Jump into a Chevy Bel Air and travel from the suburbs to city work or stop at the nearest mall to shop or hang out with friends at the restaurant – these were concepts sold as part of the American dream when they were introduced in the US in the 50’s the years of the last century.
But some architects and design critics say these innovations have actually been a means of segregation that destroys color communities in the United States and further separates them from white America.
Adam Paul Suzanek is a New York-based architect and creator of the Segregation by Design project, which looks at urban renewal, highway construction and red lines, a discriminatory practice that he says includes “evaluating each neighborhood for investment value based on the competition. “
“I’m not saying that the average architect involved in these urban renewal projects was a racist. But I say that [they were] to participate in a process that began with racist traits. The system was, “Suzanek told Nora Young at Spark.
“They say don’t invest in this neighborhood because of who lives there.”
This comparison of historical aerial photographs shows the impact that the construction of the Dan Ryan Highway in Chicago (I-90) has had on the south and west sides of the city. According to the Segregation by Design project, the highway has displaced more than 81,000 people, and 64% of those displaced are black. (Separation by design)
To demonstrate how these architectural projects can devastate certain areas, Suzanek compares historical aerial photographs of cities with photographs taken after the construction of some of the highways, and shows how neighborhoods have been altered to fit them.
“[I’m] trying to give people an idea of what it actually was, because it’s described in one way in the documents … and in general, these [places that were destroyed]they were described as slums, “he said.
“So I really like to show that they just weren’t. And many of them, frankly, are indistinguishable from what we consider to be some of the best neighborhoods in cities right now. ”
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Spark54: 52549: Designing an inclusive world
From early malls to the first network of highways, look at how urban planning and design have been used as exclusionary tools in the past – and how the earth-based architecture of the local population can offer a more inclusive way forward.
Moving to the suburbs
Suzanek says several factors have contributed to the architectural segregation she studies. This includes moving away from trams and trains in big cities, paving the way for cars.
White Americans moved to live in the suburbs while still working in the city. This meant that more roads and highways had to be built.
Suzanek says the United States government has helped speed up the process with two specific bills: the Federal Housing Act of 1949, legislation aimed at improving housing and helping cities clean up areas that were then defined as slums, and the 1956 Federal Highway Act, which provides 90 percent funding for cities that want to upgrade their highways to federal standards.
Adam Paul Suzanek is a New York-based architect and creator of the Segregation by Design project. (Submitted by Adam Suzanek)
American soldiers returning from World War II also received housing in the suburbs, and although the same offer was extended to black GIs, they could not claim it.
According to Suzanek, it is written in the act that the houses can be sold only to Caucasians. So technically, black soldiers returning from war met the GI requirements, “but in practice they didn’t.”
He says all this has contributed to the “escape of whites” from urban areas.
“There are a lot of incentives for the white middle class to move to the suburbs and drive. And that naturally reduces the number of people using transit systems,” Suzanek said.
“The effect of the highway is to encourage car-based suburbanization … to provide a literal white flight route.”
How the malls contributed to inequality
The creation of the mall also contributed to this relocation to the suburbs and in addition to inequality.
The first mall in America, Southdale Center, was built in Edina, Minnesota, in 1956. Edina is a suburb of Minneapolis, and many malls that followed were built in the suburbs. As a result, they were less accessible to communities made up mostly of people of color.
Dayton Department Store in Southdale, Edina, Minnesota, 1956. The store is part of the first mall in the United States (Gruen Associates)
“Many of the early suburbs were either implicitly or explicitly open to white families only. So all the people living around the mall would be white families, “said Alexandra Lange, a design critic in Brooklyn and author of Meet Me at the Fountain: An Internal History of the Mall.
“So the mall is really designed to give women and children who are at home during the day a place to shop and socialize.
Alexandra Lange is the author of Meet Me By the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. (Mark Wickens)
And it wasn’t just the location of the mall that served white Americans. Lange said the design itself has also contributed to segregation, as many malls are designed only for people who own cars.
“Mall owners have been actively fighting bus stops, in some cases near malls, or forcing them to stop in awkward places to try to keep their customers up to higher-income people who can afford cars and can travel longer distances to the mall. “
Building an inclusive architecture
Architect Sean Bailey says there are ways to avoid the mistakes of the past and build a more inclusive future.
Bailey, a local scientist and assistant professor in the faculties of architecture and engineering at the University of Manitoba and a member of the Métis nation in Ontario, says the highway and mall are examples of the damage that architecture can cause.
“I think we have to be very careful about what we do, and that sometimes architecture can be extremely hostile,” he said.
“This lack of openness and this lack of discussion and cooperation and a kind of exchange of what is important to a place often creates harm.”
Bailey works closely with communities and indigenous elders to help create a more diverse field of study. One of the ways he does this is by taking his students to earth to connect them with local custodians.
Architect Sean Bailey is an assistant professor in the faculties of architecture and engineering at the University of Manitoba and a member of the Metis nation in Ontario. (Submitted by Sean Bailey)
“The first step in the process is really understanding the place [context] from the place, “he said.
This does more than just promote diversity. According to Bailey, it also improves the design process and encourages creativity. He says the way architecture is done now should not be completely discarded, but rather modified.
“We can take these teachings from local and Western knowledge and find a new paradigm to try to make things better.”
Produced by McKenna Hadley-Burke and Michelle Paris.
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