Mapping A Wicked Problem
by Team Symbiosis
Ally Hopping, Master of Human-Computer Interaction
Julie Choi, Bachelor of Design with Minors in Human-Computer Interaction and Photography
Morgan Newman, Master of Public Policy and Management
Adam Cowart, Ph.D. Teaching Fellow and Researcher in Transition Design
What Is a Wicked Problem?
A wicked problem is a large-scale societal or cultural problem composed of many smaller, interconnected problems that interact to form a tangled web of relationships. Due to factors such as their size and complexity, the number of stakeholders involved, lack of comprehensive knowledge, and connections to other wicked problems, a wicked problem cannot be solved with a simple, singular solution. Rather, it requires multiple interventions at fairly precise acupuncture points within the system. In order to discover acupuncture points that can begin to address the wicked problem in question, the first step is to create a comprehensive map of the wicked problem, articulating the core issues, the peripheral issues, and the interconnectedness of these issues. Much like the human body, the city of Pittsburgh and gentrification within the city is a complex system.
Choosing a Topic: Gentrification in Pittsburgh
Our group chose gentrification in Pittsburgh as our wicked problem. While the public discourse regarding gentrification often centers around common challenges that cities face such as racial discrimination, socioeconomic segregation, and government inaction, wicked problems cannot be removed from their local context. They are deeply embedded in place-based systems, as are the possible solutions for addressing wicked problems. Hence, in mapping gentrification in Pittsburgh, we sought to understand not just the general issues that many cities face, but the unique factors at play in Pittsburgh that interact to create the larger problem we sought to understand.
Our Mapping Process
Our process for mapping the wicked problem of gentrification was iterative, moving fluidly between placed-based research of gentrification in Pittsburgh, general research on the causes and impacts of gentrification, as well as lived experience and anecdotal observations of working and dwelling in place.
The organizing subtopics for the map are: Social Issues; Infrastructure, Science and Technology Issues; Environmental Issues; Economic and Business Issues; Political and Legal Issues. This guiding framework helps ensure a comprehensive and balanced approach to understand the wicked problem of gentrification in Pittsburgh. We chose to divide up the sub-topics for research purposes across members of our team. While we began with specific areas of focus within the topic of gentrification in Pittsburgh, as we connected core and peripheral issues across categories, the lines quickly blurred and we began collectively mapping and drawing connections across categories.
For the team, our entry point into mapping the wicked problem was secondary research, both academic papers found through CMU library and Google Scholar as well as articles from local news outlets and organizations written over the years. As we mapped and discussed the emerging issues and connections, our collective understanding was enriched by our own observations about the city, such as the construction plans of a new Whole Foods in East Liberty, a neighborhood that is currently in the process of gentrification, opening approximately a mile from the existing Whole Foods, as well as our lived experience (public transportation challenges and new shopping districts near the riverfront). Bringing our experiences of living in other cities also helped to highlight the nuances of Pittsburgh’s gentrification challenges. Our team was then able to consider the similarities and differences playing out.
Synthesizing our research with the lived experience and diversity of our group also allowed us to ask challenging questions: Where do we feel comfortable in the city? Safe? Where might there be “invisible lines” not found on any map of Pittsburgh? How might this manifest and influence the challenges of gentrification in Pittsburgh? Or, at the very least, how does our relative position of privilege influence the shape and contents of the wicked problem we are attempting to map?
Obstacles & Challenges
As our wicked problem takes shape, deepening our understanding of the issue through extrapolation and contextualization becomes an obstacle to further refinement of the map. One of the overarching challenges that emerge as we map our wicked problem is articulating relationships versus imposing assumptions of causation. As we seek to create deeper connections between the various issues, challenges arise around how interpretive we should be in the mapping. More specifically, mapping connections means mapping relationships. The simple act of drawing an arrow from one issue to another issue implies (and imposes) a causal relationship that may not actually exist, or exists but has a level of nuance and additional influences that we have not even begun to unearth.
To address this obstacle, contextualizing the relationships through secondary influencers is important. A leads to B, and not the other way around, because B leads to C. And hence, the deepening of connections and the contextualization of the logical pathway through sub-issues is articulated. The visual logic of the map, both for an audience and for the researchers, grows in importance as the scope and complexity of the wicked problem makes itself more visible. The multi-faceted flow of narratives become critical for sensemaking. While we layer in complexity, we must never forget the essence of what a map is for: situating and locating.
With this level of complexity, it is critical for the map to be designed for our stakeholders to easily follow the types of connections made between different issues. The process of preparing this map required deliberate research that serviced our knowledge around the topic, yet once we drew out the fundamental underlying layers of problems and their relationships, the challenge was to map the points into comprehensive sequences of ideas. As shown in the evolution of our work, the first frame is impossible to be decoded not only by our audience but also by us as the creators. By adding layers of visual hierarchy to our diagram, our team intentionally placed each element with consideration of their relationship with the ones around it.
Determining what issues are at the core of gentrification and what are symptoms of those core issues can be somewhat complex. When mapping out our wicked problem, we started with the predescribed topics of the political/legal, infrastructure/science, social, environmental, and business and expanded from there. By first adding to the map specific areas that we found pertinent through our research, we were able to slowly see a pattern emerge among all of the topics, which then became our core issues. Core issues are often wicked problems themselves that are intertwined together; without one there couldn’t be the other and are, therefore, necessary for gentrification to exist. Our core issues mainly consist of capitalism, systemic racism, and wealth disparities (which, though a direct result of capitalism is its own wicked problem). From these roots many more sub-issues sprout, which gives us a holistic view of gentrification.
Our Findings
Social Issues
Perhaps the most significant challenge posed by gentrification from a social perspective is neoliberalism and the pervasive narrative of America as a land of equal opportunity, which contribute to the belief that gentrification is an inevitable side effect of growth and prosperity. This belief persists despite growing evidence that meritocracy and the American Dream are myths representing an alternate reality of America in which everyone is born equal, failing to acknowledge the undue burden placed on women, immigrants, and minority populations resulting from years of social, political, and economic discrimination. When the negative effects of gentrification such as displacement and disruption of community cohesion reach the public discourse, they’re often qualified by declarations of declining crime rates and the revitalization of local economies. Gentrification in the social consciousness has taken on a binary, a duality that is both perfectly logical and highly problematic when looking to address. This creates multiple obstacles when we shift to stakeholder engagement.
Infrastructure, Science and Technology Issues
Our built environment is heavily dependent on infrastructure, science, and technology. Integral to our daily lives in our built environment is our home and its location. More than just a physical building it is an indication of our attributes, most often our socio-economic status but also potentially our level of education, culture/ethnicity, and race. Due to the core issues, as mentioned above, the placement of major infrastructure (such as highways, urban centers, and business districts) can be placed in areas that are previously inhabited by certain groups, mainly poor and/or minority thereby pushing them out of their communities either directly (forcing them to move) or indirectly (increasing property taxes). This leads to the gentrification of certain neighborhoods by the appeal of outside developers to buy cheap land and turn a larger profit. Due to Pittsburgh’s numerous universities, it has recently become an emerging “Tech hub” which has helped revitalize poorer areas of the city by creating new developments and has also attracted a new type of resident, often upper-middle-class and white. This has led to further gentrification of new urban neighborhoods such as East Liberty, Lawrenceville, and the Strip District further pushing out original residents.
Environmental Issues
We live in a system where areas of living have become investments as one claims a space in exchange for money. Most construction sites we see when walking in the city of Pittsburgh implies where money has been put into. However, from an environmental perspective, green infrastructures for renewable energy and new technology into cleaner resources improve the damage that is being done to our natural world. But like any other construction project, this only happens in areas of increasing value or in other words, areas that are being gentrified. As the cost of living increases and new businesses and facilities emerge, long-term residents of the area are rapidly forced out of their homes due to increasing rents to more rural areas where minorities suffer from environmental degradation and climate change. Thus, improving the environment comes with significant socio-economic ramifications that only magnifies social disparity in the disguise of positive motives for urban greening. That being said, unfortunately, other consumer-facing business projects that bring in more money commonly outnumber local environmental efforts which result in dreadful situations of gentrification with the degradation of existing land and more pollution.
Economic and Business Issues
Capitalism and the push for constant growth is the underlying structural economic driver of gentrification, both in Pittsburgh and in other places. Growth requires investment and economic activities through the creation of new businesses and the growth of existing businesses. Specific to Pittsburgh, though, is the historical context of industrialization and the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s as manufacturing moved overseas, which led to widespread unemployment, poverty, and population decline. Many of those who stayed were either protected from the disastrous effects by wealth and privilege or too powerless to leave, creating a growing divide between the rich and the poor. Additionally, empty warehouses and factory buildings and the presence of many low-income neighborhoods created an opportunity for economic investment and redevelopment, leading to widespread gentrification of neighborhoods such as Downtown, Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, and more recently, East Liberty.
Political and Legal Issues
Municipal politics comes with the challenge of balancing residence needs. However, the ability to invest in necessary infrastructure often requires state and federal support. Therefore the ability of local leaders is constrained which then requires a strategy of attracting investment and higher-income earners. Politically, the challenge of balancing interests falls on the side of finding revenue streams to fund current and future residence needs. Those who are already under-serviced by the city bear the brunt of this. These communities are under-resourced and are then continually uprooted to ensure the ongoing resourcing of other communities.
Because of the limited protections in place at the municipal level (as opposed to federal) cities are in the challenging position of having few tools to protect and dissuade undesirable patterns of behavior from residences and outside stakeholders. The “tools” available to local lawmakers lean heavily towards the attract and incentivize variety, making reinforcing loops in the system more prevalent than they might be were there more options to balance.
Insights
Cycles of Growth and Displacement
One key insight that emerged from mapping gentrification in Pittsburgh is how the historical context of racial discrimination coupled with widespread growth leads to cycles of displacement and gentrification that have an inordinate impact on low-income and BIPOC communities. The presence of cheap land and the suppression of political and social power creates an ideal landscape for future growth “opportunities” that have nothing to do with improving the lives of current residents. Displacement occurs when current residents are pushed or priced out, and displaced communities must bear the costs of dislocation, reinforcing marginalization. These underlying structural issues then “migrate” along with communities to new regions, where the pattern repeats. Under the existing paradigm of Pittsburgh’s wicked problem, marginalized communities are not seen as the opportunity, but rather the inhabitants of a space of opportunity. As with many wicked problems, we found that the interconnectedness of our subtopics and core issues showed a positive feedback loop that creates a cyclical form of gentrification targeted at specific neighborhoods.
Another insight into how existing neighborhood residents rarely benefit from gentrification is the effects of “greening” a neighborhood or redeveloping an area to create more green space and better infrastructure to support environmental protection. This is often proposed by developers as a benefit to residents and the city but actually contributes to gentrification by making the neighborhood a more desirable place to live for those who have the financial resources to push up existing real estate prices. Declining crime rates in cities also do not benefit those most affected by crime so much as attract more affluent residents, contributing to gentrification while increasing the divide between rich and poor. And finally, attracting businesses that will lead to “better-paying jobs” does not support training low-income residents to fill these jobs, but rather attracts people from other places who already have the necessary skills. For example, the post-industrial rise of “knowledge workers,” particularly in the Pittsburgh area, contributes to gentrification by making Pittsburgh a tech/science hub.
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Ultimately, gentrification is such a challenging wicked problem because so many people are the beneficiaries of it. Successive waves of students, the aging affluent, and knowledge workers are on the receiving end of gentrification, while historical and underprivileged communities are repeatedly negatively impacted.
