The role of neighborhood organizations in the production of gentrifiable urban space: The case of Wynwood, Miami's Puerto Rican barrio

Partnerships between government and community-based actors and organizations are considered the hallmark of contemporary governance arrangements for the revitalization and gentrification of economically distressed, inner city areas. This dissertation uses historical, narrative analysis and ethnographic methods to examine the formation, evolution and operation of community-based governance partnerships in the production of gentrifiable urban space in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, FL between 1970 and 2010. This research is based on more than four years of participant observation, 60 in-depth interviews with respondents recruited through a purposive snowball sample, review of secondary and archival sources, and descriptive, statistical and GIS analysis. This study examines how different organizations formed in the neighborhood since the 1970s have facilitated the recent gentrification of Wynwood. It reveals specifically how partnerships between neighborhood-based government agencies, nonprofit organizations and real estate developers were constructed to be exclusionary and lead to inequitable economic development outcomes for Wynwood residents. The key factors conditioning these inequalities include both the rationalities of action of the organizations involved and the historical contexts in which their leaders’ thinking and actions were shaped. The historical contexts included the ethnic politics of organizational funding in the 1970s and the “entrepreneurial” turn of community-based economic development and Miami urban politics since the 1980s. Over time neighborhood organizations adopted highly pragmatic rationalities and repertoires of action. By the 2000s when Wynwood experienced unprecedented investment and redevelopment, the pragmatism of community-based organizations led them to become junior partners in governance arrangements and neighborhood activists were unable to directly challenge the inequitable processes and outcomes of gentrification.

Planning Urban Food Production into Today’s Cities

If cities are to become more sustainable and resilient to change it is likely that they will have to engage with food at increasingly localised levels, in order to reduce their dependency on global systems. With 87 percent of people in developed regions estimated to be living in cities by 2050 it can be assumed that the majority of this localised production will occur in and around cities. As part of a 12 month engagement, Queen’s University Belfast designed and implemented an elevated aquaponic food system spanning the top internal floor and exterior roof space of a disused mill in Manchester, England. The experimental aquaponic system was developed to explore the possibilities and difficulties associated with integrating food production with existing buildings. This paper utilises empirical research regarding crop growth from the elevated aquaponic system and extrapolates the findings across a whole city. The resulting research enables the agricultural productive capacity of today’s cities to be estimated and a framework of implementation to be proposed.

Planning Urban Food Production into Today's Cities

If cities are to become more sustainable and resilient to change it is likely that they will have to engage with food at increasingly localised levels, in order to reduce their dependancy on global systems. With 87 percent of developed regions estimated to be living in cities by 2050 it can be assumed that the majority of this localised production will occur in and around cities.
As part of a 12 month engagement, Queen’s University Belfast designed and implemented an elevated aquaponic food system spanning the top floor and exterior roof space of a disused mill in Manchester, England. The experimental aquaponic system was developed to explore the possibilities and difficulties associated with containing fish tanks, filtration units, vertical growing systems and roof top growing systems within and upon existing buildings, including the structural considerations needed when undertaking such transformations. Although capable of producing 4000 crops at any one time, the elevated aquaponic system utilised space within the existing building, which could otherwise be used as lettable area, and also located some crop growth within the building where light levels are reduced.
The following paper takes the research collected from the elevated aquaponic system and extrapolates the findings across a whole city. The resulting research enables the agricultural productive capacity of todays cities to be determined and a frame work of implementation to be developed for city wide food production. The research focuses specifically on facade and roof based systems, thus elevating the need to utilise lettable area within cities in addition to locating crops where light levels are highest.

Planning Urban Food Production into Today's Cities

If cities are to become more sustainable and resilient to change it is likely that they will have to engage with food at increasingly localised levels, in order to reduce their dependency on global systems. With 87 percent of people in developed regions estimated to be living in cities by 2050 it can be assumed that the majority of this localised production will occur in and around cities. As part of a 12 month engagement, Queen’s University Belfast designed and implemented an elevated aquaponic food system spanning the top internal floor and exterior roof space of a disused mill in Manchester, England. The experimental aquaponic system was developed to explore the possibilities and difficulties associated with integrating food production with existing buildings. This paper utilises empirical research regarding crop growth from the elevated aquaponic system and extrapolates the findings across a whole city. The resulting research enables the agricultural productive capacity of today’s cities to be estimated and a framework of implementation to be proposed.

The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space

The article reviews the book "The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space," by Scott McQuire.

Living with strangers: Urban space and the ethics of civility

Urban regeneration is occuring in cities across the world, as cities increase in scale and complexity. This chapter argues that in planning public spaces, greater consideration should be paid to sociability through consideration of the affective dimension of urban life.

Vote as you go : Blending interfaces for community engagement into the urban space

This paper presents a series of studies on situated interfaces for community engagement. Firstly, we identify five recurring design challenges as well as four common strategies used to overcome them. We then assess the effectiveness of these strategies through field studies with public polling interfaces. We developed two very different polling interfaces in the form of (1) a web application running on an iPad mounted on a stand, allowing one vote at a time, and (2) a playful full-body interaction application for a large urban screen allowing concurrent participation. We deployed both interfaces in an urban precinct with high pedestrian traffic and equipped with a large urban screen. Analysing discoverability and learnability of each scenario, we derive insights regarding effective ways of blending community engagement interfaces into the built environment, while attracting the attention of passers-by and communicating the results of civic participation.

Narratives of Spatial Division: The Role of Social Memory in Shaping Urban Space in Belfast

The paper examines the role of shared spaces in divided cities in promoting future sustainable communities and spaces described as inclusive to all. It addresses the current challenges that prevent such inclusiveness and suggests future trends of its development to be of benefit to the wider city community. It explains how spaces in divided cities are carved up into perceived ownerships and territorialized areas, which increases tension on the shared space between territories; the control of which can often lead to inter-community disputes. The paper reports that common shared space in-between conflicting communities takes on increased importance since the nature of the conflict places emphasis on communities’ confidence, politically and socially, while also highlighting the necessity for confidence in inclusion and feeling secure in the public domain. In order to achieve sustainable environments, strategies to promote shared spaces require further focus on the significance of everyday dynamics as essential aspects for future integration and conflict resolution.