The planners we want

Submitted by cuz on Sun, 09/04/2011 - 12:35

On an academic planners listserve, there is currently a discussion over the increasing demands being placed on planning academics to get positions and tenure. In the midst of a critique of this approach, Peter Marcuse has suggested the following:

We want planners with imagination, with social values, with a desire to explore and investigate new frontiers and think of alternatives not already in the mainstream. We want planners who are personally sensitive to how others feel and act and are treated and affected by public and private policies with which they deal. That requires a life not confined to hours in libraries and in front of computers. If their career is to be in academia teaching, we want good teachers, teachers with empathy for their students, themselves engaged in doing what they preach, exciting teachers whose vision of good teaching goes beyond a sound syllabus and responses to specific assignments. We want planners who are excited about their work, dedicated to it as part of full and active personal as well as professional lives.

Worldwide carpets

Submitted by cuz on Fri, 09/02/2011 - 10:22

Babo sent me this link for "Worldwide Carpets" that seeks to use Google Earth images of urban areas to build repeating patterns for carpets. There's definitely some pretty stuff.

Fall 2011 semester launch

Submitted by cuz on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 11:36

So the new semester starts in two days and my summer's work remains incomplete. I'm mainly wrestling with the subtleties of my paper on Susan Fainstein's new and wonderful book, The Just City. I am trying to argue that her strategy is weakened by her overemphasis on pragmatism and underemphasis of the Just City's utopian potential. It's a counterintuitive argument that depends on showing that her call for justice is not utopian but with a little twist could be. It also must show that she is misapplying Andre Gorz's nonreformist reforms strategy. It's an engaging and frustrating challenge for it's one of the first times that I'm directly grappling with long term political strategy.

I must work out the certainties soon, though. With three new classes, their attendant readings and preparation, and four thesis students, my time will be precious and limited. But I'm excited at the same time. But before I start teaching my university classes, I am going to read why Gorz says the university should be destroyed!

Attending a conference in Hamburg, Germany...by Skype

Submitted by cuz on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 22:44

Unfortunately it's not working out so well. I've been listening in on talks at this interesting conference on port city networks (link is pdf) at HafenCity Universitat in Hamburg. And tomorrow I'm supposed to present. There are challenges to making this work, however. If I were to organize something like this on my own, I would try to prepare the following:

  • A solid, ethernet connection rather than wireless.
  • A microphone that reaches the speaker's podium. Sound would still be imperfect but much improved.
  • Ideally two computers with cameras signed into two Skype accounts and linked to other attendees in a group video chat. One computer would face the speaker and screen. The other would face the audience. So much of being in a place is picking up on ambient cues. Only seeing the speaker creates a social awkwardness that inhibits the ability to participate.

I think it can work, but it requires so much solid bandwidth that a decent experience may still be a decade away.

Stifling social media

Submitted by cuz on Mon, 08/15/2011 - 10:51

We are now witnessing the true ingenuity of our not-so-representative leaders. Public officials in the UK and the US are already using the riots in London to advocate for and experiment with restrictions on free speech in order to maintain "public order and safety". The role of social media (Twitter, Blackberry Messenger, etc.) in coordinating both the violence and the cleanup in the UK is by now widely known. So now David Cameron is pushing for government powers to control those types of communication. He said:

“Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them.”

And an official Manchester police Twitter account said:

“If you have been using social networking sites to incite disorder, expect us to come knocking on your door very soon.”

London is burning

Submitted by cuz on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 09:00

First there was Tunisia, Egypt,  Syria, and more. Now there is London. While Western governments and media outlets applaud and support the protests of North Africa and the Middle East against their dire, oppressive conditions, they blame the riots in London and other UK cities on bad parenting and deplore it as mindless. As others have pointed out, the media and government officials do not lay the blame on austerity cuts that have eliminated the last benefits the disadvantaged and disempowered had available to them. They do not blame overly aggressive policing and unprovoked searches. They do not see that this violence, like that of the riots in LA and other cities in the late 1960s, is born out of desperation and frustration.

Here is a fine example of how the media suppresses this deeper understanding of the crisis (Youtube, 9:54). This BBC video with Darcus Howe, a broadcaster and columnist for the BBC, demonstrates that the BBC is not attempting to examine a variety of explanations of the crisis but rather is trying to impose an official interpretation.

Global economic inflection

Submitted by cuz on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 14:43

This morning I read Larry Elliott's summary of five key dates in the current economic crisis. His article highlighted 9 August 2007 as the day banks began pulling out of the US mortgage market, precipitating the crisis; 15 September 2008 as the day the world learned that big banks could fail when the US let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt; 2 April 2009 when the G20 met in London and agreed to expansionary policies; 9 May 2010 when the IMF and EU announced that they would bailout Greece; and 5 August 2011 when S&P downgraded US debt to AA+. Each of these dates, according to Elliott, mark a loss of stability and security in global financial markets, as the perceived security of investments in big banks and countries was undermined. I think he is right on, but in my opinion, the last date is likely to prove the most momentous in the long run.

I would compare it to the the unpegging of the US dollar in 1973. After the elimination of the gold standard, the American dollar stood as the fixed international currency upon which all others measured their value. However, in 1973 with oil shocks and recession impacting the US, this proved unsustainable and global currency markets became floating markets. However, the dollar did not lose its fundamental integrity because US debt was deemed the most secure of investments. It served as a fundamental source of security in the uncertain global market. As of 5 August 2011, however, this security is gone. There is no security in money any longer.

Will we now see a return to the most fundamental of fundamentals? Beyond gold, there are the tangible raw materials that support all production. We've seen the prices of these eminently(?) nonabstract goods rise rapidly in the last several years. I imagine they will continue to rise for some time. And this may be a boon for those concerned with the environment. Rising prices will encourage more sustainable practices. It is also likely to reduce economic growth, which will negatively impact the income of many workers, reducing demand. This economic contraction may be precisely what the world needs to redirect itself to a more sustainable path.  

A new site for a new semester

Submitted by cuz on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 22:41

I didn't really intend to create my own content management system for my classes, but pair.com is offering new hosting plans with huge storage. So I decided it was time to create my own cloud. And rather than transfer over my old Wordpress blog, which has been idle anyway, I decided to set up a drupal site. Aaaand knowing that a drupal site could be used for a wiki and wanting to use a wiki for my utopia class, well, there was no choice. Much tweaking to go, but this definitely feels like a good move forward.

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