Blog #33 – The Five Paradoxes of Public Space, with Proposals

Blog #33  – The Five Paradoxes of Public Space, with Proposals

A key, but not the only, aspect of public space is the role it plays in permitting popular public participation in democratic governance, democratic political decision-making. For the United States, it might be called “First Amendment Space,” after the provision in the U.S.A. Constituting establishing the rights of free speech and free assembly.  In a broader sense, public space should also be available democratically and based on equality of rights  for a full range of social interchanges, for recreation, sports, picnicking, hiking,  running, sitting, chatting, simply enjoyment, by all people, equally. Such uses, carried out democratically, are in turn necessary for democratic governance, but in a different way. Let me call them “Social Spaces.“ And they may be divided between Convening spaces, where convening for the purposes of political effectiveness may be planned, and Encounter Spaces, where chance meetings and discussion may btake place without prior planning/convesning.  “Infrastructural Spaces” are also social spaces but in a different sense, not directly political: spaces for transportation, streets, sidewalks, recreational areas, parks, hiking trails, bicycles partially. he term “Third Space” is sometimes in fashion in a similar sense, and often defined as somewhere between public and private.[1] More on social spaces elsewhere. When public space is referred to here, it is in the sense of political public space,  First Amendment space in the United States. Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Playa of Mothers in Buenos Aires, the Mall in Washington, D.C., Zuccotti Park in New York City, perhaps Central Park or Fifth Avenue, with its parades and marches, but also the fenced in space under the West Side highway at the time of the Republican Convention, and perhaps the indoor space of the Convention Center, as used for convening for discussions of alternate proposals for rebuilding after 9/11.

Five paradoxes, five proposals, one warning.

Paradox 1: The paradox of public space and democracy:To have truly democratic public spaces, you have to have a truly democratic society.But to have a truly democratic society, you have to have democratic public spaces—

The means and the end are inseparable: as we are witnessing today throughout the Near East, a public  space in a society that is not (yet, at least) democratic will not remain open for vibrant democratic discussion long. Only in a democratic society will the state’s use of tear gas be unthinkable.The effective use of public space is almost a sine qua non for the achievement of a democratic society, again as we have recently seen in the Near East.

The connection between political democracy (see economic democracy below) is most obvious in the ways in which the state regulates public space, and the decision-making process by which its regulations are agree upon. The process as it now stands in the United States in a sense ignores confronting the relationship between democracy and public space. The regulation of public space is largely administrative, e.g. Park Department rules, with minimal informed public participation. For instance, I have tried to find he criteria by which he use of Bryant Park is determined by he Park Department, and have just gotten the run-around; the rules are just submit your application, and if it fits we’ll let you know. Even more seriously, the provision of democratic public space is not seen as a formal function of government. The constitution proclaims a right of free assembly for the presentation of grievances;; should it not be understood that that implies an affirmative obligation to make space available for such free assembling?

So:

Proposal 1: Each city should have a public democratic First Amendment spaces plan as part of its regular plan for the city’s development and administration. That plan should include not only the desired extent, locations, and design features of public space in the city, but also the principles for the regulation and management of the uses of all public owned or controlled spaces permitting full exercise of democratic political (first amendment) rights, giving such rights priority.

Much of what is now public space is already owned by and planned for by cities: parks, plazas, sports facilities, waterfronts, streets for parades and street fairs, auditoriums in public schools . There should be a comprehensive plan regulating all such places and uses, taking into consideration a priority for the defined exercise of constitutional rights of assembly, and expanding such places if they are inadequate.

Paradox 2: The paradox of public space and equality

To have truly democratic public space, you cannot have gross inequalities of wealth..But to limit gross inequalities of wealth, you need to have truly democratic public spaces.

It is not a coincidence that when Zuccotti Park was put to a classic First Amendment use, it was done under the banner of Occupy Wall Street, taken as a symbol of grossly unequal wealth. . Inequalities of wealth and democracy are in constant tension with each other.  Our experience in the United States,  as in the last election and recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, is a classic example of that tension.     A gross inequality in wealth results in a gross inequality in political power, which in turn leads to a gross limitation of democracy. In order to address gross inequalities of wealth, you need true democracy, for which in turn (paradox one) you need truly public space in which citizens may assemble for the exercise of their democratic rights.. But in turn, to have truly public space, you need to address gross inequalities of wealth. Not unexpectedly, our billionaire mayor in New York City whose firm is based on reporting on Wall Street’s ups and downs, disagrees.

But even further gross inequalities of wealth lead to gross inequalities in the ownership of land and the buildings built on land. For the greatest restraint on the ability to assemble freely in public spaces is in practice the limited availability of such spaces (and the lack of planning for them, as above discussed). But stepping back, the biggest reason for the limited availability of such spaces is, simply and tautologically, the dominating presence of non-public spaces, that is, private spaces, and their control through a system of property rights in which economic wealth and power largely dictate what uses are in fact permitted and what are not.

So:

Proposal 2: The city should, based on the plan of Proposal 1, have a capital budget that provides for the acquisition, by eminent domain if necessary, of adequate public space to serve democratic political purposes,

Paradox 3: The paradox of public vs. private spaces.

Certain types of private spaces are essential for the functioning of public spaces.

But the privatization of public space also inhibits their public use.

On the one hand, some enhance public use.  On the other hand, the existence of certain kinds of private space is essential for public spaces to best serve their desired functions.

Some commercial uses can serve to enhance the public use and enjoyment of a park, or other public space. The availability of food service is a classic case, and vendors are unobjectionable from almost any point of view. If it enhances other public uses, recreation, education, appreciation of nature, simply enjoyment, fine. Sidewalk cafes an obvious example, and even take into account one First Amerndment right, although not the one we are here concerned with, limited commercial uses can actually facilitate peaceable assembly (fast food vendors at the Mall in Washington).^[2]

Some private uses in fact enhance the purposes of First Amendment public space. For most political actions in fact start there. Democratic political action does not ultimately spring from organized political action, but democratic political action rests on a citizenry brought together in social, rather than political or commercial, forums, which are today not a subject of governmental action. ^[3].

On the other hand, permitting private uses of public space may limit their availability and usefulness. Bryant Park, on 42d street in New York City, behind the New York Public Library and five minutes from Times Square, one of the busiest places in the world, is clearly a public space that lends itself ideally for public events, including First Amendment types. But its use is controlled, by law, by a private corporation, the Bryant Park Corporation. The Corporation  is open about its missions: they include “enhance[ing] the real estate values of its neighbors,”[4] and it is “privately funded and operates Bryant Park with private sector techniques and management methods. “  It is open about its available uses of the space. In applying for a use, the applicant is presented with a questionnaire, which includes the question: “Is the event public or private,?” but no detail is readily available at what private events would be considered. Nor is information given as to the criteria by which conflicting requests for use are judged.

Some purely commercial uses obviously preclude such a public space from performing its function as First Amendment space.; other commercial uses may enhance its effectiveness for political discussions and  even assemblies. But others do not: Fashion shows, shooting movies that involving blocking off and limiting access to the space involved, do not enhance the use and enjoyment of that space.

Putting public space to effective First Amendment thus use requires a calibrated relationship to private spaces and private uses. There pressures to see it as a possible money-maker, enabling ita to become “self-supporting,”  are understandable But iIt would be ironic if the maintenance of public space could only be provided for by its privatization, taking it out of public use.

So:

Proposal 3a: For democratic political uses, the private use of spaces, both publicly owned and privately owned, and their relation to each other should be carefully scrutinized, and made subject to direct local input or more depending on scale,[5] as proposal 1 suggested.

The concept of places of public accommodation is well known in the context of civil rights: there are permissible and impermissible uses of such places, and they are clearly subject to law. Some places of public accommodation: banquet halls, community rooms, lobbies and plazas, are open by law or zoning codes, and can reasonably be used for occasional public discussions, with discrimination prohibited. 60 Wall Street is a recent ideal example.

They might be made subject to open use subject to first amendment requirements, which include the preparation of regulations as now permitted governing reasonable time, description of place, and manner.

Would not a simple provision in the zoning code providing for bonuses for the provision of space specifically designed and managed for use as political public space, geared to the availability of such space in each neighborhood, be a useful possibility? But such possibilities are not even on the table today, not even for discussion. You would need a very self-confident, seasoned, committed democratic governments to do so, because the spaces requested might well be used to criticize the very government that permitted its use. They should be.

Perhaps it might be called a Plan for Communal spaces Perhaps the way in which city owned or leased spaces are used by community boards, in the city’s 59 community districts, could be an example. Or private adaptable communal spaces could be given real estate credit in any building providing them, conditional on their being publicized. Perhaps even temporary communal uses of empty store fronts, as targeted by No Longer Empty, might be models.

Public policy recognizes the problem in many ways: zoning imposes limits (but only hesitantly)  is pro-active in promoting particular uses – bonuses for plazas, theaters, tax exemptions for certain uses, etc.. The proposal for zoning bonuses mentioned above would be a positive addition to that list. Making provision for public political use a requirement goes a step further, and directly limits the power of wealth reflected in private ownership to constrain the exercise of democratic rights of assembly and democratic political participation.

Proposal 3b: Affirmative inducements may be provided publicly for private property owners to permit or even encourage the use of private property for public First Amendment purposes.

Paradox 4: The social and convening and infrastructure uses of public space contradict each other.

The use of public space for social purposes can interfere with its use for convening free assemblies. But social spaces are necessary for the organization of convening assemblies.

You cannot have chairs and tables, such as facilitate social interaction and initial organizing, scattered around a space where a mass assembly of people is to be convened.

Proposal 4: Utilize the advantages of technology and good design to make space adaptable, as in the New York convention center assemblies on the planning of the World Trade Center site after 9/11, or the design of Time Square serving both social and emergency transportation needs., or bullarards and barriers see used both for security and places to eat lunch on.

FINALLY, AND MOST CRITICALLY:

Paradox 5:  the best use of public space is illegal, and necessarily so.

To get the attention necessary for fully democratic discussion, a disruption of normal routines, of expected occurrences, is optimal. But that means disregarding normal rules and regulations,

And often for purposes critical of the instuitutions imposing such rules.

Unplanned, unpermitted use of public spaces by assemblies increases their visibility and their often desired disruptive capacity. But by the same token they contravene law and official regulations.

The most important democratic political use of public space is for the exercise of the First Amendment right of peaceable assembly for the redress of grievances, grievance addressed specifically to the government that makes the public space available. But any government thus far known to man or woman would feel itself attacked by such assembling, and have a strong interest in restraining it. There is thus an inevitable tension arising from the clear incentive government has to restrict the use of space being used to criticize it. It is no coincidence that police departments use heavy-handed tactics in destroying Occupy encampments wherever they feel they lawfully can.  (toss books in dump trucks, destroy food, take away heaters, make arrests, use billy clubs.

Proposal 5: Accept the fact that it is so, and educate law enforcement and court officials to respect the motives of those breaching regulations on the use of space in how offenders are treated.  Do the exact opposite of what is increasingly the common practice in the handling of such breaches through the criminal justice system.

These five paradoxes can perhaps be seen as instances of a larger vicious circle, an expansion of  Paradox 1: “to achieve a free society, you need free individuals, but you can only have free individuals in a free society.”[6] A vicious circle, but not a deadly one. It simply means that the two are inseparable, and one has to move on the two fronts simultaneously, in parallel. So specifically, in the context of this conference, it means that the effort to create democratic public space must be seen as part of the effort to achieve democracy itself. The two must go hand in hand.

 * * * * *

And so a warning . It is ultimately the importance of democracy that makes achieving democratic public spaces so important, and that undergirds the argument that they be well designed. . The availability of public space for democratic purposes should not be fetishized,[7] and the role of good physical design in its use should not lose sight of the greater purpose to be served: the promotion of democracy.  The design process itself, as well as its results, can be a contribution to that goal. But formal legal and management arrangements are, in the first place, critical. Legalizing Zuccotti Park, for example, or any occupied site, is not a goal in itself; dealing directly with the inequalities of wealth and of undemocratic power, is.

The goal is democracy, not a particular form of public space, although it can be an important means to that end.

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[1] The term “third space” or its equivalent has been used in many different ways: spaces between home and work (Oldenberg Oldenburg, Ray (1989). The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon House and (2000). Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories about the “Great Good Places” at the Heart of Our Communities. New York: Marlowe & Company. Sociologists sometimes use the term to describe neighborhood or community spaces that are not publicly owned nor privately exclusive. For a set of well-done examples, see the special issue of Shelterforce, Hearts of the Neighborhood, National Housing Institute, Montclair, New Jersey, Fall 2012. Edward Soja has used the term in what has been called post-modern fashion in Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1996. Places of public accommodation, in civil rights law, has a similar intermediate meaning. Virtual space is a quite difference meaning of the same “third space” term.

[2] The other First Amendment right, freedom of speech, can come into play here too. Sidewalk displays and sales of art, or perhaps of books, are treated differently from sales of sunglasses or umbrellas in New York City.

[3] The discussion above neglects an important aspect of public space, alluded to in the opening: democratic public space also involved equality of rights in its use for a full range of social interchanges, for recreation, sports, picnicking, hiking,  running, sitting, chatting, simply enjoyment, by all people, equally. For such uses in turn promote the capacity and the desire of citizens to exercise their rights in all spheres, to address together issues of democracy and equality. Their importance adds to the challenges to both the design process and design results

[4] http://www.bryantpark.org/about-us/mission.html

[5] Simpler and even more democratic forms of land ownership may simplify and further democraticiz the use of land. The suggestion of the Planners Network of the United Kingdom goes in that direction:

Sustainable places cannot be achieved without the public and community sector having a long term stake in land and development. We must learn the lessons of New Towns and Garden Cities, and successful community development trusts in the UK, where land is held in common ownership by local authorities or trusts. In these communities, the benefits of land value uplift and the income from developments on community owned land are recycled back into the community to spend on services, better maintenance of property, parks and playgrounds, and on building housing or workshops for local need. In this model, the community is the long term steward of the land, looking after it as an asset for present and future generations http://pnuk.wikispaces.com/file/view/20121027pnukmanifesto.pdf  Draft Manifesto on Land Use Planning and Development, Planners Network of the United Kingdom

[6] As formulated in depth by the Frankfurt School and I think most sharply by Herbert Marcuse.

[7] See Blog #5. The Purpose Of The Occupation Movement And The Danger Of Fetishizing Space, at pmarcuse.wordpress.com.

[Revised version of a paper prepared for the Conference, “Putting Public Space in its Place,” at Harvard University, March, 2013, hosted by Prof. Jerrold Kayden. ]

 

Blog #31 – New Rules for New Radicals

Blog #31. New Rules for New Radicals

 

1.    1. Build on existing campaigns and demands, but in the framework of transformative claims and goals, highlighting root causes and the necessity for  deepen and broad changes

2.      2. Build constant coalitions around actions and goals, showing the interrelations of all claims and their ultimate common roots.

3.     3. Compromise strategically and balance importance of immediate improvement with need for long-term perspective.

4.      4. Be clear that the goal is not achieving consensus, but rather of winning an ultimate fundamental change in power relations between the 1% whose wealth comes from the work of the 99%; between two sides, clarify the inevitable and causative conflicts of interest between them.

5.     5. Privilege labor-capital demands, as inherently accepting fundamental economic conflict sand requiring transformation.

6.    6. Stress the key role of government, press for its democratic control and engage in the full range of political activity, within and outside political parties.

       7.  Do not be afraid to discuss the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” and their historical meanings.

These are intended to build on most of the older Rules for Radicals of Saul Alinsky and Acorn, or of the campaigns to build worker ownership and cooperatives, but to recognize their limits and add to them a transformative content aimed at building an ultimate radical social movement for effective change around cultural visions of a democratic socialism, details of whose designs will be worked out as theory and practices develop together. It might be organized around Chavez’ three triangles of socialism:

1) national/global social planning and ownership; 2) worker controlled production and services; and 3) everyday community empowerment for rights to the city.

Blog #32 – A Fable About Winning in Congress

A Fable of Congress and Progressive Action

              “…universal background checks don’t work”[1]  ”banning assault weapons isn’t                           going to work”[2] Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

 Once upon a time there was a Senator from Iowa, who happened to be in office when a man shot some children in a school with a gun his mother had let him use. The country was shocked, and some proposed laws making it more difficult to buy the type of gun he used. The Senator objected. The bills did not pass. A little later, someone else used a different kind of gun to kill some other children. See, said the Senator, you can’t prevent murder by restricting guns; that won’t work. And it violates the constitution, he said. Let’s give up on it.

 A little while later, a driver in Iowa, driving at 80 miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour zone, swerved off an interstate and hit and killed a child. See, said the Senator, speed limits don’t prevent a person from speeding, as everyone knows who’s ever driven a car. Besides, interstate highways are used by people traveling between states, and the Constitution protects the right of persons to travel between states. Speed limits don’t work, and they may violate the Constitution. Let’s give up on them. .

 The Environmental Protection Agency was about to adopt new regulations controlling automobile emissions, to protect fresh air and moderate climate change affects. But, the Senator said, that won’t work; China does pollution with world-wide effects, we can’t control it just here. Environmental controls just here won’t work, , and we can’t make China abide by them. Let’s give up on them, the Senator said.

 Everybody knows our schools aren’t teaching all children to read, write, calculate, or think, as well as they should. We’re requiring children to go to school for a particular number of hours a day, days in a year, to get them to learn, and testing them till they do. But forcing kids to learn doesn’t work, the Senator said. And besides it restricts their freedom. Let’s give up on the attempt, he said.

 The right to vote is protected by the Constitution, and some laws are designed to implement that right. But in some voting districts lines are so long, hours so restricted, and voting procedures so unclear, that some citizens are not in fact able to vote. See, said the Senator, having laws protecting the right to vote don’t work; we shouldn’t make election officials go through a lot of paperwork to show they’re complying. Voting rights laws don’t work. And they go beyond the Constitution. Let’s give up on them.

 We want, said the Senator, every citizen to be free to do whatever he or, to some extent, also she, wants to do, and to make of themselves whatever they want. Forcing them to compete with non-citizens is unfair. Our laws shouldn’t allow immigrants to become citizens. Laws have to avoid having immigrants compete with our citizens for jobs. Immigration reform won’t work. And it shouldn’t give foreigners rights the Constitution doesn’t give them.  We should give up on it, the Senator said..

 The people of Iowa listened to what the Senator said. They thought about it a while, and its implications sank in. They really wanted gun controls, speed limits on highways, less pollution, better schools, full voting rights for all citizens, a fair chance for  immigrants to become citizens. What the Senator is saying doesn’t work for us, the people said. It eviscerates what the Constituting stands for. If things don’t work, let’s fix them, not give up on them. Let’s give up on the Senator instead, they said.

 The next November, they did.

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[1] http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/update-grassley-assault-weapons-ban-won-t-pass/article_e56b57a2-869f-11e2-ba2e-0019bb2963f4.html

[2] http://www.southwestiowanews.com/council_bluffs/news/local_news/grassley-talks-gun-control-with-glenwood-students/article_41045678-6c14-11e2-95fa-001a4bcf887a.html

Blog #30 – Transformative Proposals in Nine Areas

Blog #30: Beyond Immediate Proposals: Some Transformative Provocations

The last blog, Blog #29 began with the puzzle that the United States faces deep-seated problems today: problems of poverty, inequality, discrimination, poor education, unemployment, unaffordable housing, unaffordable health care, social aggressiveness and exclusion, insecurities of all sorts, all in a country that claims the values and has the  resources to remedy them.  The answer suggested was that the situation was partly the result of shortfalls of democratic procedures, partly the result of inequalities of wealth and power, but that both of these rest on an ideologically and culturally blocked awareness of fundamental causes and available alternatives – a blocked consciousness that needs to be directly addressed.

That blog  argued that, in dealing with the tea party (as a stand-in for the defenders of the status quo}, it would be most effective to combat those blockages by starting with the problems that are generally acknowledged, pushing some immediate steps towards solutions, but constantly linking those steps to a critique of a frame in which they ought to be embedded, showing how logically the immediate leads to more and more radical and even utopian visions of what in the long run needs to be done.

Some examples, not presented as developed proposals for the formulation of demands or platforms, but as examples of the approach that might be taken, follow. [1]

A: Efficiency-only reforms: reforms that simply make existing programs or policies more efficient, eliminate waste, trim costs, but change neither the thrust of the program not the power relations in which it is enmeshed.

B: Liberal reforms: reforms which expand or modify a program, using market mechanisms wherever possible, and without challenging its structural causes or the power relations in which it is embedded.

C: Radical reforms: reforms which drastically modify programs and expand their aims, challenging the power relations in which they are embedded

D: Transformative Claims: claims, going beyond specific reform proposals which address their structural causes and links to systemic issues, directly challenging the power relations in which they are embedded and serve.

[These examples are suggested only as illustrative, and are thus far really only perfunctorily sketched. For each, there are groups and individuals who have gone much further in working out demands and claims, at all levels, who should be consulted on each issue.  The point here is only to suggest the kind of differences to be found on each, and in each case running along a non-exclusive spectrum from dealing merely with efficiency-only to presenting the need for full-scale transformation. More detail and other examples would be welcome.]:

        Higher education:[2]

A: Efficiency-only reforms: Standardized conditions of private loans

B: Liberal reforms: Provide a public option for loans; provide substantially increased public grants

C: Radical reforms: Limit scope of private for-profit institutions.

D: Transformative Claims: Make higher education free.

2.      Mortgage foreclosures^[3]:

A: Efficiency-only reforms: Higher reserve requirements of banks; judicial review of sloppy paper work.

B: Liberal reforms: Expand opportunities for voluntary renegotiation of loans; subsidize lowering of interest rates and writ-downs of loans; regulate rents taking into account landlords’ finances.

C: Radical reforms: Require write-down of loan principals; mandate continued occupancy at reasonable rents after foreclosure; facilitate non-profit ownership; regulate rents taking into account occupants’ finances.

D: Transformative Claims: Remove housing from the speculative market through public acquisition or facilitation of conversion to private non-profit, limited equity, cooperative, or community land trust ownership, with adequate subsidies to cover maintenance and utilities at levels affordable to lower-income occupants; confiscatory taxation of speculative profits; aggressive expansion of public housing. Housing should be treated for its use value, not its exchange value.

3.      Public Space:[4]

A: Efficiency-only reforms: Administer to protect surrounding property values.

B: Liberal reforms: Provide, expand, and administer to protect surrounding property values and quality of life of neighbors; regulate use by reasonable police measures; give zoning bonuses where privately provided.

C: Radical reforms: Provide, expand, and administer taking into account needs of surrounding community; Protect use against police repression, Require private provision in connection with new construction.  Protect right of use by homeless.

D: Transformative Claims: Provide, expand, and administer adequately to satisfy the needs of the population as a whole; give priority to uses appropriate for the exercise of political democratic rights; mandate public use for these purposes of private property where necessary. Provide supportive permanent housing for homeless users.

4.      Health

A: Efficiency-only reforms: Planned decentralization/consolidation. Computerize records; permit cross-jurisdiction private insurance in a transparent marketplace.

B: Liberal reforms: Finance Medicare and Medicaid properly. Permit unified bargaining with pharmaceutical companies; subsidize insurance, providing a public option.

C: Radical reforms: Medicare for all. Buy out private hospitals and care facilities at asset, not income, values. National Health Service

D: Transformative Claims: Eliminate fee for service provision, comprehensive national health care system, without access restrictions, paid for routinely as a public service, like police and fire protection.

5.      Jobs and Labor Relations

A: Efficiency-only reforms: Full appointments to NLRB; adequate information to workers;

B: Liberal reforms: Adequate inspections and enforcement of FLSA, health and safety standards; facilitation of discrimination cases. card checks for elections; indexing minimum wage levels

C: Radical reforms: Living wage requirements for all jobs; expanded public service jobs; ceilings on management and ownership incomes and benefits

D: Transformative Claims: Requirement of worker participation in decisionmaking in ownership; public provision by public employees of all essential services.

6.      City Planning:[5]

A: Efficiency-only reforms: independent technically qualified City Planning Commission with adequate staff

B: Liberal reforms: Advisory community planning boards

C: Radical reforms:  Community Planning Boards with decision-making powers

D: Transformative Claims: Public ownership of land, city-wide Assembly of Planning Boards with decision-making power over all land use issues.

7. Homelessness

A. Efficiency-only reforms: Screen applicants for shelter eligibility; track applicants; police supervision of shelters;

B. Liberal reforms: Expand shelter system; provide social service consultations.

C. Radical reforms: Provided expanded affordable housing opportunities; staff transitional housing where needed; provide homeless persons input into policy and administration.  Policy;

D. Transformative reforms: Establish and implement a legal Right to Housing for All, including direct public provision and stringent rent controls.

8. Municipal Budgeting

A. Efficiency-only reforms: Putting the capitol budget within the jurisdiction of the City Planning commission.

B. Liberal Reforms: Giving Community Boards or Councilmanic District assemblies a decision-making role in expenditures within their districts.

C. Radical Reforms: Providing a comprehensive city-wide Participatory Budgeting process affecting both operating and capital budgets

D.Transformative Reforms: Expanding a Participatory Budgeting proeess to cover revenues/tax policies locally and adopting national legislation prohibiting tax evasion by cross-border evasion and prohibiting local-level competition in tax programs.

 9. Worker Ownership and Co-operatives

A. Efficiency-Only Reforms. Permit NLRB-supervised elections for union representation

B. Liberal Reforms. Permit Card-check Voting. Aggressively enforce rights to organize and bargain.

C. Radical Reforms. Provide for majority worker ownership, in stock or co-operative form, of individual firms.[6]

D. Transformative Reforms. Strengthen or transfer to democratically controlled public ownership entire sectors of the economy and of production and services provision. [7]

Many other examples could be given, and the above certainly need further development. The point is that, at whatever level of reform is strategically immediately attainable, the principles behind the further levels should always be on the table, including the arguments for the most transformative. They may seem utopian goals here and now, but there is no historical or material reason why any of them are not reachable. Insisting that they be acknowledged even in the midst of the more immediate objectives is at least a small step in the direction of getting there.

Blog #31 will hesitantly suggest some New Rules for New Radicals as possibilities for moving to implementation of such transformative reforms.

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[1] My debt to Andre Gorz and the concept of reformist and non-reformist reforms should be clear.

[2] See Andrew Ross’ discussion, described in Dan Schneider, “Occupying Student Debt,” Dollars and Snse, Jan-Feb 2012, p. 6

[3] See further Marcuse, Peter. 2009. “A Critical Approach to the Subprime Mortgage Crisis in the United States: Rethinking the Public Sector in Housing.” City & Community, vol. 8, No. 3, September, pp. 351-357.

[4] See my blogs #3, 4, and 5.

[5] Tom Angotti, New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011, provides excellent background.

[6] Gar Alperovitch,

[7] See Alliance for a Just Society.

Blog #29 – Premature Democracy, Congress, the 99% and the Tea Party

What’s the matter with the United States Congress? Too much democracy? ? “Premature democracy”? If the 99% are dissatisfied with the status quo and it only benefits the 1%, why don’t they change it? What explains the Tea Party’s positions and its power? Need it be dealt with? How?

 To put it another way: Why do we have serious problems of poverty, inequality, discrimination, poor education, unemployment, unaffordable housing, unaffordable health care, social aggressiveness and exclusion, insecurities of all sorts, all in a country that has the resources and claims the values to remedy them. Why then do they exist, why is not the government addressing them actively and effectively? Is the problem with our democracy?

Blog #29 suggests three answers; Blog #30 gives examples..

Summary:

 1)      Political procedures and material development. Congress’s rules are quite democratic (small d). They are not so different, for instance, from those governing Occupy Wall Street’s General Assemblies, although they do need significant change. Nor is the material level of development that is sometimes held a prerequisite for democracy missing, although also needing significant change.  Specifically, inequality in wealth permits undue influence  to be exerted in the electoral and political processes, over and above procedural rules and practices.

2)      Consciousness: Cultural, ideological, and behavioral patterns. What keeps the 99% from acting in its own interests is the gross disparity in power between the 99% and the 1%, both in political governance and private wealth. It is power both reflected in and buttressed by a set of cultural, ideological, and behavioral patterns, a consciousness, which results in substantial support for the 1% even among the 99%, a support represented by the tea party movement in the United States.

3)      The need for radical/utopian critical challenges. Those patterns, and the material economic relations on which they are based, need to be addressed directly and frontally at the ideological level as well as the political and economic if fundamental change is to take place. Liberal reforms are needed. But they must ultimately challenge the underlying structural aspect of power which keeps the 1% where they are, even at the expense of being called utopian. The ideology and consciousness that must be challenged is represented, symbolically, by the tea parties and their elected representatives in political office. The challenge must be addressed front on.[1]

 * * * * *

 1)      Political procedures and material development.

 “Premature democracy” is a phrase Slavoj Žižek refers to in a provocative discussion[2] of current criticisms of democracy. It suggests that you can’t expect democracy if the ground is not prepared for it.

 There are many in the mainstream who so hold.  They may allude to “failures of democracy” in countries recently moving from real existing socialism towards capitalism as in Eastern Europe and China, or in countries with deep ideological or religious cleavages, as in the Near East, or countries with deep ethnic or tribal divisions, as in parts of Africa. Perhaps some level of economic development is necessary before democracy can work, they argue.[3] A significantly high level of nationalism supporting a unifying national identity may be necessary, others hold. Or a sufficiently sturdy set of institutions. Or a consensus on the very idea that democracy is desirable. Or simply time, experience with democracy in practice.

 But the material developmental conditions for democracy in the United States seem to be sufficient. The evidence is overwhelming that the country has ample resources and productive capacity to feed, clothe, and decently house its entire population, and provide it with the material conditions of life adequate for the full and free development of all members of society. Living conditions that would have been considered utopian in any previous era, and that to many may still seem so today in comparison to what they experience, are in fact well within reach today. Lack of material actual productive capacity is not the problem.

 Nor are the formal rules of political participation necessary in a democracy fundamentally lacking. A focus on the actual procedural rules being followed, both for voting in and for Congress, are  a part, but only a part, of the problem.  Pointing at the procedures Congress follows as undemocratic and requiring reform isn’t enough. Occupy Wall Street struggled to put into practice as thoroughly democratic a process as is to be found in public use today. It allowed for anyone wishing to speak at a meeting on an issue to speak, in the order requesting permission, it provided for voting by show of hands almost by request any time (and informally by hand gestures after any speaker), for super- majorities to carry a vote, and even then Occupy permitted anyone with deeply felt objections to block the result. Anyone displaying an interest was entitled to vote. Some objected that it was not a very efficient way of making decisions, but it was considered an affordable price to pay for a vibrant democracy, which indeed it was.

 Surprisingly, Congress actually follows the rules Occupy uses pretty closely in practice.  It isn’t that Congress’ formal procedures are non-democratic. Those that are, like gerrymandering or interference with the ability to vote, could all be changed by Congress if it wanted, even  within existing procedures, to do so. It could regulate campaign expenditures more than it does, even given current Supreme Court rulings, and the impact of those expenditures depends on many factors other than their quantity.

 The problem Congress faces goes beyond procedure. What Republicans do now that is called undemocratic, like the filibuster,  Democrats might wish to be able to do if party strengths were reversed, and it is a form of protecting rights of small minorities. Arguably even removing the road-blocks to fairness in existing procedures would only make a marginal difference in the results, and going whole hog to the Occupy model might have even worse results. Apparently even the massive money sloshing around and used in the last election did not make a major difference. Private lobbying, given members of integrity, is not per se undemocratic.

 Blaming “Congress” for the current impasse on budget expenditures and taxes, and arguing that a change of rules would solve the problem, is in any case fallacious. It is the position of the Republicans, and only some fraction of them, that is immediately to blame.  Wherever the difficult line between the protection of minority rights and the implementation of majority desires might be drawn, few would argue on principled procedural grounds that it has been crossed. The filibuster rules in the Senate are perhaps the one exception, but even those can be changed under the Senate’s own rules as they now exist.

 So it is not that Congress is fundamentally an undemocratic institution, but that it substantively reflects the fact that a significant part of the electorate disagrees significantly with the majority, a large enough part so that according them minority rights does not violate fundamental democratic precepts.

 But does Congress really reflect the electorate?  the hope for democracy in the United States premature?

 That depends on how democratic the election process is, and thus on what the rules for electing members of Congress are. There are certainly large questions about how democratic those rules are. But the election of right-wing Republicans is not solely dependent on the bias in those rules. Conservatives benefit disproportionately from those rules, but their successes are only in part due to them. Certainly there are problems with registration procedures, with gerrymandering, with the Electoral College, big problems with access to the media and the role of money in elections. And certainly those rules can and should be made very much more democratic. The end result would be much more reflective of what one person – one vote would produce if all the ideal formal rules of democratic procedures were followed to the letter.

 Yet one would have to admit that, if Obama squeaked through the 2012 election with a mere 52% of the votes on a moderately liberal platform, whether the percentage of votes going to a more challenging platform have been greater, or lesser,  is an open question, even under procedurally better conditions.

 So all of the necessary conditions for success by any of these standards exist in the United States, and none of the conditions predicting failure.

 But the conditions need examination. Both the effectiveness of the procedural rules of democracy, and the benefits of the existing productive capacity, are dependent on the distribution of power that lies underneath them, and that in turn is determined by something other than sheer numbers involved in voting or in production.

 2)      Consciousness: Cultural, ideological, and behavioral patterns.

 If all rules achieved perfect democracy, there would be, in today’s United States, a substantial minority that would support the position of the right wing Republicans, say of the Tea Party. It is substantial even if only 8% of voters consider themselves Tea Party members (already a significant number, since membership implies active support, not simply voting), but according to polls 30% look favorably on it, and only 49% do not.[4] It is a large enough minority to be entitled to a substantial role in the deliberations of any democratic body, even with discounts for all the undemocratic elements contributing to its electoral strength. If there is substance, even if not mathematical accuracy, behind Occupy’s slogan: “we are the 99%, they are the 1%” why do 48% of the electorate vote with the 1%? Are their votes “freely” cast?

 The argument is strong that voters are not free to decide for whom to vote, in any but a limited formal procedural sense. The votes of a substantial number today do not reflect their actual material interests, or the results would be much closer to the 99%/1% split of Occupy. As Arundhati Roy frequently says, “We are many, and they are few.” Material interests are important, and material inequality stands in the way of a full actual realization of material equality, a realization sharp enough to determine a vote. Voters are in fact very unequal and those at the losing end of inequality are not free in their voting.

 To be fully free, voters would have to be in a position to have access to and interpret the necessary information free of manipulation by others. They would have to be free of material pressures forcing a vote against long-term interests, requiring a suppression of actual preferences in favor of satisfaction of immediate needs. That would require a higher level of material equality than we have today, one at least guaranteeing for all some minimum threshold, of income, education, health, personal security, the effective ability to exercise political, social, and economic rights. Material burdens get in the way, in a vicious circle, of the ability to comprehend the cause of those burdens. Even for Tea Party members not immediately subject to direct want, the worry about the future, interpreted for them by others in so many ways, has the same effect as if it were actually fully present today, whether or not its danger is in fact real, as it is for some.

 These material burdens could, theoretically, be changed immediately by the strong concerted action of the 99% that would benefit from change. Yet the strength of the labor movement, which might be taken as one indicator of the power of that 99%, is weaker today than it was at any time since the New Deal, and the militancy of social movements today is demonstrably less than it was then. But even a return to New Deal levels of political and social action seems remote today.

 The problem has a deeper dimension.  Even, say, a return to the social provisions of the New Deal, or even of the most social welfare oriented countries of Europe today, would likely make a limited difference. Such provisions might deal with one dimension of the problem, but a deeper dimension would remain: the ideological/psychological. It is the blocked dimension of the consciousness of alternatives. The blockages keep individuals from realizing, from visualizing, what the alternatives might be to the problematic situations they face now. Other dimensions deal with what the relations among people would be in a truly  equal society, what alternatives for the organization of society might exist, what other motivations besides profit might drive the economic engine – and what individual values might provide satisfaction  with one’s life.

 The realization of these alternate dimensions is blocked by characteristics imposed subtly but pervasively on individuals in our present society: the felt need to consume ever more goods, live in ever bigger houses, compete forever for greater incomes and wealth and power. Culture is a weak name for the pattern. Ideology, the explicit formulation of the rationale behind the system as it is, is another contributor to the blockages. Ideologies are of course directly connected to material relations, but not automatically, and are part cause as well as consequence of the material, and retain an independent and growing role in the nature of the order of society.  As long as these characteristics of the present social and economic relations persist, political relations will be subject to their influence, and the steps from 52% voting majorities to close to 99% voting majorities will be blocked.

 3)      The blockage of radical/utopian critical challenges.

 The first task to achieve real democracy is to remove the rules and procedures that prevent us from having a truer democracy, and the second is to reduce the power of those who create and benefit from the inequality of others. But undertaking those tasks needs to keep in mind the third task, opening awareness to the further dimension that is possible, the alternative dimension, perhaps seen as utopian today, but yet completely possible given the productive capacity our society has achieved. Immediate gains need to be linked firmly to a vision of the full potentials of a democratic society.

 The problem of the tea party—of a response to the problems with which the existing system seems incapable of dealing—is one embodiment of what needs to be dealt with. The tea party is made up of many diverse types, and supported financially by some in different positions but having a vested interest in its success.  For an apparent majority, the liberal side, the apparent slight majority within the 99%, the system produces enough to prevent reactions of desperation for material change, and provides enough immediate benefits to suppress troubling consciousness of underlying problems mentioned at the beginning.  More, its benefits block    visualization of how change could fundamentally create the better society necessary to deal with those problems.

 The tea party reacts to those deep-seated problems from the right, as the discussion here reacts from the left. Lacking a vision of a different future, it looks to the past it believes it had, realistically or not. It embeds the concerns it does have in a framework that past, one which includes belief in what it considers free markets, competitiveness, individual responsibility, the value of consumption, small government, nationalism verging on imperialism. That ideological frame needs to be criticized, explicitly and directly. But for most in the tea party, that frame is probably best not criticized at the beginning, but rather starting from a base of agreement on the problems and some immediate steps towards solution on which agreement can be reached, then linking those steps to a critique of a frame in which they ought to be embedded, showing how logically the immediate leads to more and more radical and even utopian visions of what in the long run needs to be done.

 * * * * *

Conclusion:  The first task to achieve real democracy is to remove the rules and procedures that prevent us from having a truer democracy. That will help with the second task, but is not sufficient for it: to reduce the power of those who create and benefit from the inequality of others. Undertaking those tasks needs to keep in mind the third task, which again will help with the first two: opening awareness to the further dimension that is possible, the alternative dimension, radical and perhaps seen as utopian today, but yet completely possible given the productive capacity our society has achieved. Immediate gains need to be linked firmly to transformative proposals based on a vision of the full potentials of a democratic society.

 That is the third task that needs to be undertaken. Blog #30 addresses how this third task might be addressed, with some examples intended as provocations rather than full-fledged proposals.

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[1] I have elsewhere written of this, following the reasoning of Herbert Marcuse’s Essay on Liberation, as the need for the “liberation of consciousness.” See my article in Andrew Lamas, Ed, Occupy Consciousness: Reading the 1960s and Occupy Wall Street with Herbert Marcuse, in Radical Philosophy Review, Volume 16, 2013, forthcoming.

[2] Slavoj Žižek “What Europe’s Elites Don’t Know:When the blind are leading the blind, democracy is the victim” Available at http://inthesetimes.com/article/14617/what_europes_elites_dont_know1

[3] Suggested by Zakaria, Fareed. 1997. “The rise of illiberal democracy.” Foreign Affairs, Vol 76,No. 6 (November-December), pp. 22-43, in the article from which Zyzek quotes the phrase.

  [4] According to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, available at http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/tea-party-membership-or-those-who-admit-to-it-plunges-to-8-130110?news=846706. And see my Blog #14: “Who is the 1%: The ruling class and the tea parties.”

Blog #28: Sandy, Housing, the Market, and the State’s Planning Response

Blog #28: Sandy, Housing, the Market, and the State’s Planning Response
The attempt by government to mix the public and private market response to disasters such as Sandy, or indeed to mix the two in dealing with the crisis in housing for lower-income households, will bear some strange fruit. The likely effect will be to increase segregation and inequality, based on experience with the workings of the private market in housing. Two examples illustrate the danger: Governor Cuomo’s plans to deal with units damaged by Sandy, and Mayor Bloomberg’s plans to deal with the underfunding of public housing.

The alternative in both cases seems clear, but raises tabooed issues. To take them one at a time:

THE PLAN FOR SANDY: Cuomo’s plan for housing damages by Sandy is to offer to buy up, at their prior damage value, any home whose owner wishes to sell and leave, and to offer those who wish to stay a grant to defray the costs of storm-proofing their residences.
The New York Times describes it succinctly as follows:[1]
“The governor’s plan would pay the full pre-storm value of a house to owners who agreed to sell, with a 5 percent bonus to those who relocated in their home county. The plan would be voluntary; a homeowner could simply refuse to participate, and presumably elect to rebuild, despite higher insurance rates that doing so would entail.
The Cuomo administration estimates that 10,000 or so homes sit squarely in the danger zone, but, only a fraction — 10 percent to 15 percent — of these owners might actually participate in this program. The plan would not cover high-end properties like a wreck of a beachfront house in the Rockaways that is now on sale for $3 million “as is.” But the price tag could go as high as $300,000 per dwelling, assuming the Department of Housing and Urban Development approves the plan.
For those who chose to stay, the administration would offer another option: grants to help owners flood-proof their homes. That could include rebuilding a house on or near the beach on giant pylons at least 2 feet above the projected flood level, which could mean 15 feet or more above ground level — a costly prospect.”
What would be the likely market-induced result of the plan?
Owners with the resources to stay will grab the grants offered to help flood-proof their homes, add their own resources, and stay. Those without the resources, i.e. lower income households, will sell, and the government will take down their homes and convert their lots to some form of park or waterfront public use. The net result will be higher income owners have units on a less crowded waterfront, where no further building will take place on newly-added public open space, thus in fact increasing their property values after the deals are done. Lower-income households will have been removed from the areas, in any event back from the waterfront, since the required cost of storm-proofing is high, and be left to face the private market elsewhere.
So, net, a more exclusive enjoyment of the amenities of the waterfront for the well-to-do, a displacement of the less well-to-do from their desirable locations to the ordinary market in land. All government instigated and largely paid for. Hardly equitable.

THE PLAN FOR PUBLIC HOUSING: Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to deal with the very substantial short-fall in Federal funding for public housing, with the apparent approval of the chair of the New York City Housing Authority, is to lease for the long term available vacant land within and around existing public housing projects to private developers. In the words of the chair of the Housing Authority, it will be
“forming partnerships with real estate developers to create a mix of affordable and market rate housing on under-used NYCHA sites. Doing that can generate hundreds of millions of dollars – every penny of which will be re-invested in NYCHA and used to fix roofs, elevators, and building facades. And it will create thousands of units of new housing, of which a substantial portion will be affordable. Let me repeat that: it will create thousands of new market-rate and affordable homes.”[2]

What does that mean? Apart from the obvious failure to specify the number of “affordable” units to be built, or even whether “affordable” means eligible for public housing or some more moderate set off income limits, and apart from the disruption caused in the lives of the residents of the developments in the middle of which these new and expected high-rise structures will be built, there is the further elimination of the open space surrounding the high-rise public housing buildings, mostly built with a minimum of such space to economize on land costs from the very beginning, and already offering only very limited breathing space for project residents for open air, relaxation, sports, outdoor activities, and necessary parking. The new privately built units, already informally called luxury housing, on the other hand, will have privately provided internally and for their own residents amenities not available to the residents of the existing units, such as health clubs private security, probably parking, and others.

“Internal documents obtained by the Daily News show the planned 4,330 apartments in eight developments are all in hot real estate neighborhoods, including the upper East and West Sides, the lower East Side and lower Manhattan. Developers will get a sweet deal: a 99-year lease with the lease payments to the authority frozen for the first 35 years. … the land to be leased includes playgrounds, parking lots, and community centers — basically necessary amenities for those who live in public housing. And in the place of a playground for their children, tenants will instead look out on luxury housing.”[2a]

Mixing in this way is more likely to create tensions among neighbors that the “diversity” so admired in the abstract in housing discourse. Those tensions will be aggravated because the developments being considered for surrender of their land to market-rate housing are those where land values, low when the projects where built, are now the highest, in Manhattan on the upper West Side and the middle and upper East Side. The minority status of low-income, and undoubtedly minority, households in these areas will only be accentuated.

Hardly equitable.

THE ANSWER: What ought to be done is painfully obvious. If maintenance of public housing is inadequate, because of lack of funding, that funding ought to be provided, and provided by government, which after is created to secure access to the necessities of life for its citizens. And it should be provided by the federal government, which has access to the most equitable source of the necessary funds, a progressive income tax system. Further, it is ironic that the whole scheme proposed rests on the historic action of government to take undesired land of low market value for its projects. Now that that land has become valuable, the drive is to make more and more of its remaining limited available space available to the market. Should not the benefit of the improved conditions that have made their land so valuable today accrue to those who have been asked to live there when conditions were not as favorable?

The political problem here is also not abstruse. The answer suggested above strikes anyone using common sense, attuned to the realities of life, honestly facing the facts as they are, as totally impractical. Raising taxes to provide benefits skewed to the poor will never pass Congress today. It is not worth even discussing. And that is the problem: the real answers are not on the table, are not even argued in mainstream, by politicians, in the media, in electoral campaigns, in the halls of legislatures. The discourse of housing policy is one-dimensional,[3] its language is itself one-dimensional, a dimension restricted by confinement to things as they are, surrender to the limited apparent possibilities of the status quo. An adequate public housing program is in an alternate dimension, that of the potential, the possible but not yet factual. It is simply not on the table. The next task for housing advocates is to get it back on the table.

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1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/gov-andrew-cuomos-sandy-plan.html?_r=0
2. Speech by NYCHA chairman John B. Rhea before Association for a better new york
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2012, available at http://search1.nyc.gov/search?q=cache:OzTbkrGADyoJ:www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/ABNY-SPEECH-NYCHA-CHAIRMAN-JOHN-B-RHEA-9-24-12.pdf+nycha+plan+to+build+market+rate+vacant&access=p&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=agency_frontend&client=agency_frontend&ie=UTF-8&site=default_collection&oe=UTF-8
[2a] http://gawker.com/5983190/is-building-luxury-housing-on-the-playgrounds-of-public-housing-the-worst-idea-ever-yes-yes-it-is
[3] See “The One-Dimensional Language Of Collaborationist Analysis,” forthcoming

Blog #27 – The Alternatives for Sandy: Banker’s Socialism,, the Private Market, Equity, Planning

Blog #27 – The Alternatives for Sandy: Banker’s Socialism,, the Private Market, Equity — and Planning

Three very different principles might be used to guide responses to the devastation wrought by a disaster such as Sandy – and might be applicable to responses to any disaster.

First, what might be called Bankers’ Socialism Approach: the assumption by government of all of the costs not only of the repair of the damage caused by the disaster, but of all costs of preventing similar damage from similar disasters in the future. One might call this the deprivatization of disaster response, placing the entire burden of the response on the public and exonarating the private sector of all costs.

Second, at the opposite extreme, what might be called the Private Market Approach: leaving it to each person or entity affected by the disaster to do whatsoever they wished, with their own resources, to repair the damages caused and prevent recurrences, subject to very limited government regulation. Because any significant private action is likely to rely on some level of public infrastructure provision, this approach will likely involve some element of Bankers’ Socialism also.

Third, what might be called the Equity Approach: using public assistance to ameliorate the damage caused by the disaster, taking into account the needs and resources of those affected, and seeking to return them to approximately their position before the disaster, not necessarily by restoring to the same conditions as preceded the events, and and then taking appropriate measures to prevent recurrence, assessing costs and benefits of both equitably. Thus, giving priority to the needs of lower-income households, and reducing inequalities of resources.

Of course, the three can be mixed, and details will be very dependent on the local facts on the ground; the discussion that follows is only of each as ideal types. In each case, the key questions are who bears the costs of the approach and what their magnitude, and who benefits from the approach and to what extent.

Planning is confronted with difficult issues, both technical and ethical, in providing answers. There are some tentative suggestions.

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The Bankers’ Socialism Approach is so-called, with tongue somewhat in cheek,[i.] because it is the assumption by government of all of the costs of the actions taken, without consideration of whether the consequent benefits flowing disproportionately to property owners, investors, and financial interests, the larger their financial interests, the greater the benefits. The costs are borne by government, in most cases overwhelmingly the federal government,, but with participation at state and local levels, and thus of course by all taxpayers with whatever distribution of costs the structure of tax codes and revenue-generating measures of government established.

Example: Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, and Governor Christie have all vowed: “We’re rebuilding.”[ii] “We” is not always defined, but from the description of what is planned, it will clearly be overwhelmingly government. It includes an Outer Harbor Gateway, across New York harbor between New York State and New Jersey, “a belt of landfill, stone and reinforced concrete… thirty-foot high sand berms would be piled on Sandy Hook and the Rockaways to prevent flood waters from circumventing the gateway. Another gate, this one a mile long, would be built in the upper East River to prevent surges coming in from the Long Island Sound.” The estimated cost is $23,000,000,000 (twenty-three billion dollars). The Army Corps of Engineers would conduct a feasibility study for the project, which itself might cost $20,000,000. It would be a joint Federal and State project.

What would the consequence be? The decision as to the amounts of public funding have not been made as this is written, and the likelihood that the full-scale Sea Gate proposal will be implemented seems dim. But whatever is enacted at the Federal level, it will be large, measured in the billions; the bill pending in Congress is for $50.1 billion; of that $3.8 billion would go to the Army Corps of Engineers, and $6.5 billion to transportation agencies, all as mitigation to reduce future dangers, not disaster relief. The estimate is that by 2080 the metropolitan area affected will contain about $2,150,000,000,000 (two trillion one hundred and fifty million dollars) that could be damaged by an extreme storm.[iii.] That is a substantial amount, of which the proportion accounted for by the amount of resident-owned housing along the coast-line damaged by Sandy would be a trivial part.

The bulk of the benefit from the billions of public funds to be spent would thus likely go to the property owners protected, whose property values would be sky-rocket, now being protected from the environmental risks of climate change in locations already uniquely valuable because of the location at the center of a dense metropolitan region with an intricate web of transportation and communication links and commercial investments second to few other regions in the world. The New York Times reports houses in the Rockaways listing, after storm damages, in the millions; the Private Market approach would undoubtedly be adequate in such cases, without public aid. Benefit will undoubtedly also trickle down to less wealthy individual residents of the region, as an Equity approach would require, and there would be some increase in tax revenues to government resulting from the increase in private real estate value, but it is unlikely to even come close to the billions of dollars publicly invested or to capture very much of the trillions of private benefit produced.

The difficulty is that analysis of governmental appropriations looking at the distributional impact of costs and benefits, the equity implications, of the funding, is strikingly missing.

[As an aside: The prevailing ethos seems to be to privatize as many public services as possible: schools, security, railroads, mail. Might one speak of “de-privatizing” the costs of disasters?]

The Private Market Approach is the diametric opposite of the Bankers’ Socialist approach: it would essentially leave the government out of the decision-making process of what should be done either to remedy damages done by a disaster or to prevent future damages, and leave it to ther private market to allocate costs and benefits.. Each of those affected would be left to their own devices, to use such resources as they had to achieve such repairs or avoid such risks as they were able to afford. The distributional consequences of such an approach are clear: those with the fewest resources would be the worst off, those with the most, the best off. The disparities are likely to be greater after a disaster than before, because at least before the actual disaster the poor had the amenities of at-risk locations – the pleasures of the sea shore, the advantages of access, whereas under the Private Market approach they bear the full burden of the damages, with none of the offsetting amenities.

By contrast, those amenities can be garnered by those with the resources privately to protect themselves from the risks or to recover from damages that may be caused. It will be the rich who have had the private insurance needed to compensate for costs inflicted, and who have the resources to weather-proof their structures, provide means of escape, provide for themselves privately that which had been publicly made available but destroyed.

Examples: Hotels and mansions can be privately built along the waters’ edge, office towers can be constructed, maintained, reinforced, provided with insulated sources of power and escape, and the amenities of location will be further concentrated in the hands of those able privately to afford them, driving out those with less income who by reason of historical circumstances had had some enjoyment of those amenities before. It will be the one and two family homes in Breezy Point and the Rockaways whose residents will be further disadvantaged, and only the wealthier will be able to have the benefits and protect themselves from the risks that those accompany those locations. Building codes, zoning codes, health and safety requirements will no doubt be imposed at higher standards that before, for the general protection of life and property; again, only those with sufficient resources to pay the higher costs imposed will be able to obtain their benefits. And the normal accompaniment to new and more expensive development, in terms of supportive infrastructure a standard obligation of government, will be a cost born generally by government, not only those privately benefiting.

What would the consequence be? Existing inequalities of wealth would be sharply reflected in the net differences between the conditions prior to the disaster and those following it.

The Equity Approach combines some element both of the socialism approach, but not for bankers, and some element of the private approach, but not based only on the pre-existing resources of those involved. In trying to achieve social equity, it takes into account differences in needs resources of those damaged by the disaster and exposed to future similar risks, and attempts to distribute the costs and benefits of doing so equitably among the population. Unfortunately, detailed studies of how those costs and benefits are today distributed are not yet adequately done and available; one major such study, that of Jeroen Aerts, asked whether the impact of alternatives on New York City’s 41% poor had been considered, said “That’s a new issue. We didn’t discuss it, no.” [iv.]

Example: The damage caused by Sandy can be readily mapped, and overlayed on demographic data for the affected neighborhoods. They are likely to reveal a disproportionate damage to lower income households, consuming proportionately more of their resources, and with proportionately less private assets with which to make up for the losses. The costs of compensating them for their losses, generally replacing housing completely destroyed, washed away, sometimes burnt out, are generally accepted as an appropriate obligation of government. The extent to which differing needs are taken into account has historically varied. For instance, the poor who lost lives in Katrina in New Orleans, received far less compensation per person than the wealthy killed by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, because different standards of compensation were used in the two cases, but that equity was a criteria was generally accepted in both. [v.]

In spreading both the costs and benefits of public action equitably, a distinction might well have to be faced. Rebuilding, in the same form as existed before the disaster, is hardly desirable; it would expose to the same risks and loses all over again, or perhaps even more severely. To rebuild to the same level but with full protection might be feasible for those have the ability to do so in the private market, but whether it is a sensible use of public resources might well be debated. But an effort might well be made to provide, net, the same level of quality after as before, if in a different mixture or a different location, that is with a different but equivalent mix of locational benefit, amenity, and space. Thus, if it is feasible to rebuild in the same location, keeping the locational and amenity and social community advantages of before, it might be done at a higher density, sacrificing some of the individually-occupied space in favor of greater multi-family forms. In any case, priority would be given to the needs of lower-income households, and reducing inequalities of resources.

What would the consequence be? Since key, in the Equity Approach, is the concern with giving priority to the needs and desires of those needing assistance from the approach: the lower income, generally the elderly, those with uninsured health problems, etc. The outcome will depend on the separate facts of each case, but in the planning and decision-making process the requirements of equity should lead to a reduction, not an increase, in inequality. It should also lead to a fair distribution of access to and ability to enjoy the benefits of the locations targeted for assistance, so that, for instance, the advantages of a shore-front location are equitably shared. The attention paid to repairing, protecting, and/or fully replacing the extensive public housing damaged by Sandy may be some indicator of the extent to which equity will be a consideration in the case of Sandy. In residential areas in which community solidarity has been a vita tradition, participation in the planning process, decisions on funding, and implementation should be made with real participation by those affected.Solid research assessing the relationship between economic position and damages from the disaster would be a welcome addition to our knowledge of how such a balance of costs and benefits might look.

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Conclusion: Deciding how to deal with the dangers of disasters is a difficult and complex task in a democracy. It calls on careful consideration of all the the known and foreseeable facts, matters requiring careful studies in geography, geology, economics, engineering, the physical and social sciences. But it also requires careful consideration of the values involved, how different groups of the population are affected, how the costs and benefits of each alternative are measured and evaluated. Certainly considerations of equity ought to place high in those deliberations, more than is presently the case.[vi.]

Planning needs to go beyond simply thinking about resilience, as Paul Farmer recently pointed out. [vii.] Resilience can simply mean ignoring the causes of the problem, from climate change to heedless development, accepting those as inevitable, and simply mitigating their consequence. Rather, serious planning needs to be long range in time and spatial scope, well beyond most current practices. The basic question needs to be honestly confronted: which of the three alternate approaches described above should be applied to communities within the endangered flood plain, including confronting squarely the question of who is benefited and at whose costs, and making an ethical distinction between risks to life (and what risks) and risks to property (and of what social nature). Serious land use planning should be at the center of what is needed, and it poses difficult choices. For residential lower and moderate income communities in danger, for instance, planning without participation will not work. Equity planning will inevitably involve some form of public investment, not for the benefit of bankers, but of residents. Perhaps the choice will be between staying in place but at higher and more efficient densities, or relocating inland, perhaps on a community basis, with the waterfront dedicated to open public enjoyment. Real community involvement is a sine qua non, but the issues are also regional. The challenges are both technical and ethical, and inevitably political. They need to be faced.

Peter Marcuse February 11, 2012

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i. Although it bears thought: did not likewise the banks’ bailout at the beginning of the current crisis have some analogies to what socialist policy would have done, the big exception being that it was socialism for private bankers, not for government banks?
ii. Facts are taken from an excellent summary of the situation in New York by Arun Gupta, “Disaster Capitalism Hits New York,,” In These Times, February, 2013, pp.24-27, but the basic facts are well known and not controversial, although details may vary. Quotes are from that article unless otherwise noted.
iii. The estimate by Professor Aerts, a risk management and climate change expert from Amsterdam asked by the city to provide an estimate. See Mireya Navarro, “Weighing Sea Barriers as Protection for New York,” published: November 7, 2012 available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/nyregion/after-hurricane-sandy-debating-costly-sea-barriers-in-new-york-area.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
iv. Arun Gupta, op. cit., p. 25.
v. See Marcuse, Peter. 2011. “Ignoring Justice In Disaster Planning: An Agenda For Research On 9/11, Katrina, And Social Policy,” in Merlin Chowkwanyun and Randa Serhan, eds., American Democracy and the Pursuit of Equality: Essays in Honor of Herbert J. Gans (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2011), pp. 132-161. Slightly different version in: “Ignoring injustice in disaster planning: an agenda for research on 9/11 and Katrina” In Urban Reinventors, November, 2009. http://www.urbanreinventors.net/paper.php?issue=3&author=marcuse

vi. It is remarkable how little considerations of equity have been taken into account in discussions of alterative responses to Sandy, See, for instance their complete absence in Protecting the City, Before Next Time By ALAN FEUER, New York Times,: November 3, 2012, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/nyregion/protecting-new-york-city-before-next-time.html?pagewanted=all. Or see the debate at http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/11/01/should-new-york-build-sea-gates/big-storm-projects-will-cause-big-problems-so-think-small. For one of the few exceptions see Tom Angotti, “On the Waterfront,” The Indypendent #181, November 8, 2012 Indypendent available at http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=243054;article=2342. For an early piece raising some of the issues here, see my Blog #21 – Sandy, Katrina, and the World Trade Center: Are There Social Justice Issues? At pmarcuse.wordpress.com.

vii.“Now Sandy,” Planning, The Journal of the American Planning Association, December, 2012, p. 3.