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MACAULAY HONORS COLLEGE @BROOKLYN COLLEGE

SEMINAR 4 THE FUTURE OF NEW YORK

Spring 2016MCHC 2002Code 32934Section F11H

Professor Sharon Zukin

Professor of sociology and Carol Zicklin Visiting Professor in the Honors Academy

Class meets:Friday, 11 a.m.-1:45 p.m., 3109 Boylan

Professor Zukin’s office: Honors Academy,2231 Boylan, room O, last one to the right

Email:

Voice mail: 718.951.5000, ext. 3156

Office hours: After class, 1:45-3:45 p.m., and most Tuesday afternoons, 1-2 p.m. If these times do not work for you, please speak with me or email me for an appointment!

Tech fellow (ITF): Jennifer Corby,

WHAT IS THIS COURSE ABOUT?

The future of a city depends on many factors, from nature and demographics to the interaction of humans and nonhumans, material artifacts and social constructions, in infrastructure, industries, interdependencies, and networks of every kind. To a great extent, a city is shaped by conscious human action, most prominently in the form of public policies made by local government officials. But it is also influenced by culture, luck, input from—or resistance by--communities, and policies outside of local control, especially structural changes in the global economy and institutions of the federal and state governments. Our goal in this seminar is to analyze the factors that shape New York’s future in three crucial ways:

  1. How we live—the future of neighborhoods
  2. How we work—the future of the “innovation” economy
  3. How we shop—the future of small, individually and locally owned business

Each of these is at the heart of current discussions of New York’s future, including initiatives advanced by the de Blasio administration and laws under consideration by the city council. Together, these factors are our three research foci for the semester.

Our job is to document both historic and emerging trends of how we live, work, and shop; evaluate alternative solutions; and, for the common event at Macaulay Honors College in Manhattan at the end of the semester, present both the data that we have collected andour recommendations for the future.

What is best for the public good in New York? How can we achieve it?

YOU WILL LEARN:

  • To explain how New York is being reshaped by globalization, gentrification, and growth of an “innovation” economy
  • To map changes in specific areas of the city using Social Explorer
  • To compare and evaluate public policies and community planning strategies
  • To carry out interviews and analyze the relation between individual biography and collective history
  • To work collaboratively in research teams

REQUIRED WORK AND GRADING

  • You are not required to buy any books. All of our reading assignments are available either online or in pdfs on the class website,
  • Reading assignments for each class must be done before the class meets. Posts that respond to the reading assignments must be made by Wednesday night (before Friday classes) or by Sunday night (before Tuesday or Wednesday conversion days).
  • Students will select one of the three research foci (live-work-shop) as their focus for the presentations at the common Macaulay event during the weekend of May 14-15, but work will be done collaboratively in teams on all three foci during the semester. Each team will be responsible for one of the special foci in the final project—tentatively, a website entitled something like Macaulay @ Brooklyn College Sees The Future of New York—and in the presentations at the common event in May. We will aim to complete our website by the final class on Friday, May 13.
  • Grading will be based on these criteria:
  • Individual posts during the semester20%
  • Consistent, thoughtful individual contributions to class discussions10%
  • Individual work on 3 team mini-projects30%
  • Collaborative work on 1 special focus for website30%
  • Presentations at Macaulay common event in May10%
  • Extra credit as indicated in the syllabus can raise the average for the final grade 1-2 points.

FIELD TRIPS AND WORKSHOPS WITH INVITED SPEAKERS

We will have two field trips when we meet at sites in Manhattan:

  • Friday, February 5, meet at the Museum of the City of New York, 11 a.m.
  • Friday, March 11, meet at The New-York Historical Society, 11 a.m.

It is crucial that we all arrive on time. Please read the information for each of these field trips on the syllabus, check the MTA website for subway directions and travel alerts, and make sure you know how to walk from the nearest subway station to the museum.

You are encouraged to go with your research team to visit any of the neighborhoods that we discuss in class. Please ask about this in class, or see me for more information and suggestions.

We will also have workshops in class with two, and possibly three, invited speakers:

  • Tuesday, February 9, workshop with documentary filmmaker Tamara Gubernat
  • Friday, February 26, workshop with community housing organizer Celia Weaver

CLASS RULES

  • Tolerance for all opinions as long as they are expressed politely and respectfully.
  • Attend all classes, arrive on time. If you know you must be absent because of a significant outside commitment or illness, please email Prof. Zukin in advance. More than 2 unexcused absences will lower your grade in the course.
  • Every writing assignment is due either electronically or in a hard copy, as specified in class,on the due date. No late assignments will be accepted unless agreed upon in advance.
  • Cheating in any form will not be accepted. Plagiarized work—work you copy from anyone else’s work and present as your own--will not get a passing grade. The faculty and administration of Brooklyn College support an environment free from cheating and plagiarism. Each student is responsible for being aware of what constitutes cheating and plagiarism and for avoiding both. The complete text of the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy and the Brooklyn College procedure for policy implementation can be found at If a faculty member suspects a violation of academic integrity and, upon investigation, confirms that violation, or if the student admits the violation, the faculty member MUST report the violation.
  • In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations students must first be registered with the Center for Student Disability Services. Students who have a documented disability or suspect they may have a disability are invited to set up an appointment with the Director of the Center for Student Disability Services, Ms. Valerie Stewart-Lovell at (718) 951-5538. If you have already registered with the Center for Student Disability Services, 138 Roosevelt Hall, please provide Professor Zukin with the course accommodation form and discuss your specific accommodation with her.
  • For Brooklyn College schedule for course adds/drops/payments/withdrawals,see

REQUIRED REGISTRATION AND ONLINE TRAINING

Social Explorer

  • Before we can work with the Social Explorer database and mapping program, we all must register for an account on a Brooklyn College computer. CUNY has a subscription. The URL is
  • Let me know that you have set up your account by Tuesday February 9 (conversion day—we have class).

CITI training

  • Before you can carry out interviews with human subjects, you must complete a relatively short, online training program in the ethics of doing research with human subjects. You will learn how to invite the subjects’ informed consent, how to preserve their anonymity, how to share the goals and results of your research with them, and which groups of people are considered “vulnerable populations” that require the greatest care. You must send me a Word document or a pdf—NOT a screenshot—of your completion certificate after you complete the course. The URL for the training program is
  • Register to take the Human Subjects Basic Course (HSR) for undergraduate students.
  • Keep a record of your user name and password.
  • Send me the Word document or pdf of your completion certificate by Friday March 11 (field trip day).

IMPORTANT DUE DATES

  • Set up account on Social Explorer on BC computerTues Feb 9
  • Mini-project 1: Maps of three selected neighborhoodsFri Feb 19
  • Send me Word or pdf file of your CITI certificateFri Mar 11
  • Mini-project 2: Brooklyn’s “innovation economy”Fri Apr 1
  • Mini-project 3: Interviews with three store ownersFri May 6
  • Website completed and presented in classFri May 13
  • Macaulay common event (one day)Sat-Sun May 14-15
  • Final version of website and brief self-reflection dueWed May 18

FEEDBACK

Feel free to let me know if you have any concerns whatsoever with the course, or if there is something you think we should change!

SYLLABUS

FRI JAN 29 INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPMENT AND DISPLACEMENT

We begin by exploring how New York City has changed from the post-World War II period until now, with a special focus on globalization and gentrification since 1980. Note that the reading assignment and the film we will see in class make a specific argument about the relationship between development and displacement. Later in the semester we will examine different perspectives.

  1. Read for class:
  2. Sharon Zukin, “Introduction: The City That Lost Its Soul,” from Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Pdf on class website on eportfolio.
  3. Profile of a rich neighborhood,
  4. If the website is working before Friday and you can join it, post your thoughtsbefore class. If not, we will discuss your thoughts in class: Have you observed any changes in New York—or in your neighborhood—since you first became a New Yorker? What do you think is driving these changes? Are they good or bad for the city? What actions should be taken—and by whom?
  5. In class: Watch and discuss Kelly Anderson, My Brooklyn (2012). How can our class document how New York is changing?

*ONLINE CITI TRAINING FOR CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS WITH HUMAN SUBJECTS

HOW WE LIVE

FRI FEB 5 “AFFORDABLE HOUSING”; FIELD TRIP TO MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

In order to understand the need for housing, and the city government’s historical responsibility, since the mid-20th century, for providing it, we will see two related exhibitions: “Affordable New York” and the photographs of Jacob Riis. While we visit the exhibition on affordable housing, please note the variety of architectural designs and financial plans that New York has produced within this framework and choose the one that you think works best.

11 a.m. Meet at ticket desk inside front entrance of Museum of the City of New York

1220 5th Ave. @ 104th Street, in Manhattan

By subway:
#6 Lexington Avenue train to either 96th Street or 103rd Street, walk three blocks west to 5th Ave. and, if you are at 96th Street, turn right and walk 7 blocks uptown to 103rd Street. You can also take the #2 or #3 train to Central Park North/110th Street, walk one block east to Fifth Avenue, then south to 103rd Street. Check MTA website for service updates and map.

Museum website:

  1. Read for class:
  2. Richard Price, a novelist who grew up in a public housing project in the Bronx, writes an informal history and memoir of “The Rise and Fall of Public Housing in NYC,” Guernica, October 1, 2014,
  3. Two urban historians talk about good examples of affordable housing in New York,
  4. Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan, Housing New York: A 5-Borough, 10-Year Plan, pp. 15-26. Pay special attention to the graphs of changes in income vs. changes in rent and “rent-burdened” households, pp. 16-18. To download the plan, go to
  5. Michael Kimmelman, the urban and architectural critic of the New York Times, praises two new subsidized housing projects, one in Far Rockaway and the other in East Harlem: “Public Housing Revisited,” New York Times, January 26, 2016
  6. Post your ideasbefore class: After reading the assignment, would you build new public housing? What would it look like? Would you create new rent controls—or end them?
  7. Afterclass, make this brief post: After seeing the exhibition, which of the projects that you saw is your favorite? Why?

***TUES FEB 9 CONVERSION DAY*** WHO SPEAKS FOR A COMMUNITY?

The documentary filmmaker Tamara Gubernat (Hunter College) will visit the seminar and show us a rough cut of her new film, Open Process. Gubernat was granted extraordinary access to Community Board 1 in Brooklyn, which covers Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Through her filming and editing, we will see how a community board faces its responsibility to advise the city government on policies affecting the neighborhoods and residents within its borders, and how the community board’s position is shaped by both conflicts “from below” and pressures “from above.”

  1. Read for class:
  2. Sharon Zukin, “How Brooklyn Became Cool,” from Naked City. On class website on eportfolios.
  3. Access the website for Community Board 1 (Brooklyn), which represents Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Read the district needs statement and related documents on the right-hand side of their home page.
  4. Make sure you have set up your account on Social Explorer!
  5. Post before class: Who lives in the Community Board 1 area? What do you see as the main issues faced by the people who now live there? Do you anticipate conflicts between the interests and demands of different groups of residents? What is the pressure “from above,” and what are the interests “from below?” You may also want to think about these questions: How can the interests of different groups be reconciled? Because community boards only have an advisory voice on planning and zoning issues, does this limit their potential to shape their community? TWO OR THREE STUDENTS WILL INTRODUCE THE FILM BY READING THE POSTS AND BRIEFLY SUMMARIZINGWHAT THE CLASS AS A WHOLE HAS CROWDSOURCED ABOUT WILLIAMSBURG-GREENPOINT (THE COMMUNITY BOARD 1 AREA).
  6. In class: Workshop with documentary filmmaker Tamara Gubernat. Using the Social Explorer website, we will also work with census data for community board 1 area to see how the population has changed since 1990 in terms of demographics (total number of residents, age structure, household structure, race, ethnic identification) and socio-economic characteristics (education level, income level, occupations). EXTRA CREDIT: If you have time to play around with this website before class, please do so and post to tell us what you discovered about changes in Williamsburg-Greenpoint over time! Tip #1: Although the two areas in the CB district are adjacent to each other, Williamsburg is a different neighborhood from Greenpoint in some significant ways. Tip #2: You can use a street name to locate this area, such as Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint or Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg.

***FRI FEB 12 LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY—COLLEGE CLOSED—NO CLASS***

FRI FEB 19 PLANNING OR ZONING: HOW TO SHAPE A COMMUNITY?

  1. Mapping mini-project for this class: Who is the community? Working in teams and using the Social Explorer website, construct maps to document demographic and socio-economic changes in 3 selected neighborhoods since 1990.
  2. Read for class:
  3. Tom Angotti, “From Dislocation to Resistance: The Roots of Community Planning” and “From Protest to Community Plan,” from New York for Sale (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2008). Pdf on class website.
  4. In class: present and critique mapping mini-projects. TWO OR THREE STUDENTS WILL LEAD THECRITIQUE. DOES EVERY TEAM’S MAP SHOW: Who are the main population groups in each neighborhood? What are the main uses of space? What are the rent levels and/or sale prices of houses and apartments? (Search for “Brooklyn rent levels,” and look at EXTRA CREDIT: What is the zoning situation? (Look at website of the Department of City Planning.) Are there conflicts about development or gentrification—over which issues or projects? (Google the name of the neighborhood; prioritize articles in the New York Times, City Limits, dna.info, Curbed, The Real Deal). Are there organizationsthat claim to speak for the community? What is at stake?

FRI FEB 26 IS RESISTANCE POSSIBLE?

A community organizer, Celia Weaver, will visit the seminar to talk with us about the Crown Heights Tenants Union and general issues facing rental tenants in New York, as well as strategies that her organization is developing. We will look closely at two Brooklyn neighborhoods on the front lines of gentrification and redevelopment: Crown Heights and East New York.

  1. Read for class:
  2. Find and read recent media articles on the Crown Heights Tenants Union.I recommend these two articles: and
  3. Abigail Savitch-Lew, “Fight Over De Blasio Plan for East New York Will Be About More than Housing,” City Limits, September 22, 2015,
  4. Jarrett Murphy, “De Blasio Housing Chief Rebuts Critics of East N.Y. Plan,” City Limits, January 7, 2016,
  5. Jarrett Murphy, “De Blasio Housing Plan Hung Up as Much on Distrust as on Details,” City Limits, January 14, 2016,
  6. RESOURCE MATERIAL. Center for Urban Pedagogy, What is Zoning? (2013). On class website.
  7. Post before class: Your proposal for a class project on affordable housing. Would you create an informational website to make rents and sale prices transparent? Would you draft a policy proposal—to do what? Or would you develop something in between?
  8. In class: Workshop with Celia Weaver, assistant director for organizing and policy, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. TWO OR THREE STUDENTS WILL LEAD A PREP SESSION ON CROWN HEIGHTS BEFORE MS. WEAVER ARRIVES, INTRODUCE HER TO THE CLASS, AND LEAD Q&A AFTER HER PRESENTATION. Resource material: Skim website of Urban Homesteading Assistance Board and Facebook page of Crown Heights Tenants Union; Interview with Celia Weaver,

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