Week 13

Swyngedouw invokes Jane Jacobs’ comments about cities being as natural as prairie dog colonies or beds of oysters.  Indeed, the tendency to aggregate and create built environments is not uniquely human, and I agree too much traction is given to the notion that cities are “unnatural” places.  Beavers build dams for themselves to live in and disrupt ecology while so doing.  Plastic is an unnatural material that we use every day.  We create plastic in chemistry labs, using formulas our brains have developed.  How does this differ, really, from animals like silkworms or vipers that fabricate materials and chemicals to achieve survival?  Would a city made of plastic be less natural than one made of wood? 

I am interested by the notion that cities are our evolutionary destiny.  Perhaps it is a defense mechanism that we are urbanizing, as if we are sensing the globe’s danger.   Though our population still expands, suggesting we are blindly heading toward self-destruction, the city might be our subconscious attempt to preserve our species.  The human race is contracting spatially into smaller, denser places.  With tighter infrastructure, and more efficient organization, we are positioning ourselves to meet the survival needs of a larger population without destroying our homeworld.  

Week 12

Zukin poses “culture” as an economic weapon used by cities to remain competitive.  She cites examples of public spaces that express culture through design or traditional uses.   Focusing on the design of public space, I see three different categories of “cultural” expression present in, or utilized by, cities. 

First, there is homogenous commercial expression that may be in no way unique to the particular city.  This is typified by the shopping mall or a Disney franchise.  This public space signifies cosmopolitanism, status as a global city.  Zara and Burberry are European brands whose presence in a downtown shopping center on any continent signifies a global market. 

A second form of cultural expression is more unique to the city: its historical built environment.  Boston is a modern city whose tourist economy is driven by historical sites dotting its landscape.  This historical expression, protected by a Landmark Commission and preservation laws, is, I would argue, the best expression of a place’s uniqueness. 

A third type of cultural expression through public space is created by the international design elite.  Modern buildings in Beijing, with their requisite public pavilions, are designed by Dutch architects.  Asian designers travel en masse to be trained in the United States, returning later to design for their home countries.  These internationally-trained architects, landscape architects, and interior designers create plans for public space with cutting-edge concepts and technology.  These public spaces may be as unique as the designers who draw them, but in toto they represent the experiences and ideas of a certain social class.

These three types of public space—homogenous commercial developments, historic districts, and modern design projects—I argue are the main physical manifestations of cultural expression in cities. 

Week 10

Massey’s “Global Sense of Place” summarizes many of the agglomeration, growth-pole, and global-city phenomena we’ve discussed in weeks previous.  There is no sense in thinking of a city as an isolated entity.  Global cities are defined by cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity, and they have been for centuries.  Cities along major global trading routes (Venice, Byzantium, Singapore) have always enjoyed global success.  Cosmopolitanism is a signal that the city is ripe for global investment, that there is a diversified investment market and an agglomeration of trading interests. 

In a globalized world, rural areas and “regional” cities stand to be the victims of “global places.”  These are the populations that are likely to be flown over, and who risk losing representation.   They are likely to become “un-global places,” or places the world leaves behind.  Inequity will no longer be described in terms of East or West, South or North, Developed or Developing, but rather by “Globalized” or “Un-Globalized” regions.  Globalized regions would be those that are able to tap into global market potential.  Un-Globalized regions would be those that are reliant on local or national economy.  If you go to depressed skeleton towns in the rust belt you will see examples of the latter.  

Week 9: Essay 1

The privatization and commodification of public space is an inevitable byproduct of a more developed economy.  One reason for this shift is that private entities have proven more capable of providing public amenities (pleasant and clean open spaces, sanitary bathrooms, etc).  Private entities also are likely to design and govern spaces in a manner that promotes their interest over that of the public. 

For instance, a shopping mall food court may be designed so that stores are clearly visible to shoppers as they eat.  Although greenery and bright windows might provide the healthiest and most pleasant dining atmosphere for the public, such a configuration might not maximize profits.  Mall staff may also monitor the area in a way that discourages long sitting times, for instance by walking around and removing trays as soon as the diner seems to be finished.  This latter approach might encourage shoppers to get back in the stores, even though for health or psychological reasons it might be beneficial to shoppers to sit and rest.

The governmental solution to such a problem would be to exercise the police power so that POPs were designed in such a way that maximized the “health, public safety, morals, and general welfare” of the public.  Such regulations would be onerous, however, especially if POPs become prevalent.  

Week 9, Essay 2

The police powers BIDs assume seem to conflict with governmental police powers.  How can two sets of authorities be policing the same area?  Many of the questions of public domain rights seem to issues of regulation.  For instance the mistreatment of homeless people in New York City is clearly unlawful, and BIDs in the future will be more careful about over-exercising their powers.  Since BIDs are a relatively new phenomenon, their legal rights and responsibilities are still being ironed out.

Spatially, the proliferation of BIDs presents another problem: will public domains be preserved where unhindered public activism can occur?  It is conceivable that BIDs could consume much of America’s urban space, especially the congested downtown space where activism and public speech are more likely to occur.  There already are ample restrictions on public demonstrations, and it is not clear BIDs change this situation beyond more actively enforcing them.  Commercial interests may effectively supplant public rights in BID occupied spaces, but the underlying legislation was already determined when the courts decided public activism could be controlled by public entities, and later when public entities passed their police powers onto private entities like BIDs.

Week 8

I am struggling to understand what makes Hollander’s smart decline theory “foundational.”  He chooses as his paper scope “shrinking cities”, i.e. those cities whose population has been in decline for more than two years.  He takes issue with previous depopulation theories which stress either, A) the organic grassroots process of reinvestment and rebuilding by local community members, or B) the top-down process of investment that governments employ to “inject” new life into a declining area.  He argues there is a sweet-spot in the middle that harnesses both governmental programs and community efforts to manage depopulation. 

Hollander’s foundational theory is, briefly, that multiple stakeholders must be engaged in a politically-transparent process to manage decline.  Tell me something I don’t know.  He then leaps from this conclusion to assert that “neighborhoods can have more green space, streets can be less congested, more food can be locally produced,” etc. (pg. 363).  My belief is that this theory paper has ignored the tangible outcomes to focus on fantastical process.  I believe a more useful framework for designing “smart decline” strategies is established by Fainstein, whose outcome-oriented approach demands, “just distribution, justly arrived at” (pg. 357).

Week 7

Spatially, slums might be defined as massive amalgamations of humans into too little space.  The governments of the cities that contain slums do not have the wherewithal to govern such a quantity of people. Thus, slums comprise an entire set of humanity that is more or less self-governed.  Slum-dwellers are forced to take charge of their own community development, often through the agency of religious and aid institutions.  While it may be argued that these organizations usually hail from the outside and are thus a form of colonialism, they gain momentum through the active engagement of community members in the slums themselves. 

In the absence of public services and aid, slum-dwellers have created complex economic and social networks that provide for at least some of their needs.  They coalesce into “informal economies” in which they provide services for one another off-the-grid.  As Davis points out, these “shadow economies” (a term I think is erroneously dark) sometimes contribute to large external businesses, like Wal-Mart.  Most “shadow workers,” however, are merely finding a niche in a complex economic ecosystem.  Some are washing laundry, some are cooking food, and some are producing textiles or other goods that are sold for the best price.