Urban Transformations in New York: Targeting the Vulnerable

New York, USA

By Fernando Canteli de Castro
new york city, housing, planning, department of city planning, urban, social justice

De Blasio's rezonings: Affecting low-income and non-white neighborhoods

New York City has one of the most segregated school systems in the U.S., therefore race places an important role in understanding the social structure of the urban scheme. The city is officially divided into neighborhoods, but in many cases these boundaries are not only administrative, they can be directly observed based on the spatialization of different specific ethnic groups, which is closely related to the area’s economic and social conditions which are visible at first glance.

These rezonings are defined by boundaries that are constantly changing. Some of them are not official yet, others have already been presented to the communities, but their final shape will only be definitely defined once they are approved. These are the CURRENT REZONING PROCESSES and their status at December 2016:

Decades after the abolition of the redlining practices, white communities have protected their enclaves through down-zonings and landmarking mechanisms while the supposedly pressing densification only takes place in low-income communities accessible through public transportation. (Angotti, 2016) This map will show the INCOME DATA spacialized within New York City and these rezoning boundaries:

When the law of supply and demand of housing justifies new urban up-zonings in New York City, it is not taken into consideration that these dynamics produce displacement of the current dwellers while the real estate apparatus makes enormous profits. In the last few years, the targeted areas have been mostly in non-white neighborhoods. Here is a RACIAL ANALYSIS of the demographics within New York City and these rezoning boundaries:

Displacement is one of the effects that these rezonings produce. Increasing the FAR (floor area ratio) of a lot, making it more “productive”, will also increase the need of landowners to make a greater profit out of their properties. Analyzing the PERCENTAGE OF RENTERS over the total population shows the ratio of residents that will not be benefited after this process:

Also, this change of the rules in urbanization affects the COMMON ASSETS. Public housing and transportation are just 2 examples of a whole range of tangible and intangible collective properties that are being commodified and stressed throughout and after these actions. This map describes the affected NYCHA campuses and Subway lines in these rezonings:

Why should municipal institutions be reinvented? In a complicated regional and national political context, where many aspects and emotions are taking place, cities become the first arena that can address these emergencies and propose a bottom-up organization that deeply spreads new ways of democracy through participation, transparency, and accountability. (Bookchin, 2005). The residents of these areas that are being transformed had a lower PERCENTAGE OF ELIGIBILITY to vote for the 2013 Mayoral election, so their opinion was not democratically assessed the same way as other areas.

Therefore, it is also important to depict the political engagement of those eligible to decide through the VOTE TOURNOUT data. This map shows the different levels of participation in the 2013 Mayoral Election:

Rezoning context citywide: In a context where economic expansion does not necessarily benefit every social stratum, the negative outcomes of these metamorphoses should be democratically assessed and discussed before they are implemented. Understanding the current statistic data of the whole city as an unbalanced and segregated reality will help us to understand why are these the targeted areas. Then, we should question: Are these transformations representing everyone in order to balance the consequences they will produce?

Demographics within the Rezoning boundaries: Narrowing this demographic analysis to the specific group of sites that these urban transformations are currently taking place will help us to find what specific common characteristics are being targeted in these public interventions. The income and racial specificities of these chosen areas is very similar, and it’s important to combine this data with the actual political engagement of these same boundaries during Mayoral elections. What is their real political power?

Rezoning Commons: Neighborhood transformations reshape the common assets contained within their boundaries. Elements such as Public Housing, Transportation Infrastructures, or even the existing residential fabric; can be affected through these processes that change the rules of the game. It’s important to identify these assets and assure that their capacities and possibilities are reinforce after these transformations.