Back in DC

Professors like everyone else do a lot of multi-tasking. As we move up the ranks, we end up taking on more research projects (because so many topics are so interesting and/or need to be researched), as well as helping run our professions (training graduate students, running conferences, editing scholarly journals, and so on) and our universities (professors basically run the universities). It is all fascinating work, while at the same time a bit unwieldy.

I spent July in St. Louis, where I conducted research on the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project. Then, I spent August in New York City, where I conducted research on the Non-Aligned Movement. Many people don't know what the Non-Aligned Movement is. Basically, in the 1950s, Third World countries that had become independent from the colonial powers decided to end their dependence on (or alignment with) the United States, the Soviet Union, and many of the former colonial powers. They focused on working together by investing in, producing with, and buying from each other. I am studying the companies, banks, export promotion agencies, regional integration groups, and other economic organizations they created, which we can see as economic globalization. OPEC is just one example of a non-aligned economic organization, which provided new investment funds for Third World production. Many DC residents likely followed the Non-Aligned Movement quite closely during its most successful period in the 1960s and 1970s.

While I put together my next post, I want to highlight a great photo essay by Larry Janezich on Ward 6's Franks Place:

Franks Place: One of the First Capitol Hill Neighborhood Vendors
by Larry Janezich

Frank Lloyd has stationed his business on the corner of 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, since 1984, selling sunglasses, hats, t-shirts and other merchandise to passersby.

Frank Lloyd. Photo by Larry Janezich.

  “I first set up on Metro Plaza,” he says, but “they moved me over here.”  “Over here” is the sidewalk next to CVS where he sets up five or six days a week...

While vending is Lloyd’s livelihood, drumming is his passion...At first self-taught, Lloyd later trained with the Andrew Cacho African Drummers and Dancers, a group founded in the early 70s which taught African Dance and Drumming to youths at Friendship House and later at a location on 8^th Street... Read more here.   

Yes, Friendship House provided many resources to Ward 6...

Sharing the (Common)Wealth

The District government has announced that all city libraries will be open seven days a week and remain open for more hours, beginning October 1st! The DC Council approved Mayor Gray’s fiscal year 2014 budget, including an increase in library hours and funding for books and other library materials. The new hours will be Monday through Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Great!! That's the way to share the wealth, or actually let everyone keep the wealth that they collectively create making DC great. This is our commonwealth.

Speaking of the commons, MLK Library just opened its new Digital Commons: a huge room with spaces for meet ups and collaborative creation, smart boards, 50 workstations with outlets for laptops, a 3D printer, a self-publishing book machine, and the latest eReader devices.

Everyone is talking about the commons these days. Business schools long ago realized that networking and collaboration across businesses and other organizations (like universities) is what makes successes like Silicon Valley, as opposed to the usual image a big corporations competing with each other like along Route 128. Activists around the world have also turned to the commons as a solution to many problems.

Here is one interpretation of why so many people are turning to the commons, by David Bollier:

Let me start by giving a brief speculation about why people from so many backgrounds are embracing the commons. First of all, it is a way for people to assert the integrity of their existing communities, or to try to reclaim that integrity. The commons also provides a way to assert a moral relationship to certain resources and people that are endangered by market forces. It’s a way of saying, “That _________ (water, air, software code, cultural tradition) belongs to me. It is part of my life and identity.”

Many people are embracing the commons, too, because it provides a powerful critique of neoliberal capitalism. But it is much more than that. It is a pro-active set of alternatives that work. And therefore it provides a positive, constructive scaffolding for practical alternatives to the prevailing market economy and corrupt political process. But the commons is still more than this. It is not just a policy critique or political philosophy, but equally a distinctive worldview, language and social ethic.

That's a rather non-sociological interpretation, but I think that you can see that DC is part of an evolving global conversation about the commons.

P.S. This view of the commonwealth moves away from the (rather aristocratic) model of "helping" others through charity towards recognizing that everyone is creating wealth together all the time and that DC and other places depend on all this wealth creation, known as commonwealth. Cities are particularly important places of commonwealth generation, since so many people are brought together in different ways. 

Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened!

Yes, The Onion has brought to light a new threat to gentrified neighborhoods like those in Ward 6 -- aristocratization! It seems that aristocrats are pushing out young white professionals from their neighborhoods. See this photo of Brooklyn!

Image from The Onion

From The Onion:

"When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of solid gold guineas—hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year simply cannot compete," Kennedy said. "If this trend continues, these exclusive, vibrant communities with their sidewalk cafés and faux dive bars will soon be a thing of the past."...

"A three-block section of [Chicago neighborhood] Wicker Park that once accommodated eight families, two vintage clothing stores, a French cleaners, and a gourmet bakery has been completely razed to make way for a private livery stable and carriage house," Kennedy said. "The space is now entirely unusable for affordable upper-income condominium housing. No one can live there except for the odd stable boy or footman who gets permission to sleep in the hayloft."...

The aristocracy has adamantly dismissed claims that the sweeping changes are detrimental to the merely wealthy who have been displaced, and many persons of noble blood have pointed to aristocratization's benefits. These include lower crime rates attributed to new punishments, such as public floggings and the pillory, which are primarily meted out for maintaining direct eye contact with members of the highest class. 

How will Ward 6 fend off aristocratization? Or has it already succumbed? Watch out for those powdered wigs and horse-drawn carriages.

Nelson Mandela Day

Today has been declared Nelson Mandela Day:

The overarching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better, and in doing so build a global movement for good. Ultimately it seeks to empower communities everywhere. “Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day.”

To celebrate Nelson Mandela Day and Nelson Mandela as a former prisoner, I am getting the word out about the great organization DC Books to Prisons, and I myself am going to get organized to send a box of books to a prison library. 


What do prisoners like to read? According to DC Books to Prisons, here are the books in most demand:

Nonfiction

1. Dictionaries (English, Spanish-English) (by far, most popular request)
2. Spanish Textbooks
3. Atlases and almanacs
4. Drawing or art
5. Science and alternative energy (including science magazines like Discover or Scientific American)
6. How-to (especially woodworking, plumbing, car mechanics, small motor repair)
7. GED preparation
8. Farming and agriculture
9. Personal finance or starting a business
10. American Indians, Mayans, or Aztecs
11. African American, Latin American, or classical (Roman,Greek) history

Fiction

1. Westerns
2. Urban

According to the American Library Association, popular fiction authors include, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Donald Goines, Sydney Sheldon, Danielle Steele, Stuart Woods, Jeffrey Deavers, John Grisham, Walter Mosley, all African American writers, all authors of Westerns.

Now, DC Books to Prison can only take paperback books. There are some other rules to follow too. You can also donate stamps, postage money, and time.

In the greater DC area, we have been blessed with some great prison librarians, such as Glennor Shirley (photo to the left). However, as I understand, the DC Jail does not even have a library! It seems to have a law library, but I am not certain. Well, it would be great if the DC Jail had a library.

As one of the prisoners wrote to DC Books to Prison:

"Thank you for everything that you do. You have no idea how much this not only means to us, but also helps us. Please don't ever stop." – Robert, Tucson AZ

Three cheers for Nelson Mandela and Nelson Mandela Day!


P.S. Here are a list of some possible activities suggested by the Nelson Mandela Day organizers.

Housing for All Summer Movie Series

Housing For All is kicking off its summer movie series "Summer in the City: A documentary series exploring gentrification and urban renewal." On Monday at 7pm in the MLK Library, they will be showing "Southwest Remembered," a documentary abut urban renewal in Southwest DC. In "Urban Renewal and Grief in Ward 6," I wrote about a study of the 23,500 SW residents, who were displaced in the 1950s "in order to build a 'new town in the city' with air-conditioned apartments for middle and upper income groups as well as some 929 public housing units." Does it sound like a mixed-income development?

The movie screen will have a post-view discussion with Brett Williams, professor of anthropology at American University, who helped in the creation of the film. I highly recommend the documentary and the discussion with the great Brett Williams.

Here are the movies in the series:
Southwest Remembered
Tuesday, July 16 at 6:00 PM
Martin Luther King Library: 901 G St NW
The history of urban renewal in Southwest Washington, DC.

Flag Wars
Tuesday, July 23 at 6:00 PM
Martin Luther King Library: 901 G St NW
Tensions rise in a community in Columbus, Ohio, when gay and lesbian white homebuyers move into a working-class black neighborhood.

Holding Ground
Tuesday, August 6 at 6:00 PM
Martin Luther King Library: 901 G St NW
The story of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. In 1985, African-American, Latino, Cape Verdean, and European-American residents in Roxbury, MA united to revitalize their community.

Boom: The Sound of Eviction
Tuesday, August 20 at 6:00 PM
CNHED: 1432 U Street NW
Like DC today, when the dot-com industry was booming in California, it made it hard for existing low-income residents to stay in San Francisco and Oakland.

Greenleaf, Potomac Gardens, Barry Farms -- Don't Believe DC Government Promises

In today's Post, the article "D.C. housing initiative languishes" demonstrated that the New Communities Initiative, HOPE VI, and other affordable housing programs do not fulfill mandated legal obligations to public housing residents. I would recommend that those living in Greenleaf Gardens, Potomac Gardens, Barry Farms, and other public housing projects not believe any future promises made to them by the DC government.

Most of those commenting on the article, however, focused on criticizing public housing residents for getting a supposed free ride. In contrast, commenters on a recent NY Times article "Gentrifying into the Shelters" (about how gentrification of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn was moving large numbers of low-income residents into either homeless shelters or more impoverished areas) realized that gentrification was making all of New York City unaffordable for many residents and had turned Manhattan at least into an "overpriced shopping mall." Maybe DC residents should be more concerned?

• Considering the fact that affordable housing programs across the United States have not fulfilled their legal obligations not to displace public housing residents, I would argue that the fact that DC public housing residents have been displaced for years is not due to incompentence or to DC's corrupt politicians, but rather it is a systemic problem. City governments are interested in tax revenue and thus in profit-making businesses; affordable housing is just not a priority, unless residents force politicians to make it a priority.
• Are cities like DC or New York or San Francisco only for the wealthy because they can afford them? The wealthy will always win in competition for housing with moderate and low-income residents. Do you want to live in the city that DC is becoming? Or can you live in the city that DC is becoming? 
• Many people are calling for a general "Right to the City." Writing about the recent Istanbul protests, journalist Jay Cassano found that protests have been very concerned about the city that that Istanbul is becoming: 
"this protest is the latest manifestation of a movement that has been stirring for some time now. The shopping mall is only one component of a plan to entirely redesign Taksim Square into a more car-friendly, tourist-accommodating, and sanitized urban center. Mass protests have also taken place recently to stop the closure of the landmark Emek Cinema..., which is also being converted into (no surprise) a shopping mall."

Maybe DC residents should be similarly concerned? As a former resident of Arthur Capper public housing told me: Arthur Capper “was part of the District of Columbia…like a finger or an arm in the body of the District of Columbia…You just cannot destroy a community and expect the city to thrive and survive." How might we make certain that DC thrives and survives? What might that mean?

In the meantime, here are some ideas about how the DC government can stop displacing our neighbors today.

Why the social meaning of places in Ward 6 matters

I was wondering why the media presents certain places in bizarrely negative ways, such as by presenting bars and public libraries as soaked in urine and certain landscapes as wastelands. These representations are, in fact, quite controversial here in Ward 6. For example, some saw the Arthur Capper public housing project as a "wasteland," while others thought of it (and still think of it) as a cherished home and "family" (their annual reunion was on Thursday). There is not a consensus about what such spaces mean to different groups. The media is part of a broader struggle over the meanings we give to spaces. Why do these meanings/representations matter?

In his fascinating Black Corona, Columbia University anthropology and African American Studies professor Steven Gregory writes: 

I stress the concrete political and material stakes that are at issue in struggles over "representation"...For it is precisely in struggles over the social meanings of places [like public libraries or local bars or public housing] that we see most clearly the constitutive relations between the symbolic economy of representations and the political economy of urban spaces. As David Harvey [geography professor at City University of New York and intellectual advocate for the Right to the City movement] has pointed out, "The fierce contest over images and counter-images of places is an arena in which the cultural politics of places, the political economy of their development, and the accumulation of a sense of power in place frequently fuse in indistinguishable ways." (pp. 17-18)

These representations and meanings matter because somehow those with economic and political power can use these representations to legitimate actions in their own interests and make such action appear inevitable or natural. So, it appears inevitable that a urine-soaked bar should be replaced or it is natural that a wasteland should be replaced by moving out the low-income residents and an entire community. [It seems, however, the urine-soaked-library image is more about criticizing the past leadership in DC (like criticizing Mayor Anthony Williams??)]. What other images might empower a wider range of DC residents and lead to actions that might include more of our neighbors?