The Columbia School of International and Public Affairs has received backlash for the past month over a new course they offer titled “Co-Designing Smart Cities.”
Twitter users in Harlem were vocal about their thoughts on the matter when user @AchmatX tweeted on Sept. 16th, “Did you know that @Columbia has a policy class in which students are partnering with @NYCMayorsOffice to “redesign” Harlem?”
The tweet went viral with 4,124 retweets and 10.5K likes. Achmat went on to tweet, “I forgot to mention that neither the professor or students have a background in social work, etc. It’s a bunch of rich kids walking around Harlem drafting policy to create a neighborhood that @Columbia students will feel safe and welcomed in.”
The new course is taught by Erika Williams and has no specific connection to the Mayor’s office, explicitly stated in the course description.
“Smart cities recognize the centrality of technology and information to improve their processes by connecting people, data, and things,” the course description states. “This is a practical course in which teams of students identify challenges that communities in select NUC Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) are facing, and co-design solutions to address these challenges with smart city innovations.”
While many Twitter users are infuriated about the course, some are just as angry but not at all surprised – like Harlem resident June Moses, who has lived in the community since 1996.
“They’ve done this type of thing so many times in my lifetime. I’m 53 – you know how many times I’ve seen these kind of stupid schemes? At least this time we know about it,” said Moses.
Moses is an activist and is a part of the West 135th Street Apartments Tenants, inc. When she moved here in 1996, she said things looked “a lot different from the way they do now.” Even so, Moses doesn’t seem surprised by the classes’ implication that the community needs to be ‘re-designed.’
“Stop talking to residents like we don’t get,” said Moses. “Yeah, I got it. My people who been here 40 years didn’t have a place in your space. Now you’ve got kids walking around from an elite school getting ready to once again dictate how we live.”
Moses’ issue doesn’t lie with the fact that it’s students ‘dictating’ how the community lives – her issue lies with the fact that many of these students aren’t from the area and have not lived the same experiences as many people in the community have.
“Your experience of living in New York City is not what a New Yorkers’ experience is in living in New York City. It never will be that,” said Moses.
“Are these kids poor?” Moses asked. “And what I mean by poor – experiencing poor as an adult, because we have a lot of adults who, yes, you grew up in housing, you grew up on section eight, but your parents did that paperwork.”
Moses isn’t the only NYC resident upset with the class. Ryan is a tenant organizer in Inwood that works for The United Front Against Displacement (UFAD). Ryan and his team are also upset with Columbia’s “gentrification” of the surrounding neighborhoods.
Ryan declined to give his last name out of fear of retaliation for speaking out against Columbia.
“I don’t live in Harlem, but I’ve organized there,” said Ryan. “Columbia not only has not bothered to engage these community members on this issue, they have blatantly disregarded them for decades.”
The UFAD released a statement on Twitter on Sept. 23 where they openly condemned the class and tagged Columbia in the post.
“The United Front Against Displacement is deeply disturbed to hear about the ‘Co-Designing Smart Cities’ course which Columbia University is running in conjunction with the historically corrupt and incompetent Erica Adams Mayoral Administration,” the statement read.
“In typical arrogant fashion, Columbia imagines that they have a free hand to remake Harlem and the city in their own image,” the statement continued.
While the course description has no mention of working with the Mayor, many people in the community still believe that he has a responsibility to put a stop to it.
“The Mayor’s office is not a partner in this course,” said a spokesperson for the Mayor’s office.
This was further confirmed by a statement provided by a Columbia University spokesperson.
“Columbia SIPA is committed to supporting local community organizations, and students at SIPA have been engaging with Harlem community organizations for decades,” the statement began.
“We think this direct engagement is mutually beneficial to both our students and the Harlem community,” the statement continued. Part of this engagement includes a course, Co-Designing Smart Cities, in which students work with the 125th Street Business Improvement District to research challenges identified by community members, identify potential strategies to help address these challenges, and suggest recommendations to stakeholders as part of the educational process.”
But does that make things better? Do the community members believe it? No, not really.
“Columbia is presently scrambling to do PR damage control and using wordplay to say that technically this course is not exactly what people think it is,” said Ryan. “But the outrage is not about the exact specificities, but rather about the arrogance and hubris of Columbia University, which is working to redesign Harlem in its image.”
“Y’all wanna play this little who struck John Game? Fine. Whatever you do and you get your little college credit, fine. It better not affect my life. Cause I don’t know you,” said Moses”
“You don’t know how I live,” said Moses. “You don’t know what the real needs are. And if one more person says the words, ‘meet them where they are, and then I watch their actions and they’re not even bending their back to get to where someone is… I’m gonna need those people to gimme a dollar.”
When reaching out to the professor of the class in order to get her perspective, no comment or statement was received.
“Redesigned? No,” said Ryan. “Could various buildings use repairs? Yes of course. Is there a need for improvements, sure. But this is a question of how development and construction should be carried out. Does it benefit the few, the powerful, the wealthy institutions like Columbia? Or is it done by the people and for the people?