Unfortunately, due to a reason unbeknownst to me, the article I did my first Diary of Systemic Injustice on was since deleted. That particular article described the use of hostile architecture in our neighborhood of downtown Columbus, OH. This article interviewed a homeless man upset about being misplaced so often. Robert Campbell, a homeless man in Columbus, mentioned “everybody is willing to tell me to move; nobody is really clear on where I should be”.
From this perspective of a homeless neighbor, it drew me to think about the architecture I am surrounded by and how it affects me, and the people around me. I was drawn to recognize the benches that have “armrests” scattered across the bench which is just a tactic to break up the bench so someone can’t sleep on it. Small details of architecture like this drew me to dive deeper into the systemic injustice against men and women without homes and the reasons behind it.
Andrea Lo, a CNN writer, dove into an interview between James Furzer who is an architect who tries to combat hostile architecture, and Dean Harvey who is the Co-Founder of a big company that produces many of the hostile pieces of architecture. Through these conversations, both professionals agree on many things such as the definition of Hostile architecture which is “where architectural elements and the public realm are used to control human behavior” but they also disagree on many motives of architecture.
You can see hostile architecture looking through the structures from centuries ago. It can be traced back to the late 1700s where during the Georgian era, many walls and fences were seen with spikes to protect from someone trying to break in. Arguably, this motive is justifiable for the protection of others. But does a homeless person sitting on a windowsill really put anyone in danger?
Many pieces of hostile architecture are later put on the structure after seeing someone sleeping on a bench or a group of people looking for shelter congregating under a parking garage. In these cases, it is clear that the system of officials and architectural authority wants these types of people out of sight. Homeless men and women can often be seen as adopting the subaltern role because other people are consistently making decisions for them such as where they sleep and where they congregate, and they are not given space to plead for their dignity.
Furzer fights for our homeless neighbors by saying “But if we’re excluding (the homeless) from sleeping on benches, then we need to include them somewhere else.” It is empowering knowing that people are expressing the same concerns as our homeless neighbor Robert Campbell that I had the honor of learning about earlier this semester. If we stop looking for opportunities to misplace them rather than looking for opportunities to include them, the homeless rates will drastically improve.
Decker, Theodore. “Theodore Decker: ‘Hostile Architecture’ Reduces Seating for Homeless Panhandlers.” The Columbus Dispatch, 15 Oct. 2019, www.dispatch.com/news/20191015/theodore-decker-hostile-architecture-reduces-seating-for-homeless-panhandlers.
Lo, Andrea. “The debate: Is hostile architecture designing people — and nature — out of cities?.” CNN, 21 Dec. 2017, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/new-dean-harvey-james-furzer-hostile-architecture-debate/index.html.
Wow, this is such an amazing topic to discuss! I have noticed anti-homeless benches specifically during my daily life but no other hostile structures that you discussed. I really like how you categorized them as subaltern “because other people are constantly making decisions for them”. This is so powerful and heartbreaking that people are deliberately building architecture to inconvenience and move homeless people elsewhere.
Hello! Your post was incredibly interesting and to be honest, I didn’t even know it was a problem in the first place. I’m incredibly impressed and glad that you chose a topic that many people may not know about, but should. People tend to look at homeless men and women as something less than human. What harm does someone without a home sleeping on a bench do? If they shouldn’t be in these places, we need to find somewhere for them to go. This made me think of Curtis Cunningham, a campus legend that used to hang out by Buckeye Donuts who passed away last year. He was a friendly face with a positive message. Great post!