What Charles Booth did for London (see previous post), the Justice Mapping Center does for various American cities, regions and states. Except with a much better methodology. And better technology. And more completely.
Our friend Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing writes:
Charles Booth's groundbreaking "Poverty Maps" of London from 1886 to 1903 used survey data to visually represent the quality of life for Londoners across a city that was characterized by enormous economic disparity. The LSE maintains an archive of the maps, zoomable and overlaid with the contemporary London map. The maps are colored from black ("Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal.") to yellow ("Upper-middle and Upper classes. Wealthy.")
Brick Lane is a bit different today - on the map it's black to represent the highest rates of crime, poverty and mortality. A commenter on the BoingBoing thread notes that essays on that area of East London are available online, and also that the maps themselves are on display at Bishopsgate Library.
Via mongrelmedia.com:
"MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.
The film follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai’s urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera.
Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it."
The American Sociological Review, the second best of the broad-topic sociology journals, recently published an article on the isolation and loneliness (pdf, actual article) of American citizens, drawing on the contrasts between a twenty-year-old data set and contemporary findings. The result? We're lonely. Really lonely. The Washington Post reports:
Whereas nearly three-quarters of people in 1985 reported they had a friend in whom they could confide, only half in 2004 said they could count on such support. The number of people who said they counted a neighbor as a confidant dropped by more than half, from about 19 percent to about 8 percent.
The results, being published today in the American Sociological Review, took researchers by surprise because they had not expected to see such a steep decline in close social ties.
This is generating a lot of really interesting substantive discussion over at Metafilter, which isn't usually known for going several hours without a flameout. Unfortunately, the ASA won't allow direct access to the actual article (pdf link above) for too long; their partner, JSTORS, sells the online service. So get it while you can.
from BoingBoing:
For thirteen years, in the depressed inner city of south central LA, 250 families have been feeding themselves on with organic fruits and vegetables grown on a farm that was once completely paved and considered completely useless for growing anything on.
The farm has almost zero fossil fuel imput and zero transport cost. It's a model the whole world should be copying, but instead the city has decided to give them an eviction notice. The sheriff's office delivered the notice on March 1st. This farm does great things, and its in everybody's best interest that it survive.
The city wants to replace it with a Wal-Mart.
see the eviction notice and more
A recent article - The Climax of Humanity in Scientific American - looks at demographic, economic and environmental transitions occuring in this century and how these characteristics are transforming individually, each other, and the world around us.
A developer in Washington DC plans to build 4,300 houses 100 miles away from DC - and 50 miles away from the nearest city. The Washington Post article How Far is Too Far explores the extent to which people are willing to commute in order to work in a city and live in the suburbs, and the social and economic repercussions of this decision.
Xeni Jardin blogs a letter passed along to her by Ned Sublette, ostensibly written by a rescue worker in NOLA, over at the always-inspirational BoingBoing.net.
Sublette says of the letter:
The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out.
White per capita income in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332. Median *household* income in B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Housing Projects, 2000: $13,263.
The letter itself reads:
There are dead animals floating in the water, pets left behind. Surely people thought they would be back to collect the pets. Not so. The rescuers smell like gas when they come back in; there's gas in all of the water that consumes the area. Fires are burning all over the place. Our teams are tired and they are thirsty and they are hungry. And they have a place to sleep and water to drink and food to eat. I can only imagine how the people without these "luxuries" are feeling right now.
Each night will be a race against time. When night falls, people can't get picked up from roofs, the rescuers can't chop into people's roofs to check the attics for anyone alive or for anyone dead (sadly, there are dead). At night we can't see power lines we can't see obstacles, we can't see any of the things that will bring down a helicopter or pose a danger to boats rescuers.
One of the teams came in today after having been out for hours at a time. One particular rescuer went straight to a corner and collapsed into tears. I went directly to him and just held his hand. What else could I do? I said nothing. He said it all. They lowered him 26 times and he pulled 26 people to safety. He wants to be back out there but there are mandatory rest periods. His tears are tears of frustration.
Entire teams are working on nothing but evacuating the hospitals. All four of the major hospitals are beginning to flood. Critical patients have to get out or surely they will be lost. Generators cannot run forever; that's just the way it is. There are limited facilities to take those that are rescued and those that need to be evacuated. Anything that leaves by air leaves by helicopter. There are no runways for planes that aren't under water. Only one drivable way in and out.
Water everywhere and more keeps coming. Until they can do something about the three levees that are broken, more water will come and more water will kill. The water poses major health threats. Anyone with even a small open cut is prone to infection. Anyone who touches this water and touches his eyes, nose or mouth without find a way to "clean" himself first will be sick with stomach problems before long. It's bad and it's getting worse. It's not going to be anything better than devastating for days or weeks at best.
I wish I could tell you that I'll check in again soon. I can't. I don't know when my next message will get out. We'll be leaving where we are within just an hour or so.
reposted – hope nobody minds – from Squattercity, my favorite read of the moment:
This article, from the premiere issue of the magazine of the Prague Institute for Global Urban Development, suggests that squatters themselves can develop their own neighborhoods. The author ought to know: Muhammad Yunus is the founder and director of the Grameen Bank in Dhaka, Bangladesh, an entity that specializes in micro-lending to poor entrepreneurs (and pretty much every squatter is an impoverished entrepreneur). Primitive proto-capitalism may not be fashionable, but it is one way to move squatter communities forward.
With paraSITE, Michael Rakowitz advances the odd phenomenon of urban parasitism. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life, but seriously, if someone had the chutzpah to set up an igloo-shaped vent attachment to my living or working space, I would have to allow them to stay, because, well, look at it! It is just amazing.
Anybody who has been following planning circles in the past months and years knows about the "Burger vs. Neighborhood" debate (basically, it boils down to a question: do healthy diets or non-walking lifestyles contribute more to the nation's obesity epidemic?).
Last fall my Urban Geography professor seemed to believe that the most processed, unhealthy food was placed in the most economically distressed areas. In essence, the fatty chain franchises are targeting the poorest portion of the population with their locations and marketing (low prices, value menus, etc.). To some degree this could be quantified (a quick search brings up several articles related to this subject).
BoingBoing brought my attention to Oakland's innovative solution: The Mobile Market. The great thing is that its accessibility and pricing beat out the unhealthy food businesses competing for this neighborhood's market. Food First describes this program and others like it in other major cities.
(sidenote: I'm personally really interested in any research on food and social systems. If you're reading this and know about something even tangentially related to it please let me know.)
A charity in London, Eaves Housing, has now published the Poppy Report, which examines and tries to understand the patterns of the sex industry in London by mapping locations where commercial sex takes place. The project also aims to help emancipate those who are trafficked into the city for this purpose.
Recent Comments