Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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lost more housing units in a decade “than any entire
city in the country with the exception of Detroit. The
Bronx had a net loss of 56,459 units between 1970 and
1980.“(Feldman, 1997)
Fig. 2: Map of New York City’s Green Open Spaces. The Borough
of the Bronx is situated in the North. Map drawn by Carolin Mees,
2007
rily made up of low-income families. The median family
income in the South Bronx in 1980 amounted to only
$7,800 per year (www.census.gov; McCain, 1987) and
in 2005 “the Bronx had the fourth-highest poverty rate in
the nation, trailing three counties on the Texan-Mexican
border.” (Leonhardt, New York Times, 2005)
The area of about 42 Square Miles (110 Square Kilometers)
is isolated by three major highways, built in the
1950s through a formerly intact urban fabric and its diverse,
social networks to guide an increasing number of
cars out of the city to new parks, parkways and suburban
housing developments. At the same time the real estate
market pushed a new wave of immigrants, then mainly
from Puerto Rico, into the district, while the wealthier
residents moved to the suburbs.
The number of population decreased and was especially
low between the years 1970 and 1980. While in
1970 there were 386,061 residents, in 1980 only 167,370
residents remained. The number of residents was cut in
half in a decade. (Gonzales, 2004)
An ailing urban infrastructure and government-subsidized
suburban sprawl supported the shrinkage of the
population further. It seemed that only those who could
not afford to move out were still living in the South Bronx.
In 1977, the City of New York amended the In Rem Foreclosure
Law to allow foreclosure on tax delinquent properties
after one year of non-payment. The intention was
to turn marginal buildings with tax arrears into city-owned
property before they were completely rundown and
uninhabitable – and then to sell them, when the economy
improved. In the meantime, most of the buildings were
bricked up to prevent residential use and rubble-filled vacant
land was fenced off – the city’s budget did not include
funds to maintain either buildings or lots. Drugs and
crime contributed to the social, structural and economical
decay. Ruins and lots filled with rubble remained. Acres
of vacant land in the vicinity of Manhattan, that nobody
seemed to be interested in – except for the remaining
residents. They began to clean up some lots to cultivate
gardens with flowers and vegetables next to their homes.
Families, neighbors and friends started to meet in this
newly created safe place outside of their apartments, in
their community’s garden.
The City of New York did not object to this grassroots
activism, but tolerated the voluntary efforts of the local residents
as a welcome relief to the city’s budget [5]. More
and more community gardens were started all over the
city and run-down neighborhoods revived. Residents regained
social control over their neighborhood and quality
of life improved. The community gardens attracted media
attention and nationwide public interest [6].
To cope with the community gardens movement and
“(…) to regulate the unofficial use of city land by the
Latino and African Americans for community gardens”,
(Sciorra, 1996: 81) the city’s administration under Mayor
Edward Koch created Operation GreenThumb in 1978
as a part of the City Department of General Services.
Utilizing Federal Community Development money,
Fig. 3: Old and new housing in the South Bronx. Photo by Carolin
Mees, 2005
Apartment buildings became unprofitable to invest in,
and owners often arranged the arson of their buildings
to collect insurance money rather than maintaining the
property to collect low rents. In 1975 only, there were
about 13,000 fires counted in about 12 Square Miles (31
Square Kilometers) in the South Bronx, i.e. a third of the
formerly built-up area was on fire in one year [4]. (Grünsteidel,
2000; Newfield und DuBrul, 1977) The borough
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