Paper : Six

Here's the preliminary outline

Calla Wright
Senior Seminar
Professor Joseph Heathcott
09 March 2009
PRELIMINARY OUTLINE
This paper will examine youths’ relationship with public space on the gentrifying Lower East Side. Beginning with a brief historic overview of the Lower East Side and a short literature review, (1) the role of gentrification in low-income communities and (2) the ability of youth to appropriate public space will be examined as individual issues. An analysis of my own personal research, which is comprised of a number of interviews with persons who grew up on the Lower East Side, will follow. Here, (1) the importance of community, (2) the importance of public space, (3) access to and restrictions to public space, and (4) the way youths’ relationships to community and space change over time will be examined. The paper will end with a conclusion about the role gentrification plays on youths’ ability to appropriate space on the Lower East Side. A brief section on recommendations for further research will also be included.

I. Introduction
A. Explain the project
1. Youth + Appropriation
2. Gentrification + L.E.S.
B. Methodology
1. Literature Review
2. Interviews
C. Limitations
1. Qualitative
2. Small Sample
3. Not Stratified Random
II. Historic Overview + Census Data
A. Brief History of L.E.S.
1. Immigrant community
2. Cycles of disinvestment/reinvestment
3. “Up and coming” neighborhood starting with the East Village
B. Actual statistics over recent years
1. Comparing most recent sets decennial census data
2. Comparing entries in city directories
III. Literature
A. Youth Access to Public Space
1. Already limited without the added problem of gentrification
2. Complicated social rules about who can be where
3. Societal norms about what is acceptable and unacceptable in public spaces
B. Gentrification
1. Breaking apart communities
2. Higher social class = more upscale establishments
3. Limited social interaction between gentrifiers and long-term residents
IV. My Own Studies
A. Importance of Community
1. What makes one feel connected?
a. Examples from interviews: parents grew up there, attend school there, work there, etc.
b. How does gentrification change these feelings?
2. What makes one feel disconnected?
a. With two interviews so far, I don’t yet know about this. But I assume someone will feel disconnected- if not, this section can easily be phased out.
b. Higher importance of public space when this is the case?
B. Importance of Public Space
1. Teenagers’ extensive use of
a. Places for meeting and talking
b. Places for “play fighting”
c. Places for sports and other games
2. Teenagers’ need for
a. Only time away from parents and school teachers
b. Can’t congregate in large numbers in parents’ homes
c. Can’t be themselves/ come into their own at school or work
C. Restrictions on Access
1. Restricting one’s self
a. Feel uncomfortable in places and why
b. Grey area (are youth restricting themselves or are others restricting?)
i. Presence of police officers
ii. Presence of other groups of youth
2. Restrictions put in place by others
a. Parental control
i. Restriction because of age
ii. Restrictions because of behavior
iii. Restrictions because of fear
b. Owners of stores, restaurants, etc.
D. Changes Over Time
1. Gentrification
a. Fewer places to congregate
b. Know less of neighbors
c. More expensive locations
2. Just getting older
a. Able to leave neighborhood more freely
b. Have part time job = more $$
c. Get board with hanging out in parks/streets
V. Conclusion + Further Research
A. I haven’t come to any conclusions yet
B. Further Research
1. More comprehensive study
a. Study L.E.S. by generations
b. Study L.E.S. by census tract (some have been much more gentrified than others)
2. Statistically accurate study
a. Random Sampling
b. Larger Sample


HAHA. It is so funny looking on here!! None of the spacing worked!!

This is Tabby and a kitty at a museum.

Paper : Five

These next two posts will be of preliminary Senior Thesis stuff, in case you're interested.

Calla Wright
Senior Seminar
Professor Joseph Heathcott
27 February 2009
RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Topic/Research Question
I am studying the impact of gentrification on working-class youths’ ability to appropriate space on the Lower East Side. I want to find out whether gentrification displaces youth socially and spatially so that I may help to bridge the ongoing conversations about gentrification and youth’s interaction with public space. This will help my reader understand the importance of considering youth–– as they are forming identities, learning independence, and becoming autonomous–– during discussions of gentrification.
Abstract
Interacting with peers, forming identities away from adults, learning independence and seeking autonomy are natural and necessary processes during adolescence. Youth, however, are unlikely to own or even rent property. Youth possess limited funds for recreational and commercial activities; they rely on public spaces to fulfill these developmental roles.
Many of the studies about gentrification focus on its financial and spatial elements as they pertain to adults. However, teenagers in neighborhoods undergoing substantial change may lose the places on which they depend to develop and socialize. This is an understudied area.
This paper will bring together studies that examine youths’ already complicated relationships with public space, with studies that investigate the ongoing problem of gentrification for working-class families. With a focus on the Lower East Side, a unique area that has been through cycles of renewal and disinvestment, this paper will examine the impact of gentrification on youths’ ability to appropriate public spaces.
In addition to the secondary research, this paper will draw on interviews of young men and women born in the 1980s, who grew up in the L.E.S. This will draws on quantitative methods, and does not claim to be statistically representative. The interviews will offer insight into the world of working-class youth who experienced transformations in their urban environments in the 1990s. The focus will be on their uses of and access to public space at a crucial stage of development.
Source Plan
As there are limited resources addressing the combination of gentrification, the Lower East Side, and youth in public settings, many of my secondary sources address those issues separately. Though some of my sources contain overlapping elements, for example Cahill’s 2000 piece combines youth and the Lower East Side while her work from 2006 combines the Lower East Side and gentrification, all address at least one of the three main subjects. Thus, I investigate youth appropriation of space through a variety of lenses in order to understand the essential need youths have for spaces of their own, and the barriers that make such need hard to meet. I am also reading about gentrification in communities other than the Lower East Side to understand the commonalities between the cases, as well as the aspects of gentrification unique to the Lower East Side. The pieces I use in regards to the Lower East Side all focus on, or at least mention, gentrification. However, not all of them are centered around youth.
For my primary sources, I will be conducting a series of interviews with young adults. They will be young enough to remember their pre-teen and teenage years, and some may still consider themselves youth. Further details on this process are to follow.

Working Bibliography

Cahill, C. (2000). Street Literacy: Urban Teenagers’ Strategies for Negotiating their Neighbourhood. Journal of Youth Studies, (3)3, 251-256. Retrieved February 8, 2009 from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/.

Cahill, C. (Spring 2006). “At Risk?” The Fed Up Honeys Re-Present the Gentrification of the Lower East Side. Women’s Studies Quarterly, 34, 334-63. Retrieved February 23, 2009 from ProQuest Database.

Childress, H. (2004). Teenagers, Territory and the Appropriation of Space. Childhood, 11, 195-205. Retrieved February 8, 2009 from SAGE (DOI: 10.1177/9070568204043056).

DeSena, J. N. (2006). “What’s a Mother To Do?”: Gentrification, School Selection, and the Consequences for Community Cohesion. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 241-57. Retrieved February 25, 2009 from SAGE (DOI: 10.1177/0002764206290639).

Fudoni, M. (Summer 2005). Teen Empowerment: Youth, police and neighbors in partnership. New Directions for Youth Development, 106, 61-71. Retrieved February 26, 2009 from ProQuest Database.

Hackworth, J. (2002). Postrecession Gentrification in New York City. Urban Affairs Review, 37, 815-843. Retrieved from SAGE February 25, 2009. (DOI: 10.177/107874037006003).

Lees, L. (2000). A reappraisal of gentrification: towards “ a geography of gentrification.” Progress in Human Geography, 24, 389-408. Retrieved February 26, 2009 from SAGE (DOI: 10.1191/03091320070154048).

Matthews, H., Limb, M., & Taylor, M. (2000). The “Street As Thirdspace.” In S. L. Holloway & G. Valentine (Eds.). Children’s Geographies: playing, living, learning (pp. 63-79). London: Routledge.

Matthews, H. (2003). The street as a liminal space: The barbed spaces of childhood. In P. Christensen & M. O’Brien (Eds.). Children in the City: Home, neighbourhood and community (pp. 101-17). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Mele, C. (200). Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate and Resistance in New York, 1880-2000. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Newman K., & Wyly, E. K. (2006). The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City. Urban Studies, (43) 23-57, 24-57. Retrieved February 26, 2009 from SAGE (DOI: 10.1080/00420980500388710).

Travlou, P. (2007). Mapping youth spaces in the public realm: Identity, space and social exclusion. In C. Ward Thompson & P. Travlou (Eds.). Open Space: People Space (pp.71-81). Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis.

White, R. (1993). Youth and Conflict over Urban Space. Children’s Environment (10)1, 110-123. Retrieved February 8, 2009 from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/.

Wridt, P. J. (2004). An Historical Analysis of Young People’s Use of Public Space, Parks and Playgrounds in New York City.” Children, Youth and Environments, (14)1, 100-120. Retrieved February 8, 2009 from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/.


You should know by now I don't fix any of the things that got messy during the copy and paste

Calla's Sixty-Fifth Post

Michael Pollan is my arch nemesis. (Is that how you spell his name?) I think he is a moron. I have said this before, but I will say it again. He is not smart. He is illogical. AND THE WORST PART IS, people listen to him and think he has intelligent arguments against veganism. I'm pretty sure I have been over these before. OK, I looked it up. It's Post no. 11 from Jan. 19th. (It really is a swell rebuttal, you should check it out) And I don't have oh so much more to say or anything. I would like to point you to this article to show you how REALLY wrong he is about the "less animals die" illogical point. But even though I don't have oh so very much more to say I do have a little more to say. It has come to my attention that one of Pollan's problems with vegetarians is that they are estranged from culture or something ridiculous. Like, we can't eat Thanksgiving turkeys or hot dogs when we go to (BORING BORING BORING) baseball games. But why would I want to be engulfed by a culture that is unethical? It was the culture in antebellum south to own slaves. Am I supposed to be sorry I missed out on that cultural tradition? Cause, um, I'm NOT. And ALSO, if his overarching argument is to eat LOCAL, what the hell kinda ball park franks is he eating? He is contradictory and I don't like that. And then the other thing I want to say is that people take his argument and pull out what they want from it and leave the rest. So, people use his book, which was written to promote LOCAL omnivorous diets, to justify their current habits. Oh, and also, someone who only eats local (which is good, don't get me wrong) is going to have a much harder time going out to eat with friends than a vegan. There's nearly always something a vegan can get on a menu. I even had them modify something at Applebee's for me once. If you can find something at applebee's you can find something everywhere except McDonald's. So, who is more estranged from culture? The strict vegan or the strict localvore?

Speaking of McDonald's, I hate them. And they also have led me to the realization that I have no clue how to relate to the majority of humanity. So, they have that commercial for the filet o' fish sandwich that makes me want to cry!! There's a dead fish on the wall singing "give me back that filet o' fish. Give me that fish./ give me back that filet o' fish. Give me that fish./ What if it was you hanging up on the wall?/ if it was you in that sandwich/ you wouldn't be happy at all!" And I think, yeah bastard stopping eating dead animals!!! But this is an advertisement FOR McDonald's. That means listening to a dead animal complain that his friend is being eaten ENCOURAGES people to eat dead animals. That is sick and twisted. I do not understand. I do not understand. Someone explain, because I do not understand! Why would that make people WANT to eat fish when it makes me want to cry? I don't understand how people can be so desensitized. Also, there was this commercial on the radio that Tabby read about and told me about where the guy orders two fish sandwiches and says "i'm a fishaterian." And the lady behind him orders two french fries and he says "are you a potatotarian?" and she says "uh no, vegetarian." MCDONALD'S FRENCH FRIES ARE NOT VEGETARIAN!! THEY HAVE BEEF IN THEM!!! They are dirty liars and I hope they get sued again by more vegetarians because of their lying stupid-face commercials!

McDonald's is evil. They give people heart attacks. I've never seen super size me, but I'm pretty sure if I had, I woulda been convinced that one should never eat McDonald's. . . Because I already am convinced of that. But maybe you should watch it so you can be convinced too. And none of this "everything in moderation" bull-shit. Why would you put poison in your body in moderation? DUMB.

Um, there was more to say, but I don't feel like it right now. I used to be so great at writing on this everyday, and now I'm not. BUT, I will probably write about Galactica later cause it was on last night and it was amazing. And I will put some senior work stuff on here in a minute for real this time. I did a midterm on Thurs and Fri and am supposed to be starting another one right now, but I don't want to want to want to. I don't want to want to at all!!!! I will do it soon though probably.

Oh, and Michael Pollan is dumb. He said "don't eat anything your grandparents wouldn't recognize as food." But different people's grandparents recognize different things as food, firstly. Secondly, why are there cultural norms better than ours? Thirdly, does this metaphor carry to other aspects of life? Should I not wear anything my grandparents wouldn't recognize as clothing? Is that clothing too "unnatural?" hahahahahhahahaa. Bye.

Love,
Calla and FUFFERS IS NEXT TO HER. Where is the Mama?



Fake animal friends Tabby bought me for Christmas

Calla's Fifty-First Post

So, there is oh-so-much to catch up on! Whatever will we do? Well. . . the goatfather is a wine made from the Goats du Roam people in South Africa. They make vegan wines and the goats lead them to the fruit to use. . . or something dysfunctionally cute like that. Perhaps you did not know that some wines are not vegan. This is true of beer as well. Some wines are refined with eggs, or fish blood or other gross things. They are just fined with said products, the said products AREN'T IN THE WINES AND BEERS. . . So, that was a nice bit of information, huh?

Um, so that's the goats.

What else is happening is I am so so so so so so so so so so so so sad about the veal calf friends! I don't know why, but last night I got super depressed about them, and it will not go away. I am sad for the Mommies too!! The babies are just ripped away from the mommies and the mommies cry out until their voice is horse and the whole while they are being endlessly milked for human consumption. This is not right. This is actually sort of pretty much evil. I cry over it a lot. I am going to protest Foie Gras on Valentine's day. That is evil too. Jesus does not like us abusing his creation and acting as if such sentient beings were placed on earth for our pleasure when they were actually placed on earth for God's pleasure. Ruthless Dominion is no way to rule. :( Tabby wrote a thing that I will make him copy and paste here as a guest post. I agree with like 96% of it or something. There is a little with which I don't agree, but all and all he is pretty good at life and writing so it will be swell to put up here. You should also read the book Is God a Vegetarian? I think that book is also swell even though the answer is no. . . because Jesus ate Fish. But the conclusion is that we should be. . . So i like it cause I don't like hurting the baby moos. :(

Um, more things happen all the time, but I can't remember them all. I know that I will put up this case statement I had to write. It is for my fundraising and development class. I had to pick a nonprofit on which to base all my projects for the semester, and I, OBVIOUSLY, picked Farm Sanctuary because they are the bestest people in the world! So, I had to write a case statement that was due today at 8:00 p.m. and it might be sucky cause I really don't know so much about fundraising yet since it is only three weeks into the semester. . . But I will put it up here anyway because I love the animals!!! Some of it is a little plagiarized off their website and mission statements and thingys because my teacher said that was OK since we are supposed to be pretending like we work for the company anyway. . . So, it's not like I lifted paragraphs or anything. Just some lists I have are the same as the website's. . . Only, I don't remember what (or actually if anything at all) is plagiarized. Next time I will keep track. Today this girl asked if there was someway we could cite stuff so we didn't feel guilty and my professor said "sure, put sentences you didn't write in red or something, I don't care." So, next time I will put sentences not of my own creation in red. But I didn't do that this time. I hope I don't get sued or something.

My senior thesis is going to suck so hardcore that it is like we are in a blackhole! (haha, that's funny because it is an entirely inaccurate description of what a blackhole does. . . I took a physics class once for the fun of it. . . I don't remember what it was called. I'll look it up. I looked it up. But not in a transcript, just on an assignment I turned in once. It said "contemporary physics." I don't know if that was the full title. The point is. . . I learned that that is not what a blackhole does!) So this is why it sucks: my pre-proposal is due on Friday but I am not good at life, so I have not done enough research to write a pre-proposal. That is what I have to do all of tomorrow. BLAH BLAH BLAH. When the actual proposal is due 16 days from now, I'll put it up here so you can see what I am doing and maybe even help me!!!

So, it was someone special's birthday today. (But really yesterday, as in Feb 11th because I am writing after midnight. But she lives in Arizona so it is still her birthday there. But she was born in Ohio which is the same time zone as New York which is where I live now. . . So, who knows!?) Also, no one remembers at what time exactly she was born! haha. We know Christopher was born at 5:45. We just know Callista was born sometime in the afternoon. . . It was after I was done with school 'cause I know that 'cause I saw her come out of Christin's vagina. EWWW. No, know what was gross? Not the blood. . . THE STRETCH MARKS. This is graphic. Christin might not like that this is up here. Seriously though Callista was born five years ago and it was the cutest day ever! (No it wasn't. She looked ugly as an infant. .. let's not kid ourselves.) BUT, it turned into the cutest day ever because she is cute now!!! I wonder if I'm allowed to put a picture of her up instead of one of my cats up. Would Christin let me? I have her on Facebook, so this really isn't much different. I will ask. In the mean-time, this post will remain vacant of pictures! .

Um, I'm sure there is more, but I'm not sure what it is. Oh yes I am. Tabby has class with stupid people that think they control reality based on how they treat the objects around them. For example, Mama Kitty becomes a cow when I treat her like a cow. . . That is the idea. They are dumb. (that is not the example they gave though, because they don't know Mama and they don't know that she is really a cow.)

Ok, now that is all for now. I will put up the case study and make Tabby put up the guest post.

Love,
Calla and her kitties. (They are both asleep in their beds that they love!)