Week 6: Urban Ecology

On Tuesday, we discussed diagrams showing the structure of a city, with the city having features such as cores, barriers, etc. And, we also looked at how much higher the demand for Commerce areas is as opposed to Industry areas, and Residential areas. It’s a lot cheaper for a company to locate themselves outside the core of the city, yet in the sub center of a city. Essentially, most commerce areas are located towards the center of the city, industrial areas are scattered around the areas of commerce, and the majority of residential areas are farthest away from the commerce areas. This also is a more convenient option for a company, because it gives a shorter commute to most people who work there. Every urban area has a distinctive structure, and is more comparable to a continuum than anything else. This continuum can contain villages, rural areas,etc... that can expand to become sub centers in themselves, and a plethora of other factors http://www.rudi.net/node/21682. The link in the previous sentence talks about the structure of Birmingham, Alabama as an example of a moderate sized cities structure (which is similar to what was talked about 2-3 sentences ago).       

           In Thursday’s lecture the city was compared to a wooded area/ jungle, to make a few key points… there is a certain spatial element to both a jungle and a city;both contain a place for every element of their make-up. This article is a link to buy Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, but more importantly it gives a summary of the content contained in this novel. Sinclair referred to the city as a “jungle of human suffering.”  http://www.randomhouse.com/book/167863/the-jungle-by-upton-sinclair Likewise, competition, building up, growing, degradation, and fires which lead to regeneration, are constant themes in both. After fires, these areas might come back similarly or they might change and become more nutrient rich/ more filled with people and commerce.  Both systems are adaptable, give feedback, and have a finite linear history. This comparison between the city and jungle was for the purpose of leading the class into the topic of Urban Ecology. Urban ecology deals with the interactions of plants, animals, and humans with their environment in urban settings. Professor Sanchez brought this question to attention: What external events could alter the way we live on earth? After a few minutes of silence and made up answers, it became evident that there may very well be none. In other words, as humans we affect the way we live on a daily basis. If we look at how we affect our surroundings, we understand the meaning of urban ecology: studying settings in the context of an ecosystem, which hopes to result in better managed communities. Let’s think about this: most people do not like the world we live in as far as the economy goes, but if we affect the world and are responsible for our actions, then why should we not interact as a community to better our world? For instance, urban planners need to work with environmental policy specialists, biologists, geologists, etc… If their knowledge is combined, it will create a more effective urban area.

If we look at a cities jungle-like structure from a different viewpoint, such as the one Guns and Roses looked at it through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_Jungle

, then it can be seen as a place filled with opportunity. Anywhere you go in the city you can find what you need… there is an immense amount of diversity in the form of ideas, race, social status, etc… 

Lastly, the topic of System Dynamics was discussed, which contains three basic rules: We need to change from linear, laundry list thinking to a circular, closed loop view of causality. There needs to be a shift from an external to an internal focus on performance. How we, not others, are responsible for most of the results we get. This is similar to the principles of science: the dismissal of the supernatural, to achieve a finite, earthly explanation of every day occurrences. And, there needs to be a focus on an operational view of how things actually work. This is in contrast to traditional analysis methods based on statistical correlation of trends from the past. Here are some cool expansions on what Professor Sanchez told us for fun at the end of class: http://englishrussia.com/2009/04/07/smartest-dogs-moscow-stray-dogs/. These cute little puppies ride on subway trains to different stations because they know what people at what times will give food to them. 

Week 5: The Right to the City

This week our conversation was based on different aspects of a community and how these aspects can create an urban divide. We created web diagrams of how all these factors could affect each other (education, income, occupation, location). Our group came up with income being the main contributing factor to a lot of these different aspects of the community. Income strongly affects your education, which in turn will determine your occupation, which effects where and how you live. One thing mentioned in the weekly reading is that access to education is much more prevalent in urban areas than in rural areas. Quality of education could have a strong influence on the outcome of one’s life, even starting in elementary school.

Also, we discussed “The Right to the City,” meaning the right to basic needs/goods that we,the people, set as rights. In the city, there is discrimination which prohibits people from moving (civil rights laws) based on ones access to a good, service, or location. Professor Sanchez also heavily stressed the roles of sidewalks in cities, stating they were the biggest public space we utilized every day. Local governments do not allow congregating on the sidewalks because it apparently “Stops disruption of business and safety.” But, Professor Sanchez took what was on the tip of our tongue and said it: “Is that really the problem? Does banning congregation on the sidewalks really help business’s conduct affairs more smoothly http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/engineering/sidewalks.cfm? According to this website, it provides “continuous and accessible networks to improve mobility for all pedestrians and are particularly important for pedestrians with disabilities.” Alternatively, in the words of our Professor, one could think of things in this way: we, as citizens of the city, are being segregated. We have to say or do what the government says in this part of the city, which restricts our rights to the city. Yet, how can one object this infringement upon our rights?

Adding on to this, we delved into the sensitive issues of Health care policy. Does someone have the right to health care if they don’t have income, skills, or contribute to the city in any way? Why should you enjoy the rights of those who pay http://www.balancedpolitics.org/universal_health_care.htm? This site posted in the previous sentence gives interesting view points on each side of the health care argument. 

Lastly, Professor Sanchez was going to make a Mississippi joke towards the end of class, but he decided not to. Thus, here are a few Mississippi jokes, provided by jokes4us.com: http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/worldjokes/mississippijokes.html. 

Week 4: What the hell did we cover in class?

            In Tuesday’s lecture, we discussed the superior employment/ wage opportunities the city offers, and the concept of Social Stratification. Social stratification, as defined by Professor Sanchez, is “a process by which resources and opportunities are distributed through social players.” These players are represented by individuals from different classes and social statuses, placed into a hierarchical-like set-up. Also, he told us “opportunities [for jobs] have re-aligned, not necessarily gone over seas. We have found more productive ways to produce greater amounts.”  This article is an in-depth analysis of social stratification. It is so in-depth I literally could not read all of it because it was ridiculously meticulous http://what-when-how.com/sociology/social-stratification/. Also, this review of the novel EDUCATION AND STRATIFICATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A Review of Theories is incredibly informative http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-78901923/education-and-stratification-developing.html.

In Thursday’s lecture, we discussed the urban divide and social/economic health. Many different things effect urban divide such of lack of education, location, shifts in family structure, economic shifts and racial/gender discrimination. While lack of education is broadly accepted as an effect of urban divide, some people will not so easily accept the effect of racial/gender discrimination. Even if that should be behind us, that fact is, is that at the end of the day a business wants to make money the most efficient way, so hiring a woman who may have to leave to have a child might not be their prime employer. 

Urban divide can be expressed in many ways, in many ways, one of which being graphically, as discussed in class. We see that by graphing the % income to % households, we can obtain an index between the line of complete equality and the line of actually measured values. The size of this index, or area, tells us how big the urban divide is becoming. The bigger the difference (bigger the area), the more a society is moving toward complete inequality.

It is interesting to look at specific cities’ or countries’ urban divide. For example this essay (http://www.scribd.com/doc/7849672/The-RuralUrban-Divide-in-India) speaks of the rural-urban divide in India. The majority of their population lives in rural areas, yet those areas are not equipped with the technology nor sanitation that the cities are. It is good for us to read and be aware of these types of situations, because fortunately most of the worst situations in the US are nowhere near those in other countries. People need to be educated in what is happening to those that are not included in the urban areas, or even some of the health risks of poor urban areas, so we can help fix the urban divide.

This article talks about different aspects of cities and city development http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/manual/history.html. Religion was one aspect not mentioned in class, but I found it interesting. One point made was many cities in medieval times were built near cathedrals and monasteries. Another interesting point made was how open space in cities can be looked at as "leftover" but really is a necessity. Open spaces such as parks and gardens allow space for people to get away from the harsh conditions of the urban city. 

 

Week 3: Urban Tomography and The City

This week in class we watched a movie called the “The City.” The movie started by showing a suburban community and their daily activities. From swimming in rivers to harvesting their crops, the movie portrayed this small community in a good light. Later scenes show an industrialized city, along with “dark” music. The overall vibe I got from the movie was that the producer viewed big city life and industrialization as a bad thing. Compared to the suburban scenes in the beginning of the movie, the city stood for uncleanliness, monotony, fast lifestyles, and misfortune. If this movie were to be remade today I think it would have many of the same trends. Today, pollution still poses a threat to society and there are still areas of cities that are unclean and dangerous. But, some standards have been put in to place to calm down the effect cities have on our environments. Until Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, there was not really a care in the world about the safety of our environment. So, let’s all take a moment to thank Rachel Carson. This article discusses the negative effects industrialization had on America in the 1900s http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/burns/Unit_5_Progressive/U5_Negatives_Industrialization.html.

Also, we talked about urban tomography, which Martin Krieger defined as “the application of mobile Smartphone technology, designed to enable pervasive dense documentation of city life by many Smartphone users at the same time and provide an automatically archived historical record of plans in time” (Scholar Week 3 Reading – Krieger). Krieger also says it makes use of multiple media records of city life to provide a multi-aspectual view rather than the 1 dimensional view one gets from observations on pencil and paper. Professor Sanchez then informed us of people’s desires 50 to 100 years ago to archive cities, for the sole purpose of benefiting people and urban planners in today’s world. They attempted to document cities, but their documentation was not as thorough as urban tomography is today. This source speaks of a project using cell phones to capture, transmit, and store audiovisual urban documentation:  http://research.cens.ucla.edu/urban/2009/urban12.pdf. Here is another student’s research project in which he “shows a digital portrait of the city of Graz, recorded through the method of a cross-section and displayed as a video installation in the Kunsterlhaus Graz” http://www.archiable.com/201104/110408_urban_tomography.html .

Accordingly, Urban Tomography can be conducted through a variety of methods. In the example above, the architecture student utilizes a variety of photos, sound bites, and video feeds (running all day long) to help create a 3 dimensional, rounded image of Graz, Austria. However, GPS, time logs, train tickets, Synthetic aperture radar tomography, and other methods alike can also be used. The technique most commonly incorporated into the daily lifestyles of most people is the videos and photos taken by the many residents of an area. These techniques help to spawn an image of a city unlike any single picture or video. It helps give the outside viewer an understanding of popular places, customs, demographics, etc… and it partially assists designers in creating Virtual tours of areas. Urban tomography can also be utilized for security purposes as displayed here: http://stc.ucdavis.edu/outreach/UTC-Caltrans-2011S-Sem-April.php . When Professor Sanchez brought up the topic of Urban Tomography, it was the first time I had ever even heard mention of the topic. I think through the information given in this post, you can get a broad picture of what Urban Tomography consists of.