SES 5374: Community Development: History, Theory, and Imaginative Practice

Harvard GSD— Spring 2019 Tuesdays 10-1pm, Gund 505

INSTRUCTOR Lily Song, Ph.D. [email protected] Office hours on Wednesdays 1-3pm or by appointment (in 42 Kirkland 1F)

Course Teaching Assistant Malika Leiper ([email protected])

COURSE DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVES

Community development is a heterogeneous and contested field of planning thought and practice. The profession has generally prioritized people and places that are disproportionately burdened by capitalist urbanization and development. In the US, the dominant focus has been on personal or group development and widening access to opportunities, with a growing reliance on market incentives to deliver housing options and spur economic development. Yet for many communities at the margins, development has rather connoted practices of freedom— freedom from oppression and deprivation; freedom to enjoy one’s time, make choices, and experience life as abundance and possibility. Thus conceived, community development is less a question of remedial policy than acts of resistance, claiming rights and power, and strengthening collective ownership and governance capacity over productive infrastructures and resources.

The course begins with an examination of evolving patterns, drivers, and explanations of urban inequality and poverty and corresponding urban policy and planning responses— with a primary focus on the US but in comparative world-historical perspective. We trace the evolution of community development from the Progressive Era to the contemporary period, where global trends such as urban-based economic growth and the new urban agenda are pushing community development practice beyond the neighborhood scale to local, metropolitan, and even supranational scales. In critically analyzing community development concepts and strategies, the course pays close attention to the dilemma of race that has continued to define capitalism, politics, and spatial production in America as well as divided working class and progressive movements, including those defining the field of community development. We also draw insights from historic movements that have sought to change race relations in America in connection with global assaults on capitalism, empire, and patriarchy.

For students to further develop their own community development agendas and skills, the course is built around a speaker series and discussion sessions focused on applied practices and cases. Notwithstanding significant advancements in affordable housing development, social service delivery, and placemaking— the traditional mainstay of community development— the course focuses on emerging community development

1/10 approaches such as transformative economic projects built on community-labor partnerships, anchor-based strategies, and cooperative ownership and wealth creation. It also surveys innovative sectoral practices focused on renewable energy, mobility and access, food justice and sovereignty, and art, culture, and fashion. Guest speakers will moreover include political organizers and leaders working to build intersectional movements that inform progressive urban policy and planning agendas and community development goals.

Course evaluations will be based on three assignments (blog entry or comic strip, semi- structured interview, and applied research project) and class participation. It has no prerequisites and is open to graduate students across different disciplines.

CLASS POLICIES • Preparatory reading, punctual attendance, and active participation required for each class. • Course work must be handed in by the assigned deadline. • No use of phones, laptops, tablets, and other gadgets capable of connecting to the internet or phone system during lectures and discussions. • Students needing academic adjustments or accommodations because of a documented disability must present their Faculty Letter from the Accessible Education Office (AEO) and speak with instructor by the end of the second week of the term. All discussions will remain confidential, although faculty members are invited to contact AEO to discuss appropriate implementation.

GRADING CRITERIA

Grading will be assessed in accordance with Harvard GSD grading scales (i.e. Distinction & High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, Satisfactory, Fail) and adhere to the following weighting: (1) Class Participation (25%). As this is a largely discussion-based, rather than lecture- based, course, students should be well prepared to participate actively in class discussions. (2) Blog Entry/Comic Strip (15%). Students will each compose a blog essay (length 500- 750 words, double-spaced, 12-point font) or illustrated narrative akin to a comic strip – reflecting on the meaning and significance of community development (Due 9am, Feb. 19, 2019). (3) Semi-structured Interview (20%). Students will each interview a community development practitioner or expert about underlying values, goals, and premises of practice and summarize findings (Due March 26, 2019). (4) Final Project (40%). Students—working in groups or independently—will analyze a pressing community development issue and pose planning and policy alternatives. Each team will make a 15-minute in-class presentation (on Apr. 30, 2019) and submit a final paper (by May 7, 2019)— 15-20 pages in length, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12-point font exclusive of the cover, graphs and bibliography sheets.

2/10 COURSE STRUCTURE Date Topic Jan. 29 Introduction

Part 1: Unraveling Feb. 5 Systems of supremacy: Statistics, paradigms, and reckonings

Feb. 12 il/logics of urban spatial production and the affordability crisis

Part 2: Revisiting Feb. 19 Origins and evolution of the community development field

Feb. 26 Black freedom struggles and radical traditions

Part 3: Praxis Mar. 5 Digital activism and transformative politics

Mar. 12 Just mobility and access

Mar. 19 NO CLASS— SPRING BREAK

Mar. 26 Community power: Renewables and efficiency retrofits

Apr. 2 Community wealth creation: Anchors, organized labor, and cooperative economics Apr. 9 Food justice and sovereignty

Apr. 16 Counter hegemonic fashion and inclusive value chains

Apr. 23 Place-based art, cultural commons, and reparative spaces

Apr. 30 Final presentations

COURSE SCHEDULE *Reading assignments may change from time to time, partly based on what students find interesting and are able to digest, though with advance notice from the instructor. Please consult Canvas for up-to-date reading list and download weekly readings from the appropriate folder.

(January 29) Introduction 1. Course overview 2. Foundational concepts—Development, underdevelopment, scarcity, abundance, community, place

3/10 Assigned reading: • DeFilippis, J., & Saegert, S. (2012). Communities develop: The question is how. In The community development reader, 2, pg. 1-7. • Sen, Amartya, “Introduction” and “The Perspective of Freedom,” In Development as freedom. Oxford Paperbacks, 2001, pg. 3-34. • Gustavo Esteva, " Development,” In Sachs, Wolfgang, ed. The development dictionary,: A guide to knowledge as power. Orient Blackswan, 1997, pg. 1-23. • Marable, M. (2015). “Inequality and the Burden of Capitalist Democracy: A point of view on Black history, Part 1.” In How capitalism underdeveloped Black America: Problems in race, political economy, and society. Haymarket Books, pg. 1-10 • Littler, Jo (2018). ”Inequality is under attack - but what should equality really look like?” The Guardian.

Further reading: • Esteva, Gustavo, and Salvatore J. Babones. The future of development: a radical manifesto. Policy Press, 2013. • Sennett, Richard. “Introduction,” In Together: The rituals, pleasures and politics of cooperation. Yale University Press, 2012.

Part 1: Unraveling

(February 5) Systems of supremacy: Statistics, paradigms, and reckonings 1. Explanations of urban poverty and inequality—patterns, impacts, and drivers 2. Systems of hierarchy and domination 3. Racecraft and the racial debt: The Case for Reparations

Assigned reading: • Skim Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. (2017). “State of the Union: Poverty.” • Zuberi, T. (2001). Thicker than blood: How racial statistics lie. U of Minnesota Press, Ch. 1 and 2. • Bradshaw, T. K. (2007). Theories of poverty and anti-poverty programs in community development. Community Development, 38(1), 7-25. • Jared Bernstein and Ben Spielberg, "The whys of increasing inequality: A graphical portrait," The Washington Post, August 14, 2017. • Coates, Ta-Nehisi. (2014). “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic. • Lorde, Audre. "Age, race, class, and sex: Women redefining difference." Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (1984): 114-123. • Read or Listen to—MLK Jr. "The Drum Major Instinct,” Final sermon, delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church (4 February 1968).

Further reading: • Marcuse, P. (2015). “Poverty or Inequality: Does It Matter?” • Chang, Alvin. "This Cartoon Explains How the Rich Got Rich and the Poor Got Poor" Vox. May 23, 2016.

4/10 • O'Connor, Alice. Poverty knowledge: Social science, social policy, and the poor in twentieth- century US history. Princeton University Press, 2009. • Du Bois, WEB. “The White Worker” In Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a history of the part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880. Routledge, 2017, pg. 17-31. • Roediger, David R. The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class. Verso, 1999. • Fields, Karen E., and Barbara Jeanne Fields. Racecraft: The soul of inequality in American life. Verso Trade, 2014. • Reed Jr, Adolph L. "The case against reparations." Progressive 64 (2000): 15-17.

(February 12) il/logics of urban spatial production and the affordability crisis

1. Urban-based economic development, gentrification, and displacement 2. Climate change, new urban agenda, green new deal 3. Geopolitical and bipartisan conflict

Assigned reading: • Richard Florida and Benjamin Schneider, "The Global Housing Crisis," CityLab, April 11, 2018. • Smith, N. (2002). New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode, 34(3), 427-450. • Kaika, M. (2017). ‘Don’t call me resilient again!’: the New Urban Agenda as immunology… or… what happens when communities refuse to be vaccinated with ‘smart cities’ and indicators. Environment and Urbanization, 29(1), 89-102. • Moretti, E. (2012). The new geography of jobs—Ch. 5, “The Inequality of Mobility and Cost of Living.” • Walker, Alissa, "Mansplaining the city: Why are men driving the conversation about the future of our neighborhoods?" Curbed, August 16, 2017. • Urban Displacement Project.. (2017). Gentrification Explained. • Leilani Farha, "How the real estate financial model is harming us," TEDxQueensU, April 17, 2018.

Further reading: • Sassen, S. (1994). The global city: New york, london, tokyo. Princeton University Press. • Smith, N. (1996). The new urban frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city. Psychology Press. • Peterson, P. E. (1981). City limits. University of Chicago Press. • Florida, R. (2014). The rise of the creative class--revisited: Revised and expanded. Basic Books (AZ). • Autor, D. H., Katz, L. F., & Kearney, M. S. (2008). Trends in US wage inequality: Revising the revisionists. The Review of economics and statistics, 90(2), 300-323. • Piketty, T., & Saez, E. (2014). Inequality in the long run. Science, 344(6186), 838-843. • Hacker, J. S., & Pierson, P. (2010). Winner-take-all politics: How Washington made the rich richer--and turned its back on the middle class. Simon and Schuster.

5/10

Part 2: Revisiting

(February 19) Origins and evolution of the community development field 1. Critical overview of evolving policy and planning responses to urban poverty and inequality in the US. 2. Interrogate underlying ideologies about society, development, and state-market relations 3. Consider alternative approaches to social housing and infrastructure in UK, Nordic Countries, Central and Eastern Europe, and SE Asia

Assigned reading: • O’Connor, A. (1999). “Swimming against the tide: A brief history of federal policy in poor communities.” • Wakeman, Rosemary, "Was There an Ideal Socialist City? Socialist New Towns as Modern Dreamscapes," In Transnationalism and the German City, 2014. • Miller, A.B. (2014). “Public Housing Works: Lessons from Vienna and Singapore.” • Berman, Sheri, "Unheralded Battle: Capitalism, the Left, Social Democracy, and Democratic Socialism," Dissent Magazine.https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/unheralded-battle- capitalism-the-left-social-democracy-and-democratic-socialism • Benjamin Balthaser, "Modernism or Barbarism," Jacobin, May 25, 2017.

Further reading: • Katznelson, Ira. (2005). When Affirmative Action was White. • Farhang, Sean, and Ira Katznelson. "The southern imposition: Congress and labor in the New Deal and Fair Deal." Studies in American Political Development 19, no. 1 (2005): 1-30. • Sugrue, T. J. (2014). The origins of the urban crisis: Race and inequality in postwar Detroit. • MIT CoLab, "From Urban Renewal to Affordable Housing Production System: Boston Mayors and the Evolution of Community Development Corporations in Boston," April 2016. • McGerr, Michael, and A. Fierce Discontent. "The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America." (2003): 18. • Foley, Duncan K. Adam's fallacy: a guide to economic theology. Harvard University Press, 2009. • Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard Cloward. Poor people's movements: Why they succeed, how they fail. Vintage, 2012.

(February 26) Black freedom struggles and radical traditions

1. Black Radicalism 2. Radical Feminism 3. Rainbow Coalitions

Assigned reading:

6/10 • Robinson, C. J. (1983). Black Marxism: The making of the Black radical tradition, Ch. 12, p. 307-318. • Kelley, R. (2002). “The Battlefield Called Life: Black Feminist Dreams,” Freedom Dreams—pg.135-156. • Allen, R. (1969). Black Awakening in Capitalist America—Ch.3. • Movement for Black Lives. (2016). A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice. • "The Rainbow Coalition – A Time to Fear" • Thomas Abbott et al. (2018). Embrace abolitionist planning to fight Trumpism. • Deshonay Dozier (2018). A Response to Abolitionist Planning: There is No Room for ‘Planners’ in the Movement for Abolition.

Further reading: • Williams, Jakobi. “The Original Rainbow Coalition,” From the bullet to the ballot: The Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and racial coalition politics in Chicago. UNC Press Books, 2013, ch. 4, pg. 125-166. • Marable, M. (1996). “Why Black Americans are not Socialists” (ch. 22) in Speaking Truth to Power. • Davis, Angela. (1981). Women, race, & class. Vintage. • Harney, S. and F. Moten. (2013). The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. • Lorde, Audre. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. • Bandele, Asha. (2018). When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. • Cooper, B. (2015). Intersectionality. In The Oxford handbook of feminist theory.

Part 3: Praxis

(March 5) Digital activism and transformative politics Guest speakers: Aditi Mehta, University of Toronto; Ayushi Roy, The Move

Assigned reading: • Freelon, Deen, Charlton McIlwain, and Meredith Clark. "Beyond the hashtags:# Ferguson,# Blacklivesmatter, and the online struggle for offline justice." (2016). • Daniels, Jessie. "Rethinking cyberfeminism (s): Race, gender, and embodiment." Women's Studies Quarterly 37, no. 1/2 (2009): 101-124. • Ortiz, David G., and Stephen F. Ostertag. "Katrina bloggers and the development of collective civic action: The web as a virtual mobilizing structure." Sociological Perspectives 57, no. 1 (2014): 52-78.

Further Reading: • O'Sullivan, Donie. "Her son was killed — then came the Russian trolls," CNN, June 29, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/us/russian-trolls-exploit-philando-castiles- death/index.html • Rickford, Russell. "Black lives matter: Toward a modern practice of mass struggle." In New Labor Forum, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 34-42. Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, 2016.

7/10 • Pew Research Center, "Activism in the Social Media Age," http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/07/11/activism-in-the-social-media-age/. • Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1979). Poor people's movements: Why they succeed, how they fail, ch. 1. • Clavel, P. (2010). Activists in city hall. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.

(March 12) Just mobility and access Guest speakers: TBA

Assigned reading: • Watch “Ovarian Psychos” by Joanna Sokolowski and Kate Trumbull (2016). • Cowen, D. (2017). “Infrastructures of Empire and Resistance.” • Sheller, M. (2018). “What is Mobility Justice?” & “Conclusion: Claiming the Mobile Commons” In Mobility Justice. VERSO. • Song, L., Kirschen, M., & Taylor, J. (2018). Women on wheels: Gender and cycling in Solo, Indonesia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography.

Further reading: • The Untokening. (2016). Untokening 1.0: Principles for Mobility Justice. • Song, L., Paulsson, A, and Davis, D. “Sustainability vs. Equity? Regional Transport Investment and Spatial Development in Los Angeles and Stockholm.” • Lily Song, Diane Davis, and Hannah Herzig. In progress. “'Actually Existing' Accessibility: Integrated Transport, Land Use, and Housing Development in Vienna.”

(March 19) SPRING BREAK

(March 26) Community power: Renewables and efficiency retrofits Guest speaker(s): Maria Belen Power, GreenRoots (Chelsea, MA); Lindsay McClusky, Community Labor United; Enet Mukurazita, Coop Power Boston Metroeast

Assigned Reading: • Tufts UEP with Community Labor United and Green Justice Coalition. (2016). The Potential for Community Shared Solar in Massachusetts: Expanding Solar Access to Low and Moderate- Income Households. • Data for Progress. (2018). A Green New Deal: A Progressive Vision for Environmental Sustainability and Economic Sustainability. • Sarah Lazare (2018). We Have To Make Sure the “Green New Deal” Doesn’t Become Green Capitalism: A conversation with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson. In These Times. Dec. 12, 2018.

(April 2) Community wealth creation: Anchors, organized labor, and cooperative economics

Guest speakers: Katherine Mella, Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative/MIT CoLab

8/10 Assigned Reading: • Thompson et al. (2018). Development Study for the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative: A Model for Economic Transformation. • Iuviene et al. (2010). Sustainable Economic Democracy: Worker Cooperatives for the 21st Century, MIT CoLab. • J.G. Nembhard (2014). Collective Courage—pg. 1-26. • Rose, K. and Dangerfield, S. (2015). “Strategies for Addressing Equity in Infrastructure and Public Works,” Building an Inclusive Economy Series, Policylink.

Further Reading: Serang, Farzana, J.Phillip Thompson, and Ted Howard. (2013.) “The Anchor Mission: Leveraging the Power of Anchor Institutions to Build Community Wealth.”

(April 9) Food justice and sovereignty Guest speakers: Cassandria Campbell, Fresh Food Generation; Bing Broderick, Haley House; Katie Gourley, GSD

Assigned reading: • Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) "The Multiple Layers of Food Justice," Food Justice. • Agyeman, J., & McEntee, J. (2014). Moving the field of food justice forward through the lens of urban political ecology. Geography Compass, 8(3), 211-220. • McClintock, N. (2011). From industrial garden to food desert. Cultivating food justice: Race, class, and sustainability, 89. • McClintock, N. (2014). Radical, reformist, and garden-variety neoliberal: coming to terms with urban agriculture's contradictions. Local Environment, 19(2), 147-171. • Fisher, A. (2017). "Who's at the Table Shapes What's on the Agenda," Big Hunger, MIT Press: Cambridge. • Alkon, A. H. et al. (2013). Foodways of the urban poor. Geoforum, 48, 126-135. • Chadha, J. and Ford, R. (2017). "What drives NYC's health disparities?" • Broderick, B. (2016) "Food With Purpose: Dudley Dough and Haley House Bakery Café." • Excerpt from Gourley thesis

(April 16) Counter-hegemonic fashion and inclusive value chains Guest speaker(s): Ngozi Okaro, Custom Collaborative

Assigned reading: • Watch “The True Cost” (2015), documentary film exploring the impact of fashion on people and the planet. • Archer, Nicole A., Ana Luz Gonzalez, Kimi Lee, Simmi Gandhi, and Delia Herrera. "The Garment Worker Center and the 'Forever 21' Campaign." Working for Justice: The LA Model of Organizing and Advocacy (2010): 154-164. • Gurova, O., & Morozova, D. (2016). A critical approach to sustainable fashion: Practices of clothing designers in the Kallio neighborhood of Helsinki. Journal of Consumer Culture. • Stephen, Lynn. "Women’s weaving cooperatives in Oaxaca: An indigenous response to neoliberalism." Critique of anthropology 25, no. 3 (2005): 253-278.

9/10 • Select pages (32-36) re: Yinka Shonibare, from Hemmings, J. (2013). Postcolonial Textiles- Negotiating Dialogue. Cross/Cultures, (170). • http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/ • Chadwick, S., & Zipp, S. (2018). Nike, Colin Kaepernick and the pitfalls of ‘woke’corporate branding. • Mercer, Kobena. "Black hair/style politics." Black British culture and society: A text reader (2000): 111-121.

Further reading: • Muhammad Alhada Fuadilah Habib et al., "Exploitation Behind the Growth of Batik Home Industry in Lawean, Solo, Central Java," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 7, No. 9, September 2017. • Sarah Mower. (2018). Dressed To Protest: Can Fashion Help Bring About Change? February issue of Vogue. • Robin Givhan. (2018). "To fight the status quo, the activists of 1968 harnessed the power of fashion," Washington Post. • https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/t-shirt-cult-culture-subversion-fashion-textile-museum • http://www.inclusivebusiness.se/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/InTaCt-report- inclusive-business-opportunities-in-the-textile-and-clothing-industry-.pdf

(April 23) Place-based art, cultural commons, and reparative spaces Guest speaker(s): Jenn Erickson, MAPC; Chandra Rouse, GSD

Assigned reading: • McCann, E. J. (1999). Race, protest, and public space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the US city. Antipode, 31(2), 163-184. • Mathieu, L. (2018). Art and Social Movements. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 354-368. • Schacter, R. (2014). The ugly truth: Street Art, Graffiti and the Creative City. Art & the Public Sphere, 3(2), 161-176. • MAPC Arts and Planning Toolkit—Artist Residencies, Creative Community Engagement, Creative Placemaking, Cultural Asset Mapping, Cultural Planning, Tactical Urbanism. • Excerpt from Rouse thesis • Excerpt from Nazam research on artists in residency

(April 30) Final project presentations

10/10