Carson Poole: Reflections from 'Making the West Side'

Carson Poole, Place Lab's project specialist, attended the Making the West Side Public Forum and Reception on May 19 at the Hull-House Museum. In this SITE entry, Carson shares some reflections and takeaways from his experience at the event.


Carson Poole

Carson Poole

Richard Anderson, from the National Public Housing Museum (Chicago) and Princeton, talked about the history of University of Illinois at Chicago construction, and the well-known displacement that occurred. The chord that really struck with me, and I think many other people in the room, is the poisonous legacy that exists because of the negative impacts that top down planning and development projects, in Chicago and beyond, have had on communities. It brought to mind the construction, neglect, and demolition of public housing in America, and the CHA’s struggles with it’s Plan for Transformation [see notes at end for links to more about the Plan for Transformation].
 
Understandably, there’s a deep mistrust of large scale interventions in planning and development, which sometimes hinders progress and holds us back from making deep investments in communities. I think that this mistrust is an important piece of the picture, and one that calls for better community engagement + empowerment approaches from the various public and private entities involved in city-building.

All that modernist urbanism failed on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a tremendous intellectual crisis because of the extent of the social meltdown and because absolute power of design and implementation had been granted to the planners.
— excerpt from interview with Andres Duany

It’s interesting to me that this mistrust spans the political spectrum—from conservatives who tout limited government and little to no public spending, to progressives who draw upon the history of urban renewal and espouse a “tactical urbanism” by way of Jane Jacobs approach to planning. I thought back to this interview with Andres Duany, founder of the Congress for New Urbanism and an influential planner and urbanist. He championed the need for regional-scale, top down interventions in things like transportation infrastructure and renewable energy development, that will inevitably require compromise from residents, but must take a primarily resident perspective and design at the human scale in order to avoid the terrible mistakes and willful displacement that has occurred in the past. 
 
Basically, we can’t all be NIMBYs (Not in my Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), if we want to accomplish real, sustainable change— but we also can’t plow the Skyway through the South Side. It’s about finding that sweet spot for human scale interventions, and that happens through sincere engagement and providing people with real opportunities for participation and decision-making power.

Oil painting from the exhibition As Cosmopolitans & Strangers, an exhibition that explores Mexican Art of the Jewish Diaspora and the complexities of diversity. Part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Mexican Art. Image: …

Oil painting from the exhibition As Cosmopolitans & Strangers, an exhibition that explores Mexican Art of the Jewish Diaspora and the complexities of diversity. Part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Mexican Art. Image: Gunther Gerzso (1915-2000), Yellow–Green–Blue / Amarillo–Verde–Azul, 1984, oil on Masonite, NMMA Permanent Collection 2009.45.

Another speaker, Rosa Cabrera, from the UIC Latino Cultural Center, talked about her work studying cultural institutions in Chicago, and the difficulties that these institutions face embracing the multitude of perspectives, values, and identities that exist within cultural communities, rather than viewing them in monolithic terms.
 
All communities, cultural or otherwise, are constantly in flux, as new waves of immigration, or in some cases, depopulation, create changes in values and in shared experiences. The challenge to cultural organizations is to explore intersectional identities and intergenerational differences in culture. Cabrera felt that many cultural institutions have a need for capacity building and training aimed squarely at this issue in order for these diverse viewpoints to be expressed.


NOTES

Chicago Housing Authorities Plan for Transformation

Official CHA site.

CHA report, The Plan for Transformation: An Update on Relocation [pdf]. April 2011. 

Urban Institute, CHA Families and the Plan for Transformation. A collection of research, articles, and papers the UI has produced over more than a decade of following CHA families during relocation.

 Sudhir Venkatesh and Isil Celimli, Tearing Down the Community. NHI.org, 2014


RSVP for the Public Convening on Ethical Redevelopment, a free and open public event at which Place Lab will explore and showcase how residents, artists, entrepreneurs, developers, and civic leaders are joining forces in a more equitable process for community revitalization.

Isis Ferguson: Reflections from 'Making the West Side'

Isis Ferguson, Place Lab program manager, attended the Making the West Side Public Forum and Reception on May 19 at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. In this SITE entry, Isis shares some reflections and takeaways from her experience at the event.


Isis Ferguson

Isis Ferguson

Alice O’Connor participated in the wrap-up portion of the program. It’s been more than a week since she made her remarks, and I am still moved by the notion of inevitability briefly mentioned by O’Connor.

Neighborhood development efforts often focus on thwarting rapid change, a kind of fundamental alteration that ushers in new amenities, tourists or “pioneering” new residents, resulting in the dislocation or displacement of neighborhood residents and entrepreneurs. In short, locals get priced out. Ironically, in this neighborhood development scenario, it is often the very same local people who made a place work—made it vibrant, attractive, and distinctive—that end up “choosing” to leave. The staying power of locals for as long as some are able to hold out, is extraordinary considering it is done against the crushing weight of redlining, restrictive covenants, de jure segregation and other policies or practices deployed to maintain systems of inequality.

CommunityAgency_quote.jpg

The evolution of a neighborhood does not have to follow a singular, certain path of transformation.

I’m interested in exploring with others the processes and strategies that have historically been enacted to preserve neighborhood identity, authenticity and resident agency while simultaneously embracing the fluidity and continuous development that is at the heart of vibrant communities.

Isn’t displacement avoidable? Can’t we find examples or create circumstances and policies so that development and redevelopment do not have to be synonymous with gentrification?

On May 27, The New York Times published The End of Black Harlem, an article by Michael Henry Adams lamenting the rapid gentrification of a section of NYC once considered the epicenter of black cultural life in America. Adams mentions a conversation he has with a group of neighborhood boys curious about a demonstration chant they hear, "Save Harlem Now!" Adam reflects, "It was painful to realize how even a kid could see in every new building, every historic renovation, every boutique clothing shop—indeed in every tree and every flower in every park improvement—not a life-enhancing benefit, but a harbinger of his own displacement.”

“These are people who, in saying ‘I don’t see color,’ treat the neighborhood like a blank slate. They have no idea how insulting they are being, denying us our heritage and our stake in Harlem’s future. And, far from government intervention to keep us in our homes, houses of worship and schools, to protect buildings emblematic of black history, we see policies like destructive zoning, with false “trickle down” affordability, changes that incentivize yet more gentrification, sure to transfigure our Harlem forever.”
— excerpt, "The End of Black Harlem"
Trumpeter Clark Terry (pictured) walks with his son Rudolph outside the Apollo Theater in 1955. Photo: G. Marshall Wilson/Ebony Collection/AP

Trumpeter Clark Terry (pictured) walks with his son Rudolph outside the Apollo Theater in 1955. Photo: G. Marshall Wilson/Ebony Collection/AP

Adam’s narrative about Harlem in the contemporary moment connects to a long legacy of urban policies which have had deeply felt material, social and financial consequences on people and place. Harlem’s own son, writer James Baldwin, famously stated in 1963 that federal 'Urban Renewal' policies were actually a not-so-thinly veiled practice of 'Negro Removal.' This observation has relevance and potency in the changing urban landscapes of Harlem in New York, Detroit, and Chicago in 2016.

For those of us committed to the dynamism of communities, what case studies can we be pointed to that provide tactics and approaches for resiliency that also include a space for change and variation? To push and mobilize for more equitable cities, people need more options than blight/stagnation on one end and investment/
gentrification on the other end of the spectrum. I look forward to the numerous Making the West Side community conversation programs that JAHHM has planned throughout the year.

— Isis Ferguson, May 2016


RSVP for the Public Convening on Ethical Redevelopment, a free and open public event at which Place Lab will explore and showcase how residents, artists, entrepreneurs, developers, and civic leaders are joining forces in a more equitable process for community revitalization.

Purpose-driven development: St. Laurence project

Former St. Laurence Elementary School in Grand Crossing. Photo: Place Lab.

What spaces exist for people to get involved in the development processes occurring around them? Who has a say in choosing what buildings will be demolished and which are allowed to remain? What happens to a community when it loses a school, and what can we collectively imagine will happen inside these unique and valuable community assets?

Inside the now abandoned St. Laurence. Photo: Place Lab.

Schools, and school buildings, are important loci of community, learning, and shared belief in the future. When school buildings and other community centers are closed, they are often simply abandoned, creating not only a visual eyesore, but a striking representation of public disinvestment and relegation of those communities. As Patrick Kerkstra observes in this Next City article on school closures: "...it’s not surprising that many shuttered schools are often simply left to rot for years by cash-stripped districts loathe to spend money on maintenance for empty buildings. It’s a state of affairs that can generate blight and, in time, pose genuine safety hazards." And it isn't just the building closure itself that impacts the neighborhood; the loss of a school sends myriad ripples throughout a community. The article goes on to note that "closing schools is almost always traumatic. Some consider the selection process arbitrary and open to political influence. And once the final decisions are made, students and families must scramble to find alternatives. Teachers are reassigned or laid off."

Because of their symbolic and practical importance to communities, renovating and re-activating these buildings presents unique opportunities for public conversation around the patterns of urban development, neglect, and reinvention, among local residents who are directly effected by these trends.

Place Lab team members Carson Poole and Nootan Bharani working on site clean-up at St. Laurence. Photo: Place Lab.

Place Lab is currently working on a demonstration project called Board Up, a community engagement series that involves communities in reimagining the possibilities of disused spaces. The first Board Up involves the vacant St. Laurence Elementary School in Greater Grand Crossing, Chicago. Concepts for the future of St. Laurence may include makerspace that provides education and job training in industrial design and fabrication that will augment neighbors’ skills and expand employment prospects.

The windows at St. Laurence prior to boarding. Photo: Place Lab.

This summer, young people in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood will engage with the reimagining of St. Laurence through artistic intervention, using the windows in the building as a canvas that will provide comment on the possibilities of St. Laurence. Drawing from the history of the community and the collections at the Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago artist Ruben Aguirre will lead a group of youth and explore pattern-making as a lens through which we can view culture and identity.  

The project will create murals for the boards that now cover the windows in the building, beginning the building’s transformation from abandoned to activated space. St. Laurence is rich with opportunities to tap into the latent capacity for change and artistry that exists among the community’s networks. These opportunities are what we call pedagogical moments, and can serve as a foundation on which a project is built. They are moments of exchange— simultaneous teaching and learning— that scale the impact of our work and move us forward. The third of our 9 Principles of Ethical Redevelopment, pedagogical moments are intentionally woven throughout the St. Laurence project and other Place Lab projects to maximize the scale and scope of impact

We'll provide updates this summer on progress at St. Laurence here on the SITE blog. Check back, and look out for an announcement for the public unveiling of the murals in August.

Windows lining a hall at St. Laurence. Photo: Place Lab.


Update: An earlier version of this blog entry referred to Place Lab's work at St. Laurence as redevelopment. The blog has been revised to clarify that Place Lab is involved in a community engagement project at the site.

Ethical Redevelopment Principle #1 - Repurpose + Re-propose

The first Principle in the 9 Principles of Ethical Redevelopment, "Repurpose + Re-propose" considers the power of seeing possibility in the places, things, and people that surround you and the transgression inherent in doing so. Visit the Place Lab website for the full current description of this idea at http://placelab.uchicago.edu/ethical-redevelopment/

In an era of disposability, it is common for materials that have outlived their original purpose to be deemed useless or dated and then discarded. It's considered expedient to tear down a dilapidated building rather than renovate. Often, expedient is synonymous with cheaper. What gets lost or missed with policies that only prioritize new or innovative? 

Preservation is a form of redevelopment and can be transformational for a community. The Principle of Repurpose + Re-propose asserts that not only can old resources be allocated to new endeavors, but that objects and projects do not have to be monetized to be useful. Artists are renowned for transforming objects into art, for transposing the common into the extraordinary. This is artistry, and artistry is alchemy—it allows one thing to become another.

Alchemy is a kind of philosophy: a kind of
thinking t
hat leads to a way of understanding. 
— Marcel Duchamp

With limited financial resources many artists, activities, stewards, and neighbors have acted as local alchemists. They've worked with what and who was available, and turned deficiencies into abundances.

ALCHEMY IN ACTION - OBJECTS
Chakaia Booker is a sculptor whose work transforms discarded construction materials into art. Booker's extensive body of work encompasses performance art, photography, clothing, and textiles. Her work in transforming old tires into complex assemblages fuses the artist's explorations of ecology, racial and economic difference, globalization, and gender. Booker has stated that tires resonate with her "for their versatility and rich range of historical and cultural associations."

ALCHEMY IN ACTION - PEOPLE
Cities like Detroit are grappling with myriad issues resulting from the collapse of once integral industries. Populations that developed skills to work in now contracting or obsolete industries are struggling to adapt to new economic realities—as are companies in need of an increased labor force. Companies like Shinola, a high-end wristwatch manufacturer in Detroit, are leveraging the manufacturing experience of the local population into employable skills. Shinola transforms these basic skills by flying in expert watchmakers from Thailand and Switzerland to train employees. For Shinola, the time and expense is ultimately worth it to ensure the company can prosper in its own city.

SEE YOU ON JUNE 22
Take a moment to think about your community and the opportunities that exist within it. How can you, operating as an alchemist, Repurpose + Re-propose? Share your ideas in the comments below, and be prepared to share them at the Public Convening on Ethical Redevelopment on June 22.

RSVP for the Public Convening, a free and open public event.

Ethical Redevelopment: An Introduction

Ethical Redevelopment makes the case for mindful city-building. By utilizing cross-city networks and cross-sector innovation, Ethical Redevelopment encapsulates a philosophy by which to shift the value system from conventional, profit-driven development practices to conscientious interventions in the urban context. It is articulated by an emerging set of 9 Principles that were drawn from artist-led, neighborhood-based development work on Chicago's South Side. Place Lab, part of the University of Chicago's Arts + Public Life initiative, is introducing the 9 Principles in their early stages of development in order to share and refine with other willing urban practitioners who believe in spatial equity for cities. On Wednesday, June 22, 2016, Place Lab will host a free and open public Convening about Ethical Redevelopment. To learn more, visit: placelab.uchicago.edu/public-convenings/

Place Lab is preparing to publicly present their ongoing investigation and demonstration of projects that make the case for mindful city-building. Through a series of Public Convenings + Salon Sessions, Place Lab will share the 9 Principles of Ethical Redevelopment. Through the social learning network developed at the Salon Sessions, Place Lab and selected practitioners will workshop projects from around the country to share ideas, explore paths to overcoming obstacles, and consider methods of implementation.

Rooted in artist-led, neighborhood-based development work actively occurring on Chicago’s South Side, these evolving Principles emerged from the work of artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, Jr. In the video above, Gates discusses some of the assumptions underlying Ethical Redevelopment. 

UNDERSTANDING ETHICAL REDEVELOPMENT
The 9 Principles encapsulate a methodology that support the creation and sustainability of successful communities. Rather than calling Ethical Redevelopment new or innovative, it’s more accurate to consider Ethical Redevelopment as an atypical process for transformation that speaks to, and builds on, ideas and work already being done in communities. A people-focused approach to development is simply not as widely practiced as traditional forms of neighborhood development which prioritize profit over community — the type of development that spurs gentrification.

“Gentrification is a standing word for lots of other things that people really mean. When people in poor black communities use the word gentrification, they’re asking specific questions. If something good happens here, will I be forced out? Can I still afford to live here? Will the social constructs that governed how I lived here change?"— Theaster Gates, interview with the Chicago Tribune

Values, process, and aim are what distinguish Ethical Redevelopment from gentrification: robust public life requires a belief in and devotion to place in advance of investment. While there is no single solution to the myriad challenges cities face, Ethical Redevelopment provides a framework for creative revitalization of communities.

As we approach our first Public Convening for Ethical Redevelopment (June 22, 2016), we will be highlighting each of the 9 Principles with short videos, placing each Principle in context through one of our real-world projects, and encouraging you to engage with us by asking questions, sharing your thoughts, and considering how you can leverage these concepts to make an impact on your communities.

YOUR TURN  LET'S HEAR FROM YOU
As Gates observes, Ethical Redevelopment is a work in progress. We need your input to shape the conversation. Are there assumptions you feel we forgot? How can development occur without displacement? Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Don't forget to RSVP for the Public Convening for Ethical Redevelopment.

PLAT|FORMS : Where We Began

Established in 2014 by a Knight Foundation grant to Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago, Place Lab is a team of professionals from the diverse fields of law, urban planning, architecture, design, social work, arts administration, and gender and cultural studies. Place Lab extends much of the team’s project management, design, programming, real estate, community building, and documentation acumen towards advancing arts and culture place-based projects on the mid-South Side of Chicago. In February 2016, Place Lab became a joint enterprise between Arts + Public Life and the Harris School of Public Policy to bring together artists, policymakers, faculty, and students to design and implement new approaches to urban development. Led by renowned artist and UChicago faculty member Theaster Gates, this partnership merges Chicago Harris’ Cultural Policy Center’s commitment to cultural policy and evidence-based analysis with Place Lab’s work at Arts + Public Life on arts- and culture-led neighborhood transformation. Learn more at placelab.uchicago.edu.

Welcome to Place Lab! Our website provides a wealth of information about us, but we encourage you to follow our blog for greater insight on what we do, how we do it, and why. In this blog, we will be showing you the progression of our work; inviting you to take a look at our projects currently in development; sharing thoughts about arts- and culture-based, community-driven redevelopment; and guiding you through a developing model for mindful city-building called The 9 Principles of Ethical Redevelopment.

But before we dive in, we'd like to provide a quick overview of where Place Lab began.

Place Lab was established by the University of Chicago's Arts + Public Life initiative in 2014 with a three-year grant from the Knight Foundation. Place Lab includes professionals from the diverse fields of law, urban planning, architecture, design, social work, arts administration, and gender and cultural studies. As a Chicago-based organization, the team concentrates much of its efforts in advancing place-based projects located on Chicago's mid-South Side. We are committed to defining Ethical Redevelopment Principles and fostering a network of like-minded artists, urban planners, design professionals, developers, community members and policy experts.

In February 2016, Place Lab entered into a partnership with the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy to further develop a joint vision around creation, implementation, and measurement of culture-based public policy. Theaster Gates, Jr., professor of Visual Arts and director of Arts + Public Life, stated that the partnership would create new synergies between art and public policy, allowing for increased intellectual inquiry about how cities change and improve because of the integration of arts and culture. In Gates' words:

“Through an innovative combination of research and practice, Place Lab will provide local, state, federal and international policymakers with effective, creative alternatives to current development strategies. In particular, Place Lab will focus on approaches to community development in which the arts and artist play a prominent role.” 

We first introduced ourselves and our work with the exhibition PLAT | FORMS. Staged in the Arts Incubator, one of Gates's revitalized spaces, PLATS | FORMS translated our often highly technical, research-based work into an engaging, interactive space that involved the public in asking critical questions, exploring ideas about culture-based renewal, providing feedback, and playing a critical role in community-building efforts. Watch the video excerpt above for a short look at what PLAT | FORMS entailed.

In conjunction with PLAT | FORMS, we hosted a series of open conversations called GROWING PAINS that engaged the community in dialogue about public art, public schools, and public housing. You can watch the full video documentation on PLAT | FORMS and GROWING PAINS here.

Again, our goal with this blog is to share and engage— feel free to ask questions, or provide your own thoughts. 

We'll see you in the next entry!


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