Student: Marlene Guzman
Graduation date: May 2019
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: December 2017
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Summary
Look here to take a look at my previous concentration which centered around Gendered Grassroots Activism. As I continued my work in the major I realized I was fascinated by urban planning and so I decided to change my concentration to fit my new academic interests.
I am interested in examining how political structures and the transformations that occur within these structures guides the way a city is shaped and reshaped over time. Political shifts influence the balance of power at different scales whether it be a political revolution or a regional election. These shifts in the balance of power set a new political landscape that determines whose voices get heard and whose do not. The prioritization of certain voices can be reflected in the structural arrangements of a city and who benefits from them, specifically in the way resources and amenities are distributed.
In the twentieth century planners have been responsible for regulating and controlling the distribution of resources in urban spaces. However, as Weber and Crane highlight, urban planning is not grounded in one singular approach (Crane et al. 2015). For example there are various theoretical frameworks that express different approaches, such as: synoptic (rationalistic) planning (Banfield 1959), disjointed incremental planning (Lindblom 1959), advocacy planning (Davidoff 1965), and communicative planning (Forester 1989; Sager 1994). While I acknowledge these various approaches I do do not plan delve into all of them.
I am most interested in exploring advocacy planning, which focuses on making local government more inclusive by including the voices of marginalized individuals. Advocacy planning emerged during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s in an attempt to reshape the profession to advocate for marginalized groups, specifically low-income residents, immigrants and people of color (Crane et al. 2015, Davidoff 1965 ). My concentration aims to examine how urban planning can tackle issues of equity by paying close attention to how resources and amenities are distributed throughout a city. I am specifically interested in understanding how the distributions of amenities and resources in cities get established and disrupted during political upheavals. Overall my aim is to focus on how political events can be moments of urban restructuring, specifically by looking at how political movements get built into urban systems.
Situated Examples
Cuba
After the Cuban revolution Havana, Cuba was carved out as a place of food production, officials estimate that approximately 50 percent of the perishable produce consumed was grown within the city limits. By 2002 at least 12 percent of Havana’s land was under cultivation by approximately 22,000 urban producers (Clouse 2014). This emphasis on urban food production emerged as a result of Cuba’s relations with the U.S. and the Soviet union. With the success of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, the U.S. backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista was forced to step down. Under the new Castro Administration agricultural land was nationalized and redistributed to 100,000 peasants under the First Agrarian Reform Law of May 1959 (Ellinger et al. 2010). Despite large changes to land ownership Cuba still relied heavily on the Soviet Union for resources such as petroleum and food. However, the Embargo of 1962 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Cuba without subsidized oil and transportation. This sparked the beginning of a period known as “ El periodo especial,” from this period on food systems were forced to transform in light of limited resources such as petroleum, pesticides and fertilizers. To combat food scarcity the state moved from growing mostly cash crops, specifically sugarcane, to organic produce of all kinds (Ellinger et al. 2010). To maximize the accessibility and production of these food sources small urban spaces were transformed into organic farms and the cultivation of these lands was backed by the Cuban government but lead by local residents (Koont 2011). Overall, land use in Havana, Cuba shifted to reflect the aims of the communist political party.
South Africa
In 1994, a new constitution was instituted in South Africa which enfranchised blacks and other racial groups. On May 9, 1994, the South African parliament elected Nelson Mandela as the first president in the nation’s first post- apartheid era (Callinicos 1994). In response to this political shift planners in Tygerberg, a city in the Cape Metropolitan Region of South Africa pushed forth urban reconstruction efforts to dismantle the legacies of the apartheid era (Visser 2001). For example, the African National Congress (ANC) guaranteed equal funding for all students to ensure that black students had the same opportunities as other students (Smith 1992). Additionally, the Reconstruction and Development Programme coordinated a school building scheme to improve access to schools in communities which have been previously denied adequate education infrastructure (Mather et al. 1995). Overall urban reconstruction aims to dismantle the legacies of the apartheid era by managing how resources are distributed to residents.
United States
Under the 1949 Housing Act, Los Angeles had applied for and was granted, a 10,000-unit public housing contract. This contract aimed to uphold a promise made by the City Housing Authority which strived to make Los Angeles “the first city in the nation free of bad housing” (Parson 1993). However, the victory of Norris Poulson over Fletch Bowron in the mayoral race of 1953 led to a focus on large-scale urban redevelopment instead of public housing. This shift in Los Angeles’s urban redevelopment strategies greatly affected minorities who lived downtown. This was particularly evident in the case of Chavez Ravine, a neighborhood that was once primarily inhabited by Mexican American residents. Under Norris Poulson the Chavez Ravine land was acquired to make way for a proposed public housing development, however; following the election the City of Los Angeles decided not to invest in a proposal for public housing. Instead the City Housing Authority sold the land at this site to the City of Los Angeles and the city then offered the 315 acre site in Chavez ravine to Dodger-owner Walther O’Malley. A campaign was then initiated by many of the residents of Chavez Ravine to stop the construction but the project was narrowly upheld by a city wide voter referendum and the Chavez ravine residents were given 30 day notice to vacate their homes (Parson 1993).
Sources
Banfield, E.C. ” Ends and Means in Planning.” International Social Science Journal 11(3):361-68. 1959.
Callinicos, Alex. “South Africa: End of Apartheid and After.” Economic and Political Weekly 29, no. 36 (1994): 2355-363.
Crane, Randall, ed. The Oxford handbook of urban planning. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Clouse, Carey. Farming Cuba : Urban Farming from the Ground up. First ed. New York, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014.
Davidoff, P, “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning.” Journal of American Institute for Planners 31 (4): 596-615. 1965.
Ellinger, Mickey, and Scott Braley. “Urban Agriculture in Cuba.” Race, Poverty & the Environment 17, no. 2 (2010): 14-17.
Forester, J, Planning in the Face of Power. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 1989.
Koont, Sinan. Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba. Contemporary Cuba. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011.
Lindblom, C. E. ” The Science of ‘Muddling Through.’” Public Administration Review 39 (6): 517-26. 1959.
Mather, C., and A. N. M. Paterson. “Restructuring Rural Education and the Politics of GIS in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Area 27, no. 1 (1995): 12-22.
Parson, Don. “”This Modern Marve”: Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine, and the Politics of Modernism in Los Angeles.” Southern California Quarterly 75, no. 3/4 (1993): 333-50.
Sager, T, Communicative Planning Theory. Aldershot, UK: Avebury.1994.
Smith, David M. “Redistribution after Apartheid: Who Gets What Where in the New South Africa.” Area 24, no. 4 (1992): 350-58.
Visser, Gustav. “Social Justice, Integrated Development Planning and Post-Apartheid Urban Reconstruction.” Urban Studies (Routledge) 38, no. 10 (September 2001).
Questions
- Descriptive: What sorts of decisions are subject to disruption by political upheavals at different scales, whether it be a political revolution or a regional election for mayor? What is the timeline for urban planning schemes and how does this compare with the timeline associated with political turnover? How are resources and amenities defined and prioritized by different actors, specifically by lanners, politicians and ordinary citizens?
- Explanatory: What role do politicians play in the management of a city and in the planning process? How do political events get institutionalized in the spatial structure of cities?
- Evaluative: Who are the most served by the structural arrangements of a city? Who lacks access to adequate infrastructure as a result of these structural arrangements? How is this reflected in the way resources and amenities are distributed throughout a city?
- Instrumental: How can various actors, such as planners, politicians and ordinary citizens, ensure that resources and amenities are evenly distributed in cities? How can politicians implement policies within cities to ensure that urban planners tackle issues of equity and prioritize even development?
Concentration courses
- SOAN 282 (Pacific Rim Cities, 4 Credits) Fall 2017. This course will expose me to literature on how transnational networks connect social, cultural and economic practices. This course covers case studies on Shanghai, Sydney, San Jose, Seoul and Portland. Within these case studies issues like urbanization and urban planning are explored. We also discuss the role politics plays in shaping and reshaping cities in the Pacific Rim.
- ENVS 460 (Topics in Environmental Law and Policy, 4 credits), Fall 2017. This course covers topics on environmental law and policy. It specifically centers around water law, the Endangered Species Act, hazardous waste law, environmental justice, the World Trade Organization as well the Clean Air Act. We also cover zoning laws, making a specific emphasis on Portland’s urban growth policies and how these policies structure urban development within the city.
- SOAN 398- 01 (Race, Work, and Belonging, 4 Credits) Fall 2017. This course specifically looks at black labor and how the organization of modernity and capitalist production influence it. The course specifically uses anthropological texts and to unpack the role blackness plays in these systems. This course also aims to critically analyze how the environment has been shaped by slavery and colonialism, by also paying close attention to how this has influenced where cities were built and were the poor lived. We also examine how different forms of governance have repeatedly excluded marginalized individuals to claims to space and adequate resources.
- POLS-311 01 (West Political Theory :Hobbes to Foucault, 4 Credits) Spring 2017, This covers the works of political philosophy from early modernity to the present. The themes that are covered in this class include the social contract theory, the effects of democratic government on individuality and justification for obedience to government. This course is useful because it delves into the theories that are often used to understand governance. Urban planning has both to do with the politics and the people, this class focuses on the role the state plays in modern processes.
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.