Author Archives: Danielle

Group 3 Greenwald & McPhee -In Class Assignment

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Group Members: Melanie, Azzal, Ashwag, Tanner, Patrick, Danielle

The squatting movement and the prefigurative Christiania community in Denmark worked as a critique by separating themselves from the norm and by resisting integration with mainstream Copenhagen. They believed in having physical space to be able to organize further political actions. Their acts served as performance by carrying out street theater political actions involving several hundred participants.

The social issues this action of the Christiania community hoped to reframe and fix was squatting activism, creating a free town, having physical space to be able to voice your opinion freely. They wanted to continue occupying abandon buildings and helping people find homes.  Squatting and taking over empty buildings seemed to be more of a solution than a problem to community members of Christiana and other squatting activists, also many believed that putting a roof over ones’ head is a necessity and therefore squatting was extremely essential.

Current Example: Squatters of the Lower East Side

 

Squatting in NYC, gentrification, homelessness, unaffordable rents. “Squatters also saw themselves as activists for affordable, or free, housing in a city that was plagued by homelessness.” “The city would sell the squatter’s buildings to a third party, a non-profit organization called the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. UHAB would then turn the buildings over to the squatters and help them get loans so they could bring the buildings up to code.After years of negotiation, the deal went through in 2002 — the city sold eleven buildings to UHAB, for one dollar each. And UHAB began working with the squatters to turn their buildings from squats into limited-equity, low-income co-ops.”

Collectively as a group we chose 42nd Street Time Square as our stage for a performative intervention related to squatting. Mainly because its a highly populated area, always being covered by the media, plenty of tourist and other people carrying out performative interventions.

  • Sources:
    • 2017, Delaney Hall- Squatters of the Lower East Side
    • 2016, Frank Morales and Bonnie Faulkner- The Squatter Movement in New York City: Seizing Housing
    • Di Feliciantonio, C. (2017). Spaces of the Expelled as Spaces of the Urban Commons? Analysing the Re‐emergence of Squatting Initiatives in Rome. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(5), 708-725.

Class Assignment Social Problems -MTA Delays

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Social Issue: MTA Delays/Reliability

Why is this social issue a problem?

MTA delays have cause serious uproar in the City of New York. This is a major social problem because the MTA has proven several times that it isn’t a reliable form of transportation and that the MTA agency does not value New Yorker’s time or money.It is a social issue because MTA delays causes many people to be late to work, school or any important event, not matter how early they leave to reach their destination. This can jeopardize peoples job status and academic studies by missing lectures, doctor appointments, losing money to things they may be late too. Using MTA may be many people’s only source of transportation because of where they may live, cheaper alternative and it’s convenience. MTA has an extremely poor and aged system which does not seem to be changing any time soon.  “For instance, it lacks funds to rapidly replace aging subway cars or upgrade its tracks and 13,000 signals, those century-old devices that turn track lights red to stop trains.”(Erik Engquist. 2017) On top of MTA’s delays, and unreliability, the riding fares keep increasing and making it impossible for the people who ride the MTA to afford. MTA effects how New Yorker’s commute, it impacts their quality of life by making hem miserable in a train to get to their next destination. It isn’t worth its money unfortunately.

What are some of the causes and effects of this issue?

Causes of this issue: MTA has stated that the causes of major delays is because of sick passengers holding up commuters, lack of maintenance, garbage on the track, and lack of funding.

Effects of this issue: This makes people late to jobs, school and any sort of event/appointment, the long delays can make people sick especially when trains are packed and hot, train delays can effect a person’s day and attitude (especially in the morning), extensive train delays can soon make people stop using MTA. MTA has an impact/effect on all commuters’s lives.

Who does this issue impact?

This social issue impacts all commuters, MTA Authorities, employers, students, anyone that funds MTA and it’s projects.

Relevant Keywords: MTA,MTA Delays, nyc transit delays, (and refined the year to 2017-2018)

Citations:

(I used NYCCT Library website to find my resources by typing in those keywords, as well as narrowing the year so I would have a current data on this social issue, although I saw articles dated back to 2010 with the same type of MTA delays/issues. The reason I chose these two articles because I believe Crains’ New York Business and The New York Times to be credible sources that I am familiar with. Also, because it is current and addresses the social issue I chose to research on which is subway delays. Both articles touched upon the causes of the delays as well as possible solutions proposed by the MTA. )

Erik Engquist. (2017). MTA acts on subway delays, but pessimism persists; Transit agency’s plan and funding are dogged by doubt. Crain’s New York Business, 33(21), 0007.

Fitzsimmons, E. (2018). Floods, Rats, Delays. Yet, M.T.A. Says, the Subway Is Getting Better. The New York Times, p. A25.

Blog 2 Response- Danielle Ali

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In response to the three reading assignments, I do believe that it is possible to have cities with a culture of participatory sharing in which public space is utilized to serve the public. I think this is possible mainly because people are calling for attention to the violations of their rights and trying to make a change to obtain their rights to be part of the city. The only way to “contain” and manage the disorder according to Darian’s testimony in the Cahill text is by “reorganizing the states relationship to communities of color”. Another way that public space can be utilized and serve the public is by allowing people to exercise their natural born rights and constitutional freedom like the Occupy Wall Street protests. Implementing programs and community outreach for all is significant and can greatly impact and bring together a community. The Fallen Fruit’s foundation is a great example of a community program that depicts participatory sharing in public space.  The only way that this program and awareness was made possible was by people gathering and communicating about ongoing problems. If this type of behavior becomes more common we can surely have more cities hat utilize public space for its main purpose of serving the public.  This type of culture would resemble more diversity and openness. This type of culture would be multiple cultures and customs integrated into one main practice of communication, inclusion, sharing and utilization of public space and the many things it has to offer. Unfortunately there would be many obstacles to civic participation and sharing. Some of these obstacles would be communicating with different types of people and adjusting to their traditions. Another obstacle to civic sharing is educating people on their natural rights and practicing it without any oppression.

In Class Assignment : Wages for Housework (Ali, Monasser, Mokbel)

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The Wages for Housework  movement started internationally during the 1970s, specifically in Italy. The Wages for Housework started as a global social movement that addressed the inequality in gender roles and pay gap for domestic work. It also addressed the woman’s right to work outside the home, and ineligibility for benefits and equal pay. Some of the tactics people used to bring awareness to this movement were, protesting their rights, creating strikes, forming press releases and starting Feminist Collective movement.  The Wages for Housework resulted in less gender discrimination, allowing women to working any jobs they want, equal pay act of 1963  and allowing women to be part of work force and equal to their male counter-part. Now there are more resources available for women who do domestic work and can now venture into different jobs and attend school to further their education.  Although the issues regarding Wages for Housework are still unfortunately ongoing because of societal factors.