#Disclaimer: This post series focuses on American cities

Hello everybody, I'm /u/DoxiadisOfDetroit, and I want to welcome you all to the fourth installment of what we at the Mod Team hope will be a foundational resource for Left-Urbanists/Municipalists who want a better understanding of urban issues regarding political structures, economics, and social relations within your home cities/metropolitan areas.

the text that we're analyzing is: Urban Politics- Power in Metropolitan America Seventh Edition by Bernard H. Ross and Myron A. Levine, which can be purchased online for no more than $12 depending on where you look.

As this series goes along, and the topics of this book are covered (there's a lot of good material in here), we will cover subjects fundamental to building a coherent, Leftist, transformational alternative to the failures of the status quo and the use of Market Urbanism, which, is a crucial goal at the moment since we find ourselves sleep walking into an unprecedented urban crisis in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This entry will be a review of two chapters in the book, one capturing the concepts of who has decision-making power in American cities, and the other analyzing the formal structures of municipalities and their governments. Since these topics are highly related, it makes sense to bunch them together in one post. Let's dive in:

Chapter IV: Who Has the Power? Decision Making and Urban Regimes

Right now, there exists three main schools of thought for how to think of municipal politics: First, you have the Power Elite theorists (PET) who see city governments as being insulated and closed off to the general public or voter base and dominated by business interests. Then, you have the Pluralists who see government as being made up by a collection of different groups, finally, you have "urban political economy (UPE)" who'd argue that economic factors cause strain on municipal political institutions but doesn't totally control their agendas.

Obviously, to be a Leftist, you have to be a materialist in order to fully understand the workings of the world around us, so, naturally, we're going to favor PET and political economy over the views of the pluralists. But, it may be a surprise to you that the Pluralists actually have a pretty solid foundation for their beliefs.

#Pluralism: A divided Capitocracy

The American urban theorist Robert Dahl suggested (based on his studies of New Haven, Connecticut that there isn't any justification of PET because, according to him, various factions within the wider Capitocracy often conflict with each other and want different things out of municipal government. Instead, Dahl believes in specialized influence over municipal government and that, while the majority of voters are "passive" they still exert noticeable force upon cities via elections.

#Pluralism vs. Materialism

Since I'm currently making this post near the end of the 2024 US presidential election, the faults of Bourgeois "Democracy" is plainly illustrated by the circus that we have in front of us, we know that the individuals and organizations who have money do everything in their power to ensure that their desired policies get implemented and other issues are rendered "non issues".

The book gives the example of Gary, Indiana refusing to issue violations or taxes against US Steel in the fear that the manufacturer would leave the city in favor of another municipality . This fear of capital flight looms large over cities everywhere around the world, even more so within deindustrialized areas.

Another fault with the Pluralist view is the fact that the influence of the Capitocracy can easily take over municipal government and make decisions that benefit Capitocratic interests, manifesting in political syndicates (they'll be discussed in my next post). Here's a quote from the chapter:

As Houston grew during the 1950s and 1960s, the growth coalition held sway over local government. Oscar Holcombe, a land dealer and developer, was mayor for 22 of the years between 1921 and 1957. In 1981, the mayor was a developer; one-third of the city council was in real estate or closely related field, and the planning commission was composed mostly of developers, builders, and others tied to the real estate industry [page one hundred and seven]

This sociopolitical ouroboros is strengthened by the fact that business groups are then created to lobby local government.

So, this brings me to the section of the chapter that begins to give some suggestions on why municipal governments behave like this:

The Apparent Motive of Municipal Capital

According to theorist Paul Peterson cities exist in a time where capital is free to move wherever it wishes which causes electeds to make policy which staunchly prioritizes the interest of development capital over the needs of the citizen. Peterson sees three different policy typologies that cities fall under with this in mind:

1. Development Orientation which focuses on the economic position of a city, these types of governments can't afford to raise taxes on businesses which would lead them to move to competing municipalities.

2. Redistributive Orientation which focuses on providing social welfare which is also concerned with higher taxes to provide such welfare. Finally

3. Allocation Orientation which focusses on distributing limited resources

#A Critique of the Petersonian View

The chapter points out how limited this way of thinking is by making one easy observation: Low taxes don't always attract businesses to a municipality, educated workers and well run services can be a magnet to employers just as much, so, essentially, the policy "race to the bottom" is pointless.

#We're almost done

The chapter then goes on to detail about what it calls regime theory which will be delt with then I make my post about political syndicates (which will come tomorrow) so, I'll go ahead and skip to the next chapter, for those of you in Atlanta, San Francisco, or Detroit, the chapter ends with an explanation of their regimes so it'll give y'all an idea of what's to come. Let's get into chapter 5:

Chapter V: Formal Structure and Leadership Style

This last chapter was a look into how exactly municipal governments are dominated by informal power and didn't get into too many of the formal restrictions laid out by law. This chapter is extremely important for Left Urbanists/Municipalists because it covers a certain established SCOTUS ruling that has been used to harm our cities.

#State's Rights Mean Municipal Wrongs: What the Hell is "Dillon's Rule?"

The United States Constitution delegates the power of creating municipalities to the states, so, they create the rules regarding self government, annexation, and secession. However, there exists a ruling that has been upheld two different times that is one of the biggest roadblocks that prevents a functional Left Municipalist project from changing this nation for the better: the decision made all the way back in 1868 by Iowa Supreme Court judge John F, Dillon who ruled that cities are literally "creatures of the state" and have no inherent authority. Because of this ruling, states have used it as a pretext to interfere with municipal operation since Dillon's rule gives states the power of preemption. This caselaw has been upheld twice. Luckily though, there exists more states that have home rule than there are states that govern cities through Dillion's rule.

If Left Municipalists are to gain in popularity in this country, we need to override the caselaw set out by Dillon's rule and expand the powers of home rule.

Now, the middle of this chapter dives into some of the affects of the progressive era "reform" movement which will be covered in my next post, so, we'll skip to the end where it talks about mayors and their governance stances when it comes to the content that we've explored so far:

#How Do Mayors Govern?

Even though there are thousands of different mayors in power across this country, but, successful leadership under their watch boils down to five things:

• A legal authority over key programs

• Effective assistance from sufficient staff

• Earn a sufficient salary to serve their city full time

• Access to friendly media and political organizations. Last:

• A direct mandate from the voters

I know that the list may seem like it's obvious, but, having all five of these truly separates the great mayors from the mediocre. Now we'll wrap up the post with the specific type of mayoral administrations:

A. The Ceremonial Mayor who is someone who has few or no policy initiatives at all

B. A Caretaker Mayor focuses on short terms goals and "what comes up", usually these mayors don't have a long term vision for their city.

C. The Individualist Mayor attempts to make changes through personal appeals instead of coalition building or establishing networks

D. The Executive Mayor is project oriented and get's things done by using their managerial skills. And:

E. The Entrepreneur has clear programs and goals and goes about governing in a way that builds coalitions.

##Conclusion

Much of this information will be necessary to look back upon when I create the post about political machines (political syndicates) and the "reform" movement (I put that in quotation marks for a reason) which are the subjects of the next two chapters. Luckily for y'all, I already have my notes prepared so you guys don't have to wait another month or so to receive fresh theory. Take Care!

I would like to hear your take on inclusionary zoning.

Does it result in more actually affordable housing than zoning with no affordability requirements?

Is it worth the effort to implement, or is time better spent working on bring actual social housing built?

Does it help address gentrification at all?

Other thoughts?

An underappreciated aspect of American history is how widespread rail transportation once was. Towns and cities were linked together by steam trains, while electric streetcars and interurbans transported riders through and between even small cities. Even Fitchburg and Leominster had its own extensive network of trolleys that disappeared in the postwar era.

Downtown shopping districts have suffered as motorists prefer strip malls with ample parking. Urban factories have been shuttered in favor of industrial parks out in the sticks. Traditional neighborhoods where one can walk to school or the corner store have declined in favor of overbuilt cul-de-sac developments. Yet Fitchburg and Leominster still have good bones. With some effort they can become good, walkable, livable cities.

As urbanists seek to build more sustainable cities, we have gained a new appreciation for these long-neglected modes of transport. Is it possible street-running rail could come back to Fitchburg? What would that look like?

A single route could connect the downtown areas of Fitchburg and Leominster as well as two Commuter Rail stations in Fitchburg, along with numerous bus stops and commercial areas. This route would run mostly along surface streets and use light-rail rolling stock.

I really do not expect our city to rebuild even this one trolley line any time soon. Considering the benefits however, maybe we ought to.

(adapted from my blog post about Fitchburg and Leominster MA)

Over half of all bird deaths caused by human activity are caused by buildings. This seems to me like something that could be mitigated. Even if we cut this number by a quarter, that would do more than turning every feral domesticated cat into a house cat. Is there some building techniques that birds would be better able to navigate? I also read that light pollution is a factor in this, but that would presumably only factor in at night.

A new piece in the Harvard Business Review goes after market-obsessed YIMBYism, and posits that the key to solving the housing crisis is public sector intervention. I agree. Here's the conclusory paragraph, but I recommend reading the whole thing:

One solution — liberalizing zoning rules — has gained popularity and been touted as the key fix to the American housing market. But empowered private actors, free to build, are still in the business of making money, not providing shelter for all. Even under thoroughgoing zoning reform, they will still lack the incentives to build and rent out sufficient affordable housing. The landlord cartel orchestrated by RealPage in cities across the nation attests to that. The country’s housing crisis will not be solved through simple deregulation of zoning laws and building codes — it requires ambitious public action. Federal, state, and local governments must pursue stronger public governance of housing markets, undertake systematic planning, and build homes themselves.

https://hbr.org/2024/09/the-market-alone-cant-fix-the-u-s-housing-crisis?ab=HP-latest-text-2

I think a lot of people where I’m from (Canada, specifically Toronto) viscerally understand that we’re experiencing a housing, food security, and jobs crisis.

However, I’ve noticed the common factors people I've met blame for these are:

• immigrants and international students

• the canadian economy being overly reliant on imports

This feels like people falling victim to fearmongering about foreigners, so its an important discussion to have a researched perspective on. Any resources or otherwise evidenced perspectives are appreciated.

A big source of anxiety for me (and probably most young people) is finding a home. My city, Toronto and the suburbs that surround it, has a distinct lack of affordable or socialized housing. Most people my age seem to rent closer to the city where there’s more apartments. The further you go away from it, the more housing becomes single family homes or expensive condos. I think housing is an immediate existential threat facing a large number of people in my city, and seems like grounds for organizing and community-building. Possible ways to improve these conditions:

1. Push back against neighbourhoods being designated for single family homes. I think these zoning laws are controlled at the municipal level, so they may be easier to influence.

2. Push for socialized housing. This seems like it would have to be a larger scale movement to garner any traction, so I’m not sure if it fits “short term action”.

3. Push for housing co-ops. I dont know very much about this type of organization, but it seems to result in a better tenant experience. Resources on this would be appreciated.

4. Push for tenant unions. I’m not sure these exist in the suburbs tbh; the ones I’ve seen are in metro areas where there are large swaths of tenants whose material conditions align for this.

I’m incredibly naive on this matter and am open to suggestions. What are your thoughts?

I’m a computer science student and as I was researching about smart cities I came across the right to the city article by David Harvey. It made me think of how most of technology built today that hope to improve the quality of life in cities may not ever be able to achieve what they have set out to do.

I understand that technology is not the solution. But do you think it could contribute positively to the “right to the city” goal in mind? What are the harmful consequences of smart cities and the AI tech that supports it in your opinion and what changes do you think we can make in this sector? Is there any particulate type of tech that you wish to see or you think is helpful? Or do you think technology can have no role here?

PS: My focus is on artificial intelligence so I would appreciate it if you could mention AI related tech though any opinions would be appreciated

Report here. It's 83 pages and there is a lot of fluff, but there is some really exciting stuff in here!

--

"This report, "Building Our Future: Grassroots Reflections on Social Housing," delves into the urgent need for social housing as a radical, transformative, and common-sense solution to our housing crisis. A growing movement of organizers is advocating for permanently and deeply affordable social housing, that is publicly, collectively or non- profit owned and under democratic resident or community control. Through tenant unions, rent strikes, and policy campaigns, groups are demanding public, government intervention to overcome catastrophic market failures and ensure housing for everyone.

As the report makes clear, campaigns for social housing are underway across various regions, for example: in California, organizers claim legislative victories such as SB 555, which mandates a government study on social housing; in Seattle, the establishment of the Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD) to build publicly owned, permanently affordable housing; and in Kansas City, Missouri, organizers secured a $50 million bond for affordable housing and through mass tenant organizing are shifting towards campaigns for building municipal social housing. This report, crafted by organizers, policy analysts, and educators rooted in housing, racial, and climate justice movements, is intended to serve as a rallying cry and blueprint for transformational housing futures."

Hello everybody, I'm /u/DoxiadisOfDetroit, and I want to welcome you all to the third installment of what we at the Mod Team hope will be a foundational resource for Left-Urbanists/Municipalists who want a better understanding of urban issues regarding political structures, economics, and social relations within your home cities/metropolitan areas.

the text that we're analyzing is: Urban Politics- Power in Metropolitan America Seventh Edition by Bernard H. Ross and Myron A. Levine, which can be purchased online for no more than $12 depending on where you look

As this series goes along, and the topics of this book are covered (there's a lot of good material in here), we will cover topics fundamental to building a coherent, Leftist, transformational alternative to the failures of the status quo and the use of Market Urbanism, which, is a crucial goal at the moment since we find ourselves sleep walking into an unprecedented urban crisis in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Let's dive in:

##Chapter III: Gentrification and Globalization

When we compare the content within this chapter as compared to the last one, despite it's short length, valuable information and context is practically falling off of the page within this chapter as opposed to the "no duh" content of the last chapter's focus on urban/suburban history. First, it opens up with this interesting tidbit:

When the beginnings of neighborhood reinvestment were first discovered in the late 1970s and 1980s, newspaper commentators glorified a "back to the city" movement. The movement was also popularly referred to as gentrification [page seventy five]

For those among you who were born in the mid to late 1990s/early 2000s, the term "gentrification" might seem like it only applies to our cities and their "late stage gentrification" (see here), but, as we can see from the quote, the process of gentrification has been a fact of urban life for a few generations now. but, before we get carried away with the term, it'd be helpful to actually define the term so that we can understand just what we're talking about when we use the term:

Gentrification refers refers to the upgrading of derelict urban neighborhoods when middle class singles and young married couples place value on city living [page seventy six]

There is, however, a proper way to use the term so that it doesn't become overused/watered down like it's become in the past few years. The book suggests that gentrification does not refer simply to a new commercial development or the "comeback" of a central business district (which, I disagree with because I'd argue that this is one aspect of gentrification as seen by the development of Downtown Detroit since the city exited bankruptcy), instead, the book argues that gentrification is a transformational process that only occurs within the residential housing market.

##The "benefits" and costs of gentrification

The book is very clear about what the benefits/disadvantages of gentrification is, it points out that corporate firms often relocate to cities once they have a critical mass of higher income residents with certain education levels/skills to draw from. This relocation of firms might benefit cities from increased tax revenue, but, as the book points out, disadvantaged citizens rarely benefit from their neighborhoods changing.

What's surprising to me about this portion of the chapter is the refreshing honesty that it has regarding the effects of gentrification on cities and their citizens despite the fact that, as it points out, certain commentators have seen the phenomenon of gentrification as the "end of the urban crisis". Here's some quotes:

Even in cities where it does occur, gentrification does not necessarily lead to a better life for all city residents. The conditions in gentrifying neighborhoods can improve without having much effect on the lives of people who live in a city's low end residential districts. [page seventy seven]

Nor does gentrification necessarily draw a wealth of new taxable resources that can be used to improve education and other public services in the city [...] On the whole, gentrification does little to offset the long-term migration of population and wealth from the central city to suburbia [page seventy seven]

Even where neighborhood revitalization does occur, new residents are not always willing to support improved services in other parts of the city. Gentrifiers demand service improvements for their own neighborhoods; they want to protect the substantial investment in their homes. Nor are they always willing to support higher taxes for public education. A larger number of these new residents either have no children or move to the suburbs as soon as their children are of school age. others simply choose to send their children to private schools, not the city's relatively poor quality public schools [page seventy seven]

Gentrification entails a process that is fundamentally rooted in class and class transformation. Lower income residents who are displaced must bear the burden of moving; often they can find housing elsewhere only at higher prices than that they were already paying. The burden is especially troublesome for the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes. Due to the higher rates of poverty among female householders, gentrification results in the disproportionate displacement of women and female headed families. Gentrification entails the reshaping of neighborhoods for more affluent and technologically competent residents [page seventy eight]

If these passages piqued your interest, what this chapter says about globalization

Corporate led "Super-gentrification", government action, and globalization

At the beginning of the usage of the term, gentrification was thought to be undertaken by quirky artists and "urban pioneers" who wanted to take advantage of large workspaces and low rent. But, as time has gone on and gentrification manifested itself far more forcefully, these suddenly trendy neighborhoods have been turned over by the forces of Capital (real estate agents, developers, the "Capitocracy" that was discussed within chapter one, etc.) into sterile and cold communities that are the polar opposite of the neighborhoods they started out as. Professor Loretta Lees calls these second wave gentrifiers "super-gentrifiers". The characteristics of super-gentrifiers are explained this way in the chapter:

When asked why they chose to move to the inner city, the initial urban pioneers often claimed to value their neighborhood's ethnic and racial diversity. [Supergentrifiers], however, do not place a similar value on diversity and local community life. [...] the supergentrifiers value a neighborhood because of it's convenient location and it's cachet, not it's prior racial or ethnic mix. They cherish upscale amenities and shopping.

Despite the wide reach of "the free market" one thing that must be understood about the process of gentrification is a process that municipal governments intentionally promote just like Capitocratic forces do. Marketing campaigns, rezonings, and tax breaks facilitate gentrification just as much as rising prices do.

In chapter two, we touched upon how there are different factions of the Capitocracy, now, in this chapter, we get to expand upon how different forces within the Capitocracy (mainly International Capital) manifests itself into gentrification on the ground level. Here's a quote from the book:

The forces underlying gentrification can be found, to a large degree in global economic restructuring. Multinational corporations have discovered the value of "density" in facilitating interaction and in allowing for the convenient access to legal, financial, and other support services [page eighty two]

The point about the utility of emphasizing "density" among International Capital should rightly set off alarm bells among any Leftist who has a passing understanding about current Urban Planning discourse. Density, by itself, is not bad, but, under Capitalism, increasing density in our cities does not manifest in a way that allows for the flourishing of urban centers or a sense of community. If the opposite were the case, Japan would be the happiest, friendliest society on Earth rather than the sterile, alienating, and socially frigid hellscape that it is right now.

The chapter then spells out all of the manifestations of Globalization on cities:

1. The concentration of corporate headquarters and firms that provide financial, legal, and other support services

2. Innovations in transportation and telecommunications which has allowed companies to locate away from production facilities which are located in small cities, suburbs, or, offshore completely

3. The increased mobility of international forms a development that has pitted cities/metropolitan areas in competition with each other regionally, nationally and internationally since firms are highly mobile (think about Amazon's HQ2 "competition" way back in 2017)

4. The growing importance of technology and the knowledge industry

5. The importance of leisure, artistic, and cultural activities to a city's economic life So called "smart cities" who don't want to engage in the tax incentive and subsidy race to the bottom seek to attract businesses through policies that offer a good quality of life and an attractive living environment

6. The rise of new immigration Globalization has allowed capital and labor to be more mobile, and, American foreign policy has also influenced migration flows around the world

All of these factors have lead cities to be more vulnerable than ever before, whether it be security/terrorism, diseases, or financial stability, electeds, radicals, and even local the "business community" must take all of these factors into account when crafting policies for our cities.

Globalization, the changing city and the "new immigration" in American cities

With this chapter coming to a close, it details some of the old developments that has shaped American cities decades in the past, first, it mentions the effects deindustrialization on NYC:

In the mid 1970s, New York was near bankruptcy, and the city lost jobs as a result of deindustrialization. Population and wealth were moving to the suburbs. The city could not pay it's debts, and a fiscal crisis ensued, forcing cutbacks in municipal services. Since then, the city has rebounded as a center of global finance and corporate services. Gentrification brought new life to once fading neighborhoods- and with it the problems of housing affordability and displacement.

This exact same process is currently unfolding in various Rust Belt cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Milwaukee, as budgets are constrained by the forces of the Capitocracy, and state imposed austerity, municipalities more and more open themselves up to local and international capital so that they may augment their shortcomings financially with national and international funds. Globalization brings the "casualization" of the labor market, which means informal/"under the table" employment usually done by the poor and immigrants and "Urban Dualism" meaning the gentrification of certain neighborhoods and the "ghettoization" of others.

The only positive aspect of globalization on cities is the fact that municipalities, if they so choose to, pass legislation so that their noncitizens populations are politically enfranchised, communities like Takoma Park, Maryland and Cambridge, Massachusetts have done exactly this

##Conclusion:

This post is already lengthy enough so, all I'll say about the ending portion of this chapter is that it provides several solutions to globalization (it doesn't go into too much depth about them however):

1. Upgrade physical infrastructure to present as a world class community

2. Grow existing resources

3. Create CDC's (community development corporations)

4. Invest in "human capital"

5. Create a sustainable development strategy

I keep finding studies from both ends of this debate that support both positions:

1. More supply, even of expensive housing, puts downward pressure on rents and creates vacancy chains so that higher income tenants move into more expensive units so lower income tenants can move into cheaper housing.

2. More supply, especially of more expensive housing, actually brings up the 'market rate' everywhere and puts upward pressure on rents in cheaper housing.

I'm not going to put the studies here because you can basically google around for whichever your position is and find the case study that supports your position from this or that city over this or that period of years. But this is my dilemma! I can't tell if there actually is objective, neutral data out there to support the right thing. It could be I'm missing something, and the YIMBY position has 9 million studies and the NIMBY position has 5 studies, and I'm putting a false equivalence forward here.

But what also seems to be totally lacking is a more PHIMBY-ish orientation toward the conversation, or put another way, studies on the effects of more non-market housing supply on gentrification and regional housing costs. Are there such studies on this, or due to lack of political possibility in the US is this not possible to research?

This is an interview with the American urban planner Ariel Godwin, in which he and the interviewer discuss issues of interest to the members of this sub, such as cars vs public transport and high density vs sprawl, in the context of countries such as Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Saudi Arabia and the US.

Among other things, they discuss whether heritage protection is only a priority for ultra-privileged people like King Charles.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/07/24/2024-16257/notice-of-intent-to-prepare-an-environmental-impact-statement-for-a-proposed-highway-project-centre

The farms are community institutions that also act as galleries for over 60 local artists.

Maybe this would have been a good project 40 years ago, but with what we know now, it’s climate arson. Highways provably increase congestion, any safety improvements are offset by increased driving, and even conversion of 90% of all US vehicles to EVs is not enough to reduce transportation emissions to target levels.

To cross the aisle a moment here, car-dependency is big government overreach, with the state saying “if you want to leave your community to go anywhere, we’re forcing you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on buying, fueling, and maintaining a car.” Furthermore, highways are wasteful big government spending: by PennDOT’s own published numbers, a mile of passenger rail is 1/4 the cost to build, operate, and maintain than a single lane-mile of highway.

So, tell the Federal Highway Administration that the only solution to traffic is a viable alternative to driving.

Hello everybody, I'm /u/DoxiadisOfDetroit, and I want to welcome you all to the second installment of what we at the Mod Team hope will be a foundational resource for Left-Urbanists/Municipalists who want a better understanding of urban issues regarding political structures, economics, and social relations within your home cities/metropolitan areas.

he text that we're analyzing is: Urban Politics- Power in Metropolitan America Seventh Edition by Bernard H. Ross and Myron A. Levine, which can be purchased online for no more than $12 depending on where you look

As this series goes along, and the topics of this book are covered (there's a lot of good material in here), we will cover topics fundamental to building a coherent, Leftist, transformational alternative to the failures of the status quo and the use of Market Urbanism, which, is a crucial goal at the moment since we find ourselves sleep walking into an unprecedented urban crisis in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Let's dive in:

##Chapter II: The Evolution of Cities and Suburbs

Like the title of the chapter says, the main focus of this chapter of the book is to analyze the historical development of America's cities. While there's a lot of interesting concepts within this chapter, when reviewing my notes, I noticed that I ended up skipping over a lot of pages because the topics covered are already extremely popular/known within the field of Urban Planning/politics (redlining, the initial failure of public housing programs, etc). Since those topics have been done to death, I decided that I had nothing new to say on those matters, so, I left them out. If you do actually wanna hear a leftist critique of those specific topics, I recommend viewing Youtuber donoteat01's Power Politics and Planning series on those issues, Let's get into the actual interesting sections of the chapter though.

Conservative thinkers like Edward C. Banfield believe that American cities grew based on certain "imperatives", the book lists them:

• Demographic Imperatives like population growth causing cities to expand

• Technological Imperatives which are improvements in transportation and communication which determine how vast metropolitan areas will be and whether they'll densify or sprawl. And finally:

• Economic Imperatives which determines whether or not the wealthy will segregate themselves by moving to the urban fringe by purchasing new housing and leaving urban centers to get away from noise, traffic, and decaying housing stock.

While this theory is interesting, without including a "Political Imperative" to the other ones, it obscures the main tension the has existed in our cities for centuries now. Political actors like enfranchised voters and businessmen have always disagreed about how cities should be governed, when one side doesn't get their way via the electoral process, they pack up and move on to more favorable environments.

Moving on, the book cites Kenneth T Jackson's theory that pre-industrial American cities were "walking cities" since there was a clear distinction between the small built up city and the rural countryside. It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution happened that cities would start morphing into their present form. Urbanization followed the industrial boom and lead to a number of problems in the city (In 1793 yellow fever killed five thousand people in Philly, in 1849 St. Louis lost one-tenth of it's population to cholera, and in 1853 yellow fever killed eleven thousand people in New Orleans).

With the advent of horse-drawn streetcars, the trolly, and railroads, the very first "streetcar suburbs" emerged and their created would put an end to municipal annexation by central cities, the creation of the car would go on to decouple the growth of metropolitan areas from fixed rail infrastructure to roads.

As time progressed and the telecommunication industry innovated, the sector moved their offices from central cities into so called "edge cities" out in the suburbs (the perfect examples here in Metro Detroit are Southfield and Troy), this created an interesting conceptualization of the multipolar metropolitan area instead of the popular concept of legacy cities being the main pole of attraction in their metros. This shift in economic relations meant that postindustrial cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. had to pivot to trying to attract banking, finance, conventions, and tourism and this policy pivot has resulted in what the book likes to dub "urban dualism" where certain trendy neighborhoods receive new investments while others have their needs ignored. This decline within certain jurisdictions is also mirrored by the decline within certain inner ring suburbs as businesses move on to more favorable municipalities, otherwise known as capital flight.

Governmental Influences on Development

In this section, when the text means "governmental", it's referring to actions taken by the federal government instead of routine municipal expenditures. These federal programs are many of the same policies that have been talked about routinely within urbanist circles: home buying, constructing highways, building hospitals and sewers, etc. Since this was one of the sections of the chapter that rehashed a lot of analysis that's been going on in the field, I'll only point out one of the more interesting observations that stood out to me in my notes:

The federal tax code is, more or less, a "phantom" urban planning policy, since it allows homeowners to deduct interest payments on mortgages and property taxes from their bills while there exists no similar type of program for America's renters. The total value of these deductions came up to $88 Billion in 2002.

Some Scattered Observations:

• One hundred and eight years ago, New York City became the first municipality in the country to adopt a zoning ordinance which determined the use, height, and bulk of all new buildings. It may surprise y'all that this ordinance wasn't advocated/pushed by regular citizens, instead, it was the culmination of lobbying efforts from influential land owners, realtors, and other assorted business interests who believed that allowing for more skyscrapers would depress the value of their properties (it actually surprised me that within an urban area, the interests out the bourgeois could conflict with each other over a natural monopoly asset such as land, I've been lead to believe that their interests are more homogenous)

• The shift of industry from central cities to the urban fringe, to no surprise of any leftist browsing the sub, was a ploy to hamper the efforts of radical labor unions, a ploy which was, unfortunately, very successful

• Homelessness is a product of the Capitocracy and local government via policy such as not constructing enough affordable housing, globalization, and technological unemployment.

Conclusion

All of this information culminates into patterns that metropolitan areas exhibit due to their historic growth:

1. ***Fragmentation of metropolitan areas -***Municipal governance doesn't recognize economic interdependence

2. ***The separation of resources from need -***The growth of American urban areas has established uneven metropolises where the poor crowd into declining central cities while the wealthy move to the suburbs

3. Racial imbalance in the metropolis - Zoning laws, racial steering, and discriminatory lending practices have all acted to create severely racially unbalanced metro areas, however, migration from Latin America and Asia has acted to add more diversity in "gateway cities" and some suburbs

4. Prospects for minority power in the central city- The growing number of minorities in cities has granted them a higher chance of those demographics achieving political power yet, this potential is predicated on the size of a group's population and the ability of leaders to create workable coalitions

5. ***The changing position of cities in the postindustrial globalized economy -***This country's economy is no longer dominated by heavy industry, now, education, the service industry, communications, and information processing.

Hello everyone!

Recently i joined an extension project to spread information, knowledge and activities about bikes, but not strictly about it, as we can approach other urban mobility issues and solutions like trains and city planning.

In my perspective, the society in general talks a lot about the individual side of bicicles, like health and "contributting to a greener world", but not about the relation between bikes and society. As I was once a teenager, I know that expositive presentations are really boring and time consuming for then, so I was wondering which do you think is the best approach to getting their attention and discuss?

The suggestions can be anything from an 1 hour presentation to an 1 month recurrent activity. Thanks!

Just trying to get a feel for what people think of the field. Is pursuing a career and moving the needle considered viable or no?

Is it a bad idea to study urban planning without the intent to pursue a career? Are those skills transferable to working in orgs, nonprofits, gov agencies or something? Or would one be better off studying something like sociology or urban studies?

Any specific paths you recommend, areas of focus, things to avoid etc?

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Link to YouTube video: https://youtu.be/8E5MegoW2pA?si=r6mN0JIc0UUpOKqb

I think it does a really good job of defining the problem with the push for 3rd places & the issue with both the theory & it's constant overuse by urbanists.

I also think the right to the city really summarizes my views on YOMBY/NIMBYS well in that people should get a say in what gets build around them, and in the absence of capitalism they have and will make better choices than under it.

The MTR is the majority government owned public transport company of Hong Kong and it's one the very few transport agencies that aren't making a loss. It does this by renting out the land, commercial spaces and offices near and atop their stations and depots and stuff and then using the money that comes in through this to finance the operation and expansion of the public transport system.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of this model?

Introduction:

Hello everybody, I'm /u/DoxiadisOfDetroit, and I want to welcome you all to the beginning of what we at the Mod Team hope will be a foundational resource for Left-Urbanists/Municipalists who want a better understanding of urban issues regarding political structures, economics, and social relations within your home cities/metropolitan areas.

The text that we'll be analyzing from beginning to end is: Urban Politics- Power in Metropolitan America Seventh Edition by Bernard H. Ross and Myron A. Levine (this text can be found on Amazon for less than $10, but other sites such as ThriftBooks has it for even cheaper).

I personally acquired this text in order to develop an understanding of machine politics, since my city (Detroit) is under the control of one in every way conceivable other than in name. I brought an analysis of this text up to the rest of the Mod Team because the scope of this work, when combined with Leftist theory, creates, in my opinion a political tendency (Left Municipalism) that represents the final hope for Left-wing political hopefuls before I see our movement going down a pessimistic and self-destructive death spiral where we're permanently irrelevant and even more politically persecuted. If/when genuine Leftists start scoring victories on the municipal level, it'll escalate the contradictions of capital to the point where even "apolitical" people in the general public knows that our society exists under "Authoritarian Capitalism" or, a form of Democracy purer than any system that has ever existed in human history.

As this series goes along, and the topics of this book are covered (there's a lot of good material in here), we will cover topics fundamental to building a coherent, Leftist, transformational alternative to the failures of the status quo and the use of Market Urbanism, which, is a crucial goal at the moment since we find ourselves seep walking into an unprecedented urban crisis in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chapter I: The Urban Situation and 9/11

The main point presented in this chapter focuses on the aftermath of the 9/11 attack and which sociopolitical forces had a say in rebuilding effort once the dust finally settled. Even though Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of the largest city in the world's sole remaining superpower, despite being dubbed "America's mayor" by the media immediately after the planes hit the World Trade Center, Giuliani didn't actually have much of a say in the rebuilding effort, no one within the New York City government or New York State government actually had that ability, that power was squarely in the hands of the Landlords, financiers, and insurance firms (i.e. the very definition of "Capitalists"). Since, despite his popularity, Giuliani was prevented from running for mayor of NYC again due to term limits, and he had threw all of his support behind one of his old donors, the lifelong Democrat and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who, broke municipal campaign spending records in the 2001 NYC mayoral election, spending $75 million of his own money to narrowly defeat his and Giuliani's Democratic rival Mark Green.

This is a good point to introduce our first Left Urbanist/Left-Municipalist concept that will help us understand the sociopolitical themes that are found within the text: the Capitocracy- What we can define as a "Capitocratic" political system is one that's dominated by the interests of capital which is the least controversial definition that I would come up with

(NOTE: I didn't coin the term, I had to look it up to see if it was in use before I chose it as an appropriate definition for the 21st Century city's mode of production, the furthest back I can see that it's been in use is on the Daily Chess forum on November 16th, 2011, where it was used as a term to describe the state of the nation of Greece which was in the middle of it's (still ongoing) debt crisis. And, this term is used specifically because, in my opinion, it covers many terms already coined for forms of government: rule by the rich, rule by corporations, rule by elites, rule by algorithms, rule by criminals/thieves, rule by the elderly, etc.).

The use of this term in this context does not suggest that Capitocracy is a "new" or "recent" development within human history. While America, at it's creation, could be called a "Capitocractic government" it is by no means the first nation to fit this description, a detailed analysis of the origins of Capitocracy and it's effects on cities/metropolitan areas is outside of the scope of this series.

But, Capitocracy as a description of the political status quo in urban America at the turn of the century is useful because it captures the reality that the power of capitalists are far superior to the power of your average politician. The book explicitly states that an analysis of power in our era must be understood as something that exists beyond formal institutions of local government. I'll give a quote:

In U.S. cities and suburbs private individuals and corporations often possess or share the power to make key decisions. Private power constrains public officials [page three]

Because the founders of this nation encouraged the ideal of the Jeffersonian Democracy, which, while "progressive" at it's time, is a political philosophy that is in total opposition to the empowerment of the metropolitan masses of today, the United States constitution has little/no explicit rights given to cities, which, is interpreted as "empowering" the state and federal government.

It's the rebuilding of the World Trade Center itself that is a great example of how the Capitocracy operates in the aftermath of crisis. The WTC was originally created by state/municipal political power (although under the influence of Nelson and David Rockefeller) as a symbol of the "rebirth" of NYC at a time where deindustrialization and suburbanization was causing cities across the world to decline, the task of rebuilding was put under the control of figures such as Larry Silverstein, and, as the bidding and proposals started being put together, New Yorkers began to see just how little influence they had in their city.

New York Governor Pataki and Giuliani created the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) which partnered with New York and New Jersey Port Authority to take charge of the rebuilding effort (though it doesn't literally own the WTC cite). But, the authority of the organization was expanded to the entirety of lower Manhattan, it was granted the power to direct federal aid, seize land, and override local zoning codes. To the surprise of few Leftists, the first chairman of this public corporation was a former head at Goldman Sachs.

Now, here's the portion of the text where we'll have to take on a more skeptical analysis: after going detail of the LMDC, the book suggests:

European cities possess the ability to guide private investment for public purposes [...] they build affordable housing, preserve city streetscapes, curb urban sprawl, promote mass transit, and protect greenspace, actions unthinkable in America by regional governments [page nine]

Since the text doesn't give specific examples, it confuses me as to what aspects of Capitocracy in European cities are superior to aspects of Capitocracy in American cities, there is no place on Earth where the interests of citizens and the power of Democracy is more powerful than the forces of Capital. I know that there are likely Capitalists who hold elected positions within European municipal governments, and there's bound to be Capitalists who sit on unelected boards which determine the economic planning of those cities too. It's these ignorant appeals to the false superiority of European social democracy that this series will challenge as we go on.

The Themes of this Book:

The book does a quick summary of the topics that'll be brought up as the text goes along:

1. Globalization is a relatively new force that is acting to shape patterns of development and power in America's cities and suburbs. This is basically the vanilla, "apolitical" way of saying Neoliberal globalization has unleashed a set of socioeconomic conditions that cities, states, and nations are unable to control themselves. Even though cities are some of the least powerful polities in the world, it is the goal of Left Urbanism/Left Municipalism to establish our cities as the true sources of power in the global economy, and revolutionize social awareness and the abilities of true Democracy.

2. Despite the importance of private power, the formal rules and structure of American cities and suburbs remain important as they continue to exert significant influence on local affairs. The fragmentation of decision making authority within metropolitan areas is specifically mentioned in this section. It's a topic that has a lot of literature and theory has covered, and we will do the same here.

3. Federal and state actors and intergovernmental relations have a crucial impact on the politics of the intergovernmental city. This is restating my observation that the rights of cities are legally undefined within the U.S. Constitution and in state law. A good example is t New York State passed a law that stopped New York City's tax on stock transfers and fees for suburban commuters, this caused a loss of $400-$500 million dollars.

4. Sunbelt cities suffer from serious urban problems despite the general distinction that can be made between Frostbelt and Sunbelt communities In simple English, this states that there are issues with growth in the Sunbelt despite massive growth in job and population growth, the poverty of the "Old South" is mentioned specifically.

5. Urban politics in the United States is largely the politics of race, not just in the politics of economic development and municipal service delivery, citizens in the United States have not been willing to confront fully the continuing patterns of racial imbalance in the American metropolis, a "new immigration" has added to the diversity found in U.S. communities, adding to the complexity of ethnic and race relations. This section states that: "While Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of de jure segregation, governments have shown no great willingness to eliminate de facto segregation" which is very true, but, it also criticizes efforts like the Kerner Commission on their findings of race relations at this stage in the American project. It suggests that recent immigrants to America complicate the "two America's" finding by the commission.

6. New gendered interpretations are essential for a more complete understanding of who exercises power and whose needs are met in the urban arena. This section is pretty much what's in the title, it specifically mentions the rise of single mother households and their indicators for households in poverty.

##Metaphors and Conditions for Urban America

We're getting close to the end of the chapter, and I don't have much time, so I'm going to throw the rest of the points made in this chapter together.

The text suggests that cities like New York and Los Angeles are examples of urban citadels where the wealthy live in luxury towers and safe gated neighborhoods, and, because of 9/11, landlords and police departments have increased surveillance. It suggests that the worst case scenario for cities is that we get stuck in a Blade Runner Future where the "haves" control technology to violently battle with the low skilled urban poor.

It moves on to talk about the USA Patriot Act of 2001 has restricted the flow of people across American borders as well as (in the text's words) "made non-U.S. nationals feel unwelcome". This will be an important topic to cover since I've been seeing people critique the free flow of people across national borders as "Neoliberal globalism" and refusing to imagine a Leftist alternative.

###Conclusion

This chapter ends on two points that are crucial for understanding how to craft Left Urbanist/Left Municipalist politics. The first point is that "urban" problems have spread to the suburbs such as the deterioration of their economic bases and population decline, and that American political culture is highly skeptical of "big government" and it's problem solving abilities. These are topics that have been discussed many times on every corner of the internet, but, without a Leftist lens of analysis, all of the whitepapers, policies, and reforms won't do anything but enable the surge of reactionary local politics that will bring the destruction of the only political field Leftist have the ability to participate in.

For the future which is better and what we as socialist should advocate? I am pro-density myself because it can help create a sense of community and make places walkable, services can be delivered more easily and not reliant on personal transportation via owning an expensive vehicle. The biggest downsides are the concerns about noise pollution or feeling like "everyone is on top of you" as some would say.

Let me lay out my arguments:

• There is no physical difference between car infrastructure and bicycle infrastructure; they’re both tarmac and paint.

• The only thing that stops car infrastructure from being great bicycle infrastructure is the presence of cars. Cars make it too dangerous to cycle in many instances

• Thusly if we removed private cars, it would be perfectly safe to cycle and the people who previously used a car would switch to a bike.

This would not reduce most people’s access to transportation as bicycles are 6-8 times more spacially efficient than cars and average speeds on a bike are the same as average speeds in a car in urban traffic. With electric bikes, the switch would be even easier. Obviously exceptions would have to be made for emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, and disabled people. This could even be done in a city without good public transportation as bicycles would become the main form of transport while public transportation is being built out.

This post is not about the practical political realities of implementing such a policy, it’s simply to demonstrate the principle that cars do not add any transportation value to ordinary people in cities.

Seems intuitive that greater density makes access to housing, services, transportation, community spaces, etc better.

Also seems intuitive that the more space between houses the more expensive will the infrastructure be that connects those houses to the grid, water lines, roads, telecomms etc. It seems like settled science among many that density is better for growth and efficiency, so why am I having trouble finding articles that delve into this subject? It could be me not using the correct key search terms.

Thank you!

Hello y'all, I'm /u/DoxiadisOfDetroit and I'm here to introduce myself as one of the newest mods of /r/left_urbanism as well as give a little peek into where the mod team intends to take this sub in the future.

About me:

Obviously I'm from Detroit, and I hold Left wing opinions (it'd be kinda weird to be here if I wasn't), but my initial interest in urbanism as a field of analysis came in the wake of the COIVD pandemic.

While being born to a staunchly Liberal (Democrat voting) lower middle class family, my opinions on "local politics" were always a bit more radical than my views on statewide/national politics (I self-identified as a Democrat until around 2019, I owe my dissatisfaction with Dems under Trump for my political radicalization). Despite my vague memories of Detroit's bankruptcy (I was a teenager at the time), I remember talking to my family members about it and starting to understand the full implications that it had for the city's future. I knew that through privatization, the implementation of the Emergency Manager system, and the top-down "regionalization" of public assets through boards that were separated from the political process that the city was being taken over by the rich.

Then, when the lockdowns were implemented, I was able to see firsthand the massive power that municipalities had when it came to the effectiveness of government action. As the lockdowns were lifted and things started to "get back to normal", I began seeing signs of financial stress all around the metropolitan area: vacant storefronts, thousands of square feet of unleased office space, crumbling roads, enrollment decline in the public school system, check cashing/payday loan shops, plasma donation shops, etc.

And yet, despite living in a metropolitan area with a stagnant population and an actively shrinking central city, I kept seeing luxury apartments popping up with astronomical rents that the average wage worker in this region would never be able to afford. All of my friends kept stressing out about being able to move out of their parents house (I debated multiple different living situations like being an RV or squatting somewhere), while in the few walkable neighborhoods that we have in this region were undergoing a demographic inversion, where longtime residents were pushed out in favor of wealthier residents taking their place.

I tried making my case that this trend was unsustainable on every single forum that I knew about, and I was shouted down as being "anti-development", or "idealistic" because "neighborhoods change all the time".

It wasn't until I dropped out of college and watched a Tedtalk by Yanis Varoufakis that I began to understand these contradictions and my frustration with the world through the lens of Marxism, and now, I've been doing everything I can to absorb as much theory as I possibly can to help formulate an informed critique of the Market Urbanist school of thought that has dominated urban planning for several decades.

And, just a few years ago, I being to coalesce those criticisms into a coherent ideology informed by a Leftist understanding of politics and economics: Left-Municipalism

A brief description of a baby ideology:

Despite "Municipalism" being attributed to Murray Bookchin's politics, it's not a very "Anarchist" ideology (not in my opinion), I'll describe Left Municipalism like this:

It is the belief that cities/metropolitan areas and their factors of production make up what is known as "the economy", since they have a massive influence on the overall economy of nations in the 21st Century, cities/metropolitan areas deserve autonomy and political agency over the authority of state and federal governments until those governments are reorganized to put the interests of cities/metropolitan areas first.

I won't give you guys a comprehensive breakdown of policies since I'm still trying to gain more perspective by reading Leftist and even Neoliberal theory so that I strengthen my arguments, but I'm hoping as time goes on, I'll be able to break down key elements of Left Municipalism and establish it as a coherent and inherent rejection of Market Urbanism.

###Moderation going forward:

The main reason why I requested to be a mod was because this sub has slowly been getting brigaded by members of a certain subreddit (I'll stop beating around the bush and just out them as users of r/ Neoliberal) who're completely uninterested in having a genuine conversation about the failures of Market Urbanism or any potential alternatives to Market Urbanism, which has tanked the sub's ability to be a refuge for users who're looking for heterodox economics and politics. We're still deliberating now, but, in the future, the users of that subreddit will likely be banned from participating here since they haven't ever shown an effort to participate in debates about housing in good faith.

Market Urbanists in general will be allowed to post here though, so this isn't some attempt to create an echo chamber. Again, we've just started talking about specifics, but, there will also likely be changes made to what we see as a productive counterargument and what is dogmatism/baith faith.

We will ensure that we're as transparent as possible when it comes to future changes in moderation of this sub. Suggestions and feedback are always welcome.

In my post yesterday I was meet with a lot of misconceptions about how market solutions work and what YIMBYs actually advocate for. So I found this article which could be interesting to read as a commentary on another post here. YIMBY/NIMBY doesnt have to be the defining fault line of this sub and I do believe many people agree with me. The effects of geting public housing built wont be diminished if there is market housing being built alongside it. Focusing on leftist solutions as someone put it yesterday is silly when we should be focusing on leftist goals. What works works and if there are som unwanted consequences we can alleviate them. But throwing away working solutions because they dont fit a leftist mold or arent anti-market is letting perfect be the enemy of the good. I guess my frustration is with the focus on what I see as idealistic solutions instead of doing the best with what is realistic.

I want to preface this with saying that Im a social liberal leaning towards anarchism and communitarianism. Often I see people who have a bad grasp of the mechanism of the housing market and advocate for straight up reactionary shit as a result. Some examples I often see:

People opposed to a land value tax because it would somehow benefit Landlords. In actuality it basically confiscates any undue profits that a landlord could make from the land and at the same time incentivizes dense developments.

People opposed to "luxury housing". While its true that unnecessarily expensive housing is bad any housing will lower rents in an undersupplied market. If the market is severely undersupplied any housing will become expensive. The solution isnt to stop "luxury housing" but to build social housing for people in the meantime until market housing is affordable.

People opposed to gentrification without acknowledging that it is a somewhat conservative and regressive stance. Personally I can agree that gentrification is bad but stoping it can make it harder for people to move slowing their social mobility if they cant move to study or start a career in another city. It can also cement damaging social orders if people are stuck at home.

People advocating for rent control without proposals to fill the resulting gap in housing. This is pretty self explanatory rent control lowers the incentives for landlords to build which means that public housing must be built to fill the gap. Often times I wonder if it would be better to spend the time and resources to advocate for public housing instead as it would lower the price a landlord could charge anyway.

I dont know what should be done its so tiring to be called a bootlicker or naive liberal over and over again by people who dont know better.

Which is worst? YIMBY or NIMBY?

Every candidate seeking my endorsement (few of them Black, Brown or Native, mostly Non), I'll have the YIMBY vs. NIMBY conversation with them, and how BOTH invariably harm BIPOC communities.

Which one is worst shouldn't be the debate. NIMBY keeps our communities from owning homes through redlining practices and gaining prosperity in neighborhoods where we are historically under-represented but where vast resources are allocated.

On the other hand, YIMBY strips our voice, power, homes, and mobility through policies (endorsed by electeds who may even look like us) that economically disenfranchise through regentrification and marginalization. YIMBY extracts, NIMBY blocks - both displace, both uproot, both are vestiges of White Supremacy.

I encourage my colleagues to choose neither, align with neither, don't accept funds or endorsements from either. Stand up for our communities or stand aside, but know that I will fight to advance equity and it's up to you to decide if we are each other's ally or obstacle. I won't pretend to be either.

Our communities deserve better than this false choice.

• Kalimah Priforce, Councilmember, City of Emeryville

Graphic

This isn't the first article to call out the shortcomings false promises of YIMBYism. But I think it does a pretty good job quickly conveying the state of the movement, particularly after the recent YIMBYtown conference in Texas, which seemed to signal an increasing presence of lobbyist groups and high-level politicians. It also repeats the evergreen critique that the private sector, even after deregulatory pushes, is incapable of delivering on the standard YIMBY promises of abundant housing, etc.

The article concludes:

But fighting so-called NIMBYs, while perhaps satisfying, is not ultimately effective. There’s no reason on earth to believe that the same real estate actors who have been speculating on land and price-gouging tenants since time immemorial can be counted on to provide safe and stable places for working people to live. Tweaking the insane minutiae of local permitting law and design requirements might bring marginal relief to middle-earners, but it provides little assistance to the truly disadvantaged. For those who care about fixing America’s housing crisis, their energies would be better spent on the fight to provide homes as a public good, a change that would truly afflict the comfortable arrangements between politicians and real estate operators that stand in the way of lasting housing justice.

The Case Against YIMBYism

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/what-happened-to-21st-century-city/

Combination book review and thinkpiece by Kate Wagner, author of the recently deleted socialist F1 article.

An excerpt:

When I was younger, growing up in the rural but rapidly developing small town of my youth, I believed that cities were the place where one could find freedom. The greatest disappointment of my young adulthood has been the discovery that this is not true. Not only is it not true, but those glimpses of freedom I have had—freedoms that have allowed me to better understand myself and coexist with others different from me—have all been eradicated by force, whether that force was social, economic, political, or (usually) all three. In their place, we find sameness, a sameness we all complain about: the boring suburbanization of urban aesthetics that creates a miserable middle-class monoculture where every bar serves overpriced drinks and every restaurant overpriced small plates, where every store promises community and uniqueness while providing neither. And the worst part of this is that we are supposed to be happy. We are always, always, always supposed to be happy. Our neighbors disappear, and we are supposed to be happy. All the people on the street start to look the same and work at the same jobs and walk the same Labradoodles, and we are supposed to be happy. The rent goes up, and we are supposed to be happy. We are supposed to be happy because this is the city, and if you don’t like it, then you are: (a) a NIMBY on the level of the revanchist wealthy homeowners whose sole concern is for their views and their property values, (b) anti-progress, and therefore (c) you should leave.

Never is it discussed that a cordoned-off, highly policed, highly regulated urban fabric of the kind that exists in every metropolitan center in the Western world is created in the image of the people who dominate that world, at the expense of those who don’t. And even if one finds oneself within these categories of dominance, be it whiteness or relative financial stability or unrestricted physical mobility, these spaces are immiserating, because they enforce a strict set of social, bodily, sexual, and behavioral norms and are driven by convenience, consumerism, and productivity. In them, we find ourselves subject to a relentless drive toward optimized, frictionless happiness, enabled by an endless array of apps and tools devoted to the task of getting someone to do your grocery shopping or find you a date. The contemporary urban end goal is a utopian world without conflict, but one that never confronts the fact that the social order that enables this utopia of commodified pleasure centers is itself produced by a lot of conflict. Little is said about how it is created by a profound and deliberate violence against all that is different, queer, unfinished, volatile, democratic, or open—in other words, all that is human.

And I know, I know, that many others feel this way: that this sadness is felt by so many people who find a place for themselves in a city and who know what it means to see their spaces of security, community, and openness taken away in exchange for more app-based deliveries, more high-end specialty shops, more cocktail bars, more apartment buildings with rents that are impossibly high. There may be no cultural name for it, and so we grasp at sociological concepts like gentrification, even though these explain only one part of the entire complex. They also cannot tell the story of the real human despair that comes in the wake of those processes, when we are supposed to be grateful to be surrounded by clean streets and people who look like us and work at similar jobs and buy similar things, but also know that this supposed harmony and equilibrium is the result of constant acts of dislocation, exploitation, police brutality, and inhumanity. And for those who question the reality of this violence, I urge you to interrogate your own happiness, your own sociality, to ask how you would feel should the places you rely on for human connection and self-expression disappear. I urge you to open up any Twitter thread about homelessness, read the replies, and tell me that what you see there is not violence. You will notice that I have not named a specific city in this exposition. I do not need to, for this condition applies to all of them.

René Boer, a longtime critic and organizer based in Amsterdam, has over the years developed a term to encompass all these different phenomena: the “smooth city.” Boer’s work at Urban Omnibus has long dealt with trying to grasp the totality of what happens to cities in this rather bleak period of urban development. And in his new book, the eponymously named Smooth City, he offers a study of how vast and heterogeneous metropolises are made to look and feel the same, cater to the same clientele—a wealthy, white-collar middle class—and become seamless technocratic wholes. Through his numerous case studies from around the world and his keen eye for the sociological, Boer has produced a nuanced study of the phenomenon and experience of urban “smoothness” and its root causes.

The strength of Smooth City is found in its ability to integrate a number of different ideas, processes, and policies into one guiding framework, namely their end result: urban smoothness, homogeneity, and the eradication of anything that stands in the way. The topics in Smooth City range from the general (such as neoliberalism and its urban expressions, as well as capitalism, globalization, gentrification, militarization, commodification, real estate speculation, and class, racial, and sex-and-gender-based conflicts) to the specific (such as individual new technologies and policies that work together to reinforce ever more rigorous social norms). Boer’s research casts a wide net and avoids the common US-centric pitfalls in urbanism books. He frequently cites examples of developmental and spatial practices in cities like Amsterdam, Cairo, and London as well as New York, and he wonders (following critics such as Michael Sorkin and Rem Koolhaas in the 1990s, who wrote as this process of smoothing began) why the hell everything has to look the same—and why is that sameness so hostile?

It is not until one leaves that sameness and discovers what Boer calls “porosity,” or the opposite of smoothness, that one realizes just how smothering all this seamlessness is. This is the main task of his book, which is divided into five parts, of which the first two, “Smooth Structures” and “Smooth Origins,” are the most urgent. At the core of Boer’s thesis is a dichotomy, first represented by Reestraat in Amsterdam and King’s Cross Central in London—two sides, he argues, of the same smooth coin. Reestraat is smoothness’s historically intact, touristified, and highly branded colonization of the old, while King’s Cross Central is smoothness manufactured from scratch, with all-new buildings and a more expressly hostile urbanism.

This multiplicity of forms is what we tend to call “gentrification,” but as Boer shows, there is also a multiplicity in causes too: Gentrification is only one part of a greater system of economic and political forces that seek to exact finer and finer control over the built environment. “Nothing,” Boer writes of the smooth city, “is left undefined or allowed to gradually transform at its own pace.” Everything is governed by an urbanism oriented around “design[ating] the current and future use of every part of the city, including all the rules and regulations that come with such use,” in the pursuit of a perfect, technocratic urban whole.

In making this argument, Boer is careful to remind us that the end goal of these processes is not explicitly a smooth city; rather, the smooth city materializes because of them. It is the result of an “ongoing, collective effort by those in power, often the government and property owners, to make sure everything remains permanently ‘in perfect condition’ and nothing threatens its efficient operation.”

If I want to avoid living in suburbia or a rural area, what alternatives do I have to single-family housing? Or is simply living in an apartment paying rent to landlords?

Neither is ideal. Landlords and their exploitation of renters is evil. Living outside city centers is bad systemically due to the impacts on the environment and overall cost to society (the cost of road maintenance alone are unsustainable), among other problems.

I'm an American, so my question pertains to options within the United States.

I fear the answer is there is no good answer. But I am curious if there are suggestions. If there are suggestions to the lesser of two evils, I'll take that instead.

"Advocating for the adoption of local climate adaptation policy in Lexington, Kentucky. In this video we offer a commentary on the efficacy of public comment in local government process and some perspectives on how and when to maximize our impact through these channels."

https://youtu.be/qnFKTIE13NI

Do you agree or disagree with these perspectives on working in local government? Specifically: that the public comment process is theatre with limited value beyond nudging popular discourse and that entreaties to local government should not rely on personal narrative.

"Geomancer is a radical agroecology project dedicated to the unapologetically revolutionary transformation of society. We believe that the world capitalist system has entered into a period of senile decay and that communities should organize on the basis of solidarity and cooperation to respond dynamically to the ecological crises we collectively face."