Reclaiming The Landscape Of CommunityMIT's Fall 2018 and 2019 seminar on Ecological Urbanism focused on the crisis facing West Philadelphia's low-income homeowners. After more than a half century of redlining and disinvestment, capital is flowing into West Philadelphia's African-American neighborhoods, and owners are losing their homes through predatory lending (reverse-redlining) and unscrupulous practices of aggressive speculators. To make matters worse, tangled deeds make it difficult for heirs to claim a deceased relative's property. These neighborhoods are in dire need of investment, but not through tricking and cheating residents out of their homes. These problems are not just Philadelphia's, they are happening across the US. The class, led by faculty Anne Whiston Spirn and Karilyn Crockett (2019), with the assistance of Ben Turpin (2018) Jenny Chen (2019), developed action plans to address this crisis, in partnerships with Monumental Baptist Church and its community development corporation. |
FALL 2018 & 2019 |
PROPOSALS20182019 |
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FURTHER READINGThe seminar projects drew from an extensive body of work by scholars and practitioners to better understand the current crisis and its historical background. For further reading, see what the class read. |
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CASESThe class researched successful cases from around the US. Click on the links below to read about lessons learned from programs designed to prevent displacement of low-income homeowners. Saint Paul's East Side Freedom Library Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation (2018) |