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Group 2 Final: Themes and Takeaways - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Maureen Berner's Lecture on Food Insecurity
        
        Government Data such as GDP growth, Income levels, and Employment rate are all flawed and do not present an accurate representation of the true level of poverty.
        
        For example, Gross State Product in NC showed a steady increase over the past two decades, but in the same amount of time food pantries, like the CORA Food Pantry in Pittsboro NC has increased the amount of families it has served from 400 in 1999 to over 5000 in 2014.
        
        This example shows how the statistics that the government likes to use to measure economic success and poverty levels often portray a brighter picture than what the situation is, and do not address rises in things like food insecurity.
        
        Government definitions often leave out groups that are still in need of aid.
        
        Groups the government defines as marginally food secure are actually food insecure, which exemplifies the problem and limitations with government definitions and ability to measure different aspects of poverty.
    - - Professor Roberto Quercia's Lecture on Housing Vulnerability
        
        The government's use of zoning laws and its role in the market lead to the creation of housing submarkets that measure the quality of housing in a particular area.
        
        This leads to the deterioration of housing in "low quality" areas that does make housing more affordable, but it also drives quality of life down due to poor living conditions, which displays another example of how government measurements like housing affordability are not an accurate depiction of what the larger living condition situation for those that live in "affordable housing"
  - - - Redlining: City maps were labeled either green or red and graded on a scale based on the racial composition of the neighborhood and continues to have consequences today.
      - Single-family housing policies have constricted the composition of neighborhoods since their introduction.
      - Examples from class/readings:
        
        Evicted by Matthew Desmond showed stories of people who are housing insecure and face the risk of eviction for a multitude of reasons.
        
        Adharshila learning center: Going against the norm by teaching through indigenous traditions and learning through doing.
        
        Professor Lalitha Kamath's lecture on fisher resistance that exemplified how policies regarding land ownership can affect an entire community's way of living.
        
        Professor Andrew Whittmore: Discussed how the intent behind unfair policies is not always to be unfair. It can be done so with other rationalizations that don't seem as bad as saying it is for directly racial reasons. For example one could justify redlining as a means of protecting property values but that doesn't change the inequalities it produces.
        
        John Tallmadge's talk on transportation relates to structural racism as well. Gentrification can cause housing prices in the central cities to go up so people move to the suburbs which requires reliable transportation to access job opportunities in the city.
  - - - Examples of informal economy from class presentations: food vendors, cleaners in Mexico City and crossing the border from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso; informality in housing along the border in Mexico
      - Devalues the labor of workers, particularly women, many of whom are involved in the informal economy through care-taking labor
      - Does not allow laborers to gain access to support through things like unemployment due to the fact their labor went unrecognized
        
        Perpetuates inequality, particularly in times like COVID-19
        
        Creates opportunities for labor exploitation, unfair burden on communities as support systems, both of which perpetuate inequality
- - - - Embodied Resistance
        
        Exerting presence through daily action and everyday practices
        
        Subverting government actions, lack of recognition for the value of a way of life through daily practices of resistance, like continuing to fish, exercising different value systems towards land uses, reclaiming land through use
        
        Community presence and preservation of identity through maintaining ways of being in the world
        
        For example, the identity of the Kol community as fishermen as a way to stay connected to community, place, and continued resistence.
      - Reframing what coastal boundaries are, what we value
        
        Seeing the coast as a site for accumulation, real estate vs. understanding the multiple ways of using fluctuating spaces
      - The potential for innovative solutions incorporating locally embedded knowledge
        
        Temporal Planning: moving away from defined and restrictive land use, recognizing the utility of space for multiple functions across different temporalities
        
        Resilience in the face of climate change when we expand how we understand spaces and allow for flexibility and shared uses in our planning
      - Personal thoughts and reflections on why this theme stood out to me
        
        Challenged me to think more broadly about how planning is structured, what assumptions are made (eg. the privileging of land over water, hard edges of the coast, constructing real estate as a way of claiming and accumulating land), and how and where we draw boundaries and restrict land use. This train of thought also reminded me of Dr. Whittemore’s statement about planners being glorified wealth managers.
        
        This presentation also made me think about ontologies, and how different ontological approaches and ways of seeing the world offer alternatives to how we use and understand space. If we open our own perspectives up to incorporate multiple ontologies, we can, in a field like planning, create many more possibilities for how we access space, mitigate climate change, and create resilience while honoring different identities in relation to land (and water).
  - - - Despite the corruption taking place at the state level, an innovative health preventative program managed to create effective change in vulnerable communities in Ceara
        
        36% reduction in infant deaths
        
        Tripled vaccination coverage for measles and polio from 25% to 90% of the population
        
        Agents visiting 850,000 families a month
      - Communities were empowered by being hired, trained, and given responsibilities.
        
        Those who were not hired, understood the importance in keeping those who were accountable. Their position could be opened up for them if workers were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. This was a great monitoring process as well.
        
        Sense of pride being able to help the community you live in.
        
        With members in the community working as agents, there was trust and comfortability in the system
        
        Pay was great (more than a teacher's salary) and received many transferable skills through training.
      - By seeing other communities/mayors agree to working with the agents and providing nurses, other locales were pressured by their citizens to do the same when they saw the benefits and perks of agreeing to work with the program. Holding Mayors accountable to their health needs.
  - - - On-the-ground, localized efforts to provide support through assisting local business development
        
        Re-thinking what growth, development look like in local contexts
        
        Re-evaluating assumptions like "growth is always good"
        
        Recongizing that make-up of government bodies does not always represent community demographics and that this has implications for the ability of businesses and community members to succeed
- - - - I second this, I would love to learn more about the intersections of climate change and pre-existing vulnerabilities