Objective: To observe community member response, input, and opinions on an issue of local importance through a variety of means: local media, social media, community spaces and meetings.
Slogan: In development…?
Members: Elisabeth Kalomeris, Regan Kapp, Drew Keller, Nimi Oyeleye
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Third Post:
For our third activity supporting our investigation of our themes, each member of “Development Through Dialogue” interviewed a member of their local community about our individual issue of focus. In Houston, Elisabeth interviewed downtown residents about their neighborhood.
Elisabeth
For this segment, I decided to focus on how community members use and value green space in one of the neighborhoods that I am involved in through my internship. I thought this would be a different approach than looking at Hermann Park, because I got to see what a neighborhood was like without much green space of its own. For my internship at Grit Grocery, I created a project in which community members discuss their neighborhood and their food options in short audiotapes. For this activity, my common interest cohort and my LRME internship were very much in sync, as my official task (the audio interviews) led me to discuss larger neighborhood issues with these interviewees. One thing I noticed about many of my interviewees was that they had all recently moved to the neighborhood. This neighborhood really made me think about the last objective of our community cohort: “How well are community voices represented in development- especially looking as externally imposed partners or programs vs. those originating from within the community?” This question comes into play very much in Downtown Houston because it is being developed externally and very, very quickly. Many of the new tenants are a part of this development and as their numbers swell exponentially, I wonder how the community narrative shifts based on their contribution. There are a few businesses that are iconic- a deli where the regulars are greeted by name and a YMCA big enough to fit the whole neighborhood inside of it, but when I got to talking with one of my interviewees about parks in the area, she seemed to think that the doggie park outside of her building sufficed. Another interviewee mentioned that losing nature and that “suburban feel” was a natural trade-off to live in the city. Their blasé responses made me reconsider what I thought would be dearly held to community members: neighborhood parks. When resources like Hermann Park are only a few stops away on the metro rail, does it matter if there is a park in your neighborhood? Grit Grocery gives people a chance to stay in their neighborhood to grocery shop, an option people had never really thought of, or fought to have, before it started benefitting them. I see neighbors meeting for the first time and see the value first hand in community spaces, even in a community with many transient members.
Reagan
For our final group activity, I decided to take full advantage of the Fulbright network and talk to some of the grantees about their educational experiences in France. In some ways, this summer abroad has drawn my attention to the aspects of Houston and the United States that I love and miss (the racial and ethnic diversity, the freedom and flexibility of our education system and the normalcy of wearing athletic clothes as casual attire, just to name a few), but in other ways, this summer has helped me to truly appreciate all the beneficial systems and practices that France offers its citizens (excellent public transportation, green-oriented social structures, and unbelievably good breads and cheeses, among others). Education in France, being such a massive and complex program, naturally encompasses a bit of both the good and the not-so-good. When chatting with Fulbright alumni who had spent some time studying under the education system in the United States, I couldn’t help but notice that these young scholars also had complex opinions about the education systems in both countries. While French students returning home from the United States cherished their experiences in the U.S. and relished the intense community life surrounding American universities, many of them would not choose to live in the United States permanently. Without a scholarship like the Fulbright grant covering tuition and living expenses, the price tag of education in the United States is just too costly for many French students to accept, especially when the price of higher education in France rarely tips beyond 300 euros a year. Because of this staggering price difference, many French students can understand the pitfalls of the French system — low teacher responsiveness, rote learning, and a lack of freedom to customize an educational path — and accept them as the small compromises necessary to bring the cost of education down. (What remains to be discovered is whether students in the United States prefer the American education system or the French system — but I think that is a question for another blog in another place!) Still, if you ask any of the returning grantees whether they would recommend studying at an American university, the answer is a resounding yes. I imagine they feel about their Fulbright experience much the same way I do about my experience this summer: they wouldn’t trade their experiences or memories for anything, but at the end of the trip, it is nice to head back home.
Drew:
For this activity, I worked to find someone I interacted with on a regular basis who was affected by Boston’s housing cost crisis. I knew this wouldn’t be hard, since the vast majority of Boston residents have been affected in some way; my boss at work and the graduate student I’m subletting from have both mentioned it to me. After casually mentioning the high rents to several different people from throughout my daily routine, I got started on a conversation with a barista at a coffee shop where I regularly go in the mornings on my way to work. This man, Timothy, was significantly older than most of the other workers at the cafe: he was about the same age as my parents (I realize now that I forgot to ask how long he had worked at the coffee shop). He has the distinctive Boston accent indicative of a native, and sure enough, he said he had grown up in Charlestown, a neighborhood to the north of downtown Boston. Timothy said he had been pushed out of Charlestown around 1990 by increasing home prices as the neighborhood began to gentrify. He said he doesn’t have hard feelings towards the new residents (of which my boss is one), especially since, as he put it “it’s a carousel”: the constantly increasing prices have largely pushed out the cohort that replaced Timothy’s family and neighbors and, Timothy says, at the current rate of increase current Charlestown residents are on pace to mostly be forced to move. Timothy placed some of the blame for the displacements in Boston on developers, who he described as “greedy” and said were motivated only by making money, but he spent the most time criticizing the city government, which he sees as having enabled the spiraling prices by failing to impose significant rent control or building new housing. Overall, Timothy said, he didn’t think he had as strong feelings about the price-caused displacements as some, since he said it’s natural for some change to occur, but he did say it’s hard to see the place where you grew up gradually slip out of reach as a place where you can live. He said there are many residents in other neighborhoods who try to hold on, spending their savings on unaffordable rent. The hardest part of all, he said, was the feeling he said he sometimes has of going back to a place where you spent years of your life and feeling unwelcome, as if some of the current residents felt you didn’t belong.
Timothy’s story was, of course, simply the experience of one Boston resident, so I can’t make generalizations from it to the experience of the thousands in a similar situation. However, it does show one of the many personal facets to what sometimes seems like a huge, unpersonable problem.
Nimi
For this part, I reached out to a Houston area native to discuss the availability of parks and the communication around them. She is from Alief, and area in Southwest Houston, just outside of Beltway 8, and has lived there her entire life. She commented that it was difficult to find community methods of communication like a newsletter or a town hall, unless it’s about school issues (in which case there is a newsletter) or business issues (which have a website). She would like discussions about community issues to be more accessible and publicized. I would agree that in most communities I’ve lived in, it’s been difficult to find out when community meetings are happening. But with apps such as nextdoor, these things can be made a lot easier as it lists community events such as concerts, garage sales, and meetings.
Regarding the issue of parks, there are many accessible parks in her area. There are specifically 3 close to her, and they are all walking distance away. She remarked that the parks could be of higher quality, but they are functional, and the quantity of them makes up for the quality in many ways. I think this is an interesting statement because it brings up the idea of whether more parks should be built in certain areas, or whether the quality of existing parks should be improved. These discussions are important, yet without access to community meetings it is difficult to get involved. Personally, I’d agree that the accessibility of parks can be more important than their quality, as growing up there were nice parks/playgrounds (no other green spaces) in my area, but they were too far for me to access as a child. After moving to the Atlantic seaboard area, there were multiple parks/playgrounds within many of the neighborhoods and larger green spaces in nearby suburbs.
The Houstonian I interviewed only gives one point of view to the story, and if I had interview more, I believe I would’ve gotten a wide range of answers. This is why it is important the decisions made for communities talk to a sample of the community that is representative of the whole community: in age group, ethnic background, gender, etc.
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Second Post:
Our group, “Development through Dialogue,” is interested in how members of a community interact and express themselves, and how these modes of communication in turn define that community. Our first activity was to go into a community space and observe, in order to see if there were any issues that seemed prominent in the community just from these initial observations. We thought it was important for our first activity to be observational as a way to fully understand the communities we’re observing, and the ones we are a part of, this summer.
One of our SMARTEST goals was to identify a specific community within our city that is dealing with a pressing issue and begin learning more about the challenges faced by that community. Focusing on an issue will help us create a lens through which to view the interactions and communication within and between groups in our city by narrowing down the hundreds of various issues and subgroups present in any city to a smaller, more manageable project given our other responsibilities for the summer. We are in the process of identifying these individual focuses.
Both Elisabeth and Nimi are in Houston for the summer.
Elisabeth, through her LRME placement at Grit Grocery, was introduced to new neighborhoods, such as Downtown Houston and EaDo, both of which are experiencing a lot of growth and changing neighborhood identities. In Downtown Houston, she visited The Shoppe, which is an independent deli. With no CVS or Grocery Store in the immediate vicinity, The Shoppe has multiple roles, with everything from soap, to candy, to hot food. It also has its own style, leaving out magazines for customers, as well as books on philosophy and a men’s guide to grooming. In EaDo, she visited Aah, Coffee!- a local coffee shop. Many of Houston’s local coffee shops also provide a community space for locals to advertise. Walking around these neighborhoods it was striking how dependent Houstonians are on their cars, as many neighborhoods are without basic necessities within walking distance. One of her assignments was to canvass the neighborhoods that are sales locations for Grit Grocery. EaDo, for example, had multiple bars, one coffee shop, and one market within walking distance, except that the market sold no produce. This instance really illuminated food access issues in Houston and how transportation and food access are so closely linked in Houston. She also walked around one of the many local parks to experience how families use it as a productive space. Many families and larger groups use Hermann park as a gathering space for their own events. Another area in which I found a lot of community involvement was the LGBT community in Houston. Many local coffee shops have OutSmart magazine, which is a local magazine. HERO raised a lot of attention around LGBT issues in Houston. Elisabeth’s placement focuses on community, and creating community, as one of the main aspects of their business, so her interest in community is also applied through her placement which creates a community space for many residents who often are younger and consider themselves to be transient members of their own neighborhood.
Nimi looked at inequalities faced by elementary school students in lower-income areas in Houston. Through her internship at Schlumberger, she has been working with an education nonprofit that works in a few elementary schools in Houston. Through observing the students, student-teachers, teachers, and principals at Blackshear Elementary, Crockett Elementary, and Sherman Elementary, she was able to learn about a lot of different inequalities faced by these students and the communities they live in. The areas surrounding all of the schools lacked many things that are beneficial to well-being such as parks (besides playgrounds at the schools) and affordable food options. One of the closest restaurants to Blackshear and one of the only sources of food in that area was a higher-end cafe that would be largely unaffordable for families living in that community. At Sherman, a non-profit called Brighter Bites provided 35 lbs of fresh produce for families of the children attending summer programs at the schools as well as different ways of cooking the produce for that week. Nimi also spoke with the principal at Sherman in order to understand more of the issues that the students are facing. He spoke of a lack of enrichment programs as one of the major issues for the community, which is why he has started an enrichment program of his own at his school. The program includes art classes, supplemental learning activities, field trips to museums, and college tours. To him, these outside the classroom summer experiences aid in reducing summer learning loss, and decreasing the education gap between students that belong to higher-income families and those in lower-income families. Nimi would like to further explore how these issues affects students and their families, how community members respond to these issues, and whose voices are used to advocate for the students.
Drew is in Boston for the summer. From the people he lives with to the people he works with to random people talking on the subway, Drew heard a lot of conversation in his first week regarding a critical issue facing Boston: the soaring home prices and rents in the city. Boston is equalled only by San Francisco, Seattle, and parts of New York in its prices, and though the rate of increase has begun to slow somewhat in recent years, it is still greater than inflation or wage growth. Income inequity has been both a cause and effect of this trend, with towns and neighborhoods becoming increasingly divided into the highly expensive and undesirable as lower-income residents are priced out and forced to move by influxes of rich newcomers. This gentrification is a national trend, but is especially acute in Boston, and affects almost everyone: many middle-class Bostonians are pressed to the wall by prices, with lower-income people often being forced out, sometimes out of the area entirely. Drew plans to find out more specifically about the “priced-out” population, those who are forced to leave their homes by rising prices. There is certainly strong sentiment among this population, but what modes are available to express it — and how much of it is actually reflected in city policy?
Reagan is in Paris. She has been looking at students as a group/demographic of Paris. She has specifically been researching the ways that students communicate and the ways in which the French education system differs from what we have here in the U.S. Although she hasn’t been able to directly observe student communication yet, she’s been researching online and have been hearing about the cultural differences through her work at the Fulbright Commission (the Commission does orientation sessions for French students and scholars coming to study in the U.S.). Specifically, students in France have a lot less power and a lot fewer outlets to critique or give feedback regarding the French education system. Education is very business-like — it is somewhat separate from your private life. There is a concept called Laicité that dictates that a sort of intense secularism pervades the public sphere in France. Of course, the French system also has its obvious benefits, not the least of which is that it only costs around 300€ to go to college each year in France. Overall, the French system seems to emphasize authority more in its education system. France also seems to compartmentalize aspects of life more than the U.S. does (like religion, personal thoughts, sexual stuff, etc.). For the next assignment, Reagan hopes to look into whether the French are generally happy with the outlets of communication they have or not — whether students are trying to change any of the ways education is traditionally administered. She’s also looking into whether communication outlets are the same for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in priority education zones.