The street where you live
October 11, 2020 11:17 AM Subscribe
The value of my street depends, intrinsically, on all of their streets. And the value of their streets depends, in part, on mine. A.R. Moxon, author of The Revisionaries, and anti-Nazi tweeter, explores the relationship between infrastructure and community.
None of this happened because any of us—me, my neighbors, you, your neighbors, and everyone in between—actively intended to do it. It even happens if we don’t like each other. It happens pretty much exactly the same way for me and my neighbors even if we disagree with each other on literally everything—if fact, what we believe or intend or think has literally no impact on the benefit we receive from our street, or any inconvenience we would receive if the street were demolished.
I like this observation.
I've been a part of several cooperatives -- living spaces, buying co-ops -- and I've always thought the most vibrant, durable, effective ones were the co-ops that made modest assumptions about shared values and focused on the mutual benefits of membership.
Like I grew up in a town with a food co-op that was supermarket-sized, carried both organic and conventional produce, and generally provided a full range of products with options in every price range. If I had to guess, half the town shopped there. They weren't completely apolitical -- the co-op has participated in boycotts, for instance -- but the overall vibe was always "This place is for everybody." Not that it imitated supermarkets in every respect; you could do volunteer shifts for a household discount, for instance. (But you didn't have to! That would have greatly restricted the co-op's reach!)
Later I discovered that in most places that have one, the food co-op is a small expensive health food store. Sometimes they don't carry meat or artificially sweetened foods or conventional produce at all (even if the organic asparagus is $12/pound). And that's fine if you're into that, but I can't help but feel that member ownership -- which is community at a basic level -- is an idea with broad power and appeal that repeatedly gets marginalized by being lumped in with a certain kind of bourgeois-liberal lifestyle.
posted by aws17576 at 12:19 PM on October 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
I like this observation.
I've been a part of several cooperatives -- living spaces, buying co-ops -- and I've always thought the most vibrant, durable, effective ones were the co-ops that made modest assumptions about shared values and focused on the mutual benefits of membership.
Like I grew up in a town with a food co-op that was supermarket-sized, carried both organic and conventional produce, and generally provided a full range of products with options in every price range. If I had to guess, half the town shopped there. They weren't completely apolitical -- the co-op has participated in boycotts, for instance -- but the overall vibe was always "This place is for everybody." Not that it imitated supermarkets in every respect; you could do volunteer shifts for a household discount, for instance. (But you didn't have to! That would have greatly restricted the co-op's reach!)
Later I discovered that in most places that have one, the food co-op is a small expensive health food store. Sometimes they don't carry meat or artificially sweetened foods or conventional produce at all (even if the organic asparagus is $12/pound). And that's fine if you're into that, but I can't help but feel that member ownership -- which is community at a basic level -- is an idea with broad power and appeal that repeatedly gets marginalized by being lumped in with a certain kind of bourgeois-liberal lifestyle.
posted by aws17576 at 12:19 PM on October 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
We have a stretch of road by us that is missing sections of sidewalk. One previous homeowner didn't want to sacrifice three feet of his front yard, and his son continued the tradition. Now the son has passed away, and they are tearing up the street and replacing sewer lines, and putting in sidewalks that have been missing for the 15 years I have lived here. With one neighbor the city cut a deal: they agreed to take out an extra tree from her yard that she didn't want. But they also had to remove this beautiful large tree that shaded her entire home.
posted by mecran01 at 12:37 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by mecran01 at 12:37 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
This sort of exercise (in which the short-hand way we use language is playfully deconstructed) is useful and valuable, because people truly don't think enough about this sort of thing. But it's also important to recognize that because all of these factors are an interconnected web, you can't come to a conclusion. That is, the sequence of questions continues, even after the author decides to stop playing. For example, consider the sentence:
I presume it’s because the city decided there needed to be a street there.
Moxon could have ended there (perhaps put a bit more poetically), as if that's the "conclusion," with the implicit message that successful communities exist in some sense to perpetuate themselves. But there is more playing to be done, as Moxon shows. Now, consider Moxon's actual conclusion:
Who put my street there? I did.
OK, so let's continue the game. Who is the "I" in this case? It's not specifically Moxon: anyone willing to live in that house and participate in that community would have served as just as much of motivating force for the whole enterprise. Communities are necessarily made up of people, but no specific person is necessary for the community to exist. Far from affirming the worth of the individual, the "home ownership industry" in America has a history of operating with callous disregard for the actual needs of communities. In the last 70 years, countless rural and semi-rural areas have been transformed into housing developments on the promise that someone, anyone is going to want those houses for more than they cost to build, even if those houses have zero walkable resources, even if the surrounding transit infrastructure is totally inadequate to the number of people that development could in principle house, even if selling those houses is only practical in partnership with predatory sub-prime lending.
So, broadly, the "I" that gives a street value in the eyes of those who profit from making streets is often poorly aligned with the "I" that gives a street value in the eyes of the members of a current residential community. This is a big part of why gentrification is so disruptive, even if every member of the incoming gentry is well-intentioned and wants the community to flourish. It's also what makes it so hard for communities that are in decline to resist the hollowing-out process that eventually reduces them to ghost towns, even if the entire current community is motivated to restore it to its former glory.
The game can continue indefinitely, of course, so let's keep probing. What does it mean for a street to "have value" in the first place? It turns out that even under the most elementary construction, the preferences of individuals cannot be coherently resolved into a single "community preference" under all circumstances. Put another way, even if people are perfectly rational actors with unambiguous preferences, the concept of "group preference" is nevertheless inexorably ambiguous in at least some cases. This means it's not enough for the "community" to value one thing more than another - changing the process by which that preference is expressed can be enough to change the preference even if nobody in the community changed as individuals (and, again, assuming everyone was rational to begin with). This makes determining the value of a street to a community much more subtle than it initially appears, even though everyone would agree that communities should value a working transit infrastructure.
And it goes on and on. The conclusion I want to end on is that all of these ideas remain connected, and none of them constitute the "last word" in an argument. Even though language happens in sequence, these connections are more of a web, and it is dangerous to conclude that single node in that web is the "most meaningful." Instead, playing the game and building out that web, trying to understand the whole system, is (in my opinion) what gives value to playing the game.
posted by belarius at 12:51 PM on October 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
I presume it’s because the city decided there needed to be a street there.
Moxon could have ended there (perhaps put a bit more poetically), as if that's the "conclusion," with the implicit message that successful communities exist in some sense to perpetuate themselves. But there is more playing to be done, as Moxon shows. Now, consider Moxon's actual conclusion:
Who put my street there? I did.
OK, so let's continue the game. Who is the "I" in this case? It's not specifically Moxon: anyone willing to live in that house and participate in that community would have served as just as much of motivating force for the whole enterprise. Communities are necessarily made up of people, but no specific person is necessary for the community to exist. Far from affirming the worth of the individual, the "home ownership industry" in America has a history of operating with callous disregard for the actual needs of communities. In the last 70 years, countless rural and semi-rural areas have been transformed into housing developments on the promise that someone, anyone is going to want those houses for more than they cost to build, even if those houses have zero walkable resources, even if the surrounding transit infrastructure is totally inadequate to the number of people that development could in principle house, even if selling those houses is only practical in partnership with predatory sub-prime lending.
So, broadly, the "I" that gives a street value in the eyes of those who profit from making streets is often poorly aligned with the "I" that gives a street value in the eyes of the members of a current residential community. This is a big part of why gentrification is so disruptive, even if every member of the incoming gentry is well-intentioned and wants the community to flourish. It's also what makes it so hard for communities that are in decline to resist the hollowing-out process that eventually reduces them to ghost towns, even if the entire current community is motivated to restore it to its former glory.
The game can continue indefinitely, of course, so let's keep probing. What does it mean for a street to "have value" in the first place? It turns out that even under the most elementary construction, the preferences of individuals cannot be coherently resolved into a single "community preference" under all circumstances. Put another way, even if people are perfectly rational actors with unambiguous preferences, the concept of "group preference" is nevertheless inexorably ambiguous in at least some cases. This means it's not enough for the "community" to value one thing more than another - changing the process by which that preference is expressed can be enough to change the preference even if nobody in the community changed as individuals (and, again, assuming everyone was rational to begin with). This makes determining the value of a street to a community much more subtle than it initially appears, even though everyone would agree that communities should value a working transit infrastructure.
And it goes on and on. The conclusion I want to end on is that all of these ideas remain connected, and none of them constitute the "last word" in an argument. Even though language happens in sequence, these connections are more of a web, and it is dangerous to conclude that single node in that web is the "most meaningful." Instead, playing the game and building out that web, trying to understand the whole system, is (in my opinion) what gives value to playing the game.
posted by belarius at 12:51 PM on October 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
But they also had to remove this beautiful large tree that shaded her entire home.
posted by mecran01
Having lost two beautiful old maples from the front of my childhood home, this makes me sad. The city trimmed branches that hung over the street. They did not seal the cuts. So the trees got infected. Goodbye ancient maples, gods of shade.
posted by Splunge at 1:07 PM on October 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by mecran01
Having lost two beautiful old maples from the front of my childhood home, this makes me sad. The city trimmed branches that hung over the street. They did not seal the cuts. So the trees got infected. Goodbye ancient maples, gods of shade.
posted by Splunge at 1:07 PM on October 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
If everyone else’s streets were gone, I’d miss them, too. Interestingly enough, if all the streets disappeared, I’d miss everybody else’s streets more than I'd miss my own. Moreover, if all of their streets were gone, it wouldn’t really matter if my street were still there. I’d have to walk everywhere, or get a vehicle that could handle cross-country driving, like an F-Series truck, maybe, or a brace of oxen.One might also consider moving to an actual city, whose taxes almost certainly make feasible the construction and maintenance of this particular street and where the history of streets is often genuinely organic and driven by the community. (Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood. I suspect I agree with this guy about most things. But, if someone said this essay to me at a party, I'd find an excuse to walk away.)
posted by eotvos at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2020
Most streets in modern cities are placed by developers. They tend to follow property lines, and then a city has all sorts of rules about where streets can be placed.
In olden times, streets were placed where cart paths or animal paths were. This stuff ain't that complex. Plenty of people on ranches and forests out west build new roads. Bicyclists do too.
In the last 70 years, countless rural and semi-rural areas have been transformed into housing developments on the promise that someone, anyone is going to want those houses for more than they cost to build, even if those houses have zero walkable resources, even if the surrounding transit infrastructure is totally inadequate to the number of people that development could in principle house, even if selling those houses is only practical in partnership with predatory sub-prime lending.
It was either that or rural areas completely disappear. I don't see how you can careen from greenfield suburban/rural build-out (no gentrification case) to 'walkable' growth/investment/intensification (gentrification case) in where people live without any stopping in the middle to contemplate what the other choices are, which are basically nothing. They both have upsides and downsides, but there are no other choices.
I don't even see how you can believe in 'community' as a concept and gentrification. If you believe in gentrification, you have to believe in a social hierarchy (perhaps based on who got their first and what they like best) and that newcomers are lower in that hierarchy and their needs matter less if they differ from the majority or the elders. That doesn't sound like a great 'community' to me.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:01 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
In olden times, streets were placed where cart paths or animal paths were. This stuff ain't that complex. Plenty of people on ranches and forests out west build new roads. Bicyclists do too.
In the last 70 years, countless rural and semi-rural areas have been transformed into housing developments on the promise that someone, anyone is going to want those houses for more than they cost to build, even if those houses have zero walkable resources, even if the surrounding transit infrastructure is totally inadequate to the number of people that development could in principle house, even if selling those houses is only practical in partnership with predatory sub-prime lending.
It was either that or rural areas completely disappear. I don't see how you can careen from greenfield suburban/rural build-out (no gentrification case) to 'walkable' growth/investment/intensification (gentrification case) in where people live without any stopping in the middle to contemplate what the other choices are, which are basically nothing. They both have upsides and downsides, but there are no other choices.
I don't even see how you can believe in 'community' as a concept and gentrification. If you believe in gentrification, you have to believe in a social hierarchy (perhaps based on who got their first and what they like best) and that newcomers are lower in that hierarchy and their needs matter less if they differ from the majority or the elders. That doesn't sound like a great 'community' to me.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:01 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you believe in gentrification, you have to believe in a social hierarchy (perhaps based on who got their first and what they like best) and that newcomers are lower in that hierarchy and their needs matter less if they differ from the majority or the elders. That doesn't sound like a great 'community' to me.
That is... not what gentrification means.
If you "believe in" gentrification it means you recognize that your society operates on a hierarchy in which certain groups of people (with certain skin colors, occupations, and income levels) get to have their needs met before other people (with different skin colors, occupations, and income levels) do. If you "believe in" (and I am assuming you mean, oppose) gentrification it means you recognize that a power imbalance means the same members of the community lose out on having their needs met every. single. time, and you recognize that as a truly shitty way to have a community.
Like science, hierarchical functions in society are a thing that exist whether you "believe in" them or not.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:05 PM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
That is... not what gentrification means.
If you "believe in" gentrification it means you recognize that your society operates on a hierarchy in which certain groups of people (with certain skin colors, occupations, and income levels) get to have their needs met before other people (with different skin colors, occupations, and income levels) do. If you "believe in" (and I am assuming you mean, oppose) gentrification it means you recognize that a power imbalance means the same members of the community lose out on having their needs met every. single. time, and you recognize that as a truly shitty way to have a community.
Like science, hierarchical functions in society are a thing that exist whether you "believe in" them or not.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:05 PM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Gentrification is where an existing community of marginalized people is replaced by wealthier people. You can't simply divide them into "newcomers" and "elders" as though that were what divides them- gentrification is specifically about the privileged pushing out the marginalized and replacing the community that was there with a new community that is generally an extension of the larger hegemonic culture.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:26 AM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:26 AM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Gentrification is where an existing community of marginalized people is replaced by wealthier people.
Studies about that:
#1
Low-income children born into neighborhoods in New York City that later gentrified were no more likely to be pushed out over a seven-year period than children born into low-income places that did not gentrify, according to a new study that follows exactly where these vulnerable families lived and moved.
#2
In a working paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Davin Reed and Quentin Brummet find that there’s only an extremely small difference in outmigration of vulnerable populations from gentrifying neighborhoods and non-gentrifying neighborhoods, that long time lower education renters experience little if any increase in rents in gentrifying neighborhoods, and that the patterns of change observed in gentrifying neighborhoods are consistent with increased intergenerational economic mobility for kids growing up in those neighborhoods.
#3
Fed Paper
Gentrification modestly increases out-migration, though movers are notmade observably worse off and neighborhood change is driven primarily by changes to in-migration. At the same time, many original resident adults stay and benefit from declining poverty exposure and rising house values. Children benefit from in-creased exposure to higher-opportunity neighborhoods, and some are more likely to attend and complete college. Our results suggest that accommodative policies, such as increasing the supply of housing in high-demand urban areas, could increase the opportunity benefits we find, reduce out-migration pressure, and promote long-term affordability.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:54 AM on October 13, 2020
Studies about that:
#1
Low-income children born into neighborhoods in New York City that later gentrified were no more likely to be pushed out over a seven-year period than children born into low-income places that did not gentrify, according to a new study that follows exactly where these vulnerable families lived and moved.
#2
In a working paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Davin Reed and Quentin Brummet find that there’s only an extremely small difference in outmigration of vulnerable populations from gentrifying neighborhoods and non-gentrifying neighborhoods, that long time lower education renters experience little if any increase in rents in gentrifying neighborhoods, and that the patterns of change observed in gentrifying neighborhoods are consistent with increased intergenerational economic mobility for kids growing up in those neighborhoods.
#3
Fed Paper
Gentrification modestly increases out-migration, though movers are notmade observably worse off and neighborhood change is driven primarily by changes to in-migration. At the same time, many original resident adults stay and benefit from declining poverty exposure and rising house values. Children benefit from in-creased exposure to higher-opportunity neighborhoods, and some are more likely to attend and complete college. Our results suggest that accommodative policies, such as increasing the supply of housing in high-demand urban areas, could increase the opportunity benefits we find, reduce out-migration pressure, and promote long-term affordability.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:54 AM on October 13, 2020
Or more succinctly, what you think you know about gentrification is wrong. Science can be cruel.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I realize you were replying to the comment about "replacement" of populations, which was not my argument, but I'll bite.
You said:
If you believe in gentrification, you have to believe in a social hierarchy (perhaps based on who got their first and what they like best) and that newcomers are lower in that hierarchy and their needs matter less if they differ from the majority or the elders.
The decision about whose needs matter and, when they conflict, whose triumph is not (in the United States, at any rate) a decision that gets made on a fair and rational basis, and to pretend that it does simply because it turns out that some percentage of residents "get to" stay in their neighborhoods alongside the rich whitefolk is just...beyond obtuse.
Yes, if all things were equal, or even like remotely within a universe's earshot of equal, then it would absolutely seem antithetical to community to say that an incoming population's needs should defer by default to the existing population. But we all know that isn't what happens. The population that is migrating into gentrifying neighborhoods has the power of structural racism and the police system behind it. They have the power to *enforce* their preferences and needs in a way that the existing population generally does not.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:27 PM on October 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
You said:
If you believe in gentrification, you have to believe in a social hierarchy (perhaps based on who got their first and what they like best) and that newcomers are lower in that hierarchy and their needs matter less if they differ from the majority or the elders.
The decision about whose needs matter and, when they conflict, whose triumph is not (in the United States, at any rate) a decision that gets made on a fair and rational basis, and to pretend that it does simply because it turns out that some percentage of residents "get to" stay in their neighborhoods alongside the rich whitefolk is just...beyond obtuse.
Yes, if all things were equal, or even like remotely within a universe's earshot of equal, then it would absolutely seem antithetical to community to say that an incoming population's needs should defer by default to the existing population. But we all know that isn't what happens. The population that is migrating into gentrifying neighborhoods has the power of structural racism and the police system behind it. They have the power to *enforce* their preferences and needs in a way that the existing population generally does not.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:27 PM on October 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
« Older "Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.” –... | The Beat of Her Own Drum Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Each one by itself would be a bizarre curiosity.
Many of the outlying mid-century neighborhoods in my city don't have continuous sidewalks, but sometimes one or two houses on a block will have their own fifty-foot stretch of sidewalk out front that doesn't connect to anything. "Bizarre curiosity" describes my feelings about that well.
posted by aws17576 at 11:25 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]