Making Policy Public (MPP) is one of CUP’s programs: a series of fold-out posters that use graphic and information design to explore complex public policy issues. Collaborations between graphic designers and community advocates are commissioned by CUP through a juried process. The series aims to make information on public policy truly public: accessible, meaningful, and shared. CUP has recently issued the call for proposals for the next round of MPP’s. You can download it here.

This is the second Making Policy Public process narrative we’ve featured on Urban Omnibus; check out the first one here. Below, Glen shares his recollections of the process of making the Predatory Equity Survival Guide.

But first, CUP provides some context:

In the spring of 2008, we put out a request for proposals to advocacy groups to participate in Making Policy Public (MPP). One of the first submissions we received was from Amy Chan, a tenant organizer at Tenants and Neighbors (T&N). Her proposal was about a recently discovered but at the time almost totally unreported phenomenon, risky private equity investments in New York City’s housing stock. When the jury met in the early summer, the proposal was an immediate standout. The issues were complex, misunderstood, and it seemed like an MPP poster could be a vital part of an organizing and education campaign. That summer 2008, we posted the four policy briefs that the jury selected and issued a call for designers who were interested in collaborating with these advocates to create fold-out posters addressing public policy concerns. Again, Glen Cummings of MTWTF sent in a standout submission. At 2×4, prior to founding MTWTF, Glen had produced a lot of complicated infographics that maintained a sense of playfulness. The jury felt that the predatory equity issue was so complicated that having an experienced designer like Glen would be critical to making the project succeed. Glen worked with Amy of T&N and Dina Levy of Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) to battle the predatory equity takeover of affordable housing in New York City.

And now, here’s Glen in his own words, images and – crucially – in the teams’ strong and effective word-image relationships:

I’ve been interested in interdisciplinary collaborations since around 2001, seven years before I started MTWTF, and I always try to facilitate them whenever possible. I was excited to be invited to collaborate as part of Making Policy Public.

What I liked about the MPP series was its inherent multidisciplinary focus, and the chance it offered to learn about the subject and then actually create an impact.

Meeting
I met Rosten Woo and John Mangin of CUP as well as the team of advocates I was going to be working with: Dina Levy from UHAB and Amy Chan from T&N, at CUP’s offices in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

Dina and Amy told us all about their recent research, and gave us printouts of the slideshows and handouts they had developed for their presentations. They had a deep knowledge of the history, legal aspects and current state of NYC subsidized housing that they needed to transfer to CUP and myself before we could begin. I introduced myself by showing a range of related design projects and describing why each was organized the way it was, and looked the way it did. Although no two projects are the same, showing related solutions can jumpstart a discussion about project’s structure and tone: Rosten and John presented the collaborations’ structure, which they had established. They had already begun setting up a schedule and a basecamp site for the project, taking on the organizational responsibilities that normally are the designer’s.

Underway
At out first working meeting, Dina and Amy staged a teach-in and brought us all up to speed on the finer points of predatory equity. To understand predatory equity we needed to know aspects of NYC housing law, finance, and federal banking regulations. Their knowledge was endless but because Dina and Amy were experts, I knew I’d be able to focus on the big picture knowing they would let me know if I was off track.

Here’s what I learned: predatory equity is when speculators aggressively buy up buildings that are covered by government programs that keep rents affordable. They evict tenants, convert the apartments into market-rate rentals or condos, and then resell the building for a big profit.

That’s only half of the problem. Most of these deals were made during the real estate boom for way too much money. The loans were huge and unsustainable. If the speculators can’t evict the tenants and sell the building quickly they default on their mortgages, putting tenants’ homes at risk, and leaving banks, insurance companies, and the federal government holding all the debt. It is a second sub-prime crisis ready to happen.

Just as we were beginning our collaboration, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a predatory equity building in the Bronx widely recognized as the birthplace of hip-hop, was being overleveraged by a predatory developer.

This was not only a case of people potentially losing their homes; but also of New York City losing its heritage and culture. The threats are social and cultural as well as economic.

Through their work helping tenants organize and speaking to lawmakers and media sources, Dina and Amy knew that the poster would have to address two different audiences: 1) Tenants who wanted to know how the law and predatory equity practices could directly affect them and 2) decision-makers who would need inside information to take action. They imagined the publication’s goal was to mobilize tenants in affected and at-risk buildings and to convince politicians and banks to recognize the problem and take immediate action. We agreed finding a way to visually explain predatory equity was the best place to start.

Comic by Chris Ware. Used without permission.

Progress?
At the start of our next meeting I presented some visual material for discussion. I hoped this discussion would help us decide how the booklets’ content would be organized, and that would help us determine what visual language would work best.  For example, if the information could be organized as a story, a narrative explanation, a comic strip format would work.

images from “Graphis Diagrams 1970”

If we thought that decision-makers would respond to numerical data we could create a vivid set of information graphics.

Of course it’s a porous situation. You could relate a set of facts and figure as a narrative, and you could relate narrative as a set of information graphics, but you have to start somewhere. It’s a reciprocal relationship between the information and the design. You move back and forth between saying “What format can deliver this information?” and “What information can be be delivered by this format?”

Rosten felt the tenants would respond best to something direct like a comic strip. Amy and Dina though the decision makers would respond best to words, but might be turned off by the tone of a comic strip. It seemed that combination of strong main text and a serious comic-strip could work.

I also had created a dozen rough sketches for the project. The idea was not to pick a final direction, but just to make visuals part of the discussion as early as possible. We looked at the sketches and discussed how the graphics worked and which ones were communicating  better than others.

Sketch no. 1 uses a simple narrative format to personify the different actors and institutions involved in predatory equity. It proposes two stories: why predatory equity is bad for tenants; and why predatory equity is bad for banks, the federal government and the general public, all in an extremely brief 12 frames.

Sketch no. 2 compare the usual flow of money between landlord, tenants and banks in an affordable housing scenario with the flow in a predatory equity scenario.

Sketch no. 3 addresses both sides of the situation through an imagined dialogue. The back features a poster.

Sketch no. 4 explains predatory equity then provides message templates to inform neighbors, local government, banks, and the news media about the impending crisis.

Dina and Amy thought the sequential images and iconic characters really helped explain some of the technical parts of the story, but that that a cartoony feeling would alienate the decision-makers who would receive the publication.

We also agreed that our goals weren’t ambitious enough. In addition to explaining the situation, we had to propose specific solutions, and convince people to act, if anything was going to get done. We moved forward without discounting anything. We knew we’d have several sections- an introduction, an explanation and a call to action- and that each section would address two audiences: one liking visual narratives one liking textual facts.

Crash
In October Dina and Amy told us the predatory equity situation was shifting. We’d been working on a poster to stop predatory equity, but the financial crisis seemed to be changing the nature of the challenge. This was the absolute trough of the financial crisis hysteria. Everybody thought the world was ending.

Dina and Amy asked that we pause for a month until they found out how the government would respond to the crisis and how that would affect predatory equity situation.

A month or so later our mission was clearer.

The predatory equity mortgages were like giant versions of the single-family mortgages that had crashed the economy and trashed the banking system.

The federal government had committed to bailing out the banks, and those bail-outs meant the federal government would have some leverage to tell banks what to do, and perhaps to keep them from foreclosing on at-risk buildings.

Dina and Amy had been working with a coalition of housing experts and federal elected officials on a plan to save buildings at imminent risk of foreclosure.

So now we would also need to promote viable short- and long-term solutions and tell all parties how best to proceed.

The short term solutions had to do with saving buildings that were already overleveraged. How could these buildings be saved from foreclosure? with loan modifications and a strategy we called “preservation short sales.” (Download the PDF at the end of this article if you want to get more details). With loan modifications, the federal government would press banks to modify loans to allow speculators to continue paying their mortgages and providing services. In a preservation short sale, the federal government would offer tax incentives for speculators to sell the buildings at a loss to responsible owners. The key goal in both scenarios was to keep the buildings affordable for current tenants.

Long-term solutions would involve new loan standards for banks that would dry up money for huge predatory equity deals.

The political and financial viability of these solutions kept shifting as Dina and Amy met with the various coalitions and elected officials so we had to develop language and a visual design that was general enough to be accurate in 6 months, but specific enough to deliver real information.

Establishing The Design
The publication design was developed around the outline below. Each section would provide a terse executive summary flanked by an illustrated narrative that either clarified the text or gave further information. This design established how much space was allotted to each part, how much text would fit, and what it would look like.

The front is divided into four panels that act as a booklet. The acts as a poster, so I consider that one panel as well.

Panel 1 cover and back cover
Panel 2 explains predatory equity
Panel 3 explains the short term problem and solutions
Panel 4 explains the long-term problem and solutions
Panel 5 the poster, shows solidarity and tells how to engage the situation

The pamphlet had to be inviting enough to suck a reader in but also contain a good amount of density. We wanted the cover to stand out on an elected official’s desk and really look nothing like something you’d expect a “policy brief” to look like.

The first spread breaks down the basics of the problem in a simple précis and cartoon narrative. But, when you open the gatefold, you are hit with a great deal of information. We thought the seriousness of the content here offset the playfulness of the graphics, hopefully hitting that space where it can be both inviting and taken seriously.

The other audience for the publication is of course tenants and tenant organizers. Instead of using the poster surface to contain a complicated diagram, we decided to keep it simple and graphic: something that could be read from 40 feet or more. (as in a window on a 2nd story. The poster would help create a visual “identity” for the issue.)

Development
Next Dina and Amy refined the language, finding the right balance of specificity and crafting it to fit in the allotted spaces, while Rosten, John and I worked together to finish the narrative graphics.

Rosten, John and I worked on the narrative graphics developing both the content and visual approach for each panel, and trying to find the right balance of clarity and personality for each illustration. You can see the details in various stages of completion above.

My favorite detail, and I believe John’s favorite too, is the “Eye of Providence” put in place to re-regulate banks.  We had a long discussion about whether or not we were somehow either promoting the freemasons with the ominous eye, or perhaps making the government appear too big brother-ish.

Each additional information panel was built up as an argument. This panel illustrates how federal underwriting standards could prevent future predatory equity deals.

All the panels fit together like this, because they are eventually printed on one side of a sheet.

At the last minute to we added a crowd at the bottom of the cover and poster that protests particular predatory equity speculators. The idea was to introduce a second level of information here to match the two levels throughout.

The “snake squeezing two towers to form a dollar glyph” remained the same throughout the process, but it shifted color several times, starting out red (too weird?), moving to bright green (too friendly?) and eventually becoming black (nice and scary).

Rosten and I were both particularly interested in how the colors conveyed the content, so we spent a lot of time looking at the color pallet of the publication and in the end, I believe, developed something unique. Rosten was excited about the prospect of using more than 2 colors, so we developed a palette with four. Even though the paper is quite basic, the printing itself is luxurious. It’s not often you see anything printed in 4 spot colors given away for free. We hoped people who received it would think it was attractive and hang it up.

CUP, T&N, and UHAB reviewed the final designs and after a few slight adjustments we were off to press, and then into the hands of the people who would use them.

The Process
One of the interesting things about the project was that the development of the content was 90% of the project, which is not always the case. That’s not to say that we sat around waiting for a master text to be written before beginning the visual design. Early visual designs helped us establish a structure that the content could be developed to fit.

It’s a particularly strong way that designing can act to prefigure the content, instead of waiting for content to be completed which in this case could have never happened without narrowing the parameters. The predatory equity situation was ever-changing and way too complex.

Dina and Amy were amazing to work with. Having a constant open dialogue between the content development and the publication design helped us reduce a complex set of information into an approachable publication.

The Launch
Advocates handed out The Predatory Equity Survival Guide as part of a crucial tenant association meeting in East Harlem where new plans to combat predatory equity were announced. Tenants were trying to educate themselves ahead of a big City Council meeting on predatory equity that was happening the next week.

Amy, Dina, and tenant leaders delivered charged presentations to the attendees. One part teach-in, one part pep rally. Several hundred people turned out. Attendees seemed enthusiastic about having concise information and a new tool to help them fight predatory equity.

Tenants took home stacks to distribute at their own tenant meetings. Plans are already underway to distribute a Spanish language version this summer.

We checked in with Amy and Dina this afternoon for a late-breaking update.

Amy says:

We have since distributed the survival guide through Stuyvesant Town, Riverton, and the City Council and we constantly get tenant requests for more.

And, according to Dina:

We’re advancing the campaign on individual buildings, primarily those run by Putnam, SG2, and Ocelot. All three have loans held by Fannie Mae. All are in decaying condition, some of the worst conditions in the city. We’re working to convince Fannie Mae to take responsibility for the maintenance of the buildings and to bring the debt back to a sustainable level. Meanwhile, the Federal Government is starting to pay attention to the multifamily housing crisis and is looking at strategies for preservation. To get more information or get involved contact me at Levy [at] uhab.org.

Glen Cummings is a graphic designer and writer based in New York City. He is a partner at MTWTF (Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday) and a lecturer in design at Yale University School of Art.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

In the fall of 2008, Janette Kim and Kate Orff, co-directors of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and Glen Cummings, founder of the graphic design firm MTWTF, began collaborating on research into different models of ecological interpretation. The National Parks Service model, for example, has historically defined the national park as a preserved, natural and “unbuilt” system with the park ranger as tour guide. Janette, Kate and Glen felt the need to suggest an alternative that treats the city and its complex ecosystems as a national park, challenging the preconceptions that divorce theories of environment and ecology from the experience of architecture and the built environment.

One of the first steps was to develop a seminar for undergraduates at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program that used podcasts as a medium to read the political ecology of New York, along one of the city’s diverse spines: the 7 train. Read below for their introduction to the project and a self-guided podcast tour from Times Square to Flushing.

Listen to the podcasts below or download them for your next trip along the 7, and be sure to check in on the Safari 7 project often: many more phases are coming soon, starting this summer with new tours and maps, podcasts and interviews, and expansion into cellphone and social networking venues. - C.S.

Introduction
This past Saturday at 11:00 a.m. sharp, a group of architects, artists, and students boarded the 7 Local at Times Square Station to participate in the launch of Safari 7, a self-guided tour of urban animal life along New York City’s No. 7 subway line.

The 7 Line is a physical, urban transect through New York City’s most diverse collection of human ecosystems.  Affectionately called the International Express, the 7 line runs from Manhattan’s dense core, under the East River, and through a dispersed mixture of residences and parklands, terminating in downtown Flushing, Queens, the nation’s most ethnically diverse county. Here, in territories excavated by Robert Moses’ transportation networks, watersheds constructed by the World’s Fair, and tree canopies stretched across residential street grids, species find systems necessary for survival, develop mating rituals and behaviors amidst inter-species competition and cooperation, and respond to migration, colonization, and disturbances of this dynamic urban landscape. By mapping the complexity, biodiversity, conflicts, and potentials of our urban ecosystems Safari 7 aims to unpack the role of architecture and the related disciplines in the construction of networks, spatial patterns, enclosures, grounds, rituals, and policies that are the city’s life support mechanism.

The project uses a range of media – podcasts, maps, signs, schedules and social networking tools – to create a platform where commuters, school children, subway operators – and yes, architects – can connect to New York City’s ecosystems as they travel through it.  New York’s transit system acts as an eco-urban classroom, and passengers become their own park rangers, or safari guides.

EPISODE INFORMATION
Click on the links below to play the podcasts through your browser or here to download the podcasts and listen during your next 7 train commute. These podcasts were created by students in a seminar on urban ecology at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program.

Throughout the summer we will organize tours, publish new maps, podcasts and interviews, and expand to cellphone and social networking venues. We are working to initiate further dialogue with educators and community activists throughout the city. Please visit www.safari7.org to learn more. Listen in, and check back for more in the future.

Do you have information about sites of interest along the 7 line? Have you seen a curious landscape along the tracks that you have always wondered about? Are you interested in collaborating? We welcome your findings on New York’s diverse ecosystems in the comments field below, and we invite you to join the mailing list or say hello at info@safari7.org.

Listen to 12 current episodes below, download MP3 files, or download the M4A slideshow versions to watch in iTunes. Download all of the podcasts here.

Germs / 42 St – Times Square
Alex Cook, Ryan Johns

From Flushing Station to 42nd Street, more germs ride the #7 line each day than people do in a year. A closer look at the microecology of NYC’s microscopic commuters.

download mp3
download m4a

U Thant Island / Grand Central – 42 St
Alison Von Glinow, Lesley Merz

Off the grid and hidden in plain sight, U Thant Island is made from the leftovers from the 7 line’s Steinway tunnel and is home to NYC’s cormorant population. Interviews with John Mattera, Parks & Recreation Librarian, NYC Dept of Parks and Recreation and Dr. Susan Elbin, Director of Conservation, New York City Audubon Society.

download mp3
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Oysters / Vernon Blvd – Jackson Av
Aaron Hsieh, Evelyn Ting

Back in the day Queens Bay was NYC’s raw bar, home of the largest oyster population on the East Coast. Interview with Katie Mosher-Smith, NY-NJ Baykeeper.

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Dope Fish / Hunters Point Av
Alex Vial

The East River’s high level of estrogen has the local fish swimming sideways.

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Squirrels / Queensboro Plaza
Meg Kelly, Grace Robinson-Leo

The expansion of Manhattan’s East River parks mean a real estate boom for the indigenous East side squirrels.

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Dogs / 40 St – Lowery St
Sayli Korgaonkar

From 5th Avenue to Times Square, the price of real estate is directly related to what size dog you keep. Canine demographics across two boroughs.

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Ecology of Death / 52 St
Alex Cook, Ryan Johns

Calvary Cemetery, one the largest urban necropolises in the nation, has an ecology and chemistry all its own. A look at what goes in, what comes out, and what we should know about the dead in New York City.

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Courtyards / 82 St – Jackson Hts
Aaron Hsieh, Evelyn Ting

Away from the street and behind brick walls are well-tended garden oases. Are these historic landscapes, public playgrounds, or private gated communities? Residents, preservationists, and neighbors weigh in. Interviews with Donald Karatzas, Author of Jackson Heights: A Garden in the City, Ed Westley and anonymous residents.

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Reef Condos / 90 St – Elmhurst Av
Lesley Merz, Alison Von Glinow

Homo sapiens aren’t the only New Yorkers riding NYC’s subway cars. Aquatic New Yorkers strap-hang in decommissioned cars which have been used to build reefs around Manhattan Island.

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download m4a

Pigeons / Junction Blvd
Alex Vial

New Yorkers have tried dozens of techniques, all unsuccessful, to control the population of the urban freeloaders otherwise known as Rock Doves.

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Chickens / 103 St – Corona Plaza
Meg Kelly, Grace Robinson-Leo

The urban chicken occupies two spots in Queen’s Corona Park, the egg-maker for suburban farmers and the heavy in backroom cock-fights. Audio footage of Owen Taylor is from Leonard Lopate, December 21, 2006, and of Martin Edmund and Charlie Johnson from Cockfighters: The Interviews by Stephanie J. Castillo.

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Flushing Meadows / Willets Point – Shea Stadium
Emily Glass, Stephanie Odenheimer

This former ash dumping ground became the site of the 1964 World’s Fair, and is also the site of some fishy and fowl activities. Audio footage from NPR’s All Things Considered.

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download m4a

CREDITS

Our team is a collaboration among architects, designers, educators, and graphic designers from the Urban Landscape Lab and MTWTF.  The Urban Landscape Lab is an interdisciplinary applied research group at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation focused on the analysis and transformation of ecological processes and urban systems.  MTWTF is a graphic design studio specializing in publications, environmental graphic, and identity systems.  Safari 7 podcasts aired at the first launch were created by students from the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program.

Urban Landscape Lab:
Janette Kim and Kate Orff, Directors
Lisa Ekle
Robin Fitzgerald-Green
Evan Sharp

MTWTF:
Glen Cummings, Principal

Barnard + Columbia Architecture students
Alex Cook
Emily Glass
Aaron Hsieh
Ryan Johns
Meg Kelly
Sayli Korgaonkar
Lesley Merz
Stephanie Odenheimer
Grace Robinson-Leo
Evelyn Ting
Alexandre Vial
Alison Von Glinow

Glen Cummings is a graphic designer and writer based in New York City. He is a partner at MTWTF (Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday) and a lecturer in design at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut.

Janette Kim is an architectural designer, critic, and educator based in New York City. She is principal of All of the Above and teaches at Barnard College and Columbia University GSAPP, where she is director of the Urban Landscape Lab.

Kate Orff is a registered landscape architect and an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Columbia GSAPP. She is also director of the Urban Landscape Lab.

Thank you to Karen Fairbanks, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Professional Practice and Chair, Architecture at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program; and Gavin Browning, Programming Coordinator at Studio X.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.