Tag: gentrification

• New urban planning buzzword: Lean Urbanism

  The term “lean” is well known in technology and startup circles. Thanks to people like Eric Ries and Steve Blank, it’s become all about starting up lean and not investing a lot of time and money before you’ve really tested your business assumptions in the marketplace.

  But keeping it lean isn’t unique to just tech companies. Its origins are actually in manufacturing—mostly from Toyota’s celebrated production system. Lately though, it has been starting to make its way into cities with a new buzzword called “Lean Urbanism.”

  Championed by New Urbanist Andres Duany—who is actually in the midst of writing a book on the topic—the methodology seems to be gaining awareness in cities spanning from Detroit to San Diego. Here’s an article that a friend of mine (currently working in San Diego) sent me yesterday on the topic.

  At first, the article gave me the impression that the movement was all about building as-of-right. That is, build what’s allowed and stop asking for special discretionary permissions, which is often how real estate development works.

  But then I started to do a bit more research.

  And it turns out that Lean Urbanism is about something much deeper. It’s about empowering incremental urban growth:

  “Lean Urbanism…focuses on revitalizing cities by finding ways for people to participate in community-building — specifically, by enabling everyday people to get things done.”

  What Lean Urbanism hopes to do is create tools and techniques that will help local communities avoid and workaround overly onerous regulations. It’s about removing the barriers to entry—whether that be a business permit or a building permit—so that more people can participate in shaping their own community.

  What I like about it is that it’s building upon the renewal cycle that has traditionally always powered cities. It hopes to empower the proverbial artist that moves into a neighborhood like New York’s Soho and magically makes it cool—then spurring an onslaught of investment.

  And so while the buzzword might be new, it’s a renewal cycle we’ve seen before. But, if it works, maybe not with so much frequency.

  2014.03.06

• Gentrification, animated

  A friend of mine sent me a link this afternoon to an art project called “Vacated”. The artist (Justin Blinder) reverse engineered Google Street View images to create a series of animated GIFs intended to demonstrate New York’s “changing urban landscape during the Bloomberg administration.”

  In his description of the project, Blinder ends by saying that “it’s up to the viewer to decide whether this change represents widespread gentrification.” Given the recent discussion we’ve had (here on Architect This City) about gentrification, I thought this post might be a good addendum.

  One of the big takeaways from our discussion, I think, was idea that there’s good gentrification and bad gentrification. Gentrification, after all, is really just another word for investment. And so generally I would consider this to be a good thing for communities.

  But there are instances when investment comes in and ruins what made the community worth investing in, in the first place. Perhaps the investment brought about the destruction of heritage buildings or the loss of the fine grain urban character that initially made it a great place to be.

  In these cases, I would say that this is bad gentrification. Sure there has been investment, but now the community has lost what made it cool. And as Jane Jacobs rightly pointed out: “When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave.”

  2014.02.23

• Is gentrification really the problem?

  James Frank Dy Zarsadiaz (a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern) published an article in Atlantic Cities a few days ago called, “Why gentrification is so hard to stop.”

  In it, he essentially talks about how neo-liberalism has allowed private interest to trump public good and how it has dramatically changed cities and the expectations of its residents:

  “…those who can afford to live in a city now expect a personalized, “just for you” urban lifestyle. For-profit companies chase these urbanites with upscale housing and creative marketing campaigns, transforming blighted and blue-collar neighborhoods into “livable” urban nooks.”

  Now, as a developer I know I’m biased here, but is gentrification really as evil as he makes it out to be?

  One of the most insightful comments on the article had the following to say:

  “I’ve always maintained that gentrification is what occurs when demand exceeds supply and blight is what occurs when supply exceeds demand.”

  I like it because it’s a simple way of saying that what we are seeing is a natural market outcome. What’s wrong with somebody wanting to buy a house in a marginal area and fix it up? Can we reasonably expect to stop people from doing this so that wealth never increases within a neighborhood?

  The bigger issue, in my view, is rising income inequality. We know that this is becoming more and more of an issue. The benefits to being smart and educated today are huge. So how do we ensure that we’re not creating a society of haves and have-nots?

  Let’s figure this out and let people buy whatever homes they want.

  2014.02.19

• DUKE

  As many of you know, I recently made the move to a new real estate development firm here in the city called TAS. Well, actually, it was a return for me. I interned here one summer while I was in grad school at Penn. I was always a big fan of the company’s philosophy around city building and so it felt then, as it does now, as a really good fit for me.

  As a returning member of the TAS team, I’m excited to announce the launch of our latest condo project called DUKE. It’s located in the Junction (near Dundas & Keele), which is arguably one of the hottest up-and-coming neighbourhoods in Toronto. And, it’s a stone’s throw away from Playa Cabana Cantina, which just so happens to be my favourite Mexican place in the city (although sometimes I think it could be Grand Electric).

  In all seriousness though, and with as much bias aside as possible, I think it’s a fantastic project. I obviously wasn’t around for its formative years, but I’m thrilled to be a part of it now. If you’ve read any of my blog posts over at Dirt (thedirt.co), you’ll know that I’m a huge supporter of more midrise development in Toronto. It’s a European scale of buildings that I think we’re largely missing in our fantastic city.

  So if you’re in the Junction area, I would encourage you to pop into our sales office and say hello to the team. We’re located at 2800 Dundas Street West. The tile as you walk in is awesome (I can say this because I didn’t choose it) and I think you’ll find that the design of the place is very much of the Junction. Much of the materials, fixtures and labour that went into the sales office were sourced locally from the hood.

  If you do go check it out, let me know what you think by commenting below, tweeting me, or tweeting @tasdesignbuild.

  2013.09.17

• Gentrification and corporate shuttle buses

  A couple of months ago I had coffee with an urban planner who had recently relocated from the Bay Area back to Toronto. One of the interesting things that came up during our conversation – that I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to before – was how corporate shuttle buses (from the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook and so on) could be impacting cities.

  On the surface, they seem fairly benign. Most of the big tech companies are located outside of San Francisco, but young smart people today like living in cities. So let’s run shuttles buses that take people back and forth. Employees get to live the life they want and employers get broader access to human capital. It seems like a win-win.

  But in reality, some argue that these shuttles buses reinforce a powerful trend already plaguing the region: The alienation of non-tech people. George Packer of the New Yorker called the buses “a vivid emblem of the tech boom’s stratifying effect in the Bay Area.”

  What I wonder though is to what extent these buses are not just an emblem, but an actual driver of stratification and other negative outcomes. The first concern that comes to my mind is the possibility for this to lead to infrastructure disinvestment. Already there seems to be a philosophical divide around transit (see BART strike).

  Wired just published an interesting set of maps that try and map “Silicon Valley’s gentrification problem through corporate shuttle routes.” They’re worth checking out. It’s also interesting to see how they collected the data; it was a fairly messy process.

  2013.09.07
• 

  explore-blog:

  Mapping Brooklyn’s spiky gentrification

  2013.01.06