Table Of ContentH Housing after the The housing question is a universal question. The essays shed light on the challenges and
o Everywhere, it speaks differently but directly conflicts of contemporary housing production:
u
sin to the challenges that define our times: social from Andrew Herscher’s research on the politics
g
a inequality, ecological crisis, displacement, asylum, of “blight” in Detroit, AbdouMaliq Simone’s
fte Neoliberal Turn migration, and privatization. The volume investigation of the struggle between formal
r th H ousing after the Neoliberal Turn: International and informal infrastructures in Jakarta, Rana
e Case Studies interprets the neoliberal context Dasgupta’s description of the pseudo-farmhouses
N
e as a defining condition for contemporary housing. of the new middle class in Delhi, Mariana Fix’s
o
lib The book consists of two parts: a series of essays analysis of the implementation of large-scale
era by authors from the fields of architecture, housing policies in Brazil, Sandi Hilal’s “Roofless”
l T anthro pology, economy, and literature depict- on the inherent contradictions of refugee housing
urn ing various, often-contradicting contexts, and, in Palestine, David Madden’s critique of the
International part two, an Atlas of global housing that takes concept of neighborhood describing the trans-
In the neoliberal turn as its starting point. formation of Brooklyn’s waterfront, to Justin
te
rn McGuirk’s text on domesticity as data and the
atio universal housing question disappearing in the
n Case Studies “Internet of Things.”
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der Welt, Berlin
The essays shed light on the challenges and “Atlas,” conceptualized and compiled by Anne
conflicts of contemporary housing production: Kockelkorn and Reinhold Martin, serves as a
from Andrew Herscher’s research on the politics starting point to discuss and think about housing
of “blight” in Detroit, AbdouMaliq Simone’s produced and consumed under a neoliberal
investigation of the struggle between formal doctrine. Developed as a tool for the Wohnungs-
and informal infrastructures in Jakarta, Rana frage Academy (directed by Reinhold Martin),
Dasgupta’s description of the pseudo-farmhouses the Atlas does not assume a complete history of
of the new middle class in Delhi, Mariana Fix’s housing, but sets thirty-three examples side by
analysis of the implementation of large-scale side which are rarely seen in parallel, and whose
housing policies in Brazil, Sandi Hilal’s “Roofless” juxtaposition in a densely synthesized framework
on the inherent contradictions of refugee housing puts national conditions and local settings in
in Palestine, David Madden’s critique of the perspective; it invites the reader to think of
concept of neighborhood describing the trans- housing as an unstable constellation evolving
formation of Brooklyn’s waterfront, to Justin within the power relations of territorial processes.
McGuirk’s text on domesticity as data and the
universal housing question disappearing in the
“Internet of Things.”
Essays
1
David J. Spatial Projects:
Madden The Politics of
Neighborhood
in New York City
The idea that the neighborhood is a public good is one of
the central tenets of contemporary urban development.
It has become one of the imperatives of neoliberal ur-
banism that cities must develop “vibrant,” “livable”
neighborhoods. Real estate developments that contrib-
ute little or nothing in terms of social housing or other,
more concrete public benefits are justified by reference
to their contribution to neighborhood vitality.
However, within urban studies, the concept of
neighborhood remains under-theorized. The dominant
usage of the term, echoing concepts from early twentieth-
century urban sociology and planning, tends to see
neighborhoods as naturalistic human-ecological units.
This perspective is inadequate to capture the dynamics of
power and inequality that shape urban space today.
Neighborhoods, I argue, are not the clearly bounded,
politically neutral spaces on a city map implied by the
mainstream view. Rather, they are the contingent out-
comes of what we can call spatial projects. They are inher-
ently political and, often, explicitly conflictual—the prod-
ucts of complex, long-term struggles between groups
over land use, ownership, planning, identity, and purpose.
3
From such a perspective, we can develop a more of definitions.3 Here I use the concept of spatial projects
critical politics of neighborhood in the contemporary in a general way to signify coordinated, continuous,
city. As spatial projects, neighborhoods can be both re- collective campaigns to produce and format space ac-
sources for resistance—and they can also be tools for cording to identifiable logics and strategic goals, pur-
profit and power. We should not affirm neighborhood as sued by specific actors, utilizing particular techniques.
such, but instead seek to understand how neighborhood Spatial projects are, as the phrase has it, spatial projec-
development is used to bolster or undermine the pres- tions of social power; they produce space, in an ongoing,
ence of different social groups within the contemporary contingent, uneven manner. These projects—pursued by
unequal city. different collective actors in various places at different
times—are non-mutually exclusive, productive of over-
Towards a Critical Conception of Neighborhood lapping spatial formations, which are experienced and
From the early twentieth century until the present day, shaped in a variety of unequal ways by unequally situ-
the mainstream sociological discourse about neighbor- ated actors. They operate at varying temporal scales,
hood has undergone significant changes. However, the shaping both the present and the future of space—and,
history of social scientific analyses of neighborhood, and by promoting particular ways of understanding a space’s
the history of planning programs geared toward neigh- identity and purpose, and possibly by activating dor-
borhood improvement, reveals a number of continuities.1 mant spatial attributes, they can operate on the past as
The mainstream conception of neighborhood has well. They are rooted in the political-economic process,
gone through a number of changes, but some core tenets because the classes and productive techniques that are
have persisted. Neighborhoods have usually been pro- dominant in any social formation, as a rule, are better
moted as natural areas, or expressions of a naturalistic able to spatialize their political and social interests than
human need for community. They have almost always the excluded, dispossessed, or marginal. They are not,
been seen as containers, as well-defined, spatially inte- however, because of this, completely determined by
gral zones. Clear neighborhood definition and demarca- wider political or economic developments; in unequal,
tion have generally been considered desirable character- conflictual societies, spatial projects are always contested.
istics. Neighborhoods have often been posited as having This conflict can be either explicit or submerged but still
a life independent of the forces, institutions, and poli- present.
cies that shape them. Yet for all of the importance that This general account of spatial projects can help de-
has been accorded them, neighborhoods have been velop a more critically incisive and empirically precise
viewed as fragile, always on the verge of disappearance. approach to understanding neighborhood as an urban
The traditional way of understanding neighborhood phenomenon. Neighborhood, I want to argue, is a term
tends to represent them as ahistorical, depoliticized, inte- that describes spatial projects at the sub-metropolitan
gral territories—as clearly bounded, naturally occurring scale. To adapt a well-worn formulation: city-dwellers
communities. What might be called the “Westphalian produce their own neighborhoods, but they do not make
neighborhood imaginary” portrays the city as fully di- them as they please. They do so under circumstances
vided among different neighborhoods, pictured as non- given and transmitted from the past and in a field of
overlapping and of clear outline, almost as sovereign contestation with other actors in the present.
republics.2 Just as the vision of the world chopped into
sharply demarcated, bounded nation-state units reflects Reworking the Waterfront
(and produces) a distorting, ideological image, so too The waterfront area in downtown Brooklyn, New York,
does the vision of the city chopped into sharply demar- provides an opportunity to understand neighborhood as
cated, bounded neighborhood units. a spatial project.4 The area is now generally known as
In contrast, I argue that neighborhoods should be “Dumbo,” which is an acronym for “Down Under the
seen as the products of spatial projects. We can adopt the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” Long a center of industrial
concept of a spatial project from the critical urban studies production, now the neighborhood is dominated increas-
literature, where it appears in work by Henri Lefebvre, ingly by art, design, and media companies, as well as by
Manuel Castells, Neil Brenner, and others, with a variety residential spaces that are among the most expensive
4
in New York City. Directly across York Street from some Heights, who had long been spending time in Dumbo,
of Brooklyn’s most expensive private housing, stands explained it to me this way:
Farragut Houses, a 16.61-acre public housing develop-
ment built by the New York City Housing Authority It’s amazing what’s happened in Dumbo. The Dumbo
(NYCHA). Farragut was completed on May 7, 1952, at a story is incredible. One man transformed an area
time when the area was a center of industrial manufac- that no one would go to, no one would step foot in,
ture as well as the kinds of institutions—settlement he transformed it into something beautiful that can
houses, churches, housing organizations, and others— be used for everybody. A complete transformation,
that sought to soften the hard edges of industrial urban a complete vision.
capitalism. Farragut is situated across the street from the
old Brooklyn Navy Yard, and it abuts Ingersoll Houses Others spoke about the “pioneering artists” who moved
and Whitman Houses, two other NYCHA developments. to the area before “the developers” came along. Real estate
Taken together, Farragut, Ingersoll, and Whitman were companies and art galleries shared this narrative of
once one of the largest collections of public housing in the area’s redemption from industrial abandonment by
the city. Taken as a whole, the area—known at the time heroic cultural elites.
variously as the Navy Yard District, Fulton Ferry, or as An analysis of historical planning documents reveals
Brooklyn’s “Jungle”—was once a prime example of a a different story. As is well known, New York City as a
Fordist-Keynesian neighborhood, with all of the contra- whole underwent vast political-economic transforma-
dictions and political ambivalences of that era. tion during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Between 1950
The creation of Dumbo in this area exemplifies the and 1980, the city lost more than half a million indus-
synthetic, conflictual nature of neighborhood in New trial jobs.6 But this has not happened everywhere evenly.
York City. Dumbo essentially has been an elitist project The downtown Brooklyn waterfront persisted as a zone
pursued by two major collective actors: real estate devel- for industry far longer than many people today realize.
opers, whose accumulation strategy is based partly upon Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, to many of the city’s
the legitimation provided by cultural prestige, on the one planners the neighborhood was “a vital and growing
hand, and as well as community groups strongly invested industrial area providing over 8,600 jobs.” 7 A 1972 plan-
in the identity of the cultural producer and the elite con- ning study of Fulton Ferry noted, “Quietly and unchar-
sumer. Both of these groups, it should be said, are for the acteristically the predominantly industrial uses have
most part staunch neighborhood boosters and support- been on the upsurge.” 8 A 1973 planning document also
ers, although this support has not always meant the same noted the large concentration of industrial jobs located
thing. There have been numerous instances where the in this “thriving area.” 9 Even as other parts of the city
two groups have been at odds with one another, often were subjected to residential conversion, the downtown
quite contentiously so, but their projects are to large ex- Brooklyn waterfront area remained an industrial hub.
tent overlapping and mutually reinforcing. “As the 1980s began, Fulton Ferry was considered a rela-
Various state agencies have also participated in this tively healthy manufacturing district.” 10 Between 1972
project, but they have for the most part merely codified and 1981, manufacturing employment in Fulton Ferry
existing spatial order and not intervened to change it rad- declined by only 8 percent, compared to 44 percent in
ically. The exclusion of the area’s public housing residents the rest of Brooklyn and 34 percent citywide. The area,
from the Dumbo project is crucial to this story. I argue according to the city’s planners, was “an important
that, by orienting the area toward elite goals and uses that source of income for working-class minority families
do not serve the area’s working class and poor residents, in central Brooklyn.” 11 A 1983 study of the area’s indus-
the Dumbo project is a prime example of the production trial sector noted that, “Eighty percent of the jobs are
of an unequal neighborhood in contemporary Brooklyn. filled by Brooklyn’s minority population; local people
Many of the Dumbo residents and visitors with from the surrounding neighborhoods hold 45 percent of
whom I spoke tended to circulate a kind of “pioneer nar- the jobs.” 12
rative” 5 of the neighborhood’s rebirth from post-indus- Even into the 1990s, at least some sectors of the
trial decrepitude. One resident of nearby Brooklyn city’s planning apparatus maintained the image of
5
Fulton Ferry as a thriving industrial area, rather than a As originally conceived, the company’s vision for a
languishing pre-gentrification wasteland. A 1993 City res idential and commercial neighborhood under the
Planning Department report on citywide industry bridges was stymied. In response to a request for pro po-
affirmed the continuing industrial presence along the sals sent out by the state’s Urban Development Corpora-
Brooklyn waterfront, with an average of seventeen indus- tion for a fifteen-acre site on the river, Two Trees pro-
trial jobs per acre in an area not including the former moted the transformation of the downtown Brooklyn
Navy Yard.13 Granted, since the 1960s, some industrial waterfront under the name of “Fulton Landing.” Mod-
lofts were being converted into residential quarters or eled loosely on Manhattan’s South Street Seaport, this
art studios, and eventually the city’s artist-in-residence was to be a shopping and business district, including “a
program supported this practice. The New York State- mix of retail, entertainment and cultural activities with
run Urban Development Corporation looked into trans- parking for visitors,” 16 partially on publicly owned land.
forming what it dubbed the “Fulton Ferry Urban Renewal At this point, more than 145 companies, representing
Area” into housing and attractions. But these plans were 5,000 industrial workers, still operated in the proposed
not completed, and for the most part, planners, workers, renewal area.17 A number of groups came together to op-
and residents in the area appear to have continued to pose the plan, including loft-dwellers, planners, artists,
conceive of it primarily as a working class and indus- and unions, such as Amalgamated Clothing and Textile
trial project. Far from having been an area abandoned Workers. Along with some elected officials, these groups
before it was reclaimed by art and real estate, it would formed a coalition under the banner of “Save Our Jobs.”
be more accurate to say that the industrial neighbor- The coalition held protests and rallies in the area,
hood project and the gentrifying neighborhood project and used the local community board to contest the area’s
coexisted in the 1980s, before the latter triumphed with development. The Fulton Landing development, as it
the assistance of the state. was then proposed, was not to be. City officials ulti-
mately ruled that Two Trees lacked the requisite capital
Making an Enclave to complete the project and removed Two Trees as the
The broader political-economic transformation of New developer of the Fulton Landing site. But a 1984 com-
York City militated against the persistence of industry promise allowed some manufacturers to stay put with
in the downtown Brooklyn waterfront area. But we can ten-year leases, and more than a thousand New York
trace the process whereby its particular deindustrial- state jobs were moved into the Two Trees-owned Clock
ized form was established. From the 1980s onward, real Tower Building, with a ten-year lease. Over the next
estate capital pursued the project of building a luxury decade, the company continued to renovate and convert
neighborhood on the waterfront. Real estate develop- buildings in the neighborhood, creating a growing col-
ment in this part of Brooklyn is nearly synonymous lection of luxury apartment buildings, such as the Clock
with Two Trees Management Company, the firm led by Tower, redesigned by Beyer Blinder Belle, and reopened
the Walentas family, which remains a major real estate in 1999.
company in Brooklyn. David Walentas is often referred Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, tenants living—
to as the area’s “king,” “mayor,” or “owner,” although other often in violation of the zoning code—in the downtown
developers also own properties there and coexist uneasily waterfront’s lofts pursued their own project for the
with the company. neighborhood. Organizations such as the Old Brooklyn
Two Trees first purchased property in the neighbor- Waterfront Alliance and the Fulton Ferry Local Develop-
hood in 1981, buying from Harry Helmsley the early ment Corporation mobilized around the identities of loft
twentieth-century factory complex built by Robert Gair.14 tenants and artists to oppose large-scale development.
The company had been involved with real estate in SoHo Today this project is continued by the Dumbo Neighbor-
in the 1970s. Drawing on this experience, the company hood Alliance (DNA), the Fulton Ferry Landing Associa-
was quite explicit about their strategy of claiming a rent tion, and the Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association,
gap along the downtown Brooklyn water front. By 1982, as well as numerous galleries and arts organizations.
Two Trees owned nearly 90 percent of the waterfront Especially where issues surrounding the pace and man-
area.15 ner of residential conversions are concerned, Dumbo
6
community groups and their predecessors have come area into a larger neighborhood called Old Brooklyn,
into serious conflict with local landlords, which have led including the construction of affordable housing, a local
to protests and legal action. Some Dumbo residents put history center focused on manufacturing and public
in years worth of sweat equity, working hard to renovate housing, and a continuing role for industrial employers.
their apartments—and then fought tenaciously against But the proposal was never submitted.
landlords intent on evicting them. In the midst of one Certainly, many local activists see development in
such controversy, one landlord, speaking about loft ten- the area in a broader political frame. One DNA member
ants with a reporter, said “I feel like they are animals and told me, “A lot of these things are social justice issues,”
they ought to be put in cages. We’re trying to get rid of and decried the area’s takeover by “yuppie communities
them. They are in our way.” 18 and tourism, you know, the glamour thing.” But these
Many community group participants see them- groups also see neighborhood amenities as desirable
selves as promoters and protectors of neighborhood in goals. They offer a “strong” neighborhood of middle-class
Dumbo. They identify quite closely with the ongoing amenities as a public good. This same activist told me,
Dumbo project. One community participant told me, “Looking from a neighborhood perspective, I want my
“New York is a city of neighborhoods, you really identify streets to be lively, I want trees on my block, I want the
with your neighborhood. It’s like an extension of your baby carriages, I want to know people, I want the shops,
home, it’s the only thing.” Another longtime Dumbo you know, they want it to be a community.” A Dumbo
resident, active in such community groups, told me: gallerist told me:
I came here in the early 1980s, and I wasn’t even first I’m very left wing, you know, I certainly recognize
generation. … Every building, every tree, nothing how gentrification has real effects on real people.
had been scarred yet. … It was a group of artists— But, for example, if we look at what happened with
I think back how dumb we were, like people who the Williamsburg rezoning, that’s not people-
would want to come to a place named Dumbo. friendly, not artist-friendly. What’s happened over
there isn’t very great for many people, except the
The very name “Dumbo” itself was originally a manifes- very wealthy. But what’s happened here has bene-
tation of this sentiment. The name was coined by par- fited some people who are not wealthy … I mean be-
ticipants in these organizations as a gesture of resist- cause there are organizations which are subsidized,
ance against the corporate development of the area. A the fact that there are organizations in subsidized
former resident and organizer wrote, “In 1978, as the spaces means they can run a program for local at-
inevitability of development became apparent, the com- risk high school students, which some organiza-
munity decided that, if we were to die, at least we should tions do. It means they can offer a studio space for
be buried under a name of our choosing.” 19 The thought real artists. It’s real benefits for working artists.
was that “Dumbo” was sufficiently silly, even stupid
sounding, that it might deter corporate-led redevelop- Proponents of Dumbo as a social and spatial project do
ment, or at least shape it. see neighborhood struggles as political issues. But for
Working through the local community board, mem- them, it is predominantly artists, “small businesses,” and
bers of some of these groups put together a 197-a proposal “creative people” who are the imagined public and sub-
—an official mechanism for community-based planning. jects for neighborhood development here.
Calling the area “Old Brooklyn,” the plan offered a num- The Dumbo project, then, has consistently been
ber of “Old Brooklyn District Planning Principles,” such divided between these two different neighborhood
as, “Development and planning initiatives should act to projects. But it is important to see what this supposed
draw the District’s various neighborhoods together, and conflict between developers and community groups ob-
ensure that all the District’s residents and stakeh olders— scured. From the beginning, Dumbo was a class project,
including youth, lower income, and elderly residents— pursued sometimes by what Pierre Bourdieu saw as the
benefit.” 20 The 197-a plan recommended various actions “dominated fraction of the dominant class,” 21 and some-
that would have tied together the various parts of the times by what is clearly simply the dominant fraction of
7
the dominant class. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the sidies emerged as a viable economic strategy: with some
industrial lofts were being populated not just by “paint- spaces acting as a loss leader, other properties could be
ers and sculptors, but with dancers and writers and priced much higher. Rent subsidies for artists and art
even a handful of bankers, lawyers, teachers, and sales- galleries are, in effect, an investment in the form of pres-
people.” 22 Loft-dwellers themselves can be considered tige. The company’s strategy is quite clear. “We have mil-
small-scale real estate capitalists.23 As one longtime com- lions of square feet and have given several hundred
munity participant told me, reflecting on the community thousand to artists because we like to have art. … It adds
opposition to various Two Trees-led developments, “the value to the whole area.” 26 The neighborhood itself—not
joke is that we were just trying to protect the value of our just specific storefronts or buildings—functions as a
condos.” And even the self-identifying artists who did not commodity.
come to own real estate should still be seen as “cultural Dumbo is also, in some important ways, a state spa-
capitalists” pursuing a vision of community that can be tial project. While various agencies of New York City
located within the city’s larger cultural and economic and New York State governments have at times opposed
hier archy. Dumbo community groups like the DNA con- specific plans for the neighborhood, on the whole they
tinue to mobilize in support of “small businesses” and have supported the project of making Dumbo a luxury
“artists,” working to oppose increased zoning heights, to enclave. Joseph B. Rose, Chairman of the City Planning
maintain historic preservation, and generally to maintain Commission, said of proposed zoning changes to allow
the area’s antique atmosphere. for residential conversions, “We’re definitely sympath-
This is not to say that conflict between these groups etic to the goal … it allows for the emergence of new
and developers is not serious or real. At times, the con- SoHos and TriBeCas.” 27 The state has more or less aban-
flicts between these two branches of the Dumbo project doned its older emphasis on industrial retention, and
have become seriously contentious. That said, cultural supports the Dumbo neighborhood project by facilit-
consumption is inseparable from the ideology of con- ating the transformation of the waterfront area into a
temporary neighborhood development projects. As the space for commerce, housing, and cultural events.
research on gentrification and culture industries dem- Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the City Planning
onstrates,24 in today’s city, there is a clear harmony be- Commission approved a series of amendments to the
tween real estate and the mainstream art world, despite city’s zoning map allowing the transformation of the
the occasional outward appearance of hostility. No mat- area from a manufacturing to a mixed-use, luxury-
ter the periodic conflicts that arise, the project of pro- housing district.
ducing neighborhood as a sellable commodity dovetails The Dumbo Business Improvement District (BID),
with the project of producing neighborhood as a distinc- as a semi-public, largely privatized organization that
tive community. works to bolster, brand, and promote the Dumbo identity,
Thus, the original Dumbo project of an arts-oriented, typifies the neoliberalizing state’s participation in the
historically preserved enclave was easily integrated with process of neighborhood formation. With the backing of
the corporate project for the neighborhood pursued by local landlords, construction companies, and non-profit
Two Trees and other real estate companies. As David organizations, the Dumbo BID was authorized in 2005.
Walentas put it, “enriching the mix downstairs” with The organization sees its goals as “enhancing DUMBO’s
some sort of conspicuously consumable art can “increas[e] public spaces and promoting our neighborhood as a
the value of what’s upstairs.” 25 The scale of Two Trees’ world class destination.” 28 In cooperation with Two Trees
holdings in the area enabled possibilities not available to and other private companies, the BID has pursued nu-
smaller developers. In essence, the company controls the merous initiatives for neighborhood development, like
neighborhood itself as a giant commodity, which makes free wireless internet access and a “business incubator”
possible a distinctive strategy. Two Trees offers subsi- for technology companies. The BID’s participation in the
dized rents to artists, galleries, and organizations that project of building an elite enclave has been a source of
promote the performing and visual arts, and has a cul- contention among some neighborhood participants. One
tural affairs director on staff. Because the company longtime participant in neighborhood groups told me,
owned so much property in the area, cultural cross-sub- “it’s a little disturbing, they’re founded by developers
8
