Urban Design and the Color-Line

“History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals.” – James Baldwin

We cannot talk about physical infrastructures in the United States without also talking about race. Questions thus arise about the main beneficiaries of infrastructure reuse projects: How are contributions to (or detractions from) the public sphere measured? Under what conditions might well-designed public spaces, ecologically-informed or otherwise, produce or strengthen urban inhabitants’ “right to the city,” and at what scales will such outcomes materialize? What other conditions – social, spatial, political, or economic – must also exist to ensure socially just outcomes through infrastructural reuse? In this research and design seminar students examine the role that race and class have played (and will continue to play) in the design and production of physical infrastructures. They engage the problematic either-social-impact-or-design binary in two fundamental ways: (1) Interrogating design’s contributions to, and complicity with, structural and infrastructural racism; and, (2) Developing intentionally anti-racist, equity-focused research and design methodologies that produce more equitable public spaces.

The High Line is New York City’s much celebrated – and in some corners, much reviled – infrastructure reuse project. Although the citizens who led the struggle to repurpose an abandoned rail infrastructure into a public park may not have fully foreseen the project’s larger gentrification risks, they soon understood these and other undesirable impacts. Reflecting on the High Line’s social and economic challenges, in 2017 Friends of the High Line (FHL) established the High Line Network (HLN), a peer-to-peer community of infrastructure reuse projects that spans the United States. Network partners at various stages of development lend their technical assistance and advice to one another about how to advance equity in their respective communities. This “trans-local” advocacy network disseminates knowledge on avoiding failures and missed opportunities that plagued the High Line’s advocates from the beginning, ranging from ensuring social inclusion, managing gentrification to avoid displacement, institutionalizing public programming, and negotiating city revenues for project development.

In this project-based course, students will partner with HLN organizations and contribute to an Equitable Impacts Framework (EIF) pilot — a cooperative effort with the HLN, GSD CoDesign, and Urban Institute – conducting research, readings, writings, discussions, and producing graphic materials in collaboration with HLN partner organizations. It is organized into three parts with the expectation that students will work in pairs to sustain focus on two of 19 US-based infrastructure reuse projects:
– Part 1 – Cultures of Racism: Students will research histories of inequity in each city through the HLN’s six equity indicators, asking: Why are these six indicators important for assessing and addressing equity?
– Part 2 – Geographies of Racism: Students will map present-day manifestations of historically-based inequities in each city, with emphasis on dynamics of race, class, and power, asking: Which indicators are particularly relevant to each HLN city, neighborhood, and project?
– Part 3 – Infrastructures of Racism: Students will research examples of good practices in equity planning and development, incorporating goals that the HLN organizations have set for themselves and proposing equity agendas for, and across, HLN projects.

 

 

Community Development: History, Theory, and Imaginative Practice

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 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.

Environment, Economics, and Enterprise

How can one optimize the benefits of environmental or social sustainability while generating a higher return on investment in buildings? Where are the opportunities for real estate initiatives that are highly functional, healthy, aesthetically pleasing and financially rewarding? The challenge to designers, developers, environmental consultants, policy-makers and other professionals lies in finding and communicating these synergies. This cross-disciplinary course will give students an approach to problem solving to help them contribute to thoughtful, high-impact decisions about design and construction that are both environmentally/socially impactful and economically effective.

At the end of the course students will be able to…
– identify sustainability opportunities for their projects. Identify sustainable/economic win-win solutions
– translate enhanced design into a project 's financial pro forma, and communicate the financial impact clearly to market makers
– complete accurate cost benefit economic analysis, with realistic assumptions on ability to finance and ability (if any) to obtain premium value on exit
– analyze market demand for projects with and without enhanced sustainability design
– think about how to finance their projects and where to go for capital
– explain their ideas in the language of decision-makers, from community groups to financial investors

Students from all GSD disciplines are encouraged to participate.
No prerequisites.

Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation

Through the lens of climate change, this foundation course surveys the intellectual development of resilience and adaptation in the social, natural, and applied sciences. Through a critical reading and analysis of central bodies of literature, students are provided a conceptual and empirical basis for exploring applied practices and policies advanced in the name of climate change adaptation. The practice component of the course focuses on community resilience in urban planning and policy, technical resilience in civil and systems engineering, multi-hazard risk assessment in disaster risk management, and adaptation mainstreaming in the public and private sectors. This range of applications reflects the opportunities for a diversity of actors to engage in new forms of practice that synthetically negotiate and mediate various socioeconomic and biophysical forces. Positioned within an emerging field of study, this course identifies many of the key unanswered questions that are critical for future conceptual and empirical development. With a focus on environmental change and the built environment, students will develop a critical understanding of relevant public policies and institutions, design and engineering techniques, economic strategies and planning models. The course pedagogy balances lectures, seminar readings and case study reviews to link theory with practice. Students may select their final course evaluation to be based on either be a final exam or a paper. The intent is to utilize the course as a means of research support for students across the university who may be incorporating aspects of resilience and adaptation scholarship into their existing theses, dissertations, and peer-review manuscripts. This course is open to masters and doctoral students at the KSG, HBS, HLS, HSPH, FAS, MIT and Tufts Fletcher School.

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Global Perspectives on Shelter Insecurity and Displacement

This course examines the drivers of, and responses to, global shelter insecurity and displacement. It addresses these issues in both the Global South and North and examines similarities and differences in the way displacement occurs and is addressed across these contexts. The course takes the form of a graduate seminar, in which students will co-create knowledge and engage in informed discussion and debate. The seminar will begin with an overview of the scale of global displacement and the history of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon. UNHCR reported in 2015 that displacement had reached the highest levels ever recorded with almost 1% of the planet’s population either a refugee, internally displaced person or asylum seeker. In 2014 alone the UN conservatively estimated that 59.5 million people had been displaced by war and persecution alone. To address this crisis in greater detail, the remaining seminar sessions will be divided into two sections. The first will cover the primary drivers of global displacement, including: gentrification, criminalization of housing marginality and the displaced, large development projects, conflict and natural disasters. The second section will address responses to displacement, including market and human rights approaches and resettlement in camps, transitional shelters and permanent housing. The seminar sessions will involve students reading weekly assigned papers and discussing these in detail. In most weeks, specific cases from a variety of geographic, social and political contexts will be presented and discussed. Participation in class discussions and reading of assigned papers are a course requirement. Additional course activities will include in-class debates on critical themes, practice-relevant simulations and visits by guest speakers. The seminar will also involve several local field trips to examine issues of shelter insecurity and displacement in more detail. These will include visits to a local homeless shelter and to the museum of Boston’s former West End neighborhood. Assignments will include weekly memos on the readings and a final analytic project.

Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities

Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities examines housing policy and planning in urban societies around the world and especially in the Global South.  Through slide presentations, discussions, guest lectures, texts, and exercises, we examine the dynamic growth of cities; the ideological impulses to combat slum conditions and provide mass housing; the resulting anti-slum and housing programs; the means of financing such programs; and the effects of design and planning on people and their communities.

The first part of the course is devoted to the history and theory of housing and urbanization. We examine the effects of intense urban growth in Europe, especially the emergence of the twin problems of slums and housing; the export of Western housing and anti-slum policies to the developing world; the furious debate over the nature of informal settlements in the Global South; and the fundamental concepts of land use and housing policy. 

In the second part of the course, we take up the practical application of housing policies in different national environments around the globe.  Using the cases of Bogotá, Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Beijing, we study the ways private developers, planners, designers, non-government organization officers, and government officials work within local systems of land use, law, and finance to respond to informal settlements and produce homes for people. Working in teams, students evaluate specific housing programs in Bogotá, Mumbai, and Johannesburg, and propose a planning strategy to improve particular sites in the outer section of Beijing. 

This course helps prepare students for international planning and design studios, housing studios, and courses on housing or social policy in general.  It will appeal to graduate school designers, planners, and public policy students interested in social engagement and the diverse methods of producing low-income housing in global cities. There are no prerequisites.

Jointly Offered Course: HKS SUP-662

Note: Shopping Day Schedule for SES-5337/SUP-662 at HKS: Thursday, January 23rd from 2:45-4:00 pm in R304.

Building and Leading Real Estate Enterprises and Entrepreneurship

This course focuses on how you conceive, build and lead successful real estate companies. By virtue of the industry in which they compete, real estate companies are almost always founded and developed by entrepreneurs. A few grow to become category killers; others are able to compete in a crowded and competitive landscape. Many, however, are eventually closed down; sometimes due to changing market forces, sometimes due to lack of good corporate strategy or execution, and sometimes due to the founder neglecting to institutionalize a lasting organization to succeed him or her.

Taught through a combination of lectures, cases and analytical problems, this course examines (primarily through the lens of real estate investment and development companies), the critical ingredients required to grow and lead long-term competitive enterprises. The course will begin with an examination of how to optimize the performance of real properties and then migrate to the design and development of successful companies that own or service properties.

At the end of this course, students should gain a deeper appreciation of how owners think and act when they oversee their companies. They will specifically be introduced to how to develop a robust strategy, capital plan, corporate culture and execution capability that are part of every great real estate company. Students taking this course should also be able to construct the elements of a simple business plan for a startup. Students are also encouraged to think about how they may launch their own real estate enterprise during the course, and to make active use of other Harvard resources, including Harvard clubs and facilities like the I-lab, as they think through their entrepreneurial opportunities.

Paired Course: Although not mandatory, this course is meant to be taken in conjunction with GSD 5275,  which meets the first half of the semester; it is also 2 credits and meets at the same time as 5276. GSD 5276 will build on many of the questions and concepts that 5275 postulates.

Advanced Real Estate Finance

This course builds on GSD 5204 and comparable introductory real estate courses offered by other schools at Harvard. This year’s course covers five main topics: (1) Advanced Financial Analysis and Deal Structuring for Acquisitions (including waterfalls), (2) Advanced Financial Analysis and Structuring for Land and Development Projects, (3) Debt Financing and Debt Investments, (4) Real Estate Market Cycles and Portfolio Structuring, (5) Management and recovery of Assets in a Distressed Environment

The objective of the course is to give students in-depth financial analytical skills for project acquisitions and development, real estate financing, and portfolio management. Using case studies and lectures, the course focuses on advanced real estate topics for all major real estate product-types including apartments, office, retail, industrial, single-family, and land development. A major emphasis in the class is to build students’ financial modeling skills and their knowledge of advanced industry practices. Many cases will require students to apply a full range of acquisition, development, investment, disposition, financing, and management decisions at the property level. Key decision-making for all phases of the development process including site selection, design, financing, construction, leasing, operations, and sales are stressed throughout the first half of the course. Other strategic requirements for completing successful projects such as acquisition due diligence, debt and equity structuring, market cycle timing, and asset recovery in a distressed environment are covered during the other half.

Paired Course: Although not mandatory, this course is meant to be taken in conjunction with GSD 5276, which takes place in the second half of the semester; it is also 2 credits and meets at the same time as 5275. GSD 5276 will build on many of the questions and concepts that 5275 postulates.

Cities by Design II: Projects, Processes, and Outcomes

Cities are palimpsests. They are the spatial manifestations of a layering and re-layering of social and environmental systems over time. Cities by Design II is a lecture/seminar that introduces students to contemporary urban design projects through the case study method, with emphasis on critical contextualization and implementation. GSD faculty and outside experts will introduce 15-20 projects with lectures, readings, and class discussions. Beyond familiarizing students with contemporary urban design projects, this course will equip students with an understanding of the broader implications of urban design including historical contexts, institutional influences, financing mechanisms, stakeholder involvement, and other process-related aspects of urban design. Students will examine projects through two lenses: (1) Infrastructure (the what), and (2) Agency (the who, how, and why).

This year, case studies will be organized by Paradigm: Parks, Linear Infrastructures, Campuses, Megaform Cities, Housing Developments, Brownfield Reclamation, Resilient Systems, Component Aggregations, Conservation, Slums, and New Districts.

There are two main pedagogical objectives that guide the course: (1) Engage students in a comparative study of contemporary urban design projects as a way to broaden their understanding of how urban design happens, and (2) Explore the interrelationship of urban politics and urban design through projects that range in context, scale, and operational capacity. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

Term grades will be based on attendance and participation in lectures and section discussions, student group presentations, and a final paper or project. The year-long ‘Cities by Design’ course is mandatory for all incoming Masters of Urban Design Students. All other students are welcome to enroll in the course by semester, and need not do so in sequence. No Prerequisites.

Markets and Market Failures

This course provides a critical introduction to the creation and operation of markets, and assesses the criteria and circumstances under which they perform well or poorly. Rather than seeing the market and state as discrete entities, this course starts from the premise that they are fundamentally intertwined: the state creates, regulates, and subsidizes market activity. Participants will read, critique, discuss, and debate a variety of theories about and perspectives on markets—from economic geography, urban planning, economic sociology, economics, and law—and evaluate how these works might inform our understandings of contemporary urban issues, particularly around the ways the selective absence or presence of the state shapes the geographies and the functioning of markets. These debates will be rooted in current topical issues such as the global financial crisis, predatory lending in the housing market, transportation network companies and public goods, climate change and the economics of the Green New Deal, tax avoidance and real estate, rent control, antitrust legislation and online retailers, and labor markets and migration. 

Beyond stimulating critical and constructive dialogues about the substance, utility, and limitations of market ideology and activity, an overarching goal of the seminar is to demonstrate the wide-ranging and significant influence that political-economic approaches have in urban planning and to inspire students to advance this line of thinking through their own professional lives and research projects. 

This course is open to all students but recommended for MUP and MDES real estate students. No prior exposure to economics is required.
 

Jointly Offered Course: HKS API-105B