subjecting the city

Note (11/13/08): Having received back the paper from the professor and having done some additional reading on alternative currency systems, I may need to change and revise some of the ideas in this paper...

As per my dear husband’s suggestion, I am posting a two-page paper that I recently wrote for my Community Economic Development class. It touches upon several subjects that I’ve blogged on before, including a rather biaised comparison of Philadelphia and New York* and reflections on gentrification and the personalities of cities.

Subjecting the City

Martin Buber writes about two modes of relating in his book I and Thou. The word pair “I-You” “establishes the world of relation” (Buber 56), which involves encountering the other as a subject, whereas the word pair “I-It” treats the other as an object, a thing to be experienced. Cities exist along a continuum between the city as a subject, that is, a community where individuals encounter each other in reciprocal relationships; and the city as an object, that is, a provider of income, a commodity to be consumed, a physical space where a set of transactions take place. The different approaches to community economic development, as described in Peter Boothroyd’s and H. Craig Davis’s article “Community Economic Development: Three Approaches” can result in cities that either encourage transactions between objects or promote relationships of reciprocity between subjects.

Growth planning’s emphasis on monetary transactions produces more “I-It” relationships. The use of money leads individuals to consider one another as objects, because money assigns a quantitative value, or as Buber would put it, a “border” to contain the other. Money speaks the language of “I-It” as it allows a person to limit and quantify what he might exchange with others. The other person is only a conduit to some service or product for purchase or some earned income. A person is not valued beyond his or her function in a transaction of exchange.
Furthermore, growth planning does not take in consideration the structure or ownership of firms. If firms are owned by anonymous shareholders or by external wealthy proprietors, workers are much more likely to be treated as an “It” by their employer, and subsequently lose a sense of control and investment. Profits from successful firms may not trickle down into higher wages and rising home prices may only result in gentrification. A city that prioritizes “I-It” relationships will be, at its best, a spectacle like the casinos of Las Vegas or the advertisements of Times Square. People’s commitment to the city will end whenever the city can no longer benefit them. The city becomes a transaction space where people work as an “It” for money, which people then use to buy things or acquire “experience capital” in more “I-It” interactions.

In contrast, the structural change approach and the communalization approach recognize the importance of noncash transactions and local and cooperative ownership, which are important conduits for “I-You” relationships. Noncash activities, which include volunteer children groups, babysitting co-ops and community gardens, require mutual trust, commitment and responsibility from its participants. It relies upon and builds up social capital. More local and shared forms of ownership such as worker-owned cooperatives and community land trusts also bind people together in more formal organizations. While these activities and forms of organization do not guarantee “I-You” relationships, they provide a better basis for them. When people must rely upon each other directly for assistance, and when people must make decisions collectively, reciprocity is more likely to exist. People will be more likely to consider themselves as part of the city, a community member who contributes to the well-being of the place.

The structural change approach and the communalization approach have been criticized for being “out of step with the mainstream” emphasis on economic growth (Boothroyd and Davis, 236). Yet to focus solely on economic growth with no concern for the other aspects of city life runs the risk of “the proliferating It under which the I” becomes “more and more impotent” (Buber 97). To create a city of “I-You”, one must emphasize what cannot be measured in dollars and cents, and what draws people together in closer interdependence.

Works Cited

Boothroyd, Peter and Davis, Craig. “Community Economic Development: Three Approaches”. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 12 (1993): 230-240.

Buber, Martin. I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970.





* Sigh... I can't seem to be able to find the link to this blog post.
** Wow, this paper looks so short now that it's posted on my blog. Blogging is growing the tendency within my character to be excessively verbose.....