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With more than 3.7 million Ukrainian refugees fleeing the country and another 6.5 million internally displaced, architects in Ukraine have been hard-pressed to put their skills to work by creating the necessary shelters and accommodations required for those uprooted by the... View full entry
It has been a month since the deadly space heater-induced apartment fire at the Twins Parks housing complex claimed the lives of 17 people and displaced more than 200 families from a largely Gambian immigrant community in the South Bronx. The incident has turned into a bellwether for the state of... View full entry
The council’s decision comes after months of significant organizing and protesting, including a two-day hunger strike last week, by vendors who felt that they were shut out of negotiations. It also follows months of mediating between the vendors and the Bumb family by councilmember David Cohen, who represents the district where the market is located. — The Mercury News
A large multi-use development project has been proposed for the site, which is adjacent to a BART station, since at least 2007. The site currently hosts a flea market that caters to primarily Spanish-speaking lower-income residents. Recent protests have combined public outcry to draw some... View full entry
The submerged Italian village of Curon is resurfacing for the first time in over 70 years. Located in the northern part of the country near Switzerland, the village, dating back to the 14th Century, was once home to hundreds of people. However, in 1950 construction began on a large dam in... View full entry
With the prospect of the Rohingya not being able to return to Myanmar for years to come, the prototypes in Camp 4 Extension reflect how aid and relief organizations are finding new ways to manage the long-term needs of the most populous refugee camp in the world. — CityLab
CityLab reports on the latest efforts to drastically improve living conditions inside Kutupalong Refugee Camp, the world's largest camp of its kind and currently home to more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees that fled from ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh... View full entry
"People know Mosul's Old City by its riverfront - it has some of the city's most important historic features," Fethi added, referring to the city's old wall, the citadel, palaces and other heritage sites along the Tigris' west bank.
"It [the council] should aim to preserve Mosul's heritage rather than turn [it] into another Dubai ... an absolute anathema to what should be done."
— Al Jazeera
Two years after Iraqi forces regained full control of Mosul from ISIL, local authorities are pushing a proposal to transform historic neighborhoods along the west bank of the Tigris river into a modernized “new city”, with high rises, large supermarkets and restaurant chains. Al Jazeera... View full entry
New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency, a term defined by the Humanitarian Coalition of large international aid organizations as “an event or series of events that represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people.” New York’s is [...] a “complex emergency”: man-made and shaped by a combination of forces that have led to a large-scale “displacement of populations” from their homes. — The New York Review of Books
"What makes the crisis especially startling," author Michael Greenberg continues in his latest piece for The New York Review of Books, "is that New York has the most progressive housing laws in the country and a mayor who has made tenants’ rights and affordable housing a central focus of his... View full entry
Sinclair has been working with Airbnb over the past year on various pilot projects, with the official [temporary housing] project launching this summer. The ultimate goal is for one million Airbnb users to register as “hosts for good,” signaling that they will provide housing for people impacted by natural disasters or otherwise displaced. — Inhabitat
Sinclair will lead Airbnb's in-house humanitarian team as part of the company's goal to provide free, short-term housing for 100,000 people in need over the next five years. Airbnb announced the #weaccept project in a commercial (linked below) that aired at this year's Super Bowl, not long after... View full entry
“We were from the community. We wanted to do it for the neighborhood,” states Robert Hammond, a co-founder of the High Line in an interview with City Lab. “Ultimately, we failed.” The High Line might be popular, but it hasn’t really benefited its adjacent community. Visitors are... View full entry
The tiny house is just one example of the lengths to which people will go to create a sense of home even when they lack the means for it. It’s just one symptom of a much wider and intensifying search for belonging, which makes home as important to politics as the idea of class or rights – especially now, when so many people feel displaced, both literally and figuratively, by life in innovation-driven, high-tech, networked capitalism. — Aeon
Related stories in the Archinect news:Humans and other things that nestHow Tadao Ando defines his own "home for the spirit"The downsides of the charming "holdout" houses View full entry
“Village” may not seem like the right term for a cluster of tenement-style walkups that can house more than 100,000 people. Chengzhongcun hang onto the name partly because of the familiarity evoked by the traditions and small-scale businesses that thrive among their migrant populations, and partly because when modern Shenzhen began growing, these places really were just villages in the middle of the city. — foreignpolicy.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:A tragic tale of live-and-let-die development on Shanghai's Street of Eternal HappinessAi Weiwei calls modern Chinese architecture 'fatalistic'Take a look at the rapid urbanization of China's Pearl River Delta View full entry
Researchers from the Urban Displacement project, a joint UCLA and UC Berkeley effort, recently released a gentrification map of Los Angeles.
They examined the city from 1990 to 2000 and up to 2015, focusing on neighborhoods near transit stops. The goal was to see if these areas saw higher rents and more displacement than other areas.
The answer? Yes — with some exceptions.
— scpr.org
Some of the UCLA researchers' key findings for Los Angeles Country (via the project's website, urbandisplacement.org):Our analysis found that areas around transit stations are changing and that many of the changes are in direction of neighborhood upscaling and gentrification.Examining the changes... View full entry
London’s traditional elite, such as lawyers, architects and academics, are being pushed out of their enclaves in Mayfair, Chelsea and Hampstead by an influx of global super rich investors, causing a chain reaction of gentrification across the capital, according to research by the London School of Economics.
An influx of ultra-high-net worth overseas buyers is leading the old elite to sell up and move from London’s most exclusive postcodes and buy in areas they previously considered undesirable
— the Guardian
While it may be hard to sympathise with the "traditional elite", these displacements set off a chain-reaction, as the affluent middle class moves into neighbourhoods that were once working class. In turn, lower-income Londoners are forced out of the city all together.For more on the... View full entry
“One day at around eight in the morning, I was returning from the market when six of the developer’s thugs tackled me outside my home and pushed me into a car,” remembers Xi.
Several others, she says, climbed a ladder to her balcony. Xi says she screamed for her husband, but it was too late. There was a scuffle inside, and then black smoke poured out of their balcony window before the house went up in flames. Xi’s husband burned to death, and the developer’s men escaped.
— marketplace.org
Related stories in the Archinect news:How Chinese families are handling the country's ongoing mass evictionsPhotographer captures the changing face of ShanghaiNow THAT's a skywalk! Jin Mao Tower to open world's highest fenceless, all transparent walkway in Shanghai View full entry
my research shows that longtime residents aren’t more likely to move when their neighborhood gentrifies; sometimes they’re actually less likely to leave [...]
In a 2009 study, I found that gentrifying neighborhoods are more racially diverse than non-gentrifying ones. [...]
To be sure, market forces help change commerce in gentrifying neighborhoods. But often lurking behind the “invisible hand” are activists and policymakers who wish to nudge the market to produce certain outcomes.
— washingtonpost.com
Lance Freeman's research at GSAPP focuses on issues related to gentrification, affordable housing, and race. Watch the Washington Post's video below, summing up the myths:Related on Archinect:A tale of two parks: debate rages over a new plan for a "Maker Park" in BrooklynA telltale sign of... View full entry