Blog Post #1 by Grecia White
By Grecia White
July 19, 2021
Reflecting on your specific focus areas of climate resilience, economic development, and transportation, how has the concept of spatial justice informed your work?
And, how is your work evolving as you learn more about the intersectionality of policy and design/physical form of a place?
This past year and a half I have lived without a car in the Boston region, experiencing the city as a woman of color who can walk and speak English, and yet be left with many of her needs unmet by the current transportation system.
The more I got into transportation advocacy and research the more I started to notice a gap between the things I was experiencing on a day to day basis and the research I was coming across. This of course has been confusing and frustrating.
This research project on bus stops, headway variability and perceived safety is an attempt to add to the body of research focusing on gender and transportation, which is currently small and I feel has a long way to go. I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to focus on a project of my own design, but I also can’t help but wonder if closing the research gap will also translate to closing the gap between research and policy changes. How much impact will my research really have? I understand that oftentimes more research doesn’t always serve the purpose to inform policy makers in a way that sparks action and helps drive the needed policy changes.
There's multiple ways citizens can affect their built environment and academia is just one of them and the one I’m most familiar with. I’ve been grappling with the idea of studying vs doing. I could study gender and transportation all my life, produce many papers, but maybe not see much change in how gender is considered in the built environment. This thought worries me since my end goal is not to study the problem, but to chip away at the problem and contribute toward improving it.
I’ve also been thinking back on a lecture I listened in on at the CNU conference about women who find buildings in areas they see potential in, purchase them and flip them into apartments, businesses or mixed use buildings. Of course this wasn’t the first time I had heard about house flipping, but it was the first time I had heard it from a group of women who were young like me and who applied an urban revitalization lens.
This idea seems so exciting to me and it has opened my mind to the possibility of trying it out for myself. This would mean making the jump from studying the problem to hyper focusing my energy on a certain place and literally change the built environment through my own doing.
Also going through my mind is a trip I took recently to my hometown of Tijuana, Mexico, where I learned all about the process my cousin went through to purchase a plot of land and build his own house with the help of family and friends. It was incredible to see photos of the wood floor he installed, the concrete being poured to build out the second floor, and the lime and orange trees he had planted in his front yard.
After expressing an interest in one day purchasing property nearby, my aunt told me about a friend of hers who was selling lots near the beach, just a few miles from where most of my family lives. My first thought was to imagine what it would be like to build my own house on the plot, just like how my cousin had done. But after coming back to Boston and letting things marinate in my head a bit, I began to wonder what it could be like to get into the real estate business full time in Tijuana and build mixed use buildings along the potential light rail corridor project. How amazing would it be to pursue something like this and have a hand in creating gender sensitive environments and in my hometown of all places - a place where gender violence is still too prominent and women’s needs as well as LGBTQ+ needs are not always taken into account.
The idea is big, and I would be starting out from zero, not knowing anyone in the real estate world or having any experience in the field. But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes to not try.