futurebird

who held on when everyone else was letting go.

2008-01-29T13:15:16Z

Artists need cities because artists need audiences. Even if they don't live in cities artists depend on urban networks to spread and popularize their ideas. In the 1970s American cites were in decline, even New York, the cultural capitial of the nation, was hemorrhaging people, landlords burned their buildings, and the city seemed to be going to hell.

Urban planners speculated about a future without cities: a suburban future. In the heart of the once dense Bronx some blocks were raised to build single family suburban style housing. This was touted as the city's future. But, most of the time, all over the city, nothing was built at all. On the Lower East Side vacant brownstones with leaking roofs and missing walls became shooting galleries for heroin addicts. The city and state invested in highways, moving cars and building suburbs and they redlined the city. Fire service was reduced and LES, Harlem, East New York and the South Bronx burned. City leaders quietly waited for the population to fall, for the city to stabilize in to something smaller, less dense and less complex. But, something as massive and as ancient as New York cannot simply vaporize. It cannot dissipate, but rather it must implode, like a black hole, sucking everything and everyone in it down with it. Or so it seemed, at the time. We can watch a movie like Escape from New York today and laugh at the irony of the first few lines: "Manhattan Island in New York City has become a maximum security prison." But, this view of not just of New York, but all dense American cities was very real in the 70s and 80s.

Nearly, everyone with the financial means to leave, did. Except for the artists. Artists need cities. Cities are cultural amplifying devices. They are hot-beds and incubators of creative energy. The very quality that city leaders sought to diminish: density is an essential element of the usefulness of cities to artists. Not only did the artists stay, but they kept coming, from all over the world, drawn to the cultural capital, looking for a big break or inspiration. They willingly entered a crumbling and disorderly New York. In their artwork and in their lives one may see a reflection of those strange days when we almost gave up on the project of being a civilization.

This is why the work of musicians, artists in theatre, fashion, and film in New York city in the late 70s and early 80s is so fascinating. Their work took place in a time of heightened urban despair and dark currents run though the music, paintings, trends, fashion, and theatre of the times. Andy Warhol's most famous and creative period was in the 60s but he remained in the city through the 70s and in to the 80s when he died. This was the period of the "corporate Warhol" in his own word "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art." Warhol had always fashioned himself as an ironic "sell-out" but never was it more true. In the 80s the art scene became a "market" launching some into fame, like Jean-Michel Basquiat while leaving the majority on the dangerous margins of a tattered city.

Jean-Michel Basquiat brought a tiny hint of the energy of graffiti in to the world of "high art" --his work can be seen as a reflection of a decaying city that had at last stopped to examine the grim and often desperate writing on the walls. Real graffiti had no time for wallowing in misery. The scripts that covered trains and walls were infused with joy that acted like a tonic to brighten beak urban settings. Early Hip-Hop music served a similar purpose, it was fun and funny-- in defiant contrast to the poverty-stricken neighborhoods that produced it.

Likewise, the disco, and later the punk scenes focused on fun. Too often this was intertwined with drug abuse. The story of Gia Carangi, a teenaged girl who came to New York in 1978, became a supermodel, partied at the mudd club and CGBGs and, just as quickly fell in to heroin addition, to die of AIDS in 1986 embodied both the decadent and destructive currents of these times.

But the city did not implode. Our New York is more alive and less dangerous. There is something glamourous about that past, but I think this beauty can only be seen in retrospect, it was not real. What was real was the decaying housing stock, surging numbers of TB cases, A mysterious plague, AIDS, and a dysfunctional and dark city. The so-called glamour and mystique of the age comes from the fact that people continued to enter the city, even during this time to seek fame and fortune, and in doing so risked (and sometimes lost) their lives for art. This is what makes graffiti, as an example, so fascinating. Who in their right mind would risk being arrested just to create art?

In the dark days of the city the few remaining had to band together-- this created a kind of unified scene or cultural moment, today the activities of artists are diversified-- there are a thousand scenes and more artwork is produced without the surrounding pressure of a dying civilization. We like to credit the resurgence of the city to better police work, to a better economy, to immigration and our growing ethnic neighborhoods but a large share of credit is due to the artists who held on when everyone else was letting go.

Density

2008-01-24T14:21:18Z

Examples of high urban density and low suburban density.

High density, 21.2 units/ acre in San Francisco, CA

Low density 1.9 units/ acre in Delano, CA

How do we choose to use the land?

17. Ephemeral but legendary histories

2008-01-24T13:41:14Z

←- more to come ...

History is, of course, far more than books describe. Histories are carried by people in many ways, and they change over time. Our understanding of the past is continuously revised by our experience of the present. Hence, history is under constant revision and rarely in agreement with itself. When I say history, I do not mean "facts" I do not mean a mere list of occurrences, measurements of population, temperature, random photographs or observations. History exists in the present through the stories people tell about the past. The arcs of stories give history its shape and meaning. Without the story it would just be a collection of data. Because histories are shaped by that meaning-giving instrument, the story, they do not conform perfectly to facts, in some sense, they cannot conform to the facts.

But, the purpose of history is not to accurately reproduce some aspect of reality, but rather to accurately lend meaning to reality by translating it in to the kind of stories people use naturally in their thought processes to understand everything they encounter, including the evidence of the past. History is a story that requires a person to tell that story. History requires people to witness its passing. In a place with no people there is no history, beyond whatever we might deduce from layers of sediment and the stones.

The bulk of history emerges in places filled with people. Again, a history need not be momentous enough to take up space on the shelfs of a library to be a history. It need only be a story of real events worth recounting to someone, anyone. A story from life, a personal history, a company history, a universal history of human beings.

Most of the time, we make our history without even realizing it, but from time to time there are moments where we are aware of ourself and our place in the greater story of all people, and perhaps the planet and even universe. We might feel, suddenly, all of the intertwining histories that have led up to us, that are moving through us, as we make the choice that creates the future. In that kind of moment we simultaneously see our actions and the significance of our actions as a part of some greater story. This is a ephemeral and legendary moment.

In the city these moments are everywhere, we may watch the theatre of strangers in the street, or make our own stories for the crowd.

Standing on a roof at night one may see slices of many histories. On every roof and terrace there is life, people flicker by a narrow ally way, a young man smokes on the fire escape, in the street a man with a brief case drops it and a flurry of papers cover the street. Then a woman with a tiny dog tries to help, the young man is still smoking slowly watching the cars on the bridge in the distance, he looks up a waves, an ephemeral moment.

All of their histories became a part of our own history. And our history is theirs, observed, remembered, told in fragments, perhaps some flicker of the spirt of who we are remains in all this even after we are gone.

From: The Urban Naturalist

I never thought this essay really clicked. I've reworked it a bit. There is something in here, and I think it's worth including.

appendix removal update

2008-01-18T06:52:09Z

The pain meds make it impossible for me to do any math so I've stopped taking them in the morning so I can get a little done. Once I take them all I can do is write, surf the web and cook, but even the coking is a bit dangerous. I'm hoping that I'll wake up tomorrow and not feel any pain and just be done with it. I want to go running. I almost feel ready. It's probably a bad idea to run while medicated, right?

I can't wait for school to start, I'm not looking forward to the stress, but my mind feels so mushy and unfocused. Abstract algebra is going to be fun, I worked through the first two chapters of the book and it's the kind of structured topic that really gets me going. I'm still nervous about advanced complex variables, I merely survived the first term, I really must spend more time reviewing advanced calculus. That's my weak point.

Probability theory should be a lot of fun. Maybe I'll make a trip to the book store tomorrow, I'd love to pick up my books early and start digging in.

Civilization

2008-01-14T20:09:00Z

A lot of you agreed with some of the ideas in my last post. I don't think that will be the case with this one.

Civilization describes the way that humans live, when they have a surplus of food, and therefore labor. Civilization requires the development of cities, arts, cultural institutions, recreational and academic institutions under conditions of relative surplus and peace. Civilizations, like great cities have their own cultural memories, they last for centuries, even millennia. A civilization is stable, like the eye os a solar hurricane, it is a fixed constellation made of tremendous and often violent motion. The imprint and life-span of a civilization, like the imprint and life-span of a city, is much older than the bricks and stone from which it is constructed. These physical elements may be replaced many times. It is the abstract ideal that allows the civilization: a point of intersection, a focal point for human activity, a center for religion or culture to persist beyond human lives and beyond any of the objects that those people might create. Civilized society is defined by the development of cities. And cities are the icons, and incarnations of civilizations.

Civilization is dependent on the existence of cities not only for trade and centralization, but also for cultural development. To abandon cities is to abandon civilization. Hence the distrubuted, decentralized ideal of total suburbanization without cities cannot be called civilization. The idea that cities might be obsolote, because of improved information technology, or because of inexpensive energy, or for any of the other reasons that have been used to justify decentralization is a philosophy that necessarily abandons the project of civilization building. This is not a value judgment. A provincial, nodal mode of living may produce a lifestyle with many benefits. Mid-century planners seemed to strive to make such distributed living possible and, in many places, they have succeed.

In suburbs discontented from any urban center people live highly compartmentalized and isolated lives that are nonetheless dependent on global networks. But, this arrangement is not a civilization. Without an urban center there is no cultural focal point, and the diversity, difference of human experiences remains largely hidden. Suburban living cloaks differences in class and culture by providing each person exposure only to those people who belong to their own social order. Hence, one rarely becomes aware of differences in class, education or opportunity. Decentralization blocks cross-cultural and tans-class transmission of ideas and innovations. Order and unity must be maintained by the central transmission of cultural information-- leading to massive conformity within social and class groupings.

Without cities, there is no need for the civic virtues. These are the unwritten rules that maintain social order and that allow people from all walks of life to interact and live in dense vibrant places. The deterioration of our cities represents an attempt to end the most human of projects and to destroy the most human of environments. Cities have always been what people have created when the resources and collaborative spirt to support them was in place. To abandon and lay waste to cities is to give up some essential part of what it is to be civilized.

16. Share

2008-01-12T17:22:46Z

←-→

Housing subdivision near Union, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Image from the Wikipedia.

Image from an advertisement for LG washers and dryers published in "House Beautiful" magazine in 2007.

One of the advantages to urban living is the opportunity to own (and hence throw away) much less stuff. I'll take this rather iconic image from a recent advertisement for a washer and dryer as my illustration. The vast majority of city dwellers do not own their own washer and dryer. This isn't a function of wealth, as much as it is a function of space. There is simply no place to put the noisy and bulky machines in your typical apartment. People wash their clothes in shared facilities located in their building, or at a local Laundromat. Wealthy people send their clothes out to be cleaned, while most of us load up the cart and roll it down to the basement or around the corner to do the wash. In either case, the machines used in this process are used by 100s of people, they are built to last as long as possible, they are only replaced when they are broken. This clothes-washing arrangement is not possible in a suburban setting because the low density development makes it inefficient. Instead, each household buys and discards its own machine. This is just one example of how economies of scale work to make cities more environmentally friendly places than they at first appear to be on the surface. This kind of "green" living requires no laws, and no extra effort, it's simply a function of the spatial design. It's built-in. Likewise the tendency towards duplication and waste is built in to suburban neighborhoods. You can't blame people for buying their own washer and dryer, it's the only practical solution for that spatial arrangement.

To some of you, the imagery here must seem bit tired, right? Since the beginning of the suburban boom in the United States, social scientists have been critical of this type of housing development. Although, the topic is old, please keep in mind both of these images are relatively new. The advertisement looks like it could have come from the 50s, but it was published in the December 2007 issue of House Beautiful magazine. The housing development shown the photo was constructed during the last five years. This kind of development has never really slowed and today, more than ever, we have created environments for ourselves that make sharing hard. This is happening today.

The suburban plan really did wonders for the economy for years. Think of all of the products that were sold, the jobs that were created, and the growth that suburban redundancy helped ignite. At this late stage, it would seem that, even in suburbia, a large number of people have "one of everything" so now the advertising challenge seems to be to find ways to convince people to buy two. Or to convince people to throw out old products more quickly and buy new again, even when the old product has not worn out. It's really unfortunate that the economic healh of the United States is so closely tied to such a wasteful cycle. We need to find some other focal point for our economy. That focal point could be increasing the efficiency and long-term sustainability of cities so that they can accommodate larger populations.

And there is room for waste-cutting in the urban settings too nd we can simultaneously improve quality of life while making these adjustments. Dry cleaning uses harsh chemicals and shirts tend to be packed in excessive amounts of paper and plastic. Many old, industrial washing machines waste water and energy and could be replaced with more efficient models. But, the bigger point here is that planning can help people to share resources. Choices about where and how we live have big impacts on the environment because these choices dictate what kind of energy savings are and are not possible. And, we can take this beyond washing machines. What are some other examples of things that people tend to buy redundantly that could instead be shared? How do urban and suburban living arrangements hinder or help these attempts at cutting back?

Last: Transportation (Plane, Bus, Foot and Train)
Next: 17. Ephemeral but legendary histories

From: The Urban Naturalist

No shame

2008-01-11T01:46:51Z

I was looking at a magazine and I saw this advertisement for a washing machine. Here is the first half of it:

Guess what the rest of ad says? (I was SHOCKED.)

When I read the first line of copy I got sort-of excited, I thought that the company was going to brag about how long its washers lasted... But, no...

That's right folks! You don't have to wait to buy a new one! Why wait for planned obsolesce to kick in, when you can just throw away a perfectly good working appliance... well... because you feeel like it? Just toss out that huge hunk of metal and plastic and buy a new one... why? Why not? Here's what the ad says:

I mean, there are some superficial comments here about better performance, but what is this really about? It's about the fact that the washer is red. That's right, it's about having the latest color.

Now some people might feel guilty about throwing out a machine designed to last for upwards of 10 years... but, this ad is working to wear down the natural and human resistance to waste that I think most people just have naturally. It's really monstrous and shameless.

I thought that these kinds of things were meant to be subtile. Now they just come right out and say it: consume, wantonly, for no good reason, create waste... who cares!

And why is she tossing it in the swimming pool?

I'M'ALIIIIIIIVE!

2008-01-10T13:25:15Z

I had to have my appendix removed. (But,I still have my bibliography! Ha! ha! Get it? ... oh, never mind...) At any rate, I'm just returning from a 2-day stay in the hospital. I'm doing well, and I should be back to normal in a week or so. But, if I'm slow to respond, or if I missed something in the past few days, blame it on my illness or the pain meds I'm taking ... or something. Cheers! It feels great not to be dead. I love the miracle of modern medicine. Woot!

12. Train

2007-12-30T00:33:43Z

←-→

Trains are holy. Majestic, other worldly. I think it is because somewhere in the national consciousness for Americans there is this faint memory of what rail travel once was, before it vanished, become impractical except for hobbyists and dreamers.

There are so many great songs about trains, I'm certain that when I die a train will take me to heaven. Cat Stevens had his "Peace train" -- and the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin had the Festival Express. But before all of those hippy trains there was this train, that the Impressions sang about in their 1964 hit song People get ready:

People get ready, there's a train comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
You don't need no ticket you just thank the lord

That's the train to the afterlife folks. But, if you're not ready for that train yet, maybe you'd just like to go home. A train can always take you back.

He's leaving
(Leaving)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leaving on a midnight train)
Yeah, said he's going back to find
(Going back to find)
A simpler place and time
(Whenever he takes that ride, guess who's gonna be right by his side)
I'm gonna be with him

Or maybe you're trying to get home to Chattanooga. (For some reason)

You leave the Pennsylvania Station 'bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham an' eggs in Carolina

When you hear the whistle blowin' eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

Still, trains tend towards the mysterious. Think of the children's book: The Polar Express. A train pulls up on a suburban street and whisks a little boy away for an adventure. It's not the journey to the North Pole that is miraculous in this story as much as it is the idea of a working railroad in a suburb. When my father was little you could catch the "dinky" train on tracks just a few blocks from his house to downtown Pittsburgh. Buried in snow it was a real winter wonderland. Trains are something like mythical creatures that we tell out children about-- not a serious form a transportation. Well, not for most people anyway.

If there is anything to look forward to in a resource scare carbon sensitive world it is the return of the trains. And I hope I get to see them before I have to catch that final ride.

Transportation:

Plane
Bus
Foot
Train

Last: 11. The Wounded City
Next: 16. Share

These little snapshots of transportation are part of a larger series called "The Urban Naturalist."

13. Foot

2007-12-29T20:33:19Z

←-→

When I'm jogging, that's when it really hits me. I get road rage. The traffic, the thousands of cars plowing through my neighborhood, over the bridges and around the corner, barley stopping for red-lights, almost knocking me over. Filling the air with dirt, and I don't need to read a scientific paper about the impacts of pollution to know it, because I can feel it. It's like smoking, but without the buzz. It's like smoking hot ash. I quit smoking but I just can't seem to quit breathing exhaust fumes. I have the insane urge to connect the exhaust pipes up to the cabins so people can get a taste of what they're leaving in the air. They don't know, they can't know, if they did they'd stop. Even if it cost more.

Forget, the greenhouse effect and global warming and the acid rain: you're killing my lungs. Adding seconds and minutes to my miles times, I'm running slower. In the summer the street signs warble as the heat comes off of the pavement. The urban heat island effect cooks the city, making mothers keep their kids in at rush hour to avoid the stench coming home in their clothes. In the winter the snow is black the the warm exhaust forms dense white clouds. Shaving months and then years off of people's lives.

But on foot you see everything. You meet people and they wave and say hello. You'd be surprised how well you get to know places when you travel on foot. I know how to find everything, I know every little shop and park. I know where you can find sidewalk sales, and endives and a water tower where you can see the whole city if you climb up a tiny spiral staircase. I know where the most beautiful graffiti in the whole city is and you can't see it from a car.

Walking is king.

Transportation:

Last: 11. The Wounded City
Next: 16. Share

These little snapshots of transportation are part of a larger series called "The Urban Naturalist."

14. Bus

2007-12-29T20:10:36Z

←-→

All Rosa Parks ever wanted was a chance to ride on the bus like everyone else. The bus took protesters to Washington for numerous marches. The bus is the vehicle of everyman, but more specifically the poor and disenfranchised man. If you live in the US your local bus service is probably mostly for poor people and old people and especially old poor people. The service is infrequent and unreliable. In Seattle my friends who work for dot.coms that survived the crash never ride the bus. They drive. The other passengers on the bus are too scary, they say. And the service sucks.

The bus stops are dreary. You stand by the road watching the more privileged and valued citizens of this country in motion, in cars, stamping your feet in the exhaust stained snow. They are going somewhere and you are waiting. The sign post for the bust stop is bent, it was hit by a car: watch out.

But the bus is the future. Even if it isn't a natural gas bus, or an electric bus, a regular bus, be it greyhound or the city, is one of the best and most environmentally friendly options for travel. A packed bus is the best of all. Economies of scale. It really helps when you let one engine move a whole crowd of people rather than taking your own car.

In the US we have done everything we can to discourage people from riding the bus. The bus is the ghettoized transportation of last resort. When you think of a nice place it is never a bus station that comes to mind.

The things is: a bus is almost as good as a train and in some cases better.

The bus is the future.

Transportation:

Last: 11. The Wounded City
Next: 16. Share

These little snapshots of transportation are part of a larger series called "The Urban Naturalist."

15. Plane

2007-12-29T00:08:36Z

←-→

The first time I came to New York City it was by jet plane. Flight remains, I think very futuristic, taking a plane ride is bound up with all kinds of symbolism, freedom, the future, finding new beginnings.

I think of Stephen King's short story The Langoliers (that was made into a very bad TV movie): in it airplanes and airports provide an escape portal to the future (and the past) the story ends with a vibrant description of an airport infused with newness as the present catches up and the heroes are returned to safety. In my experience, in some way airports are always infused with newness. So much so that the modernist architecture is often the subject of ridicule.

I also think about the last scene in the play "Angles in America" where Harper Pitt addresses the audience from a plane:

Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America. God, it’s been years since I was on a plane. When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone. I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired. Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.

Again, we have the imagery of airplanes intertwined with images of the future and new beginnings, and yes, death too, but the kind of death that is a new beginning.

And then there is that cheesy song by John Denver, Leaving on a Jet Plane.

But, I'm leavin on a jet plane
Don't know when Ill be back again.

And, yes, the first time I saw New York City: it was from the window of a plane. So, I am as enthralled as anyone in the magic of air travel. It is strange to think that I will probably never ride on a plane again in my life. Not by choice in any case. (Not unless there was some great emergency.) Despite all of this futuristic, clean imagery-- air travel is extremely dirty, brutal and destructive to the environment. It's worse than driving and most certainly worse than traveling by train.

But, none of these cultural images of air travel even hint at this aspect. It's not really something that people think about often, I think people may be more aware of the damage caused by cars.

If our leaders become at all serious about cutting carbon emissions we'll find that air travel is much more limited than in the past. The moments described in these works of fiction will seem mysterious, even hard to imagine for our grand children, they will wonder at the fact that people once took to the sky so carelessly.

Transportation:

Plane
Bus
Foot
Train

Last: 11. The Wounded City
Next: 16. Share

These little snapshots of transportation are part of a larger series called "The Urban Naturalist"

two kittens

2007-11-21T21:24:43Z

These are two kittens we found outside our apartment building here in the Bronx. My husband insisted that we save them, I'm glad he did since it's cold out. They're going to be great new family members.

Stop romanticizing nature.

2007-08-13T13:22:53Z

Humans are competent to do many things. But I do not think we are competent to run a global ecosystem. Something has been irretrievably lost by the time we begin to believe that we can manage nature for people. The essence of nature is that it is not “for people.”

The 17 Percent Problem and the Perils of Domestication
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: August 13, 2007
The New York Times

While I agree that humans are struggling to manage our influence on nature, and that our inability to manage the resources on this planet may pose a threat to our survival and the survival of other organisms, I don't see what other alternative we have. It's not as if, absent the influence of humans "nature" manages itself. A world without humans isn't like the garden of eden, species will still go extinct, and climates will still change. But the course of those changes will occur in a vastly different way without us. It is wrong to simply assume that wild, uncultivated lands and natural resources are inherently good.

The environmental movement arose as a reaction to the 19th and early 20th century notions that nature was wild, untamed and primarily benefited from the influence of humans. It recognized humans as a potentially destructive force. However, it also romanticized the idea of wild nature. I think we're finally coming to a kind of crossroads in the environmental movement where we can let go of that notion. Humans are a part of nature. Human forces are natural and natural forces are neither inherently good nor bad.

It has taken a long times for people to recognize our power to influence the environment in negative ways with respect to our future survival. There is still resistance to this idea, like those who resist the notion that extinction or global warming is due to human actions.

There are two main points I'm making here:

1. Stop romanticizing nature.
2. Recognize that humans are a force of nature.

It's childish to hope that, if we simply withdraw influence, "nature" will automatically solve the problems we have created.

okay one more photo...

2007-07-09T00:56:45Z

Our wedding day: 7/7/07

Our wedding

2007-07-09T00:53:44Z

I don't have much to say. I'm just so happy. Here is a photo.

Global warming and the rusted '57 Plymouth Belvedere

2007-06-23T15:02:42Z

Global warming and the rusted '57 Plymouth from Tulsa, OK

I have a guest piece up at bagnewsnotes.com. Please check it out.

read more | digg story

Graffiti wars: At the red wall

2007-06-17T19:27:45Z

In August 2002 I visited High Bridge Park in Washionton Heights and was surprised, delighted and appalled by the graffiti I found in the section of the park under the sweeping curves of the entrance and exit ramps to the Cross Bronx Expressway. I created this painting in an attempt to capture what I loved and hated about the graffiti covered red wall.

When I visited the parks again, only a month later, I started to grasp the true nature of the situation. Most of the graffiti I'd observed before had been painted over with bright red paint, but despite this, new tags had appeared on top of the fresh coats of paint. Over the next 5 years I'd see this process repeated many times.

I began to wonder how "the authorities" had been drawn in to such a childish and sysiphisian battle over public surfaces, and I began to wonder why graffiti removal had a higher priority than other aspects of park improvement. As the park department battled teenagers with paint over the dreary walls of the expressway overpass, the park lamps remained broken, the pavers continued to crumble from the steps in front of the red wall and the park continued to fail (at least in this area) to serve the public.

There is a popular philosophy in law enforcement and urban planning known as "broken windows." It states that cosmetic improvements and battling so-called "quality of life crimes" are the key to establishing public order. However, the "broken windows" has failed in the case of the great red wall. No amount of paint will make this place a destination for regular neighborhood folks, the kind of destination that is self-policing through the presence of people engaged in ordinary daily activities.

Creating public spaces that work requires thought about how those spaces will be used. Since the steps are broken and since there is no illumination after dusk, since there are no park amenities in this area, no water fountains, no picnic tables or grilling stations there is no good reason to walk under the noisy expressway except to tag the walls with graffiti or, if you work for the city, to paint over those tags. The primary activity for this space is painting the wall. (Or, in my case observing and enjoying the drama of the wall being painted, over and over!)

The only people who use this area sensibly (myself included) are the people who have dogs, who seem appreciate having and area where they can let the hounds off-lease for a bit. Hence, the correct solution to the graffiti problem is to stop worrying about painting the walls, fix the broken walkways, fix the lamps and install a dog run. This will make the area a destination, and alleviate other areas of the park from unsightly dog mess. The increased use will deter graffiti and, at some later date the more unsightly tags can be removed and they will stand a better chance of not returning. We should, however consider keeping some of the more artistic works, they're a part of the history of the area and an improvement to the oppressive blank walls of the expressway.

Cosmetic improvements are important, but it is the changes to the form of a public space that dictate how it will or won't be used. A park that isn't used by anyone but graffiti artists is rightly a graffiti park, and if we want to change that and expand the number of people who can enjoy that space we'll need to build in such a way that people have a reason to be there. Tagging and "untagging" alone won't have any lasting impact.

60 million dollars have been budgeted for park improvements. Let's hope that they are used wisely.

futurebird @ 2007-06-02T04:12:00

2007-06-02T08:13:56Z

Dear Prof. Rodrik,

I just read your op-ed piece in the times and I found it refreshing to hear that someone out there understands how free trade, that does not also apply to the labor market, hurts workers.

However, one of the statements in the piece confused me: "To help poor nations the most, the program must ensure that guest workers return to their home countries." Why is this important? Is the program about helping poor people or is about helping poor nations? It seems more important to help people.

Isn't rather perverse that people can't put down real roots in our country under this program? The forced transience of the guest worker program seems like one of its worst features. Our economy and the people in such a program would benefit most if it lead to full citizenship. There is no point in having "sort-of" citizens in the country who can’t participate in politics and who have no incentive to build communities or anything of permanence, since they know they have to leave.

If we really want to improve the economy through immigration we should gradually increase the number of legal immigrants we allow in. We should give all legal immigrants full rights. All of the workers in this country deserve to be on equal footing and not limited to working only in certain industries for certain spans of time.

A temporary worker program is not a brilliant new idea. We already tried this in the 60s. Bracaro Program made it legal for farm workers from Mexico to come to the US provided they worked certain jobs-- and only as non-citizens. The U.S. Department of Labor officer in charge of the Bracaro Program, Lee G. Williams, once called it "legalized slavery."

While the new temporary worker program provides (in writing) more protection (but not enough) than the old one it is unlikely that an over-taxed immigration system will, in addition to handling a flood of new immigrants, be able to ensure that these guidelines are followed. If other similar programs are any indicator, the guidelines will mostly likely be ignored and any temporary worker brazen enough to ask for, say minimum wage will most certainly be ignored.

Sincerely,
Susan Murray

Medea

2007-03-27T14:15:20Z

I had the privilege to attended a rehearsal for Cathrine Gulick's production of Medea last night. Gulick has written a new translation that is uncluttered and clear. The effect is seamless and fresh with contrived flourishes of language and tortured metaphors cleared away we are left to concentrate on the story. And it is the storytelling that really shines in this production. The cast has brought the full spectrum of emotions to this story, the play moves from naturalistic and understated, to the truly epic... and it works. The cast and director seem to understand that the beauty of these ancient tragedies is in the story telling the moment to moment shifts of allegiance. Mark your calendars and see this show.

tickets are $10 and must be reserved in advance
the theater is at 130 west 29th street

tuesday, april 17 at 8 PM - press preview (free)
wednesday, april 18 at 8 PM - press preview (free)
saturday, april 28 at 8 PM
sunday, april 29 at 5 PM
tuesday, may 1 at 8 PM
wednesday, may 2 at 8 PM
wednesday, may 9 at 8 PM
saturday, may 12 at 8 PM
sunday, may 13 at 3 PM - mother's day special
tuesday, may 15 at 8 PM
saturday, may 19 at 8 PM
sunday, may 20 at 5 PM

http://www.nightschooltheater.com/

just checking

2007-03-17T00:23:13Z

f(x) = sin(x) + sin(x*sqrt(2)) has no fundamental period.

Right?

Wall Street Drawings

2006-12-29T16:23:12Z

Some of the drawings for the book I'm making about Wall Street for my little niece:

But, not long, not long, as the fair city grew,
they tore down that wall and paved it all over too.

This was called Wall Street, old home of that wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

For, this is called Wall Street, old home of that wall,
lenders, bankers and borrowers, both great and small.

[here is the rest of the text, as posted before:]

The from the House of Morgan, to Trinity Church,
from the home of the Big Board, where the fat pigeons perch,
you can see hurried bankers, partners, brokers and clerks
rushing to lunch and to and from work.

For, this is Wall Street, old home of that wall,
traders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

But, what are they doing, each busy long day?
Listen to what ol' Warren Buffet says:
"If a business does well, the stock will soon follow."
(For for risky day-traders, a hard pill to swallow!)

But you see, this is Wall Street, old home of the wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

Here are some brokers, they'll sell and they'll buy,
profits' earned in the spread between low and high,
And this guy's and analyst, a heavyweight clerk,
he makes bold predictions: "Will that business plan work?"

But you see, this is Wall Street, old home of the wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

But not all money is earned with great hurry and speed
the stately bond markets are less risky indeed
least risky of all, with a basement of gold
in the Fed's solid walls the wealth of nations it holds

Ah yes, this is Wall Street, old home of the wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

The trading day's over, the closing bell's rung.
Time to close up the books and total our sums.
Bears and bulls both alike, some won, some lost,
The smart see the price, while the wise know the cost.

And yes this is Wall Street, old home of that wall
with lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

Any comments on text and these images? What sort of drawings should I have for the rest of the story?

.... I have a long way to go on this project!

Rational function as a locus??

2006-12-17T04:02:25Z

Help me out here. I think I can define a kind of rational function as a locus of points, but my locus definition is still too long and confusing.

It all started with these doodles I like to make showing two points (A and B) and parallel lines going through those points. At the endpoints (A' and B') of any perpendicular to the parallel lines I'd connect the points A and B' and then B and A' so that they cross. Then I'd track the arc traced by the intersection of AB' and BA'. In this drawing to the left you can see the case where the lines from A and B are parallel, so no intersection... that is the the same point the function becomes undefined (I think) when you are working with it using algebra. In any case, this is great fun if you are in a long boring meeting. Try it some time.

At first I didn't know if it was a curve. Ha! I thought it'd be a line! But it's never *looked* like it was linear...

Then, I tried using a little algebra and found the parametric equation:

Xt=tm/(n+2t)
Yt=t(t+n)/(n+2t)

n/m is the slope from A to B (not reduced... though, I don't know if it matters.)

After solving for t in both parts of the parametric equation I found a general rational function. That part was quite a mess and I still need to check my answer. But, whatever it is, it's not a poly-function.

Bigger and better constructions held up this idea as some lovely rational curves emerged:

OK. So, now the question is, how can I define these curves as a locus. I want it to be shorter and sweeter than what I've written above. Are there and fun geometric applications for the rational function? (I mean a situation that mirrors the requirements I've described for these curves.)

Also, where can I learn more about this topic?

Thanks to anyone who can help!

Wall Street

2006-12-16T14:21:02Z

I want to make a book for my little niece about Wall Street where daddy and mommy work. I think this silly poem I wrote will be the text:

Long long ago, and a long way downtown
the the Dutch built a wall and timbered' it round.
But, not long, not long, as the fair city grew,
they tore down that wall and paved it all over too.

This was called Wall Street, old home of that wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

So, one fine spring morning, 'neath the buttonwood tree
some sharp financiers formed the N.Y.S.E.
On Each business morning, 9:30's the time:
Ding! ding! ding! rings bell, and the stocks fall or climb.

For, this is called Wall Street, old home of that wall,
lenders, bankers and borrowers, both great and small.

The from the House of Morgan, to Trinity Church,
from the home of the Big Board, where the fat pigeons perch,
you can see hurried bankers, partners, brokers and clerks
rushing to lunch and to and from work.

For, this is Wall Street, old home of that wall,
traders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

But, what are they doing, each busy long day?
Listen to what ol' Warren Buffet says:
"If a business does well, the stock will soon follow."
(For for risky day-traders, a hard pill to swallow!)

But you see, this is Wall Street, old home of the wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

Here are some brokers, they'll sell and they'll buy,
profits' earned in the spread between low and high,
And this guy's and analyst, a heavyweight clerk,
he makes bold predictions: "Will that business plan work?"

But you see, this is Wall Street, old home of the wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

But not all money is earned with great hurry and speed
the stately bond markets are less risky indeed
least risky of all, with a basement of gold
in the Fed's solid walls the wealth of nations it holds

Ah yes, this is Wall Street, old home of the wall,
lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

The trading day's over, the closing bell's rung.
Time to close up the books and total our sums.
Bears and bulls both alike, some won, some lost,
The smart see the price, while the wise know the cost.

And yes this is Wall Street, old home of that wall
with lenders, borrowers and bankers, both great and small.

Environmentalist Suzuki to quit spotlight for simple life

2006-10-25T21:50:11Z

Environmentalist Suzuki to quit spotlight for simple life

I don't know much about Suzuki, but he sounds like a pretty great guy. He's one of the people who championed environmentalist ideas back when they were much less popular. And for that I commend him.

But, I must say I wonder about his desire to "live the simple life" --I didn't get the impression he was doing it to save the planet, it sounded more like he was doing it for personal or spiritual reasons and I wouldn't want to criticize that.

But, why is that so many people feel that one must go out into the woods in order to be "in-touch" with nature? Nature encompasses all living things and their environments, including humans. Why is "the environment" only considered to be places with lots trees and not many people? The environment is the entire planet and the environments that demand our greatest care and respect are those densely populated places where people live-- too often, they are unbalanced places that fail to serve any purpose for life, human or otherwise, except to conduct humans from one place to another, often to "escape" the very kind of place that evolves as a result of trying to escape.

Part of me wonders if "the simple life" is just another kind of escapism. Living in some rural setting may do greater harm to the environment, and in any case, it is a luxury that we simply can't offer to all of the people in the world. We just don't have the resources.

And as a luxury, is it even that compelling? Wouldn't it be more spiritually satisfying to find the power of nature working in all environments?

To each his own, I suppose. But the day will come when we'll find these notions of "purifying nature" absurdly quaint.