[by Jane Ford, UVa News Services]:

July 17, 2008 — New York City's South Bronx neighborhood is poised to become a model for urban sustainable development on a large scale, and a group of University of Virginia Architecture School graduate students have helped citizens and community leaders there visualize their dreams.

For 19 U.Va. students in two studio design classes, the experience was a lesson in urban ecologies, collaboration across disciplines and working with a coalition of South Bronx organizations dedicated to promoting sustainable initiatives.

The South Bronx neighborhood has long been marginalized and neglected, said Kristina Hill, associate professor and director of landscape architecture, who led a studio that explored plans for affordable housing, retail stores and light industry — all while employing sustainable building principles and the creation of a linear park that would connect various parts of the community.

The South Bronx was transformed by a wave of property abandonment in the 1960s and '70s, and a subsequent period of appropriation by government agencies of what was once private property — sometimes to create new public housing, and sometimes to build highways that cut through vital parts of the Bronx and isolated them from each other and from the Bronx River. In addition, the South Bronx is now a crazy quilt of experiments in housing density, from single-family ranch homes to super-blocks with high rises — and contains New York City’s only remaining surface stream; the rest are underground in pipes. The neighborhood provides "a great way for students to think about what the American city is, both socially and ecologically, and what it means to the American psyche," Hill said.

Communities like the South Bronx, whose population is about 60 percent Hispanic and 40 percent black, too often bear an inequitable environmental burden of pollution, industrial facilities and very limited access to parks, clean air and water, Hill said.

"In a time of increased awareness of the need for equitable conditions for all, the design professions need to take a more active role in becoming advocates, or helping advocates make an argument for responsible design/planning decisions," said Toshihiko Karato, who is pursuing dual graduate degrees in architecture and landscape architecture. "There is a need for the profession to be able to effectively become leaders in the public sphere, so that they can at the least advise government decisions, if not participate in the political process."

Through research and meetings with community members, the students learned that a major barrier for the South Bronx is the under-utilized Sheridan Expressway, which impedes neighborhood access to the Bronx River and does not serve the transportation needs of the community, of which only 20 percent own cars. Neighborhood groups are already working with the state of New York to have the expressway removed.

[for complete article, see article on UVa News website]