Housing and Community Development

Do we need a manual for visiting poor neighborhoods?

  • 1.  Do we need a manual for visiting poor neighborhoods?

    Posted 06-25-2014 11:32 AM
    This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Housing Knowledge Community and Regional and Urban Design Committee .
    -------------------------------------------

    Friday, June 20, 2014

    Why a Manual is Needed for Visiting Poor Neighborhoods

    Newcomers,  visitors, students, and tourists are warned about unsafe urban areas in many cities. Sometimes invisible and sometimes physical lines separate areas that are safe to travel, walk and visit from those to avoid. While these lines are confusing to the newbie, they become deeply ingrained into the mental landscape of permanent residents and the city itself. Bus lines that traverse the no-go areas, are avoided by anybody than the residents of the areas themselves. Express Bus lines shuttle suburbanites into downtown by hop-skipping the "bad" areas.  Grocery stores don't invest there, banks don't have branches there, it is even hard to get a taxi to go there. In some cities even the police is said to have no-go areas. Planning or housing departments often tried to eliminate the zones of concentrated poverty themselves through demolition. 
    Occupied rowhouses near the Hunanim headquarters
    in East Baltimore (photo: ArchPlan)



    To talk about no-go zones is like stepping on landmines or touching the third rail. It involves many taboos. Cities aren't supposed to be like that and so people like to pretend they aren't. Writing about them, it is very easy to slip 
    continue

    -------------------------------------------
    Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
    -------------------------------------------