Gregory Heller

A Community Abandoned Helps Itself

“To overcome slums, we must first regard slum dwellers as people capable of acting upon their own self-interests, which they certainly are. We need to discern, respect and build upon the forces for regeneration that exist in the slums themselves, and demonstrably work in real cities.�—Jane Jacobs (1961, p. 271)

Jane Jacobs calls attention to the major problem of the urban renewal strategies of the 1930s through 1950s. She argues that politicians and planners have long regarded residents of slums like the LES as unable or unwilling to improve their neighborhoods on their own. They viewed slums and their residents as problems to be eradicated, devoid of resources. Government renewal projects reflected this view, focusing on depopulating and demolishing entire neighborhoods to make way for the redevelopment and repopulating of these areas.
Self-help activists on the LES have proven the politicians and planners wrong through their countless hours spent improving their neighborhoods, not just for themselves, but for their neighbors as well. One of the most compelling examples of a self-help movement is that of community gardening. Community gardening has implications that reach beyond the quality of life improvements for those participating directly in the self-help activities. These neighborhood-initiated, community-controlled projects have a positive effect on the surrounding areas in almost all cases (Schmelzkopf, 371-373). Gardens are open to all people who will respect the hard work invested by the gardeners themselves. They start a ripple effect of community involvement often playing integral roles in block associations and general neighborhood improvement. They are the “forces of regeneration� to which Jacobs refers, and which the politicians ignore.
Unlike many property owners, resident self-help activists did not abandon the LES, particularly the Alphabet City neighborhood. Since the 1970s, these community activists have likely numbered in the thousands. By 1995 there were approximately seventy-five community gardens in the district averaging one hundred active gardeners or members each. At its peak in 1997, the city-wide population was estimated at 15,000 gardeners in more than 800 gardens (M. Perin, personal correspondence, Nov 4, 1998). This core of volunteer activists works to improve their quality of life by improving the neighborhood and reclaiming vacant lots from drug dealers and users. Unfortunately, in recent years they have seen the products of their hard work destroyed by the city’s land disposition policies. In many cases the city actively worked towards the demolition of viable gardens situated on city-owned land to facilitate market-rate (which in new York City effectively means middle- and upper-income) developments. Many activists and residents consider the city’s motivation for the disposition of these properties dubious, at best.
The city government justifies its land disposition policies with economic explanations while thoroughly ignoring the invaluable social and political assets self-help movements represent for the community. The suppression of these self-help movements is deleterious to those involved, while advantageous to politicians and the developers who fund their election campaigns. On its face this idea contradicts conservative advocacy of self-help as an alternative to reliance on government support. The Giuliani administration has championed “personal responsibility� and suggests that New Yorkers should rely more on themselves than the government, but in this instance, the administration has thwarted the most genuine attempts by gardeners to help themselves.