Kerner Commission redux, MoMa’s new heights, Degentrification, more…
Hayley Richardson | Fri, Nov 16, 2007 | Tags: commentary, hayley richardson, detroit, headlines, kerner commission, degentrification, cities in film, red hook, london's experiment, moma's new heights
Kerner Commission to Revisit Detroit
The problems that Detroit faces; lack of regional equity and cooperation with the suburbs. segregated schools and housing that fosters a sense of hopelessness, will be explored Saturday at WSU as the reconstituted Kerner Commission makes Detroit its first stop on a six-city national tour of hearings on race, poverty and inequality.
Such disparities—factors that contributed to Detroit’s riot and others and created a larger racial polarization—leave little mystery as to why the commission will kick off its national tour reexamining the effects of race in America in Detroit.
“Cars will be banned from some of London’s busiest streets as part of a bold plan to create continental-style boulevards devoted to pedestrians and cyclists.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, plans to replicate Paris Plage, the beach created on a highway alongside the Seine each August, on the four-lane Victoria Embankment beside the Thames.”
Proposal for MoMa Tower in New York City
Writes Nicolai Ouroussoff: “A new 75-story tower designed by the architect Jean Nouvel for a site next to the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown promises to be the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation. Its faceted exterior, tapering to a series of crystalline peaks, suggests an atavistic preoccupation with celestial heights. It brings to mind John Ruskin’s praise for the irrationality of Gothic architecture: “It not only dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle.”
Slow Down Bloomberg: City’s Tests Scores Haven’t Actually Improved
“New York City’s eighth graders have made no significant progress in reading and math since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of the city schools, according to federal test scores released yesterday, in contrast with the largely steady gains that have been recorded on state tests. On measure after measure, the scores showed “no significant change” between 2005, when the test was previously administered, and 2007.
Unknown Fate of New Orleans Housing Projects
“A federal judge has refused to stop demolition of New Orleans’ four largest housing projects while a suit calling for their renovation makes its way through court. Housing officials said work could start as soon as next month. But attorney Bill Quigley, who represents former residents, said he would ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Thursday’s decision by District Judge Ivan Lemelle.”
Don’t Feed the Homeless in Dallas
“Dallas is among U.S. cities criticized in a new report for its approach to homelessness. The cities continue to criminalize homelessness, but they have a new tactic — targeting residents and church groups who share food with them, according to the report released Thursday by two homeless advocacy groups.
Cities use a wide variety of tactics to discourage residents from giving food to the homeless and other poor people, according to “Feeding Intolerance: Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness.”
Red Hook: Not the Next Big Thing
“Red Hook certainly had all the familiar ingredients of a neighborhood on the verge. More crucially, Red Hook was simply next. Because if we’ve learned anything in the last twenty years of gentrification in New York, it’s that there will always be a next. (I declared it a year ago in this very magazine: Back then, it was Jersey City, and it was already too late to get in.) Gentrification is a wave that’s flooding the city, transforming block after block. And Red Hook was directly in its path.
Pochoda remembers it clearly. “That moment was there. It was definitely there. Everyone felt it at the same time. And then,” she says, “it just went away.”
Meanwhile one blogger elucidates the real reason that gentrification has stalled; the 61 bus sucks.
Friday Feature: Cities in Film
How compellingly (and accurately) have global capitals been depicted? Local experts weigh in.
