Week 13: Urban Downfall, Uprise and Renewal

Less than a year after the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti which caused more than 316,000 deaths, 300,000 injured, and 1 million homeless, the Haitians are finally up for a presidential election. During and after the earthquake, President Preval for many days did not speak to the public. With much of the infrastructure in and around Port-Au-Prince completely destroyed, the Haitians had no idea how to deal with this unimaginable disaster. Haitians lost even more trust in its government, who did not seem to step up as leaders to lead its country during its time of desperate need. Less than one year later, in December 2010, the Haitians are due to elect their new president, who they would put faith and belief in.

The official preliminary results have law professor and former first lady Mirlande Manigat in first with 31.4% of the vote and Celestin next with 22.5%. Martelly had 21.8% vote, trailing Celestin by about 6,800 votes. Martelly’s supporters went violent, breaking a riot in Port-Au-Prince. The close votes brought much tension between the Haitians, and they were getting very violent. Even with the U.N. headquarters in New York getting involved, they could not stop the frustrated Haitians. They marched through the busy streets, and about 2,000 pro-Martelly demonstrators gathered near the U.S. Embassy in the capital of Haiti. A Haitian said “We want to tell them Martelly is the present. We won’t accept anything less. Otherwise, we will set this country on fire.” The Haitians were eager for a new and only president that they would have faith in to lead a country as it recovers from the deathly earthquake.

Site: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Haiti-election-riot-grows--govt-party-office-burns_8220961

Week 12: Roanoke Revitalization

         Tuesdays presentation, by Scott Tate, had to do with Art based community revitalization. The question he answered was "what does it mean to construct and promote a city as a place for arts and culture?" Specifically, what does this mean for this city of Roanoke… who’s included and excluded in this process. Art has two values in Roanoke's society: an intrinsic and an instrumental value. The instrumental value has to do with growing their economy, whereas the intrinsic value implies that art is important for its own benefits: "it is important because it's important." The article beside this sentence talks about the art revitalization of the city of Edmonton, specifically Alberta Avenue http://www.gigcity.ca/2011/08/13/arts-based-revitalization-in-jeopardy-say-alberta-avenue-residents/. In this scenario, the revitalization is failing because the city pulled it's funding too quickly, and did not include the residents in the planning process. Edmonton policy makers got too impatient and did not wait to see results. They needed to create an adaptable plan that could conform to economic and time constraints. It also seemed like in Roanoke's revitalization, the residents of the city played an incredibly large role.   

              Also, Tate lectured us on the rhetoric around creative cities, citing the positives and negatives of creative revitalization. The positives included a revitalized downtown centers, economic impacts, urban amenities, alongside contributions to quality of life and sense of place. However, the negative parts of the economic impacts are more mixed than the rhetoric. The inequalities are increased, and so is social distancing. This also threatens cultural health of neighborhoods because people are not involved as much with each other in the revitalization process.

Roanoke had an arts commission which was charged with incorporating arts into various aspects of the city and fighting off the problem of social distancing. Tate made sure to note that there are not too many cities who have gone through a comprehensive arts plan and figured out their guiding values by holding public meeting and surveys. Roanoke truly valued the public opinion by creating draft plans that could be commented on, then they would have a meeting to discuss these draft plans. The guiding mottos of Roanoke’s revitalization were “Collaboration,” “ celebration,” “ advocacy,” “ inclusion,” “innovation,” “vision,” and “education.”

Another big part of the revitalization was moving their focus from straight downtown to the neighborhoods, which sort of threatened the people downtown. Some tension did arise from this plan. By doing this, Roanoke expanded/ is expanding the boundaries of what an “art city” is. They are coming up with innovative ideas and working with other areas and places to make things more interesting. They are aligning with the idea of creative cities by making it hip and fun. Then, Tate moved to talk about a more conflicted city, by the name of Belfast, Ireland. This city is described as one of the most segregated cities in the world. Thus, a wall was constructed with an upkeep cost of approximately 1.5 billion dollars per year. Graffiti is drawn on each side of the walls, respectively, which is some kind of art form? I am unsure of the point Tate was trying to make with Belfast, but I am assuming he was suggesting an art-based revitalization in that city as well? I don’t think this would work because http://libwiki.mcmaster.ca/geog3ur3/index.php/Belfast/ConsequencesOfSegregation this article cites the fear’s involved with a violent segregated city such as Belfast. 50% of residents claim they would feel incredibly unsafe if they ventured over to the other side of the wall, into another religious faith’s territory. Am I the only one who is reminded of the movie “Gangs of New York?” The religious violence coming from Ireland was probably the basis for the movie; after all, because the Irish settlers got in fights with the American’s who had conflicting religious views  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_of_New_York. 

   

Week 11: Urban Ecology and Shrinking Cities

             Steven Goldsmith, the planner for the Salt Lake City Olympics, lectured our class on Tuesday about urban ecology. He cited one of the main flaws of urban planning: "there is an eco-consciousness that is relatively untapped because we have not realized we are a part of nature. If we do not understand the fundamental relationships we have with the world, we are not going to be able to solve the problems of the world around us." The previous quote implies human beings and nature our part of the same closed system, externalities aside. We are the sum total of all our actions, and we need to own what we have done, and fix the technologies we have implemented that harm our environment. MIT predicted a global economic collapse in 2030 because economies will not make the change to sustainable, environmentally friendly  technologies in an effort to stop climate change http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/next-great-depression-mit-researchers-predict-global-economic-190352944.html. Also, throughout his lecture he emphasized human beings abilities to adapt to adversity. Goldsmith showed us a video of Filipino merchants selling their goods on a railroad track. The train would honk its horn and the people would pull-up their stalls, lying on the wall so the train did not hit them. After the train went by, the denizens pull their stalls down and conduct business as usual. Consequently, our generation is going to have to quickly adapt to change. We are going to have technologies, taxes, and laws shoved down our throats because of the poor planning on the part of the baby boomers, and the groups before them. And hopefully, we will accept them without complaint, just like the Filipino merchants. 
              Going back to the topic of Urban ecology, Goldsmith defined a city as anything more than 2500 people. He then went on to say Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their environment. Also, ecology stretches across disciplines. It is not just limited to Urban issues, but Art, architecture, and various other concepts. Essentially, "we are engaged managers. But when we disengage, a disconnect is created and we tend to abuse these systems." This is how problems arise... we disconnect and no longer get to see the results of our actions. If someone has to look directly at the wetland they destroyed, or kill the chicken they are eating, it will definitely make them re-think their choices. After writing about this disconnect, I was reminded of the concept of IPM (Integrated Pest management). The concept involves farmers limiting the usage of pesticides by actually looking at their crops and seeing how they are doing and what they need specifically. This increases output and creates all around healthier crops http://www.extension.org/pages/17849/integrated-pest-management. If we as a society can reconnect with our wrongdoings, I think it will really help us prosper. If people (not all people, but some) walk into the ghetto, and live the lives of the people there, they will feel connected and try to make change. This is the connection we as a human race need. 
               On Thursday, Joe Schilling talked to us via skype about Shrinking cities. Schilling made sure to highlight a few significant cities such as Denver, Buffalo and Cincinnati. But, he said the language was inconsistent. How is a city shrinking if neighborhoods inside it are flourishing? What do you call this scenario? And that's part of the problem: every situation is unique, so coming up with a solution becomes increasingly more difficult. So, how do we fix these cities? What is the glue that will piece these cities back together? For many years declining urban cities have made attempts to find the "magic bullet" to bring them back to their glory days. The government has developed programs to try and improve declining cities through improved infrastructure and housing. For example, Detroit's People Mover is a rail system built in Detroit to try and improve the movement of people into the city. The article calls this the "rail-to-nowhere" which makes sense, people are not going to want to travel to cities that do not have appealing attractions. Instead of spending money on expanding the city they should spend money on improving what they have, such as better schooling. These methods of improving declining cities should put priority on the people, not the place http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/04/what-cities-looking-shrink-can-learn-new-orleans/1685/. In relation to this issue, some cities in today's world are suffering from the effects of a growing population, other are suffering from shrinking populations. This article introduces the regulation theory. The main argument of regulation theory is that economy doesn't only depend on the market, it depends social and political factors. I believe that the connection between regulation theory and shrinking cities is that when the economy of a city declines it causes a domino effect that will in turn lead to reduced population. This economy doesn't only depend on the performance of the market, it depends on the overall well being of the people within the city. When people in a city are unhappy they will want to leave, this will create a dent in the cities market which in turn will damage the economy. The article provided talks about this http://mailer.fsu.edu/~iaudirac/garnet-iaudirac/WEB2/Regulation_SUffer.pdf. I believe that if shrinking cities want to move towards a more thriving city they need to first focus on the population within the city and making the city a more pleasant place to live. A "pleasant" place to live does not only mean beautiful scenery and advanced technology; it also means a superb education system so families living in/moving to the city will know their children will receive a good education. You need to make the initial investment even though urban sprawl is occuring. It's like counting cards: there is still a risk of losing it all. But, the odds get moved into your favor with the better investment you make/ the smarter person you have counting cards. 

Week 10: Affordability and Digital Cities

In Tuesdays lecture, we explored the concepts of Housing Costs, transportation costs, and the definition of affordability. According to Professor Sanchez, the rule of thumb is your house should be less than 30% of your income (this does not take into consideration location).  This article http://budgeting.thenest.com/much-income-should-spend-mortgage-4065.html says you should spend around 28% of your income on housing… so less than 30% seems like a pretty accurate generalization. Transportation is about another 15 percent of your income; depending on location, transportation and shelter average out to being around 20% of your income each. Then, food comes in at about 13% of your income. However, a journal entry from soundmoneymatters.com http://www.soundmoneymatters.com/spend-more-food/ states that the average American family only spends 8% of their income on food, as opposed to the French, who spend 14% of their income on food. Americans spend less than other countries on food because we are opposed to over-paying for food. We like our gas, food, and water incredibly cheap, or we complain. But, the real dilemma is: are we sacrificing quality for price? And the answer is a most definite yes. The class also explored the concept of location efficient mortgages, which means the more efficient your location is, the more your housing payments are because you don’t have to make as many payments on cars. For instance, if you lived in the middle of a city, you wouldn’t need to own two or three cars, so you could pay for a more expensive mortgage.

Accordingly, on Thursday we covered Digital cities, a very interesting topic that is rapidly developing and becoming more innovative, even as I type this blog post. The barebones definition of Digital cities is: what kinds of information or facilities or technologies can be used to better connect households with households/ businesses/ government? Cities use this technology to simulate what they will look like ten/twenty/ 100 years from now. It tries to figure out how can we predict the changes in the future as far as service needs, infrastructure, and demographic changes? Most of what we see Digital/ wired cities developing around is internet connectivity. Professor Sanchez also told us Chatanooga, Tennessee is the most wired city in America as of right now. They are experiencing serious technological and infrastructure advancements… it is a city that has come back from the dead. Although from my point of view, it doesn’t really seem like these is much to do in Chatanooga, TN, a travel guide article below this sentence shows the best things to do in Chatanooga. None of these activities really seem all that appealing, even after looking at this article http://attractions.uptake.com/tennessee/chattanooga/610503799.html. Skipping to another point I found interesting, apparently most universities aren’t able to deliver most of the services they promise, so they outsource to technological firms. I think the meaning of this is most of American money is spent inefficiently. Going back to Ralph Buehler’s point that the German AAA makes money of taking care of German roads, whereas the American AAA loses money, seems like America started off strong, but we cannot maintain. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/mead-tt1107.html ß The article to the left makes it seem like colleges are spending every bit of their money they can to keep the cost of college as slow as possible. They spend most of the endowments given to them, and the government’s money to keep the cost of college low. I really can’t find a solution for the inefficiency presented by the American governments careless spending, aside from bringing the troops home. I guess our generation is going have rapid change pushed upon us, in the form of expensive renewable energy (that should have been slowly implemented over time), higher taxes, and higher payments in general.