July 22, 2025 • 48 mins
What makes our neighborhoods feel like home isn't just the buildings that surround us but the countless human connections that happen within them. Author Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani spent decades exploring this phenomenon by asking residents to guide her through their neighborhoods, showing her the places that matter most in their daily lives.
Her approach revealed something profound: places we might walk past without a second glance often contain rich histories and social significance for community members. Take the electronics store in Brooklyn where, years after the owner's death, his cricket-playing friends still gather every Thursday afternoon around a table in the back room. The store remains untouched, merchandise still on shelves, functioning as both informal memorial and vital community space. When planners see only a "redevelopment opportunity" in such places, they miss the essential community functions these spaces serve.
Ready to reconnect with your neighborhood's everyday places? Listen to our full conversation with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, then visit your local bookstore to pick up "The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places."
Show Notes:
- Buscada is Bendiner-Viani’s interdisciplinary practice, which creates vital spaces for dialogue to foster more just cities through art, strategic planning, and research.
- Get a copy of the book from the publisher MIT Press or check out other ways to buy from the authors website
- Author Recommended Reading:
- American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland by Robert O. Self
- Palestinian Walks by Raja Shehadeh
- The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring
- To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephanie Rouse (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by Confluence.
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They assist clients on a widerange of public, educational,
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(00:42):
You're listening to the BookedOn Planning Podcast, a project
of the Nebraska chapter of theAmerican Planning Association.
In each episode, we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in
between.
Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
Welcome back, bookworms, toanother episode of Booked On
(01:06):
Planning.
In this episode, we talk withauthor Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani
on her book the Cities we NeedEssential Stories of Everyday
Places.
This book tells the story ofwhy connecting with the people
in our neighborhoods and citiesis so essential and the
importance of ensuring theseeveryday places continue to
exist of ensuring these everydayplaces continue to exist.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:27):
As an introverted person who has
turned toward the convenience ofgrocery delivery and online
shopping, this conversationreally helped me realize that I
have actually been missing allof the small interactions of
daily life and how importanttaking time to interact with
people every day and creatingthose connections to everyday
places really is.
Stephanie Rouse (01:41):
During our conversation with Gabrielle, I
was reminded of a conversationwith Shemichael a few episodes
back on his book Meet Me at theLibrary, because that is one
place in cities that we can relyon to provide the space for
everyday interactions and tohelp practice the skills of
engaging with others in a lowstakes way that will prepare us
for the harder conversationsthat need to be had.
Jennifer Hiatt (02:02):
It's a really great connection.
Not only is this book animportant reminder of all the
place work we all engage inevery day, it is actually just
simply very stunning visually.
The photographs remind you thateven the most random place can
play an important role insomeone's life.
So let's get into ourconversation with author
Gabrielle Bendino-Riviani on herbook the Cities.
We Need Essential Stories ofEveryday Places.
Stephanie Rouse (02:24):
Bindi Narviani on her book the Cities we Need
Essential Stories of EverydayPlaces.
Gabrielle, thank you forjoining us on Booked on Planning
to talk about your book theCities we Need Essential Stories
of Everyday Places.
Your book is built on work thatspans decades where you asked
individuals to take you onneighborhood tours and show the
places that have meaning forthem.
You tell these stories throughphotographs, which makes your
(02:44):
book really a beautiful read.
Can you tell us what promptedyou to start this and why you've
continued it over the years?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (02:52):
Well, first of all, thank you so much
for having me on the show andfor really engaging with the
book and also I think it'sexciting.
One of the things that's beenexciting to me about this work
is connecting across a bunch ofdifferent disciplines, and so
it's very exciting to be havinga conversation specifically
thinking about how thesesometimes very individual
stories might have bearing andimpact on thinking about
(03:14):
planning.
So just to kind of give you anoverview of where the book
started and the project startedis so I've been very interested
for a long time in people'srelationship to everyday places,
to neighborhood kind of howthey feel a sense of belonging
and place all of that kind ofwork.
And I think I also come to thiswork as you say, the book is
(03:34):
both photographs and text and Icome to it as both an urbanist
and environmental psychologist,but also as a photographer
psychologist, but also as aphotographer and one of the ways
that I first actually starteddoing any of this work was
thinking about makingphotographs of places and of
cities.
And you know I thought, well, Ican photograph places that I
know, but also I'm interested inunderstanding new places, maybe
(03:57):
that I don't know so well, andyou know I was like well,
certainly anyone can take aphotograph of anywhere, but I
was interested in understanding,well, like, what are the things
that I don't see or the thingsthat I don't know are important
that I might not necessarilymake a photograph of if I were
just seeing it through my ownperspective?
So I started to ask people thisI first started doing these
(04:19):
tours actually on the Lower EastSide in New York, not too far
from where I grew up, but alsoworking especially with
teenagers, and so it wasinteresting for me to see the
places that we kind ofoverlapped in things that were
important to us and the thingsthat they showed me that were
completely different than what Iwould have, you know, seen or
known as being important.
So I continued doing that kindof asking people for their tours
(04:43):
, really starting, from aphotographic point of view, in
London and then in Buenos Airesand then eventually coming back
to New York and doing this workin Brooklyn, and most of the
work prior to Brooklyn had beenin neighborhoods that I didn't
live in, maybe neighborhoodsthat I worked in or had some
connection to, but not rightwhere my house was.
(05:04):
And in Brooklyn I was reallyinterested in the neighborhood
that I lived in.
I had grown up in New York verydedicated New Yorker but not in
that neighborhood, and so insome ways New York is this like
huge cosmopolitan city, and inother ways it is like so
provincial that you are likewell, I know my little
neighborhood, but who knows whatthe rest is right.
(05:26):
And so in some ways, being inanother neighborhood than the
one I had really known for somany years, that felt really
important to me to be able tosay, oh, some of this is
familiar to me, but also thereare stories here that I don't
know, and how can I be a goodneighbor?
How can I know this place?
I had formed all theseconnections by doing all this
(05:47):
other work previously and formeda real love for these places
that I thought, well, it wassuch a good feeling, kind of
walking around these places thatI didn't live, but knowing all
these stories and then feelingso dedicated to them that I
thought, you know, it's quiteimportant to do that where I
live.
So that was one of the waysthat the work started, and I
also started a PhD program atthe same time and really sort of
(06:11):
started doing that work to say,like well, I want to really
bring this kind of urbananalysis and photographic
practice together to think about, like well, how can these
stories that people tell me,this making of creative work,
how can all of that tell ussomething bigger about cities
and what you know, what meaningwe make in those cities.
(06:31):
And so that was sort of whereall of this came together and,
as I say in the book, it startedreally right around September
11th 2001 in New York, you knownot an insignificant date, which
was, incidentally, my first dayof grad school, so not
necessarily the most auspiciousstart but it really made me
think a lot about why thesethings that were small, these
(06:54):
things that surrounded us inkind of our everyday lives, that
those were the things that werekind of going to help us get
through and that helped peoplefeel a sense of care and taking
care of each other in our city,and so that that was like kind
of a galvanizing moment forthinking about what was at stake
in the work.
Stephanie Rouse (07:11):
I love the way you said that you could have
gone into these neighborhoods,taken the pictures yourself, but
you wouldn't have capturedthings that residents that live
there every day probably wouldhave pointed out.
And I think as planners we tendto do that too often for
whatever reason.
Time sake that we just go outand we'll take pictures, we'll
analyze what it looks like, butwe don't actually go on any
tours or have neighborhoodresidents lead us through and
(07:33):
say, yeah, that's a coolbuilding and all but this one
over here that you wouldn'tprobably have noticed is
actually way more important tothe community.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (07:41):
Right, and I kind of knew this from
doing these sort of smallerpieces of work in other places
where things I had no idea thatthey would be important had huge
stories behind them and huge,important not just for one
person but for many people.
Kind of to see people'soverlapping stories of one place
, that wouldn't necessarily havebeen the thing that drew my eye
(08:03):
but you know, trying to make aphotograph of it later, I had
all these stories in the back ofmy head to try and tell through
the photograph, to sort of showlike why this sort of
insignificant looking space isactually so important.
Jennifer Hiatt (08:19):
So, as you've mentioned, you've you've done
smaller projects in other areas,but here you chose two
neighborhoods Mosswood inOakland, California, and
Prospect Heights in Brooklyn Notyour neighborhood, but your
home.
Why these two cities?
What drew you to them and whatlessons have you learned from
comparing these stories?
Because they ended up blendingso beautifully together?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (08:39):
So I should say I started doing the
kind of the work that becamethis book, started in Brooklyn,
spent about five, six yearsworking on that work, and then
had moved to California andmoved to Oakland, where I also
had some family connections aswell.
But I had known that I hadwanted it to be a comparative
work.
(09:00):
So eventually this work becamemy dissertation.
So I was always thinking aboutit both as creative practice and
as research practice, and Ithink that doing comparative
work is really an important wayof doing research.
I think one place can unlocksomething about the other if the
comparison makes sense.
Where I was looking for acomparison to New York, in some
(09:24):
ways there's a way in which,writing about New York, it can
seem like its own thing, likewell, whatever that story is,
it's so specific to that placeit can't be extrapolated to be
anything else, and I didn't wantthat for this work.
It seemed really important thatit was more about well, like
you know, the stories thatpeople have been telling me over
(09:46):
this time.
Yes, they seem very specific toBrooklyn and to New York, but
at the same time they also seemlike, I think, the work that
people are talking about theseplaces doing for them personally
as people, as they're buildingtheir sense of belonging,
building their sense ofcommunity.
That has to be happening inother places and what does that
look like somewhere else?
(10:06):
In thinking about a comparativework, oakland, I think, started
to really make sense for me, inpart because you know there's
sort of some parallels, justeven physically, there are sort
of second cities or boroughs toa kind of you know more famous
city across the, across thewater, from Manhattan or San
Francisco.
(10:27):
As I started to kind of lookinto the kind of histories of
both places and to see how youknow actually kind of the
histories of American urbanismpre and post war really impacted
both of those places.
Similar things impacted bothplaces but the kind of what it
looked like was different.
So you know, redlining andurban renewal and all of those
(10:49):
things played a big part in bothneighborhoods but the kind of
physical outcome was verydifferent.
Right, or like urban renewalwas not used as much, or
certainly was to some extent,for highway building in East
Coast cities, but verysignificantly was in West Coast
cities, you know those kinds ofthings maybe, but it was also,
(11:09):
you know, more used for housingon East Coast cities or kind of
bigger kinds of developmentshere, but I could see that the
impacts of those policies andthose histories really had
shaped both neighborhoods.
As I started to think about, youknow, not just comparing two
cities but comparing thesespecific two neighborhoods and I
was really interested in once Istarted to think about both,
(11:31):
comparing Passback Heights andMosswood.
They have histories of beingbetween almost like intermediary
spaces and redlining in someways that resulted in them being
maybe more diverse or kind ofpeople.
A lot of people in bothneighborhoods talked about kind
of mixedness.
A lot of people use that termas being important to them as
(11:53):
part of the identities of bothof these neighborhoods.
At the time I would say some ofthem have changed a bit, but
that piece started to make senselike well, then there's these
really interesting parallelsthat people themselves are
seeing from lived experience.
These are similar things thatwe value about.
I was hearing sort of similarthings being valued about both
neighborhoods and so as Istarted to do that work, it
(12:15):
started to see more and morethat they were a relevant
comparison.
Stephanie Rouse (12:20):
And with them being so relevant, easy to
compare, you really fluidlyflipped back and forth between
cities throughout the book,instead of having here's the
chapter on one city and thenwe're moving over here to this
city.
Why did you choose thisapproach to storytelling?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (12:44):
that it is much as I love both of
them and much as I love bothOakland and Brooklyn.
It's not really a book aboutthose places, but about the idea
behind what the places thatpeople took me to in both cities
or both neighborhoods, whatthose places do for those
individuals and how very sharedthose experiences are and were.
I certainly struggled a lotwith thinking about, well, how
does this book get organized andstructured?
(13:06):
How do they go back and forth?
Do we sort of tell the historyof one and then the history of
the other?
But it's not really a bookthat's like here's the history
of Oakland, here's the historyof Brooklyn and Oakland, right,
it's really about what are thethings that individuals in these
two neighborhoods are tellingme are significant to their
lives and their capacity to bein community with other people,
(13:30):
and so I wanted to start to beable to see comparisons across
the interviews and the walkswith people between two places.
And I would say also one thingthat's quite different between
two places is that you know morepeople drive in California.
Everybody in Brooklyn took meon a walk like an actual
physical walk.
Difference between two places isthat you know more people drive
in California, right, everybodyin Brooklyn took me on a walk
like an actual physical walk InOakland.
It varied, you know, sometimespeople would drive me around,
(13:51):
sometimes people would walk or acombination of those things,
and I also wanted to kind ofgrapple with that, those
different ways of being in space.
But to say, you know, peoplewere seeking out similar kinds
of things because they had ashared need that had to do more
with what many people kind ofneed from their communities.
I think one of the thingsthat's important about being
(14:13):
really specific more than beinggeneral is that I think actually
intense specificity helps otherpeople find themselves in the
story, rather than trying totell a story that is like
everything is everything youknow.
If sometimes you can findspecificity and something
similar to your own experiencein a highly specific and highly
(14:36):
human story in a way that maybeyou wouldn't have, if it kind of
stepped up one level, that itgot more general and so that
piece of kind of usingspecificity at this granular
experience level, that was veryimportant to me and so that felt
like, okay, well, you can putthose experiences from two
(14:56):
places in conversation with eachother and that actually could
maybe even open it up to morepeople to be able to see
themselves inside this book andinside these stories.
Jennifer Hiatt (15:06):
And if your grad program had an auspicious start
with 9-11, this book also hadits own sort of interesting
start through the COVID-19pandemic, which is ultimately a
time where we all were justdesperately also trying to
connect with people, and you canconnect to a lot of people
through the story that you tellhere.
So how did starting a bookwriting process on connecting
(15:30):
people during COVID shape howyou thought about the book?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (15:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's the thingthat helped me shape it into a
book.
So, you know, I'd been workingon this for like over two
decades by then and had beenthinking you know, how is this a
book?
How is it?
It had been an exhibition, ithad been my dissertation, there
had been many articles, but Ikept thinking I think this has a
(15:57):
bigger public audience.
I want to put the piecestogether so that it's not sort
of here's the piece that's anacademic article, here's the
piece that's the visual work byitself.
I wanted to be able to figureout how the whole project came
together and even how's this notjust the visual work by itself?
I wanted to be able to figureout how the whole project came
together and even how's this notjust the Brooklyn work on its
own or the Oakland work on itsown, but how are these things
(16:18):
really deeply in conversationwith each other?
I had finished my first bookthe year before, in 2019.
And that book had come out andI've been really thinking about
how we could use that book anduse this kind of to foster
conversations aboutaffordability and about housing
and about community development.
It's about a kind of 50-yearfight for affordable housing on
(16:41):
the Lower East Side.
How could I use all thesethings and kind of a creative
practice to get people talking?
And I really got into 2020thinking this is going to be the
year that we really use thiswork for really creative
conversations in person andreally, you know, coming to
grips with it in the place, andit's going to be transformative
and I'm so fired up for 2020.
(17:03):
Clearly, that did not happen asI was at home you know, the
stories from Brooklyn and thestories from Oakland have been
living in my head for so longand as I was home, you know,
with my family, with a youngchild, and feeling like what are
the parts of why this all feelsso wrong?
You know, like March and Aprilof 2020, how to take apart the
(17:25):
deep levels of sadness that youknow, I knew I was feeling and a
lot of people I knew werefeeling that it both obviously
this kind of threatened death,but also that it was so lonely,
and not just that you couldn't.
You know, yes, like I didn'tsee my parents, but I could
phone them and I could talk tothem, but I couldn't see just
(17:49):
the people in my neighborhood Istarted to see like, okay.
Well, actually I miss thesepeople whose names I don't know,
like this sort of chit chatthing.
I'm missing part of that.
And why is that?
And I started to think back toall the stories that people have
been telling me in Brooklyn andin Oakland and I thought I'd
thought for a long time thatthese people were incredibly
(18:09):
wise.
But then I was like, okay,their stories are helping me
unlock why this moment is sopainful.
And it felt like, okay, now Iknow kind of why and what's at
stake and why it matters to tellthese stories now, because it
seemed like they could helpexplain all of the parts of this
to everybody.
And so that was really whathelped me galvanize this into a
(18:32):
book, and because it feels likeyou know, when writing a book,
it does really matter that youknow what's at stake.
It's not just important thatyou think it's interesting, but
like why does it matter to theworld?
Jennifer Hiatt (18:43):
You know what's vital about it, and so that, I
think, helped me see that SinceCOVID, every time, like I, have
a small interaction with thebarista that hands me my coffee,
you think more about that andso, as I was reading your book,
I kept thinking about I think itwas in Brooklyn the grocery
store that makes sure you haveyour groceries like they'll
(19:05):
deliver to you.
You just have to know that, allof the little connections that
had to be built for a grocerystore to be willing and able to
do that, if that grocery storeopened during the pandemic, that
trust would have never beenbuilt and that would have never
occurred.
Stephanie Rouse (19:16):
So I kept thinking about all those small
interactions as reading throughA key element of your book is
the idea of placework, and notnecessarily a common term, at
least in the planning world thatwe use day to day.
Can you describe what you meanby doing place work?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (19:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the things inwriting the book and in putting
kind of all of this researchtogether.
I had a long time to kind oflook at these stories and these
interviews and to try and sortof parse them in different ways
to understand what it was thatthey were telling me.
They say a lot of differentthings, but the thing that it
started to be very clear,especially across both places,
was that it was a kind of workthat the places that people took
(20:00):
me to were doing and were doingfor them individually, and so I
felt like it was quiteimportant to be able to name
that right, because I thinksometimes when you spend a lot
of time working on the everyday,on one hand it can feel like
it's everything, it's so vital,it's so important, and then it
can feel like it is nothing andit's throw away and who cares?
(20:21):
And you know it's not the bigshiny thing and there's no
headline to it.
But then the back of your head,you're going, but actually no,
this is very, very important andkind of central to how people
actually feel about themselvesand how they feel connected or
disconnected to other people,and that is genuinely very
important to much larger things,and so I think one of the
(20:42):
things that I wanted to be ableto identify was what was it that
people were telling me about?
Why were they taking me tothese places?
And I think where that termcame from for me was that what
people talked about was thatthey were talking not just about
you know, I like this placebecause so and so works here,
but they were talking about howthis place and the people who
(21:03):
ran it or facilitated it, howthat place did important work
for them in their lives.
And so to kind of reframe it alittle bit as not just about
this kind of place or thisspecific place or what this
place looks like or its kind ofhistorical preservation value,
but the work that was happeninginside of it for people's lived
(21:25):
experience and how to name that.
And so for me, that's reallywhat that terminology of place
work is to try and be able tosee not just also kind of the
use value of something right.
So, like the supermarket, forexample yes, it sells food and
people need food and that'sobviously very important but
also in their willingness todeliver their you know, the way
(21:46):
that they greet people.
All of those things are allthese other intangible things
that really have nothing to dowith the fact that you walk out
of there with food, but that youalso walk out of there with a
sense of place, a sense thatyou're part of something larger,
that you care about whathappens to them and they care
about what happens to you.
All of that is much larger kindof work.
(22:09):
That is like society buildingwork.
Right, that helps us all seethat we are actually not these
atomized, separate little beings, but that we are connected and
what happens to one of us reallydoes matter to each other,
right To us to somebody else,and so that was part of what I
could see happening in theseplaces that people took me to.
(22:29):
So that kind of work of reallysociety building work, but that
happens and is experienced on anindividual level.
Jennifer Hiatt (22:39):
Oftentimes that work has enduring legacies, and
my favorite story out of thebook that you shared is actually
about an electronics storewhere the owner had
unfortunately passed away, buthis friends still regularly
gathered at the shop, and thisgathering was so essential that
death couldn't even displace it.
Can you share how that storycame to you and then how you
(23:00):
chose to portray it in the book?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (23:02):
So that was really one of the first
tours that I did in Brooklynwith my neighbor Neville, and I
had asked Neville he had livedin the neighborhood for a long
time and I'd asked him to if hewould, you know, be willing to
take me on a walk around theneighborhood.
And he said yeah, sure, okay,and so we walked around the
neighborhood and he was tellingme stories.
He'd been there for probably 30years and he'd raised his kids
(23:25):
there.
He had a lot of kind ofextended friendship
relationships and he took me toa lot of those places and he
talked about what it was like totry and start his own business.
He also had a kind ofelectronics repair business and
he talked about also what it waslike to be a West Indian
immigrant to New York andbuilding kind of relationships
(23:46):
and building connections.
Where did he find his peopleand like what was it that they
did?
He took me to a bike storebecause he was like, oh, we race
each other in Prospect Parkevery weekend and let me tell
you I always win Right.
So he would tell me all ofthose kinds of stories.
And then one of the last places,as we were sort of circling
back close to where his storewas.
(24:08):
He said, oh, this is a reallyimportant place to me and it's
kind of all boarded up at thefront, but it had all these
painted electronics brand namesacross the front.
And he said, oh, you know, wealways used to meet here, and on
Thursday afternoons, and youknow, at two, and oh, today's
Thursday, do you want to go in?
And I was like, oh, okay, sure,and so he knocked on the door
(24:33):
and we let him in and we wentback into this electronics store
that was like old and quiet anddark.
All the shelves were there,everything was there on the
shelves, but, you know, nobodywas in the store.
And right at the back, kind ofthere's an open space, kind of
behind, where the rest of theshelving stopped, you know so a
(24:53):
group of guys sitting around atable with a bunch of you know,
aluminum trays of food, andthey're like, oh, neville, come
on in.
And they were also like who isthis with you?
What are you doing?
And so kind of being invitedinto that was very, very special
to me and really something thatI valued.
Kind of being invited into thatwas very, very special to me and
really something that I valued,because I and one of the things
(25:14):
that I felt was so actuallyimportant about a lot of the
stories that people told me wasI felt like people were giving
me something of huge amount ofvalue, really something precious
, either in the things that theyshowed me or the ways that they
told me stories, and one of thethings that in making a book
and even thinking about how thebook looks and how their space
for their stories and space forthe photographs, that I wanted
(25:36):
to make something that was likerespectful of those stories,
that could hold them in a kindof beautiful way that would
really give them the respect andhonor that they deserve.
So I thought I would just reada little bit of the story that
he told me.
He said my friend who was inthe same electronics business
like me died and they closed thestore with all his stuff inside
(25:57):
.
He was a cricketer in the WestIndies and his friends who were
his old cricketers they alwaysused to meet every Thursday
around that table have theirdrink.
Two years ago he passed away.
They still meet every Thursdayafternoon, still the same way.
He went to the hospital for acheckup and they found something
and they operated and when theyoperated he died.
See, everything's still here.
The store hasn't been touched.
(26:17):
If I need anything, I'm shortof anything.
Instead of buying it, I get itfrom him, and I'll say that one
of the things that was so reallypowerful was that when I turned
this work into kind of a publicart and dialogue project just
the Brooklyn work in 2015, Imade a series of guidebooks from
some of the people's storiesand Neville's was one of them
(26:46):
and I put three of the placesand three of people's stories
about them and, as part of thatproject, I would lead these kind
of creative walking tours orparticipatory kind of walking
tours, so everyone on the tourwould get one of these
guidebooks.
So they were in charge of thatperson's story for the afternoon
, and then, when we got to aplace that was on that person's
tour, I would ask that person tosay oh, you're in charge of
Neville's stories.
Okay, well, we're standing infront of what used to be the
(27:08):
electronics store, and so Iwould ask them to hold up the
photograph of what it had lookedlike.
So by then, it was, you know,more than 10 years later, so
that place was long gone.
It's now a manicure, pedicureplace, and so for them to hold
up that image and to readNeville's story and kind of
voice Neville's words back inthe same place to other people,
(27:30):
really building kind of also asense of care and kind of
empathy for other people'sstories.
So it was important to me tokind of have these things also
be read aloud back into thespace.
And you know, reading thatparticular story aloud, you know
kind of physically in front ofthat place, was always one of my
favorite ones.
Stephanie Rouse (27:48):
I also really love that story because I think
it shows just how important itis to do this kind of work,
because, as someone that's justwalking by in the street doing
an inventory, you might look ata building that's all boarded up
and say this is a perfectredevelopment opportunity, but
not understand what an importantspace it is for this group of
individuals that meets thereregularly and maintains their
community in that way.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Vian (28:09):
Exactly , and I think you know it's
difficult, where you can't keepeverything kind of fixed in
amber, Everything can't juststay, but it does help unlock,
like well, how do you then, evenif this space becomes something
else, how do you kind ofcontinue to make space for their
gathering?
What does that look like?
How do we really value thesethings that maybe don't have a
(28:31):
name or, you know, kind of aremore informal, but they're doing
this very, very importantlarger place work that helps us
all build this sense of societyand community and sense of
belonging and that that is sovital to kind of the larger
project of, like you know, beinghuman.
How do we value those things?
Jennifer Hiatt (28:51):
We're having a bit of a theme on Booked On
Planning.
We've had a run of gentrifyingbooks overall.
Seeing it laid out in aboutfour or five books that we've
read in a pretty short amount oftime actually really has pulled
out to me that you know,buildings we should preserve as
much as we can but, like you say, you can't lock everything in
amber.
But the real problem behind theredevelopment work often is
(29:13):
that we don't think about thosespaces.
How do we protect an area forsomebody to hang out with their
friends Thursday at two in thenew neighborhood that's also
being built?
Because you have to balance out.
You know new people do come inneighborhoods, turn over, but
how do you protect that Thursdayat two situation?
(29:36):
It's very interesting and hardto kind of work through.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (29:41):
Yeah, I think that's such an important
point and I think it's one ofthe you know kind of in that
idea of like what, how do westart to better define what
community preservation lookslike, so that you know it's not
only focused on physical space,but that we look at, kind of you
know, what is the work thatthese places were doing or the
things that they're enabling?
How do we A look closely enoughto understand what is happening
(30:06):
and then also to think about,well, why is it important to
preserve those spaces forpeople's relationship building
to happen?
And then what does it look liketo actually genuinely keep, to
really keep that preservation inmind, right?
What does that look like to dothat work and to really put
value on that, to say like thisis something that is essential.
(30:27):
It's not a kind of well, thingschange and it's nice that you
had that for as long as itlasted.
Like that Do we shift thatmindset and I think that becomes
a really important piece ofdoing this work.
Stephanie Rouse (30:39):
Doing placework is really, I think, integral to
thriving, healthy communities.
What is the loss of placeworkdue to communities?
How does it damage them?
Gabrielle Bendine (30:48):
Unfortunately , I kind of think we're living
in that world right now.
I mean, I genuinely think that,on one hand, you know, this is
not something that just happened, it's been happening for quite
a while, and so the both theatomizing of people into kind of
very much more individualisticsorts of spaces, or really like
individual spaces, or digitalspace, or these like more and
(31:11):
more and more highly selectedspaces, or only very private
spaces Part of that, I think, iswhat we you know it was very
extreme during COVID, or thatyou could see like well, I'm not
with strangers, but I thinksome of those things have been
happening for quite a while,either between kind of the
general sort of pull back into amore private life as Americans,
(31:32):
but also, you know, as you say,around gentrification, the ways
in which kind of these spacesin which people doing nothing or
spending very little, thosespaces have been at risk for a
long time and there's been areal loss of them over time.
Like we kind of really needplaces where people can just be
and sort of do nothingproductive, while understanding
(31:53):
that that does something veryproductive for a larger sense of
society.
But I think that that's part oflike in losing those spaces that
do this place work, wherepeople feel a sense of belonging
, where people build their likecapacity, they build their
muscle to talk to strangers andnegotiate with people they don't
know, and see other people asreal.
(32:14):
I think you end up withsocieties where people are
increasingly less able to dothat and so other people's
problems and the impact on otherpeople's lives seems less real,
and that has huge impacts onour democracy, right.
It has huge impacts on the waythat we see our society.
It has huge impacts on thesevery, very big things in terms
(32:35):
of you know, what does it looklike for real equity across this
country?
I feel like, in some ways, thatthe loss of these really small
places or these kinds of ways ofwhere police work happens, that
that's one of the things thatcontributes to that and that
seems incredibly dangerous.
Jennifer Hiatt (32:56):
In the book you say that housing considerations
in the US are about physicalcapital, not about creating that
stability and humane place tolive and play.
So how can we start shiftingour perspective in the US?
You know we've been talking alot about housing too, and how
maybe we should think about itas infrastructure, like a road,
as opposed to an investmentopportunity.
(33:18):
But what are your thoughts onthis?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (33:21):
Yeah, I mean it is really interesting,
I think one of the things thatI think about.
I mean I think about the workthat I did on Lower East Side
right, which was essentiallyabout a 50 year fight for
affordable housing and a failedurban renewal site which to some
extent succeeded but also kindof came out with a fairly
mediocre outcome.
But it took that much work andthat much of people's lives to
(33:44):
come up with something that isokay, right, and just to see how
many things really work againstpeople's interests and people's
capacity for building, you know, longevity in place,
affordability in place, all ofthose things to see all the many
things that we're reallyfighting against people.
So it feels like shifting theway that we think about that is
(34:05):
very, very important.
You know, kind of within theUnited States as a country I
think we're fairly bad atbuilding long-term affordable
housing that we see that as kindof like a nice to have or
something that you know is kindof almost like a gift rather
than something that's like well,having stability is something
(34:25):
that is beneficial to everybody,right, and I think that shift
to say where everyone is stable,then that makes all of us more
stable and to understand thatall of us are impacted by that,
like we want everyone to be instable housing.
That would be a much betterworld for everybody concerned.
So I think that's a big pieceof it to kind of start to think
(34:46):
that way and to start to thinkabout that way that we are all
very deeply interconnected andit feels like a kind of
throwaway kind of comment, butit really is a mindset shift
that I think is required.
Many of the places that peopletook me to on these tours are
small businesses, right, andsmall businesses themselves are
really at risk, as much asaffordable housing is at risk.
(35:08):
You know, small businesses areoften at risk, right, and so
what are the things that we doto support small businesses?
All of those kinds of things aremaybe more tactical kinds of
decisions that we could bemaking to say, yeah, we value
longevity in place, we see theplace work that you do, right,
you sell groceries, but you alsodo all these other things for
(35:29):
this community, right, and doingthat is a huge value.
Both of those two things are ahuge value.
So being able to see that aspart of the way that we think
about what preservation lookslike, I think becomes really
important.
But I do think the biggestthing is like how do we start to
really see each other right, tosee each other as what happens
to you matters to me.
(35:49):
Right, not in a like becauseI'm so nice sort of way I mean
it would be great if that washow we felt about it but even in
a selfish way, like, genuinely,your lack of rights of
healthcare, of housing thatgenuinely hurts me too, like
that.
To be able to see that and makethat visible, I think, becomes
really important for us as acountry.
Stephanie Rouse (36:12):
And one of your sections in the book discusses
small talk and how it can helpcreate community.
Can you explain how this works?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (36:20):
One of the things that people talk to
me a lot about both was aboutkind of the chit chat that
happens with other people.
As I started to try and figureout how to organize this book,
one of the things I actually didwant to pull up was that one of
the things that came out frompeople's stories was almost like
had nothing to do with otherpeople.
It was like really aboutthemselves, how they were, like
finding themselves in public,that their sense of self and who
(36:43):
they are and even their ethosand the world was being worked
out in public.
But it was a very private thing.
So the book is organized aroundboth the kind of like what it
does for an individual and whatit does for a community.
That sort of structure issomething that's fairly new for
me in terms of looking at thiswork.
So the first chunk is reallyabout that thing of like what is
(37:04):
it to build your sense of self,but in public, like that we
need to figure ourselves out,not in private but in public,
navigate with other people and Ithink the small talk thing it
does, sort of both things thatpeople sort of sometimes figure
out how to see who they are bythe chit chat with somebody else
(37:25):
.
But then there's also this kindof I talk about it as like this
kind of casual talk.
But then there's sort of alsothis maybe longer term talk,
right, some of it is just how'sthe weather?
Kind of talk.
Is actually this reallyhumanity affirming sense that we
are both here in the same placetogether?
Right, you and me we're hereright now.
(37:47):
We're experiencing this wholething.
Whatever it is that's happeningright now, this is real and
we're experiencing that togetherand that work seems very, very
important.
Like it's the chit chat thatdoes that.
Right, you didn't say anythingof any meaning, like the words
themselves were not meaningful,but the what work it did for
those two people is verymeaningful.
(38:08):
And similarly, I think there'sthe you know, one of the my tour
guides talks about it astalking trash right.
Like that, that thing is animportant way of kind of working
out and grappling throughdifferent life experiences, but
through humor and by sense of akind of shared.
There's some sort of sense ofshared safety right In being
(38:32):
able to engage in that together.
There's something by doing thatyou explore all kinds of things
in this kind of potentiallyeven slightly trans regressive
way, but that it's safe to dothat right.
Like that's something that'sreally valuable.
A lot of times it requires aperson who maybe runs a
restaurant or whatever it is andkind of I talk about it as
people who kind of facilitateplace work in a place.
(38:54):
Like there's usually somebodywho kind of holds it.
That makes it okay to do thatin that space.
I really value those people too.
Like that's really special workthat people do Not everybody
can or does do that.
So I think there's that pieceof it.
But I also think there's thispiece in Oakland.
I remember Tualde talking to me.
(39:14):
He took me to a donut shop andhe said the thing that was
important to us about the donutshop was that he said well, you
know, when I was newlyimmigrated to the US from
Eritrea, that this was wherepeople who were fairly new
immigrants would meet.
And you know, eventually westarted to help organize for
(39:35):
independence thousands of milesaway.
But what we did in this placewas just sort of chit chat and
become friends, just to be ableto have a place where you could
sort of sit and be and chit chatwith people and to think about
the fact that sort of thiscasual talk wasn't like they
were doing anything important,but it was a kind of space to be
(39:56):
it was a donut shop, right,nothing big and exciting about
it but they but also kind of abenign neglect where the donut
shop was like fine, sit there,whatever, it's fine that it
could allow through this reallycasual talk, something that had
huge impact later on.
So this kind of casual chitchat can build to the kinds of
(40:17):
trust that you then need tobuild a political movement right
that those sorts of thingsdon't happen without this kind
of baseline of interpersonaltrust and that very often it's
these kinds of interstitial orvery everyday kind of spaces
where that happens.
And some of that is throughthat kind of casual chit chat
(40:38):
stuff.
Jennifer Hiatt (40:40):
The final lines of the book really struck me.
It's if we want to be human, weneed place work.
Without it, we can't get thecities we need.
I know we've covered a lot ofwhat place work is and why it's
important.
But really importantly like,how do we start embracing the
humanity needed to do the placework?
How do we start talking to eachother again?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (41:00):
That's a great question.
I think it is maybe seeking outthose places.
I mean, I do think in thisparticular moment, maybe it
requires real effort to reallyseek those places out and to
sort of put oneself out, to tryand be in places where there are
strangers and like to be inconversation with other people.
(41:21):
And I think people have gotteninto these habits, you know,
either because online shoppingis easy or because people have
lots of hangovers from COVID of,like what you kind of got out
of the habit of doing in personand maybe now you do online,
right, or a variety of thingsthat kind of slowly have chipped
away at us.
(41:42):
And I think in some ways, it'slike what does it look like for
each of us to really try to pushourselves back into that, to
try and do more of that?
And what does it look like tosay, okay, you know, I'm going
to recognize that talking withpeople I don't know is actually
really important and valuable,and in doing that, I think
people will really feel like, oh, and also I feel so much better
(42:04):
afterwards.
Right, it will have kind of akind of knock on effect where
people feel like, oh, actually Iwant to do that again.
So I think there's that pieceof the kind of very individual
thing of like you know whatpeople could do that way, but I
do also think it's kind of aninsistence and a pushback on AI
as one thing, or this idea thata technocratic solution will be
(42:27):
the thing that saves us all, andI think a real pushback on that
is very, very necessary, right,but that is not going to be
what saves us.
That's not going to be whathelps us build a stronger
society.
It will be people engaging witheach other and people
practicing the capacity to likelisten to each other and talk to
each other, and that thing ofrealizing that you need to be
(42:51):
able to practice.
I think one of the things Ithink a lot about with this
whole book and a lot of thestories people told me was that,
you know, a lot of what I couldsee happening was that people
were talking about very lowstakes kinds of engagements with
other people chit chat aboutthe weather or whatever it is,
or you help somebody.
It's a pretty low stakes kindof engagement.
(43:13):
But if we are not practiced atdoing those things, we have
genuinely very large things thatwe all need to be facing right
Thinking about democracy,thinking about climate change.
How do we face those thingsthat really matter to kind of
the futures of our society likethat are genuinely, you know,
life threatening.
We have to have low stakesmoments of practice, because
(43:37):
when the stakes get higher andhigher, if you haven't kind of
done that work, it's going to bevery, very hard.
And I think doing thatpracticing of building capacity
to listen and building capacityto talk which seems so basic but
I think is genuinely necessary,you know, is really a big part
of that.
Stephanie Rouse (43:57):
And as this is booked on planning, in addition
to your book, which we recommendall of our readers check out,
what other books would yourecommend?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (44:04):
Oh my gosh, there's so, so many, but I
was thinking about three andkind of understanding all of
this that it's quite importantto think about both nonfiction
and fiction and also, you know,actually kind of creative
practice.
So one book that really hasbeen so important, a touchstone
for me and certainly for the waythat I even started to really
(44:24):
think about why Oakland could be, you know, kind of to
understand and unlock some ofthe things about that city, is
called American Babylon, raceand Class in Postwar Oakland
Amazing book by Robert Self.
Highly recommend it.
So more on the more academicplanning, history analysis of
cities, really brilliantanalysis of how inner cities and
(44:49):
suburban development are nottwo separate subjects but are
really deeply interlinked and wehave to see those two together.
Another book that I totallydifferent world would recommend,
that it's also really been atouchstone for me for many
reasons, but also even justaround what it is to walk with
somebody else and to see a place, is a book called Palestinian
(45:10):
Walks by Raja Shahadeh,brilliant book of essays about
his experience walking inPalestine over a many year
period.
His personal stories, hisconnections to place.
All of those things are like ahuge part, I think again, of
like well, what does it looklike to make a place feel real
(45:31):
and to really understand thekind of what's at stake there?
Incredibly beautiful book, oneof my very favorites.
And then a third book is a bookI just finished this morning.
Actually I thought it was sofantastic.
And also again she has a littleacknowledgement and talks about
it as place-centric fiction andI was like, yes, that is
excellent.
(45:51):
It is a book called the Road toDalton by Shannon Bowring.
It's a fictional story of arural North Maine town.
Story of a rural North Mainetown.
Just brilliant depiction ofpeople's interactions with each
other, things that are said andunsaid, but also the way that
(46:12):
place really helps shape thesestories and people's connection.
Stephanie Rouse (46:14):
And disconnection with each other.
We always love it when ourauthors finally give us some
fiction books, because we dolove to read nonfiction, what
our podcast is based on but wealso love a good fiction book
too.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (46:24):
It's a great book and I was so mad I
didn't buy the sequel when Ibought it.
So I mean I was really ready tomove on to the next one.
Jennifer Hiatt (46:32):
I was just gonna say it looks like there's more
than one, so that's exciting.
Love a sequel.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (46:38):
Part of why I was interested in being
part of that book, but alsoeven in kind of thinking about
the specificity of the ways thatI was thinking about Oakland
and Brooklyn, and one of thethings that's been so valuable
to me in talking with people hasbeen to say somebody said to me
well, your book's called theCities we Need.
Does that mean that you don'tlike town?
And I was like, no, that's notwhat I meant.
(47:00):
But because I think thatthere's this thing as to say
this need, this need for place.
Work really cuts across loopedexperience.
It cuts across the kinds of bigcities and smaller towns that
we live in and to say that is ahuman need.
How do we see that and how dowe see similarities across rural
and urban spaces, that thosethings become so necessary, and
(47:23):
how do we see that as a sharedkind of question around planning
?
Stephanie Rouse (47:27):
And I think that'll help break down some of
the silos that we're in of why Idon't relate to you, because
I'm rural, you're urban.
We don't have anything incommon.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (47:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Stephanie Rouse (47:38):
Well, gabrielle , thank you so much for joining
us to talk about your book theCities.
We Need Essential Stories ofEveryday Places.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (47:46):
Thanks so much for having me.
It was wonderful talking withyou both.
Jennifer Hiatt (47:50):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
author Gabrielle Bendian-Rivianion her book the Cities we Need
Essential Stories of EverydayPlaces.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at MIT
Press, or click the link in theshow notes to take you directly
to our affiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts and please rate, reviewand share the show.
Thank you so much for listeningand we'll talk to you next time
(48:10):
on Booked, on Planning, Thankyou.
This episode is brought to you by Confluence.
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They assist clients on a widerange of public, educational,
institutional and private sectorprojects.
(00:42):
You're listening to the BookedOn Planning Podcast, a project
of the Nebraska chapter of theAmerican Planning Association.
In each episode, we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in
between.
Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
Welcome back, bookworms, toanother episode of Booked On
(01:06):
Planning.
In this episode, we talk withauthor Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani
on her book the Cities we NeedEssential Stories of Everyday
Places.
This book tells the story ofwhy connecting with the people
in our neighborhoods and citiesis so essential and the
importance of ensuring theseeveryday places continue to
exist of ensuring these everydayplaces continue to exist.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:27):
As an introverted person who has
turned toward the convenience ofgrocery delivery and online
shopping, this conversationreally helped me realize that I
have actually been missing allof the small interactions of
daily life and how importanttaking time to interact with
people every day and creatingthose connections to everyday
places really is.
Stephanie Rouse (01:41):
During our conversation with Gabrielle, I
was reminded of a conversationwith Shemichael a few episodes
back on his book Meet Me at theLibrary, because that is one
place in cities that we can relyon to provide the space for
everyday interactions and tohelp practice the skills of
engaging with others in a lowstakes way that will prepare us
for the harder conversationsthat need to be had.
Jennifer Hiatt (02:02):
It's a really great connection.
Not only is this book animportant reminder of all the
place work we all engage inevery day, it is actually just
simply very stunning visually.
The photographs remind you thateven the most random place can
play an important role insomeone's life.
So let's get into ourconversation with author
Gabrielle Bendino-Riviani on herbook the Cities.
We Need Essential Stories ofEveryday Places.
Stephanie Rouse (02:24):
Bindi Narviani on her book the Cities we Need
Essential Stories of EverydayPlaces.
Gabrielle, thank you forjoining us on Booked on Planning
to talk about your book theCities we Need Essential Stories
of Everyday Places.
Your book is built on work thatspans decades where you asked
individuals to take you onneighborhood tours and show the
places that have meaning forthem.
You tell these stories throughphotographs, which makes your
(02:44):
book really a beautiful read.
Can you tell us what promptedyou to start this and why you've
continued it over the years?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (02:52):
Well, first of all, thank you so much
for having me on the show andfor really engaging with the
book and also I think it'sexciting.
One of the things that's beenexciting to me about this work
is connecting across a bunch ofdifferent disciplines, and so
it's very exciting to be havinga conversation specifically
thinking about how thesesometimes very individual
stories might have bearing andimpact on thinking about
(03:14):
planning.
So just to kind of give you anoverview of where the book
started and the project startedis so I've been very interested
for a long time in people'srelationship to everyday places,
to neighborhood kind of howthey feel a sense of belonging
and place all of that kind ofwork.
And I think I also come to thiswork as you say, the book is
(03:34):
both photographs and text and Icome to it as both an urbanist
and environmental psychologist,but also as a photographer
psychologist, but also as aphotographer and one of the ways
that I first actually starteddoing any of this work was
thinking about makingphotographs of places and of
cities.
And you know I thought, well, Ican photograph places that I
know, but also I'm interested inunderstanding new places, maybe
(03:57):
that I don't know so well, andyou know I was like well,
certainly anyone can take aphotograph of anywhere, but I
was interested in understanding,well, like, what are the things
that I don't see or the thingsthat I don't know are important
that I might not necessarilymake a photograph of if I were
just seeing it through my ownperspective?
So I started to ask people thisI first started doing these
(04:19):
tours actually on the Lower EastSide in New York, not too far
from where I grew up, but alsoworking especially with
teenagers, and so it wasinteresting for me to see the
places that we kind ofoverlapped in things that were
important to us and the thingsthat they showed me that were
completely different than what Iwould have, you know, seen or
known as being important.
So I continued doing that kindof asking people for their tours
(04:43):
, really starting, from aphotographic point of view, in
London and then in Buenos Airesand then eventually coming back
to New York and doing this workin Brooklyn, and most of the
work prior to Brooklyn had beenin neighborhoods that I didn't
live in, maybe neighborhoodsthat I worked in or had some
connection to, but not rightwhere my house was.
(05:04):
And in Brooklyn I was reallyinterested in the neighborhood
that I lived in.
I had grown up in New York verydedicated New Yorker but not in
that neighborhood, and so insome ways New York is this like
huge cosmopolitan city, and inother ways it is like so
provincial that you are likewell, I know my little
neighborhood, but who knows whatthe rest is right.
(05:26):
And so in some ways, being inanother neighborhood than the
one I had really known for somany years, that felt really
important to me to be able tosay, oh, some of this is
familiar to me, but also thereare stories here that I don't
know, and how can I be a goodneighbor?
How can I know this place?
I had formed all theseconnections by doing all this
(05:47):
other work previously and formeda real love for these places
that I thought, well, it wassuch a good feeling, kind of
walking around these places thatI didn't live, but knowing all
these stories and then feelingso dedicated to them that I
thought, you know, it's quiteimportant to do that where I
live.
So that was one of the waysthat the work started, and I
also started a PhD program atthe same time and really sort of
(06:11):
started doing that work to say,like well, I want to really
bring this kind of urbananalysis and photographic
practice together to think about, like well, how can these
stories that people tell me,this making of creative work,
how can all of that tell ussomething bigger about cities
and what you know, what meaningwe make in those cities.
(06:31):
And so that was sort of whereall of this came together and,
as I say in the book, it startedreally right around September
11th 2001 in New York, you knownot an insignificant date, which
was, incidentally, my first dayof grad school, so not
necessarily the most auspiciousstart but it really made me
think a lot about why thesethings that were small, these
(06:54):
things that surrounded us inkind of our everyday lives, that
those were the things that werekind of going to help us get
through and that helped peoplefeel a sense of care and taking
care of each other in our city,and so that that was like kind
of a galvanizing moment forthinking about what was at stake
in the work.
Stephanie Rouse (07:11):
I love the way you said that you could have
gone into these neighborhoods,taken the pictures yourself, but
you wouldn't have capturedthings that residents that live
there every day probably wouldhave pointed out.
And I think as planners we tendto do that too often for
whatever reason.
Time sake that we just go outand we'll take pictures, we'll
analyze what it looks like, butwe don't actually go on any
tours or have neighborhoodresidents lead us through and
(07:33):
say, yeah, that's a coolbuilding and all but this one
over here that you wouldn'tprobably have noticed is
actually way more important tothe community.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (07:41):
Right, and I kind of knew this from
doing these sort of smallerpieces of work in other places
where things I had no idea thatthey would be important had huge
stories behind them and huge,important not just for one
person but for many people.
Kind of to see people'soverlapping stories of one place
, that wouldn't necessarily havebeen the thing that drew my eye
(08:03):
but you know, trying to make aphotograph of it later, I had
all these stories in the back ofmy head to try and tell through
the photograph, to sort of showlike why this sort of
insignificant looking space isactually so important.
Jennifer Hiatt (08:19):
So, as you've mentioned, you've you've done
smaller projects in other areas,but here you chose two
neighborhoods Mosswood inOakland, California, and
Prospect Heights in Brooklyn Notyour neighborhood, but your
home.
Why these two cities?
What drew you to them and whatlessons have you learned from
comparing these stories?
Because they ended up blendingso beautifully together?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (08:39):
So I should say I started doing the
kind of the work that becamethis book, started in Brooklyn,
spent about five, six yearsworking on that work, and then
had moved to California andmoved to Oakland, where I also
had some family connections aswell.
But I had known that I hadwanted it to be a comparative
work.
(09:00):
So eventually this work becamemy dissertation.
So I was always thinking aboutit both as creative practice and
as research practice, and Ithink that doing comparative
work is really an important wayof doing research.
I think one place can unlocksomething about the other if the
comparison makes sense.
Where I was looking for acomparison to New York, in some
(09:24):
ways there's a way in which,writing about New York, it can
seem like its own thing, likewell, whatever that story is,
it's so specific to that placeit can't be extrapolated to be
anything else, and I didn't wantthat for this work.
It seemed really important thatit was more about well, like
you know, the stories thatpeople have been telling me over
(09:46):
this time.
Yes, they seem very specific toBrooklyn and to New York, but
at the same time they also seemlike, I think, the work that
people are talking about theseplaces doing for them personally
as people, as they're buildingtheir sense of belonging,
building their sense ofcommunity.
That has to be happening inother places and what does that
look like somewhere else?
(10:06):
In thinking about a comparativework, oakland, I think, started
to really make sense for me, inpart because you know there's
sort of some parallels, justeven physically, there are sort
of second cities or boroughs toa kind of you know more famous
city across the, across thewater, from Manhattan or San
Francisco.
(10:27):
As I started to kind of lookinto the kind of histories of
both places and to see how youknow actually kind of the
histories of American urbanismpre and post war really impacted
both of those places.
Similar things impacted bothplaces but the kind of what it
looked like was different.
So you know, redlining andurban renewal and all of those
(10:49):
things played a big part in bothneighborhoods but the kind of
physical outcome was verydifferent.
Right, or like urban renewalwas not used as much, or
certainly was to some extent,for highway building in East
Coast cities, but verysignificantly was in West Coast
cities, you know those kinds ofthings maybe, but it was also,
(11:09):
you know, more used for housingon East Coast cities or kind of
bigger kinds of developmentshere, but I could see that the
impacts of those policies andthose histories really had
shaped both neighborhoods.
As I started to think about, youknow, not just comparing two
cities but comparing thesespecific two neighborhoods and I
was really interested in once Istarted to think about both,
(11:31):
comparing Passback Heights andMosswood.
They have histories of beingbetween almost like intermediary
spaces and redlining in someways that resulted in them being
maybe more diverse or kind ofpeople.
A lot of people in bothneighborhoods talked about kind
of mixedness.
A lot of people use that termas being important to them as
(11:53):
part of the identities of bothof these neighborhoods.
At the time I would say some ofthem have changed a bit, but
that piece started to make senselike well, then there's these
really interesting parallelsthat people themselves are
seeing from lived experience.
These are similar things thatwe value about.
I was hearing sort of similarthings being valued about both
neighborhoods and so as Istarted to do that work, it
(12:15):
started to see more and morethat they were a relevant
comparison.
Stephanie Rouse (12:20):
And with them being so relevant, easy to
compare, you really fluidlyflipped back and forth between
cities throughout the book,instead of having here's the
chapter on one city and thenwe're moving over here to this
city.
Why did you choose thisapproach to storytelling?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (12:44):
that it is much as I love both of
them and much as I love bothOakland and Brooklyn.
It's not really a book aboutthose places, but about the idea
behind what the places thatpeople took me to in both cities
or both neighborhoods, whatthose places do for those
individuals and how very sharedthose experiences are and were.
I certainly struggled a lotwith thinking about, well, how
does this book get organized andstructured?
(13:06):
How do they go back and forth?
Do we sort of tell the historyof one and then the history of
the other?
But it's not really a bookthat's like here's the history
of Oakland, here's the historyof Brooklyn and Oakland, right,
it's really about what are thethings that individuals in these
two neighborhoods are tellingme are significant to their
lives and their capacity to bein community with other people,
(13:30):
and so I wanted to start to beable to see comparisons across
the interviews and the walkswith people between two places.
And I would say also one thingthat's quite different between
two places is that you know morepeople drive in California.
Everybody in Brooklyn took meon a walk like an actual
physical walk.
Difference between two places isthat you know more people drive
in California, right, everybodyin Brooklyn took me on a walk
like an actual physical walk InOakland.
It varied, you know, sometimespeople would drive me around,
(13:51):
sometimes people would walk or acombination of those things,
and I also wanted to kind ofgrapple with that, those
different ways of being in space.
But to say, you know, peoplewere seeking out similar kinds
of things because they had ashared need that had to do more
with what many people kind ofneed from their communities.
I think one of the thingsthat's important about being
(14:13):
really specific more than beinggeneral is that I think actually
intense specificity helps otherpeople find themselves in the
story, rather than trying totell a story that is like
everything is everything youknow.
If sometimes you can findspecificity and something
similar to your own experiencein a highly specific and highly
(14:36):
human story in a way that maybeyou wouldn't have, if it kind of
stepped up one level, that itgot more general and so that
piece of kind of usingspecificity at this granular
experience level, that was veryimportant to me and so that felt
like, okay, well, you can putthose experiences from two
(14:56):
places in conversation with eachother and that actually could
maybe even open it up to morepeople to be able to see
themselves inside this book andinside these stories.
Jennifer Hiatt (15:06):
And if your grad program had an auspicious start
with 9-11, this book also hadits own sort of interesting
start through the COVID-19pandemic, which is ultimately a
time where we all were justdesperately also trying to
connect with people, and you canconnect to a lot of people
through the story that you tellhere.
So how did starting a bookwriting process on connecting
(15:30):
people during COVID shape howyou thought about the book?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (15:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's the thingthat helped me shape it into a
book.
So, you know, I'd been workingon this for like over two
decades by then and had beenthinking you know, how is this a
book?
How is it?
It had been an exhibition, ithad been my dissertation, there
had been many articles, but Ikept thinking I think this has a
(15:57):
bigger public audience.
I want to put the piecestogether so that it's not sort
of here's the piece that's anacademic article, here's the
piece that's the visual work byitself.
I wanted to be able to figureout how the whole project came
together and even how's this notjust the visual work by itself?
I wanted to be able to figureout how the whole project came
together and even how's this notjust the Brooklyn work on its
own or the Oakland work on itsown, but how are these things
(16:18):
really deeply in conversationwith each other?
I had finished my first bookthe year before, in 2019.
And that book had come out andI've been really thinking about
how we could use that book anduse this kind of to foster
conversations aboutaffordability and about housing
and about community development.
It's about a kind of 50-yearfight for affordable housing on
(16:41):
the Lower East Side.
How could I use all thesethings and kind of a creative
practice to get people talking?
And I really got into 2020thinking this is going to be the
year that we really use thiswork for really creative
conversations in person andreally, you know, coming to
grips with it in the place, andit's going to be transformative
and I'm so fired up for 2020.
(17:03):
Clearly, that did not happen asI was at home you know, the
stories from Brooklyn and thestories from Oakland have been
living in my head for so longand as I was home, you know,
with my family, with a youngchild, and feeling like what are
the parts of why this all feelsso wrong?
You know, like March and Aprilof 2020, how to take apart the
(17:25):
deep levels of sadness that youknow, I knew I was feeling and a
lot of people I knew werefeeling that it both obviously
this kind of threatened death,but also that it was so lonely,
and not just that you couldn't.
You know, yes, like I didn'tsee my parents, but I could
phone them and I could talk tothem, but I couldn't see just
(17:49):
the people in my neighborhood Istarted to see like, okay.
Well, actually I miss thesepeople whose names I don't know,
like this sort of chit chatthing.
I'm missing part of that.
And why is that?
And I started to think back toall the stories that people have
been telling me in Brooklyn andin Oakland and I thought I'd
thought for a long time thatthese people were incredibly
(18:09):
wise.
But then I was like, okay,their stories are helping me
unlock why this moment is sopainful.
And it felt like, okay, now Iknow kind of why and what's at
stake and why it matters to tellthese stories now, because it
seemed like they could helpexplain all of the parts of this
to everybody.
And so that was really whathelped me galvanize this into a
(18:32):
book, and because it feels likeyou know, when writing a book,
it does really matter that youknow what's at stake.
It's not just important thatyou think it's interesting, but
like why does it matter to theworld?
Jennifer Hiatt (18:43):
You know what's vital about it, and so that, I
think, helped me see that SinceCOVID, every time, like I, have
a small interaction with thebarista that hands me my coffee,
you think more about that andso, as I was reading your book,
I kept thinking about I think itwas in Brooklyn the grocery
store that makes sure you haveyour groceries like they'll
(19:05):
deliver to you.
You just have to know that, allof the little connections that
had to be built for a grocerystore to be willing and able to
do that, if that grocery storeopened during the pandemic, that
trust would have never beenbuilt and that would have never
occurred.
Stephanie Rouse (19:16):
So I kept thinking about all those small
interactions as reading throughA key element of your book is
the idea of placework, and notnecessarily a common term, at
least in the planning world thatwe use day to day.
Can you describe what you meanby doing place work?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (19:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the things inwriting the book and in putting
kind of all of this researchtogether.
I had a long time to kind oflook at these stories and these
interviews and to try and sortof parse them in different ways
to understand what it was thatthey were telling me.
They say a lot of differentthings, but the thing that it
started to be very clear,especially across both places,
was that it was a kind of workthat the places that people took
(20:00):
me to were doing and were doingfor them individually, and so I
felt like it was quiteimportant to be able to name
that right, because I thinksometimes when you spend a lot
of time working on the everyday,on one hand it can feel like
it's everything, it's so vital,it's so important, and then it
can feel like it is nothing andit's throw away and who cares?
(20:21):
And you know it's not the bigshiny thing and there's no
headline to it.
But then the back of your head,you're going, but actually no,
this is very, very important andkind of central to how people
actually feel about themselvesand how they feel connected or
disconnected to other people,and that is genuinely very
important to much larger things,and so I think one of the
(20:42):
things that I wanted to be ableto identify was what was it that
people were telling me about?
Why were they taking me tothese places?
And I think where that termcame from for me was that what
people talked about was thatthey were talking not just about
you know, I like this placebecause so and so works here,
but they were talking about howthis place and the people who
(21:03):
ran it or facilitated it, howthat place did important work
for them in their lives.
And so to kind of reframe it alittle bit as not just about
this kind of place or thisspecific place or what this
place looks like or its kind ofhistorical preservation value,
but the work that was happeninginside of it for people's lived
(21:25):
experience and how to name that.
And so for me, that's reallywhat that terminology of place
work is to try and be able tosee not just also kind of the
use value of something right.
So, like the supermarket, forexample yes, it sells food and
people need food and that'sobviously very important but
also in their willingness todeliver their you know, the way
(21:46):
that they greet people.
All of those things are allthese other intangible things
that really have nothing to dowith the fact that you walk out
of there with food, but that youalso walk out of there with a
sense of place, a sense thatyou're part of something larger,
that you care about whathappens to them and they care
about what happens to you.
All of that is much larger kindof work.
(22:09):
That is like society buildingwork.
Right, that helps us all seethat we are actually not these
atomized, separate little beings, but that we are connected and
what happens to one of us reallydoes matter to each other,
right To us to somebody else,and so that was part of what I
could see happening in theseplaces that people took me to.
(22:29):
So that kind of work of reallysociety building work, but that
happens and is experienced on anindividual level.
Jennifer Hiatt (22:39):
Oftentimes that work has enduring legacies, and
my favorite story out of thebook that you shared is actually
about an electronics storewhere the owner had
unfortunately passed away, buthis friends still regularly
gathered at the shop, and thisgathering was so essential that
death couldn't even displace it.
Can you share how that storycame to you and then how you
(23:00):
chose to portray it in the book?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (23:02):
So that was really one of the first
tours that I did in Brooklynwith my neighbor Neville, and I
had asked Neville he had livedin the neighborhood for a long
time and I'd asked him to if hewould, you know, be willing to
take me on a walk around theneighborhood.
And he said yeah, sure, okay,and so we walked around the
neighborhood and he was tellingme stories.
He'd been there for probably 30years and he'd raised his kids
(23:25):
there.
He had a lot of kind ofextended friendship
relationships and he took me toa lot of those places and he
talked about what it was like totry and start his own business.
He also had a kind ofelectronics repair business and
he talked about also what it waslike to be a West Indian
immigrant to New York andbuilding kind of relationships
(23:46):
and building connections.
Where did he find his peopleand like what was it that they
did?
He took me to a bike storebecause he was like, oh, we race
each other in Prospect Parkevery weekend and let me tell
you I always win Right.
So he would tell me all ofthose kinds of stories.
And then one of the last places,as we were sort of circling
back close to where his storewas.
(24:08):
He said, oh, this is a reallyimportant place to me and it's
kind of all boarded up at thefront, but it had all these
painted electronics brand namesacross the front.
And he said, oh, you know, wealways used to meet here, and on
Thursday afternoons, and youknow, at two, and oh, today's
Thursday, do you want to go in?
And I was like, oh, okay, sure,and so he knocked on the door
(24:33):
and we let him in and we wentback into this electronics store
that was like old and quiet anddark.
All the shelves were there,everything was there on the
shelves, but, you know, nobodywas in the store.
And right at the back, kind ofthere's an open space, kind of
behind, where the rest of theshelving stopped, you know so a
(24:53):
group of guys sitting around atable with a bunch of you know,
aluminum trays of food, andthey're like, oh, neville, come
on in.
And they were also like who isthis with you?
What are you doing?
And so kind of being invitedinto that was very, very special
to me and really something thatI valued.
Kind of being invited into thatwas very, very special to me and
really something that I valued,because I and one of the things
(25:14):
that I felt was so actuallyimportant about a lot of the
stories that people told me wasI felt like people were giving
me something of huge amount ofvalue, really something precious
, either in the things that theyshowed me or the ways that they
told me stories, and one of thethings that in making a book
and even thinking about how thebook looks and how their space
for their stories and space forthe photographs, that I wanted
(25:36):
to make something that was likerespectful of those stories,
that could hold them in a kindof beautiful way that would
really give them the respect andhonor that they deserve.
So I thought I would just reada little bit of the story that
he told me.
He said my friend who was inthe same electronics business
like me died and they closed thestore with all his stuff inside
(25:57):
.
He was a cricketer in the WestIndies and his friends who were
his old cricketers they alwaysused to meet every Thursday
around that table have theirdrink.
Two years ago he passed away.
They still meet every Thursdayafternoon, still the same way.
He went to the hospital for acheckup and they found something
and they operated and when theyoperated he died.
See, everything's still here.
The store hasn't been touched.
(26:17):
If I need anything, I'm shortof anything.
Instead of buying it, I get itfrom him, and I'll say that one
of the things that was so reallypowerful was that when I turned
this work into kind of a publicart and dialogue project just
the Brooklyn work in 2015, Imade a series of guidebooks from
some of the people's storiesand Neville's was one of them
(26:46):
and I put three of the placesand three of people's stories
about them and, as part of thatproject, I would lead these kind
of creative walking tours orparticipatory kind of walking
tours, so everyone on the tourwould get one of these
guidebooks.
So they were in charge of thatperson's story for the afternoon
, and then, when we got to aplace that was on that person's
tour, I would ask that person tosay oh, you're in charge of
Neville's stories.
Okay, well, we're standing infront of what used to be the
(27:08):
electronics store, and so Iwould ask them to hold up the
photograph of what it had lookedlike.
So by then, it was, you know,more than 10 years later, so
that place was long gone.
It's now a manicure, pedicureplace, and so for them to hold
up that image and to readNeville's story and kind of
voice Neville's words back inthe same place to other people,
(27:30):
really building kind of also asense of care and kind of
empathy for other people'sstories.
So it was important to me tokind of have these things also
be read aloud back into thespace.
And you know, reading thatparticular story aloud, you know
kind of physically in front ofthat place, was always one of my
favorite ones.
Stephanie Rouse (27:48):
I also really love that story because I think
it shows just how important itis to do this kind of work,
because, as someone that's justwalking by in the street doing
an inventory, you might look ata building that's all boarded up
and say this is a perfectredevelopment opportunity, but
not understand what an importantspace it is for this group of
individuals that meets thereregularly and maintains their
community in that way.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Vian (28:09):
Exactly , and I think you know it's
difficult, where you can't keepeverything kind of fixed in
amber, Everything can't juststay, but it does help unlock,
like well, how do you then, evenif this space becomes something
else, how do you kind ofcontinue to make space for their
gathering?
What does that look like?
How do we really value thesethings that maybe don't have a
(28:31):
name or, you know, kind of aremore informal, but they're doing
this very, very importantlarger place work that helps us
all build this sense of societyand community and sense of
belonging and that that is sovital to kind of the larger
project of, like you know, beinghuman.
How do we value those things?
Jennifer Hiatt (28:51):
We're having a bit of a theme on Booked On
Planning.
We've had a run of gentrifyingbooks overall.
Seeing it laid out in aboutfour or five books that we've
read in a pretty short amount oftime actually really has pulled
out to me that you know,buildings we should preserve as
much as we can but, like you say, you can't lock everything in
amber.
But the real problem behind theredevelopment work often is
(29:13):
that we don't think about thosespaces.
How do we protect an area forsomebody to hang out with their
friends Thursday at two in thenew neighborhood that's also
being built?
Because you have to balance out.
You know new people do come inneighborhoods, turn over, but
how do you protect that Thursdayat two situation?
(29:36):
It's very interesting and hardto kind of work through.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (29:41):
Yeah, I think that's such an important
point and I think it's one ofthe you know kind of in that
idea of like what, how do westart to better define what
community preservation lookslike, so that you know it's not
only focused on physical space,but that we look at, kind of you
know, what is the work thatthese places were doing or the
things that they're enabling?
How do we A look closely enoughto understand what is happening
(30:06):
and then also to think about,well, why is it important to
preserve those spaces forpeople's relationship building
to happen?
And then what does it look liketo actually genuinely keep, to
really keep that preservation inmind, right?
What does that look like to dothat work and to really put
value on that, to say like thisis something that is essential.
(30:27):
It's not a kind of well, thingschange and it's nice that you
had that for as long as itlasted.
Like that Do we shift thatmindset and I think that becomes
a really important piece ofdoing this work.
Stephanie Rouse (30:39):
Doing placework is really, I think, integral to
thriving, healthy communities.
What is the loss of placeworkdue to communities?
How does it damage them?
Gabrielle Bendine (30:48):
Unfortunately , I kind of think we're living
in that world right now.
I mean, I genuinely think that,on one hand, you know, this is
not something that just happened, it's been happening for quite
a while, and so the both theatomizing of people into kind of
very much more individualisticsorts of spaces, or really like
individual spaces, or digitalspace, or these like more and
(31:11):
more and more highly selectedspaces, or only very private
spaces Part of that, I think, iswhat we you know it was very
extreme during COVID, or thatyou could see like well, I'm not
with strangers, but I thinksome of those things have been
happening for quite a while,either between kind of the
general sort of pull back into amore private life as Americans,
(31:32):
but also, you know, as you say,around gentrification, the ways
in which kind of these spacesin which people doing nothing or
spending very little, thosespaces have been at risk for a
long time and there's been areal loss of them over time.
Like we kind of really needplaces where people can just be
and sort of do nothingproductive, while understanding
(31:53):
that that does something veryproductive for a larger sense of
society.
But I think that that's part oflike in losing those spaces that
do this place work, wherepeople feel a sense of belonging
, where people build their likecapacity, they build their
muscle to talk to strangers andnegotiate with people they don't
know, and see other people asreal.
(32:14):
I think you end up withsocieties where people are
increasingly less able to dothat and so other people's
problems and the impact on otherpeople's lives seems less real,
and that has huge impacts onour democracy, right.
It has huge impacts on the waythat we see our society.
It has huge impacts on thesevery, very big things in terms
(32:35):
of you know, what does it looklike for real equity across this
country?
I feel like, in some ways, thatthe loss of these really small
places or these kinds of ways ofwhere police work happens, that
that's one of the things thatcontributes to that and that
seems incredibly dangerous.
Jennifer Hiatt (32:56):
In the book you say that housing considerations
in the US are about physicalcapital, not about creating that
stability and humane place tolive and play.
So how can we start shiftingour perspective in the US?
You know we've been talking alot about housing too, and how
maybe we should think about itas infrastructure, like a road,
as opposed to an investmentopportunity.
(33:18):
But what are your thoughts onthis?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (33:21):
Yeah, I mean it is really interesting,
I think one of the things thatI think about.
I mean I think about the workthat I did on Lower East Side
right, which was essentiallyabout a 50 year fight for
affordable housing and a failedurban renewal site which to some
extent succeeded but also kindof came out with a fairly
mediocre outcome.
But it took that much work andthat much of people's lives to
(33:44):
come up with something that isokay, right, and just to see how
many things really work againstpeople's interests and people's
capacity for building, you know, longevity in place,
affordability in place, all ofthose things to see all the many
things that we're reallyfighting against people.
So it feels like shifting theway that we think about that is
(34:05):
very, very important.
You know, kind of within theUnited States as a country I
think we're fairly bad atbuilding long-term affordable
housing that we see that as kindof like a nice to have or
something that you know is kindof almost like a gift rather
than something that's like well,having stability is something
(34:25):
that is beneficial to everybody,right, and I think that shift
to say where everyone is stable,then that makes all of us more
stable and to understand thatall of us are impacted by that,
like we want everyone to be instable housing.
That would be a much betterworld for everybody concerned.
So I think that's a big pieceof it to kind of start to think
(34:46):
that way and to start to thinkabout that way that we are all
very deeply interconnected andit feels like a kind of
throwaway kind of comment, butit really is a mindset shift
that I think is required.
Many of the places that peopletook me to on these tours are
small businesses, right, andsmall businesses themselves are
really at risk, as much asaffordable housing is at risk.
(35:08):
You know, small businesses areoften at risk, right, and so
what are the things that we doto support small businesses?
All of those kinds of things aremaybe more tactical kinds of
decisions that we could bemaking to say, yeah, we value
longevity in place, we see theplace work that you do, right,
you sell groceries, but you alsodo all these other things for
(35:29):
this community, right, and doingthat is a huge value.
Both of those two things are ahuge value.
So being able to see that aspart of the way that we think
about what preservation lookslike, I think becomes really
important.
But I do think the biggestthing is like how do we start to
really see each other right, tosee each other as what happens
to you matters to me.
(35:49):
Right, not in a like becauseI'm so nice sort of way I mean
it would be great if that washow we felt about it but even in
a selfish way, like, genuinely,your lack of rights of
healthcare, of housing thatgenuinely hurts me too, like
that.
To be able to see that and makethat visible, I think, becomes
really important for us as acountry.
Stephanie Rouse (36:12):
And one of your sections in the book discusses
small talk and how it can helpcreate community.
Can you explain how this works?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (36:20):
One of the things that people talk to
me a lot about both was aboutkind of the chit chat that
happens with other people.
As I started to try and figureout how to organize this book,
one of the things I actually didwant to pull up was that one of
the things that came out frompeople's stories was almost like
had nothing to do with otherpeople.
It was like really aboutthemselves, how they were, like
finding themselves in public,that their sense of self and who
(36:43):
they are and even their ethosand the world was being worked
out in public.
But it was a very private thing.
So the book is organized aroundboth the kind of like what it
does for an individual and whatit does for a community.
That sort of structure issomething that's fairly new for
me in terms of looking at thiswork.
So the first chunk is reallyabout that thing of like what is
(37:04):
it to build your sense of self,but in public, like that we
need to figure ourselves out,not in private but in public,
navigate with other people and Ithink the small talk thing it
does, sort of both things thatpeople sort of sometimes figure
out how to see who they are bythe chit chat with somebody else
(37:25):
.
But then there's also this kindof I talk about it as like this
kind of casual talk.
But then there's sort of alsothis maybe longer term talk,
right, some of it is just how'sthe weather?
Kind of talk.
Is actually this reallyhumanity affirming sense that we
are both here in the same placetogether?
Right, you and me we're hereright now.
(37:47):
We're experiencing this wholething.
Whatever it is that's happeningright now, this is real and
we're experiencing that togetherand that work seems very, very
important.
Like it's the chit chat thatdoes that.
Right, you didn't say anythingof any meaning, like the words
themselves were not meaningful,but the what work it did for
those two people is verymeaningful.
(38:08):
And similarly, I think there'sthe you know, one of the my tour
guides talks about it astalking trash right.
Like that, that thing is animportant way of kind of working
out and grappling throughdifferent life experiences, but
through humor and by sense of akind of shared.
There's some sort of sense ofshared safety right In being
(38:32):
able to engage in that together.
There's something by doing thatyou explore all kinds of things
in this kind of potentiallyeven slightly trans regressive
way, but that it's safe to dothat right.
Like that's something that'sreally valuable.
A lot of times it requires aperson who maybe runs a
restaurant or whatever it is andkind of I talk about it as
people who kind of facilitateplace work in a place.
(38:54):
Like there's usually somebodywho kind of holds it.
That makes it okay to do thatin that space.
I really value those people too.
Like that's really special workthat people do Not everybody
can or does do that.
So I think there's that pieceof it.
But I also think there's thispiece in Oakland.
I remember Tualde talking to me.
(39:14):
He took me to a donut shop andhe said the thing that was
important to us about the donutshop was that he said well, you
know, when I was newlyimmigrated to the US from
Eritrea, that this was wherepeople who were fairly new
immigrants would meet.
And you know, eventually westarted to help organize for
(39:35):
independence thousands of milesaway.
But what we did in this placewas just sort of chit chat and
become friends, just to be ableto have a place where you could
sort of sit and be and chit chatwith people and to think about
the fact that sort of thiscasual talk wasn't like they
were doing anything important,but it was a kind of space to be
(39:56):
it was a donut shop, right,nothing big and exciting about
it but they but also kind of abenign neglect where the donut
shop was like fine, sit there,whatever, it's fine that it
could allow through this reallycasual talk, something that had
huge impact later on.
So this kind of casual chitchat can build to the kinds of
(40:17):
trust that you then need tobuild a political movement right
that those sorts of thingsdon't happen without this kind
of baseline of interpersonaltrust and that very often it's
these kinds of interstitial orvery everyday kind of spaces
where that happens.
And some of that is throughthat kind of casual chit chat
(40:38):
stuff.
Jennifer Hiatt (40:40):
The final lines of the book really struck me.
It's if we want to be human, weneed place work.
Without it, we can't get thecities we need.
I know we've covered a lot ofwhat place work is and why it's
important.
But really importantly like,how do we start embracing the
humanity needed to do the placework?
How do we start talking to eachother again?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (41:00):
That's a great question.
I think it is maybe seeking outthose places.
I mean, I do think in thisparticular moment, maybe it
requires real effort to reallyseek those places out and to
sort of put oneself out, to tryand be in places where there are
strangers and like to be inconversation with other people.
(41:21):
And I think people have gotteninto these habits, you know,
either because online shoppingis easy or because people have
lots of hangovers from COVID of,like what you kind of got out
of the habit of doing in personand maybe now you do online,
right, or a variety of thingsthat kind of slowly have chipped
away at us.
(41:42):
And I think in some ways, it'slike what does it look like for
each of us to really try to pushourselves back into that, to
try and do more of that?
And what does it look like tosay, okay, you know, I'm going
to recognize that talking withpeople I don't know is actually
really important and valuable,and in doing that, I think
people will really feel like, oh, and also I feel so much better
(42:04):
afterwards.
Right, it will have kind of akind of knock on effect where
people feel like, oh, actually Iwant to do that again.
So I think there's that pieceof the kind of very individual
thing of like you know whatpeople could do that way, but I
do also think it's kind of aninsistence and a pushback on AI
as one thing, or this idea thata technocratic solution will be
(42:27):
the thing that saves us all, andI think a real pushback on that
is very, very necessary, right,but that is not going to be
what saves us.
That's not going to be whathelps us build a stronger
society.
It will be people engaging witheach other and people
practicing the capacity to likelisten to each other and talk to
each other, and that thing ofrealizing that you need to be
(42:51):
able to practice.
I think one of the things Ithink a lot about with this
whole book and a lot of thestories people told me was that,
you know, a lot of what I couldsee happening was that people
were talking about very lowstakes kinds of engagements with
other people chit chat aboutthe weather or whatever it is,
or you help somebody.
It's a pretty low stakes kindof engagement.
(43:13):
But if we are not practiced atdoing those things, we have
genuinely very large things thatwe all need to be facing right
Thinking about democracy,thinking about climate change.
How do we face those thingsthat really matter to kind of
the futures of our society likethat are genuinely, you know,
life threatening.
We have to have low stakesmoments of practice, because
(43:37):
when the stakes get higher andhigher, if you haven't kind of
done that work, it's going to bevery, very hard.
And I think doing thatpracticing of building capacity
to listen and building capacityto talk which seems so basic but
I think is genuinely necessary,you know, is really a big part
of that.
Stephanie Rouse (43:57):
And as this is booked on planning, in addition
to your book, which we recommendall of our readers check out,
what other books would yourecommend?
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (44:04):
Oh my gosh, there's so, so many, but I
was thinking about three andkind of understanding all of
this that it's quite importantto think about both nonfiction
and fiction and also, you know,actually kind of creative
practice.
So one book that really hasbeen so important, a touchstone
for me and certainly for the waythat I even started to really
(44:24):
think about why Oakland could be, you know, kind of to
understand and unlock some ofthe things about that city, is
called American Babylon, raceand Class in Postwar Oakland
Amazing book by Robert Self.
Highly recommend it.
So more on the more academicplanning, history analysis of
cities, really brilliantanalysis of how inner cities and
(44:49):
suburban development are nottwo separate subjects but are
really deeply interlinked and wehave to see those two together.
Another book that I totallydifferent world would recommend,
that it's also really been atouchstone for me for many
reasons, but also even justaround what it is to walk with
somebody else and to see a place, is a book called Palestinian
(45:10):
Walks by Raja Shahadeh,brilliant book of essays about
his experience walking inPalestine over a many year
period.
His personal stories, hisconnections to place.
All of those things are like ahuge part, I think again, of
like well, what does it looklike to make a place feel real
(45:31):
and to really understand thekind of what's at stake there?
Incredibly beautiful book, oneof my very favorites.
And then a third book is a bookI just finished this morning.
Actually I thought it was sofantastic.
And also again she has a littleacknowledgement and talks about
it as place-centric fiction andI was like, yes, that is
excellent.
(45:51):
It is a book called the Road toDalton by Shannon Bowring.
It's a fictional story of arural North Maine town.
Story of a rural North Mainetown.
Just brilliant depiction ofpeople's interactions with each
other, things that are said andunsaid, but also the way that
(46:12):
place really helps shape thesestories and people's connection.
Stephanie Rouse (46:14):
And disconnection with each other.
We always love it when ourauthors finally give us some
fiction books, because we dolove to read nonfiction, what
our podcast is based on but wealso love a good fiction book
too.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (46:24):
It's a great book and I was so mad I
didn't buy the sequel when Ibought it.
So I mean I was really ready tomove on to the next one.
Jennifer Hiatt (46:32):
I was just gonna say it looks like there's more
than one, so that's exciting.
Love a sequel.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (46:38):
Part of why I was interested in being
part of that book, but alsoeven in kind of thinking about
the specificity of the ways thatI was thinking about Oakland
and Brooklyn, and one of thethings that's been so valuable
to me in talking with people hasbeen to say somebody said to me
well, your book's called theCities we Need.
Does that mean that you don'tlike town?
And I was like, no, that's notwhat I meant.
(47:00):
But because I think thatthere's this thing as to say
this need, this need for place.
Work really cuts across loopedexperience.
It cuts across the kinds of bigcities and smaller towns that
we live in and to say that is ahuman need.
How do we see that and how dowe see similarities across rural
and urban spaces, that thosethings become so necessary, and
(47:23):
how do we see that as a sharedkind of question around planning
?
Stephanie Rouse (47:27):
And I think that'll help break down some of
the silos that we're in of why Idon't relate to you, because
I'm rural, you're urban.
We don't have anything incommon.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (47:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Stephanie Rouse (47:38):
Well, gabrielle , thank you so much for joining
us to talk about your book theCities.
We Need Essential Stories ofEveryday Places.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani (47:46):
Thanks so much for having me.
It was wonderful talking withyou both.
Jennifer Hiatt (47:50):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
author Gabrielle Bendian-Rivianion her book the Cities we Need
Essential Stories of EverydayPlaces.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at MIT
Press, or click the link in theshow notes to take you directly
to our affiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts and please rate, reviewand share the show.
Thank you so much for listeningand we'll talk to you next time
(48:10):
on Booked, on Planning, Thankyou.
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