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CRP Faculty and Students to Present Work at Upcoming ACSP Annual Conference

 City of Toronto skyline at night. image / Laurent Gass Photographie, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) will hold its Annual Conference from November 3–5, 2022, in Toronto, Ontario. After being fully virtual last year, the conference will return to an in-person format and offer more than 250 academic sessions, poster receptions, networking events, and book exhibits in the three-day span.

The focal theme of this year’s conference is (Re) Shaping the Inclusive City: Engaging Indigenous and Immigrant Voices, Histories, and Lived Experiences. Historically, many individuals and groups feel left out of community conversations about space and place and, in addition, both indigenous communities and new immigrant communities fear marginalization and erasure when professional planners develop policies, projects, programs, and processes that ignore equity concerns. The ACSP Annual Conference will highlight papers and sessions that engage with this focal theme and address the histories and geographies of marginalization and inclusion.

The ACSP Alumni reception will be held on Friday, November 3 in the York Meeting Room at the Hilton Toronto. It will include Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Rutgers University, Columbia University, and New York University.

For the second year, CRP Associate Professor Jennifer Minner is serving as the Conference Chair for the ACSP (term 2021–2023). Cornell faculty, students, and alumni will be well represented across the conference’s various functions, including roundtable discussions and paper presentations.

Check out our Ph.D. profiles and Faculty profiles for more information on our presenters!

CRP Scheduled Presentations

Thursday, November 3

8:30–10 a.m. Does Polycentric Development Reduce Regional Economic Disparities? A Multi-scale Analysis of German Regions Wenzheng Li, Presenting Author and Primary Author; Stephan Schmidt, Coauthor
8:30–10 a.m. Environmental Justice in Energy Transition: Quantifying Racial Disparities in Air Quality using a Case Study of Clean Truck Program in New York and New Jersey Yeonkyeong Park, Presenting Author
10:15–11:30 a.m. Social Trust and Flood Risk: The Case of Dar es Salaam Ryan Thomas, Presenting Author
10:15–11:30 a.m. Measuring Human Subjective Momentary Sentiment in Public Spaces During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Using Twitter Data in Manhattan, New York City Eunah Jung, Presenting Author
1:30–2:45 p.m. Squeezed by Time: How Mothers Perform Caregiving Trips Soojung Han, Presenting Author
1:30–2:45 p.m. Corporate Landlords: Housing Financialization in Latin America Andrea Urbina-Julio, Presenting Author
3-4:15 p.m. Preservation Ecology for Indigenous Learning Dylan Stevenson, Presenting Author
6–7:30 p.m. Why India’s Transport System Fails Its Women?: Gender Segregation, Surveillance, and Technology Fetishization Seema Singh, Presenting Author
7:45– 9:45 p.m. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Existing Infrastructure for Sea Level Rise for the Vulnerable Population in Norfolk, Virginia Gina Park, Presenting Author
7:45– 9:45 p.m. Shiny Objects, Galaxies, and Bodies of Planning Theory: Diagrams of Positionality and the Field by Emerging Scholars Lead Poster Author: Yu Wang. Co-authors: Jennifer Minner; Courtney Bower, Natassia Bravo, Soojung Han, Laura Leddy, Yousuf Mahid, Antonio Moya-Latorre, Carlos Lopez Ortiz, Gina Yeonkyeong Park, Yating Ru, Andrea Urbina, and Zoe Zhuojun Wang

Friday, November 4

8:15– 9:30 a.m. Pathways to Car Ownership for Lower-income Households in the U.S. Nicholas Klein, Presenting Author and Primary Author, Cornell University; Rounaq Basu, Coauthor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Mike Smart, Coauthor, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
9:45–11:15 a.m. How Can We Measure Better? Creating a Multidimensional Spatial Model of Food Access in Upstate New York Shriya Rangarajan, Presenting Author

Saturday November 5

8–9:15 a.m. Can Florida’s Coast Survive Its Reliance on Development? Fiscal Vulnerability and Funding Woes Under Sea Level Rise Linda Shi, Presenting Author, Cornell University; William Butler, Coauthor, Florida State University; Tisha Holmes, Coauthor, Florida State University; Jonathan Ignatowski, Coauthor, Town of Bolton, Vermont; Anthony Milordis, Coauthor, Cornell University; Ryan Thomas, Coauthor, Cornell University; Yousuf Mahid, Coauthor, Cornell University; Austin Aldag, Coauthor, Cornell University
8–9:15 a.m. Surveying the Topology of Planning Theory Using Bibliometric Analysis Courtney Bower, Presenting Author
11 a.m.–12 p.m. Where Did Redlining Matter? Regional Heterogeneity and the Uneven Distribution of Advantage Wenfei Xu, Presenting
2–3:30 p.m. Mechanisms of Inclusive Urbanization in Sub-Saharan African Countries Yating Ru, Presenting Author and Primary Author, Cornell University, Beliyou Haile, Co-Author, International Food Policy Research Institute, John Carruthers, Co-Author, Cornell University
2–3:30 p.m. Local Government Leadership and City Planning: Analyzing Convergence and Divergence Carlos Lopez, Presenting Author, Professor Victoria Beard, Primary Author
3–5 p.m. Patterns of Demolition and the Potential of Deconstruction: Understanding the Determinants of Demolition to Inform Salvage and Deconstruction Supportive Policies in Ithaca, New York Jennifer Minner, Presenting Author; Shriya Rangarajan, Coauthor; Yu Wang, Coauthor; Felix Heisel, Coauthor
5:15–6:45 p.m. Challenging Austerity Under the COVID-19 State Mildred Warner, Presenting Author; Paige Kelly, Coauthor, Cornell University; Xue Zhang, Coauthor

 

 

 

Colloquium 10/28: Kirk Goodrich: Transformative Development: A New Lens to Evaluate the Impact of Real Estate Projects

Abstract:

Whether you are creating a massive market-rate residential project, a large mixed-use development, affordable housing, or almost any other kind of development, developers typically attempt to gather support from community stakeholders, elected officials, and government agencies by touting several familiar factors. The supposed advantages typically include job creation, increased housing supply and affordability, catalytic economic development, and a stronger tax base. This talk will highlight other less frequently touted but equally important outcomes. The talk will focus on three historic preservation projects in Harlem, New York, that became anchor institutions that transformed neighborhood revitalization.

Bio:

Kirk Goodrich, B.S. ’90, has more than 30 years of experience in the fields of community development, affordable housing finance, and real estate development.  Much of his experience was gained during an almost ten-year tenure overseeing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) syndication business for Enterprise Community Investment in the New York region.  During that period, 12,000 units were financed in the region with approximately $1 billion invested.  He currently serves as President at Monadnock Development LLC.  Over the last decade, Monadnock Development has acquired or developed 46 projects containing more than 9,000 units with total development costs in excess of $2.8 billion.

Education:

  • Bachelor of Science Degree, Consumer Economics and Housing, Cornell University
  • Master of Urban Planning Degree, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Juris Doctor Degree, Fordham University School of Law

Boards:

  • Executive Committee of the Board — Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC)
  • Chairman of Board — New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH)
  • Advisory Board — New York Housing Conference (NYHC)
  • Board Member — Metro IAF Community Restoration Fund, LLC
  • Board Member — Breaking Ground

Repost from Cornell AAP: Embracing the Audacity of Ambition: Future Planners Explore Challenging Climate Questions Facing the Field

 After an introductory presentation by AAP NYC Director Robert Balder (top right) the students broke into smaller groups to explore the city. Anson Wigner / AAP

When developing plans and programs to build and strengthen communities, urbanists often face a host of competing challenges and perspectives that they must find creative ways to balance. This work becomes even more nuanced and difficult as considerations of the climate crisis and other social justice issues are brought with increasing urgency into the conversation.

College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) students participating in City and Regional Planning’s (CRP) fall field trip titled Climate Resilience and Social Justice in the City faced these considerations head-on as they explored New York City and met with local policymakers and community organizations deeply embedded in addressing climate vulnerabilities and adaptive responses.

“Climate change poses an immense challenge for huge, dense, complicated places like New York, where every square inch is contested, expensive, and layered with diverse infrastructure systems,” explained CRP Assistant Professor Linda Shi, who led this year’s trip. “The physical challenge alone is daunting, yet most planners and urban change makers around the world do not yet recognize the impact of climate change and what we can do to adapt.”

While in New York City from October 6–8, 51 first-year graduate planning students were asked to deeply consider the broad range of communities and how climate change is felt and experienced by each. Activities involved both close personal observations during tours of Battery Park City, the Financial District, the South Street Sea Port, and the Lower East Side, as well as intensive small-group experiences with organizations such as Universe City NYC in East New York, WE ACT in Harlem, and UPROSE in Sunset Park. AAP alumni also offered tours highlighting issues around community development, urban design, transportation, affordable housing, and historic preservation.

These intimate community-based engagements are the result of a transformation of the annual field trip’s structure spearheaded by Shi, CRP Chair Sophie Oldfield, and Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities Director Victoria Beard in partnership with AAP NYC Director Robert Balder. The outcome was a fantastic experiential learning opportunity, according to Oldfield. “Community-based work responds to the immediacy and the complex lived realities of increased heat, flooding, and extreme storms. Engaging and listening to activists and community-based leaders across New York City was inspiring and instructive,” she said.

A key element of these discussions was exposure to the variety of ways that climate change impacts urban environments — physically, economically, socially, and environmentally — and the disparities in the resources dedicated to adapting different parts of the city. As an example, Shi cited places in Lower Manhattan that are receiving billions of dollars in funding, while those in Brownsville receive none. “It’s not enough to think about helping cities adapt in general. We have to recognize the inequities in how cities adapt, which in the process often reveals how climate adaptation can simply be another form of historic environmental injustice.”

The opportunity to step out of the classroom and engage with faculty, alumni, and leaders in the environmental justice and equity movement left a strong impression on the students. “Students are often uncomfortable with not having an answer, a best practice. But what we want them to learn early on in their time at Cornell, including through this field trip, is to be able to ask uncomfortable questions of themselves and of practice on the ground,” Shi explained. In response to the trip, “they recognized that ‘having an education does not mean you know better’ than communities, the power in having the ‘audacity of ambition,’ and how much time and patience it takes to see real change.”

During a debriefing session, students gathered together to share questions and comments inspired by their experiences and to synthesize the knowledge they had gleaned by listening to and engaging directly with different communities. On colorful sticky notes arranged around the room, they highlighted ways of working, including questioning who gets to be involved in decision making and centering what the community itself wants. They called out pressing needs, such as healthy and accessible food, job security, and affordable housing to avoid displacement in the face of gentrification. “This visit emphasized the importance of bottom-up planning in climate and community resilience,” one student noted, underlining the importance of education. “Community resilience depends on an informed and engaged public.” Another participant echoed that “it’s important to empower the community to speak [rather] than ‘speak for them’.” Whether it was pointing out fenced public parks or poor parking options, reactions were passionate and exclamation point usage liberal.

While the students gained new understandings of issues beyond the classroom and how difficult the work could be, they also appeared to appreciate exposure to those working for change in the trenches. “Bringing real change to community involves [a] really long time and huge effort (30 years),” proclaimed a fluorescent yellow note, which in context read as both a hurdle to overcome and a goal line to cross.

This article was written by Molly Sheridan and reposted from Cornell AAP.

Between Worlds: The Life and Work of Joseph Allen Stein in the U.S. and India: Colloquium, Exhibition, and Reception

Associate Professor Jeffrey Chusid will help lead a colloquium lecture, exhibition, and reception about Joseph Allen Stein with Stein’s son J. David Stein and Professor Mary N. Woods later this week.

Joseph Allen Stein (1912–2001) was a rising young architect in the San Francisco Bay Area when the political storms of the time drove him and his family to India. He became one of the leading figures in the architecture of independence, and today his buildings, include the India International Centre, the India Habitat Centre, and the Triveni Kala Sangam, among others. Stein’s interests included long-span lightweight structures, regional modernism, the environment of the Himalayas, and sustainability more broadly.

Jeffrey Mark Chusid is a preservation architect and planner whose research, teaching, and writing have focused on the fate of historic resources in areas of cultural exchange and conflict, the conservation of modernist architecture and planning, especially in the U.S. and India, and sustainable development using historic sites and communities. His next book is a study of the expatriate architect Joseph Allen Stein and his career in the U.S. and India.

The colloquium lecture titled Between Worlds: The Life and Work of Joseph Allen Stein in the U.S. and India will be on Friday, October 21, 2022 at 12:25 p.m. in the Abbey and Howard Milstein Auditorium in Milstein Hall. The colloquium presentation will include talks by Stein’s son, David Stein, a planner with extensive experience in the U.S. and India, and Associate Professor Jeffrey M. Chusid, who is working on a book on the architect. They will be joined by Professor Mary N. Woods, who has written on many aspects of modern architecture in India, for a discussion following the talks.

The Between Worlds Exhibition will be held from Monday, October 17 – Friday, October 28, 2022 in the Bibliowicz Family Gallery in Milstein Hall, open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. This year, Stein’s family has given a significant tranche of materials from his personal archive to the Cornell University Library. The gift includes some 5,000 drawings, firm brochures, publications, and other documents from over 70 years of Stein’s professional life. Jeffrey Chusid will present the exhibition based on the gift.

There will be a Reception on October 20, 2022, at 5 p.m.

Emile Bensedrine’s (URS ’23) Rome Workshop Reflection

When I was first applying to the CRP department at Cornell, I decided to browse the Rome Workshop page of the website and looked down the list of neighborhood studies. I clicked on a random name that seemed nice to me: Acilia, situated between the city center and the Mediterranean Sea. The students had made artful renderings of the main piazza, collected detailed statistics, and spoken with neighborhood residents.

Now a reality for me, arriving in Rome has been a whirlwind — surreal to travel so far and suddenly see so many familiar Cornell faces (and many new) in such a remarkable but unfamiliar place. A city made up of hard the grandest of monuments and the most mundane of rituals such as getting coffee. It is hard not to be intrigued by everything or without millions of questions popping up in my head.

The Rome workshop pushes our URS cohort to venture far beyond the Rome that most know, immersing us in neighborhoods in both the center and the periphery. Rather than simply learn about Rome in a classroom, neighborhood studies set us out to explore the city on a 1:1 scale, making observations as we go and taking in everything. That is the first assignment. For our second assignment, our professors gave us a list of neighborhoods—all on the Roman periphery—to choose from, to make observations, and report back to class. Unsurprisingly, Acilia was my first pick. My roommate, Luke Slomba, and I were off the following Sunday on the Roma-Lido train line jotting down notes and sketching as much as we could in our matching notebooks wearing corduroy jackets bought from the same flea market. To the people around us, this was probably a funny scene.

So far, we have had the privilege to meet with scholars, artists, and organizers throughout Rome and Italy more broadly to look beyond the surface to see the different forces at play in Italian cities. Ultimately, the neighborhood study has probably been the most collaborative and generative project I have ever worked on. A deep dive into Quartiere Statuario, a neighborhood in Rome’s Southeastern periphery revealed that what at first and even second glance, appeared to be a typical suburb is a neighborhood with a rich history.  We learned that today, Statuario is at the crossroads of contestation over its built and natural environment between outside political actors. While a lot of work, I am deeply thankful for the friendships I made and the dynamic we develop together as a team, to make work we can all share and be proud of.

This blog was reposted from the Cornell in Rome Blog.

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