TF Tierney Receives Graham Foundation Grant
T.F. Tierney, an architecture professor emerita at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was awarded a research and development grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to examine Ladera, a 1940s interracial housing cooperative in Portola, California, and the role that federal lending practices played in maintaining racially segregated suburbs. The Grant is awarded by the Chicago-based Graham Foundation to support innovative and varied architecture concepts. As a Malcolm Reynolds Fellow, T.F. Tierney received a doctorate in 2009 from U.C. Berkeley with a Designated Emphasis in New Media. Her past research has focused on smart cities, conceptualizing networked space, and online communities.
From the news release:
Tierney’s research will analyze the FHA’s practice of “credit rationing” – government-sponsored discrimination practiced by lending institutions. Her hypothesis is that FHA lending practices achieved the same impact as redlining in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia in maintaining racial segregation.
As in postwar California, affordable housing is a scarce commodity today, Tierney said, and the effects of racially segregated housing still linger.
Tierney’s project will culminate in publications in peer-reviewed planning journals, as well as a podcast featuring interviews with experts in sociology, history and urban planning.
Click here to read the full article, and many congratulations to T.F. Tierney for receiving the grant!