Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Dreaming Of Home: Youth Researchers Of Color Address Nyc’S Housing Crisis, Samuel Finesurrey, Waleska Cabrera, Meldis Jimenez, Brittiny Ando, Alanna Garcia, Alexander Garcia, Jayden Johnstone, Abdul Mohammed, Sheylany Paulino, Edwin Reed, Emelyn Saavedra, Gisselle Saavedra, Rajendra Singh, Aysia Smith, Marlena Syriaque

Publications and Research

New Yorkers are facing a housing crisis. Long-standing disparities of race and class in New York City have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Coronavirus and the looming eviction crisis threaten working-class communities, immigrant families and youth searching for housing stability throughout the city. This report is a call to action demanding that city and state elected officials, along with civic leaders, address the housing crisis that youth are inheriting. A team of youth housing fellows, housing organizers from the Broadway Housing Communities, and CUNY academics shaped this project around the ethos, “No research about us, without us.” The work …

Latinos In Brooklyn: Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace And Bushwick, 1990-2017, Sejung Sage Yim

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines the key demographic and socioeconomic trends in Brooklyn, New York between 1990 and 2017. The report focuses on the two community districts that have the first- and second- largest Latino populations in the borough: Bushwick (community district 4) and Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace (community district 7).

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, …

Mapping Staten Island: A Field Study Guide, Nerve Macaspac

Open Educational Resources

This is a guide for the field study and urban lab as partial requirements for GEG 260 Urban Geography at CUNY College of Staten Island. The field study introduces students to spatial ethnography and offers an opportunity to observe, experience and examine a range of spatial urban phenomena that they have learned in the classroom within actually-existing urban environments. Designed as a collaborative activity, students will work in teams in exploring and examining the built environment on-site and then produce multimedia deliverables to capture their reflections throughout the field study using creative and experimental methods. The collaborative and experimental design …

Gentrification And The South Bronx: Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Bronx Community District #1, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

In recent decades skyrocketing real estate values throughout New York City have prompted residents to seek out reasonably priced housing and speculative investment opportunities in traditionally poorer neighborhoods. This is commonly referred to as “gentrification."

This report examines the extent of gentrification in the South Bronx neighborhoods of Melrose, Mott Haven, and Port Morris – officially designated Bronx Community District #1 – widely known as one of New York City’s prominent Latino areas. It presents key socioeconomic and demographic trends between 1990 and 2017. It also looks at topics such as employment, income structures, poverty rates, language acquisition, race/ethnicity, …

The Tale Of Two Community Gardens: Green Aesthetics Versus Food Justice In The Big Apple, Sofya Aptekar, Justin S. Myers

Publications and Research

There has been a vibrant community gardening movement in New York City since the 1970s. The movement is predominantly located in working class communities of color and has fought for decades to turn vacant land into beneficial community spaces. However, many of these communities are struggling with gentrification, which has the potential to transform access to and use of community gardens in the city and the politics around them. Drawing on separate multi-year ethnographic projects, this article compares two community gardens in food insecure communities in Queens and Brooklyn: one that is undergoing gentrification and one that is not. We …

The Housing Crisis And The Rise Of The Real Estate State, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

This article — an excerpt from my book, Capital City, with elaborations on a number of key points — argues that the housing crises endemic to contemporary capitalism must be understood as a result of the concentration of global capital into real estate and the the re-orientation of state planning capacities around the demands of the real estate industry. The first half of the article explains the dimensions of the crisis in the US and the rise of "the real estate state." The second half explores policy alternatives to contemporary urban neoliberalism and the kinds of movements necessary to …

Gentrification In Upper Manhattan? Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Washington Heights/Inwood, 1990 - 2015, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines the impact and extent of gentrification in the Washington Heights/Inwood area – traditionally one of Manhattan’s most quintessential Latino neighborhoods.

Methods: This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml).

Results: The Latino community of Washington Heights/Inwood is not being displaced in any meaningful way. While there has certainly been an increase in the number of wealthy non-Hispanic Whites over the last decade, as of 2015 Latinos maintained the …

Restoring Housing Security And Stability In New York City Neighborhoods: Recommendations To Stop The Displacement Of Dominicans And Other Working-Class Groups In Washington Heights And Inwood, Ramona Hernandez, Yana Kucheva, Sarah Marrara, Utku Sezgin

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Gentrification In Northern Queens? Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Jackson Heights And Corona, 1990 - 2016, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines the extent of gentrification in the New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights/Corona – officially designated Queens Community District #3 -- traditionally one of the borough’s most quintessential Latino neighborhood.

Methods: The findings reported here are based on data collected by the Census Bureau IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series), available at http://www.usa.ipums.org for the corresponding years and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. This report analyzes data from PUMAS 05403 (1990) and 04102 (2000/2010/2016) in Queens.

Results: The Latino community of Jackson Heights/Corona is not being displaced in any meaningful way. On the contrary, …

Where Does Public Land Come From? Municipalization And Privatization Debates, Oksana Mironova, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

This article illuminates contemporary land-use and disposition struggles in New York City by tracing the history of land’s passage between the private and public realms. The authors contend that government and community-controlled nonprofit organizations should govern the disposition of the city’s remaining public land supply, deliberately deploying this scarce resource to promote the well-being of the people and neighborhoods most at risk in a speculation-fueled real-estate environment.

Progress For Whom, Toward What? Progressive Politics And New York City’S Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

In both its historical Progressive Era roots and its contemporary manifestations, U.S. urban progressivism has evinced a contradictory tendency toward promoting the interests of capital and property while ostensibly protecting labor and tenants, thus producing policies that undermine its central claims. This article interrogates past and present appeals to urban progressive politics, particularly around housing and planning, and offers an in-depth case study of one of the most highly touted examples of the new urban progressivism: New York City’s recently adopted Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. This case serves to identify the ways in which progressive rhetoric can disguise neoliberal policies. …

Eating In East Harlem: An Assessment Of Changing Foodscapes In Community District 11, 2000-2015, Cuny Urban Food Policy Institute At The Cuny School Of Public Health And Health Policy, Nicholas Freudenberg, Melissa Fuster, Diana Johnson, Marissa Sheldon, Michele Silver, Apoorva Srivastava, Janet Poppendieck, Ashley Rafalow, Nevin Cohen

Publications and Research

The report analyzes changes in five domains -- food retail, food insecurity and food benefits, institutional food, food and nutrition education, and diet-related health conditions -- in East Harlem from before the election of Michael Bloomberg through the first two years of the de Blasio Administration. Its goal is to assess the ways in which food environments in East Harlem have improved, stayed the same, or worsened in this 15-year period in order to inform setting food policy goals for the next 5, 10 or 15 years.

Although East Harlem is blessed with a multitude of organizations and individuals dedicated …

Precarity And Gentrification: A Feedback Loop, Samuel Stein

Graduate Student Publications and Research

How do rent hikes and labor precarity conspire to reinforce each other against tenants and workers? Samuel Stein explains the mechanisms that link these two trends affecting citizens and calls for a tightening of rent-control laws to stop the spiraling descent of American residents into poverty.

Visions Of Public Space: Reproducing And Resisting Social Hierarchies In A Community Garden, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Urban public spaces are sites of struggles over gentrification. In increasingly diverse cities, these public spaces also host interactions among people of different class, race, ethnicity, and immigration status. How do people share public spaces in contexts of diversity and gentrification? I analyze the conflicting ways of imagining shared spaces by drawing on an ethnographic study of a community garden in a diverse and gentrifying neighborhood in New York City, conducted between 2011 and 2013. I examine how conflicts among gardeners about the aesthetics of the garden and norms of conduct reproduce larger gentrification struggles over culture and resources. Those …

Placeworx: A Model To Foster Youth Engagement And Empowerment, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Atanacio Gonzalez

Publications and Research

The Placeworx project is an innovative community-university partnership between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum located in Pilsen, the heart of Chicago's Mexican community. This field report describes a participatory research initiative that created opportunities and spaces for young people to creatively participate in planning the future of their community. The Placeworx project offers a model for engaging and empowering young participants. The participants used a variety of communicative tools and techniques to describe community assets as well their concerns about rapid urban development and gentrification in their immediate neighborhood. Based on our …

Bodies And Landscapes Of Control In The Neoliberal City, Kerwin Kaye

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

With many still feeling the effects of a post-election depression, around forty people attended CLAGS's panel "Bodies and Landscapes of Control in the Neoliberal City" on November 16th. The panel sought to examine the concrete ways in which neoliberal policy re(shapes) the urban landscape and the relationship between these macroeconomic factors and the construction and deployment of erotic identities and experiences.