CASE STUDIES

Submitted by

Abhijit Nambiar
CURITIBA,BRAZIL
The Transaction by Mayor Jaime Lerner

Curitiba is an important cultural, political, and economic center in Latin America. For
centuries, the city was little more than an outpost for travelers moving between Sao
Paulo and the surrounding agricultural regions. The biggest expansion occurred after
the 1960s, with innovative urban planning that changed the population size from some
hundreds of thousands to more than a million people. Curitiba's economy is based on
industry and services and is the fourth largest in Brazil. According to US magazine
Reader's digest, Curitiba is the best "Brazilian Big City" in which to live. Curitiba crime
rate is considered low by Brazilian standards and the city is considered one of the safest
cities in Brazil for youth.

Much of Curitiba's success story is the brain child of the city's former Mayor Jaime
Lerner. He has been mayor three times, the first time in the early 1970s. Curitiba has built
parks instead of canals to reduce flooding; used parks to make the city more live-able;
pedestrianized the downtown area; invented and built Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a bus
system that works like a light rail system but is 10 times cheaper; and started a massive
recycling.

Connection of Land Use and Transport

In the late 1960s, a group of young architects from the Federal University of Parana,
which were against the official development plan created by Alfred Crouch in 1940,
proposed a different view. Their vision entailed the creation of dense developments
along the corridors of mass transit, reducing sprawl, extending green areas, and
preserving historic neighborhoods. To implement

this ambitious strategy, Lerner became the first director of IPUCC (Institute of Urban
Planning of Curitiba). The core of the new strategy for urban design laid in the ternary
system, which sought to integrate mass transit, access roads and land use together. This
vision required a transportation option capable of creating af-fordable and convenient
mobility to connect the various parts of the city.

The BRT: Building a Connected City

To support the vision of a sustainable and connected city, Lerner understood the need
for a high capacity transportation system, but also recognized the need to move away
from the trends in transportation planning that were dominant in the cities of the
developed world. Unable to create a system below ground, like a subway, Lerner
decided to "metronize" the bus. The city plan prioritized the bus, allowing them to move
quickly and more efficiently — and introduced exclusive bus corridors, designed a
network of feeder buses, and in 1982 introduced the "tube stations" with larger buses
and a pre-payment system.

Expanding Parks and Public Space

Aiming to expand green areas and avoid urban sprawl, the Pilot Plan of Curitiba
created a green belt around the city in the sixty areas reserved for parks, specifically in
areas subject to flooding. Half a century later, the whole city enjoys sixteen parks,
fourteen forests and over a thousand public green spaces, many of which are
dedicated to celebrating the multicultural history of the country

Turning Trash into Opportunity

During his first term as mayor of Curitiba, Lerner created a recycling program aimed at
making junk valuable. The "green exchange" employment program focuses on social
inclusion, benefiting both those in need and the environment. Low-income families
living in shantytowns unreachable by truck bring their trash bags to neighborhood
centers, where they exchange them for bus tickets and food. This means less city litter
and less disease, less garbage dumped in sensitive areas such as rivers and a better life
for the undernourished poor. There's also a program for children where they can
exchange recyclable garbage for school supplies, chocolate, toys and tickets for
shows. Under the "garbage that's not garbage" program, 70% of the city's trash is
recycled by its residents. Once a week, a truck collects paper, cardboard, metal,
plastic and glass that has been sorted in the city's homes. The city's paper recycling
alone saves the equivalent of 1,200 trees a day. As well as the environmental benefits,
money raised from selling materials goes into social programs, and the city employs the
homeless and recovering alcoholics in its garbage separation plant.
Inferences from the Case Study

Jaime Lerner's "Green Exchange"

program has explicitly demonstrated the
importance of waste management and
recycling to foster the economic
productivity. The transaction sets an
example for many cities in the world,
where a small subsidy to the community
for waste disposal/recycling could prove
economically, environmentally and
socially rewarding in the long run.
PREVI EXPERIMENTAL HOUSING, LIMA
The Self Build Housing

"PREVI, Spanish initials for "Experimental housing project", was conceived in Lima in mid
60s. In PREVI, 13 internationally renowned architects were commissioned to develop
prototypes of urban housing that would internalize programmes for any future
transformation. The process of building in PREVI was originally intended for large scale
provision of housing, which was to create a transformable core model with one room
and provide basic utilities for the unit. The idea was that the new owners were free and
encouraged to expand in accordance with the needs of their growing families and
their own financial situation. This process allowed the owners to control their own social,
family and cultural needs making them more involved and motivated towards the
project. It was also hoped that the ideas generated by the competition would in
troduce new methods of creating energy efficient, seismic resistant and cost effective
building techniques.

The 13 invited International architects were: Toivo Korhonan; Charles Correa;

Christopher Alexander; Iniguez de Ozono & Vazquez de Castro; Georges Candilis; Alexis
Josic; Shandrach Woods; James Stir-ling; Esquerra & Samper; Aldo van Eyck; Kikutake,
Kurokawa & Maki; Svenssons; Hanson & Hatloy; Herbert Ohl and Atelier 5.

The Design Brief

The mandatory requirements were that each dwelling plot was to be between 80-150
sq m, of which dwelling was to occupy between 60-120 including all floors. The ideas
were to explore and develop techniques in architecture and construction within
general area of low rise, fairly high density and compact housing in terraced, row and
other formation. All dwellings were to be flexibly planned for eventual accommodation
of eight children of different ages, and one elderly couple, in addition to the owners.

The dwellings were to be conceived not as a fixed unit but as a structure with a cycle of
evolution with appropriate construction technology to achieve this aim. The initial basic
unit was to be built by the main con-tractors and technical advice and assistance in
building will be made to families completing their houses. The following are some of the
interesting proposals for the experimental housing

James Stirling

After the 'first build' by the contractors it was intend-ed that the house should be
completed at ground level and above by house owners in self-building styles. The
growth plan drawing shows in stages of self-building

a 4P house becoming a completed 'one storey house' (8P+) considered the most
typical method of growth. Thereafter expansion takes place on the floor above, either
as a separate dwelling or, in the case of a large family, as additional bedrooms and
living spaces, in which instance part of the ground level accommodation could be
used for other purposes (i.e. shop or garage etc.).
Atelier 5

Atelier 5 scheme used an interesting method of construction using pre-cast concrete

panels small enough to be built on site and manhandled for wall and roof construction.
Having said that, the two storey house plan appeared complex with patios and internal
spaces the external communal spaces and separation of traffic were also well-thought-
out.

Transformations by James Stirling (Left) & Atelier 5(Right)

Maki and Associates

Kikutake, Maki and Kurokawa and Associates also used pre-cast concrete system with
different loadings which also included foundations that was well worked out and likely
to save costs. The house plan grouped service areas with potential of local industry
producing equipment/units for Kitchen, Toilets and storage in future. The external
spaces in this scheme also separated cars from pedestrians but some jury members
considered the spaces were possibly too expensive for effective use.

Christopher Alexander

This split jury thought that Christopher Alexander's proposal was a 'milestone' which
addressed the brief and Peruvian conditions and produced an imaginative solution for
low income housing and offering maxi-mum freedom of individual choice. The
understanding of the complex linkages between the individual, his family, his
belongings, his neighbors and the entire community were implicit in each part of this
proposal."
The house construction was aimed at using local materials and traditions where
possible. The foundations were floating slabs supporting load-bearing walls and a
lightweight plank and beam floor/roof. An ingenious interlocking mortar-less concrete-
block for wall construction, reinforced with sulphur, with cavity for plumbing and
conduits. The planks and beams were made of urethane foam-plastic and bamboo,
reinforced with sulphur-sand topping; all are earthquake resistant methods of
construction.

Charles Correa

Correa said that the project grew from the following four objectives: (1) Highest possible
density commensurate with (2) Individual landownership; (3) Minimum road and
servicing cost, (4) Pedestrian /vehicle separation.

Transformations by Maki and Associates

 Transformations by Charles Correa

Correa's scheme concentrates on two major design ideas; one of the minimization of
service infrastructure and the other of the use of climate as a temperature regulator.
This, in layout terms, resulted in buildings which are staggered along a community spine.
The staggered party wall also provided greater earthquake resistance. As in earlier
schemes, the unit is a long "tube" of inter-locking row housing. Each house is also
incremental. The NNW-SSE orientation of the houses allows the prevailing winds to travel
along the axis of each spine. As the breezes pass the porches they are drawn into the
houses by a louvered air-scoop over the double-height 6 meters 6 meters volume within
each unit. Narrow plots resulting in narrow frontages, ensured that the facade to be
controlled, was very small and set well back into the porch.

Inferences from the Case Study

PREVI serves as the prototype for many modern architects looking into social housing
today. Some of the recent projects that were inspired by PREVI are: The Golden-Lion-
Winning project at the Venice Biennale in 2012 by Urban Think Tank. Another example is
the 'Half a House' model for social housing by the Chilean practice Elemental. Many
scholarly research articles have cited that James Stirling interpreted the future behavior
of the families with certain amount of accuracy. Stirling houses were the most
requested and they display PREVI's finest qualities of occupancy. All the entries for PREVI
exhibited a unique approach to-wards incremental housing.
QUINTA MONROY HOUSING, CHILE
The Incremental Housing

The Quinta Monroy project was initiated by Alejandro Aravena in 2003 as a

demonstration of an architect's ability to engage in real challenges within a framework
of very serious constraints. The challenge of the project was to accommodate a
hundred families using a subsidy of $7,500 dollars that in the best of the cases allowed
for thirty-six square meters of built space in a 5,000 sq meter site, which cost three times
what social housing could normally afford.

The Half House Solution

To tackle the challenge, the housing units were there-fore planned with an area of
about 70 m2, but only half were built; the second half can be created by the residents
themselves as and when required. The extensions allow an individual design of the
houses and serve a closer attachment of the inhabitants to the object. All the
necessary facilities such as supply lines and stair-case access were provided during
construction and the structure of the buildings made it possible to achieve optimal
extensibility with simple means.

Inferences from the Case Study

The project is a great illustration of how one could work with constraints and at the
same time provides flexibility for users to revamp their housing according to their needs.
CONCEPTOS PLASTICOS, COLUMBIA
Lego, Plastic Houses

Colombian company `Conceptos Plasticos' saw two pressing issues in the world and
decided to tackle both with recycled building materials. One issue is the housing crisis,
prevalent in Latin America where 80 percent of the population now resides in urban
areas. The second is the overwhelming amount of plastic crowding landfills. To combat
these issues, Conceptos Plasticos recycles plastic into LEGO-like building blocks that
families can use to easily construct their own homes.

Conceptos Plasticos
works with local
communities to
source plastic and
rubber and train
locals on the
building process.
With the building
blocks, locals can
build their own
houses, emergency
shelters, community
halls, and
classrooms. A home
for one family will
take four people five days to construct with the recycled building blocks — and there's
no construction experience necessary. The blocks fit together like LEGOs. Not only are
the pieces easy to work with, they'll resist natural disasters as well. Conceptos

Plasticos puts an additive that makes the product fire-resistant, and since the blocks
are made of plastic, they’ll also resist earthquakes. The company reports their
“construction system is 30 percent cheaper” than systems traditionally utilized in rural
areas. A standard home can be constructed for just $5,200. The plastic building blocks
will degrade around 500 years or more down the road, but for now they offer shelters
for families who can’t afford other housing or are fleeing crises. In 2015, 42 families were
“displaced by violence” in Colombia, and Conceptos Plasticos helped build a hostel
for the families that could easily be torn down and rebuilt elsewhere if they ever had to
move again.

Inferences from Case Study

Mumbra-Kausa produces around 14,000 tonnes of trash everyday.The considerable

population of Rag pickers could be utilized for recycling the plastic waste as a
construction materials.
UNDERSTANDING ISLAMIC CITIES: Urban Elements
The Islamic city differs from cities founded and developed in the European sphere of
cultures in regards to:
- the physical form and culture
- the social and economic structures and organization
Treating the streets as “a place for people” has been abandoned. A homogeneous
traditional fabric, or “consistent urban collage” has either been fragmented or
remodelled, using modernized urban models, or it has entirely disappeared.
Uncontrolled urban growth has led to urban sprawl and the emergence of modern city
suburbs that are totally dependent on the automobile.
Solutions to urban problems should undergo transformations that will make them
adaptable to each individual place and environment. Western tools and methods
should be considered but a selective process of adaptation and gradual integration,
which takes into account existing local characteristics and values, should be followed.
The main objective is to identify approaches to win the streets back for the people,
reduce transportation impacts, create civilized streets that respond to worldly design
standards of safety, comfort and design sustainability, but above all, such, that are
compatible with the unique urban structure and culture.

The Formation of Traditional Arabic Muslim Cities

Transition from the Classical to the Early Muslim City

A. Major Influences for Change:

The initial factors that influenced the pattern of streets in Muslim cities can be
summarized as follows:
- Change in use (and the needs of the people):
- Change in modes of transport and movement

The revivification of dead land and al- fina’/harim concepts which had a major
influence on the many small decisions made by the settlers and residents themselves
leading to deformations, which eventually brought about the morphology of these
towns.
B. The Concept of Revivification and al-Harim
The concept of “revivification” that was used during the early Islamic period meant that
all unowned land (peri-urban or urban) that had no owner or was not used by anyone
for any purpose or had been deserted, was called Mawat, meaning it was dead land
and individuals, who wanted to revive this land by building on it or by cultivating it,
could later assume its ownership.

C. The Concept of al-Fina’

Al-fina’ is the outdoor space on the street abutting a property and is owned and used
exclusively by the abutting party (residents, occupiers). It is considered the outdoor
harim of a house and is applied at ground level and in the air. A party could
manipulate and use its fina’ for different activities like trading, storing possessions. On
residential streets erecting simple structures like benches or sheds or planting a tree in
the fina’ wasn’t objected to by jurists as long as none of the neighbors complained. A
major factor contributing to the organic form is the concept of the fina’, occupation of
the outdoor space by residents or their structures and the different “settings” that
developed. “Settings” refers to the activities and physical adaptations pursued by the
people in the space of their fina’, and this he believed was stimulated by or created for
social, economic, climatic, religious, lifestyle-related or traditional reasons.
1. A settlement is established either as a spontaneous or
a planned settlement. In the early stages of building
a city, the Harim (reserved land) was enforced,
surrounding the built up area of the city.
2. Most of the jurists
required the local
authority’s permission to
occupy a Mawat (dead
land) closer to the city
(within the built-up area), it is logical that consequently
most of the people, especially in cities where this rule
applied, would have chosen locations far from the
edge of the city to avoid the restrictions of the authority
and conflicts with the owners.
3. When most of the lands surrounding the city
were cultivated and the popu lation of the city
increased, then the people would build the
rest of the unoccupied lands in the city until all
the available lands were built up.
4. Then some people would occupy the fina’ and
modify its
territory which
contributed to
reshaping the
street. Others
would subdivide or combine the properties to
house more people and activities. This might
require establishing new roads or the closure of
existing ones.

5. When the inner city became denser and

most empty pieces of land were built up,
people would then occupy the harim of the
city by permission from owners or the local
authority. They were obliged to leave
enough space for the street. If they
disagreed, then the width had to be 5-7
cubits(2.3m - 3.22m) for the street but this
standard could be changed if the users
agreed on another dimension.
6. Once all the harim area and the cultivated land around the city had been built
up, a new harim of the city would be formed. Then, the process would start
again.
The organic evolution occurred as a result of the increasing expansion of the
town activities and its buildings for political and economic activities as follows:-
- Building the vacant lands within the built up area of the city.
- Subdividing or connecting the plots of the houses.
- Occupying al-fina’ of the streets.
- Building over the existing built up area

Two important characteristics or tendencies in the traditional form of occupancy

of al-fina’:
- Separating private indoor space of the dwellings from public outdoor
space to protect the private life of the Muslim families. At the same time
creating the possibility for people to watch the street life and events from
their home.
- Connecting the indoor space of the shops and often commercial and
public buildings with the public space of the street to explore different
meanings, stimulate economic activities, meet climatic demands and
support community life in the streets.

The Spatial Organization of Traditional Arabic Muslim Cities

The city center encompasses different layers of interconnected souks, (usually
organized around a covered market and the principal mosque) supported and
interspersed with different public buildings namely madrasas (theological-
juridical schools), hammams and khans (hotels). Beyond this central area
stretched the city’s private zone, namely the residential quarters intra-muros
(sing.: hara or mahalla), which grew in the space left between the edges of the
multifunctional core complex, and the main pedestrian spines crossing the city,
everything being contained by the outer city walls. Housing districts were
composed of several housing clusters, clusters were in turn composed of
enclosed units around a central courtyard, wrapping around internal dead-end
alleyways.

Characteristics of the Public Realm:

Enclosure
Similar to private homes, public space was also enclosed if possible – covered
markets, caravanserais, madrasas, and mosque courtyards – this enclosure and
repetition of forms have contributed to a sense of unity.
Pedestrian Dimension and Human Scale
These are the highlights of the traditional Muslim environment which was built
completely around pedestrian movement. This memory consists of visual,
olfactory, acoustical, and tactile connections.
Hierarchy
Hierarchy was reflected in the road sections which were in proportion to the flux
of users and hence became progressively smaller down to 90cm even 50cm in
the alleys that lead to individual houses.

The Development Process of Streets in Arab Muslim Cities

The streets were considered shared space.
There are basically two main types of street— the through, open ended streets
(the public right of way) and the cul-de-sacs, but there are basically three-four
hierarchic levels and the principle which usually prevailed was the branching out
of a planned route from a matrix route (the centripetal main streets that
converged at the center from a city gate), a possible further Y-shaped
branching out of a secondary planned route from the main one, and a further
subdivision in a layout of a lesser order, but rarely finding connectin g routes
among these.
Each hierarchical level has its name:
1. Al-Tariq = Shari’
2. Al-Darb(main foundation street leading to a sub nucleus)
3. Cul-de-sac

The Main Commercial Streets

The main thoroughfares or arteries,
called Shari’ or Qasabah—the first
level of streets, were open ended
streets that led from different
directions from the exterior parts of
the c ity to its heart, normally from
a city gate into the city’s core or
from one gate to another.
Measurements: Their width has
varied between a minimum of 50-
90cm to a maximum of three
meters and they link a public
street to a residential
neighborhood of courtyard tis sues
accommodating the introverted
lifestyle that centered on the privacy of the home and the family.
 The traditional neighborhood components environment - Case
study Al-Abhar Quarter

Al-Abhar Quarter is one of the traditional neighborhoods in the old city of Sana'a,
located in the south of East Al-Surar Zone on one of the roads to the main gate
of Bab El-Yemen, Al-Qasmi to Al-Sailah and the Great Mosque as shown.
The total area is 24813 meter sq. estimated to occupy the 1.8% of the whole city
space with 358 inhabitants. The tower houses composed of 44%, the Open
Space (Al-Suhra) at around 13.5%, the Hot bath (Hamam) at 0.4%, and the
religious buildings (Mosques and Madrasah) at 6.0%. This quarter has a few open
spaces of different sizes that connect to the neighborhood roads and paths,
estimated to occupy a space of 22.1% of the whole quarter.

The residential house

The tower house is a vertical building articulated on the house staircase that is multistory of five
The tower house is a vertical building articulated on the house staircase that is multistory of five
floors and above. A number of tower houses forms the housing unit within a quarter. Each tower
houses varies in the space layout and the floors number that reflects the owner's occupation
hierarchy in the society. The house spatial layout can be divided into three categories (See
Table 1) depending on the owner's social status in society as follow: Small sized house space
layout ranges between 35 to 70 sq.metres, Consisting of 2 to 3 floors belonging to the lower class
workers and servants, while farmers has houses ranging from 4 to 6 floors. Medium sized house
space layout: it ranges between 150 to 250 sq. metres consisting of 4 to 7 floors belonging to the
middle class society like craftsmen and traders. Large sized houses and sometimes cluster of
tower houses surrounded by courtyard space layout ranging between 600 to 1000 sq. metres
consisting of 6 to 8 floors belonging to high class families who works as best merchants, governors
and judges. The house facades ornamentation and building height are the symbol of prosperity
and pride for the owner. The profound idea of the Yemeni family is their social status and
reputation in the neighborhood to become a participant in the social and cultural events.
The mosque (Masjid)
The mosque is the spiritual space that connects human with Allah; here the human soul
rises with faith. The mosques play various roles in the society such as a place of worship,
learning the Quran, and as an educational and cultural center as it plays an important
role in the Yemeni society since centuries In some cases, the serious issues/problems are
settled in the mosque either of an individual or as community, instead of going to the
legal jurisdiction /court, as the mosque being Holy and earned an exceptional respect
from people is considerable. The mosque also accommodates travelers or others in
need of food or clothes sponsored by the members of the local mosques. It also serves
as the place for a cultural event such as marriage and death which bonds the social
relationship among the inhabitants. The Al-Abhar Mosque located at the center of the
quarter facing the open space on the main road from the water drainage tunnel to the
main gate of Bab El-Yemen. The mosque location based on two factors; firstly of easy
access and connectivity with other spaces to be practical for people, secondly the
land ownership is public or under "wakaf" (endowment) control.

The open space (Surha)

The open space is a gathering point for the residents of various social classifications and
the travelers. The open space varies in size; normally the biggest will be near the
mosque. Their numbers and locations will depend on the quarter size and orientation. In
this quarter Al-Abhar quarter, the open space is considered to be one of the biggest
spaces, covering the front and rear of the Al-Abhar Mosque. This space creates social
interaction of cultural activities such as marriage and death. It guides visitors who are
not familiar with the city streets and guide them to the market and to the water
fountain. Children from the quarter use these spaces as playgrounds. Overall it
enhances the urban connectivity of places and social interactions, to sustain the
Yemeni culture to care for and help each other.

The water fountain (Sabil)

Al-Sabil it is a place for quenching the thirst for travelers and strangers, some spaces will
have extra pool for animals and birds. The architectural expression of the Sabil dome
and ornaments and is an essential component of the Islamic city, related to the
mosques, the open spaces (Al-Surha) and the main pedestrian routes.

The fruit and vegetable gardens (Megshamah)

The fruit and vegetable garden area are one of the central urban components of the
quarter. It connects the mosque and designed to surround the houses for better views.
This garden space makes use of the waste ablution water from the mosque for the
plants. Currently the garden of Al-Abhar occupied a large area which is not in use due
to its lack of water sources and its ownership complications. It can neither be

The (Hamam) hot bath

The establishment of a hot bath (Hamam) in public places fulfils the Islamic
requirements for cleanliness and the high cost of heating in individual houses during
winters. It usually built next to the mosque to share water and easy access for both male
and female inhabitants of the quarter. It serves as a social and cultural space, for
instance as a wedding function for women with Henna bodily decorations prior to the
wedding day. The connection among these components creates a social environment
among the habitat; the changes that accrued with the new function had affected the
social environment and some of the quarter component of an original function. The
research findings will elaborate on the current condition of the quarter components
and their effects on the social environment.
Privacy and design of Muslim homes
Privacy in a traditional Muslim home strictly follows the teachings from the Quran,
sunnahs, and hadiths to ensure that each home owner or dweller and his/her family are
allowed to unwind and rest from the pressure and demands from the outside world
(Shabani etal.,2011; Mortada, 2011; Omer,2010). Guarding home privacy is vital in Islam
to promote a tranquil and functional family structure (Omer,2010). In Muslim homes,
privacy is the main factor that shapes how Muslim home dwellers “plan, build, perceive,
and use their interior homes paces” (Omer,2010). Bahammam (1987) and Mortada
(2011) suggested that privacy in traditional Islamic homes involves four main layers of
privacy:

(a)privacy between neighbors' dwellings,

(b) privacy between males and females,

(c)privacy between family members inside a home, and

(d)individual privacy
Ground floor plan of Cahit Sitki Taranci's home(now Diyarbakir Museum)in Diyarbakir,
Turkey
Traditional Islamic window height guidelines in Arabic cities (Hakim, 1986, p. 34).

Example of thick external walls for optimum acoustical privacy(Hakim, 1986).

A Program for Ghetto Development
The ghetto communities, individually and considered as a potential "trading bloc,"
contain more than enough consumers and purchasing power to make ghetto
consumer goods industries viable. In central Harlem alone (in 1966), the 250,000
residents had a combined gross income of over $200 million. Moreover, the municipal,
state and federal governments have offices and public enterprises in every city; these
could certainly be made to purchase goods and services from ghetto industries as a
matter of public policy, thereby opening up a market for "export" production. Roy Innis
estimates that "Harlem schools purchase over $100,000,000 in goods and services each
year. '' Many of the larger ghettos (e.g., Harlem and the Chicago South Side) already
have a relatively broad commercial base upon which to build. The probability of
commercial success will be measurably improved if existing establishments which are
now uneconomically small can be organized along cooperative lines. There are
precedents for this among white businessmen, not to speak of the eminently successful
rural electrification cooperatives made up of small agricultural producers in the
heartlands of America. For example, organizations of "affiliated independent"
businesses are a form of producers' cooperative built around the function of joint
purchasing. In American food retailing, the market share of the affiliated independents
rose from 8 per cent to 55 per cent in the last decade, as new members were signed
up. This success seems to be explained by a combination of the economies of large-
scale purchasing characteristic of the chain stores with the high motivation and flexible
adaptation to local conditions of independent entrepreneurship. Commercial success
can also be increased if the strategy of "backward integration," from control over
distribution ("Shelf Space'") to control over the production of at least some of the goods
to be marketed on those shelves, is deployed imaginatively. One example is the
backward integration from a chain of cooperative supermarkets to food packaging
and processing plants. Supermarkets are a sensible component of ghetto development
programs for two reasons. Many areas have a definite deficiency of food outlets
available within walking distance of most residents. Moreover, recent econometric
research at Columbia University in New York City suggests that one of the reasons that
the "poor pay more" for food is that the ghetto retail food industry is dominated by
small-("mom and pop") shops. These stores legitimately must charge higher unit prices
for many goods than do supermarkets because of the higher unit costs they must
absorb for inventory, insurance, and most other inputs. Finally, another possibility would
be the wholesaling of office equipment. This could be carded out with the more than
1,200 institutional consumers in or adjacent to Harlem (churches, schools, government
buildings, etc.) and gradually integrating backward into metalworking, such as office
furniture production. Imaginative new engineering-economic studies (particularly the
central city new town and industrial park studies financed by the Economic
Development Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development)
have shown that the creative application of new technologies in building construction,
industrial processing, and transportation can make central city industrial locations
attractive again. Moreover, new "technologies" in and attitudes toward training, to the
extent that they integrate pre-vocational and on-the-job training within the context of
career ladders and against the background of improved community-oriented public
schools, will ensure these ghetto industries an adequate supply of capable local labor.
The limitations of physical space within the ghetto need not bottle up development.
Even apart from the construction of "vest-pocket" industrial parks, high-rise industrial
buildings, and pioneering mulh-function structures (combining housing, school,
commerce, and light industry), as long as the new activities are part of a
comprehensive community development plan, their effectiveness need not be
undermined by placing them in readily accessible outside locations. Examples from the
Harlem development "plan" are the air space over the South Bronx, New York City rail
yards, or the recently completed Brooklyn Navy Yard industrial park. Going one step
further, the plan may well include a downtown and even a suburban jobs component
for ghetto residents, involving coordinated recruitment, prevocational training,
placement, and follow-up support. If backed by negotiations of the CDC for block
placement of trainees with large corporations and government agencies, together with
a restructuring of publicly regulated fares for large-scale reverse commuting (from
Harlem to Westchester), such a component within a ghetto development plan may
well be the most effective way of securing outside employment for ghetto residents.
The example certainly demonstrates the potential complementarity of "inside" and
"outside" job development programs. A social and political program of ghetto
development might, apart from the coordinated planning of enterprises, contain some
of the following elements:

(1) Management of local branch stores of national chains by the CDC;

(2) Public housing, administered and owned by a combination of tenants and

community housing groups;

(3) Election of autonomous local school boards with powers comparable to those of
middle-class suburban residential communities;

(4) Majority representation on the boards of directors of local hospitals and other public
health facilities;

(5) Autonomous local institutions responsible to the community at large tbr

administering manpower training and recruitment services as well as unemployment,
welfare, and other transfer operations; and

(6) Community control of police, elected civilian review boards in each precinct, with
powers to investigate, subpoena, and initiate proceedings for the removal of policemen
convicted of brutality against the residents of-the community.

Several key questions remain to be explored. Contrary to the position taken by some
economists, who see the problem of the ghetto primarily in terms of unemployment,
and are thus ready to go along with any job program, no matter how poorly paid.

We regard it as fundamental that jobs paying below subsistence wages--no matter how
many-have no place in any anti-poverty program. The more we encourage the
proliferation of such, the more we inescapably add-since common humanity forces us
to keep alive the offspring of the holders-to the already crushing welfare burden. The
toleration of below-subsistence wages in combination with a family-centered welfare
system merely repeat.,; the disastrous experience of the nineteenth-century English poor
laws which encouraged textile and other manufacturers to pass on part of their payroll
costs to the parishes responsible for the support of the poor.

Apart from the patent inequity and social injustice inherent in this system, in the long run
it grievously damaged the very industries in England which it subsidized. It robbed them
of the chief incentive for the introduction of technical innovations, and thereby
progressively destroyed their initially phenomenal international technological lead. If
there ever were a primrose path to perdition for a country to take this surely is the one.

Our total rejection of a non-jobs strategy leads us to restrict our planning

recommendations to what under the current wage structure are medium-to-high wage
industries, paying from $3.50 upward. Since such industries tend to be highly
concentrated, entry by any new organization (let alone a black group) is at best
restricted and often prohibitively expensive.
Yet, without local ownership, community control of the proceeds is unlikely to
materialize.

We may also question the availability of a developmental infrastructure in the ghetto:

water, electricity, transportation, waste disposal, etc., adequate for the support of
modem industries. Since low-wage service and manufacturing facilities require
relatively less social overhead capital than do high-wage "leading edge" industries,
inadequate ghetto infrastructure may act as an additional obstacle to the kind of
economic development we are advocating.

It must be noted, however, that both the current intrametropolitan maldistribution of

social overhead capital and the feasibility of a future redistribution of these capital
services are fundamentally political questions. As more and more cities attain black
majorities, the economic preconditions for ghetto development will become an
increasingly important object of political struggle.

And this is the central point.

Ghetto development is fundamentally a political process. In a monograph on the

economy of Harlem, we try to show that ghetto economic development can be far
more than a mechanism for allocating resources efficiently, organizing production,
generating profit streams, or even creating jobs...economic development, wherever it
takes place, acts as a catalyst of social and political change.

Jobs created inside the ghetto are the instruments as well as the objects of this change,
contributing to a reduction in psychological and social pathology, an improvement in
the "technology" of community organization, increased skill levels, and the re-
enforcement of the community's political base and potential.

Conventional economic analysis treats these social effects as external-incidental to,

and not very important in light of overall economic activity. We believe, however, that
economic development of the ghetto is vital because of the social externalities that
mere creation of even a considerable number of otherwise sterile places.

VOLUNTARY GHETTOS: A RADICAL IDEA FOR RECLAIMING URBAN SPACE

WHAT DO BURNING Man, Israeli kibbutzim, and neighborhood block parties have in
common? “They are fascinating examples of how people can appropriate a territory
for themselves and reclaim it,” says architect Stéphane Malka, in response to his own
question. “It’s the idealistic essence of the society.”
Malka lives in Paris, a city that, like New York and San Francisco, faces growing
inequality created by climbing real estate prices. So as Malka sees it, Parisians need a
way to “reclaim” the city. His idea is a modular micro-city consisting of rooms that
attach to scaffolding built around existing infrastructure, like barnacles clinging to a
ship. He calls it the P9 Mobile-Ghetto, and has imagined them here hanging off the side
of the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris. "In a time when we are getting more and more mobile,
not only regarding our phone and laptop devices, but also...the increasing number of
freelancers or homeworkers, mobile-cities would totally change the uses and the
morphology of the city," Malka says. In practice, this means that the idea of a third
space—in which city dwellers inhabit coffee shops and parks the way others gather in
their living rooms, or regard shared bicycle programs as their own bikes—extends to
include a smattering of rooms or event spaces created for the public, and run by the
public. The bridge can become your meditation center; an out-of-use monument
could become an art gallery.

Obvious complications with zoning and historical preservationists aside, Malka says the
Voluntary Ghetto is technically plausible, and would just require using scaffolding to
support shipping container-sized rooms. That said, this (conceptual) new layer of
infrastructure says more about urban lifestyles than it does about feats of architecture.
Would Parisians (or New Yorkers, or Londoners, or any city residents) delight in finding
more intimate, indoor, spaces, or would it feel like a brash paint job on a historic city? "If
there is an utopia in this project,” Malka says, “it’s more in its social dimension than its
architectural aspect."
Design Lessons From India’s Poorest Neighborhoods
Creative solutions for severe space and resource constraints are coming from an
unlikely place: the slums of India.

“Jugaad” is a Hindi term referring to the ingenuity of citizens living in resource-

constrained environments, a concept from which New Yorkers might derive some
enlightenment. Enter Jugaad Urbanism: Resourceful Strategies for Indian Cities, an
exhibition created with the help of curator Kanu Agrawal that opens at New York’s
Center for Architecture next week.

The exhibition is “design by the people, for the people, of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad,
and Pune,” says Agrawal, and showcases everyday innovations of slum-dwelling
residents and the designers and architects who work around them.
Slum-dwellers inhabit 1.5-meter-wide slivers of spaces between factories in Mumbai on
multiple levels, and still find ways to allow for light and air to reach lower levels. “That’s
how urban density is dealt with by migrants,” says Agrawal. There’s also the example of
the chandelier in Pondicherry made from bottles and tied with wires–a creative way to
light up Pondicherry’s streets with recycled materials and with attention to aesthetics.

Since New York shows draw a global

audience, Agrawal expects the
exhibition to resonate with diverse
groups. “Dealing with shortages of
resources is global,” Agrawal says.
“So the show presents ways for
designers and laypeople to think
about such situations.”

Aside from opening up discussion

about living conditions in India, the
exhibit also aims uncover innovation
in challenging circumstances.
“There’s always this narrative of
failure and tragedy when one
discusses Indian urbanism,” Agrawal
says. “So instead of doing that, it sort
of represents solutions. People
respond creatively where there are
shortages of resources.”

The tactical urbanism movement has come a long way since the parklets and painted
crosswalks of years past. These days, it’s hard not to come across a new self-starter
project designed to remedy a neighborhood or even a citywide issue. This year’s best
projects ran the gamut from downright adorable innovations to ideas with the potential
to transform our urban spaces.

Chairbombing

Although 2015 by no means marked the genesis of chairbombing, it did usher in some
pretty clever projects in this realm. One in particular—spearheaded by the urban
strategist and communications professional Gracen Johnson—helped to provide a
much-needed resting spot in the small city of Fredericton, New Brunswick. By painting
and re-purposing tree stumps, Johnson and her neighbors fashioned a kaleidoscope of
seating near the local farmer’s market. Even though a homeowner eventually asked for
the stumps to be removed, Johnson’s design allowed for them to be easily discarded
without damaging the land. While her project certainly demonstrates the risks of DIY
urbanism, it also addresses a crucial need for more strategically-placed seating in our
urban areas.

Microlofts

There’s a lot to admire about this $4,328 “DIY Loft Kit” from Expand Furniture. The loft
(shown below) features a 160-square-foot mezzanine, wood staircase, and a wrap-
around railing. The structure is ideal for an office or hang-out space in a cramped
apartment that happens to have high ceilings, although it’s certainly no substitute for
an additional bedroom. Then again, it still might be preferable to sharing a bunk-bed in
San Francisco.
Bamboo bicycles

In China, a shop called Bamboo Bicycles Beijing teaches customers how to assemble,
paint, and design bike frames for around $322 using raw bamboo (seats, wheels, and
handlebars cost extra). And over in London, Bamboo Bicycle Club has created DIY kits
that run from $350 to $450.

Wayfinding signs

“Guerilla wayfinding” started catching on back in 2012 thanks in part to the launch of
Walk [Your City], a website that allows users to create their own signs indicating the
distance to nearby attractions and amenities. This February, the website implemented
pilot campaigns in Lexington, Kentucky, and San Jose, California, that aimed to inform
city residents on how to create more walkable places. With so many cities plagued by
traffic and congestion, DIY wayfinding provides a welcome reminder of just how easy it
can be to navigate cities on foot.
Makeshift bike lanes

Back in October, an anonymous “Transformation Department” decided they had had

enough of New York City drivers disrespecting bike lanes. To remedy the situation, the
activists began sectioning off the lanes using traffic cones (many of which featured
sunflowers sprouting from the top). In a city where cars frequently park in designated
bike lanes, makeshift separators have turned into a necessary short-term solution.