Bridging the Logics of Technocracy and Communitarianism: Translational Micropractices in Housing and Urban Development

Abstract

Our current, entrenched housing crisis requires attending to frictions and conflicting agendas between resident groups and developers of many stripes. Each of these sets of actors maintains distinctive aims, knowledge-creation methods, measures of success and relations to power - all of which amount to a bundle of communicative and meaning-making practices that I term a ‘logic.’ The two logics entail, on the one hand, the technocratic logic indicative of developers, landlords, and sometimes, planners who are oriented to apolitical neutrality, deploy empirical data analysis, establish meaning through quantitative metrics and financial valuations, and are proximate to power. On the other hand, communitarian logics deployed by certain resident groups and their advocates prioritize the redress of harms, trust lived experience, establish meaning through longstanding cultural practices, and are typically distant from power. This dissertation seeks to understand how proponents of these two incommensurable logics struggle to become legible to and negotiate with one another. Facilitating the institutional contexts where such tensions are translated and negotiated are intermediaries of many kinds, including, at times, planners. I explore the process of translation and negotiation between the two logics (a phenomenon that I call ‘bridging’) through three, in-depth case studies. Each of my cases exemplifies an experimental effort at realigning technocratic practices, to varying degrees, with the priorities of residents, even as these priorities are not monolithic. The first case is the creation of a novel cultural preservation district and anti-displacement zoning overlay. The second involves two parallel projects: a participatory action research study linking housing stability to social determinants of health and a real estate equity fund whose ROI metrics are tied to the public health study. And thirdly, public housing administrators deploy digital tenant screening services—proptech—to streamline housing allocation and therefore, improve housing access for poor and disabled populations. With the three cases, I assess the efficacy of realignment efforts by examining the varying degrees of bridging between the two logics. I find that the highest degree of bridging is achieved through the deployment of translational “micropractices” (Healey 2012a). In the cases where this is prevalent, the experimental solution had the greatest potential to make good on its promises. Following the lessons from my cases, to overcome the deep intractability of the current housing crisis, I argue that planners, advocates and scholars must engage with the institutional–and not just economic or market-related–contexts where the political economic dynamics of the relationship between the housing industry and community development proponents play out.