But we don’t. A reference to previous work from a MA in Landscape Architecture 2012, relevant to a morning lecture on Psychogeography (describes the effect of a geographical location on the emotions and behaviour of individuals).
The Background
The Forest
This was an option module from the MA called ‘Art and Context’. The the outcome for the module was to teach, challenge and explore our preconceived ideas as to ‘What is Landscape?’ Via a field trip in the deep South West of England of 5 days in a mixed forest (deciduous native and evergreen softwood grown and sold as a product of the forest) owned by the renamed Forestry England (formerly the Forestry Commision). The site was partially funded by on site log cabins for holiday retreats within the forest, perfect for a group of aspiring Landscape Architects wanting to get out of the classroom and experience the human Biophilic response to nature.
The idea was to make an intervention in the forest. It could be anything from a physical structure to music, poetry, art or a later piece to be shown as part of the final symposium. We were all asked to present, with the question; ‘what is landscape?’ Again open to whatever style or form, but the proviso was to really look in depth to the experience, the intervention and what you learnt that could be shared, but also challenging some of the norms we associate with the Landscape as humans onlookers and/or being part of the said landscape.
“I love this stuff, once the ideas start to flow, but hate it when that blank sheet of paper just laughs and mocks you for your lack of imagination”.
The artists running the course were from the more abstract land interventionist style, and I mean ‘Abstract’ with the capital ‘A’. We were all challenged very quickly as to our assumptions and thus the struggles ensued to even start to form any ideas.
But they were also very encouraging once some ideas of value started to germinate.
The Housing Act of 1988 deregulated new lettings to encourage the PRS to return, 44 years later the potential for 1910 rent strikes of pre The Rent Control Act of 1914 look like they may return.
Sitting in the library, grinding my way through various papers and journals on Rent Control (RC), I started to read a report from the much admired Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published in 1992 with various academic, housing pressure groups, practitioners and financiers together with advisors to politicians from different parties all contributing to the discussion. So far so good, but…..
The book in question amongst my usual chaos
Two issues of cognitive bias became increasingly apparent, both of which we all suffer from as emotional beings, so I’m not specifically criticising the authors of the report, but taking the more cautious route of an anthropologists like, the sadly departed David Graeber and also the political economist Thomas Piketty. Graeber in his book (and the secret is in the title) Debt; The First 5000 years and Piketty to a lesser extent focussed on the past 200 years in his highly acclaimed and fascinating book Capital of the 21st Century.
“Recency bias is a cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones“
The first bias was the effect of just looking to the lived and experienced recent past (recency bias) and making a judgment that a correlation of rent controls of the recent past have meant that the PRS has reduced due to not enough yield being available from old RC properties, that is a fair judgment, but does that mean that to get more rented properties available for the small sector (at the time of the report) of transient renters, namely young people on their way to purchase and temporary work force ( in fact a red herring) moving around the country, you just simply reverse the model?
So with that logic, if rent control causes PRS shortages then abandon rent control and supplement the PRS and a ‘fair’ rental market will return with the benefit of landlords now also getting a ‘fair return’.
“What could possibly go wrong’?
The issue with this decision is that now in 2022 we are seeing the true consequences of this reversal, rather than market rates settling to a ‘fair rent’ level they are driving people into cohabitation and single room conversions with shared bathrooms as incomes have stagnated (not so much trickle down, but rather, trickle up), but rents increase as scarcity within the ‘free market’ predicts.
Whereas if they had taken the time and effort to look back to pre 1914 Rent Act they would’ve seen the issues of free market rents gradually consuming and therefore monopolising a sector that even Winston Churchill in 1909 fumed and rallied against to the greed and slothfulness of the rentier class.
Undoubtedly the first of many seemingly paradoxical issues concerning the difficulty (ie the monied establishment of whom Rent Control would affect the most in a negative sense) to even implementing Rent Control (RC) and thus a refusal at the first hurdle.
This post is a reply to question that I had no time to answer at the end of a presentation on the basic background of the present housing model and why unregulated private purchase and rents are now completely market led under the finasialation of the mortgage debt market and the now commodified living space, we call home.
The question is an obvious first hurdle to even thinking about an introduction of private RC,
Slightly paraphrased question from my classmate Mark;
“How are you going to get an acceptance from small private landlords let alone institutions” ?
My answer which has come from several ideas that I have been working on for a few years that I recorded as an end goal based on a fantasy Beveridge 2.0 report, including the ‘five giants’ ( think the 5 elephants in the room) as of a consequence of a 21st century established neoliberal society, namely the UK. Very broad, but the main point being how do you convince that the stick of RC will benefit the nervous middle (50-90 percentile) and suspicious asset wealthy (top 10%).
According to the behavioral economist Kahneman we all suffer a greater bias towards loss (known as ‘loss aversion’) than gain, namely, ie it plays on our minds. At first this seems a good thing, as being over cautious must be good, as common sense would say that being attuned on a financial decision is wise, but alas this can in some circumstance lead to poor judgment, as shown in the gambler chasing the initial debt, whilst being blind to the option of just accepting a loss and walking away (Kahneman 2011). An AI algorithm would of course weigh up the odds and take the initial loss, if the odds stated were the best course of action to its overall long term gain. Humans struggle with this due the emotion of the initial loss, we all do it as a fast thinking reaction.
So with this in mind to counter the loss we need a greater gain, thus in this report I figured four carrots to the one stick, this is so important to creating societal jewels (ie NHS) that can be justified to the majority over the small minority of our natural self seeking to a short term initial loss ( and we will see in the paper all benefit long term, again the NHS).
Though it should be stated that any welfare fiscal spending cannot show a direct profit by its very nature it’s once, twice, thrice removed and the measurement of GDP growth is only seen as a generation is cared and educated from birth to grave, kept healthy, has food, shelter, warmth and no fear of retirement so as to concentrate on producing the measurable wealth.
“Not all can be commodified for direct profit, but what can should be able to produce unhindered by welfare concerns. Thus, “No Apron Strings”
Yes, it’s a bit uptiopian, but so was male and female emancipation, free university, health and safety in the workplace, the 5 day week, paid holidays within PAYE etc.
On the 4th of November I had a lecture on Neoliberalism, a term that I have a rough grasp as to its meaning as we all live in a neoliberal world in most of the northern hemisphere, this is the present ‘normative common sense’ of our economy and social individualistic aspirations.
A really great and thorough lecture with angles that i had not seen before and thus consequences.
Knowing how well researched and read Anna Minton is it was rather depressing to hear her admit that to a point that the concepts of the ‘reclaiming the commons’ had fizzled out. Yet as Mark ( PhD student attending the class who is working on voluntary housing schemes) commented there are projects on the go in the country, but had to admit the enthusiasm of the recent past has declined. Bumped into a paper this morning reinforcing this depressing reality (see further below for an abstract);
Blair’s ‘Third Way and Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ both tried (and failed) to tap into our former natural egalitarian sense of societal values (Henrich 2021) that are a disconnect from the baseline of Neoliberal thought, that as Hayek would say that at our core we are all ‘self seeking’ and therefore the only real value is monetary and thus we all should work and accept this value, and the invisible hand of the market will solve all our woes if we just give it time (recently completely dismantled by ‘trussanomiocs’).
The reason the Big Society almost instantly failed was that it’s such a contradiction to the common sense that we the public had been taught/indoctrinated for the past 40 years (1979-2010), namely; ‘there is no such thing as society’ every man woman and child for themselves, along with the suspicion we were being taken for fools, expected to work for nothing to support the bottom end of society whist the wealthy yet again ,’run off with the money’. A London East End term would be, to be ‘Mugged off’.
This is the classic ‘all actions have a reaction’ reality, you prime a population to become hyper individualistic, to follow ‘their ‘ dreams, add to the mix ‘positivity’ ie, you can do this! with a sprinkling of status aspiration and boosterism ( no negativity even with obvious failures, think Boris Johnson former PM who promoted Brexit for his own gain and could never understand the criticism as to why it failed, and it has ref -4% growth compared with those in the EU) and you have a citizen that relies on ‘feelings’ more than reality. Perfect politician and media fodder for manipulation and denial of uncomfortable facts ( ie Michael Gove; ‘we no longer need experts’).
The term from an academic perspective is ‘social capital theory’, where we take what we have to offer as individuals with others and collectively do something for the benefit of society/community and not necessarily for monetary profit, ie ‘the big society’.
Two examples of people movement on the Isle of Dogs; Sideways and Vertical.
When putting together a presentation concerning a brief history of the Isle of Dogs in the Eastend of London, I stumbled on a 2nd less well known influx during the 1960’s, also promoted by a centralised organisation, but far more inclusive than the later corporate organisation foisted upon the community in 1981, namely The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC).
The former was the London County Council (LCC) (later to become the GLC) which derived from the post war housing consensus and in particular the 1947 housing act.
So as with all things, looking a little more deeply into the policy of a pre LDDC government select committee, comments within the paper questioning the new law to be presented to parliament. As with many acts of parliament is has to go through various cross parliamentary committees to scrutinise a controversial bill. This bill was no exception born out a new ideology of Free Market Neoliberal Capitalism as promoted by the Thatcher Government of 1979, from the theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman (and the rest of what was known as the ‘Austrian School’).
“This was the first real opportunity to enact the low regulation ring fenced policy centrally governed via unelected quangos on a large scale”.
To say this was a 180 degree shift from the previous economic and social ideology would be no exaggeration. This is born out in the two shifts in the islands population, the first in the 1960’s which I will call a horizontal shift of people, so not strictly Gentrification in the Ruth Glass terminology of the 1960’s and the present day, and a 2nd more seemingly effective solution in the context of monetary value to the area, but not necessarily for the original local population.
Recently watched a Vpro ( documentary maker from the Netherlands) documentary. Highlighting the issue of University inventions and thus patents being given away free to private industry to use and then profit from, with the bizarre reality of the state buying them back including a rent for the patent! Think pharmaceuticals and the NHS.
The well known and often quoted is the iphone, most of the internal components were government funded projects for defence, navigation and general public funded university research, all used by Steve Jobs and co, and cleverly put together to create the ubiquitous smartphone which was then marketed for huge profits, with none going back to the publicly funded organisations as if it was all the ideas of just the private sector (remember these corporations also avoid taxation).
So Mariana Mazzucato goes through this in her book The Entrepreneurial State (debunking public v private sector myths, video further down the page) and the Vpro video.
One section near the end caught my imagination. Problems are there to be solved, the Kennedy moonshot speech;
“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too”.
I am very aware that where money comes from is very complex, controversial ( some say for reasons of keeping the public ignorant) and has been argued about for at least 5000 years (anthropologist David Graeber: Debt; A 5000 Year History). The modern banking system has evolved quite rapidly over the past 300 years, changing as each idea fails or causes a boom bust cycle, which again is what unfettered capitalism does ( yep, Marx, Keynes observation) it’s almost as if capitalism if unregulated kills, but if controlled can bring life, and the ‘love’ (or the status it can bring) of money is the root of all evil, or certainly brings out that inner demon of greed we all have lurking within us.
“The ultimate result is slum tenancies, built as a minimum for the procreation, briefest of rest and subsistence of working labour”
So the seemingly innocent intersection of roads and footpaths has become so imbedded in our subconscious that we hardly recognize its importance, and yet the phrase ‘meet you at the corner’ is part of our everyday life. So why?
It’s a node
More options of escape, fight or flight
A prairie view
That’s the text-book view, but it’s so much more than that.
So to understand the culture of the street corner in a housing district that is designed around the grid street system ( think squares ), a social document should be viewed, understood and lessons learnt from said study.
An easily understood document is a TV series from the early 2000’s called the ‘The Wire’, considered by the local community, police, politicians, educators and press to be an accurate portrayal of the Baltimore area 1995-Present.
Written by a former crime reporter of the Baltimore Sun, David Simon and Ed Burns, a Senior Detective. They collaborated on a book ” The Corner: A Year In The Life Of An Inner City Neighborhood” This was written from a street perspective and eventually was used as a base for The Wire.
So you have the corner shop and corners occupied by the drug dealers. The series goes through the turf wars between the dealers, the police trying to rid the corners of the gangs ( think; futile), the politicians trying bury/solve the problems to thier advantage within 5 year terms, the education system trying to give the children a way out, all in the confines of a post industriual town with middle class flight. The series is about all the consequences of little or no investment into new industry, of fire fighting rather than getting to the root cause, and ultimatly letting it fend for its self.
“The recent History of Baltimore is the same all over the post industrial world where the old heavy, labour intensive industries move out or are mechanized, leaving a local population with a lost identity of work and place.”
Think of the Royal Docks in the east end of London, once the container shipping moved in at Tilbury, the boom of the London docks died over night, leaving disenfranchisement, no identity of place that had a sense of pride, no industry leading to high unemployment and eventually no hope.
A void remained to be filled, and with the local politicians with a small government agenda this will not stop the natural hard-working resourcefulness of people, it’s just that the easiest way with highest profit is at present drugs for the resourceful and for some, who lose hope, it can become a form of escape from the harsh relativity of day-to-day living. So the ‘Supply and Demand’, pure Smithsonian Market forces that the neoliberals propagate as the capitalist utopia with the invisible hand of self-regulation, will, left to its own devices bring us to a place where every man helps his brother for the good of the market. Experience tells us this is not so, short-term markets post big bang* will not allow this, the god of self-interest*, our irrational inner chimp*, fear* and greed all add up to the distopia that is Balitmore.
“And the corner is where it would be played out in this Drama”
So the how does the humble brown paper bag relate to all this?
Below is an interpretation of a scene from the episode where this all comes to a head, leading to the parable.
Obviously this is not the answer, but the point of the exercise is to look around you, take stock and think. The rational rather than the reactive*is needed to understand the cause and effect of a small change mixed with compromise can offer a solution, and get the thinking to a more Lateral position, asking different questions and exploring the consequences of long and short-term interventions.
“So the street corner where people, stop, meet and feel comfortable, it’s a place of high value.”
If a place has high unemployment, no hope then it can become a place of conflict, but it’s still a place, good or bad.
Ultimately people need money and at present that comes through gainful employment, so no matter how many beautiful parks, housing developments we build, if people don’t feel valued in themselves, then that will show on the outside. No work, then other high profit means will appear. Gentrification may push the problem elsewhere under the carpet, but you will eventually trip over it and fall flat on your face, i.e. Baltimore, Trump, Brexit etc.
This is what a Rowndtree commission conclusion was on Regeneration, but more of that for a later post.*
The film quality of the movie at the start is rather poor, but stick with it, as it’s about the content.
Made in 1980 so some amusement can be gained from the conservative fashion, but the main point is the simplicity of how humans react in public space and what makes a space successful or not. Note; at the end of the film recommendations are made to the New York City planning control. The effects can been seen today, think of how many areas have movable chairs and how the atmosphere of the city has changed from many complete no go areas, to a city that now feels much safer, at ease and sittable!
“The present issue (as with all popular cities) is ‘gentrification’ when regeneration arrives”
The present issue (as with all popular cities) is gentrification, the meat-packing district has been changed by the High Line Park which is great, but the lower paid workers who service the area are being pushed out by unregulated high rents, all cause and effect. So what ever we do as designers/planners we have to always look to the bigger picture, build a frame-work for flexibility so area can evolve without expensive re-builds and social cleansing.
“I so love this little film, Holly Whyte’s voice reminds me of my wise grandparents, thoughtful, never rushing a sentence, understanding the power of a pause and the simple profound observations of the world around them.”
A good review blog of the book. An essential for anyone who wants to understand Why some one would possibly want to visit and stay in your local park….Ignore this book at your peril. Based most of my final degree design on his proven observations
I will not be adding to this blog for a while as it will clog it up for those present 3 rd years BA’s (good luck to all) who maybe having a look around to see were we got up to in the storm that is the last 5 months of the Degree.
If any of you are the slightest bit interested here is a link to my final work that was pinned up (spelling mistakes and all).
Also continuing (must be raving mad) to study on the MA see ‘Felix in a Hat’ on the side. Sequential’s are slowly improving, determined not to lose that touch that so many before me seem to lose from graduation to finishing the MA. Time will tell.
Any questions etc, feel free to ask, just put a comment on this post. And remember ‘it ain’t over till the …… guy sings’ (bless him, you won’t find a better teacher).
It's about people, stupid... 