This episode investigates housing on the Bowery, from its history as the “skid row” of New York City to its eventual transformation into the desirable destination it is today. Behind the backdrop of urban processes like gentrification, criminalization, and housing insecurity, the Bowery’s rapid change presents an extreme case study showing the impact of urban revitalization.
Earlier this year, many of us watched as athletes from across the globe ice danced, ski jumped and snowboarded across three Beijing venues at the 2022 Winter Olympics. China’s paramount leader, Xi Jinping used the 2022 Olympics to project a message of Chinese strength and unity. This was not the first time that the Chinese government had chosen the Olympics to make a statement.
The Beijing municipality carried out a number of “environmental improvement projects,” several of which are still touted on the International Olympic Committee website as part of Beijing’s legacy. Yet a report by the Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction (COHRE) indicates that between 2000 and 2008, roughly 1.5 million Beijing residents were displaced in the name of these Olympic “improvement projects,” a number that COHRE speculates likely only includes the permanent local residents that were eligible for compensation and not the low income migrants tenants that occupied the informal and low quality settlements and whose numbers far outweighed that of the permanent resident population.
So how successful were these Olympic Improvement Projects for the ordinary dwellers of Beijing? In this episode of Just Housing, we get into the weeds of exactly how the 2008 Olympic Games affected, displaced and compromised the rights of those already living in the city and question what was the real cost of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
This episode of Just Housing traces the complex histories of exclusion in Brazil’s urban environments, focusing on the placemaking and self-governance efforts of residents living in favelas, which are informal settlements that coexist with more formal and better resourced neighborhoods in cities throughout Brazil and, in fact, the world. “Home life” in some favelas extends beyond the traditional four walls of a house or apartment to spill into the public spaces in and around the neighborhood. Not having all essential infrastructure within one’s home is common for those living in a favela, and some services must be sought elsewhere. Community Technology Centers (CTCs) and Local Area Network (LAN) Houses serve as state- and privately-owned hubs where the urban poor can take part in the digital world [1]. These centers that provide urban residents with access to social media allow us to understand housing justice in the context of digital inclusion; they help us see how favela residents empower their communities, distribute resources, and connect with one another with the internet?
The second half of the twentieth century in the Soviet Union was characterized by the transition of people living in communal units and agricultural villages to individual families living in four-to-five story urban walk-ups nicknamed khrushchyovka, named for Soviet Primier Nikita Khrushchev, which the government rapidly constructed to meet a nationwide dearth of housing following World War Two.
Despite living under an authoritarian government, citizens made state-provided housing their own, proving that state-provided housing does not mean living in entirely impersonal spaces. With a million private housing units built in just four years between 1956 and 1959 and rapid urbanization, there was finally “room for a personal life” for USSR citizens.
Imagine this: it’s a cool, fall morning in September. You’re just waking up, when your bed begins to rumble. On September 19, 1985, that’s exactly how many residents of Mexico City awoke, after an earthquake of magnitude 8.1 shook the coast Roughly 24 hours later, another major earthquake struck the city.
Devastation spanned the Mexican capital, but the heart of the city took the hardest blow. The city center is home to everything from dense residential neighborhoods to government buildings. Hundreds of thousands of residents were left without necessary city services, work, or housing, which is the focus of this podcast. Without a unified or supportive response from the government, residents and earthquake victims took matters into their own hands and became the voices behind an incredible housing movement. This particular movement was built on decades of organizing in the same neighborhoods as those most affected by the disaster in 1985.
This episode examines the ways in which imperialism impacted perceptions of urban poverty and housing in late 19th-century London, England and Cairo, Egypt. We analyze the British government’s responses to emerging urban crises in each city, and how social perceptions of the poor shaped these policy response. This podcast addresses questions like: How did these perceptions shift between the metropole, London, and the colony, Cairo? And, how does a difference in perception result in differences in policy? To answer these questions, we pored over primary accounts of reformers and travel journal logs from the 19th century. Through our research and expert interviews, “Cairo to London: Imperial Dynamics of Housing the Poor” ultimately seeks to understand the consequences of these differences in perceptions of the poor in the context of urban housing.
In the late 19th century New York City was booming with industry and commerce, which attracted many newcomers both from rural areas and abroad. In 1850 the city had around 600,000 residents. By 1900, however, that number had swelled to 4 million. But how did the city cope with that exponential growth? Where were all these people living?
As New York became more and more industrialized, several fields began recruiting female laborers. Women were particularly sought after in garment production. Many of these workers were young, single women on their own for the first time in a major city. It was especially hard for women with few connections in the city to find an affordable and safe place to live, so many single women ended up renting rooms or living in private boarding houses. By 1910 there were around 68,000 women boarders in Manhattan alone!
In this podcast, you can learn about the history of housing options developed for single women in New York as an alternative to private boarding and lodging.
At the turn of the 20th Century, the third pandemic of the bubonic plague took place, impacting many lives and killing millions of people as it made its way around the world. This episode of Just Housing explores how the plague impacted the cities of Hong Kong and San Francisco.
On this Episode of Just Housing, “La Batalla de Bodegas” we analyze the declining presence of bodegas in Washington Heights and its direct impact on access to housing for Dominicans. The title “Batalla de Bodegas” alludes to the ongoing ‘battle’ for bodegas that has taken place since the late 90s against the forces of zoning laws, gentrification, redevelopment and the criminalization of the Dominican population.
On this episode of Just Housing, “Home Is Where the Heart Is,” Amber Chong, Bella Barnes, and Sophie Kato (joined by Sophie’s grandfather, Ken Kato) discuss how Japanese-American resilience helped the Heart Mountain Relocation Center’s emerge as a unique community, one that functioned as both a prison and a city.
