A Grassroots Reaction
As cities faced the beginning of deindustrialization and an evolving economic landscape, grassroots organizing rose to challenge those currents with coalition building, creativity, and solidarity amid an increasingly conservative America.
1970
New Trends in Design
Soon after Whitney M. Young’s call to action at the American Institute of Architects’ keynote address in 1968, there were signs of progress towards addressing inequities in professional practice. For example, the accreditation of the first African American schools of architecture took place in 1970, including the Tuskegee Institute’s Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science. The role of participation in the design process became a common topic of discussion. As community designers and practitioners began incorporating the concepts of equity planning and radical planning. If they were to attempt to understand the systemic inequities facing marginalized communities, practitioners needed to understand how race, gender, ethnicity, and class all played a role in the built environment.
Troy Architecture Practice in New York’s capital region is an archetypal example of the community design practice that came out of this time. In a neighborhood faced with the prospect of demolition via highway construction and urban renewal, a volunteer group led by Bob Mitchell and Vince Lepera built parks, ran summer programs, and helped battle landlords who were abandoning properties. The provision of technical services created space for the promotion of community stability and social justice within professional practice.
1970
The US Decennial Census confirms that more people live in the suburbs (37.6%) than central cities (31.4%)
1972
People’s Action and the CRA
While design professionals were responding to the symptoms of systemic challenges faced by marginalized communities, organizers on the ground squared off with the federal government and real estate industry to address the root cause of disinvestment. Notably, Gale Cincotta and Shel Trapp’s National People’s Action (NPA) out of Chicago, IL made the formative push in the fight against redlining.
A mother of six, Cincotta became displeased with the education her children were receiving in the Chicago Public School system. This compelled her to get involved at a local level and realize that the public-school system’s quality correlated with the area’s real estate values. She collaborated with organizer Shel Trap to form People’s Action, which mobilized grassroots activists to push lawmakers to end discriminatory banking practices.
Image: James Warden via WikiCommons
Their organizing led to the passage of two critical pieces of legislation: the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HDMA) and Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA). The HDMA required financial institutions to publicly provide mortgage data after Congress listened to the public’s concern that some financial institutions were practicing discriminatory lending. The CRA compelled banks to reinvest in underserved communities and end the systematic disinvestment caused by policies like redlining that perpetuated urban blight and segregation.1
1972
Five men break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. as was part of President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign.
1973
Second Wave of Rent Strikes
Even though New York City passed a rent stabilization law in 1969 to address the rising rents of post-war buildings, it was not enough to counter the effects of the looming ‘urban crisis’: arson and abandonment. Similar to the rent strikes in the 1920s, a second wave of rent strikes took place – this time in the African American and Latino communities. During this time, many landlords were over-extracting rent from their tenants and collecting insurance claims on buildings they intentionally allowed to fall into disrepair. Often led by tenant associations and community organizations, the strikes gained momentum as a form of direct action to combat skyrocketing rents and landlord exploitation. These efforts became emblematic of the broader tenant rights movement and contributed to a greater push for equitable housing policies.2
Image: Right to Counsel NYC Coalition
At the same time, federal policy on urban housing was overhauled: Nixon declared in 1973 that the federal housing policies had failed and demanded a fundamentally different approach. Instead of allocating federal funds for the construction of new housing, the federal funds – now called the Section 8 program – would be disbursed directly to the families in need so they could find their own ‘safe and sanitary housing’ on the private market.
“Our best information to date indicates that direct cash assistance will in the long run be the most equitable, least expensive approach to achieving our goal of a decent home for all Americans—a goal I am committed to meeting.”
Richard Nixon
Joseph P. Fried, “Nixon’s Housing Policy,” The New York Times (1973).
Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton criticized the policy, stating it was ‘welfare for slumlords’ and that it would do nothing to increase the supply of ‘decent housing’ needed by the city’s residents. The new policy spurred tenant activists, community planners, and community developers to get involved in housing development.
Post-60s Activism to Sweat Equity
When government forces cracked down on the urban rebellions of the late 1960s, revolutionary political organizations like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords stood up to the excesses of power by defending their communities, mobilizing new activists, and supporting those in need with social services. The next generation of activists and urban practitioners were profoundly influenced by the effectiveness of these organizations.
Image: Jesse Steve Rose via the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Ramon Rueda was one of those people who was influenced by Young Lords. He founded the People’s Development Corporation, a Bronx-based urban homesteading entity, in 1972. According to Harry DeRienzo of Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Rueda saw sweat equity as a strategy for people lacking resources to invest in their lives. The PDC led a group of laborers to rehab an abandoned building in the Morrisania section of the Bronx in exchange for ownership. He even worked with Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development to develop a land-use plan in the South Bronx to match the vision of a self-sustaining urban village. While the organization dissolved in the late 1970s, it remained a bold inspiration for future community development groups that would eventually catalyze the Bronx’s revival.3 4
1974
Neighborhood Preservation and the Rise of ANHD
Image: Urban Homesteading Assistance Board
The need for participatory design was becoming more prominent for providing services to communities seeking to shape their neighborhood’s future. Grassroots organizations collaborated with architects and planners to develop innovative, community-driven design solutions that prioritized the needs and aspirations of residents by allowing them to have the agency of leading the efforts. No space was off-limits to the professionals and the communities. It wasn’t just about buildings, but also transportation, infrastructure, services, etc.
Image: Urban Homesteading Assistance Board
Image: Urban Homesteading Assistance Board
Organizations like the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) and the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) grew out of a commitment to preserve affordable housing and prevent displacement. UHAB facilitated tenant takeovers of abandoned buildings, converting them into affordable cooperative housing, while ANHD provided critical support and advocacy for community-led housing initiatives. Furthermore, community planning became more prominent in New York’s landscape. Figures like Walter Thabit, consultant for Cooper Square Committee’s alternate plan, advanced the practice through two professional organizations, Planners for Equal Opportunity and Planners Network.5 6
1975
Federal Government to New York City: Drop Dead
Image: New York Daily News
The scaling back of federal funds to American cities continued during the transition from Nixon to Ford, even though many urban areas began to experience turbulence due to economic decline and population instability. A now infamous New York Daily News Headline read: Ford to City: Drop Dead. Ford denied ever saying those exact words, but his policies in the coming years would seemingly give credence to the Daily News. The city began spiraling to near bankruptcy, and without federal support, it was up to civil, business, and labor leaders to assist in guiding the municipal government out of the crisis. The Municipal Assistance Corporation was established by New York State to provide fiscal oversight and refinance debt. While the city avoided major austerity proposals, the measure included major changes like implementing tuition at City University of New York, wage freezes, and subway fare hikes. By the end of the 1970s, more than a million people had left the city – a number that would not be recouped until twenty years later. Those who remained relied on each other to face challenges. Writing in the New York Times, novelist Edmund White described this period as highly democratic, where money could not insulate you from reality. New Yorkers were in it together in the city’s decline, creating an atmosphere that compelled residents to action.
1977
Growing Conservatism & the Start of the Pragmatic Era
Image: The United States National Archives
Johnathan Mahler, author of The Bronx is Burning, astutely described the existential nature of this era: “The clinical term for it, fiscal crisis, didn’t approach the raw reality. Spiritual crisis was more like it.” The election of Ed Koch, the blackout of 1977 and the resulting social unrest, and rising crime rates all contributed to a growing conservative reaction not just municipally but nationally.
1977 became the year community design and development entered its pragmatic era, leaving behind the idealistic pursuit of utopian visions of the Sixties, and setting the course for a more economically grounded approach for the next decade. Practitioners began to employ more specific and individualist tactics to make projects more profitable to conservative decision makers. Grassroots efforts were often stymied amidst a period of shrinking government intervention and deregulation. The focus was beginning to shift to getting economic results rather than improving social conditions. One last liberal win before the changing of the decade took place in 1979 with Callahan v. Casey, the landmark lawsuit that created the right to shelter, compelling the city to provide shelter for all New Yorkers who didn’t have a place to stay.7
Image: White House Photograph Collection via the United States National Archives
Footnotes
- Mike Miller and Aaron Schultz, People Power: The Community Organizing Tradition of Saul Alinsky (2015) ↩︎
- Carolyn McLaughlin, South Bronx Battles: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Renewal (2019) ↩︎
- Brian Francis Sahd, Community involvement in the South Bronx: A historical analysis of participation in planning and development from the 1960’s to the 1990’s (2000) ↩︎
- Amy Waldman, Housing Radical Meets Bottom Line… (2000) ↩︎
- Tom Angotti, The Anti-Moses and the First Community-Based Plan (2005) ↩︎
- Bonnie Brower, The Life and Times of Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (1984) ↩︎
- Thomas James Main, Homelessness in New York City: Policymaking from Koch to De Blasio (2016) ↩︎