IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

The New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) was a quasi-public institution that pioneered public-private partnerships as a financial model for public housing delivery to low- and middle-income families across New York State. In its brief existence, from 1968 to 1975, it promoted a strategy of urban infill and invested in historically marginalized communities to redress past social injustices. The UDC put emphasis on high quality architecture, urban and landscape design and hired reputed architects. Its urban regeneration philosophy and funding structure were a response to the top-down slum clearance and redevelopment practices of previous decades and to demands of increased fiscal responsibility, increased community participation and greater democratic accountability. Given the challenges of rising inequality, climate change, and the interdependence of real-estate interests and the state, the question of social housing provision has become urgent. What are appropriate housing typologies for an increasingly diverse, de-industrialized society moving away from the gendered norms of the nuclear family? How can housing provision become a tool for social justice, a way to redress historic racial, gender and class exploitation? This research focuses on the relative success of the UDC’s social policy aims, and, on the design side, on its development of New Town, urban infill and innovative housing typologies for different demographics and income groups. A qualitative appraisal of the architectural output of the NYS UDC answers the question of how to deliver high-quality livable neighborhoods and what funding model will work in an era of diminished state patronage.