Annotated Bibliography 2

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Newman, Harvey K. “Race and the Tourist Bubble in Downtown Atlanta.” Urban Affairs Review 37.3 (2002): 301-21. Web.

 

“Race and the Tourist Bubble in Downtown Atlanta” was written by Harvey K. Newman, a retired professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. This journal explains the evolution of downtown Atlanta from a central business district to a popular tourist destination. This piece examines the multiple projects put in motion to bring in more visitors and stimulate the economy, a majority of which uprooted historically black areas in order to make room for more attractions. In “Architectural Exclusion:  Discrimination and Segregation through Physical Design of the Built Environment” the author explains different methods of using environmental factors as segregation tools. This journal goes into more detail on how certain methods, such as building highways, are used to block access of certain places to particular groups of people. This article is very well written and credible, but it mainly only focuses on the pro-tourism side of the city’s history. To make this piece more well-rounded, additional arguments on the cons of developing for tourism could have been included. While this article explains where and when racial segregation took place, the previous bibliography, “Chocolate City, Vanilla Suburbs” examines what causes this segregation.

 

http://uar.sagepub.com/content/37/3/301.full.pdf+html

Annotated Bibliography 1

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Reynolds Farley, Howard Schuman, Suzanne Bianchi, Diane Colasanto, and Shirley Hatchett. “Chocolate City, Vanilla Suburbs: Will the Trend toward Racially Separate Communities Continue?” Social Science Research 7.4 (1978): 319-44. Web.

 

In “Chocolate City, Vanilla Suburbs”, investigators for the 1976 Detroit Area Study of the University of Michigan began intensive research to fully understand the residential segregation in the city of Detroit. Their research concluded that while blacks prefer to live in a neighborhood with a mixture of people with black and white descent, whites are not as accepting of integration into their neighborhoods. Similar to Detroit, many of Atlanta’s neighborhoods are predominately all black or all white. The cause of this segregation is likely similar to the reasons the DAS investigators revealed while studying the Detroit residential segregation. I chose to use this article because it offers a closer look into the detail of certain segregation caused by the environment and why it is caused. This article is very well written and is unbiased in its research methods. One weakness of this journal is that the investigators looked exclusively at Detroit while conducting their research, ignoring all other cities in the United States. Their theories on segregation may not hold true when applied in other cities across the country. This journal is similar to “Race and the Tourist Bubble in Downtown Atlanta”, in that both works examine racism and segregation to a certain degree. This piece looks more in depth at what causes the segregation, while the other journal examines how segregation affects the development of Atlanta.

 

http://ac.els-cdn.com/0049089X78900170/1-s2.0-0049089X78900170-main.pdf?_tid=a0b81e76-cbaa-11e5-ac0d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1454637120_33380cc393c22be14a3d39

Reading Summary 1

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Reading summary 1: Architectural Exclusion:  Discrimination and Segregation through Physical Design of the Built Environment

In Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation through Physical Design of the Built Environment, Sarah Schindler questions why lawmakers who are supposed to create and enforce anti discrimination laws fail to recognize architectural exclusion.  Even though it can be hard to see in everyday life, Schindler points to street grid designs, one way streets, lack of sidewalks and crosswalks, highways, transit stops and even parking permit requirements and how they can shape the demographics of cities and neighborhoods.

Architecture creates exclusion in many ways.  Certain amenities which are featured in residential developments are generally expensive which means most low income families cannot afford them, in turn only giving higher income families access. Physical barriers like bridges can also limit access to places.  In Long Island bridge overpasses were designed to be low enough to prevent buses used at the time from traveling under them.  This limited access of racial minorities and low income individuals using public transportation to Jones Beach.  These bridges were the design of Robert Moses, the city planner who is considered to be the “master builder” of New York (Schindler).  Moses even vetoed a proposed extension of the Long Island Railroad to Jones Beach.  Robert Moses’s biographer suggests the decision was due to “social-class bias and racial prejudice” (Schindler). By building those bridges so low, he excluded individuals from areas that he did not want them.

Another physical example of a barrier is the wall built in 1940 in Detroit known as the Eight Mile Wall.  This wall was constructed to separate an existing black neighborhood from a new white neighborhood. Even the Federal Housing Administration contributed to this by financing only projects that were residentially and racially segregated.  Additionally, high and long fences were shown in the article as examples of these barriers between black and white housing.  Examples of barriers and walls mold traffic patterns as well.

Communities also can have a dramatic effect on the mobility of individuals by the design of public transit stops. Rejected proposals to bring Atlanta’s MARTA transit network into suburban communities limits black city residents’ ability to obtain access to more suburban areas and things offered there such as jobs.  Highway routes and road infrastructure have often placed highway off-ramps in order to filter traffic away from wealthy communities.  In many instances highways are built to make places more accessible to cars, but the work was done in areas where poor communities had to be eliminated.  The article also claims that communities rely on confusion techniques to keep people out.  These techniques include one way, dead end and curvy streets, along with confusing signage.

Historically, communities used legal zoning methods and later on covenants to keep minorities out of certain areas. It is still very hard to prove architectural exclusion. It is hard to find solid evidence or prove their intent was to discriminate against a certain group of people. Architectural exclusion is still very common through zoning and public transportation, but it is unlikely the courts will do anything about it because of their current political and judicial environment. Schindler’s article is an attempt to educate those living in and using architecture used to exclude every day in hopes that they will raise a voice to the cause.

Reading Summary 2

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Reading Summary 2:  Tapestry of Space:  Domestic Architecture and Underground Communities in Margaret Morton’s Photography of a Forgotten New York

In Irina Nersessova’s review of Margaret Morton’s work, she studies the effects of the geographical environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals.  The article states that identity is tied to where you call home. The homeless building shelters with fragments what others have thrown away helps to give them their own sense of identity and in turn giving them a home.

The article relates the stories and photography of the homeless to Situationist International’s critique of mid 20th century advanced capitalism.  This group did not believe that the successes of advanced capitalism and its technological advancement and increased income or leisure could ever outweigh the social dysfunction and degradation of everyday life that resulted from it.  The group had a goal to eliminate the division between art and life and make them one. Today, everything is part of a certain image and images show what people desire to have. The world is becoming more and more materialistic, giving people a stronger feeling of power over those without such materials, such as the homeless. Unlike the settled, Morton’s homeless interviewees use space as a creative guide, building on it using found materials, rather than using the environment as a commodity.

One homeless interviewee named Bernard believes that he is striving to reach a level of consciousness that can’t be attained in mainstream society above the tunnel.  He believes that his environment is a “hell” to “perfect” his level of consciousness. Morton depicts the tunnel where Bernard lives as a psychological space for its residents rather than anything else.  The world there is a sort of refuge that protects him from outside harm but isolates and promotes further poverty, letting him and others essentially hide from their problems.

In Nersessova’s analysis of Morton’s photography, she states that the photography shows the human, emotional and individual sides of the subjects rather than painting them as hardened and cold. Morton points out that for mainstream society, the tunnel is an extremely undesirable place.  This in turn provides a refuge for the dwellers, as it prevents the tunnel from being disturbed for the most part, which is why most of the homeless choose to stay there instead of above ground on the streets.

The homeless often create art in the tunnels, including an imitation of Salvador Dali’s work and graffiti of famous sculptures shows that survival can be a creative undertaking. Morton believes this helps them maintain their sanity and peacefulness.

Since the homeless build their homes on public land, they face the fact that they could be forced out of their home any day. If the homeless is sent to shelters, they have forcefully taken away their individuality and identity, their most important sense of a home.

Negative images of the homeless as lazy, welfare recipients who are choosing this life does nothing to help these people. The stereotypes of the homeless community is challenged in interviews that reveal how the homeless take care of each other and even homeless animals.  The homeless population’s construction of small communities is not only about a need for shelter, but it is about the need to find their identity and where they belong.