Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The End Of Zero Returns And The Last Dollar: Can New York State Create A Collective Store Of Value, Crowdsource Wealth, And Fund Its Colleges And Universities Using Cryptocurrency?, Edward Lehner

Publications and Research

This brief personal statement, citing the previous work of the Bronx Community College Cryptocurrency Research Laboratory (BCC Lab), advocates for a private New York State Money to fund New York State’s public higher education. Attempting to shed most of the academic language and the formalities of research-driven writing, this short statement frames two distinct arguments. The first contention is that New York State residents need a means by which to store value outside of the traditional banking and financial systems due to massive Federal Reserve printing that is centered primarily on rescuing fledgling Wall Street profits and mitigating reckless businesses …

Crisis And Reorganization In Urban Dynamics: The Barcelona, Spain, Case Study, Rafael De Balanzó Joue, Nuria Rodriguez-Planas

Publications and Research

We use adaptive cycle theory to improve the understanding of cycles of urban change in the city of Barcelona, Spain, from 1953 to 2016. More specifically, we explore the vulnerabilities and windows of opportunity these cycles of change introduced in the release (Ω) and reorganization (α) phases. In the two recurring cycles of urban change analyzed (before and after 1979), we observe two complementary loops. During the front loop, financial and natural resources are efficiently exploited by homogenous dominant groups (private developers, the bourgeoisie, politicians, technocrats) with the objective of promoting capital accumulation based on private (or private-public partnership) investments. …

Razing Lafitte: Defending Public Housing From A Hostile State, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

The contentious politics of the demolition of Lafitte public housing in post- Katrina New Orleans and its replacement with mixed-income properties is a telling case of the strategic conflicts housing advocates face in public housing revitalization. It reveals how the qualified outcomes of HOPE VI interact with local institutional and historical circumstances to confound the equity and social justice goals of housing and community development advocates. It shows the limits to public housing revitalization as an urban recovery strategy when hostile government leadership characterizes a region, and the state is recast as an adversary rather than revitalization partner. This case …

Advancing The Human Right To Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans: Discursive Opportunity Structures In Housing And Community Development, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one nongovernmental organization (NGO). Ferree’s concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu’s social field ground this NGO’s failure to advance a radical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic and ideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and …

La Libertad De La Ciudad, David Harvey

Publications and Research

David Harvey explora aquí la relación existente entre el problema de la reubicación del excedente de capital y las transformaciones del espacio urbano a una escala cada vez mayor. En este artículo, escrito antes de que fuera declarada la crisis económica mundial, Harvey ofrece un análisis espacial que anticipa dicha crisis y analiza las consecuencias que la continuidad del modelo económico vigente tendrá para el futuro de la vida urbana.

In this paper David Harvey explores the existing relation between the problem of surplus capital allocation and the increasing transformations of urban space. The paper, written before the world economic …

Permanently Failing Organizations? Small Business Recovery After September 11, 2001, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

Small businesses in Lower Manhattan after September 11, 2001, paint a telling portrait of vulnerability after disasters. This qualitative analysis of recovery for small retail and service firms with 50 or fewer employees is based on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and documentary research from September 2001 through 2005. A postdisaster emphasis on place-based assistance to firms conflicted with macro-level redevelopment plans for Lower Manhattan. Small business recovery was impeded as aid programs responded to a new sense of urgency, attachment to place, and prestorm conceptions of the neighborhood at the expense of addressing community-wide economic changes accelerated by the disaster. Ingredients …