3. In this case, and risking sounding incredibly naïve: true agency
begins by changing the way we think. For me, the essential question
is, how do we dismantle concepts that have become clichés? For
instance, what do we mean by "community," "density," "affordability,"
even "housing"? Density is not just an amount of units or people per
acre, as all our institutions have defined it. What if we were to
redefine density based on the amount of social exchanges that take
place per acre? There is a similar problem with defining "mixed use,"
which we conventionally think of as people living above retail
spaces. But it can be more than that. What about imagining it as
social support systems connected to housing? for example? From there,
perhaps we can begin to imagine social services in exchange for rent.
In essence, I am interested in a project of intervention into the
rigidity of institutional thinking-how to rethink the established
political and economic procedures that our institutions have
predetermined as prerequisites to build a city.
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