One of the things I’ve thought about a lot this semester is the writing of Tom Slater in Shaking Up the City. This was a reading in Envisioning Sustainable Lands and Cities class that has stayed with me throughout the classes I’ve taken since, particularly Regenerating Place. Slater writes with quite a bit of skepticism around concepts like placemaking. He argues that they distract from the sociopolitical factors that drive poverty, suffering, and a lack of community in city settings. He also says that policymakers are able to support such initiatives to avoid having taking accountability for the policies they advocate for that have led to the current state of affairs. He says that the concept of placemaking even has the potential to further the same gentrification that it attempts to prevent.
I’ve previously stated in my coursework for Regenerating Place that I have a hard time coming to a full agreement with this statement–while the concept can surely be used to ignore communities rather than working with them, and sociopolitical factors can be the driving factors in issues like rising housing costs and the cost of living crisis, neither inherently means that trying to follow placemaking theory and guidelines cannot still provide clear benefits to communities.
So that, for me, begs the question: can sustainability in urban settings have the added benefit of being a direct mitigating factor in the cost of living crisis that is ongoing worldwide? This is probably not a profound question that can serve as my research problem itself–the answer seems clearly to be yes to me. Density allows for people to not need to pay for a car. Walkability to grocery stores allows people to buy them as they need them rather than have to buy for a week, which can reduce the cost of wasted food. Having a community with one’s direct neighbors could reduce costs like childcare and leisure. I think this is relevant because oftentimes, advocates for new development like YIMBYs often simply advocate for housing at any cost. One example was Elizabeth Street Garden in New York City, which was earmarked for the site of a senior housing project despite being a location of community importance as a place of leisure, greenery and arts. The advocates for protecting the garden even identified an alternative site with less impact, but so far, it has not been a successful movement. Additionally, if the housing being built by developers isn’t targeted–dense, low-middle income housing close to grocery stores, transit, etc., then it won’t serve it’s purpose as being a cost-reducing measure. We’ve seen that just trying to get housing built indiscriminately oftentimes just results in developers buying what would make them the most profit and what they’re most familiar with constructing–large single-family homes and overpriced luxury flats.
This is where the sustainable aspect of design, policy and planning can hopefully influence mitigation of the cost of living crisis. Housing obviously needs to be built to target the right needs–being in the right location, of the right style of housing, and other components key to making housing truly affordable. Furthermore, because supply doesn’t seem to inherently fix the price with housing markets (I’d like to continue to dig into the economics of this should I pursue this route, but that seems to be my initial observation), this needs to be done in such a way that the housing is being rented below the market norms. Perhaps more direct local government involvement in development itself could be explored?
I’m not necessarily sure where to go from here–this is definitely something I’d want to learn more about before pursuing it in fear that I’d be researching a problem that already has a theoretical solution, but I do think it’s interesting to consider.
3 December 2024 at 21:12
This is a nice blog that I really enjoy reading. This reflection highlights how sustainable design and planning can help address the cost of living crisis. It acknowledges Tom Slater’s critique of placemaking while emphasizing its potential benefits when done thoughtfully. Examples like the Elizabeth Street Garden show the challenge of balancing development with preserving community spaces. The reflection stresses the need for targeted housing—affordable, well-located, and integrated with sustainable features like walkability. It also suggests greater local government involvement to ensure affordability. This perspective offers a solid starting point to explore solutions that blend sustainability with economic accessibility.