DIY Urban Design: community improvement or an act of crime?

Imagine that on your daily walk home, as you step over that large crack in the sidewalk, you get an idea. Instead of just avoiding this hazard, you consider posting a simple warning sign on the telephone pole nearby. Before you consider that you lack permission from the city government to post on public property, you recall the materials you have at home that could address the immediate problem. No one else seems ready to intervene—so should you?

In his recent article “Do-It-Yourself Urban Design: The Social Practice of Informal ‘Improvement’ Through Unauthorized Alteration,” sociologist Gordon C.C. Douglas describes a growing practice of making illegal or unauthorized alterations to public space for the explicit purpose of enriching the community. After interviewing 51 self-described urban designers from cities across the globe, Douglas finds that these activities do not fit into existing categories of urban interventions, such as graffiti or political demonstrations. In contrast, Do-It-Yourself Urban Design (DIY-UD) is committed by well-intentioned members of the local community who seize an opportunity to make a change where governments have failed to do so. Although such informal improvements mimic formal urban planning, their impacts on residents and cities can be complex and multilayered.

Douglas identifies three subcategories of these unofficial, yet “functional and goal-oriented” urban interventions. Guerrilla greening involves spreading seeds or planting gardens on unused public land or abandoned infrastructure. Spontaneous streetscaping includes posting homemade traffic signs and installing makeshift seats next to a bus stop. Aspirational urbanism occurs when community members express their own policy and development preferences through promotional signs or public notices. The author asserts that these actions cannot be dismissed as art or crime but simply represent the willingness of people to actively modify a public space to serve what they perceive as the greater good.

In this article, Douglas considers whether these unauthorized urban interventions are a response to neoliberal trends in urban planning, characterized by underinvestment, reduced government regulation, and deference to the laws of the free market. He acknowledges that over the past several decades, these trends have resulted in the uneven development of urban spaces, widening the gap between the wealthy and non-wealthy areas. This happens when sections of a city considered highly marketable by real estate developers receive attention while poorer, arguably needier sections are ignored. Such commoditization leads to gentrification and the transferring of control over neighborhoods from longtime residents to private business interests.

However, information gathered through interviews about the motivation for and context behind DIY-UD do not support this theory. In fact, acts of DIY-UD are committed primarily in trendy, developing neighborhoods by young, white, middle-income members of the creative class, rather than in the poorest neighborhoods, often considered the victims of neoliberalism. These actors are aware of these trends, yet choose to alter public space due to more immediate concerns about specific problems, such as the lack of a sidewalk ramp for wheelchair users. Generally, they do not seek recognition for their work and view their changes as a temporary substitute for addressing problems through formal channels. Douglas suggests that while DIY-UD generally adds functional or aesthetic value to a city, such interventions may also increase property values, leading to further gentrification and reinforcing the patterns of neoliberalism.

Furthermore, the author notes that despite their good intentions, not everyone appreciates urban interventions. To the DIY urban designers themselves, their actions represent an easy fix to a problem that bypasses a lengthy and unnecessary civic approval process. However, some projects essentially create winners and losers in a competition for control of a public space. For example, a New York City man routinely removes corporate advertisements from streets, payphones, and bus stops and replaces them with artwork or blank canvases. This interferes with the efforts of ad sponsors to capture the attention of passersby and promote their brand among local residents. While some of his acts of DIY urban design constitute vandalism, his intention to benefit the community complicates this categorization.

DIY-UD also raises questions about the role of government and the extent of its authority over public space. Douglas points out that, by definition, these acts occur on the property of someone other than the actor, potentially costing owners or taxpayers money. It is unclear how local governments or landowners should respond, especially when the acts are challenging the authority of some agent over a neglected space that has been previously unclaimed.

Should officials feel comfortable with selectively enforcing the law in a way that allows room for people to shape their own neighborhoods without permission as long as no one complains? On the other hand, DIY-UD adds a unique social value to communities that overextended policymakers or profit-driven developers cannot or will not offer. To better understand the nature and implications of DIY-UD as well as respond to the needs of constituents, more discussion is warranted within the realm of public policy.

 

Article Source: Do-It-Yourself Urban Design: The Social Practice of Informal “Improvement” Through Unauthorized Alteration, Douglas, G.C.C., City & Community, 13:1, March 2014.

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