Abstract
This paper is a call for critical urban research to address the vertical as well as horizontal aspects of social inequality. It seeks, in particular, to explore the important but neglected causal connection between the demonisation and dismantling of social housing towers constructed in many cities between the 1930s and 1970s and the contemporary proliferation of radically different housing towers produced for socio-economic elites. The argument begins with a critical discussion of the economistic orthodoxy, derived from the work of Edward Glaeser, that contemporary housing crises are best addressed by removing state intervention in housing production so that market-driven verticalisation can take place. The following two sections connect the rise of such orthodoxy with the ‘manufactured reality'—so central to neo-liberal urban orthodoxy—that vertical social housing must necessarily fail because it deterministically creates social pathology. The remainder of the paper explores in detail how the dominance of these narratives have been central to elite takeovers, and ‘luxification’, of the urban skies through the proliferation of condo towers for the super-rich. Case studies are drawn from Vancouver, New York, London, Mumbai and Guatemala City and the broader vertical cultural and visual politics of the process are explored. The discussion finishes by exploring the challenges involved in contesting, and dismantling, the hegemonic dominance of vertical housing by elite interests in contemporary cities.
Acknowledgements
Grateful thanks to Lucy Hewitt for crucial research which provided the basis for parts of this paper. Thanks also to Patsy Healey and Leo Hollis for useful comments on an earlier draft and to Jamie Peck and Elvin Wyly for insights into the ‘Vancouverism’ phenomena during my stay at UBC in November 2014.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Edward Glaeser, “How Skyscrapers Can Save the City.” The Atlantic, March 2011, accessed 1 September 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/how-skyscrapers-can-save-the-city/308387/
2 Ibid.
3 See Richard Florida, “The Rise of the Creative Class.” The Washington Monthly 34, no. 5 (2002): 15–25.
4 See Jamie Peck, “Edward Glaeser's City: A Triumph of Economism.” Unpublished paper, 2014.
5 Glaeser is affiliated with the right-wing and neo-conservative Manhattan Institute that was a key intellectual player behind George W. Bush's two Presidential tenancies.
6 P. Goldberger, “Too Rich, Too Thin, Too Tall.” Vanity Fair, May 2014, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/05/condo-towers-architecture-new-york-city
7 L. Alter, “It's Time to Dump the Tired Argument that Density and Height are Green and Sustainable.” Treehugger.com, 3 January 2014, http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/its-time-dump-tired-argument-density-and-height-are-green-and-sustainable.html
8 Ibid.
9 S. Zipp, “The Roots and Routes of Urban Renewal.” Journal of Urban History 39, no. 3 (2013): 366–391 (372).
10 W. Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Vol. 21 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965), 146.
11 Text by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizi, “The Trellick Tower: The Fall and Rise of a Modern Monument.” San Rocco Magazine, no. 5 (Fall 2012).
12 Sigfried Giedion, Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcrete (Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995).
13 Le Corbusier, The City of To-morrow and its Planning (New York: Courier Dover, [1927] 1987), 280.
14 Ibid., 280.
15 This term comes from the US Citizens Housing Council, Housing 1, no. 1 (January 1940): 1, in box 73c5, folder 2, NYCHA. Cited in Zipp, “The Roots and Routes of Urban Renewal”, 274.
16 Cited in Zipp, “The Roots and Routes of Urban Renewal”, 376.
17 M. Dukmasova, “Tricknology.” Jacobin, nos. 15–16 (Fall 2014): 29.
18 Sarah Williams Goldhagen, “Sarah Williams Goldhagen on Architecture: Living High.” New Republic, 18 May 2012, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103329/highrise-skyscraper-woha-gehry-pritzker-architecture-megalopolis
19 J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961), 46.
20 Cited in J. Jacobs, S. Cairns, and I. Strebel, “‘A Tall Storey … but, a Fact Just the Same’: The Red Road High-rise as a Black Box.” Urban Studies 44, no. 3 (2007): 609–629 (614).
21 The poem, by Ken Rogers, comes from his tribute to people who were rehoused and often moved as part of the slum clearances in Liverpool in the 1960s. See: Ken Rogers, Lost Tribe: The People's Memories: 2 (Liverpool: Trinity Mirror North West and North Wales, 2012), 7.
22 O. Newman, Defensible Space (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
23 A. Coleman, Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing (London: Shipman, 1985).
24 D. Gorne, “City Limits: A Conversation with Edward Glaeser.” The Atlantic, 8 February 2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/02/city-limits-a-conversation-with-edward-glaeser/70351/
25 Dukmasova, “Tricknology”, 25.
26 Ibid., 25, 26.
27 Ibid., 25, 26.
28 Charles Jencks, cited in C. Jencks and K. Kropf, Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture (Chichester: Academy Press, 1987), 9.
29 Garrett Dash Nelson, “Pruitt–Igoe: Facts and Memories of an American Ruin.” Unpublished paper, 2009, 4, http://people.matinic.us/garrett/papers/pruitt-igoe.pdf
30 Ibid., 1.
31 Ibid., 2.
32 Severin Carrell, “Glasgow 2014: Red Road Flats to be Blown up During Opening Ceremony.” The Guardian, 3 April 2014.
33 Tracey McVeigh, “Backlash at Plans to Demolish Red Road Flats Live on Television.” The Observer, 6 April 2014.
34 Sarah Williams Goldhagen, “Sarah Williams Goldhagen on Architecture: Living High.” New Republic, 7 June 2012, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103329/highrise-skyscraper-woha-gehry-pritzker-architecture-megalopolis
35 Jacobs, Cairns, and Strebel, “‘A Tall Storey … but, a Fact Just the Same'.”
36 K. O'Neill and B. Fogarty-Valenzuela, “Verticality.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19, no. 2 (2013): 378–389.
37 See Teresa Caldeira, City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Edward Blakeley and Mary Gail Snyder, eds., Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997); Setha Low, Behind the Gates (New York and London: Routledge, 2003).
38 See SFConnection, “The ‘Vertical Gated Communities' of San Francisco”, 2007, http://thesfconnectionwordpress.com/2007/02/12/the-vertical-gated-communities-of-san-francisco; A. Waterhouse-Hayward, “Vancouver's Vertical Gated Communities”, 2010, http://blog.alexwater-househayward.com/2010/01/vancouvers-vertical-gaited-communities.html
39 Lance Berelowitz, Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010), 1.
40 See Jamie Peck, Elliot Siemiatycki, and Elvin Wyly, “Vancouver's Suburban Involution.” City 18, nos. 4–5 (2014): 386–415.
41 Ibid., 387.
42 Ibid., 404–405.
43 Leslie Kern, in a detailed analysis of condo culture in central Toronto, found that women condo residents were especially appreciative of the presence of strong security measures, especially when condo complexes are built on the ‘urban frontier’ of gentrification, adjacent to ‘dodgy’ parts of town. See Leslie Kern, Sex and the Revitalised City (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2010).
44 Michael Panacci, “Vertical Urbanity: Urban Dwelling in an Age of Programmatic Promiscuity.” Master of Architecture thesis, University of Waterloo, 2011.
45 Ibid.
46 M. McMains, “New Urban Lifestyle: Fracture/Segmentation?” Unpublished paper, n.d.
47 Kern, Sex and the Revitalised City, 32.
48 Peck, Siemiatycki, and Wyly, “Vancouver's Suburban Involution”, 412.
49 Cited in Peck, Siemiatycki, and Wyly, “Vancouver's Suburban Involution”, 403.
50 S. Pizzigati, “The Dark Shadows Grand Fortune Casts.” Too Much (Blog), 2 June 2014, http://toomuchonline.org/the-long-dark-shadow-grand-fortune-casts/
51 J. Moss, “On Spike Lee and Hypergentrification.” ZNet, 8 March 2014, https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/on-spike-lee-and-hyper-gentrification/
52 S. Stein, “DeBlasio's Doomed Housing Plan.” Jacobin, nos. 15–16 (Fall 2014): 14–16, https://www.jacobinmag.com/issue-1516/
53 F. Bernstein, “Supersizing Manhattan: New Yorkers Rage Against the Dying of the Light.” The Guardian, 16 January 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/16/supersizing-manhattan-new-yorkers-rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light
54 Ibid.
55 Goldberger, “Too Rich, Too Thin, Too Tall”, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/05/condo-towers-architecture-new-york-city
56 Ibid.
57 Alter, “It's Time to Dump the Tired Argument”, http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/its-time-dump-tired-argument-density-and-height-are-green-and-sustainable.html
58 Bernstein, “Supersizing Manhattan”, http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/16/supersizing-manhattan-new-yorkers-rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light
59 These are defined as people with $30 million (£21 million) or more in assets (excluding their main home). See D. Dorling, “How the Super Rich Got Richer: 10 Shocking Facts about Inequality.” The Guardian, 15 September 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/15/how-super-rich-got-richer-10-shocking-facts-inequality
60 Alex Preston, “Room at the Top: London's Super-Prime Housing Market.” The Observer, 6 April 2014.
61 J. McGuirk, “Unreal Estate.” Domus, 30 July 2012, http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2012/07/30/unreal-estate.html
62 Ed Hammond, “Foreigners Buy Nearly 75 of Property in Inner London.” Financial Times, 3 August 2013.
63 Preston, “Room at the Top.”
64 Duncan Bowie quoted in Dave Hill, “Glistening Towers can Beguile but won't Provide the Homes London Most Needs.” The Guardian, 16 March 2014.
65 Hillary Osborne, “New London Housing ‘Aimed at Wealthy' Creates Widening Affordability Gap.” The Guardian, 11 November 2013.
66 S. Pizzigati, “Can a Great City Overdose on Billionaires?” Too Much, 14 March 2014, http://toomuchonline.org/can-a-great-city-overdose-on-billionaires/
67 Rowan Moore, “London is Being Transformed with 230 Towers. Why the Lack of Consultation?” The Observer, 29 March 2014.
68 M. Bar-Hillel, “What does the Skyrocketing Price of Property in the Capital Mean for Society?” The Independent, 1 June 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/what-does-the-skyrocketing-price-of-property-in-the-capital-mean-for-society-9457527.html
69 I. Steadman, “Look to the Heygate Estate for What's Wrong with London's Housing.” New Statesman, 6 November 2013, http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/look-heygate-estate-whats-wrong-londons-housing
70 G. Arbuthnott and A. Buckwell, “Shacking Up in The Shard: The London Flats with a Sea View … But only on a VERY Clear Day, and it'll Cost you up to £50m.” Daily Mail, 5 May 2012.
71 Cited in Robert Booth, “London's Shard: A ‘Tower of Power and Riches’ Looking Down on Poverty.” The Guardian, 30 December 2011.
72 Hilary Osborne and Miles Brignall, “Rich will Tower over Poor in London's Docklands.' The Guardian, 15 November 2013.
73 Quoted Nauzer K. Bharucha, “Gated Societies Split City.” Times of India (Mumbai), 3 March 2010.
74 Caldeira, City of Walls, 130.
75 V. Doctor, “Mukesh Ambani's Antilla: When Money Towers Over a Wealth of Ideas.” Economic Times, 20 October 2010.
76 V. Rao, “Proximate Distances: The Phenomenology of Density in Mumbai.” Built Environment 33, no. 2 (2007): 227–248 (245).
77 O'Neill and Fogarty-Valenzuela, “Verticality”, 379.
78 Ibid., 379.
79 Ibid., 386.
80 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
81 O'Neill and Fogarty-Valenzuela, “Verticality”, 386.
82 Ibid., 382.
83 Michael de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 92.
84 Redrow London, “One Commercial Street”, n.d., https://www.redrow.co.uk/london/en/developments/one-commercial-street
85 N. Frizzell, “Tower Hamlets Psycho: A Symbol of Britain's Housing Crisis.” The Guardian, 15 January 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/05/tower-hamlets-psycho-housing-crisis-developer-redrow-ad
86 Oliver Wainwright, “‘American Psycho' Property Promo Pulled After Twitterstorm.” The Guardian Architecture and Design Blog, 5 January2015, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/jan/05/american-psycho-redrow-property-promo-pulled-after-twitterstorm
87 G. Mascaro, Um Lugar Ao Sol (São Paulo: Vitrine Films, 2009), http://pt.gabrielmascaro.com/Um-lugar-ao-Sol
88 Frank Futia, “The High Line: Neoliberal Development in the Luxury City.” Unpublished paper, Spring 2013, 14, http://frankrfutia.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/4/9/23497764/highline_paper_frank_futia.pdf
89 OMA's 2013 ‘interlace’ vertical village project in Singapore is an influential example of how towered housing blocks can be integrated together in imaginative ways that support public space, gardens and public services at many levels.
90 M. Davis, “B-52 Bomber Radicalism: A Plan for Rational Improvements to the City of Los Angeles.” Jacobin, nos. 15–16 (Fall 2014): 28.
91 On the New York case, see Stein, “DeBlasio's Doomed Housing Plan”, 11–18. https://www.jacobinmag.com/issue-1516/
92 See Ash Amin, Doreen B. Massey, and Nigel J. Thrift, Cities for the Many Not the Few (Bristol: Policy Press, 2000).
Additional information
Stephen Graham is Professor of Cities and Society at the Global Urban Research Unit and in Newcastle University's School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Email: steve.graham@newcastle.ac.uk