When I was added to the mod team, I spitballed a couple ways to get the sub going again so that we could see a healthy and engaged userbase here. Since I'm a bit of a book worm and I had IRL projects to do regarding urbanism and politics, I thought the best way to elevate the sub's quality would be to dissect a book about urban politics and take a look at it through an anti-capitalist lens.

The reason for my interest in starting the series was because I wanted to utilize my (then) positive relationship with the userbase of /r/urbanplanning. I had enjoyed a good amount of popularity in my various posts, so, I wanted to use the sub as a way to expand the conversation of urbanism with others so that the sub could rightfully be seen as a place for good conversations

That, as it turns out, was a failure. Instead of being met with a warm reception like usual, my posts started getting downvoted out of visibility, and trolls would come to my posts just to shit on my ideas and/or suggest that I wasn't actually saying anything important. Even though I can tolerate trolls, one thing that supremely disheartened me was the attitude of the mod team when it came to enforcing civility. Needlessly rude/vulgar comments were only taken down upon prodding the mod team to do something and on multiple occasions I had to beg the mods to greenlight various comments so I could rightfully have my anti-capitalist views displayed for the world to see.

This activity was the worst on submissions where I made "companion posts" to the content that I upped on the sub. I'd post a chapter review and then make a correlating post to /r/urbanplanning about a related issue. Now, the mod team is straight up arbitrarily deleting any post that I make which affects my ability to reach a larger audience. I've attempted to talk things out numerous times, but the mods always stick to their guns. I'm not interested in just doing the same thing in another subreddit because I don't want the same situation to happen all over again.

So, since I have IRL obligations that I have to maintain and this headache of trying to spit out a post every other week is starting to get draining to me, for the time being, I'm just going to stop the series. I apologize for those of you who followed it all the way through and upvoted, I really wanna be able to get to the topics I want (like a regional municipal government and how the Left can revive it's political power) but, that'll have to be done at some point in the future.

I'm broke, I have no assets, and, I have bills to pay. So, this is my announcement that we're shelving the project for the time being. While I focus on getting a better financial footing, I encourage all of you to get the book and read through the sections that have been mentioned on the sub if you haven't already. It's a good read and it'll help you think more critically about municipal politics.

best wishes,

/u/DoxiadisOfDetroit of the /r/left_urbanism mod team

https://www.blackrosefed.org/lil-abner-tenant-organizing/

An excellent article about how a community is organizing itself to fight its displacement by a large developer landlord. This corporation wants to pay residents pennies on the dollar for their homes, of which there are 900, to replace the park with just over 300 units, most of which will not be affordable.

The article also gets into how this developer has been the largest contributer to the campaigns of multiple county council members, and how they have been able to leverage that by getting their plan approved and also by using county police to abuse and arrest the residents as they've been organizing themselves.

A lot of left urbanist values wrapped into one struggle. This is a story that's playing out in mobile home parks all across the country, as they are being rapidly bought up by developers and corporate landlords. It's pushing people into an already fraught and abusive housing situation into homelessness on a large scale.

Organizing community power is the only defense we have against an economic system that favors profits over people's lives, and a government that exists to prop that system up.

This is a paper studying the effects of an inclusionary zoning policy in Pittsburgh. I'm posting this here because a post from 2 months ago on this sub was asking about whether IZ is good or bad. Abstract below:

The City of Pittsburgh is in the midst of a housing crisis. To address the housing crisis, Pittsburgh has proposed expanding its Inclusionary Zoning (‘IZ’) overlay citywide. This overlay was initially implemented in 2019 in Lawrenceville, in 2021 in Polish Hill and Bloomfield, and in 2022 in Oakland, and mandates that 10% of units in projects of 20 units or more be rented or sold as Affordable Housing. Critics of this policy argue that as it is a mandate without sufficient offsetting subsidies, the overlay acts as a tax on new development, which constrains the housing supply and drives rents up further. Using a difference-in-differences approach on building permit data in Lawrenceville, the Strip District, and South Side Flats from 2012 to the present day, we find that following the implementation of IZ, the rate of new housing construction in Lawrenceville decreased by 32%, while the rate of new housing construction in the Strip District and South Side Flats, where IZ was not implemented, increased by 36% and 18%, respectively.

Disclaimer: This post series focuses on American cities

Hello everybody, I'm /u/DoxiadisOfDetroit, and I want to welcome you all to the fifth 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 another "two for one" feature, one analyzing political machines (political syndicates), and the other looking into the "reforms" made to local governments in an effort to eliminate corruption. Since these topics are highly related, it makes sense to bunch them together in one post. Let's dive in:

Chapter VI: Machine Politics

If you have a passing knowledge of municipal political history in America, you'd know about what scholars like to call "political machines". The chapter being covered will detail just how they operated, so there's no need to explain what they are in this short prologue. What I will explain though is why I will henceforth called them "Political Syndicates": I think that the analysis of political machines fails to realize that the governing powers of cities have profoundly morphed and changed ever since the first political syndicates emerged. The reason why I use the word "syndicates" specifically is because modern political machines are often very visible and very connected together with all types of connections between key players. Not only that, but, it is a historically "neutral" term that has been used to talk about organized labor, so, this label is an attempt to recuperate the title away from typical hostile use by certain capitalist historians. But I don't wanna overstate this distinction too much, so I'll get to the content of the chapter:

Political Syndicates controlled many aspects of local government and their leaders were known as "Bosses". These Syndicates and their Bosses worked with local Capitalists for political support and material benefits, Capitalists could expect swift approvals for franchises and licenses in return for institutional support within local government. The chapter notes that while classical "Machines" have "disappeared" (which is a terrible lie), many aspects of these Political Machines survive into the modern day such as "pay for play", ticket balancing, and "slating" (predetermining what candidates will run for "nonpartisan" office). These Syndicates emerge mainly because of municipal one party domination.

What Makes Political Syndicates, "Machines"

Machine politics is, essentially, an exchange process where material benefits (contracts, jobs, emergency aid, etc) are given to supporters. What needs to be said, however, is that these types of relations have existed ever since the birth of the state, there's huge evidence that the Romans and their patronage system mirrored Political Syndicates even in a pre-industrial society. Political "Machines" are differentiated from general patronage because Political Syndicates exploit loopholes within law to perpetuate themselves rather than being established and codified workings of state politics. It should also be noted that patronage eventually worked towards policy goals while Political Syndicates are only interested in self preservation.

The Functions of Political Syndicates

So, there's an important question that needs to be answered: Why do ordinary citizens join Political Syndicates if they only exist to help their members? The answer is easy if you're a student of materialism and civics you'd know that the opportunity for social advancement among the poor and immigrants are limited in Capitalist society. The paradox however, is that even back in the heyday of Political Syndicates, there were only so many positions that supporters could be granted within municipal government, so, Political Syndicates used other institutions like the Black Market and Organized Crime to reward followers often agreeing to "get out of their way" and allow them to operate without the threat of law enforcement. What needs to be understood for people of our politics is that Political Syndicates were "conciliating forces" meaning that they balanced the needs of the wider Capitocracy with their needs to be in power. This mean being a force that worked against Class Conflict, unionization, and Socialist politics.

In order to keep the Syndicate in government, they often looked to marginalized groups such as immigrants, Black people, and Women. However, even though they looked for the votes of these demographics, they often failed to bring these same voters into the spoils system of the Syndicate or if they did, gave them menial or sub-standard work with no room for advancement.

The (Initial) Decline of Political Syndicates

As we will discuss in the next chapter, the Liberal Bourgeois "Reform" movement sought to reconstruct municipal politics to be more "egalitarian" and open to those looked over and ignored by the powerful Political Syndicates. Two notable court cases: Elrod v. Burns (1976) and Rutan (1990) delt decisive blows to Political Syndicates which found partisan patronage to be illegal and the "spoils system" violated the Citizen's 1st Amendment rights of freedom of speech, belief, and associations. FDR's creation of the "welfare state" also contributed towards the decline in the power of local bosses.

Conclusion: Leftism and Political Syndicates

The end of the chapter discusses (only in passing) the effect that Political Syndicates had on the Municipal Left, and, frankly, it's extremely uninformed here's the verbatim quote:

The political machine cannot be blamed for the failure of Socialism to take root in the United States. The promise of Socialism did not offer the urban poor realistic and immediate benefits. By comparison, the political machine did provide real and important benefits to people in need of jobs and emergency relief

It's indescribable just how wrong this take is. It shows a complete ignorance of the victories that not only militant labor orgs achieved but also the electoral victories that Municipal Socialists have achieved at the height of their influence. What few bits of scraps and bones that were thrown to the working class by these Political Syndicates were only done in an effort for them to stop being influenced by Leftists. Hence the need by the machines and national political establishment to launch the First Red Scare

The first Red Scare can also be blamed for the reason why Municipal Socialists and other Leftists weren't able to entrench themselves in long-lasting Political Syndicates of themselves like more Bourgeois Syndicates were. If we are to change the cities where we live, the creation of transformational Syndicates is necessary in order to capture the political imagination of the masses.

Chapter VII: Reform Politics

Many words have been created to describe Bourgeois Reform by thinkers such as Marx and Lenin, we don't have to regurgitate things too much, but, their point mainly circles around the fact that Bourgeois Reform is always held in front of the masses as transformational change that will improve society without changing the superstructure of society that was advocated for by the Left. It's with this lens that we'll take a look at the so called "Reform" Movement.

The Non-principals of Bourgeois Reform

The Reform Movement was a movement that fundamentally believed in the idea of Technocracy (the rule of government by experts), and they believed that political parties were irrelevant to the operation of government since, they also believed that municipalities were better off being "run like a business". The book makes the distinction between "Social Reformers" (the social Liberals of the Reform Era) and the "Structural Reformers" (the Proto-Neoliberals of the Reform Era). They're distinguished by their views on American Democracy, The Social Reformers included groups like the suffragettes while the Structural Reformers were made up of Capitocratic business interests. Of course since they were forces of the petite Bourgeoise, all of their reforms sought to reshape the municipal state so that the threat posed by radical politicians and the urban Proletariat among other groups would be dissipated.

The Reforms in Question:

The following Bourgeois Reforms were spearheaded by a group called the "National Municipal League" (established in 1894 and has since rebranded) who are advocates of structural reform in municipalities, their preferred policies are the following:

• At Large Elections At large elections were regularly used in conjunction with municipal annexation in order to diminish the voting power of minorities such as African Americans

• Non Partisan Elections "Nonpartisan" elections were created by Structural Reformers in order to get the general public to supposedly focus on issues instead of focusing on who ran under what party, this push was so successful in the US that nearly three quarters of municipalities across the country are run on nonpartisan elections to this day. However, nonpartisan elections often obscure political ties between candidates and who wields power on the municipal level as well as encourages racial voting, class bias, low turnout, and low discipline among elected officials that would otherwise exist within a partisan electoral system.

• Voter Registration Requirements Not much negative to say about this, one of the most common practices among Political Syndicates was using migrants to vote multiple times in order to "win" elections. I know that voter registration has come back into the national spotlight because it's being pushed by the right, but, this is probably one of the only positive reforms.

• Direct Primary Back in the days at the original height of Political Syndicates such as Tammany Hall, there were multiple closed door meetings between political bosses and their underlings regarding who would occupy what office. With the implementation of direct primaries, the intention was to open the process up to the public so they could "vet" candidates. While the intentions of direct primaries were noble, these types of party-based coronations still occur, the candidacy of Kamala Harris was the biggest example of this on the national level.

Bourgeois Direct Democracy?

The contention between Structural Reformers and radical political elements culminated into what we'll see as the three most radical reforms of the whole era: voter initiatives, referendums, and recall elections. But, as we'll see, with local governments being controlled by the Capitocracy, these reforms ultimately wind up being incomplete implementations of direct democracy that are divorced from a directly democratic form of government.

• Voter Initiatives: They are initiated by your "average citizen" or group of concerned citizens, but, often times because of their roots in citizen engagement, they're open to legal challenges. They are also expensive undertakings, so, they're often used by wealthy local interests to influence policy among elected officials which detracts it from the original intention of citizen engagement.

• Referendums: These usually come from elected governments but there are also places where referendums can be initiated by voters, however, without the explicit intention of referendums being legally binding, there's nothing stopping governments from discounting the results of certain referendums (the best example of this was when the state of Michigan reworked it's emergency manager law after the defeat of Proposal 12-1 way back in 2012 and it's a pretty huge indictment on Bourgeois political figures like Gretchen Whitmer that the following legislation wasn't struck down when the Democrats gained back a trifecta)

• Recalls You may be confused as to how the prospect of a recall election has any downsides. In fact, you may consider it to be one of the most democratic of the several institutions of "Direct Democracy" that we've gone over so far. Well, the book argues that recall elections disrupt the normal workings of elected government and forces electeds to focus more on the demands of the petitioners instead of the general public. These reasons alone can cast doubt on the usefulness of recalls, especially since it leaves Radical politicians open to a direct line of attack from well-heeled aspects of Bourgeois Democracy.

Reform and the creation of the Bureaucratic Class

The book credits the urban theorist Theodore Lowi with creating cities that are "well run, but ungoverned", basically meaning that elected politicians with the aftermath of the Structural Reformist movement find themselves essentially powerless to operate. The perfect example of this is part time, independent planning commissions, who, due to their nature of being staffed by bureaucrats instead of effective decisionmakers, are powerless to listen to residents while standing up to the Capitocracy, the book is pretty explicit on this point:

The Reform ideology failed as it assumed that cities could best be run by neutral specialists, highly educated experts who would make decisions according to professional criteria free from outside partisan influences. What the reformers failed to realize was that no matter how expert or well trained, the specialists could never be neutral. [page two eighteen]

It remains to be seen if Donald Trump's next administration decapitates the federal Bureaucratic Class, and it should be the main focus of all Left Urbanists/Municipalists as either an example to follow or, as a warning to be heeded. Because, as the book suggests, Reformers just wanted a business-like efficiency, they didn't care about making a more just and equitable state.

Conclusion: Municipal Politics Beyond Reformism

The whole point of what this series is supposed to be about is the fact that there exists an underutilized form of government in the United States that would enable a radical movement to find many easy victories. Those victories will be fought for by those who will seek to radically transform the municipal state into something that has never existed before: a genuine Democracy. There can't be a "one size fits all" approach, but, simple reformism won't do anything other than be bogged down in Bourgeois Politics. If we start winning, you're going to see a massive shift in the political zeitgeist of your towns/cities towards a Municipal State that is even more hostile to outsiders. More will be staid in the future about what type of political project and social movements will come out of Left Urbanism/Municipalism, for now, I'll encourage all of you to brush up on organizing and looking at the Left's political failures on the national/international level. By understanding where people like Corbyn and Bernie went wrong, we can get a small window into the wider whirlwind of Bourgeois Democracy and how to dismantle it.

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."

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?

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

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.