Southbridge Towers<\/i>, Photo by Jonathan Tarleton <\/small><\/p>\n
Recent Design and Urban Ecologies alumni Charles Chawalko has written an article featured on Urban Omnibus<\/i>, the Architectural League’s online publication, discussing affordable housing specifically addressing the current debate over privatization of the Southbridge Towers in Lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n A community of over three thousand residents living and working in affordable high-rises, people who banded together to form a community in a barren landscape decades ago when the city was hardly a shining beacon of prosperity. As time flies by, a war of words erupts over the community\u2019s future and how it governs itself. Friends and neighbors become enemies, conflict commonplace, and truth a scarce commodity in everyday life\u2026<\/p>\n I am not describing J.G. Ballard\u2019s High-Rise. This is the story of my home as it undergoes a battle for its future. Southbridge Towers is an affordable housing complex built under New York\u2019s Limited Profit Housing Company Act, an affordable housing program more commonly known as Mitchell-Lama and lauded by both politicians and activists. Today the program contends with internal and external pressures that lead to the privatization of its buildings, or to owners and governing bodies at least considering it. During my graduate work in Design & Urban Ecologies at Parsons, I looked at the impact of the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan on the complex where much of my family has lived since construction, hoping to understand and describe the motives behind a push to privatize this middle class haven. Like many residents, I feel deeply connected to these buildings and the very program that supports their operation, and I strongly believe that residents are entitled to a transparent process that accurately informs them of any decisions affecting the complex\u2019s future, particularly the privatization debate currently underway.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n