building.”

Betti and his allies, including social psychologistPixton, try to stake out a middle ground betweenthese two extremes. “We work on self-manage-ment without preconditions,” commentedPixton. “We don’t demand that people be at acertain point. The housing emergency that theyface makes it worthwhile to work simultaneous-ly on social development and the housing itself.”This is especially true because governmentpromises of funding can evaporate at anymoment. At the same time, she added,“We workon having everybody make decisions together.That way, they are equipped to go beyond hous-ing to work on education, health, jobs…whatev-er other issues confront them.” Betti chimed in,“Housing is a pretext. Of course it’s a necessity,but it’s also to create a focus that can lead toempowerment and the capacity to achievefuture goals.”

What Role for Planners?

The technical assistance teams play a criticalpart in guiding this process. The teams, whichact as independent contractors hired by groupsforming co-ops, include architects, social scien-tists, lawyers and accountants (as in much ofLatin America, Argentina does not have a profes-sion that calls itself “planning”). Maiqui Pixton’steam, with eighteen professionals who workwith fifteen co-ops, is the largest.Ten percent ofthe government credits to the cooperatives canin theory go to pay the professionals, but “themoney comes in drips,” said Pixton. “The realityis we can’t live on the fees and have to haveother jobs.”

Pixton identified the teams’ key challenge as“breaking with the hegemony of the sciences. It’snot just a question of knowing participatorymethods,” she elaborated,“but understanding thatpeople can make their own decisions, that theycan manage projects themselves. We have to

accept that people may come up with a differentanswer than we do. When we say that we areworking for transformation, we include our-selves!” Betti added, “Architects make plans, butpeople don’t necessarily understand how to readthem. We found that we have to make the unitsbig enough that people can design their ownspace.”The solution has been 2-story-high “shells”within which each family can place rooms tomeet its needs.

Another challenge is knowing how to combinesupport for the cooperative groups with pres-sure to move toward true self-management.“Some groups move rapidly to functioningautonomously,” Pixton said, “and some staydependent. Our task is to let them knowthey’re not alone, but the decisions are theirs.It’s a delicate balance.”The goal, she said, is “toalways encourage that everybody gives theiropinion and that all opinions are valued. Oftenit doesn’t seem like they’re paying attention �

Orlando Fernandez and Danial Betti.

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to us,” she mused.“But then you see that whenthey work on their own, they’re reproducingthose practices—everybody gets to speak, allopinions are valued—and so you see that theyhave learned.”

The government of Buenos Aires itself does lit-tle to help this process. “We have a societywhere a lot is simply dictated,” Pixtonobserved. “When the government gives a bene-

fit, it imposes it, without asking people how itmight work better.You’re supposed to consideryourself lucky if you get an apartment, even ifit’s in appalling shape and doesn’t meet your

family’s needs.” Moreover, the pervasive institu-tional corruption trickles down. “We under-stand why acts of corruption happen in thecooperatives,” said Pixton. “They’re imitatingwhat they see around them. And they’re eco-nomically desperate—if our kids didn’t haveanything to eat, how would we act? Still, evenwhen they are in a state of poverty and desper-ation, you can demand that people act honestly,transparently and responsibly.”

This is What Democracy Looks Like

Pixton lit up the most when describing howinvolvement in the housing co-op process ledto broader and deeper transformations. Shetold the story of a co-op president who startedorganizing with neighbors in a tenement sev-eral years ago.“He told me, ‘At that time, I did-n’t know how to talk! I couldn’t talk in a waythat other people understood—I couldn’tspeak for myself, I was just a beast of burden.I had to learn to communicate in order tocarry out this planning process.’ To get lan-guage is to also get freedom,” Pixton remarked.“If you speak for yourself, you can also thinkfor yourself.”

Another frequent transformation is women wholeave a battering situation due to their involve-ment in the cooperative process. The combina-tion of group support and increased self-confi-dence developed through action makes thebreak possible. “And those are the women whofight the hardest against any authoritarianism inthe group,” Pixton pointed out.

Democracy isn’t always pretty. As we touredthe Costanera Sur villa with Betti, he got a callon his cell phone about a dispute between twoof the largest housing cooperatives on whatorganizing strategy the Federation of HousingCo-ops should adopt. “These struggles alwayscome up in the social sector,” he remarked.“The important thing is not to hide them; asthe saying goes, ‘Don’t put French perfume onshit.’ If the process were authoritarian, therewouldn’t be any problem. One person woulddecide, and the rest would have to go along.But if it’s democratic, there’s always going tobe disagreements.”

Participatory Legislation

Betti describes Law 341 as a good law, “butonly a basic law.” He is currently helping todraft a broader municipal housing ordinancethat would declare a state of housing emer-gency and provide significantly expanded

A new mother nursing inside her home.

Children of the Villa.

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funds for self-managed housing development.And naturally, he’s organizing a participatoryprocess to decide what will go into the legis-lation. The model for this process is an earlierprocess to draft a law establishing neighbor-hood-level governments—a first for BuenosAires, and due to go into effect starting withlocal elections this fall. “That law was writtenby forty-seven neighborhood assemblies!”Betti exulted. (Scores of self-organized neigh-borhood assemblies sprang up in Buenos Airesneighborhoods, especially middle-class ones,during the 2001 crisis.) “But that was the mid-dle class.This time, with the housing law, we’reinvolving the poor—because they know theirown needs.”

At the time we spoke, workshops that includedcooperative members and technical teamswere holding meetings to identify prioritiesand areas of consensus for a draft housing law.Betti hoped to complete the process by theend of the summer. “So far, we don’t have thevotes,” he acknowledged. The left bloc in thecity council includes only eight councilors outof sixty.“But we have people who will fight forit, because they feel that it is theirs.” He notedthat because politicians have been so discred-ited, mobilization can make a big difference.Betti’s ambitious vision is to build from thishousing self-management law to a completehousing law, and from a Buenos Aires statute tolaws across the country. “We have a saying inthis country,” he said with a wink, that “inArgentina, God is everywhere, but he’s payingattention to Buenos Aires.”

Betti’s plan also depends on getting re-electedthis October. “I have to find a party to runwith,” he said. Candidates must be part of thelist of some officially recognized party, andalthough the Argentine government recentlyapproved 546 new parties, none of them appealto Betti (and neither does the party he ran within 2003). “I’m thinking of forming a new littleparty with some others, Liberatory Self-Management of Buenos Aires (ALBA). And if Idon’t win, that’s OK. I’ll still keep doing whatI’m doing—I always have.”

Organizing 15,000 cooperative members marksa small step toward meeting the needs of400,000 Buenos Aires residents living in a stateof housing emergency. Winning a bigger, bettercity housing law will help. But perhaps evenmore important than the law itself is theprocess of organizing and participatory plan-ning that is training a cohort of thousands ofnew activists.When we last saw Daniel Betti he

was even more excited than usual. “Somethingreally good happened yesterday in that villa wevisited,” he announced. “All the block represen-tatives came to my office together. They saidthey’ve decided they don’t just want to fightagainst expulsion from their land. They alsowant to launch a cooperative housing project!”

The spirit that moves ordinary Argentineansfrom resistance to production is a powerfulone—one worth watching as a positive exam-ple not just for Latin America, but for the rest ofthe world as well.

Marie Kennedy is professor emerita of commu-nity planning at the College of Public andCommunity Service, University of MassachusettsBoston and a member of the Planners NetworkAdvisory Committee. Chris Tilly is a professor ofregional economic and social development atthe University of Massachusetts Lowell. Bothhave worked in Latin America solidarity move-ments for many years. They visited Buenos Airesin May-June 2005.

Interior of a home in the Villa.

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In 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered, thenation’s cities and campuses were torn by riots andall the conventional approaches to cities werebeing questioned. Every modern approach tosocial reform, planning and architecture was underscrutiny. The door was open for experimentationand new approaches. In this environment, the NewYork State legislature created the UrbanDevelopment Corporation (UDC) with a reformagenda to:

•Increase the supply of livable, secure and well-designed urban housing at a time when housing wasbeing lost to arson and abandonment;•Produce integrated mixed-income and mixed-racecommunities in new developments;•Create housing that stabilized at-risk communities;•Respond to the context of the area surrounding adevelopment;•Provide multi-family housing and open space thatwould support family and community life and childsupervision, creating developments with a sense ofcommunity; and•Learn from the housing prototypes of Europeanhousing developments.

One of UDC’s most unique projects was MarcusGarvey Village (MGV), located in the Brownsvilleneighborhood of Brooklyn. Members of the envi-ronmental psychology program at the GraduateCenter of the City University of New York recentlyconducted research to understand what residentsthink of the project. Our study utilized photogra-phy, ethnography, surveys and interviews andserved as background to a retrospective exhibit onthe legacy of UDC sponsored by the AmericanInstitute of Architecture (AIA). The results of ourstudy were mixed, calling into question the ideathat good design alone can change society.

The Design of MGV

MGV exemplifies a number of UDC’s centralbeliefs about housing design and its social conse-quences. After visiting over a dozen Europeansocial housing models,Ted Liebman, chief architectof UDC, recommended a low-rise, high-density pro-totype that adhered to the reform agenda of theUDC.

Built as part of the Model Cities Urban RenewalInitiative for Central Brooklyn, MGV was first occu-pied in 1976. Elements of the design includedduplex apartments with private backyards or ter-races;mews and street units where the mews weredesigned to better meet the needs of families withchildren; and the inclusion of substantial space fornon-residential uses such as a community center, aday care facility, commercial shops and parking. Inaddition, throughout the development there is aminimal use of shared entrances and stairwells.Most apartments, rather, have private front doorsthat open onto a stoop or mews.

The AIA Guide to New York City describes MGV as“UDC’s pretentious experiment . . . more a scholas-tic architectural thesis than a prototype for urbanredevelopment” (2000, p. 794).Although the social-ly motivated design may appear scholastic, itdemonstrates UDC’s ability to provide large quanti-ties of affordable housing of unusually high archi-tectural quality. With its innovative structuring,MGV still has fifty-five units per square acre com-pared to the fifty units per square acre common inthe still-ubiquitous high-rise elevator tower in thepark model for affordable housing.

Does Design Matter?

More than twenty years after its first residentsmoved in, we asked,“Does the design matter?”Theanswer was,“Yes, but…”

In speaking with residents of MGV, it becameclear that they perceive and value the amenitiesbuilt into the design. When asked what theythought the designers of MGV wanted it to belike, they described the vision as “like a villagewhere people would know their neighbors” and“convenient for tenants.”They thought the mewsand backyards were “something nice for the kids”and recognized that the designers were “lookingtowards peoples’ privacy.” In fact, these aspects ofthe development’s design are so unique and con-tradictory to most housing available to low-andmoderate-income New Yorkers that some of thesame residents said that “Marcus Garvey Villagewas made for rich people.” In particular, we foundthe hallmark feature of this design, the mews and

Good Design Alone Can’t Change Society: Marcus Garvey Village after Thirty Years

By Kimberly Libman, Lauren Tenney and Susan Saegert

courtyards, was successful in achieving a numberof UDC’s goals.These semi-public spaces promoteinteraction and community development amongneighbors and consequently provide a milieu ofsafety, affording children greater autonomy to playoutside of their homes.

Twenty years ago, however, the mews served as avector, bringing New York City’s drug epidemicinto this community. A press release from theDepartment of Justice states,“The insular nature ofMarcus Garvey Village made the investigation par-ticularly challenging—and dangerous. The apart-ment buildings open into private courtyard areas,shielded from public access and view, where thedefendants routinely conducted their business.”

Although this innovative design has had many suc-cesses, social history trumped the architecture. Aresident succinctly captured the problem, statingthat the designers thought there would be “nocrimes, no illegal transactions, they [the designers]never thought people would do that.”This historyreveals that UDC’s exuberant idealism was notwithout disadvantages.

The socially motivated plan for MGV contained avision of urban living that in reality would requiresomething more than just good design.UDC’s plan-ners and designers were correct in building non-residential community spaces. These spaces areemblematic of their intentions to promote socialintegration. But time, the challenging social historyof Brownsville and a lack of well-managed and sus-tained social infrastructure hampered the realiza-tion of their long-term goals. For example, todayvery few residents participate in the tenants’ asso-ciation or use the day care facility.The communitycenter has restricted resident access and is not inuse. The parking lots have been turned into rev-enue-producing land rented to a local church andnot available to residents. Most residents neverhave had cars and appreciate the convenience ofthe subway, which makes an ugly crack in thedesigned fabric of UDC.

In its prime,UDC closely oversaw the managementof its projects to ensure that the social intentions ofits design and planning could come to life.Maintaining a mixed-income and mixed-use devel-opment requires careful selection of tenants to fillresidential, commercial and community-use vacan-cies. MGV is no longer owned and managed byUDC, today under the supervision of the New YorkState Division of Housing and CommunityRenewal. Residents had mixed responses to theoverall quality and timeliness of maintenance, butlong-term residents agreed that the standards forselecting tenants have changed—for the worse.

Management, reacting to crime in the developmentthat is perceived to be committed by outsiders, hasinstalled turnstiles, gates and security cameras inopen spaces that border the high-rise public hous-ing on one side of MGV. Residents don’t seem tofeel violated, but protected. But the role of man-agement has shifted from supporting communitydevelopment and maintaining the physical struc-tures of MGV to its current focus: securing and sus-taining the development against external criminalinfluence and simply patching, but not fixing, thephysical deterioration of the development.

By building MGV, UDC substantially improved thecommunity of Brownsville. Despite MGV’s manysocial challenges and some wear-and-tear over theyears, residents of the development report highlevels of satisfaction with their living conditions. In

comparison to alternative housing options for low-and moderate-income New Yorkers, the house-likeunits and amenities such as the mews make MGV adesirable place to live.

Better Housing, More Poverty

Using Census data from 1970 and from 2000, wecan see that housing in the area has improvedover time. Most striking, in 1970 all of the 187households living in this census tract wererenters. There were no owner-occupied units.The housing available was old: 79 percent of thehousing stock was built in 1939 or earlier.MGV’s 600 newly built dwelling units nearlydoubled and modernized the housing stock ofthe area. By 2000 there was a significantincrease in homeownership, with 22 percent ofthe available units in the tract being owner-occupied. MGV sits squarely between MarcusGarvey Houses, a high-rise public housing proj-ect, and a recently completed cluster of private-ly-owned single-family homes supported byNehemiah Houses, a faith-based low-incomehousing initiative.Although there is not a strongsense of community between the residents ofMGV, Marcus Garvey Houses and the Nehemiahhouses, UDC did help change the housing con-ditions in the wider neighborhood.


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Although this innovative design has had many successes, social historytrumped the architecture


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While the housing infrastructure has improved, inother ways the community is worse off today than itwas in 1970,before MGV was built.For example, thepercentage of families living below the poverty levelhas gone up from 29.2 percent in 1970 to 42.3 per-cent in 2000. The tract has become less ethnicallydiverse, with the percentage of African-Americanresidents going from 58.5 percent in 1970 to 90 per-cent in 2000. Similarly, education statistics have notchanged that much over thirty years.In 1970,20 per-cent of residents in the area graduated from highschool and in 2000 only 33 percent had done so.

Following Through on the Plans

With MGV, UDC had mixed success in meeting thegoals of its social experiment. It contributed to sta-bilizing housing conditions in the neighborhoodbut not to stabilizing the community at-large.Within MGV there is a sense of community amonggroups of neighbors but not throughout the devel-opment.As a result of the unforeseen challenges ofthe citywide drug epidemic, spaces that were orig-inally meant to increase safety and community lifewere hijacked by criminals and took on a role anti-thetical to their intention.

On our first visit to MGV, a resident who has beenliving there for over twenty-five years told us, “Ilove this place, this is not the projects.”Yet, just afew weeks later someone else said, “Let’s face it,this is the projects.” While our data can supportboth sides of this contradiction, a pragmatic analy-sis clearly points to successes in the design as wellas lessons to be learned for the future.

While design matters, it also requires ongoing man-agement, social programming and communityorganizing to support growing communities. Nosingle development can live outside the context ofinstitutions and public policies that reproducesocial inequality. For MGV, the scale of what wasbuilt was not large enough to overcome history,poor management and neighborhood crime. Butpeople still enjoy their homes. MGV fulfilled the

mission of providing better housing for low- andmoderate-income people, although the mixed-income,mixed-race ideal could not be realized.Youcan change housing conditions and improve peo-ple’s lives, but housing alone does not change soci-ety. Development does not end when develop-ments open.This is when the real work begins.

While our study highlights both the successes andthe limitations of small-scale planning, it begs thequestion of what would have happened if UDC hadbeen allowed to fulfill its mandate on a much largerscale. In Wyandanch, Long Island, for example, UDCwas blocked from building affordable housing. In1971 the city of Wyandanch, a poor, largely minoritycommunity surrounded by wealthier and whitersuburbs, entered into an agreement with UDC toplan and construct much needed housing. UDCplanned a mixed-income development, one thatnearby white communities feared would become amixed-race development. To curtail UDC’s powersand keep it out of the suburbs, New York Statepassed legislation in the spring of 1973 allowingtowns and villages to veto UDC projects. By mid-summer of the same year, the Wyandanch develop-ment was vetoed by conservative town officials.Today, Wyandanch is still struggling. In 1973Wyandanch had no sewers and today it is still with-out sewers, an underdeveloped suburban ghetto.Long Island, too, remains divided on the need foraffordable housing for poorer, minority populations.

Susan Saegert is a professor of environmentalpsychology and director of the Center for HumanEnvironments at the City University of New YorkGraduate School, where Kimberly Libman andLauren J.Tenney are doctoral students.They wishto recognize the contributions to this researchmade by Grace Campagna, Jennifer Giesekingand Dorian Luey, as well as the helpful sugges-tions on earlier drafts from Ron Shiffman. Thework would never had been undertaken withoutthe persistent prodding of Nina Liebman and theinterest and information supplied by TedLiebman and Allan Melting.


The Municipality of Jerusalem intends to demolishan entire East Jerusalem neighborhood—eighty-eight homes housing 1,000 residents—in the el-Bustan area of Silwan village in East Jerusalem, closeto the walls of the Old City.The reason,according toCity Engineer Uri Shitreet, who issued the orders, isthat this area is an important cultural and historicalsite for the Jewish nation because it stands on thesite where King David established his kingdom.Theaim,says Shitreet, is to return this densely populatedPalestinian part of the city “to its landscape of yore.”The operation, the largest demolition of Palestinianhomes in Jerusalem since 1967, is code-named “TheCherry in the Crown.” The earliest houses in theneighborhood date from the 1940s and 1950s,though most were built in the 1980s and early 1990son private land belonging to Silwan villagers. Someof the houses in this area were built before 1967 andothers were built in the 1970s.The first forty houseshave already received demolition orders.

Since the Israeli government zoned almost all theunbuilt land of Palestinian East Jerusalem as “opengreen space” after the 1967 war (and sincePalestinians would not be allowed to live in JewishWest Jerusalem), there is little space forPalestinians.The reasons are political,not urban.AirCheshin, Mayor Teddy Kollek’s advisor on Arabaffairs and one of the architects of the post-1967policy, describes the intention in detail in his bookSeparate and Unequal:The Inside Story of IsraeliRule in East Jerusalem (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1999, p. 31-32):

It was a ruthless policy, if only for the fact thatthe needs (to say nothing of the rights) ofPalestinian residents were ignored. Israel saw theadoption of strict zoning plans as a way of limit-ing the number of new homes built in Arabneighborhoods, and thereby ensuring that theArab percentage of the city’s population—28.8in 1967—did not grow beyond this level.Allowing “too many” new homes in Arab neigh-borhoods would mean “too many”Arab residentsin the city.The idea was to move as many Jews aspossible into East Jerusalem, and move as manyArabs as possible out of the city entirely. Israelihousing policy in East Jerusalem was all aboutthis numbers game.

Planners with the city engineer’s office, whendrawing the zoning boundaries for the Arabneighborhoods, limited them to already built-upareas. Adjoining open areas were either zoned“green,” to signify they were off-limits to devel-opment, or left unzoned until they were neededfor the construction of Jewish housing projects.The 1970 Kollek plan contains the principlesupon which Israeli housing policy is based tothis day: expropriation of Arab-owned land,development of large Jewish neighborhoods inEast Jerusalem and limits on development inArab neighborhoods.

Zoning for Ethnic Cleansing: Israeli-run Municipality to

Demolish Eighty-Eight Arab Houses

By the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

[In 1967], Israel’s leaders adopted two basicprinciples in their rule of East Jerusalem.The first was to rapidly increase the Jewishpopulation in East Jerusalem. The secondwas to hinder growth of the Arab popula-tion and to force Arab residents to maketheir homes elsewhere. It is a policy that hastranslated into a miserable life for the major-ity of East Jerusalem Arabs….Israel turnedurban planning into a tool of the govern-ment, to be used to help prevent theexpansion of the city’s non-Jewish popula-tion (emphasis added). �

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Shitreet thus bases his decision to demolish on thefact that the “King’s Valley,” as he calls the Bustanneighborhood, has been designated by the Israeliauthorities as “open green space,” therefore off-lim-its to Palestinian building even though the home-owners own the land. Although the Israeli masterplan for the city overrules the Jordanian masterplan, which allows residential building in theBustan neighborhood, international law prohibitsIsrael, as an occupying power, from imposing itsown laws and regulations. Nevertheless, Shitreethas instructed city officials to deal “most forcefully”with building code violations, and says that theprocess of bringing lawsuits against the Palestinianresidents has already begun.

An Israeli settler organization called El Ad isfocused exclusively on the Silwan area, anddoes so with discreet help from the Israeli gov-ernment. In 1992, Haim Klugman, then-directorgeneral of the Ministry of Justice, reported thattens of millions of dollars had been given to set-tler groups, including El Ad, by governmentministries; false documents supplied by Arabcollaborators had been used to classifyPalestinian houses as “absentee property;” theIsrael Lands Authority and the Jewish NationalFund had allotted much of Silwan to the settlerswithout offering it up for tender; and publicfunds had been used to finance the settlers’legal expenses.

“We break up Arab continuity and their claim toEast Jerusalem by putting in isolated islands ofJewish presence in areas of Arab population,” sayUri Bank, a leader of the pro-settlement Moledetparty.“Then we definitely try to put these togeth-er to form our own continuity. It’s just likeLegos—you put the pieces out there and connectthe dots.That is Zionism.That is the way the State

of Israel was built. Our eventual goal is Jewishcontinuity in all of Jerusalem.”

In the past decade, El Ad has taken over more thanfifty houses in Silwan, displacing the Palestinianfamilies (often in nighttime operations) and mov-ing in Israeli Jewish families. Settlers just complet-ed a seven-story apartment building in Silwan,which now stands over the village sporting a hugeIsraeli flag.The city engineer’s office claims it didnot notice the construction. Needless to say, nodemolition order has been issued, or will be.

Many in the Israeli peace movement suspect thatsuch a major initiative would not come from themunicipality, and certainly not from the lowlycity engineer. More than likely it comes fromabove, from Sharon government officials anxiousto placate the settlers over the Gaza redeploy-ment by presenting them with a Jewish neigh-borhood on a prime site next to the Old City, andwith an archaeological garden in place ofPalestinian residents.

All this is part of an explicit process of“Judaizing” Jerusalem, says Meir Margalit, a for-mer Jerusalem city councilman and a member ofthe Israeli Committee Against HouseDemolitions (ICAHD). “Look at the larger pic-ture,” he says. “Put the settlement actions inSilwan together with the ongoing demolition ofArab houses in East Jerusalem. Put it togetherwith the building of the wall through Abu Dis.Allthese features together paint a very dramatic pic-ture where the Israeli government, together withthe settlers, are part of a national program tomake the life of Palestinians so hard they willleave Jerusalem.”

We at ICAHD call upon the international com-munity to express its opposition to the plans ofthe Israeli government and the Jerusalemmunicipality to demolish an entire Palestinianneighborhood in East Jerusalem. DestroyingPalestinian homes and communities has becomean obsession with Israel, proceeding withoutpause despite initiatives to renew a diplomaticprocess of peace or create that “calm” on theground that Israelis insist upon so vociferously.The threatened Silwan action contravenes notonly the spirit but the letter of the Road Map,which specifies that, already in Phase 1, “theGovernment of Israel ends actions underminingtrust, including attacks in civilian areas and con-fiscation/demolition of Palestinian homes/prop-erty…as a punitive measure or to facilitateIsraeli construction.” Stop the demolitionsimmediately! For information on how to help,see www.icahd.org.

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A Return to the Halcyon Days or JustAnother Empty Promise?

On April 29, 2005, officials from Ontario and theCanadian federal government announced whatwas deemed by one senior provincial official as“the largest affordable housing deal in Canadianhistory.” The roughly C$600 million partnershipbetween the federal and provincial governmentwill be directed toward the construction of15,000 affordable housing units and rent supple-ments to 5,000 Ontario families. The announce-ment came only weeks after a (federal) govern-ment-saving compromise between the rulingLiberals and the leftish New Democrat Party todevote C$1.6 billion over the next two years forhousing. To say that these announcements werewelcome news to housing activists in Ontariowould be the understatement of the decade. Forthe last twelve years, activists and affordable hous-ing tenants have been forced to witness the ideo-logically-driven sacrifice of a once-impressivesocial housing sector in Canada.These announce-ments were met with enthusiasm by the afford-able housing community, but also with a certaindegree of caution that can be attributed to thecommunity’s increasingly uneasy relationshipwith the provincial and federal governments dur-ing the past decade.

A (Very) Short History of Social Housing in Canada

The Canadian social, or government-subsidized,housing system functionally and symbolicallysits between the welfare-friendly systems ofWestern Europe and the market-friendly systemof the United States. The UK, France and theNetherlands, for example, all have (or recentlyhad) rates of social housing over 20 percent anda fairly strong commitment to the sector, whileantipathy toward the sector in the US has limit-ed public housing to about two percent of thetotal stock (at the beginning of the 1990s).Somewhere in between (but obviously closer tothe latter), Canada’s housing stock is about 6 per-cent social housing, or about 650,000 unitsnationwide. This stock consists of three largeportfolios (and a number of smaller ones thatwill not be covered here). First, there is tradi-

tional public housing, which is about one-thirdof the social housing stock and consists of unitsbuilt and, until recently, owned and managed bythe federal government. Second, there is cooper-ative housing—arguably the most successfulportfolio in the housing stock—that is derivedfrom changes to housing laws in the 1970s thatallow more residential autonomy in non-markethousing. Finally, there are private and municipalnon-profit housing stocks.These consist of unitsbuilt with federal, provincial or municipalmoney but managed by either a communitygroup or a special administrative wing of thecity. Despite the variation in success, manage-ment style and cost of these portfolios, each hasbeen attacked during the past decade for similarideological reasons.

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say thatfor Canadian social housing, the early 1990s wasakin to the early 1970s for US public housing. Notunlike Nixon’s famous 1973 declaration that theurban crisis was over and that the federal govern-ment was ending its commitment to future publichousing, the early 1990s began with the newly-elected Liberal government declaring that hous-ing for the poor was no longer the responsibilityof the Canadian federal government. Thatannouncement was made in 1993 by the deficit-obsessed finance minister Paul Martin—now theprime minister of the country—and applauded bythe International Monetary Fund and Bay Street(Canada’s equivalent to Wall Street).

Because the federal government was the largestsource of funding for most affordable housing inthe country, the announcement was devastatingfor both the provinces and individual providers.Some provinces resisted for awhile, trying toshoulder the commitment that had been down-loaded to them by the feds, while other conserva-tive-leaning governments saw it as an opportunityto remove government from housing altogether.Ontario became one of the latter when it electeda Conservative government led by Mike Harris—alongtime and prominent member of Canada’sleading neoliberal think tank, the Fraser Institute.Harris immediately compounded the crisis inaffordable housing by removing provincial


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Neoliberal Ideas and Social HousingRealities in Ontario

By Jason Hackworth


funds from the sector as well. To be sure, theHarris announcement was more mean-spiritedand doctrinaire than the federal one. Not only didOntario cancel all future commitments, it elimi-nated support for the roughly 17,000 units thatwere already in the pipeline, devolved responsi-bility to the municipalities (which, unlike theirAmerican counterparts, do not have enough tax-ing authority to generate adequate revenue forsuch expenditures) and eliminated major regula-tory obstacles for unaffordable housing growth inthe province.

The rationale for the decision read like somethingout of a Frederick Hayek book, part of a grandplan to devolve (to the municipalities) and priva-tize as much as possible. Faith in “individualchoice” and the market and an obsession withcompetition drove the government’s decision.The government argued, above all, that the marketwould figure out how to address the growingaffordable housing crisis, if only we gave it achance. They deemed the movement “the com-mon sense revolution,” and it was wildly success-ful at undoing welfare state gains made during thepast several decades.

Discussions about how to administer the down-loading of existing housing stocks—many ofwhich were jointly owned by the province andfederal government—marked the late 1990s, final-ly resulting in the 2000 Social Housing Reform Actfor Ontario (and various similar agreements forother provinces). The act formalized the down-loading of housing in Ontario to forty-seven localhousing service managers, most affiliated with anexisting municipal government.

What We Are Left with Today…

It is often the case that the ideological hyperboleof newly-elected governments amounts to very lit-tle material change once the actual administrativenegotiations take place.The complexity of organ-izations, the costs of wholesale restructuring andparallel legal frameworks often make such materi-al change difficult to achieve.The restructuring of

social housing in Ontario is not one of thesecases.The change since 1993 has been rapid andprofound.

First, there has been an intensification of theaffordable housing crisis. A 2000 study byPeressini and McDonald found that rates ofhomelessness in Canada now actually exceedthose in the US on a per capita basis. Theseincreases are even more intense in highly urban-ized provinces like Ontario, home to roughlyone-third of all Canadians. Social housing wait-ing lists now exceed 150,000 people (63,000 inToronto alone), as rapid population growth hascontinued without any serious increase in thesocial housing stock during the past decade.Theaffordable housing crisis in Ontario—and all ofCanada, for that matter—was sufficient enoughfor federal officials to commit C$300 million in2001 to build new units, but the more ideologi-cally-driven Conservative government inOntario refused to match these funds (a prereq-uisite for receiving them). As a result, the feder-al housing money sat untouched for severalyears. In 2003, the provincial Liberals came topower in Ontario, in part on a promise to matchthe aforementioned funds, but it took severalyears for this promise to materialize because theTories, upon exiting the government, left thecurrent government with a C$6 billion deficit.

The second, perhaps unintended, consequenceof social housing restructuring in Ontario hasbeen the creation of an institutional kaleido-scope that is difficult to navigate for even themost seasoned housing provider. The down-loading of responsibility for housing units, onceheld by the federal and provincial govern-ments, has been an institutionally complex mat-ter. The Social Housing Reform Act of 2000attempted to add some clarity to the new sys-tem, but many private and municipal non-profitproviders complain both that it is very confus-ing to work within the current system, and thatthe local service managers appointed by theprovince to manage existing portfolios are lessknowledgeable than previous federal andprovincial officials (under the previous sys-tem). The increase in complexity and thedecrease in expertise is an ironic one since theoriginal intent of downloading, and restructur-ing more generally, was the absolute reverse—to decrease complexity and increase expertiseby localizing responsibility.

A third, largely unexplored, consequence of socialhousing restructuring has been the creation of aspace for experimentation, primarily amongstnon-profit housing providers and municipalities

It is often the case that the ideological hyperbole of newly-

elective governments amounts tovery little administrative change.


in the province.This “space” holds great promisefor creating more affordable housing, but it alsocontains much danger; it is possible that furtherprivatization of the stock will occur and that ahighly uneven system like that in the US mightresult. Much remains to be seen about how non-profits are operating within this context, but sev-eral models have emerged already.

One model that has emerged has been theexperimentation of cities with zoning and fiscalincentives granted to non-profit, and increasing-ly for-profit, developers who are willing to buildaffordable housing. In Toronto, for example, theLet’s Build program has been working with non-profits for five years to smooth out the develop-ment process. The program provides cash, landand, most importantly, zoning concessions todevelopers in exchange for legal obligations toretain affordable housing. The model is verynew in Canada, primarily because cities havehistorically enjoyed less autonomy from theprovinces than cities do from states in the US.Much of the effort to incentivize affordablehousing construction is directed at the privatenon-profit housing sector. In Ontario, there areabout 600 private non-profit housing agencieswho manage over 83,000 affordable housingunits. These agencies are similar in nature toAmerican community development corpora-tions, but have a much closer and sustainedfunding relationship with higher levels of gov-ernment than their US counterparts. Privatenon-profits in Canada enter into long-termagreements (often thirty years or longer) tokeep their housing affordable in exchange for astream of government funding—not unlike proj-ect-based Section 8 developments in the US.

There has also been experimentation with exist-ing housing stocks through the vehicle ofmunicipal non-profit housing agencies.Municipal non-profits manage the majority ofnon-profit housing in Ontario (140,720 of the223,885 non-profit housing units) and are amal-gams of various housing portfolios inherited byhigher levels of government combined withthose built at the municipal level. There are over100 municipal non-profit housing agencies inOntario, but the vast majority of units are man-aged by a handful of large urban agencies. TheToronto Community Housing Corporation(TCHC), for example, manages a portfolio ofover 58,000 units—nearly one-half of all munic-ipal non-profit units in the province. In thiscase,TCHC, and most other municipal non-prof-its, and a politically-elected city council (andmayor) have tremendous influence (in cases,outright control) over how the housing stock is

managed. In Toronto, several high profile proj-ects, including the infamous downtown RegentPark development—Canada’s closest equivalentto Cabrini Green in the US—are being attempt-ed at the prodding of city officials. TCHC isengaging in an entrepreneurial plan to create amixed-income community where a highly segre-gated one currently exists by demolishing andrebuilding much of the complex. Sound famil-iar? It has publicly discussed ideas like sellingunits to higher-income tenants, selling on- andoff-site land in its portfolio and leasing space tocommercial tenants to finance this venture.TCHC has gathered copious amounts of press inToronto, but it isn’t entirely clear whether thisactivity is anomalous or whether such forms ofentrepreneurialism are taking place elsewherein Ontario’s municipal non-profit housing sys-tem (as its architects envisioned, or at leasthoped, it would).

I have begun a systematic study of all municipalnon-profit housing providers in Ontario todetermine the extent of entrepreneurialismwithin the system. Through interviews withgeneral key informants (i.e., those knowledge-

able about recent changes) and officials at eachof the 106 municipal non-profits in Ontario, Iam attempting to address the following ques-tions. First, how much have municipal housingproviders in Ontario been forced to turn to themarket to raise revenues, and in exactly whatways? Second, where has the desire to turn tothe market come from (above or within)? Third,are non-market units directly or indirectlybeing threatened by the turn toward a moreprivate relationship with the real estate market?Finally, are there ways that municipal non-prof-its are able to collectivize resources or over-sight in a way that might be counter to thearchitects of downloading but positive foraffordable housing construction?

Actually-Existing Versus Ideal-Type Political Restructuring

Though the interviews have just begun, a num-ber of preliminary findings

Much of the effort to incentivizeaffordable housing constructionis directed at the private non-profit housing sector.

[Cont. on page 22]


The Community-Based Planning Task Force hasissued a call for the creation of a new, more dem-ocratic framework for planning New York City.The report, prepared by the Municipal ArtSociety Planning Center, Livable Neighborhoodsfor a Livable City, details specific, realistic stepsNew York City should take to improve the capac-ity of communities to make and implement plansthat address their diverse needs.

With the city now undertaking its most elaborateand extensive planning for development indecades, it is imperative that the divergentvisions of planners, developers and neighbor-hood residents be resolved. It is time to rethinkhow planning is done in New York City.

New York’s current planning process is out ofdate, out of touch and out of ideas. At times,communities have no other option but to resortto lawsuits to have their voices heard. New plan-

ning tools that take advantage of the skills,knowledge and abilities of local communitieswould allow for faster, less costly and moreinnovative development.

Mayor William A. Johnson of Rochester, New York,said at a recent event that, although it is difficultto create a process for meaningful broad-basedpublic participation in planning, community-based planning is possible anywhere. Rochesteris one of a growing number of cities that haveembraced the concept.

Organized in 2000 by a group of advocates, plan-ners and academics, the Community-BasedPlanning Task Force is leading efforts to create amore significant role for communities in thecity’s decision-making processes. The report isthe culmination of the task force’s collaborativeresearch, discussions, and workshops.

The Task Force identified a multi-pronged strate-gy to make community boards and other localorganizations more effective planners — stepsbeyond the role Section 197-a of the city Charter(the provision that enables the creation of com-munity-based plans) lays out for them.The reportpoints to a lack of public awareness of communi-ty boards, and suggests ways to increase the pub-lic’s involvement in boards and their efforts. Italso recommends the creation of standards toensure that the makeup of community boardsreflects their diverse neighborhoods.

The report calls for a major increase in the train-ing and resources available to community boards.A typical board represents nearly 140,000 people— greater than the population of Albany — buteach receives minimal training, aid and funding.Building on the Planning Center’s work on theCommunity Information Technology Initiative(CITI), the report urges the city to take advantageof technology to make information flow moreeasily to and from communities.

Recognizing that the ability to plan means littleunless those plans can become a reality, thereport also details ways elected officials and may-

Livable Neighborhoods:Rethinking New York City Planning

By Micaéla Birmingham and Eve Baron


oral agencies can work with communities to sup-port and implement their plans.The City Councilshould, for example, provide oversight of citysupport for local planning and the 197-a process.

Only seven 197-a plans have been adopted by thecity in 16 years, and, as recent developments inneighborhoods across the city that countermandthese community plans demonstrate, the city isfar from bound by their provisions. The reportcalls for city agencies to treat local plans as thebasis for citywide planning and for the mayor andCity Council to make a commitment to commu-nity-based planning by transforming city agenciesinto local planning partners.

"In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, we realized a longtime ago that we had to embrace our communi-ty’s differences in order to conceive a sustain-able, locally based vision for the neighborhood.It’s time for New York City to do the same byenacting policy that requires real participationfrom communities in development decisions.That means going beyond just requiring a devel-oper to make a presentation to a communityboard for approval on something that’s already adone deal," said Elizabeth C. Yeampierre, theexecutive director of the United Puerto RicanOrganization of Sunset Park.

Cities like Seattle, Baltimore and Porto Alegre,Brazil, demonstrate that, although it is never easy, aplanning process beginning with local visions cansucceed. The current administration has demon-strated a commitment to public participation thatfar exceeds previous administrations’; with a truecommitment to community-based planning, incre-

mental steps toward a new planning framework forNew York are possible.

The powerful concept of community-based plan-ning helped inspire the creation of New York’scommunity boards in the 1960s. Forty years later, itis time to finally adopt new planning tools andmethods that will allow for a truly participatoryprocess that takes local visions seriously.

The authors are Director and Senior Planner,respectively, of the Municipal Art SocietyPlanning Center. The report is available on-lineat www.mas.org.

Street life on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, whererapid development bodes potential displacement of residentsand businesses

Check out the newly revamped Planners Network website:

www.plannersnetwork.org

The Planners Network member list is now available as a password-protected PDF on the site. For individual members the password is

on the mailing label of your copy of Progressive Planning Magazine.

Downloadable PDF versions of Progressive Planning Magazine back issues also available.

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IntroductionWhat Is Progressive Planning Today?

By Ann Forsyth and Tom Angotti

Politics and PlanningThe Socialist City, Still

By Tom AngottiOn the Practical Relevance of Marxist Thought

By Renee TobackChanging the Culture of Planning Toward Greater Equity

By Norman Krumholz

Urban DesignThe Ground Zero Architectural Competition:Designing without a Plan

By Peter MarcusePost-9/11 Planning: New York City and Beyond

By Tom AngottiThe Narrow Base of the New Urbanists

By Michael PyatokNew Urban Planning for Neighborhood Revitalization

By Jennifer HurleyFrom “Sugar Cookies”to “Gingerbread Men”:Conformity in Suburban Design

By Jill GrantHOPE VI and the New Urbanism

By Janet L. Smith

Planning EducationProfessional Identities and Boundary Maintenance

By Gerda R.WekerleCracks in the Foundation of Traditional Planning

By Barbara Loevinger RahderPlanning Education:How Could It Be Different from Business School?

By Katharine N.RankinPlanning and Neoliberalism:The Challenge for Radical Planners

By Kanishka Goonewardena

Race, Gender and DiversityDiversity and the Planning Profession

By Leonardo VazquezInvolving Youth in Planning:The Progressive Challenge

By Ann ForsythIndigenous Planning and Tribal Community Development

By Ted Jojola Are the Transgendered the Mine Shaft Canaries of Urban Areas?

By Petra L.Doan Deviant History, Defiant Heritage

By Gail Dubrow Multicultural Planning: Lessons from Papakolea

By Karen Umemoto Women Plan Toronto: Incorporating Gender Issues in Planning

By Barbara Loevinger RahderRoofless Women's Action Research Mobilization & ParticipatoryAction Research

By Marie Kennedy

Community PlanningBuilding a Legacy of Health by Confronting Health Disparities Around Food

By David C. SloaneEmpowerment Through Community Development

By Marie KennedyCampus/Community Partnerships in the 90’s

By Kenneth M.Reardon and Thomas P. ShieldsIndigenous Planning At Work

By Teresa Córdova

Sustainability, Environment and HealthUrban Planning For Active Living:Who Benefits?

By Kristin DayEngineering Physical Activity Back Into Americans’ Lives

By Mark FentonSustainability is Not Enough

By Peter MarcuseSustainable and Environmentally Just Societies

By Sandra Rodriguez Feminist Thoughts on Planning for Sustainability

By Sherilyn MacGregor

Globalization and International IssuesPlanning as a Tool of Political Control: Israel’s Matrix of Control

By Jeff HalperPlanning at the Frontline: Notes From Israel

By Oren YiftachelWar and the Urban “Geopolitical Footprint”

By Michael DudleyUrban Planners Oppose the War In Iraq

(Statement 2003)Strategic Planning and Urban Competition:The Agenda of MulitlateralAgencies in Brazil

By Fabricio Leal de Oliveira Confronting Globalization:The Role of Progressive Planners

By Tom AngottiTransnationalism, Not Assimilation

By Arturo Sanchez

Transportation and InformationThe Costs of Auto Dependency

By Lisa SchreibmanTransportation Equity and Environmental Justice

By Rich StolzTransportation in Toronto: Car Culture Is Alive and Well

By Janice EtterThe “Digital Divide”and the Persistence of Urban Poverty

By Blanca GordoHousehold Information Strategies and Community Responses

By Gwen Urey Transportation Struggles in The Post-Apartheid City

By Jon OrcuttEight Myths of Traffic Planning

By Roger BakerEast St. Louis Citizens Put Transportation Planners on the Right Trackfor Light Rail Expansion

By Patricia A.Nolan

Regional PlanningPortland,Oregon:How to Link Growth Management and Affordable Housing

By Tasha HarmonRace,Class & Space:A Historical Comparison of the Three Regional Plansfor New York

By Tony Schuman and Elliott Sclar Dots Crying In the Wilderness

By Jean Garren

Up to 4 copies $12 per copy5+ copies $8 per copy(Price includes postage & handling)

Progressive Planning Reader 2004Over 100 pages of the best from Planners Network and Progressive Planning


Creating and Maintaining Affordabilitywith Housing Co-ops

By Kerstin Larson

The affordability gap between housing provi-sion and housing need in the US grows widerwith each passing year. One solution, widelyknown in Europe but not so familiar toAmericans, are limited-equity housing coopera-tives.This form of housing is becoming increas-ingly popular as a sustainable, affordable hous-ing model for low- and moderate-income fami-lies. Limited-equity co-ops can provide for somewealth creation while maintaining almost per-

petual affordability. Housing cooperatives arenotable for their flexibility; they work equallywell in rural manufactured home parks, in local-ly-based senior housing or as a source of urbanaffordable homeownership. Depending on thegoals of the cooperative, members can structuretheir limited-equity formula for maximumwealth creation or maximum preservation ofaffordability. In reality, most resident groupschoose a balance between the two.

Limited-equity cooperatives by no means work inevery situation.They do not provide the long-terminvestment vehicle that a conventional home deliv-ers.They do, however, work extraordinarily well insituations where residents place a higher premiumon having autonomy over their housing rather thanon having an investment opportunity or whereopportunities for wealth creation are limited.

Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund(NCDF) in Minneapolis has worked with two resi-dent groups over the course of the past year, the dif-ferent situations of which illustrate the flexibility ofthe model. At Sunrise Villa Cooperative in CannonFalls, Minnesota, an exurban community fifty milessoutheast of the Twin Cities, residents of a manufac-tured home park purchased it and have owned andmanaged it as a no-equity co-op for the past ninemonths. At Frogtown Family Lofts in a busy urbanneighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota, residents ofa Low-Income Housing Tax Credit property are cur-rently working to purchase the building and ownand manage it as a limited-equity cooperative.

Sunrise Villa Cooperative: Preserving RuralAffordable Housing

The situation at Sunrise Villa ManufacturedHome Park reflects a larger trend in Minnesota.Manufactured home parks represent an over-looked but critical source of affordable housingfor a great number of Minnesota residents.Particularly in the suburban metro area, suchparks are sometimes the only significant sourceof affordable housing. These same parks areincreasingly vulnerable to closure due to risingproperty values and lucrative developmentopportunities. Residents of manufactured homeparks typically own their homes, but they rentthe land underneath them. Unlike most rentalsituations, however, park residents are usuallyoffered no more than a thirty-day lot leasearrangement. Consequently, even residents withten or twenty years of tenure face the constantthreat of losing their housing at a month’snotice. Contrary to their moniker, many“mobile” homes are not very moveable, andrelocation, when even possible, is expensiveand cumbersome.

Saint Paul, Minnesota’s Frogtown Family Lofts

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Resident ownership can resolve residents’ vul-nerability to park closure, as well as addressmany of the infrastructure problems often foundin aging parks. In conventional rental housing,the owner is incentivized to make the biggestprofit possible while still maintaining a highoccupancy rate. In manufactured home parks,however, residents who own their homes are vir-tually trapped, since moving manufacturedhomes is an expensive, laborious process whichcan, in many cases, cause irreparable damage tothe homes themselves. As a result, many parkowners are able to regularly raise rents withoutmaintaining the park’s infrastructure because itis highly unlikely that residents will incur theexpense of moving their home even if infra-structure is poorly maintained. In a resident-owned park, residents’ motivations revolvearound increasing their quality of life, which isreflected in a greater commitment to maintain-ing park infrastructure while budgeting foraffordable monthly charges.

Sunrise Villa residents found themselves insuch a situation when the park owner sold theoption to purchase the park to a buyer whowas developing a multi-million dollar subdivi-sion directly adjacent to the park. When parkresidents became concerned that the buyerintended to close the park for redevelopment,the owner called NCDF for assistance. Workingclosely with residents, NCDF negotiated a pur-chase agreement and assembled financing thatwas amenable to all parties and allowed resi-dents of the park to purchase the land and con-vert it to a no-equity cooperative (in a manu-factured home park co-op, it is typical that res-idents’ equity accumulation rests with theirhome, instead of their share in the co-op).Residents’ monthly charges, while up 13 per-cent from rental levels, provided enough rev-enue to complete needed improvements andremained affordable enough to allow every res-ident to stay a resident. Residents becamemembers by purchasing a $500 share in thecooperative, either by using their securitydeposit, making a cash payment or taking out azero percent loan from the co-op that wouldbe repaid monthly.

Upon conversion, co-op members immediatelyfilled vacant lots, bringing park occupancy to100 percent. They also resolved deferred main-tenance issues and used funds from the pro-ceeds of the closing to replace deterioratingmailboxes with a locking mailbox bank andrefurbish the neglected playground with newequipment. Currently, the park has a waiting listof interested buyers.

Frogtown Family Lofts: Preserving UrbanAffordable Housing

Though Frogtown Family Lofts is in a completelydifferent environment, many of its challengeswere similar to those of Sunrise Villa. FrogtownFamily Lofts is a leasehold artists’ cooperative inSaint Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood. Home tothirty-six households, units are affordable to resi-

dents whose incomes are at 60 percent of AreaMedian Income (AMI).As a Low-income HousingTax Credit property, its affordability complianceperiod is set to expire on December 31, 2006, atwhich time the Brandt Jens Kluge partnership,which owns the building, may choose to convertit to another use. Members of the leasehold coop-erative, who are relatively active and play a rolein managing the building together with the man-aging partner of the partnership, are very inter-ested in purchasing the building for conversionto a limited-equity cooperative.

Since the summer of 2004, NCDF staff has beenworking with residents at Frogtown Family Loftsto develop an acquisition plan that will work forthem. Early in the process, residents decided thattheir central objectives in the project would beto ensure that Frogtown Family Lofts remainshousing for artists, their families and low-incomepeople, and that conversion to cooperativehomeownership would not necessitate the dis-placement of current residents.

The five elements of this plan include:

• Frogtown Family Lofts will provide affordablehomeownership in perpetuity. Entry costs are

Members of the Sunrise VIlla Co-op

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designed to be accessible now, and through useof a limited-equity formula, into the future.

• Frogtown Family Lofts preserves affordablehousing for low- to moderate-income artists andtheir families. Our operating budgets are aimed atkeeping monthly housing charges (and rent forthose who choose to remain tenants) at or belowanticipated rental levels.

• Prospective members must meet a maximumhousehold income of 80 percent of AMI.The coop-erative seeks to retain a maximum income limit toguarantee long-term affordability, however, it alsowants to maximize the cooperative’s marketability.

• The cooperative will initially require an averageequity or cash requirement (i.e., down payment)of $2,500-3,000 from existing members. In choos-ing this figure, the acquisition committee soughtan amount that would require existing residentsto invest a meaningful amount of money to jointhe cooperative, while still keeping entry costsaccessible. For those to whom this presents anobstacle, the cooperative will provide several

options to finance this equity requirement. Theremaining financing will come in the form of ablanket mortgage on the property, repaidthrough proceeds of residents’ monthly charges.• Shareholders accumulate a maximum of about$2,000 per year in equity. Though the specificformula has not yet been chosen, cooperativemembers are expected to accumulate up to$2,000 in equity for each year of occupancy, sub-ject to demonstration that a formula deliveringsuch equity gains is sustainable and practicalover the long-term.

Residents of Frogtown Family Lofts have a longway to go before they will be able to purchasetheir building. Potential lenders, however, havealready expressed an interest in assisting in thispreservation effort and residents look forward tothe day when they can call Frogtown Family Loftstheir own.

Kerstin Larson is housing program associate atthe Northcountry Cooperative DevelopmentFund in Minneapolis. She can be contacted [email protected].

are emerging. The least surprising of these isthat the entrepreneurialism that does exist inthe system is borne of a certain desperation forresources, not a long-suppressed desire bylocal authorities to become more market-ori-ented.There are discussions about selling prop-erty, renting commercial space and increasingmarket-rate housing and homeownership, butmost of these are marginal to the mission ofthese institutions. Most see these as a matter ofnecessity rather than desire, even in conserva-tive districts that one might expect to be sym-pathetic to the original architects of the cur-rently devolved system.

More surprising has been the finding that manymunicipal non-profit officials remain moretrusting of higher levels of government thantheir American counterparts.The Canadian non-profit sector has been and continues to be clos-er to the state, but most non-profits don’t con-sider recent discussions about privatization as athreat to the system, even though privatizationwas espoused originally by a politician withopen contempt for welfare systems of almostall sorts.

Additionally, beneath the veneer of download-ing and funding cuts at the federal level, thereare a number of ways that non-profits and

municipalities are actually able to centralizeregulation and resources in a way that is notentirely different from the classic Keynesianmodel. Agencies like the Social HousingServices Corporation have been established topool resources needed for financing the devel-opment of new affordable housing. Moreover,cities have utilized existing legal protectionsand autonomy afforded to private corpora-tions to create institutions that have both mar-ket power and public control.TCHC, for exam-ple, is a single-shareholder corporation—thesingle shareholder being the City of Toronto—that is less vulnerable to direct provincial orfederal government decisions but is publiclycontrolled by the city. Simply put, the institu-tional architecture that has resulted fromsocial housing restructuring has not generallyled to the highly diffuse, private system that itsneoliberal architects envisioned. New forms ofregulation are emerging that are often only dif-ferent in label than previous public housing,and this holds great potential for the central-ization of resources that might once again leadto the development of new affordable housingin the province in the coming years.

Jason Hackworth is assistant professor in theDepartment of Geography at the University ofToronto.

Hackworth [Cont. from page 19]


In Landscape Journal, Kyle Brown and ToddJennings (2003) call for efforts to raise the socialconsciousness of the profession of landscapearchitecture through changes in our educationalcurriculum. This call was reiterated at a sessionof the 2005 Planners Network Conference. AsBrown and Jennings noted, not all professionallandscape architecture curricula have beenwholly apolitical in terms of integrating socialjustice issues. Walter Hood and Randy Hestor atthe University of California, Berkeley; AnneWhiston Spirn at the University of Pennsylvaniawith the West Philadelphia Landscape Project;Roxanne Hamilton and Daniel Winterbottom atthe University of Washington, Seattle; and theUrban Places Project out of the University ofMassachusetts, among others, have been heavilyengaged in this arena for a number of years.YetBrown and Jennings’ proposed framework seemsparticularly useful for beginning a “system-wide”dialogue, beginning to answer both how andwhy questions.

One of the first questions to be addressed is whyshould indigenous people trust a designer/plan-ner from a society that wrought the kind ofdestruction that nearly wiped out entire civiliza-tions, no matter how expert that assistancemight be? The kind of trust that is necessary canbe built only by those willing to develop therelationships necessary to be part of the com-munity. Only by moving toward a practice inwhich a long-term partnership in a trusting rela-tionship with the people is not only a far-offgoal, but an essential element, will planning anddesign efforts in indigenous communities betaken seriously.

During the course of my own practice and expe-rience working with Native American communi-ties, most recently with the Leech Lake band ofOjibwe, I have often heard it said, after 500 yearsof oppression, “We are still here!” Native peopleare survivors, yet they do not want to be prison-ers in their own land.They do not ask for sympa-thy, although recognition of past struggles andempathy for their situation is much appreciated.They also appreciate those that are willing towork with them, to protect rights and envision asovereign future, rather than those that wouldprefer to work to provide answers for them.

Grant Revell, an Australian landscape architectwho works with indigenous peoples and teachesat the University of Western Australia, in Perth,recently shared with me a quote from Aboriginalactivist Lily Walker, which seems to sum up thesentiments of the people with whom I haveworked about accepting help from outside thetribe: “If you are here to help me, then you arewasting your time. But if you came because yourliberation is bound up in mine, let us begin.”

Cultural Competency

For practitioners, an understanding of the issuesof sovereignty, colonization and assimilation thatare germane to daily life on indigenous landsbegins to build what Robert Albee, assistantdirector of the American Indian CommunityDevelopment Corporation in Minneapolis, callscultural competency. I have taken this notion as astarting point for my work in indigenous com-munities and believe it can be used to build amodel of best practice.

Building cultural competency is the criticalcomponent to building working relationshipswith Native people.An immersion strategy thatintegrates social justice issues can lead to suc-cessful planning and design efforts. Whenworking with design students, I have used aprocess that I call cultural immersion. RoxanneHamilton and I first developed this process forour studios with the Tulalip Tribes, and againwith the Port Gamble S’Kallam Tribe inWashington State. In each of these two caseswe were invited to participate because of rela-tionships that we had previously developedwith tribal members or with people who

Redefining Best Practice in Indian Country

By John A. Koepke

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...why should indigenous peopletrust a designer/planner from asociety that wrought the kind ofdestruction that nearly wiped outentire civilizations...


worked with the tribe who could vouch forour integrity.

We began by reading about sovereignty, colo-nization and assimilation issues from varioussources; at the same time we were introduced totribal members, including some elders, by ourcultural guides or liaisons. As we worked withthe tribe to identify relevant issues for the proj-ect, we simultaneously read the history of thetribe, familiarized ourselves with treaty rightsand read various legislation, including the IndianCitizenship Act of 1924, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act of 1975, theAmerican Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978,the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and theIndian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. We alsoread contemporary Native American literature;invited native speakers to share Tulalip (theTulalip reservation is actually composed of threetribes), S’Kallam and other American Indianteachings as well as information on Pan-Indianculture; invited non-Native people who workedfor the tribe to share their experiences and offersuggestions with regard to proper behavior andprotocols; and importantly also attended culturalevents when invited. In anthropological terms, Iwould say we were trying to move beyond “BigC” cultural understanding, that is, knowing anddocumenting the physical aspects of a culture inthe quantitative sense, toward “little c” culturalawareness, that is, beginning to understand thebeliefs and values of the people with whom wewere working.

Our analysis and design efforts were inclusive.This was not business as usual, where we cameinto the situation to immediately define the prob-lems and offer solutions. We came to build rela-

tionships with people, to get to know thembefore we even began the technical aspects ofthe work. To facilitate this we were careful tointroduce ourselves in the proper way, to discussour families and our home communities and tosay why we were interested in being there in thefirst place. To further facilitate the relationship-building, we worked with tribal members inworkshop formats in small group settings. Wecame as listeners with the attitude that we werethere as facilitators to help bring the visions ofthe people forward. We did not pretend that wehad all the answers and we asked questions beingrespectful of cultural and spiritual beliefs andcareful not to probe issues that our guides sug-gested were too sensitive for outsiders.

This effort was particularly successful in helpingthe students develop a greater respect and empa-thy for the people with whom we worked andAmerican Indian culture in general. Students alsofound themselves confronting their own feelingsof guilt about the role of their culture and socie-ty in disempowering indigenous people.We useda talking circle throughout the process to shareviews, ideas, doubts, failures and successes and toreassure students that while their efforts couldnot change the past, they could make for a morepositive future. In addition, we found that havingsome understanding of the language of a tribe orat least its linguistic underpinnings is critical tounderstanding a tribe’s worldview and relation-ship to the land, which is so critical in makingplanning and design decisions.

John A. Koepke, of Ojibwe heritage, is associateprofessor and head of the Department ofLandscape Architecture at the University ofMinnesota.

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2005 Planners Network Confererence RecapOver 250 people participated in the 2005 Planners Network conference,“Justice by Design?” in Minnesota’s Twin Cities,June 2-5, 2005.The following photos are mostly from some of the eight tours offered as part of the conference.

Ames Lake restoration at PhalenCreek Corridor Initiative with FredRozumalski as part of the “EcologicalRestoration in the Center Cities” tourled by Laura Musacchio of theUniversity of Minnesota Departmentof Landscape Architecture.

Lake Nokomis restoration with PeterMacDonagh, also part of the“Ecological Restoration in the CenterCities” tour.

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The tour entitled “Housing: FromPublic and Nonprofit HousingDevelopment and Redevelopment toRecent Innovations in AffordableHousing Design” included a stop atthe Greater Frogtown CommunityDevelopment Corporation’s CaseStudy Houses designed in collabora-tion with the Wilder Foundation andUniversity of Minnesota.

The Lake St. light rail station was fea-tured on the “Transit OrientedDevelopment and the Light Rail” tour,led by Frank Fitzgerald of theMetropolitan Design Center.

Greater Frogtown CommunityDevelopment Corporation’s CaseStudy Houses

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UPDATESPNPN News

Please note that Planners Network Canadianmembership fees have changed slightly to bet-ter reflect the current exchange rate. The newfees (in Canadian dollars) are:• $30 for students, unemployed and those withincomes less than $30,000• $40 for those with incomes between $30,000and $60,000• $60 for those with incomes over $60,000• $120 for sustaining members

Checks can be sent to:Amy SicilianoUniversity of TorontoDept of Geography and Planning100 St. George St, Room 5047Toronto, ON M5S 3G3

PN Chapter News

The University of Michigan chapter recentlysponsored a lecture series on equity planning,culminating in a visit from Professor NormanKrumholz. In the first event in the series, a panelof leaders from community-based organizations inthe Detroit metropolitan region discussed thepractice of equity planning on issues of regional-ism and civil rights.The second event was a sym-posium of five University of Michigan facultymembers to discuss the theory of equity planningand the role of universities in advancing progres-sive planning. A third event gathered students todiscuss how they can carry forward the traditionof equity planning in their studies and futurecareers. Finally, Professor Krumholz delivered alecture about his experiences with equity plan-ning in Cleveland and how young planners canapply his lessons to the work they do today.

PN Member Updates

Jason Blackman graduated with a BA (Honors)in urban planning from Concordia University in

Montreal and is relocating to Vancouver for grad-uate studies in urban planning at the University ofBritish Columbia.

Nicole Blumner will be working for the BerlinCity Planning Department through a fellowshipoffered by the Robert Bosch FoundationFellowship Program, which enables youngAmerican professionals to participate in an inten-sive work and study program in Germany. Thegoal of the program is to familiarize Americanswith the political, economic and cultural environ-ment of Europe and the Federal Republic ofGermany and to strengthen the ties of friendshipand understanding between the US and Germany.The program provides the American professionalswith executive level internships in the federalgovernment and private sectors.

Jennifer Clark (PhD, Cornell University) wasrecently appointed assistant professor in theSchool of Public Policy at Georgia Institute ofTechnology.

Gary Fields, assistant professor in the Departmentof Communications, University of California-SanDiego and author of Territories of Profit (StanfordUniversity Press), recently published an op-edpiece entitled “Power, Propaganda and PromisedLand” in the San Diego Union Tribune, 29 May2005. For the full text of the article, please visitwww.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050529/news_mz1e29power.html.Gary is working on a newbook on the Israeli Separation Wall.

Elyse Golob has new contact information:Elyse Golob, PhDDirector, Office of Economic and Policy AnalysisUniversity of ArizonaP.O. Box 210458Tucson,AZ 85721.520.621.2377 (phone) 520.626.6946 (fax)http://[email protected] (email). �


Tasha Harmon of Portland, Oregon has a newemail address. She can be reached [email protected].

Brodie Hefner, AICP, taught a graduate seminaron “Housing and Urban Development” during thespring 2005 semester as an adjunct lecturer in theDepartment of Urban Affairs and Planning atHunter College, City University of New York. Atthe same time, he kept his day job as a senior proj-ect manager for the US Department of Housingand Urban Development where for the last sixyears he has been managing HOPE VI public hous-ing revitalization grants and other developmentprojects from HUD offices in New York andWashington, DC. Brodie is also currently serving atwo-year term as co-vice president for programsof the Metro NY Chapter of the AmericanPlanning Association. He can be reached [email protected].

Ute Lehrer, assistant professor in theDepartment of Geography at Brock University (St.Catharines, ON), has received a three-year SSHRCresearch grant in the amount of $63,000 from theCanadian government to study “Urban images,public space and the growth of private interestsin Toronto.” Ute recently received tenure and apromotion at Brock University.

From Josh Lerner:After several months travelingthrough Central and South America (www.line-sofflight.net/isittravel), I’m currently in Rosario,Argentina. In Rosario I’m conducting research onthe educative and youth dimensions of the city’sparticipatory budgeting programs and workingwith the Latin American coordinating office ofEducation Cities (www.edcities.bcn.es), an inter-

national network of cities working to transformtheir urban environments into educating spaces.I’ve also been establishing connections with someLatin American cousins of Planners Network, suchas the Foro Urbano Ecuador and Redes dePlanificacion Participativa y Gestion Asociada inArgentina, in case other PN’ers are looking forlike-minded Latin American contacts. InSeptember I’ll be starting the PhD program inpolitical science at New School University in NewYork. I can be reached at [email protected].

From Joel Outtes, head of the GEST Group forthe Study of Society and Territory UFRGS-Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul: GESTis interested in establishing agreements and col-laborating with colleagues in other institutions,cities and countries. We can either be a SouthAmerican and/or American “leg” of comparativeresearch projects and/or have colleagues as part-ners in any of our projects.We are also willing tocollaborate with other colleagues applying forNEH and/or NSF grants as well as other fundingagencies, such as the European ScienceFoundation, worldwide. GEST members work onsubjects ranging from the history and geographyof housing and cities in South America to the spa-tial dynamics of crime in the metropolitan regionof Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil.We are also interested inreceiving foreign scholars to give lectures. Pleasecontact me at [email protected] if you want tolecture or do research here.

Alex Schafran recently had an article aboutSullivan County, New York entitled “Growth andChange on New York’s Urban/Rural Edge” pub-lished in The Next American City. The article isavailable at www.americancity.org.

Upcoming special issuesSubmissions welcome

Arts and Culture

Community Design

Global Warming and Energy

Indigenous Planning

See page 2 of this issue for submission guidelines.


RESOURCES

Publications

The following three articles from The Nation examinethe opportunities and obstacles for progressives inmunicipal politics, inspired in part by AntonioVillaraigosa’s victory in the mayoral race in LosAngeles.

“Cities:The Vital Core”(2005) by Joel Rogers, available at:www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20050620&s=rogers.

“Urban Archipelago”(2005) by John Nichols, available at:www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050620&s=nichols.

“Can a City Be Progressive?” (2005) by Peter Drier,available at:www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050704&s=dreier

Taking the High Road: A Metropolitan Agenda forTransportation Reform, edited by Bruce Katz andRobert Puentes, published by Brookings InstitutionPress (2005, 235pp.), Paper Text, 0-8157-4827-2, $22.95.

Analyzing Urban Poverty: A Summary ofMethods and Approaches, by Judy Baker and NinaSchuler, September 2004, is World Bank ResearchWorking Paper #3399, available at http://econ.worldbank.org/files/38383_wps3399.pdf.

Rethinking Rental Housing: Expanding theAbility of Rental Housing to Serve as a Pathwayto Economic & Social Opportunity, by WilliamApgar, a January 2005 Working Paper from the HarvardJoint Centre for Housing Studies, is available atwww.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/markets/w04-11.pdf.

Black Same-Sex Households in the UnitedStates: A Report from the 2000 Census (2004, 40pp.), produced by the National Gay & Lesbian TaskForce and the National Black Justice Coalition, isavailable from the Task Force, 1325 MassachusettsAvenue NW, #600,Washington D.C. 20005-4171,202.393.5177, [email protected],www.nbjcoalition.org/

The New Role of Health Care in EconomicDevelopment, by Tracey M. Orloff & Karen Doran(1998, 63 pp.), is available from the NationalGovernors Association, 444 North Capitol St.,Washington DC 20001-1512.

Changing Priorities: The Federal Budget &Housing Assistance, 1976-2005, by CushingDolbeare, Irene Basloe Saraf and Sheila Crowley (2004,13 pp. + tables) is available ($20) from the NationalLow Income Housing Coalition, 727 15th St. NW,Wash., DC, 20005, 202.662.1530, [email protected],www.nlihc.org.

New Study of Predatory Lending/SubprimeBorrowing, by Michael Stegman,Walter Davis andRoberto G. Quercia (2005), is available atwww.ccc.unc.edu.

One Hundred Years of Poverty & Policy, byHoward Glennerster, John Hills, David Piachaud and JoWebb (2004), all London School of Economicsresearchers, has been published by the JosephRowntree Foundation.Available at:www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/details.asp?pubid=657.

They Paved Paradise... Gentrification in RuralCommunities (2005, 53 pp.), is available ($5) fromthe Housing Assistance Council, 1025 Vermont Ave.NW, #606,Washington, DC 20005, 202.842.8600,[email protected].

Driven to Spend: Pumping Dollars Out of OurHouseholds and Communities (2005), by theCenter for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) & SurfaceTransportation Policy Project (STPP), is available atwww.transact.org/library/reports_pdfs/driven_to_spend/Driven_to_Spend_Report.pdf.

The Crisis in America’s Housing: ConfrontingMyths & Promoting a Balanced Housing Policy(2005, 22 pp.) is a joint publication of the Center forCommunity Change, the Center for Economic & PolicyResearch, the Children’s Defense Fund, the CommitteeLearning Project and the National Low IncomeHousing Coalition.Available at www.nlihc.org.

Promise and Betrayal: Universities and the Battlefor Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods (2005, 228pp.) by John I. Gilderbloom and R.L. Mullins Jr.Published by SUNY Press. For more information, visitwww.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61132.

The Geography of Opportunity: Race andHousing Choice in Metropolitan America, (2005,420 pp.). Xavier de Souza Briggs, (ed.). Published �


by Brookings Institution Press. For more information,visit: www.brookings.edu/press/books/geographyofop-portunity.htm.

Events

October & November 2005. Midwest AcademyTraining Sessions for Organizers & Leaders willbe held in Chicago, October 17-21 and Maryland,November 14-18. For more information, contact theAcademy, 28 East Jackson Blvd., #605, Chicago, IL60604, 312.427.2304, [email protected],www.midestacademy.org.

November 3-4, 2005. Smart and SustainableCampuses. Presented by the EPA, the Society forCollege and University Planning (SCUP), theNational Association of College and UniversityBusiness Officers (NACUBO) and the Association ofHigher Education Facilities Officers (APPA). Hostedby the University of Maryland at College Park.For more information, visit:www.epa.gov/sectors/colleges/sascc.html.

November 14-16, 2005. IRFD Forum onInformation Society: Digital Divide, GlobalDevelopment and the Information Society. TheForum, organized by the International ResearchFoundation for Development (IRFD), will be held inTunis in light of the United Nations World Summiton the Information Society. For further information,visit www.irfd.org.

April 19 – 22, 2006. The Urban AffairsAssociation’s 36th Annual Meeting. The confer-ence is on the theme Neighborhoods and UrbanTransformation:the New Global Context and will beheld in Montréal, Canada. More details are availableon the Urban Affairs Association’s website athttp://www.udel.edu/uaa/

July 17-19 2006. The Sustainable City 2006.Organized by the Wessex Institute of Technology,UK; University of Siena, Italy;Tartu University,Estonia.The conference will be held at Reval HotelOlümpia in Tallinn, Estonia and aims to address themany interrelated aspects of the urban environmentfrom transport and mobility to social exclusion andcrime prevention.For more information, visit:www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/2006/city06/index.html.

Online Resources

The New Jersey Bicycle and PedestrianResource Project, a partnership between theNew Jersey Department of Transportation and theAlan M. Voorhees Transportation Center (VTC) atRutgers has launched a new website offering one-stop shopping for information and resources onpedestrian and bicycle transportation. This Website has been designed for transportation profes-sionals, government officials, activists and thepublic to provide instant access to informationregarding bicycle and pedestrian issues. Alongwith information on current events, interest

groups and the Resource Project, the websiteboasts an extensive information clearinghouse, aninteractive “talk the walk” feature, four compre-hensive libraries and a recommended links sec-tion, including:

• an online library containing electronic docu-ments that can be accessed online;• an off line library containing physical documentsavailable upon request from the VTC;• an image library containing an array of photosthat can be downloaded for free; and• a video library containing educational and pro-motional videos available from VTC.

Information about upcoming events and newsregarding bicycling and walking in the GardenState will also be posted on the site. In addition,this website contains the home pages for both theBicycle Advisory Council (BAC) and the PedestrianTask Force (PTF). For more information, visithttp://policy.rutgers.edu:16080/njbikeped.

Cities for Progress, a new initiative of Institutefor Policy Studies, is a growing network oflocally-elected officials and community-ledactivists and citizens working together for socialchange. Following in the footsteps of Cities forPeace—local resolutions prior to the Iraq war inwhich almost 200 cities and towns expressedtheir concerns about local costs of such a war—Cities for Progress is taking on other issues suchas universal health care and anti-Wal-Mart cam-paigns. For information and resources, visit www.citiesforprogress.org.

Center on Hunger and Poverty has a newly for-matted website focused solely on hunger and foodinsecurity at www.centeronhunger.org.

Urban Cartography, a collaborative online jour-nal devoted to a wide range of urban issues, seeksarticles on subjects such as GIS, imaging and car-tography technologies; urban studies and socialproblems; demography; architecture; land use andplanning; transportation; and civil engineering.Originally conceived as a way for students andyoung professionals to publish their research find-ings quickly and easily under a creative commonslicense, UC has expanded to a general interestonline journal on a wide variety of planning-relat-ed issues. Students, professionals and others withan interest in these subjects are urged to email theeditors, Gaela Mitchell and J. Lurie-Terrell, to beplaced on the editorial board. There is no timecommitment; authors may write as much or as lit-tle as they like. It is also perfectly acceptable towrite short articles on your own projects, if theyfit within the purview of Urban Cartography.Please feel free to share this invitation with col-leagues, friends and anyone else who may be inter-ested. Email the editors at [email protected] you would like to receive the formal author invi-tation and access to post on the site. For moreinformation, visit www.urbancartography.com.

PLANNERS NETWORK ON LINE

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The PN Conference has been held annu-ally almost every summer since 1994.These gatherings combine speakers andworkshops with exchanges involving localcommunities. PN conferences engage indiscussions that help inform politicalstrategies at the local, national, and inter-national levels. Recent conferences havebeen held in Holyoke, MA; Rochester, NY;Toronto, Ontario; Lowell, MA; East St.Louis, IL; Brooklyn, NY; and Pomona, CA.

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In This Issue

2005 Conference Photos

•

Progressive Planning in theTwin Cities

•

Redefining Best Practice inIndian Country

•

Housing Co-ops

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