Beyond ‘Latino New Urbanism’: advocating ethnurbanisms

Abstract

This paper discusses the notion of Latino New Urbanism (LNU) and reflects on the significance of ethnic-based reformulations of urban practices and living preferences in Los Angeles and the potential these have for the transformation of policy making and development practices in the region and beyond. Can LNU truly avoid the pitfalls of New Urbanism and represent a new way of conceiving urbanism – one that is explicit and inclusive in its ways of recognizing and addressing ethnoracial and class diversity? Can LNU instead be intentionally or unintentionally used to mask some structural social problems that Latina/os face in the US? All of this poses questions related to the assessment of LNU in the context of tensions between structure vs. agency, diluting vs. celebrating ethnoracial differences, and oppressive vs. liberating urban design and community-building practices. Based on those considerations, I offer an alternate notion of multiple and evolving ethnurbanisms.

Keywords:

• Latino New Urbanism (LNU)
• ethnurbanisms
• Los Angeles

Acknowledgments

This project received support from a Diversity Fellowship at Columbia University and an Urban Initiative Grant from the University of Southern California. The author wishes to thank the able research assistance of Albert López and Lucrecia Montemayor and the comments received from interviewers and reviewers.

Notes

1. This paper focuses on California, and primarily on the five counties comprising the Southland Greater Los Angeles area (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties), whose reality inspired Latino New Urbanism. The urban demographics and development patterns and trends in the region have some similarity across the US Southwest, but the paper neither implies to generalize the Southland characteristics to refer to the broad range of urban patterns and practices in other regions of the country nor attempts to compare them.

2. I prefer to use the term ‘minoritized’ rather than minority in the context of Latina/os in Southern California because this population is already a majority in this region, but it is still largely considered a minority population and politically disenfranchised as such.

3. The 2007 ‘State of California’ gradebook by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) suggested the following grades for critical planning areas: Mobility (D-), Air Quality (D), Housing (D) (SCAG, 2007).

4. The 2004 survey of housing choices in California by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) revealed significant housing trade-offs that California residents were willing to make in order to have less reliance on private cars, shorter commutes, and more places accessible from their home by foot (PPIC 2004).

5. Data calculated from US Census 2010 sf1 from individual data of five counties comprising Southland Greater Los Angeles area: Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

6. This author was a Steering Committee member for the ‘Latino New Urbanism’ five-Dialogue Series.

7. The latest Census count shows that the poverty level in the US has risen to 15.3% while California’s poverty level has been sustained at 15.8% (US Census Bureau, SAIPE 2010). Official estimates from the US Census Bureau have reflected a growth in unadjusted levels from 13.1% in 2006 to 15.8% in 2010 (US Census Bureau, SAIPE 2010). The Public Policy Institute of California contrasted the state poverty level with that of the county of Los Angeles taking into account dissimilar factors due to higher rents. These showed that Los Angeles County has a poverty rate of about 25% – in the range of the 10 highest poverty counties in the nation, significantly higher than the state’s (PPIC: Poverty in California 2009). Poverty levels vary substantially within California, not only by region but also by other demographic characteristics.

8. Although the Southern California Association of Governments had projected an increase of almost 3 million in the Los Angeles County population, according to the latest US Census count the growth rate was substantially lower, from a projected 9% to a count of 3%.