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.  

Week 6

I am interested by this new concept of international citizenship, and how it would play out.  There are many reasons for political boundaries as they exist today—controlling immigration, public safety, differences in governance systems.  Is it possible a world could exist where all these barriers fall away?  Migration patterns would be totally unfettered: a free-market movement of labor toward those parts of the world that exhibit labor demand.  Such a world would eschew big-government regulation, and political philosophies like Marxism and communism. 

To be sure, this system would fall apart quickly.  Businesses would become the new regulators, imposing restrictions on their employees and their families.  Armies would center around trans-national organizations, or business associations.  Either an international court of law would have to be created to arbitrate between these businesses, or they would be left to parse it out themselves.  With spatial considerations like territory and land property totally up for grabs, it would not be surprising if the environment suffered even greater devastation, perhaps to the point of no return.  But perhaps it wouldn’t matter, because in a purely market-driven world order, technology would accelerate so quickly that new worlds could be colonized and the human race expanded.

Week 5

Weber discusses how TIFs are an example of neoliberalism in the urban context.  TIFs, or Tax Increment Financing schemes, are methods employed by governments or local associations to encourage growth among businesses, generally with relation to a spatial area like a downtown.  TIFs allow a government or community association to invest in infrastructure, capitalizing incremental tax revenues to pay off debts of construction.  This provides a bonus for businesses within TIF districts who profit from the extra attention paid by the government to local infrastructure.  

Of course, the problem with a TIF arrangements on a broader scale is that they preference those localities who have the knowledge and capital to take advantage of them.  Weber notes that TIFs operate best when established at the perfect moment, and the ability to predict this timing will elude many townships and most independent small-scale operators.   For this reason, neoliberal philosophy admits a lessening of equity that theorists should keep in mind.  While TIFs work well for the lucky few involved, it has the likely outcome of isolating outliers and hindering their economic growth.  A more regulation-heavy government allows all firms a more equal shot.  On the other hand, in the absence of TIF schemes and other similar encouragement, the growth potential of all firms might be mediocre at best.

Week 4

Endogenous growth in a city might simply equate to the portion of the city’s economy that is ‘service.”  Endogenous growth essentially applies to all of the economic activity that is generated within and by the city itself, for consumption in the city, whereas exogenous growth pertains to capital moving into the city from outside.  Exogenous growth is another name for external trade.  Endogenous growth encompasses the service economy and retail economy that support the residence of thousands of people in an urban environment.  But if exogenous factors ceased, the endogenous economy would crumble.

Centripetal growth tendencies are natural enough, and have been evidenced throughout the course of human history by people convening at central or convenient locations for the transaction of business. Centrifugal growth is a result of continued centripetal growth, in that space is limited capital.  In the modern world activities that have typically been profitably located in the core are moving to the outskirts of cities.  Firms are getting more efficient about what kinds of business needs to be conducted downtown, and what can be relegated to the fringe.  Cities are transitioning into megaregions, and we should try to understand these regions writ large as centripetal forces.

Week 3

Friedrich Engels’s observations of lower-class working conditions in Manchester constitute an important specimen of physical design analysis.  Engels is particularly interested in how the spatial configuration of slum lots contributes to unsanitary living conditions, as well as to the profit of landowners who build and rent these spaces.  His writing brims with descriptions of huts built upon one another, with almost no open space for the movement of air and no facilities for the removal of waste.  Excrement and offal crowd the living quarters of the English working class.

Engels’s observations of slum conditions provide good evidence for the need for land use regulations.  Though now land use regulations may be considered to be excessive, it is good to read about a time when the lack thereof caused unsafe and inhumane conditions right in the city core.  The keeping of livestock, for instance, Engels shows can be unsanitary.  Yet today, urban farming is all the rage, and many urban residents lament that land use laws forbid them from keeping food animals.  Can sanitary regulations leftover from the dystopic industrial slum be adapted to fit with modern lifestyles, and considering modern technology?

Week 2

It is not surprising that suburbs loom so large in the American psyche, and on the American landscape.  As a response to the social vacuum of the country and the dystopia of the industrial city, the suburb did indeed seem to unite the qualities of life necessary for a happy, healthy human.  Clean air, natural spaces, social contact, decent housing at affordable rates, proximity to profitable workplaces: when creating the suburb, it seemed for the first time all of these were within reach. 

In today’s “new urbanist” utopia, expectations for green space have changed (i.e. decreased) and theorists are developing plans that provide green on a micro scale, just enough to ensure a level of psychological and physical wellbeing.  This is enabled in part by improved technology and infrastructure which has made it sanitary to live in closer quarters.  It is also, in part I believe, a reaction of the younger generation toward the perceived sterility of suburban life.  Social opportunities in the suburbs, while an improvement over the remote rural setting, are not enough for a young, sophisticated, cosmopolitan generation.  Instead, they choose to live in a lively urban setting, refreshed by mini-parks, pop-up-parks, green roofs, and vertical gardens.