LET'S TACKLE THIS MESS.
The messy research leads to beautiful solutions. So here it is, the drafts, the research, the interviews, and more.
TOPICS OF INTEREST
-
Community Revitalization
-
Sustainable Architecture
-
Rooftop gardens in cities
-
Agriculture and food deserts
-
Education on sustainable lifestyles
-
Systematic oppression in housing systems
-
Displacement and housing
INITIAL QUESTIONS
-
What are successful examples of community revitalization in Chicago?
-
Why are buildings in the South and West sides of Chicago being abandoned?
-
What are the systemic restrictions that prevent low-income families from moving up?
-
What programs exist that provide education and enrichment for children?
-
Why haven’t city gardens been implemented on rooftops more? What would that look like?
-
What are programs in the works to help Chicago communities grow and prosper?
-
Are there any other minority communities being affected? How do they help or where are opportunities they can work together?
-
How can you design for a community?
-
How can we make use of abandoned buildings?
-
What would farms in Chicago look like?
-
How does withholding healthy food from communities do to them?
My initial questions centered on community revitalization but as I read more articles and papers, I came to realize the blockades low-income communities face go as deep as withholding a need. I kept asking more questions about what needs. Were they mental health issues? Enrichment issues? Was there something in this system that needed more attention drawn to it? Was there something that we just dismiss as "average" or "it happens all too often?"
I continued exploring and recording these questions, insights, and answers in a word document. You can access the PDF below.
THE MIRO BOARD
BRAND THE CHANGE
These activities are from Anne Miltenberg's book, Brand the Change: The Branding Guide for social entrepreneurs, disruptors, not-for-profits and corporate troublemakers.
These served as a baseline for what our brand stands for, what we're exploring, what we plan to achieve, and who we are directing ourselves towards. It's meant to be messy and unorganized, spark questions, and force us to see things from a new perspective.
THE PIVOT
As I continued down the path of community revitalization, I realized my ideas were too broad and much too scattered to get a better idea of which issue I wanted to pinpoint and tackle. It was through the guidance of my professor as well as my own experience that I realized physiological needs aren't being met.
So I explored that thought more. What has the government done to house, feed, and keep its citizens safe and healthy? What programs were failing? What is a program that has become the norm for low-income families to apply to? What is something that is just brushed off?
Food.
Once the thought popped into my head, I began looking into programs like WIC, SNAP, and free and reduced meal plans in schools. Upon looking into the USDA and NIFA, I realized the government, on a federal level, has yet to address this. It is up to each local government to feed its citizens but due to the pandemic, people are more hungry than ever.
This is when I knew I wanted to focus more on the effects of food insecurity and why food deserts are increasing in prevalence, specifically in Chicago, IL.
BACK TO MIRO
Back to the drawing board and back to reframing and reshaping how we address food insecurity on the side of an oppressor and the oppressed.
Check out the miro board:
INTERVIEWS
I met with Megan Morrison, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator at Growing Home, to learn more about the organization's beginnings, current projects, and perspectives for the future. Growing Home employs, educates, and cultivates produce for citizens in food deserts.
Their look at how they want to slowly change the world was crucial in exploring solutions to aid those impacted by food deserts.
INSIGHTS
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Through our class, our professor challenged my peers and me to think about ethical issues and explorations every week. Below are my ethical considerations as well as a reflection on how these considerations helped fuel my research.
-
Hyphen Nationalities and what it means to be ____-American
-
Cultural Mixes; Where Nationalities Combine
-
Humans Encroaching on Animal Territories
-
Government Neglect of Low-income and POC Communities
-
Food Deserts & Food Insecurity
-
Government: Where They Can and Cannot Intervene
Engaging in these ethical considerations was one of the most enriching opportunities I’ve had this year. By navigating through social issues, I was able to learn more about niche topics that aren’t openly discussed. Ethics itself was a topic that I originally thought of as too complicated to dissect or too obvious to acknowledge. My mindset has since changed and my perspective has now widened. Although things may seem “common sense” or “easily adaptable” there will always be things that need to be addressed no matter if an answer or solution will come out of the discussion.
Through this course I have learned that tackling ethical issues is a systems issue and there are hundreds of answers to solve one problem. It takes working through these messy initial stages and having conversations that leads to a pathway to a solution. This is especially important in design practices. The ideation process never ends when it comes to designing something as large as an ethical design studio. Even as a solution is created, a new system will be created around that solution and its effects on its audience.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Courtney Lauren. “Surviving Gentrification and Segregation.” Indiana Health Law Review, vol. 18, no. 2, July 2021, pp. 283–291. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=151096322&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Blackson, Howard. “The 5 'CS' of Community Planning.” CNU, 20 Oct. 2017, https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2017/10/19/5-cs-community-planning.
Harada, Yoshiki, and Thomas H. Whitlow. “Urban Rooftop Agriculture: Challenges to Science and Practice.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 1 Jan. 1AD, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.00076/full.
Jobe, Fatou. “We Don't Live in a Food Desert, We Live under Food Apartheid: Interview with Dawn
Blackman.” We Don't Live in a Food Desert, We Live under Food Apartheid: Interview with Dawn Blackman |, July 2020, http://publici.ucimc.org/2020/07/we-dont-live-in-a-food-desert-we-live-in-food-apartheid-interview-with-dawn-blackman/.
Kiger, Patrick J. "Why Don't More Cities Require Green Roofs?" HowStuffWorks Science. HowStuffWorks, 10 Oct. 2021, https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/sustainable/why-dont-more-cities-require-green-roofs.htm.
Kimberly Durden, Contributing Writer January 7. "Food Deserts Continue to Plague the Southside." Chicago Defender. 07 Jan. 2020. Web. 22 Oct. 2021.
Ihejirika, Maudlyne. “Stalled by Covid-19, 10 South, West Side Revitalization Projects Get 'We Rise Together' Grants.” Times, Chicago Sun-Times, 29 Sept. 2021, https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/9/29/22698800/stalled-by-covid-19-10-south-west-side-revitalization-projects-get-we-rise-together-grants.
Mortice, Zach. "Reshaped by Crisis, an ‘Anti-Biennial’ Reimagines Chicago." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 02 Oct. 2021. Web. 27 Oct. 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-02/the-chicago-architecture-biennial-meets-the-real-world.
Parrella-Aureli, Ariel. “The Community Groups Working to Eradicate Chicago's Food Desert Problems.” Eater Chicago, Eater Chicago, 20 Jan. 2021, https://chicago.eater.com/2021/1/20/22231602/chicago-food-deserts-fresh-food-healthy-hood-we-go-us.
Ori, Ryan. “Covid-19 Has Devastated Chicago Real Estate, but It's Amplified Calls for Equity. Will 2021 Be a Year of Progress on the South and West Sides?” Chicagotribune.com, 17 Dec. 2020, https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/ryan-ori/ct-biz-real-estate-equity-ryan-ori-20201217-cqyddgnu6rgxfjgtxkzqu6baka-story.html.
Semuels, Alana. “Chicago's Awful Divide.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 30 July 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/chicago-segregation-poverty/556649/.
Unruh, Julie. "Englewood Residents Turn to Farming Produce to Fight Food Insecurity." WGN. WGN-TV, 22 Sept. 2021. Web. 10 Oct. 2021.
"Community Data Map." Greater Chicago Food Depository. 01 July 2021. Web. 27 Oct. 2021.
“In This Together: Club Teaches Kids about the Value of Making Mistakes.” NowThis News, 1 Sept. 2021, https://nowthisnews.com/videos/news/in-this-together-club-teaches-kids-about-the-value-of-making-mistakes.
"Map of Poverty & Food Insecurity." Greater Chicago Food Depository. 11 Oct. 2021. Web. 22 Oct. 2021.
“The Available City.” MAS CONTEXT, 2 May 2020, https://www.mascontext.com/issues/29-bold-spring-16/the-available-city/.