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.