Podcast: Walking Through London’s East End

by Cristiana Strava

London’s East End needs little introduction. Though nestled between the largest financial hubs in Europe (Central London to the west and Canary Wharf to the south), it has traditionally been one of the city’s least affluent areas.

A Tramway Arrives in Casablanca

by Cristiana Strava

As Morocco’s largest city and business center, Casablanca suffers from infernal traffic congestion, related air pollution and insufficient public transit. The municipal government has yet to realize longstanding plans for a subway system, but has recently completed a $1.6 billion tramway that connects much of the city’s east and west sections via the center. Such lines are becoming a global trend, promoted as environmentally sustainable and socially equitable urban renewal.

Isolation to Eviction for Nile Island Dwellers

by Abdelbaseer Mohamed

Greater Cairo, which includes the city of Giza, is spatially fragmented and heavily oriented toward private transit. Low-income residents are disproportionately isolated from essential infrastructure, services and job opportunities. Segregation is especially acute on Gezirat Al Warraq and Gezirat Al Dahab, large islands several kilometers from central Cairo. Efforts to solve this problem have encountered resistance from proponents of sustainable development.

A False Rendering of the New Banlieue

by Alex Schafran

Virtually everywhere you go in the Parisian banlieue, you will find large signs drawing attention to "urban renovation" — major facelifts for large housing projects (cités), new public spaces in the centers of villages and towns, better integration with the myriad transit projects currently underway, entire blocks of housing.

Contested Space, Contested Identity

by Max Holleran


Source: Max Holleran

In cities around the world, public space is an essential platform for voicing calls for change. Whether Madrid's Puerta del Sol, Athens's Syntagma Square, or Tahrir Square in Cairo, this space is the hippocampus of the nation: the first to experience unsettling tremors in the body politic.

One of the most fascinating things about the occupation of Istanbul's Gezi Park was that many of the issues were tied to the use of urban space to promote a contentious version of national identity. It was an expression of widespread frustration with an autocratic urban transformation that has raised questions over which heritage represents the nation in the 21st century.


Protesters react to tear gas on June 15. Source: Enca

Protesters were brutally suppressed after attempting to use Taksim Square as an agora to address urban and national concerns. Over the past decade of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's rule, the Turkish economy soared as Istanbul experienced increasing class segregation and an "Americanization" of the built environment in the form of gated communities and horrendous traffic jams.

Real estate development has been accompanied by wholesale demolition of historic neighborhoods and removal of Roma communities in Istanbul. The plan to place a rebuilt Ottoman military barracks and shopping mall in Gezi Park was a major spark for the protests. Another was construction of a third bridge across the Bosphorus, named after an Ottoman sultan known for massacring people of the Alevi religious minority. The barracks and mall are fitting symbols of the AKP's urban transformation, in which Ottoman cultural heritage is used to build regional support for aggressive market-oriented development.


Source: France 24


Reconstructed Ottoman military barracks and mall planned for Gezi Park. Source: KH

The protests focused national attention on the AKP's increasingly oppressive desecularization of society. The party's deputy chairman recently denounced the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who brought an end to the Ottoman Caliphate and established the modern republic. While such jibes have been isolated and oblique, there have also been more-direct attacks on Atatürk's secular policies.


Turkish flag with a portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Source: Kathimerini

Portraits of Turkey's great modernizer still adorn public buildings and private shops in Istanbul, and many of the Taksim protesters feel a connection between their efforts and those of the national patriarch. Flags with his photo have been used as symbols of what's at stake if Erdoğan is given a free hand at widespread reforms.

Members of the AKP suggest that, while acknowledging Ataturk's achievements, they believe his policies were pushed through too quickly and the country must now reclaim its soul. Many in Istanbul feel the same way about Erdoğan's urban transformation.

Max Holleran is a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology at NYU.

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Alternative Globalization in ‘Ordinary Cities’

by René Boer


Tunis, Tunisia, site of the 2013 World Social Forum. Source: Paix & Développement

On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of people will gather in Tunis for the World Social Forum (WSF). They plan to discuss alternatives to capitalist globalization, in response to widespread economic and ecological problems wrought through market-oriented development over the past thirty years. The WSF has taken place annually since 2001, inspiring national and regional versions in cities throughout Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and South America. These forums have become important congregation points for the alter-globalization movement, and their locations reveal a striking counterpoint to those of "global cities."


A map of World Social Forums (green) and their regional counterparts (pink), by René Boer.

Saskia Sassen coined the term "global cities" in reference to increasingly interconnected nodes of worldwide economic and political influence. Periodic reports like the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Classification or the Foreign Policy Global Cities Index tend to designate London, New York and Tokyo most influential, followed by cities like Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Paris, Zurich, Chicago and Seoul. Cities in lower-income countries are disproportionately scarce among the top 25, which contrasts sharply with the nodes of global social movements.


The 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar. Source: Abdullah Vawda

Jennifer Robinson, Aihwa Ong and Ananya Roy criticize "global cities" rankings that concentrate on the development trajectories of relatively few cities in the highest-income countries. Such hierarchies dominate contemporary thinking on urbanization and shape policy in not-so-global cities, aimed at "catching up" with the command centers. Robinson's notion of "ordinary cities" highlights the unique histories, current situations and future possibilities of all urban areas. While not discounting the importance of examining global cities, this idea opens a much wider range of options for research and policy.


The 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai. Source: Claudio Riccio

Research on less-dominant cities often takes the form of local case studies with limited scope. Broader lateral networks, interactions and mutual experiences among them receive less attention. Robinson points to alternative globalization processes taking shape among ordinary cities and shaping their development paths. Migration patterns, criminal networks and religious movements, for example, forge new relationships between cities and exert considerable influence at local scales. In a similar way, the recent emergence and distribution of social forums has created an alternative urban constellation. The networks of activists meeting in ordinary cities of different sizes, cultures and regions prove that these places can be "global" in their own way.

René Boer (@rene_boer_) recently graduated from the University College London Urban Laboratory and currently works for Failed Architecture in Amsterdam.

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Heynen et al. on Urban Political Ecology

Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower in Hanoi’s new business district. Source: Melissa García Lamarca

“The central message that emerges from urban political ecology is a decidedly political one. To the extent that cities are produced through socio-ecological processes, attention has been paid to the political processes through which particular socio-environmental urban conditions are made and remade. From a progressive or emancipatory position, then, urban political ecology asks questions about who produced what kind of socio-ecological configurations for whom. In other words, urban political ecology is about formulating political projects that are radically democratic in terms of the organization of the processes through which the environments that we (humans and non-humans) inhabit become produced.


El Molino housing cooperative in Buenos Aires. Source: Melissa García Lamarca


A sign reads “self-management, collective property, mutual aid” in a toy-share space at El Molino. Source: Melissa García Lamarca

“As global/local forms of capitalism have become more entrenched in social life, there are still powerful tendencies to externalize nature. Yet the intricate and ultimately vulnerable dependence on capital accumulation on nature deepens and widens continuously. It is on the terrain of the urban that this accelerating metabolic transformation of nature becomes most visible, both in its physical form and its socio-ecological consequences.


Central Detroit, looking towards the GM Renaissance Center. Source: Melissa García Lamarca

“Urban political ecology research has begun to show that because of the underlying economic, political, and cultural processes inherent in the production of urban landscapes, urban change tends to be spatially differentiated, and highly uneven. Thus, in the context, of urban environmental change, it is likely that urban areas populated by marginalized residents will bear the brunt of negative environmental change, while other, affluent parts of cities enjoy growth in or increased quality of environmental resources. While this is in no way new, urban political ecology is starting to contribute to a better understanding of the interconnected processes that lead to uneven urban environments.”

— Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw in In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism, 2006

This is part of the Polis collection of quotes related to cities.

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A Collective Approach to Local Entrepreneurship

by Mark Minkjan



Locally owned shops were once cornerstones for products, services, employment and social networks in urban neighborhoods. The rise of automobiles, franchises and Internet shopping has forced many out of business or into niches that don't correspond with the needs of their local communities. However, in some cities they're seeing a resurgence due to creative initiatives that link grassroots activism with public- and private-sector resources.


The Van der Pek neighborhood in Amsterdam. Source: Design as Politics

In February, a special kind of shop opened in Amsterdam's Van der Pek neighborhood. It is called the Wisselwinkel, meaning "shift shop," because it hosts a new local entrepreneur every six months. If this trial period goes well, the entrepreneur receives assistance in setting up a more permanent location in the neighborhood.

Louise Went. Source: Amsterdam Museum

The Wisselwinkel is the brainchild of a young activist collective named Mama Louise. Their identity is a tribute to Louise Went, an influential advocate for public health and social justice in Amsterdam's working-class neighborhoods during the 1920s. Mama Louise organizes D.I.Y. summer markets and other events where people make things, give performances and exchange goods and services. The events strengthen community ties and offer opportunities for entrepreneurial residents to earn income. Mama Louise is now working to create a more permanent platform, and the Wisselwinkel is the first tangible result.

The Van der Pek neighborhood is absorbed in a process of gentrification and large-scale restructuring that threatens to displace many current residents. To help counter displacement, Mama Louise invests in people. Their aim is to uncover the neighborhood's hidden entrepreneurs, connecting local skills with local needs.

There are several conditions for entrepreneurs who wish to set up shop in the Wisselwinkel. They have to live in the neighborhood and show a desire to start or formalize a business. Once running, the shop has to be open at least five days a week and adopt high-quality marketing collateral developed with help from Mama Louise.


Inside the Wisselwinkel.

Designed and constructed by MOS Collectief, the Wisselwinkel interior is flexible so that different startups can use it according to their needs. Along with the storefront, entrepreneurs receive practical guidance in connecting with support organizations, fulfilling legal requirements and attracting customers. Mama Louise also provides a website, a logo, canvas bags and other material with help from Waarmakers design.


Source: Waarmakers

After six months, the entrepreneur moves out of the Wisselwinkel to make room for the next venture. Local housing association Ymere helps viable startups find another location in the neighborhood. Associations like Ymere — which are no longer public entities in the Netherlands — are often criticized as focused primarily on maximizing real estate profits. However, Mama Louise found that Ymere staff took to their initiative with entusiasm rooted in genuine care for resident wellbeing.

In working with Ymere, Mama Louise might be criticized for putting low-income entrepreneurs at risk of taking on insurmountable debt after the trial period. However, they help the Wisselwinkel's tenants become self-sustaining and attract investment. They channel the resources of organizations with a stake in Van der Pek's future toward opportunities for current residents to successfully weather gentrification.


Screenshot of the Wisselwinkel website customized for Rathu's bike shop.

The first entrepreneur in the Wisselwinkel is Rathu Gunawardana, who started out repairing bicycles for friends and neighbors in his backyard. Mama Louise supported his proposal because there was no bike-repair shop in the neighborhood and residents have expressed strong interest in having one. Through the city's Department of Work and Income, Rathu received a micro-loan for welfare recipients interested in starting their own businesses.

Business has boomed for Rathu, who also sells restored bikes and gear. After a few days, his shop became a popular gathering place for local cycling enthusiasts. A teenage boy asked to help and now takes care of smaller repairs. Other informal entrepreneurs have started visiting the Wisselwinkel to apply for six-month residencies and offer their goods and services.

Mama Louise is now building a map of formal and informal businesses in the neighborhood. Upcoming projects include a salon run cooperatively by local hair dressers, masseurs and other service providers. Each initiative is focused on developing commerce, employment, amenities and social ties to assure that current residents share in the benefits of gentrification.

Mark Minkjan is an urban geographer who works as an independent researcher and writer. He is part of CITIES and Failed Architecture, and runs City Breaths.

Credits: Photos by Mark Minkjan unless otherwise noted in the captions.

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Planning Karma in Chandigarh

by Jordi Sánchez-Cuenca

The city of Chandigarh was conceived by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, as capital of the state of Punjab after its bloody partition in 1947. Construction of Chandigarh began in 1952, based primarily on a design by iconic modernist architect Le Corbusier. Chandigarh is now the capital of two Indian states while remaining a union territory, which means that it is under direct control of the central government.


Central Chandigarh.

Le Corbusier was a steadfast proponent of rationally planned cities with clearly defined zoning. He believed that residential areas should be separate from large roadways in the form of "superblocks" with multistory apartment blocks, ample green space and relatively self-sufficient local economies. The construction of Chandigarh turned out to be his first and only opportunity to see these ideas applied at the scale of a city. A 1963 article in the Harvard Crimson describes Chandigarh's housing plan:

Its central units are residential sectors of approximately 240 acres, designed to house 15,000 people. Each is an inward-looking, self-contained neighborhood, with its own business center. The city can be expanded almost indefinitely by adding new sectors; yet, growth will not lead to depersonalization, Le Corbusier believes, for each sector forms a coherent community.

Le Corbusier's original plan. Source: STUDYBLUE

Today Chandigarh has the top Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of all Indian cities, and the third highest per capita income after falling from first place in 2009. It also has the best sanitation system according to a recent study by the Indian Ministry of Urban Development. Its high standard of living is one of many parallels with Brasilia, Brazil, another capital city built after World War II based on a famous modernist plan. Can this standard be attributed simply to the concentration of capital in centers of political power? Have the historic plans played a role?


Chandigarh Secretariat. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Le Corbusier, despite his talent and expertise, could not predict or control the way cities develop over time. Despite Chandigarh's wealth and cleanliness, there are large informal settlements in the area where people live in extreme poverty. Satellite images show a sharp contrast between planned and unplanned territories.


Chandigarh's Sector 1 (bottom) and the village of Kansal (top).


Colony No. 5, one of the Chandigarh's largest informal settlements.

There is currently an ambitious plan in the works to make Chandigarh a "slum-free city," part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) launched by the Ministry of Urban Development in 2005. The JNNURM includes a focus on "[p]rovision of basic services to the urban poor including security of tenure at affordable prices, improved housing, water supply and sanitation, and ensuring delivery of other existing universal services of the government for education, health and social security."Although the initiative is running behind schedule in Chandigarh, it appears to be a promising departure from past "slum clearance" policies based on forced evictions.

Credits: Satellite images from Google Earth.

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Peter Kropotkin on Invention

Source: Nadar

“The cities, bound together by railroads and waterways, are organisms which have lived through centuries. Dig beneath them and you find, one above another, the foundations of streets, of houses, of theatres, of public buildings. Search into their history and you will see how the civilization of the town, its industry, its special characteristics, have slowly grown and ripened through the co-operation of generations of its inhabitants before it could become what it is to-day. And even to-day; the value of each dwelling, factory, and warehouse, which has been created by the accumulated labour of the millions of workers, now dead and buried, is only maintained by the very presence and labour of legions of the men who now inhabit that special corner of the globe. Each of the atoms composing what we call the Wealth of Nations owes its value to the fact that it is a part of the great whole. What would a London dockyard or a great Paris warehouse be if they were not situated in these great centres of international commerce? What would become of our mines, our factories, our workshops, and our railways, without the immense quantities of merchandise transported every day by sea and land?

“Millions of human beings have laboured to create this civilization on which we pride ourselves to-day. Other millions, scattered through the globe, labour to maintain it. Without them nothing would be left in fifty years but ruins.

“There is not even a thought, or an invention, which is not common property, born of the past and the present. Thousands of inventors, known and unknown, who have died in poverty, have co-operated in the invention of each of these machines which embody the genius of man.

“Thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never have appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment.

“The genius of a Séguin, a Mayer, a Grove, has certainly done more to launch industry in new directions than all the capitalists in the world. But men of genius are themselves the children of industry as well as of science. Not until thousands of steam-engines had been working for years before all eyes, constantly transforming heat into dynamic force, and this force into sound, light, and electricity, could the insight of genius proclaim the mechanical origin and the unity of the physical forces. And if we, children of the nineteenth century, have at last grasped this idea, if we know now how to apply it, it is again because daily experience has prepared the way. The thinkers of the eighteenth century saw and declared it, but the idea remained undeveloped, because the eighteenth century had not grown up like ours, side by side with the steam-engine. Imagine the decades that might have passed while we remained in ignorance of this law, which has revolutionized modern industry, had Watt not found at Soho skilled workmen to embody his ideas in metal, bringing all the parts of his engine to perfection, so that steam, pent in a complete mechanism, and rendered more docile than a horse, more manageable than water, became at last the very soul of modern industry.

“Every machine has had the same history — a long record of sleepless nights and of poverty, of disillusions and of joys, of partial improvements discovered by several generations of nameless workers, who have added to the original invention these little nothings, without which the most fertile idea would remain fruitless. More than that: every new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable inventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and industry.

“Science and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle — all work together. Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present.

“By what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say — This is mine, not yours? ... Thought being incapable of being patented, patents are a crying injustice in theory, and in practice they result in one of the great obstacles to the rapid development of invention.”

— Peter Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread, 1906

This is part of the Polis collection of quotes related to cities.

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Inventing a Verb for Urban Transformation

by Teresa García Alcaraz

El Raval, a neighborhood in Barcelona's central Ciutat Vella district, has a long history of immigration, deindustrialization and illicit activity. Political and economic marginalization increased social problems to crisis proportions in the 1980s, prompting the city council to begin a focused regeneration campaign. The northern section has seen longterm economic development and reduced crime, while these changes have yet to take hold in the southern section.



Fundació Tot Raval, a community organization in the heart of El Raval, was founded in 2001 to help coordinate the improvement efforts of local residents, nonprofits, businesses and city government. It has played an important role in El Raval's partial transformation, and is working to bring similar change to the entire neighborhood.



One of Fundació Tot Raval's ideas involved placing a large sign in the plaza outside the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), emblazoned with the invented verb "ravalejar." Its aim was to represent and build momentum behind positive change in the community. The plaza is frequented by people from both sections of El Raval, as well as visitors from around the world.

Wordplay is no proxy for addressing the intricacies of neighborhood improvement from different perspectives, but "ravalejar" beautifully captures the hard work that gave rise to its appearance in the plaza. The sign both commemorates and encourages this work, making use of public space to support the neighborhood's comprehensive turnaround. Since "turnaround" is often another word for gentrification, there is much to learn from El Raval's experience.

Credits: Photos of El Raval by Teresa García Alcaraz.

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Sociology of Courtyard Design: A Conversation with Petr Ivanov

by Peter Sigrist

Petr Ivanov is carrying out ambitious research in his Moscow neighborhood. He and a group of young volunteers have combined Web technology with social surveys to gather input from residents of four tall buildings around a woeful courtyard. The survey results will inform a redesign project aimed at improving this public space.


Petr Ivanov, an independent researcher and activist from Moscow. Source: Varvara Tchumakova

Petr's neighborhood, Troparyovo-Nikulino, is a "sleeping district" in southwest Moscow, one of many apartment-block constellations from which masses of people commute to jobs in the city center. Much of the public space in these areas is plagued with poorly regulated construction, advertisement and vandalism. In addition to quality management, there's a pressing need for attentive design that goes beyond questionable improvements by local authorities (mainly limited to colorful recreation equipment). In the following interview, Petr discusses this situation and his approach to addressing it.




The research site, a housing complex at 38 Academic Anokhin Street. Source: Google Earth

Can you tell us about your current research on public space?

The goal of our project at 38 Academic Anokhin Street is to find out what improvements people would like to see in the territory around their homes. We went door to door to talk with residents and ask them to fill out a survey; if they declined, we asked if they could fill it out at a more convenient time and place it in one of the boxes we installed in each entranceway. Along with desired improvements, the surveys asked residents about how they use the courtyard, how they think others use it and what they view as appropriate and inappropriate use. We also collected demographic and historical information to add new dimensions to our understanding of the community.

Critical Activist Design: A Conversation with Quilian Riano

by Andrew Wade


Quilian Riano presenting at the Center for Architecture in New York. Source: DSGN AGNC

Quilian Riano is the founding principal of DSGN AGNC (Design Agency), a research and design practice that operates through critical activism. He also founded the project #whOWNSpace. His current research focuses on the implementation of flexible and hybrid designs within challenging, multi-layered contexts. He seeks to re-imagine the structure and scope of design process. Polis recently sat down with Quilian to discuss the role of critical activism in his work and that of other innovative design practices.

You’ve described your interests as rooted in expanding the role of design and the designer in larger social and political contexts. What distinctions do you make between "design" and "activist design?" What kind of value is generated in activist design that makes it a necessary mode of practice?

I think that process is key — by that I mean the process by which design is generated and created, but also thinking of the outcomes as continuous processes. Architects are accustomed to studying the physical context, but we want to expand our process to engage with the economic, political and social dynamics of the places where we work.


Site of La Union Housing Co-Op in Facatativa, Columbia. Source: DSGN AGNC

Let me be specific about what that means. In Facatativa, Colombia, we are working with La Union Housing Co-Op on the design of 50 houses. Through research and conversations in the community, we found that the case involved not just those 50 houses but also widespread privatization around the Facatativa's periphery. We learned that a global network driven by the flower industry and companies that produce greenhouses has been privatizing large sections of the city. These complex economic and political processes are just as integral to the project's context as the landscape around the 50 houses. In response, we've organized a variety of design interventions — workshops, posters, movies, etc. — that highlight these conditions and create tools to help the local community influence them.

As for design, we're identifying the players and actions needed to create a longterm plan for the wellbeing of the community. We're designing adaptable housing within a solid framework, which residents can improve upon over time. With the help of a local lawyer and politician, we're looking to intervene in the system through which Colombia subsidizes public housing. We plan to help collectivize loans both for housing and for small business that could occupy flexible space within each building.


La Union masterplan (above) and renderings (below). Source: DSGN AGNC






You began writing about "critical activism" in your thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2008. How has your understanding of the term evolved, and what are its key elements today?

Critical activism in design practice involves continuously assessing the political landscape of each project and working with vulnerable populations to remove injustices and resolve problems that threaten their wellbeing. Since leaving the GSD, I have been working with urban activists to fine-tune the concept in theory and practice. We've been particularly inspired by the critique, ideas and action associated with socio-praxis. We're also interested in relational aesthetics, tactical media, gizmology and radical cartography.

Many socio-praxis groups are questioning the role of the designer and artist in a society with decentralized and complex power structures. To understand this, it is helpful to think about the differences between the protests in Egypt and Occupy Wall Street. In Egypt it was clear that there was a space — Tahrir Square — where protests would take place, and a person — Hosni Mubarak — who people would protest against. In the United States it is not as simple. The Occupy Wall Street movement is relegated to occupying a symbol, as many of the banks are no longer on Wall Street. However, would the movement be as effective if it was called Occupy Midtown Banks? Probably not.


Graphic by Quilian Riano, based on a photo by Paula Segal, to illustrate laws broken when the New York Police Department closed Zuccotti Park during the Occupy protests. Source: #whOWNSpace

It is also curious that the occupation is not happening in Washington, D.C. There is a tacit understanding that D.C. no longer has all the power. Our decentralized government and power structure have created a situation in which we no longer know who to protest against. So we are left with the symbol.

In this context, the designer can become an activist when he or she engages the complexity of our political and economic system to begin to create some clarity. This approach is particularly important when looking at the city. So critical activism is about finding complex socio-political urban systems, researching them fully, producing maps and other visual tools, and then intervening strategically. Critical activism is a way to apply real design thinking — not just exercises from the Ivory Tower — toward empowering marginalized communities.


Maps of Privately-Owned Public Space and other forms of public space in New York City, including the organizations with decision-making power over these areas. Source: #whOWNSpace

How did DSGN AGNC and #whOWNSpace come about, and what vision do you have for their future development?

We started DSGN AGNC as a way of exploring critical activism. The first action I took with DSGN AGNC was a trip to Colombia. This led to "A City in Search of Good Fortune," an article for Places Journal on Buenaventura, one of the most contested and militarized urban areas in Colombia. We also met with the group of 50 families that make up La Union in Facatativa. In both cities we were struck by the privatization and lack of public space around the peripheries. In Facatativa, for example, people had to use the parking lot of Carrefour, a French mega-store, for celebrations and other gatherings.

When the Wall Street occupation began, a large part of the story was the physical space — Zuccotti Park — and its status as a Privately-Owned Public Space (POPS). Through #whOWNSpace, which was inspired by Occupy Wall Street, we wanted to better understand how privatization has changed the city. Through our research we've found that POPS are often not as public as they should be according to established legal guidelines. At 60 Wall Street, a POPS located down the street from Zuccotti Park, there is a rule that says "no excessive use of space." These are the type of things we need to question. How public are these spaces, what type of rules are being enforced and are they legal?


A Privately-Owned Public Space at Chase Manhattan Plaza in Manhattan. Source: #whOWNSpace

Ultimately, we see #whOWNSpace as a way to advocate for and produce urban spaces that are truly public. To us this means that space accommodates multiple uses, encouraging people to talk to their neighbors and find mutual understanding around political, economic and social issues — crucial preparation for collective action when needed.

Working on international projects, it can be easy to fall into the stereotypical role of self-ordained savior of the poor, present for a period of time, after which it is difficult to follow up and assure sustainable results. How do you approach design projects in other parts of the world when it is so challenging to gain a thorough understanding of the local context and enact meaningful, longterm change?

This is a hard question, but one that is important to address if the renewed interest in this type of work is to be sustainable — and, by the way, we do not claim to have THE answer. An approach that has been working for us is a combination of being there as much as possible, doing a lot of critical research, having strong partners on the ground and getting input from final users during the entire process. We also work to create designs that can be modified over time as community and ecological conditions change. Above all, it's about showing respect for the community you work with (in any location), understanding that you can't possibly have all the answers and bringing as many people into the process as possible.


A "Casas de la Esperanza" dwelling in La Prusia, Nicaragua. Source: DSGN AGNC

The project for a housing community in La Prusia, Nicaragua, has worked this way in collaboration with Estudio Teddy Cruz, landscape architect Simon Bussiere and the community group Casas de la Esperanza (Houses of Hope). We began with a series of visits that led to a simple, rule-based, flexible masterplan. We have since worked with local architects, community groups and residents to apply these rules according to conditions on the ground. The community has built 10 houses using our flexible masterplan and will build more as additional funds become available.

Who are some of the people and organizations whose work you admire?

There are many artists and architects experimenting with socio-praxis and political activism that I admire. Inspiring design practices include Recetas Urbanas, Not An Alternative, Jeanne Van Heeswijk, Estudio Teddy Cruz, Sorkin Studio and Cohabitation Strategies. Immigrant Movement International, commissioned by the Queens Museum of Art, is redefining the role of museums in urban neighborhoods. There are also community groups like CAAAV, Picture the Homeless and Organizing for Occupation, which for many years have been doing the hard work of organizing communities for action. These initiatives give us confidence in the effectiveness of integrating critical activism and design to bring about positive social change.

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Creative Recycling and Storytelling in Dharavi

by Jordan Bryon



People living in extreme poverty tend to be innovative and provident by necessity, finding ways to survive with available resources. Massive informal settlements like Dharavi, in Mumbai, are full of creative entrepreneurs with little choice but to "reduce, reuse and recycle." Dharavi Diary is fusing entrepreneurship and storytelling in Dharavi to expand the capacity of residents to make a living from their creativity.



Recycling

People migrate to Dharavi from all over India to work in diverse industrial enterprises that capitalize on cheap labor and virtual lack of regulation, producing a combined economic output valued at over $1 billion per year. The most prominent of these industries is recycling, which collects and reuses an estimated 80 percent of Mumbai's plastic waste in 15,000 one-room factories and employs over 250,000 people.



While the recycling industry has brought some prosperity to Dharavi, the people who labor in the workshops still live in poverty. Toiling around the clock, they sort through mountains of plastics, car batteries, wires, paper, tiles, computer parts, fluorescent lights, pens and other items, often in dangerous conditions.

Guddu, a 17-year-old Dharavi resident, left school and started sorting syringes when he was seven. His job was to pull the syringes apart, tossing the plastic tubes into one pile, and the needles into another. Gloves? Of course not.



Entrepreneurship

Despite hardship, people in Dharavi are tenacious, enthusiastic and creative in ways that many affluent people aren't. They've improved their community over time without much support and despite many obstacles from the municipal government. Jugaad — the practice of creatively using accessible resources to build or improve needed items — is a way of life in Dharavi. We call it slum innovation.

To support creative entrepreneurship in Dharavi, we're building a recycling design school here where people will learn to make and sell their own designs. The idea may seem far-fetched, but it's actually logical because it draws upon skills and resources already present in the community.



The curriculum can be adapted to each person's interest — from architecture to electronics and beyond. It is based on interdisciplinary collaboration and practical training that will help sorters raise their incomes and keep their children in formal education. We hope that it will also promote learning through projects that improve living conditions in Dharavi and around the world. The school will produce D.I.Y. design kits to share with people in other informal settlements, so they may develop their skills and innovate their way out of poverty.

Storytelling

Dharavi Diary's participatory storytelling projects help raise awareness about the lives of Dharavi residents by making technology accessible for them to tell their stories. The results will be added to a virtual tour of the community on the Dharavi Diary website. Last year we made a short documentary (see trailer below) with a group of recycling workers. It is screening at film festivals like Nat Geo and Raindance in 2013.



We're currently shooting a feature documentary that follows the struggles and triumphs of the design school and its students. We also share stories directly from Dharavi residents on Cowbird. These stories help people around the world see the desperation of slum dwellers as tenacity and enthusiasm to make a better life.



Laxmi (above) is one of the people who have shared their stories. After her divorce, she was given strict training in running a recycling workshop by her mother, who then told her to go and start her own operations. Laxmi managed to do this with impressive results. She and her collective also help run Dharavi Diary on site with guidance from our founder, Nawneet Ranjan, and other members of the team.



Participation

Dharavi Diary is running a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo, where you can make a donation and receive products handcrafted from recycled materials in return. These eco-friendly items make great holiday gifts for friends and family. If you would like to participate or stay informed, please join us on Facebook or contact us any time!



Jordan Bryon co-designs empowerment strategies with communities on the fringes, fusing local knowledge, storytelling and technology to help people help themselves. Jordan can be reached directly via jordan@dharavidiary.com.

Credits: Photos by Vidu Chandan.

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Three Questions: Michael Murphy of MASS Design

by Andrew Wade

As part of the Polis Three Questions series, we interviewed Michael Murphy, executive director and co-founder of MASS Design Group. The not-for-profit firm's design for Butaro Hospital in Rwanda was a poetic argument for the merging of design and public health. Motivated by the idea that "Design is never neutral — it either helps or it hurts," MASS worked with Partners in Health on the project, which aims to mitigate the transmission of airborne disease. By approaching design holistically and seeking to make use of local materials and empower local communities, MASS demonstrates the potential social impact of design.


Butaro Hospital in Rwanda.

Can you tell us what you're particularly excited to be working on at the moment, and what lies ahead for you?

We have been working on a few projects in Haiti since a year after the earthquake that are exciting on several levels — both for the growth they bring to MASS as an organization and for their impact in community health. In particular, we have a center for cholera treatment currently under construction that continues our research in identifying the "direct" impacts of the built environment on our health. We have seen evidence of the incubation and transmission of tuberculosis due to poorly designed buildings, but cholera is really about a failed sanitary system — one that once infected can perpetuate outbreaks. To combat infection, our new cholera center will offer a micro-solution to wastewater treatment on site. We hope this inspires a dialogue about investment in better buildings and infrastructure as a health argument.

Also on the horizon in the coming year, we will be starting a few projects in southern Uganda which seek to address the problem of "brain drain," combating the large-scale emigration of skill capacity.


GHESKIO Cholera Treatment Center, during construction.


Rendering of the GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital.

What do you consider the most pressing issues we face as a society today, and how should we go about addressing them?

I think it’s becoming publicly evident that our poorly constructed built environment is an urgent and growing concern. As seen in rising sea levels, in Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, and most recently during Hurricane Sandy, cities are not built to absorb change and catastrophe. Buildings shouldn't exist simply as commodities; they need to be rethought and redesigned in such a way that keeps the residents’ health and safety in mind. The only way to achieve this is to invest more heavily in design research and in our infrastructure at both the local and national level. Our design schools need to reprioritize their emphasis, and new practice models need to be sponsored to offer market solutions to this serious global crisis.

What do you find inspiring?

I am inspired by entrepreneurs, tinkerers, designers who find a way to innovate within the calcified systems, while also maintaining a perspective of the entire system itself. I'm inspired by health innovators like Dr. Raj Panjabi of Tiyatien Health in Liberia and Josh Nesbit at Medic Mobile — both of whom are making a really incredible impact on public health.

I also met an amazing actor, Bryan Doerries, who runs an organization called Theater of War. He uses classical plays to help communities cope with tragedy and disaster, and his method of effecting change is completely unique.

I am in awe of material scientists and building experts like John Ochsendorf, and altruistic curators like Courtney Martin and John Cary inspire me daily with their belief in the sharing of ideas with the public. We all owe them a lot.

In terms of design and architecture, I have been in awe of TAM Associati in Italy, the genius of Francis Kéré and the work of TYIN in Norway.

Credits: Images from MASS Design.

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Governance is Key in Addressing Urban Poverty

by Brendan Halloran

One of the principal challenges of global urbanization is the improvement of living conditions in slums, or communities with insufficient infrastructure and land tenure. Ciudad Peronia, a large, diverse, predominantly low-income section of the Villa Nueva municipality just south of Guatemala City, is a striking example.


Ciudad Peronia. Source: Google Earth

Established in the early 1980s by people left homeless after a devastating earthquake, Peronia grew through successive waves of informal occupation and sale of formal plots. These development patterns gave rise to a patchwork of neighborhoods with different characteristics and living conditions.

Scholars increasingly agree that local institutions — particularly municipal governments — are essential to the substantial and sustainable reduction of urban poverty.* The relationship between low-income communities and municipal authorities is key to the efficacy of these institutions, as clearly evident in Ciudad Peronia.

The many different leaders I've spoken to in Peronia have been almost unanimous in declaring that the municipal government has done little or nothing to contribute to the community's development. The municipality has, in fact, invested resources in a handful of projects there in recent years, yet residents feel that it has not fulfilled its responsibility for addressing basic needs. There is a widespread sentiment that the city government rejects and ignores communities like Peronia.

The municipality has actually played a significant, if uneven, role in Peronia's development. The approach generally adopted by local authorities has been to contribute resources for projects such as street paving or school improvement while the neighborhood contributes labor. In other cases the municipality has contracted private businesses to carry out development projects, billing residents who benefit for half the cost. In only a few cases has the government carried out projects without any community contribution.


The edge of Ciudad Peronia. Photo: Jacobo Gramajo

Community leaders report that they have made repeated requests to local officials for assistance of various kinds and have been ignored. Municipal authorities have paid especially scant attention to Peronia's informal settlements, despite repeated petitions. However, they did carry out water, sewer and paving projects just prior to the recent elections. Some evidence suggests that projects have been chosen based on political gain rather than community needs.

Legal problems kept the longtime mayor off the ballot in the 2011 election, opening the door for a new administration that took office in Jan. 2012. The new mayor has promised to work in partnership with local communities. When he met with Peronia's representatives, he admonished them for coming to him with only a long list of needs. He claimed that he would break the mold of leadership in Guatemala by refusing to play the role of patriarchal chief who solves all problems, instead empowering communities to meet their needs in cooperation with local government.

The approach and language used by the mayor seemed an invitation to become partners in development. He solicited proposals and promised to facilitate solutions. The new administration supported several initiatives in Peronia, including a dental clinic and an adult education program, to be carried out with community labor and municipal resources.

Yet the mayor's approach has not been without challenges. He has told community organizations to present him with technical proposals to address local problems, yet few individuals or groups in poor areas have the technical know-how to produce such documents. The mayor has also championed community organization, saying that he will promote functional and representative development councils in each neighborhood. However, this organizational work has lagged behind physical projects, and municipal authorities have not demonstrated an understanding of the frayed social fabric that exists in many neighborhoods (a problem that the formation of development councils alone will not remedy).


Streets of Ciudad Peronia. Photo: Brendan Halloran

Nonetheless, the new administration has implemented practices never before seen in Peronia. The mayor assigned one member of the municipal council and one municipal department head to form a direct link with the community. These individuals have brought information about municipal plans and projects to community leaders, and have sought input with an openness never displayed by previous governments. Seven months into his administration, the mayor came to Peronia to carry out an exercise called Sueños Compartidos (Shared Dreams). Through this initiative, community leaders gathered to propose improvements in the community, discussing options and then voting on which ones to pursue.

The mayor clearly envisions a new relationship with local communities. Yet it is unclear whether improved communication and participatory planning constitute a true partnership that can fully address the causes and consequences of poverty in places like Ciudad Peronia.

Individual, community and government approaches to reducing urban poverty tend to overlap, at times operating in conjunction and at others operating independently or at cross purposes. One of the principal challenges faced by community residents is a lack of accountability in government institutions. This has produced a system in which some neighborhoods benefit while others are ignored, regardless of their needs. Resources are often used not as part of a comprehensive strategy to provide services and improve quality of life, but to generate political support prior to elections. It is extremely difficult for citizens to access municipal budget information that could help them hold authorities accountable. Furthermore, the lack of any forum for collectively voicing opinion has led to the isolation of neighborhoods and the groups representing them, despite common challenges.

In the case of Peronia, the most vulnerable communities are those without legal land titles. Government authorities have demonstrated a willingness to ignore their needs (for a decade and counting, in some cases), refusing to invest municipal resources and even rejecting petitions to connect to the private water system. Politicians, particularly the former mayor, have often used the issue of legal titles as a bargaining chip at election time, promising legalization in return for votes Again, the absence of a transparent procedure for handling legalization, or a space to organize communities facing this shared obstacle, has left these neighborhoods at the mercy of the political calculations of municipal authorities.

The complex relationships between local communities and government authorities condition the trajectory of urban development in Peronia and around the world. Transparent and inclusive governance is key to effectively and equitably addressing urban poverty. It should thus be a top priority for local and global development practitioners.

Brendan Halloran is a doctoral candidate in the Planning, Governance and Globalization program at Virginia Tech, and author of The Urban Citizen's View. He is also a Democracy and Governance Advisor for USAID in Guatemala. All views expressed in this article are his own, and do not represent the views of USAID.

* Examples include:

Desai, R. (2010) The Political Economy of Urban Poverty in Developing Countries: Theories, Issues, and an Agenda for Research. Brookings Institution Wolfenson Center for Development.

Hasan, A., Patel, S., and Satterthwaite, D. (2005) "How to Meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Urban Areas," Environment and Urbanization 17(1), 3-19.

Mitlin, D., and Satterthwaite, D. (eds.) (2004) Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society and Urban Poverty Reduction. Earthscan.

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