Division: Connecting Divided Places
What we see today is a sophisticated network of interconnectedness, complemented by a world of growing divides. How can we Connect Divided Places? The work of the Institute without Boundaries in 2014/15 was guided by this question. In this book, you will find samples from our fieldwork, community interactions, results from charrettes, new concepts, and design project proposals for Connecting Divided Places.
What we see today is a sophisticated network of interconnectedness, complemented by a world of growing divides.
How can we Connect Divided Places?
The work of the Institute without Boundaries in 2014/15 was guided by this question. In this book, you will find samples from our fieldwork, community interactions, results from charrettes, new concepts, and design project proposals for Connecting Divided Places.
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<strong>Connecting</strong><br />
IVISION<br />
<strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong><br />
1
2<br />
3
LUIZA ALBERTINI<br />
PHUONG DIEP<br />
MICHAEL ESTERAS<br />
INGI KIM<br />
HAOTIAN LIU<br />
BEJE MELAMED-TURKISH<br />
MARTA PIEDRAS<br />
KEVIN WANG<br />
HITOMI YOKOTA<br />
JAMES YOUNG<br />
INSTITUTE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES<br />
CLASS OF 2014–15<br />
LUIGI FERRARA<br />
DEAN, CENTRE FOR ARTS, DESIGN<br />
& INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY<br />
DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES<br />
CHRISTOPHER PANDOLFI<br />
ACADEMIC COORDINATOR<br />
HEATHER DAAM<br />
ASSISANT ACADEMIC COORDINATOR<br />
MAGDA SABAT<br />
EDITOR<br />
COPYWRITING<br />
DIVISION<br />
<strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong><br />
GINNY CHEN<br />
EDITORIAL & DESIGN DIRECTOR<br />
LEAD DESIGNER<br />
KAR YAN CHEUNG<br />
PAUL DE FREITAS<br />
KRISTINA LJUBANOVIC<br />
SUSAN SPEIGEL<br />
LAUREN WICKWARE<br />
FACULTY ADVISORS<br />
SPECIAL THANKS TO<br />
The students, faculty and administrative staff<br />
from the 2014–2015 classes of the Institute<br />
without Boundaries at School of Design.<br />
ISBN<br />
Printed by Andora Graphics Inc.,<br />
Toronto, Ontario, Canada<br />
No part of this work may be reproduced or<br />
transmitted in any form or by any means electronic<br />
or mechanical, including photocopying<br />
and recording, or by any information storage<br />
and retrieval system without written permission<br />
from the publisher—except for a brief quotation<br />
(not to exceed 200 words) in a review or professional<br />
work.<br />
CONTACT<br />
For information on other School of Design<br />
publications or to place an order please contact:<br />
The School of Design at<br />
George Brown College<br />
230 Richmond Street East,<br />
Toronto, ON M5A 1P4<br />
416.415.5000 x2165<br />
Visit our website for<br />
more info about the<br />
School of Design<br />
www.georgebrown.ca<br />
design@georgebrown.ca<br />
Institutewithoutboundaries.com<br />
4<br />
5
INQUISITORS<br />
What we see today is a<br />
sophisticated network<br />
of interconnectedness,<br />
complemented by a world<br />
of growing divides.<br />
THE AUTHORS<br />
EXPERIMENTERS<br />
FUTURE FRAG-<br />
MENT- FINDERS<br />
CURATORS<br />
How can we Connect<br />
<strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>?<br />
R O A D T R<br />
I P P E R S<br />
The work of the Institute without Boundaries in 2014/15 was<br />
guided by this question. In this book, you will find samples<br />
RESEARCHERS<br />
from our fieldwork, community interactions, results from<br />
charrettes, new concepts, and design project proposals for<br />
<strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>.<br />
the 2014/15 IwB cohort<br />
LUIZA ALBERTINI<br />
Architecture & Urbanism<br />
PHUONG DIEP<br />
New Media<br />
POSTULATORS<br />
MICHAEL ESTERAS<br />
Political Science<br />
INGI KIM<br />
Environmental Design<br />
HAOTIAN LIU<br />
Architecture<br />
DEBATORS<br />
BEJE MELAMED-TURKISH<br />
Political Science<br />
MARTA PIEDRAS<br />
Interior Architecture<br />
KEVIN WANG<br />
Industrial Design<br />
HITOMI YOKOTA<br />
Sociology & Advertising<br />
&<br />
DESIGNERS:<br />
JAMES YOUNG<br />
Urban Planning<br />
SATIRISTS !<br />
6<br />
7
The Institute without Boundaries (IwB) is a very<br />
special place at the School of Design. Much more<br />
than an academic facility, it is a centre for experimentation<br />
and hands on experience. The IwB<br />
students learn Interdisciplinary Design Strategy–<br />
ideation, design thinking, systems analysis,<br />
prototyping, and project execution. But what<br />
makes the IwB experience is the chance to work<br />
on real projects with communities that have real<br />
problems, as well as community and business<br />
leaders with the motivation to work together for<br />
social change and a more accesible world.<br />
At the IwB, we avoid terms like utopic or ‘too big’<br />
because experimentation has to do with surpassing<br />
boundaries, engaging the new, and taking<br />
risks, and perhaps most importantly, trying to<br />
understand something familiar in a new light.<br />
So what happens when you take a group of postgraduate<br />
students, from different disciplines,<br />
and ask them to work together on what seems<br />
like a ginormous task? Innovative design happens<br />
that has high potential to be implemented.<br />
Thinking about the IwB’s work on social innovation<br />
and our ‘full speed ahead’ attitude towards<br />
the world’s ‘wicked problems’ brings me to <strong>Connecting</strong><br />
<strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>. It is with great pleasure<br />
that I introduce the IwB 2014/15 cohort’s project<br />
that valiantly took on the task of ‘<strong>Connecting</strong><br />
<strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>’ through research, proposals for<br />
design interventions as well as a noteworthy<br />
philosophical exploration of ‘division’. In a world<br />
of growing divides, <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong> is<br />
a timely and important project that I hope encourages<br />
you to think about the root causes of divisions<br />
in our societies, as well as the ways in which<br />
design can be a contributing factor towards<br />
social change in divided places.<br />
LUIGI FERRARA<br />
DEAN, CENTRE FOR ARTS, DESIGN &<br />
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY<br />
DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES<br />
8<br />
9
TABLE OF<br />
CONTENTS<br />
10 16 20<br />
34 48<br />
60<br />
INTRODUCTION, DIVISION &<br />
CONNECTING DIVIDED PLACES<br />
RESEARCH & DESIGN APPROACHES<br />
TERMS TO WORK WITH<br />
WHAT IS DIVISION?<br />
BOUNDARIES, POWER, FLOW, MOBILITY<br />
IMPRESSIONS FROM THE FIELD<br />
BREAKING BREAD WITH ED CONDEL<br />
NOTES FROM THE FIELD:<br />
A WALK THROUGH LITTLE VILLAGE<br />
BREAKING BARRIERS AT THE<br />
LOYOLA SCHOOL<br />
VISUALIZING DIVISION,<br />
STORIES FROM DETROIT<br />
DIVISION & REVIVAL IN MOTOR CITY<br />
TIMELINE OF DETROIT’S BLACK &<br />
WHITE RELATIONS<br />
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: DETROIT &<br />
GROSSE POINTE PARK<br />
ENGAGING COMMUNITY &<br />
CHARRETTING IN CHICAGO<br />
STRONG COMMUNITIES &<br />
BIG CHALLENGES<br />
CHICAGO’S ENGLEWOOD, RAIL YARD<br />
LITTLE VILLAGE: 26<br />
DETROIT’S WALKING MAN<br />
76 88 98<br />
EXPLORING CONNECTIONS IN TORONTO<br />
TORONTO & THE GREATER TORONTO AREA<br />
IM TORONTO<br />
MOBI<br />
CONCLUSION & INSIGHTS<br />
CONNECTING DIVIDED PLACES<br />
LESSONS FROM DETROIT,<br />
CHICAGO, & TORONTO<br />
KEY INSIGHTS<br />
REFERENCES<br />
10<br />
11
INTRODUCTION<br />
<strong>Division</strong> & <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong><br />
In 2014–2015, ten students at the Institute without Boundaries<br />
(IwB) undertook a project called <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>, which<br />
looked at the social, economic, environmental, and cultural divisions<br />
in Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto. The project was the second<br />
year of a five-year research trajectory set by the IwB to explore<br />
Regional Ecologies, an approach that emphasizes the study of the<br />
networks that tie together cities and regions.<br />
One of the most iconic images today that captures<br />
extreme division: the Paraisopolis favela side-by-side<br />
with a wealthy complex in Morumbi, Sao Paulo.<br />
This book presents a selection of the students’ research and design<br />
projects, which show how design can shed new light on the issue of<br />
division, by providing a toolkit for understanding the systematic level<br />
of the issues involved, and showing the power of design to transform<br />
those systems, creating economic, political, and social access for<br />
people in divided places.<br />
13
By exploring Toronto, Chicago, and<br />
Detroit, the students had an opportunity<br />
to respond to the debates around<br />
‘division’ in three different urban contexts,<br />
and expand the debate to a<br />
regional perspective. Simultaneously,<br />
The students spent the year studying varying issues<br />
in this debate, for instance: segregation, poverty, environmental<br />
injustice, crime, lack of access to education<br />
and employment, physical mobility, as well as political<br />
and social boundaries. Interestingly, the students also<br />
emphasized the need to further theorize the concept<br />
In both Chicago and Detroit, the students did fieldwork<br />
and collaborated with the project partners<br />
to run charrettes that steered their research; in<br />
Chicago it was the “Resilient Routes Charrette,”<br />
and in Detroit the “Eastpointe Charrette.” Both<br />
charrettes looked at how public routes and common<br />
spaces could increase local resiliency, inclu-<br />
ronmental injustice and education access. They<br />
also spearheaded the IwB International Charrette<br />
called “Our City within a Park”, which brought<br />
together over 200 local and international design<br />
students and design professionals to propose<br />
new ways to activate Toronto’s underused and<br />
underappreciated ravine system. The charrette’s<br />
by not for profit and grassroots organizations in<br />
these cities. It also shows the students’ attempt<br />
to develop a powerful visual language that conveys<br />
the gravity and social consequences of<br />
divided places, and their design work that transforms<br />
divided systems to create opportunities for<br />
connection.<br />
the theme of <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong><br />
directed the students to not only look at<br />
specific instances of social, economic,<br />
and political division in the three cities<br />
they were studying, but also to try to<br />
of division. They defined division as ‘the interplay<br />
between Boundary, Power, and Flow, that can limit<br />
access to opportunity.’ Thus, the students understood<br />
that <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong> is contingent on<br />
understanding how division can limit people’s access<br />
sivity, and desirability.<br />
The students also worked on information visualization<br />
and design projects. Among the many projects<br />
they conducted about these cities, the IwB<br />
students developed product and systems designs<br />
success led to the commission of a report by the<br />
Toronto Foundation called the RavineLine. Currently,<br />
being developed RavineLine is a blueprint<br />
of how to better manage and utilize Toronto’s<br />
ravines for Toronto’s citizens.<br />
DIVISION is our students’ exploration of how people<br />
in divided places can be empowered, through<br />
design, community resiliency, and new relationships.<br />
We hope that you enjoy this glimpse at our<br />
students’ fascinating year of work.<br />
establish whether or not there were<br />
regional connecting threads between<br />
these cities.<br />
to opportunity.<br />
Together with the IwB staff and faculty, the IwB students travelled<br />
to Chicago and Detroit, where they worked with local stakeholders,<br />
including municipal officials, community leaders, and other students<br />
from local and international educational institutions.<br />
In Chicago, they worked with the municipal government, Cannon<br />
Design, students and faculty from Polytechnic University of Milan,<br />
and the Chicago Architecture Foundation as well as consulted with<br />
several grassroots organizations, including the Little Village Environmental<br />
Justice Organization (LVEJO). In Detroit, the IwB worked<br />
with Lawrence Technological University and the City of Eastpointe,<br />
but also consulted with several local organizations, including On<br />
the Rise Bakery.<br />
to improve local safety, environmental quality, and<br />
community resiliency. Highlights from their work<br />
in Chicago and Detroit are included in this book.<br />
Most of the IwB students’ project work was conducted<br />
in Toronto, which at the time was holding<br />
its municipal elections. Working within the context<br />
of the municipal elections, the students were<br />
inspired to look closely at issues of division, mobility,<br />
and access to Toronto’s political processes,<br />
especially in view of its highly multicultural and<br />
immigrant-based population. But this was only one<br />
aspect of their work on the divisions facing<br />
Toronto. The students looked at many other issues<br />
facing Toronto and Canada as a whole, like envi-<br />
The IwB’s Detroit and the Chicago partners as well<br />
as the City of Toronto, the Toronto Foundation, and<br />
the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA) were<br />
key partners of this project. Their enthusiasm,<br />
dedication, and involvement, allowed the students<br />
to experience real-world project scenarios,<br />
with real consequences and the potential to have<br />
influence through their research and design work.<br />
It is the IwB students’ diversity of expereince<br />
researching and developing design solutions for<br />
divided places that is reflected here. The book<br />
offers a glimpse at the students’ musing over the<br />
defenition of ‘division’ itself as well as fieldwork<br />
that zeros in on specific issues being addressed<br />
14<br />
15
<strong>Division</strong> is<br />
the interplay<br />
between Boundary<br />
Power, and Flow,<br />
and how that<br />
interplay limits<br />
access to opportunity.<br />
The border between the United States of<br />
America and Mexico, and the various<br />
journies that people take to cross it.<br />
16<br />
17
RESEARCH &<br />
DESIGN APPROACHES<br />
The IwB uses a variety of interdisciplinary methods and tools<br />
to inform its projects, emphasizing a commitment to collaborate,<br />
conceptualize, create, test, and share, in all aspects<br />
of the project, from brainstorming to system design to<br />
design development and project completion.<br />
Many paths seems staright foward, but are in fact<br />
part of interconnected and diverse routes.<br />
A big part of the <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong> project was<br />
the chance for the IwB students to learn and employ several<br />
different research and design approaches, in particular<br />
fieldwork, information visualization tools, charretting, and<br />
a Think / Make philosophy.<br />
19
FIELDWORK<br />
Through site visits, observations, and documentation<br />
as well as interviews, the students gained<br />
a firsthand understanding of the issues facing<br />
the communities and cities they were studying.<br />
Seeing division in actual lives made the project<br />
very real and gave urgency to the issues the students<br />
were exploring.<br />
INFORMATION VISUALIZATION<br />
A large component of the IwB approach is learning<br />
how to visualize research findings through the use<br />
of images, timelines, statistics, maps, and other<br />
combined approaches.<br />
Designing and visualizing provide new ways to<br />
explore and understanding complex issues.<br />
CHARRETTING<br />
A charrette is an intensive collaborative process<br />
that brings together students and professionals<br />
from different disciplines. Over a few short days<br />
of brainstorming, discussion, and expert consultation,<br />
interdisciplinary charrette teams create<br />
a range of concepts around a central theme or<br />
challenge.<br />
THINK/MAKE<br />
Think / Make is an IwB philosophy, where the main<br />
objective is to translate research into practice.<br />
This means knowing how to design in context, to<br />
make local solutions that are relevant and respond<br />
to the needs of people.<br />
The charrettes conducted in Toronto, Chicago, and<br />
Detroit connected the IwB team with the local<br />
community and professionals, who together came<br />
up with innovative new design proposals.<br />
20<br />
21
POWER<br />
TERMS TO WORK WITH<br />
BOUNDARIES<br />
The Hover dam illustrates the different relationships<br />
between power, boundaries, and flow.<br />
FLOW<br />
For each IwB project, the students develop concepts<br />
and matrixes to describe the systems relationships<br />
of the issues they are studying.<br />
During <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>, the students redefined<br />
the concept of division, identifying key variables that<br />
inform the way division works.<br />
23
What is <strong>Division</strong>?<br />
At first glance, division<br />
can be a means of dividing,<br />
sorting, or sharing.<br />
To understand the<br />
concept of division, we<br />
needed to redefine it to<br />
understand that it can:<br />
We decided that division is not<br />
inherently negative. Instead, we<br />
defined it as the interplay between<br />
Boundary, Power, and Flow that can<br />
limit access to opportunity.<br />
define us,<br />
protect us,<br />
separate us,<br />
contain us,<br />
enable us,<br />
frame us.<br />
24<br />
25
Boundaries<br />
are natural,<br />
physical, digital,<br />
and social constructs<br />
that determine<br />
people’s mobility.<br />
Hard<br />
Visible<br />
Soft<br />
Invisible<br />
Defined<br />
Nebulous<br />
26
Power<br />
is an individual or<br />
group status that<br />
gives influence.<br />
Active<br />
Silent<br />
Overt<br />
Disruptive<br />
28
Flow<br />
is an individual’s<br />
or group’s mobility<br />
and the degree of<br />
that movement.<br />
Growth<br />
Speed<br />
Ease<br />
Connectivity<br />
30
Mobility<br />
is the key to<br />
bridging divides<br />
in communities and<br />
building networks<br />
for strong regions.<br />
Growth<br />
Connectivity<br />
Disruptive<br />
Soft<br />
Nebulous<br />
Hard<br />
Visable<br />
Ease<br />
Active<br />
32
Underscored in these<br />
definitions is that <strong>Division</strong><br />
is connected to access to<br />
opportunity, which we define<br />
as the freedom to seek<br />
employment, education,<br />
safety and security, political<br />
engagement, and determine<br />
your own identity.<br />
These terms formed the conceptual base of the students’ project.<br />
For the students, <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong> meant using these<br />
concepts to develop ideas and projects on how to create opportunities<br />
for individuals and communities.<br />
34<br />
35
Field Work<br />
IMPRESSIONS FROM THE FIELD<br />
Carefully crafted symbols in landscape paintings<br />
express historical social norms, codes, and divisions.<br />
It was by talking to people and observing the<br />
communities that the students were studying that they<br />
began to understand the complexity of division.<br />
In the pages following are not only stories of<br />
division, but also solutions in the making.<br />
37
Field Work<br />
“If you’re in the<br />
streets, you can’t show<br />
anybody your weakness.<br />
People need to be<br />
able to trust each other and<br />
these meetings are a place<br />
where you want to come and<br />
talk about anything.”<br />
Ed Condel<br />
Breaking Bread<br />
with Ed Condel<br />
In Detroit, the IwB students met Ed Condel of On The Rise Bakery,<br />
a space run by bakers, who have recently been released from<br />
prison or have completed a substance abuse treatment program.<br />
On The Rise Bakery is part of Capuchin Soup Kitchen, an organization<br />
built to address social injustice, from issues like poverty and addiction<br />
to a lack of access to opportunities.<br />
Ed Condel has been an addiction counsellor for seventeen years and<br />
is a chaplain for the organization. Ed talked to the students about<br />
how the work of the organization has opened up unexpected ways<br />
for community-building.<br />
IwB Tell us about your work as an addictions<br />
counsellor at Capuchin Soup ple come to meetings. It’s really been a<br />
We’ve had over a thousand young peo-<br />
Kitchen.<br />
powerful experience because they<br />
never have any contact with young people<br />
in their isolated world. It gives them<br />
ED About 60–70% of our people at the<br />
Capuchin Soup Kitchen have mental and<br />
hope, and suddenly they have something<br />
to give.<br />
addiction issues. As we started these<br />
meetings, we realized that people really<br />
need a forum because they’re so isolated.<br />
If you’re in the streets, you can’t bakey. Long story short: A prisoner<br />
Then we started hiring folks to the<br />
show anybody your weakness. People came out after 33 years in prison, where<br />
need to be able to trust each other and he learned to bake. It turned out he was<br />
these meetings are a place where you a really good baker, but he couldn’t get<br />
want to come and talk about anything. a job. He kept coming to our meetings,...<br />
39
...and he said, “I can’t find a job in six months, I<br />
think I’m just going back to selling drugs. I can<br />
make money, at least.” I said, “Well, why don’t you<br />
try this. Why don’t you bake in our kitchen at<br />
night.” So, he started baking here.<br />
We realized [that] a lot of guys are quite capable<br />
of doing a lot of good things but they‘ve got a<br />
felony. You grow up in a neighbourhood where<br />
everybody did drugs, so you did drugs. You got a<br />
felony and you can’t get out of that hole. [It holds]<br />
you back from jobs. We started working with people<br />
coming out of that. For one year, they live a<br />
contributive life. They go to meetings. [They work]<br />
30 hours a week. The other ten hours they’re paid<br />
to do [other things]. We hired a few of them after<br />
they finished their year with us and [now] they are<br />
in management.<br />
On Unconventional Strategies for<br />
Community-Building<br />
ED We work in the cities with the poor trying to<br />
not just feed and clothe, but [we also] try to create<br />
belonging, contribution, and a sense of identity.<br />
We found that people that came in here started to<br />
know who’s in the neighbourhood. We had bakers<br />
go around in the neighbourhood with flyers, ostensibly<br />
to advertise. But they also said, “By the way,<br />
there’s eight of us down the road and if you see<br />
any trouble, just come to us.” That’s what we need.<br />
We need some kind of boundaries. People see<br />
people scrapping houses and they’ll call the bakers.<br />
You call the police, it doesn’t do anything. But<br />
you call the bakers, they’ll show up or they’ll call<br />
the police and let the police know.<br />
It changes the whole feel of this place. Other businesses<br />
have started to move in. The idea is that<br />
you can actually rebuild a community from the<br />
inside out. It requires relationships. It’s much<br />
slower than putting up a whole beautiful set of<br />
houses and then saying, “Hey, we’ve renovated.”<br />
But, you got to start with that.<br />
We’ve kept [the bakery] deliberately smaller. We<br />
could service restaurants and all things, but we<br />
felt like it changes the dynamic because this is<br />
primarily a recovery place and a community-building<br />
place. On one end, you can make a lot of money,<br />
but you put our bakers under a lot more pressure.<br />
We’re not trying to expand in that sense. Our vision<br />
of expansion would be when we feel we’re ready<br />
to take on more men and women who need help.<br />
Right now we just don’t have the capacity to care<br />
for them all. [As] an addiction counsellor, my job is<br />
to make sure their life is working, that they’re<br />
focusing on recovery and that they’re working in<br />
the community.<br />
But we’re doing well. People are so generous. What<br />
we found is that in the city, if you start to do something<br />
positive, people want to be a part of it. It calls<br />
out the best of people. We have all kinds of retired<br />
pastry chefs that want to help out and train our<br />
bakers. We have one guy who built that fireplace<br />
just for us by hand. People came in and donated<br />
chairs. There’s really tremendous momentum and<br />
it takes on a life that’s not just a bakery.<br />
40<br />
41
Field Work<br />
Notes from<br />
the Field,<br />
A Walk Through<br />
Little Village<br />
Vividly missing in<br />
Little Village are<br />
communal parks and<br />
green areas.<br />
In Chicago, we explored several neighbourhoods inluding Little Village.<br />
We met Kim Wasserman-Nieto, the Organizing and Strategy Director of the<br />
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), a cultural and<br />
grassroots organization that works to promote education and environmental<br />
sustainability. Ms. Wasserman-Nieto talked to us about the neighbourhood,<br />
detailing the industrial damage and change initiatives that LVEJO<br />
is leading. IwB student Phuong Diep shares her observations of Little Village<br />
and insights from the meeting with Wasserman-Nieto.<br />
Phuong Diep, notes from the field:<br />
An abandoned railway divides Little Village’s<br />
residential areas form the industrial<br />
zones found to the southeast. Huge lots<br />
containing some active, but mostly abandoned<br />
industrial buildings are found in this<br />
area.<br />
The infrastructure around the former railway<br />
weaves a line through Little Village;<br />
the steel frames of the old tracks surface<br />
at times, and in other moments have been<br />
completely removed, leaving a vast unused<br />
post-industrial landscape.<br />
The areas around the railway contrast the<br />
vibrant residential parts and commercial<br />
street in the neighbourhood that is found<br />
to the northwest. On 26th Avenue, there<br />
are many small businesses, including restaurants,<br />
bodegas, and other local stores.<br />
Colourful murals can be found throughout<br />
these parts of Little Village, depicting cultural<br />
references and struggles of the different<br />
communities that have lived here,<br />
principally Czech and Mexican immigrants.<br />
43
Vividly missing in Little Village are communal<br />
parks and green areas.<br />
We met Kim Wasserman-Nieto from LVEJO in the<br />
new Little Village Skate Park, the new recreational<br />
area in the neighbourhood that was built with the<br />
support of the city of Chicago.<br />
Kim is one of the organization’s founding members.<br />
She joined LVEJO in 1988 as a community<br />
organizer. Over her many years at LVEJO, she<br />
successfully campaigned and won the close of<br />
two local coal power plants, fighting for remediation<br />
and redevelopment of the sites into playgrounds,<br />
community gardens, and school parks.<br />
Today she plays a leading role in overseeing the<br />
community organizing and leadership development.<br />
With Kim we explored the new Skate Park and<br />
spoke about the challenges facing Little Village.<br />
Kim explained that there is a general feeling<br />
among Little Village residents that despite their<br />
economic contributions to the city there is ongoing<br />
disinvestment in the community from the<br />
municipality. Many members of the community<br />
feel ignored, overlooked, and disconnected from<br />
the city government.<br />
This was visible in the neighbourhood, where there<br />
is a great lack of public transit, making Little Village<br />
poorly integrated with the rest of Chicago.<br />
With the advocacy of LVEJO and other community<br />
groups, the 26th Avenue bus has been reinstated,<br />
connecting the neighbourhood to the rest of the<br />
city, but more transport is needed.<br />
Kim spoke at length about the coal plants that had<br />
been shut down in the neighbourhood. The plants<br />
had been in operation for several decades and had<br />
caused great environmental damage. LVEJO and<br />
other organizations in the area have been advocating<br />
for the city government to support the revitalization<br />
of the industrial sites. Municipal funds<br />
have started to come in, and have been used for<br />
projects like the Skate Park, but Kim maintains<br />
that a lot of work that still needs to be done.<br />
She also spoke about the Cook County Jail, one of<br />
the largest prisons in the US, which is housed in<br />
Little Village. The Jail and the neighbourhood’s<br />
high crime rate are sensitive topics in Little<br />
Village. Kim explained that there is a lot of concern<br />
over youth areas being adjacent to the jail.<br />
Kim is hopeful that the work of LVEJO will continue<br />
to make a big impact in Little Village and Chicago<br />
as a whole.<br />
44<br />
45
Field Work<br />
Breaking<br />
“If you’re a 14-year-old kid<br />
living in a home where grandma<br />
has lived off the system, and<br />
your mom is living off the<br />
system, graduating high school<br />
seems unobtainable.<br />
Where do you find the incentive<br />
to work? Where in the world do<br />
you find that understanding?”<br />
Sean Purcell<br />
Barriers at the<br />
Loyola School<br />
Access to education is seen as the key to breaking cyclical poverty.<br />
But the issue is not as simple as getting students from poor neighbourhoods<br />
or remote areas through the front door of the education system.<br />
IwB student, James Young, spoke with Sean Purcell, a teacher for the<br />
Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board in eastern Ontario,<br />
about his experience working at the Loyola School of Adult and Continuing<br />
Education in Belleville, Ontario.<br />
Purcell shares his insights on how Loyola is working through barriers to<br />
education.<br />
JY You mentioned before that the type of different desires, expectations, understandings,<br />
and really totally operate on a<br />
people you teach [at Loyola School of<br />
Adult and Continuing Education] are hidden<br />
from us a lot of the time.<br />
different level.<br />
Like graduating high school. If you’re a<br />
SP There are these insular populations– 14-year-old kid living in a home where<br />
people who struggle with addiction issues grandma has lived off the system, and your<br />
or mental health issues–who are segregated<br />
to certain parts of the city and that high school seems unobtainable. Where<br />
mom is living off the system, graduating<br />
have a very different worldview, very do you find the incentive to work?...<br />
46<br />
47
SP...Where in the world do you find that understanding?<br />
It’s like me wondering what it’s like to<br />
live as an incredibly rich person. I have no idea.<br />
Really. What does Richard Branson’s day-to-day<br />
life look like? It’s so foreign to me. It’s not part of<br />
the world I live in. So, I don’t really think about it.<br />
Seventy-five percent of the students in my class<br />
will be the first person in their family to graduate<br />
high school. If either you or I had said to our families,<br />
“I think I’m going to graduate high school,” we<br />
would have been laughed out of the room. Of<br />
course we’re going to finish high school. We’re middle<br />
class. In this other community, that’s not<br />
something that’s a given. It’s not necessarily<br />
something that you want.<br />
JY How do your students find Loyola?<br />
SP A lot of people end up getting to Loyola when<br />
they get to a point in their life where they somehow<br />
begin to aspire to something more. When [one<br />
of the girls in my class] was around twelve years<br />
old, her father killed himself. She went crazy:<br />
drugs, alcohol, gangs. Twelve years later, she got<br />
sick of not having the money she needed to take<br />
care of her kids. She got sick of working at Value<br />
Village when she was so bright. So many of them<br />
are so bright. But it means so little. Shockingly little.<br />
She came to Loyola and–long story short–she is<br />
going into a practical nursing program after graduation.<br />
I said to her, “You can create, within your<br />
family, the expectation that in this family, you<br />
graduate high school. That can be the legacy your<br />
kids grow up with.”<br />
JY You mentioned that a lot of your students are<br />
really bright and intelligent and somehow that<br />
wasn’t enough their first time through the system.<br />
Is the playing field that uneven?<br />
SP Special education is all about access to education.<br />
We live in a society where, even though<br />
education is free, people still don’t have equal<br />
access to education. The kid who comes to<br />
school and is starving is not accessing education<br />
to the same degree as the kid who comes to<br />
school and is well fed. The truth of the matter is<br />
that starvation is one of the least severe situations<br />
these kids find themselves.<br />
The level of toxicity in some of their home lives is<br />
beyond anything you can relate to. So much chaos,<br />
uncertainty, anxiety, violence, abuse, neglect,<br />
sexual abuse. School isn’t a concern when you are<br />
coming from a chaotic environment, an environment<br />
where you live in fear. When you’re dealing<br />
with that, finding a way to get through the day is<br />
your concern.<br />
JY Those are really huge societal issues on a scale<br />
that transcends the education system. What<br />
would it take for schools to be able to put a dent<br />
in that? Or does it need to be a more holistic<br />
approach?<br />
SP I think there are things we can do better.<br />
Schools reflect society and what I’ve realized is<br />
the importance of the family in shaping how a student<br />
interacts with the school. We need significantly<br />
more spending on support systems within<br />
our schools: more mental health support, addictions<br />
counselling, and special education for students<br />
who need it. We need to find better ways to<br />
engage students in their learning by catering to<br />
their interests.<br />
Within this community, social connections are<br />
everything. That is the currency because it’s free,<br />
especially when you don’t have wealth or education.<br />
Word-of-mouth is huge. In schools, we always<br />
talk about being part of the community. Schools<br />
should be a place where parents and families are<br />
given more support so schools really do become<br />
more community-centred, as opposed to just<br />
teaching kids.<br />
JY What do you expect will be the breadth of<br />
opportunity for the students who do successfully<br />
graduate?<br />
SP I think it really depends on what state they<br />
arrive in at Loyola, where they are in their own life.<br />
For some people, I think the experience changes<br />
them and leads them toward opportunities, but we<br />
have to be honest and realize that getting an education,<br />
for many, is only one of many obstacles<br />
that they face in their lives.<br />
48<br />
49
Information Visualization<br />
VISUALIZING DIVISION<br />
STORIES FROM DETROIT<br />
The opulent United Artist Theater in Detroit,<br />
before being abandoned and left in ruins.<br />
Studying Detroit, the students were faced with<br />
decades of complex racial politics that have produced<br />
a surreal landscape of division.<br />
The students made it their task to visulaize this landscape<br />
to capture the complexity of the systems that<br />
maintain and reproduce divisions in Detroit.<br />
51
<strong>Division</strong> &<br />
Revival in<br />
The story of the downfall of Detroit, from a thriving hub of American capitalism to<br />
a bankrupt and desolate urban landscape plagued by stark social, economic, and<br />
racial divisions, is well known. Today, decades after the riots and urban exodus, Detroit<br />
continues to struggle with extreme segregation, poverty, inequality, and race tensions.<br />
These well known divisions, like the famous 8 Mile Road, which divides the predomi-<br />
that remain in this small municipality. Eastpointe faces a lot of the same challenges<br />
as many communities in the region; lack of density in infrastructure<br />
that was built largely to promote car use, unemployment and lack of connection<br />
to Detroit proper.<br />
The students conducted extensive research about Eastpointe and Detroit<br />
Detroit area that focuses on black and white relationships.<br />
During their stay in Eastpointe, the IwB students also conducted a four-day<br />
charrette called the Eastpointe Charrette that encouraged students, faculty<br />
and other key stakeholders to reimagine the city’s common spaces. Leveraging<br />
existing public spaces, redevelopment sites, infrastructure and<br />
Motor City<br />
nently black population living in the city from the white population living in the suburbs,<br />
are examples of long held racial, cultural, and economic divides. At the same time, there<br />
are clear signs of revival and new connections between the suburbs and Detroit proper,<br />
in particular, in small, local creative entrepreneurial ventures.<br />
A large part of the students’ work on the Detroit also part of the larger international region that<br />
area looked at segregation patterns with the use links North Michigan and Canada through land and<br />
looking at sites, where there is visible racial and social division, and at ways<br />
that local communities were breaking down these barriers through economic<br />
and social revival ventures, including On the Rise Bakery (see interviews section),<br />
the Ponyride Incubator Space, a shared creative commons that uses<br />
formerly foreclosed real estate, and Techtown, Detroit’s new business innovation<br />
hub. These initiatives are slowly but surely changing the landscape of<br />
division in the Detroit area.<br />
resources, this charrette was intended to envision a more livable and regionally<br />
connected Eastpointe.<br />
On the whole, the students were able to see that change is slowly happening<br />
in Detroit through small grassroots inititatives. However, there is continuing<br />
and systematic reinforcement of division in Detroit that creates surreal situations<br />
and landscapes. In the follwing pages, the students’ information visualization<br />
work on Detroit is highlighted.<br />
of different design visualization methods. At the<br />
water border crossings. It grew and prospered<br />
In October 2014, the IwB travelled to Eastpointe and got to explore the city<br />
same time, the students’ work was grounded and<br />
significantly as one of Michigan’s earliest subur-<br />
and the surrounding Detroit area. The students did fieldwork looking at sites<br />
focused in a partnership and collaboration with<br />
ban communities, but it has also equally felt the<br />
like the Farmers Market. Located in Eastpointe’s neighbouring city, Grosse<br />
the City of Eastpointe, a small Michigan suburban<br />
effects of economic decline, including rapid<br />
Pointe Park, the market is a long-established racial and economic division.<br />
community located on the northeastern side of<br />
population shrinkage throughout the 1970s and<br />
The students also tried to chart the missing connections in infrastructure<br />
the famous 8 Mile Road.<br />
1980s.<br />
that account for stories like Detroit’s Walking Man James Robertson, whose<br />
Eastpointe has a history as a regional connection<br />
Since the 1990s, the population decline in East-<br />
daily work commute of over 11 hours gained tremendous media at tention.<br />
and access point between Detroit and the<br />
pointe has leveled and there has been minimal<br />
The IwB students spent time visualizing these divides; their work is show-<br />
Macomb County communities and suburbs. It is<br />
decrease, but there are longstanding challenges<br />
cased in the following pages along with a timeline of race division of the<br />
52<br />
53
Timeline of Detroit’s Black & White Relations<br />
The students focused on visualizing the major events in the relationship<br />
between the white and black population in Detroit which is characterized by<br />
drastic jumps and losses in population, political upheaval, and racial struggles.<br />
LEGEND<br />
Black Americans moving in White Americans moving in<br />
Black population growth<br />
Black Americans moving out<br />
White Americans moving out<br />
White population growth<br />
Negro Convention urges<br />
Blacks to leave the South<br />
Great Migration<br />
1910-1970<br />
1869. Detroit begins<br />
admitting Black<br />
American children to<br />
the public schools<br />
1793. Jacob Young is<br />
the first black<br />
landowner in Detroit<br />
1870. The 15th<br />
Amendment to the<br />
Constitution grants<br />
African American men<br />
the right to vote<br />
1900. Black Americans focus on<br />
creating businesses<br />
1909. Founding of<br />
National Association for the<br />
Advancement of Colored People<br />
1700<br />
1800<br />
67<br />
1900<br />
4,111<br />
1910<br />
5,741<br />
1,355<br />
1850. Shipping<br />
becomes Detroit's<br />
biggest industry<br />
281,575<br />
459,926<br />
1701. "Le Détroit" (the strait) is<br />
founded by a man named Antoine<br />
Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac<br />
1875. Congress<br />
passes civil rights act<br />
equal treatment in<br />
public accommodation<br />
1901. Ford opens his 2nd<br />
car company Henry Ford Co,<br />
which later becomes the<br />
Cadillac Motor Co in 1902<br />
1899. Detroit<br />
Automobile<br />
Company (DAC)<br />
is created<br />
Many Detroit inhabitants leave<br />
the village for the new settlement<br />
at St. Louis in present day Missouri<br />
The Erie Canal is completed<br />
The first wave of German<br />
immigration to Detroit begins<br />
Irish immigration to Detroit to begins<br />
The first rail connection between<br />
Detroit and New York City<br />
is completed<br />
1916. Ford employs 50<br />
Black employees in a work<br />
force of 32,702<br />
1915. Thousands of Black<br />
Americans migrate to Detroit<br />
1920<br />
40,838<br />
952,065<br />
1914. Ford increases workers pay to<br />
$5 a day, which more than doubled<br />
the $2.25 workers were being paid<br />
1924. White collar jobs<br />
still out of reach for most<br />
black detroiters<br />
1930<br />
120,066 1,446,656<br />
1940<br />
149,119 1,472,662<br />
1943. Detroit race riot at<br />
Belle Isle<br />
300,506<br />
1950<br />
1950. Plans to make Detroit a<br />
central hub in the forthcoming<br />
Interstate Highway System<br />
1942. Production of commercial<br />
automobiles in the city ceased entirely.<br />
Factories were used for war<br />
1,545,847<br />
1963. Martin Luther King expresses his<br />
dreams about freedom and equality<br />
among the white and black<br />
people.(First I have a Dream Speech)<br />
1974. Coleman Young is<br />
the first black mayor<br />
1960<br />
482,223 1956. The last<br />
streetcar in<br />
Detroit rolls down<br />
Woodward Avenue<br />
1,182,970<br />
1970<br />
660,428 838,877<br />
1980<br />
758,939 413,730<br />
1970. Worldwide<br />
energy crisis with high<br />
gasoline prices and<br />
serious competition<br />
from imported<br />
automobiles<br />
1957. 163 auto plants factories<br />
leave for the suburbs; 68 new<br />
parts factories open in the<br />
suburbs, while one does in<br />
Detroit. The east side alone loses<br />
70,000 auto jobs in that period<br />
1984. Worst Devil's night in<br />
Detroit history with 800 fires<br />
1990<br />
777,916 222,316<br />
1995. Detroit city<br />
officials organize and<br />
create Angels' Night on<br />
and around October<br />
29–31<br />
Census shows over<br />
21,000 18 to 24-year-olds<br />
moved into Detroit from<br />
another city in Michigan<br />
1991. From lack of maintenance<br />
funds, the City of Detroit’s<br />
Historical Museum is closed and<br />
historic artifacts removed to<br />
storage. Detroit Native<br />
Americans protest the closure<br />
2013. Goldman Sachs launches its Small<br />
Businesses program in Detroit. An<br />
investment to help entrepreneurs create<br />
jobs and economic opportunity by providing<br />
greater access to services<br />
2000<br />
775,772 116,599<br />
590,226<br />
2010<br />
2020<br />
75,758<br />
2009. Chrysler and GM declare<br />
Bankruptcy, and the Obama<br />
administration provides financing and<br />
guides the automakers through<br />
expedited bankruptcy proceedings<br />
2014. Detroit shuts off water to<br />
thousands of broke residents<br />
Greatest loss of population<br />
of more than 200,000<br />
2011. Detroit Collaborative Design<br />
Center at the University of Detroit<br />
Mercy announced the Bloody Run Creek<br />
Greenway Redevelopment Project for<br />
the naturalization of neglected riverfront<br />
54<br />
55
CITY OF DETROIT<br />
CENSUS TRACT 5129<br />
TOTAL POPULATION<br />
1,542<br />
DENSITY : 5,142/SQ MI<br />
WHITE POPULATION<br />
5%<br />
BLACK POPULATION<br />
88%<br />
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME<br />
$16,992<br />
FOOD STAMP/SNAP BENEFIT<br />
IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS<br />
62%<br />
GROSSE POINTE PARK<br />
CENSUS TRACT 5502<br />
TOTAL POPULATION<br />
4,043<br />
DENSITY : 2,307.5/SQ MI<br />
WHITE POPULATION<br />
83%<br />
BLACK POPULATION<br />
12%<br />
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME<br />
$62,361<br />
FOOD STAMP/SNAP BENEFIT<br />
IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS<br />
13%<br />
56<br />
57
Making<br />
Grosse<br />
Physical<br />
Pointe<br />
Divides in<br />
Aug 2014<br />
A motorist travelling from<br />
Park<br />
Detroit crashes into the largest<br />
of the farmer’s market structures.<br />
It is unclear whether the<br />
midnight crash was an inten-<br />
Mid 2013<br />
tional expression of protest or<br />
simply due to the fact that a<br />
The city of Grosse Pointe Park is<br />
an upscale suburb that lies at<br />
the western border of Detroit. Its<br />
long time Mayor Palmer Heenan<br />
was known for his controversial<br />
1945–1960<br />
The five Grosse Pointe suburbs<br />
implement ruthless redlining to<br />
preserve their “Americanness”<br />
through racial segregation.<br />
Grosse Pointe Park city officials<br />
propose a five-storey medical<br />
building to span the entire rightof-way,<br />
rendering Kercheval Avenue<br />
impassable. The proposal<br />
encounters opposition from<br />
both sides of the boundary and<br />
is dropped in favour of a plan for<br />
a farmer’s market and plaza.<br />
Feb 2014<br />
Kercheval Avenue is blocked<br />
off by 10-foot high snowbank,<br />
by Grosse Pointe Park snow<br />
removal.<br />
building had been placed in the<br />
middle of Kercheval Avenue.<br />
Grosse Pointe Park and Detroit<br />
strike a deal: authorities agree<br />
to move the farmer’s market<br />
and reopen Kercheval to traffic<br />
in exchange for the demolition<br />
of dozens of blighted properties<br />
along the municipal border.<br />
Jan 2014<br />
The structures are removed<br />
from the right-of-way and a single<br />
eastbound lane is hewn<br />
through the former plaza, allowing<br />
through traffic from Detroit<br />
into Grosse Pointe Park.<br />
policies, specifically his work to<br />
keep his suburb seperated from<br />
Detroit and Detroiters.<br />
Among many of the former mayor’s<br />
policies, the construction<br />
around Kerchal Avenue and the<br />
Grosse Pointe Park Farmer’s Market<br />
was central in these policies.<br />
Late 1980s<br />
Detroit greenlights the plan for<br />
Chrysler’s Jefferson North<br />
Assembly Plant which perma-<br />
Nov 2013<br />
Grosse Pointe Park police officer<br />
confesses that he recorded<br />
video of a black Detroiter with<br />
June 2014<br />
Construction begins on the concrete<br />
plaza for Grosse Pointe<br />
Park’s soon-to-be relocated<br />
Dec 2014<br />
A plan is tabled for a multi-story<br />
development at the site, which<br />
would permanently obstruct<br />
nently severs Kercheval Avenue<br />
disabilities whom police had<br />
farmer’s market. The develop-<br />
Kercheval Avenue.<br />
one mile west of the Grosse<br />
commanded to sing, dance, and<br />
ment spans the entire width of<br />
Pointe Park border.<br />
make animal noises. The incident<br />
Kercheval Avenue, completely<br />
prompts the department to<br />
blocking traffic from Detroit.<br />
launch an investigation into allegations<br />
that its members were<br />
taking demeaning photos and<br />
video of black citizens to share<br />
with family and friends.<br />
Three large sheds are erected to<br />
serve as vendor’s stalls. The<br />
structures have their backs<br />
turned to Detroit.<br />
58<br />
Grosse Pointe Park perspectives:<br />
“To come over from either side of the border, anyone can take advantage<br />
of the great opportunities that are going to be happening here.”<br />
Mike Trudel, resident<br />
Detroit perspectives:<br />
“I want to say I’m shocked, but this has been happening for as long<br />
as I remember. Might as well put up a sign that says, ‘No coloreds.’”<br />
Cynthia Jackson, Detroit resident. 59
Information Visualization<br />
James Robertson’s<br />
Daily Commute<br />
Detroit’s<br />
Walking Man<br />
In Detroit, in 2014, a story about transportation<br />
access captured national and international<br />
media attention. This is the story of James Robertson,<br />
a 56 year-old black male living in Detroit,<br />
who spent his days walking 37 km (21 miles) to<br />
work. Robertson’s story became a key case<br />
study during the year.<br />
Robertson is one of the many Detroiters who<br />
suffer from a lack of accessibility to regional<br />
transportation services, this stems from issues<br />
of physical and socially mobility.<br />
During the height of Detroit’s success, the<br />
region planned for the long-term permanence<br />
and prominence of cars, creating a sprawling<br />
urban population. Today, there are large expressways<br />
and limited public transit within and<br />
outside the city and the regional public transportation<br />
system is extremely limited and unreliable.<br />
Robertson’s story began when his car broke<br />
down, he lacked the sufficient funds to be able<br />
to fix it. Public transit fails to cover the entire<br />
route to work for Robertson and so he was left<br />
with no other option but to take on the route to<br />
work by transit and on foot. Robertson ended up<br />
spending 11 hours and 31 minutes commuting<br />
to work and back each day.<br />
James Robertson’s daily journey, highlights the<br />
many intertwined issues at play: lack of connectivity<br />
in the public infrastructure, scarce job<br />
economy, and a general lack of options that<br />
could create such a situation.<br />
These issues cannot be separtated from the<br />
history of segregation in Detroit that has<br />
affected the positions of the black community.<br />
Detroit has had a strained history between its<br />
black population and white population. The continued<br />
racial discrimination and lack of generational<br />
wealth, due to a lack of opportunities for<br />
black people has hindered the mobility of the<br />
black population in the Detroit region.<br />
Thus, Robertson’s story, his total lack of<br />
options, is from one perspective a matter of<br />
having a low income and lacking the ability to fix<br />
his car.But seeing his, and other journies like his,<br />
in the context of predetermined inequalities and<br />
racial discimination, reinforced by biased policies,<br />
makes his daily commute an example of<br />
systematic divisions and blockades that prevent<br />
black people in the region from access,<br />
opportunity, and social mobility.<br />
START<br />
Home<br />
(Detroit)<br />
END<br />
30 min 1h<br />
4h<br />
2h 25min<br />
Total Travel : 5h 30m<br />
Total Travel : 6h 01m<br />
36m<br />
3h<br />
END<br />
Ronchester<br />
Hills<br />
START<br />
+ -<br />
1h15min 11h31min $108/day<br />
$320/week $220/week<br />
Communing total by car<br />
By transit With his wage ($10.55/h) Earned per week Paid in rent<br />
60<br />
61
Charretting<br />
ENGAGING COMMUNITY AND<br />
CHARRETTING IN CHICAGO<br />
The after math of the Great Chicago Fire of<br />
1871 that forced the city to rebuilt itself.<br />
In Chicago, the students discovered vibrant and multi-ethnic<br />
neighbourhoods. Leverging the initiatives already happening,<br />
the students made several design proposals that addressed<br />
boosting the quality of life in these communities.<br />
63
Strong<br />
Communities<br />
Chicago is romanticized as a mobster paradise, a heaven for corruption<br />
and big time gangsters the likes of Al Capone. In Chicago, corruption and<br />
crime rates continue to be extremely high and surpass the US national average.<br />
Chicago is also seen as a highly segregated city, with clear divisions in<br />
wealth, race, and influence between its predominantly black south side, and<br />
become a regular Chicago feature. Interestingly,<br />
some of the murals began as a collaborative effort<br />
between the Czechs and the Mexicans, depicting<br />
immigration challenges and cultural elements of<br />
both groups.<br />
ployment rate is extremely high. It is also well<br />
known for having established gang territories and<br />
being very polluted due to the presence of a large<br />
rail yard.<br />
In Englewood, there have been intiatives within<br />
in Little Village, Pilsen, and Englewood to form<br />
more resilient communities.<br />
The focus of the students’ work in Chicago<br />
became how public routes and the common<br />
spaces could be used to address the challenges<br />
& Big<br />
Challenges<br />
predominantly white north parts of the city. These well known characterizations<br />
of the city overshadow its many thriving and tighnit communities.<br />
During 2014 –15, the IwB students re- United States and the Chicago area. These<br />
searched division in different Chicago neighbourhoods are known for their rich histories,<br />
tight knit communities, and evolving<br />
neighbourhoods, looking at issues like<br />
crime, segregation, safety, and education cultural fabrics. The two largest ethnic<br />
access for residents. In preparation for groups in these communities have been<br />
fieldwork in Chicago, the students conducted<br />
data visualization exercises and the Czech Republic in the 1800s, and Mex-<br />
Bohemians immigrating from what is now<br />
designed several projects in their courses. ican immigrants who came to Chicago from<br />
Then in April 2015, the IwB students, faculty the mid to late 20th century. Today the<br />
and staff travelled to Chicago to do fieldwork<br />
and conduct a charrette called the 80 percent of residents in Pilsen and Little<br />
Latino population is by far the majority; over<br />
“Resilient Routes Chicago Charrette”.<br />
Village identify themselves as Latino.<br />
Preparing for the charrette, the students Signs of these immigration waves are present<br />
throughout the communities. Pilsen<br />
researched several different neighbourhoods<br />
including Pilsen, Little Village, and was named by the Bohemian immigrants,<br />
Englewood.<br />
taking its moniker from Plzeň, the fourth<br />
largest city in the Czech Republic. Equally,<br />
Both Pilsen and Little Village have been painted murals, an art form brought to the<br />
entry points for new immigrants to the area by the Mexican immigrants, have<br />
Major new developments in Pilsen, such as University<br />
Commons on the site of the old produce terminal,<br />
are driving gentrification that is attracting<br />
new residents to the area and creating friction<br />
between new and old communities.<br />
Little Village has the youngest population of all<br />
Chicago neighbourhoods and is experiencing<br />
increases in residential density. This is not due to<br />
the addition of higher density housing, but<br />
because larger families are living in the same<br />
homes. Thus, both neighbourhoods are significantly<br />
above Chicago’s average population density,<br />
meaning that private spaces are reaching<br />
capacity for meeting the needs of residents.<br />
Englewood is a different story. The neighbourhood<br />
struggles with issues of high poverty, crime, lack<br />
of safety, and environmental and health problems.<br />
As of 2011, its neighbourhood median household<br />
income was between $24,000 - $25,000 – well<br />
below Chciago’s median. Less than half of its population<br />
has completed high school, and the unem-<br />
the community to curb the chaos, crime, and lack<br />
of safety, including creating community gardens,<br />
programming with former gang members, and creating<br />
safer routes to school because in neighbourhoods<br />
with high crime rates education is often<br />
compromised because youth fear the route to<br />
school.<br />
All three areas have been heavily occupied by<br />
industrial uses, resulting in very little land being<br />
available for public and green spaces. Little Village<br />
has less green space per capita than any neighbourhood<br />
in Chicago and Pilsen is 76 percent<br />
below the Chicago average. These density and<br />
lack of public space issues are combined with<br />
more widespread economic, social, and political<br />
city challenges.<br />
Working with their Chicago project partners,<br />
namely the City of Chicago, Cannon Design, and<br />
the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) as well<br />
as the participating community stakeholders, the<br />
students looked at ways to activate public spaces<br />
facing these and other Chicago communities. The<br />
concept of city resiliency was utilized as an overarching<br />
theme to promote longevity and strong<br />
urban communities.<br />
Towards this goal, the students compelted extensive<br />
research and design work on the city of Chicago.<br />
In the following pages, we feature two<br />
projects: “Rail Yard”, a design project for the students’<br />
Environment Module that looked at school<br />
safety routes in Englewood, and “Little Village 26”,<br />
one of the design proposals from the Resilient<br />
Routes Chicago Charrette”, which aimed to create<br />
more resilient community routes in Little Village.<br />
64<br />
65
CHICAGO’S ENGLEWOOD<br />
ENGLEWOOD STATS AT A GLANCE<br />
Population change 1930-2014:<br />
89,063/ 30,654 (-65.6%)<br />
less than high school:<br />
43%<br />
1 or more years of college:<br />
14%<br />
Algae-Powered Building<br />
It is estimated that in Chicago’s Englewood population over 20 percent of<br />
people are affected by asthma, due to a large frieght yard that stands in<br />
the middle of the community. In 2014, Norflok Southern Corporation began<br />
making plans to expand the rail infrastructure through the aquasition of<br />
cheap vacant city lots surrounding the rail yard. The company has purchased<br />
105 vacant city-owned lots for only $1.1 million. These zones,<br />
which include residential and green spaces will become a part of the<br />
84-acre freight yard; a 57 percent increase in the frieght yard’s size.<br />
The IwB students designed a proposal called Rail Yard that features an algae-powered<br />
building that covers the rail. It acts as a protective barrier and includes filtration systems<br />
to help reduce air pollution. Algae panels cover the building and absorb sunlight allowing<br />
the algae to grow. It is then separated and converted for use as biofuel. The aim of the Rail<br />
Yard project in Englewood is to help find alternative solutions for the environmental issues<br />
affecting the community.<br />
Median Household Income 2011:<br />
$24,000– $25,000<br />
(Chicago: $43,628)<br />
Violent Crime:<br />
The highest in the nation<br />
Asthma Related Hospitalizations:<br />
60% the highest in Chicago<br />
(Chicago’s average: 31.6%)<br />
66<br />
67
ALGAE<br />
PRODUCTION<br />
Algae-Powered Building<br />
Vision<br />
A safe, healthy, and<br />
livable Englewood.<br />
Co2 & No2<br />
Diesel Pollution<br />
+ =<br />
Sunlight for<br />
photosynthesis<br />
Bio-adaptive<br />
Algae Panels<br />
Generates electricity<br />
& heating for the center<br />
Mission<br />
Biofuel Production<br />
The aim of the Railyard<br />
project is to boost quality<br />
of life through secure spaces,<br />
encourage intellectual and<br />
social development through<br />
programming, and improve<br />
environmental conditions<br />
through alternative energy<br />
sources, infrastructure, and<br />
policy changes.<br />
Algae ready for harvest<br />
ALGAE FARM &<br />
AIR FILTRATION<br />
Separated & transferred to<br />
Energy Management Center<br />
= =<br />
Fermented as Biofuel<br />
$$$<br />
7<br />
Overview<br />
The Railyard project focuses on promoting<br />
health, safety, and opportunity for all residents<br />
living in Englewood and in the region.<br />
6<br />
68<br />
69
Opportunity<br />
Strategies & Solutions<br />
Youth Programming and Mentorship<br />
The goal is to provide a safe and neutral space for youth to access after<br />
school to connect and engage in physical activity, and help develop crucial<br />
life skills. Basketball courts, dance studios, music and art spaces,<br />
and workshop spaces provide opportunities for social and cultural development.<br />
Creating these opportunities for youth will bring a sense of<br />
belonging and engagement that is lacking in the community. These<br />
opportunities also create jobs so that youth can secure a good income.<br />
Policy Initiatives<br />
and Innovative<br />
Technology<br />
For a safe,<br />
healthy,<br />
and liveable<br />
Englewood.<br />
Youth and<br />
Community<br />
Programming<br />
Sustainable<br />
Built & Natural<br />
Environment<br />
Safety<br />
Health<br />
ING<br />
MEMORIAL<br />
WALL<br />
10<br />
13<br />
70<br />
71
Englewood’s<br />
Schools and Safety Routes vs. Gang Territories<br />
Issues Surrounding Kids and Education<br />
Crime rate (2011)<br />
# per 100,000 population<br />
562<br />
214.1<br />
Englewood ranks<br />
#4<br />
Chicago, IL<br />
U.S average<br />
out of 77 Chicago neighbourhoods<br />
for violent crime (2013)<br />
School closure<br />
50 9<br />
562<br />
of 664<br />
of 34<br />
Chicago (2013) Englewood (2013)<br />
Race of students affected by school closures in Chicago<br />
88% 10% 0.7%<br />
Black<br />
Latino<br />
White<br />
Household income of families affected by school closures in Chicago<br />
LEGEND<br />
LEGEND<br />
Gang territory Territories<br />
Black Disciples (Folks)<br />
Gangster Disciples (Folks)<br />
Party People (Folks)<br />
New Breed (Independent)<br />
Black P Stone (People)<br />
Conservative Vice Lords (People)<br />
Latin Kings (People)<br />
Mickey Cobras (People)<br />
LEGEND<br />
Chicago Public School<br />
Englewood<br />
Safe school passage route<br />
94% 6%<br />
Low income<br />
Other income<br />
72<br />
73
Charretting<br />
LITTLE VILLAGE: 26<br />
Over 82%<br />
of residents in Little Village identify<br />
themselves as Latino<br />
Average household income<br />
$33,000<br />
what is left to spent is often spent<br />
on 26th Street<br />
Annually 26th Street generates<br />
Strategies & Solutions<br />
Resilient Systems and Economic Networks<br />
900 million in profits<br />
this is only second to the Magnificent Mile.<br />
26th street is the center for cultural activity in Little Village that attracts<br />
people in the region for events such as Mexico’s Independence Day. However,<br />
26th street faces many challenges, such as poor integration with the Chicago<br />
region, a lack of social services, aging infrastructure, and disinvestment from<br />
the city. For instance, stormwater management is a pressing issue.<br />
The goal of the 26 project is to catapult the social and economic networks that exsit in Little<br />
Village and increase community resiliency by focusing on the social and economic integration<br />
of the community within the Chicago region, and creating innovative spaces and opportunities<br />
to share the vibrancy of the neighbourhood.<br />
26th street is the destination for the<br />
500,000<br />
Mexcian Americans<br />
within a 10-minute drive of Little Village<br />
74<br />
75
Vision<br />
The project aims to<br />
support the health and<br />
growth of the community.<br />
Mission<br />
This is a proposal for Little Village<br />
to build on the existing assets of Little<br />
Village, and to continue to position the<br />
street for the future as a center for<br />
community, visitor and commercial<br />
activity by developing spaces for<br />
community gathering, recreation,<br />
and everyday life.<br />
RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
Overview<br />
MUSIC RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
26 (twenty-six or veintiséis) is a project proposal<br />
for creating public green space on 26th street that<br />
is resilient for neighbourhood economic, social and<br />
built changes in Little Village.<br />
RECYCLE WASTE WATER ROOF GARDEN IRRIGATION ART<br />
Rain Storm Roof Top Water System<br />
Site plan of roof top system<br />
76<br />
77<br />
Cross Section
Think / Make<br />
EXPLORING CONNECTIONS<br />
IN TORONTO<br />
The GTA is a city divided through an incomplete<br />
and disjointed transportation network.<br />
Addressing their own city’s divisions, the students were<br />
faced with looking at the reality of Toronto’s reputation<br />
as a multi-ethnic place of opportunity.<br />
They created several design projects that focused on<br />
addressing social gaps in Toronto.<br />
79
Toronto<br />
and the<br />
Greater<br />
Toronto Area<br />
Toronto has historical roots as a meeting point for trade, new cultures,<br />
and immigrants. “Diversity Our Strength” is the city’s motto. Toronto is<br />
well known for being an incredibly ethnically diverse place, and a place<br />
of great opportunity and social mobility for immigrants. But while the<br />
city’s multiethnic composition and integration are not to be undermined,<br />
Toronto has many dividing lines.<br />
In the last several decades, Toronto has to resources. Importantly, Toronto lacks<br />
developed as a network of neighborhoods a transportation network that supports<br />
and communities that reach beyond the the GTA, making divisions in mobility and<br />
city’s actual boundaries. The city has access tense issues in the area, especially<br />
since many of communities with lim-<br />
grown to function as a region with many<br />
neighbouring cities spilling into the ited transportation access tend to be<br />
metropolis and together forming the lower-income immigrant communities<br />
Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The downtown<br />
core remains the epicenter of the of discussion on how to bring the new<br />
(though not exclusively so). There is a lot<br />
new expanded metropolis, with the largest<br />
concentration of wealth and access been little definitive<br />
regional entity together, but there has<br />
action.<br />
In 2014–15, at the time of the <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong><br />
<strong>Places</strong> project, the city was holding its mayoral<br />
elections. The elections themselves represented<br />
the divisions between Toronto and its surrounding<br />
municipalities. The then city mayor, the late Rob<br />
Ford, was a central figure in this debate because<br />
he so vehemently identified with the politics of the<br />
suburbs, and was viewed by many Torontonians as<br />
not representative of their city and its interests.<br />
Aside from the mayor’s colourful personality and<br />
media scandals, the mayoral race heightened the<br />
existing tensions in the city.<br />
In the context of the municipal elections, the students<br />
spent a lot of time looking at issues of division,<br />
mobility, and access in Toronto’s political<br />
processes through the lens of immigration, political<br />
identity, opportunity, and transportation. These<br />
issues led them to other issues facing Toronto and<br />
Canada as a whole, like environmental injustice and<br />
education access.<br />
In the following pages are two projects that deal<br />
with these issues: IM Toronto and MOBI. IM Toronto<br />
is a communication campaign that the students<br />
made for their Communications Module. The project<br />
looks at identity politics in the GTA, specifically<br />
impediments to voter knowledge and<br />
participation. MOBI is a design proposal for a seamless<br />
transportation system designed by the students<br />
for their Products, Systems, and Services<br />
Module. MOBI addresses the ‘last mile’ of a commute<br />
and forecasts what the use of the autonomous<br />
car would mean to Toronto’s transportation<br />
infrastructure. Ultimately, the students’ research<br />
and project work in Toronto focused on creating a<br />
more accessible and connected region.<br />
80<br />
81
Think / Make<br />
IM TORONTO<br />
Immigrant Population:<br />
2nd highest in the world<br />
Foreign-born Population:<br />
50%<br />
Torontonians without<br />
the right to vote:<br />
1 out of 7<br />
Boundaries determined by identity such as citizenship status decrease<br />
the capabilities of individuals to have a political voice. Immigrants in<br />
Canada vastly contribute to the growth of the economy and society,<br />
but they lack access to political leadership.<br />
IM Toronto addresses issues of identity and political access in Toronto<br />
by building political presence for immigrants.<br />
Visible minorities in GTA<br />
government officials:<br />
11%<br />
82<br />
83
Vision<br />
To make Toronto a<br />
welcoming home for<br />
every new Torontonian.<br />
Mission<br />
IM campaign empowers<br />
permanent residents and<br />
new comers by promoting<br />
their presence as well as<br />
keeping them engaged.<br />
Overview<br />
The IM project is a communication campaign that<br />
addresses issues of identity in Canadian municipal<br />
politics. The project focuses on promoting the presence<br />
and engagement of immigrants and permanent<br />
residents, in order to increase minority voting and<br />
political leadership despite citizenship status.<br />
here<br />
are you?<br />
여기<br />
당신은?<br />
Strategies & Solutions<br />
Information & Engagement<br />
The IM App is a means for creating personal connections and providing<br />
access to information about politics to immigrants and permanent residents.<br />
The App acts as a networking tool to connect professionals to<br />
the IM community. It is available in multiple languages to fit the cultural<br />
needs of the user and encourage ease. The app holds features such<br />
as an integrated voting system that acts as a mock polling station<br />
operating during real time elections, a feature profile page to generate<br />
public recognition, and various updates on electoral information and<br />
events to keep members engaged.<br />
Networks<br />
The IM campaign is a strategy to promote the political presence of<br />
immigrants and permanent residents as contributing members of<br />
Toronto. Using strategies for public branding, the aim is to bring awareness<br />
and spark the interest in politics of people as they move through<br />
their daily lives and interactions. Touchpoints are identified throughout<br />
the city, where marketing initiatives take place to increase curiosity<br />
and interest among Torontonians. Following this phase, the IM network<br />
seeks to generate members and support through a loyalty program<br />
that offers member perks.<br />
The IM campaign aims to overcome regional division and inspire change<br />
throughout the region, recognizing that the diversity of identities in<br />
the Toronto.<br />
在 这 里<br />
你 呢 ?<br />
hier here<br />
are ben you? jij?<br />
在 这 里<br />
你 呢 ?<br />
here<br />
are you?<br />
여기<br />
당신은?<br />
在 这 里<br />
你 呢 ?<br />
hier<br />
ben jij?<br />
여기<br />
당신은?<br />
hier<br />
ben jij?<br />
84<br />
85
Think / Make<br />
MOBI & LAST MILE<br />
Cars are parked<br />
95% of the time<br />
Average Canadian spends on parking<br />
$1040 per year<br />
Strategy & Solutions<br />
Toronto’s current system of transportation is not inclusive, efficient, or economically<br />
accessible. In transitioning to the future of autonomous cars, The IwB<br />
students foresaw a service that upholds core values of inclusivity and cooperation.<br />
Since 1994, Canada has deployed 50 car sharing programs. Approximately<br />
100,000 Canadians belong to co-operative car sharing networks. Given this<br />
increasing trend of sharing, and a decrease in an affinity to ownership from the<br />
millennial generation, the IwB students designed a social service called mobi.<br />
mobi reflects the shifting values and beliefs of future car culture, mainly becoming<br />
a member in car organization rather than an autonomous car owner or renter,<br />
with emphasis on participation, cooperation, and sharing. With mobi the students<br />
wanted to promote a future in which cooperation with our neighbours can<br />
help achieve universal mobile freedom.<br />
Area land occupied by<br />
surface parking<br />
25%<br />
Number of people who died in<br />
traffic accidents in Toronto 2015<br />
64 people<br />
86<br />
87
9:28 AM<br />
9:28 9:29 AM<br />
9:28 9:29 AM<br />
9:28 9:30 AM<br />
Vision<br />
A future where everyone,<br />
everywhere can obtain<br />
personal physical mobility.<br />
Where would<br />
you like to go?<br />
Saved Destinations<br />
Home<br />
Institute<br />
without<br />
Boundaries<br />
Most Visited<br />
Woodbine<br />
Beach<br />
Aunties<br />
& Uncles<br />
Momofuku<br />
Nikai<br />
A<br />
B<br />
Current<br />
Location<br />
Woodbine<br />
Beach<br />
When would you<br />
like your mobi?<br />
Now<br />
Later<br />
Today<br />
9.00 AM<br />
Mission<br />
The project aims to create a time<br />
sharing system and service that<br />
bridges the divisions of mobility<br />
faced by the disenfranchised.<br />
Request<br />
Request<br />
Request<br />
Request<br />
Overview<br />
We envisioned an integrated and seamless transportation<br />
system that includes the Smart Bus, regional rapid<br />
transport, and last mile transport as a solution to traffic<br />
congestion, long commute times, and regional fragmentation<br />
— creating isolated and disconnected centres<br />
with different transportation systems and behaviours.<br />
88<br />
89
CONCLUSION & INSIGHTS<br />
Looking for an ecology of division.<br />
Copy here<br />
91
<strong>Connecting</strong><br />
<strong>Divided</strong><br />
<strong>Places</strong><br />
The <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong> project came out of an urgency of seeing the growth of<br />
divided places and a motivation to know how ‘division’ operates. The students’ initial<br />
research question – With so many new systems and technologies that are meant<br />
to connect people, why is the world increasingly divided? – recognizes that social,<br />
political, and economic divisions are growing in the world, even though we have more<br />
capacity and tools than ever for connectivity.<br />
This means that as segments of the world are is an ecology of division that is made up of the<br />
experiencing increased global awareness, connectivity,<br />
interplay of boundaries, power relations, and flows<br />
flows, and financial benefits of these con-<br />
that determine people’s access to opportunities<br />
nections, other segments are either completely in divided places.<br />
left-out of these connections, or more frequently,<br />
form the basis of complex webs of exploitation. In<br />
The students wanted to be able to find a way to<br />
effect, what has been historically true remains so:<br />
talk about division that sheds light on how it is<br />
the availability of tools and ready access to knowledge<br />
maintained and reinforced, how the original problem<br />
do not necessarily change the structure of<br />
can spiral or have domino effects creating<br />
the game. To the contrary, many times they do the<br />
new divisions, and how it can also be transformed<br />
opposite–they reinforce existing world inequalities.<br />
for social good.<br />
The IwB students work during 2014-15 aimed to:<br />
Lessons<br />
from<br />
Detroit<br />
Researching and travelling to Detroit, the students experienced a<br />
place known for its stark racial segregation. They attempted to visualize<br />
the history of segregation by timelining and looked at ways<br />
to represent the total embeddedness of racial divison. In Detroit,<br />
racial segregation affects every part of the landscape and people’s<br />
lives: job availability, public transport, education, crime rates, etc.<br />
On the surface, James Robertson’s commuting story seems to call for an immediate<br />
need to develop inter-municipal transport routes. Surely, this would help in<br />
the short-term, but the systematic issues that keep Robertson travelling close<br />
to 12 hours per day, to a minimum wage job, cannot be solved with the installation<br />
of a bus route because the lack of transport is not the main boundary that determines<br />
Robertson’s access; it is rather Robertson’s complete lack of options and<br />
communal support systems.<br />
In the students’ interview with Ed Condel of On the Rise Bakery, Condel described<br />
the way the bakery has impacted the whole neighborhood. The bakery it turns<br />
out is not only a place of employment and support for people newly released from<br />
prison, but a community space that extends to the whole neighbourhood, creating<br />
a safer and more active community. The investment and connection felt by<br />
The IwB students addressed these issues by first<br />
attempting to redefine the concept of division<br />
itself. For the students, it was important to isolate<br />
the variables that organize divided places.<br />
Given a question like: How did this neighbourhood<br />
come to be divided? The students not only<br />
addressed the social, political, and economic context<br />
of the issues involved, but also thought about<br />
the composition and ecology of division; an introspection<br />
into the different variables that together<br />
circumscribe how divided places function.<br />
Does this mean that the students were looking for<br />
a kind of ‘formula’ of what makes a divided place?<br />
In a sense yes, but less so a formula, and more an<br />
‘ecology’ of the parts, systems, and connections<br />
that make up a place. For the IwB students, there<br />
1) shed new light on the issue of division; 2) provide<br />
a toolkit for understanding understanding the<br />
systematic level of the issues involved in division<br />
by sketching out its ecology; and 3) show the<br />
power of design to transform those systems, creating<br />
economic, political, and social access for<br />
people in divided places<br />
Responding to the debates around division in<br />
three different urban contexts, and expanding the<br />
debate to the regional perspective, <strong>Division</strong><br />
shows highlights from a year of research, exercises<br />
in information visualization, and design work<br />
that focus on illustrating the complexity of the<br />
ecology of divided places as an interplay<br />
between boundaries, power, and flows that can<br />
limit people’s access to opportunities.<br />
the bakers, according to Condel “change(s) the whole feel of this place.” What<br />
started as a bakery has created domino effects in the whole neighbourhood, creating<br />
tremendous momentum. Thus, according to Condel:<br />
You can actually rebuild a community<br />
from the inside out. It requires building<br />
relationships.<br />
Looking at the work of Condel at the On the Rise Bakery, Robertson’s story<br />
becomes one where we have to think about the necessity to create sustainable<br />
change through new options and community support that lie outside the established<br />
frameworks of division.<br />
92<br />
93
Lessons<br />
from<br />
Chicago<br />
In Chicago, the students investigated Little Village, Pilsen, and Englewood.<br />
With a great lack of green and safe public spaces, these<br />
neighbourhoods do not have infrastructure that encourage the<br />
growth and prosperity of their communities. For example, through<br />
their visualization of Englewood’s gang territories, the IwB students<br />
show that access to education is not solely and issue of availability<br />
Lessons<br />
from<br />
Toronto<br />
How is it that we live in a society where education is free, but people<br />
still do not have access to it? In his conversation with Sean Purcell,<br />
a teacher from the Loyola School in Bellville, IwB student James<br />
Young unearths the depth of division in Ontario. Purcell describes the<br />
totalizing aspect of being stuck and isolated in a cycle of poverty,<br />
where graduating high school, a commonplace Canadian rite of pas-<br />
of school programs (though there have been many school closures),<br />
sage for most young adults, is an insurmountable task.<br />
but the ‘safe journey to school’. In Englewood, students face a maze<br />
composed of gang territories on their daily walk to school.<br />
Safe and green public routes are<br />
needed to create resilient communities.<br />
Creating access is about widening<br />
perspectives.<br />
Purcell highlights that divisions do not operate in silo, access to education is<br />
dependent on support systems like health care, addiction counselling, special education,<br />
and so on, for the students who need it and cannot receive it at home. Pur-<br />
The IwB students focused on promoting sustainable and active public routes and<br />
exploring the work of grassroots organizations in Chicago, who are already doing<br />
much of this work. LVEJO representative, Kim Wasserman-Nieto, demonstrated<br />
cell imagines that schools can become community-centred hubs that can help<br />
students on a wide variety of challenges to their learning, and, most importantly,<br />
be places where students can gain new perspectives.<br />
how a community’s work on environmental sustainability has greatly improved<br />
the quality of life in Little Village. LVEJO’s community action is slowly but surely<br />
rebuilding the neighbourhood’s spaces damaged by decades of industrial pollution,<br />
they are also working to provide much needed youth programming.<br />
Issues of class, diversity, and access were also focal points in the IwB students’<br />
investigation of Toronto’s political climate. Working at the time of the municipal<br />
elections in Toronto, the IwB students witnessed how division can be a political<br />
tool that is used by politicians to heighten differences between people. The stu-<br />
The students Railyard and Little Village 26 are projects that respond to these<br />
circumstances and try to imagine large-scale changes in these neighbourhoods.<br />
dents designed IM Toronto to create political engagement and representation for<br />
immigrants in Toronto. They also proposed MOBI, a seamless transportation system<br />
that could connect the citizens of the GTA and make a more accessible region.<br />
The IwB students’ work captures important aspects of the ecology of division and<br />
leaves us with several key lessons on <strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>.<br />
94<br />
95
Key Insights<br />
<strong>Division</strong>s are maintained<br />
through an ecology of division,<br />
made up of an interplay<br />
between of boundaries,<br />
power relationships, and flows.<br />
<strong>Division</strong> manifest itself in different<br />
scales.<br />
<strong>Division</strong> spirals and dominos into<br />
new and more complex scenarios.<br />
<strong>Division</strong> can be manipulated<br />
as a social-political tool.<br />
More connections do not<br />
result in fewer divisions.<br />
<strong>Connecting</strong> divided places requires<br />
building relationships and creating<br />
resilient communities.<br />
Creating access is about widening perspectives.<br />
96<br />
97
The students of year 2 of 5 year the Regional Ecologies project<br />
would like to specially thank Luigi Ferrara, Christopher Pandolfi, Paul<br />
INSTITUTE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES (IwB)<br />
institutewithoutboundaries.ca<br />
CANNON DESIGN<br />
cannondesign.com<br />
KEA<br />
kea.dk<br />
LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL<br />
UNIVERSITY (LTU)<br />
de Freitas, Susan Speigel, Heather Damm, Magda Sabat and Ginny<br />
Chen. Luigi Ferrara for creating the theme of Regional Ecologies and<br />
<strong>Connecting</strong> <strong>Divided</strong> <strong>Places</strong>. Christopher Pandolfi led, guided and<br />
inspired our exploration of regional divisions, and continued to push<br />
us to take risks. Paul de Freitas for his continuous passion about our<br />
thinking and enabled our exploration to understand division in<br />
regions. Susan Speigel opened our minds and perspectives on the<br />
different ways people interact with divisions. Heather Damm encouraged,<br />
organized and developed our logistics of our projects, charrettes<br />
and curriculums ensuring the year run smoothly. Magda Sabat<br />
The Institute without Boundaries at<br />
George Brown College is a Toronto-based<br />
studio that fosters collaborative design<br />
action and seeks to achieve social, ecological<br />
and economic innovation in the<br />
public interest. The Institute consists of<br />
a post-graduate education program, a<br />
research think tank and a special projects<br />
division.<br />
CannonDesign continues to be a growing<br />
company. This growth opens new opportunities<br />
that energize designers to collaborate<br />
and evolve in extraordinary ways.<br />
Cannon Design’s achievements are<br />
grounded in their ability to bring together<br />
world-class talent and thought leadership.<br />
KEA educates highly skilled and professional<br />
designers, communicators and<br />
technologists who are able to work in an<br />
international context. The school offers<br />
programs ranging from architectural technology<br />
and construction management, to<br />
computer science, product, software and<br />
web development.<br />
www.ltu.edu<br />
LTU was established 80 years ago in the<br />
middle of an innovation explosion that<br />
would change the world. None other than<br />
Henry and Edsel Ford helped launch the<br />
revolutionary experiment that would<br />
become LTU, providing guidance and<br />
space in their sprawling former Model T<br />
assembly plant for the fledgling school.<br />
for structuring our methods and clarifying every sentence we had<br />
trouble explaining. Ginny Chen beautifully organized and made sense<br />
of our thoughts, ideas and vision for this book.<br />
CITY OF TORONTO<br />
toronto.ca<br />
POLITECNICO DI MILANO<br />
polimi.it<br />
Established in 1863, the Politecnico has<br />
OCADU<br />
ocadu.ca<br />
As Canada’s “university of the imagina-<br />
TORONTO FOUNDATION<br />
torontofoundation.ca<br />
Special thanks to Beje Melamed-Turkish for taking on the impossible<br />
task of writing the missing parts of the book. As well as Kevin Wang<br />
for sourcing and organising all the content and images in this very<br />
complex book of information.<br />
In year 2, the students had the incredible experience to work on<br />
charrettes within the three regions of study, focusing on pressing<br />
issues of division determined by the cities. These charrettes provide<br />
opportunities for the students to apply their theoretical exploration<br />
of division into current issues of division.<br />
As well the students of year two would like to thank<br />
our partners throughout this discovery into division in<br />
regions to tackle the question “How to Connect<br />
<strong>Divided</strong> places?”.<br />
As the municipal authority, the City of<br />
Toronto is one of the Institute’s primary<br />
project partners for the charrette in<br />
Toronto. Their services include planning,<br />
housing, roads, water, wastewater, culture,<br />
recreational and emergency services.<br />
THE CITY OF CHICAGO<br />
cityofchicago.org<br />
The City of Chicago is one of the primary<br />
project partners for the charrette in Chicago.<br />
Their staff provided key insights<br />
into themes and locations and connecting<br />
our planning team to advisors and<br />
partners throughout the city.<br />
THE CITY OF EASTPOINTE<br />
cityofeastpointe.net<br />
Eastpointe is a city with 34,077 residents<br />
and an area comprising 5.1 square miles<br />
located in Macomb County in southeast-<br />
played a significant role in the field of<br />
engineering and technology as well as in<br />
architecture and design. Today the university,<br />
with its premises in Milano-Leonardo,<br />
Milano-Bovisa, Como, Cremona, Lecco,<br />
Mantova and Piacenza, offers its students<br />
some of the most advanced laboratories<br />
for scientific and technological<br />
research in the world.<br />
ECV<br />
ecv.fr<br />
Founded in Paris in 1984, ECV was a pioneer<br />
in developing relations with communication<br />
agencies. ECV alumni are active<br />
in all graphic arts sectors including advertising,<br />
design, multimedia and illustration.<br />
Today, the school also has campuses in<br />
Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux and Aix-en-<br />
Provence.<br />
tion,” OCAD U is the largest and most<br />
comprehensive art, design and media university<br />
in Canada, and offers its students<br />
a unique environment that combines studio-based<br />
learning with critical inquiry.<br />
Programs lead to a BFA or BDes and, as of<br />
2008/2009, an MA, MFA or MDes.<br />
DUBLIN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (DIT)<br />
dit.ie<br />
DIT is one of the largest higher education<br />
institutions in Ireland. It is known particularly<br />
for programmes in Architecture, Engineering,<br />
Marketing, Hospitality, Music,<br />
Optometry, Pharmaceuticals, Construction,<br />
Digital Media and Journalism. The<br />
School of Art, Design & Printing at Dublin<br />
Institute of Technology launched a new<br />
MA in Design Practice in collaboration<br />
with Dublin City Council, the IwB and D21C<br />
in September 2012.<br />
Established in 1981, the Toronto Foundation<br />
is one of 191 Community Foundations<br />
in Canada. They are a leading<br />
independent charitable foundation that<br />
connects philanthropy to community<br />
needs and opportunities. Individual and<br />
family Fundholders support causes they<br />
care about in Toronto and across Canada,<br />
through grants to any registered Canadian<br />
charity.<br />
FRIENDS OF THE PAN AM PATH<br />
panampath.org<br />
Friends of the Pan Am Path is an independent<br />
community-led non-profit organization<br />
that initiated the creation of the<br />
Pan Am Path. As the largest Host City Program,<br />
Friends of the Pan Am Path has<br />
been mandated by Toronto City Council to<br />
bring the Path to life through arts, culture<br />
and sport and will establish a legacy that<br />
continues to grow beyond the 2015 Pan<br />
Am / Parapan Am Games.<br />
ern Michigan, they were the primary project<br />
partner for the charrette in Detroit.<br />
Its southern boundary is Eight Mile Road,<br />
which is also the dividing line between<br />
Macomb and Wayne Counties. Eastpointe<br />
proudly refers to itself as the “Gateway to<br />
Macomb County”.<br />
98<br />
99
REFERENCES<br />
Sources for ...<br />
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TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />
Byanyima, Winnie. Rising Inequality and Climate<br />
Change: Defining Challenges for Global Leaders in<br />
2015. Digital image. OXFAM Canada, n.d. Web. 15<br />
June 2015.<br />
Harman, Wendy. Hoover Dam. Digital image.<br />
Flickr. Yahoo!, Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Hassan, Vít. Religious Procession. Digital image.<br />
Flickr. Yahoo!, 7 May 2009. Web. 16 June 2015.<br />
Power<br />
Vida, Vittorio. That’s the Communism, Baby! Digital<br />
image. Flickr. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 16 June 2015.<br />
Michaux, Frank. Kennedy Space Center. Digital<br />
image. NASA. NASA, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Making Physical Divides in<br />
Grosse Pointe Park Stats<br />
Gross Pointe Park Perspectives:<br />
Meloni, Rod. “Newly Constructed Barrier<br />
Appears to Separate Grosse Pointe Park,<br />
Detroit.” WDIV. Graham Media Group, 27 June<br />
2014. Web. 10 June 2016<br />
Detroit perspectives:<br />
Atrium From Below. Digital Image. WolfVision. Web.<br />
26 May 2015.<br />
Little Village: 26<br />
Sweeney, Bridge. “Check out Chicago’s Other<br />
Mag Mile: 26th Street in Little Village #ccb.”<br />
Crain’s Chicago Business. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 June<br />
2016.<br />
Gardner, Charlie. “We Are the 25%: Looking at<br />
Street Area Percentages and Surface Parking.” Old<br />
Urbanist: We Are the 25%: Looking at Street Area<br />
Percentages and Surface Parking. Blogspot, 12 Dec.<br />
2011. Web. 10 June 2016.<br />
Nazarahari, Mehrdad. “Toronto Traffic Fatalities at<br />
Highest Level in 5 Years.”CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada,<br />
31 Dec. 2015. Web. 10 June 2016.<br />
Klauer, Florian. Typewriter. Digital image.<br />
Unsplash. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Detroit United Artists Theater. Digital image.<br />
Untapped Cities. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 June 2016.<br />
Temari. SNIP - Golden Frame. Digital image. Flickr.<br />
Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Uthman, Ed. Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Bronchial<br />
Washing, Pap Stain. Digital image. Flickr.<br />
Yahoo!, 29 Apr. 2013. Web. 16 June 2015.<br />
Tsunami Damage, Solomon Islands 2007.<br />
Photo: AusAID. Digital image. Flickr. Yahoo!, 8<br />
Nov. 2013. Web. 17 June 2015.<br />
Capps, Kriston. “There Are Echoes of Ferguson<br />
in Detroit.” CityLab. The Atlantic Monthly Group,<br />
00 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 June 2016.<br />
Detroit’s Walking Man<br />
Garza, Ryan. Video of James Robertson. Still<br />
from Video. 10 February 2015. Web.<br />
EXPLORING CONNECTIONS<br />
IN TORONTO<br />
IM TORONTO<br />
Coyle, Jim. “We’re No. 2! Canada Ranked Second<br />
Best Country in World | Toronto Star.” Thestar.com.<br />
Brueghel, Pieter. Landscape with the Flight into<br />
Egypt. Digital image. Wikimedia. N.p., n.d. Web.<br />
15 June 2015.<br />
Flow<br />
Flash, Evo. New York 2013. Digital image. Flickr.<br />
Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Laitner, Bill. “Heart and sole: Detroiter walks 21<br />
miles in work commute”. Detroit Free Press 10<br />
February 2015. Web. 28 May 2015.<br />
Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., 20 Jan. 2016. Web.<br />
10 June 2016.<br />
“Diversity - Toronto Facts.” Toronto. City of<br />
Sane, Ian. The Golden Sea. Digital image. Flickr.<br />
Toronto, n.d. Web. 10 June 2016<br />
TERMS TO WORK WITH<br />
Boundaries<br />
Wilson, Stephen. Nationalist Protesters Are<br />
Removed by Police. Digital image. Getty Images.<br />
Getty Images, 12 July 2010. Web. 16 June 2015.<br />
“Barcelona, Spain.” Map. Google Maps. Google, 3<br />
July 2015. Web. 3 July 2015.<br />
Trojan horse. Digital image. Welkom in Turkije.<br />
Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism, n.d. Web.<br />
17 June 2015.<br />
The Soyuz TMA-15M Spacecraft. Digital image.<br />
NASA Space Station Images. NASA, n.d. Web.<br />
16 June 2015.<br />
Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Perpetual Tourist. DSCN1751. Digital image.<br />
Flickr. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
Yaitskiy, Vladimir. Amsterdam Streets. Digital<br />
image. Flickr. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.<br />
VISUALIZING DIVISION STORIES FROM<br />
DETROIT<br />
City of Detroit Census Tract 5129 +<br />
Grosse Pointe Park 5502<br />
“2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-Year<br />
Estimates. US Census Bureau.” The U.S. Census<br />
Bureau. U.S. Department of Commerce, n.d. Web.<br />
10 June 2016.<br />
ENGAGING COMMUNITY AND<br />
CHARRETTING IN CHICAGO<br />
Chicago’s Englewood<br />
“Englewood Neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois<br />
(IL), 60621 Detailed Profile.” City-Data. Urban<br />
Mapping Inc. Web. 25 May 2015..<br />
Hutson, Wendell. “Englewood Rail Yard Expansion<br />
Meeting Resistance from Some Homeowners.”<br />
DNAinfo Chicago. 2 Oct. 2013. Web. 25 May 2015.<br />
Cox, Ted. “Norfolk Southern Rail Yard Expansion<br />
in Englewood OK’d by Plan Commission.” DNAinfo<br />
Chicago. 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 25 May 2015.<br />
Moyo Waterfront Restaurant. Digital Image. The-<br />
Coolist. 11 Oct. 2013. Web. 26 May 2015.<br />
Mo, Minshu. “One in Seven Toronto Residents<br />
without the Vote.” The Toronto Observer. The<br />
Toronto Observer, 22 Sept. 2010. Web. 10 June<br />
2016.<br />
“Leadership, Civic Engagement & Belonging<br />
2012.” Toronto Foundation. Toronto Foundation,<br />
2012. Web. 10 June 2016<br />
mobi<br />
Morris, David Z. “Today’s Cars Are Parked 95% of<br />
the Time.” Fortune. Time Inc., 12 Mar. 2016. Web.<br />
10 June 2016.<br />
Patel, Arti. “Wasting Money: 17 Things We’re Mindlessly<br />
Spending Money On.” The Huffington Post.<br />
AOL Lifestyle, 14 May 2012. Web. 10 June 2016.<br />
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