Whole Earth Discipline: City Planet
Nov. 9th, 2009 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollBrand's annotations
This chapters suffers from the fact that it is filled with ideas I agree with and therefore may not peer at as closely as I should.
Well, it starts with a quotation from Terry Pratchett. That makes up for Herbert and Robinson.
This is the chapter that made me decide to track the book down. In fact, this is the specific quotation:
This is true, obviously, so why the heck has it taken so many people so long to notice the positive aspects of cities? Why were people who live in major cities themselves blind to their virtues? It's like people participate in processes without noticing them.
To some extent, this feels to me like "Stewart Brand expands his perspective". I'm thinking of passages like
Why would Tokyo's presence be a surprise? As Brand himself notes, the dominance of western cities is a recent anomaly and it is more typical of human civilization for the large cities to be in the East (although Africa is slated to experience prodigious population growth in the 21st century and as Brand himself notes, cities like Lagos are exploding in size).
There's an amusing comment I will no doubt quote at some point in the future without properly footnoting it:
He draws parallels between living organisms and cities, which I thought was a metaphor rejected by our old friend Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities. I know Brand's read it because he links to it.
Hrm. Clearly, I need to review the paper in question.
In any case, people move to cities because because of the opportunities and even slums can be a step up for the very poor. From an ecologist's point of view, cities are good because people living in cities have less of an ecological impact, all things considered, than people living on farms. Bet that will be a popular idea in the circles that adulate rustication.
Expect
to get tossed into future conversation. I should probably run the original paper down to ground first, though.
The improvements for women look promising but I can't say I am keen on cities as a vector for religion. Interesting to consider the implications of this in the context of the extinct Amazonian culture I mentioned here some time ago.
They've clearly improved third world slums significantly since the last time I walked though one (1970). I read this section to someone who asserted that Asian slums tend on average to be better places to live than North American ones. Interesting if true (and the slums I walked through in Rio get described in the context of How Not to Do It, and are what Brand calls 'feral zones').
Some Carlos bait:
It's not sanctioned but outside of self-deluded states like the Soviet Union, I don't know of many that claimed it didn't or couldn't exist and it seems like a logical and predicable outcome. Brand's not an economist, though.
The comment about slums being dominant is obviously meant only to be a temporary condition. They won't stay slums.
Short version: if you like people, cities good. If you like plants and animals, cities also good. If you're fond of small towns or lives of desperate squalor out in the bush, cities not so good.
More later, maybe.
This chapters suffers from the fact that it is filled with ideas I agree with and therefore may not peer at as closely as I should.
Well, it starts with a quotation from Terry Pratchett. That makes up for Herbert and Robinson.
This is the chapter that made me decide to track the book down. In fact, this is the specific quotation:
“In the village, all there is for a woman is to obey her husband and relatives, pound millet, and sing. If she moves to town, she can get a job, start a business, and get education for her children.” That remark at a conference in 2001 exploded my Gandhiesque romanticism about villages. The speaker was Kavita Ramdas, head of the Global Fund for Women.…
This is true, obviously, so why the heck has it taken so many people so long to notice the positive aspects of cities? Why were people who live in major cities themselves blind to their virtues? It's like people participate in processes without noticing them.
To some extent, this feels to me like "Stewart Brand expands his perspective". I'm thinking of passages like
In 1900 London had a population of 6.5 million; New York had 4.2 million, followed by Paris, Berlin, Chicago, Vienna, Tokyo, Saint Petersburg, Manchester, and Philadelphia. Tokyo is the only surprise in that top-ten list.
Why would Tokyo's presence be a surprise? As Brand himself notes, the dominance of western cities is a recent anomaly and it is more typical of human civilization for the large cities to be in the East (although Africa is slated to experience prodigious population growth in the 21st century and as Brand himself notes, cities like Lagos are exploding in size).
There's an amusing comment I will no doubt quote at some point in the future without properly footnoting it:
“The world’s 40 largest mega-regions, which are home to some 18 percent of the world’s population,” writes urban theorist Richard Florida, “produce two-thirds of global economic output and nearly 9 in 10 new patented innovations.…”
He draws parallels between living organisms and cities, which I thought was a metaphor rejected by our old friend Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities. I know Brand's read it because he links to it.
we discuss how cities are similar to, and differ from, biological organisms
Hrm. Clearly, I need to review the paper in question.
In any case, people move to cities because because of the opportunities and even slums can be a step up for the very poor. From an ecologist's point of view, cities are good because people living in cities have less of an ecological impact, all things considered, than people living on farms. Bet that will be a popular idea in the circles that adulate rustication.
Expect
Fifty-five times more tropical rain forest is growing back each year than is being cut
to get tossed into future conversation. I should probably run the original paper down to ground first, though.
The improvements for women look promising but I can't say I am keen on cities as a vector for religion. Interesting to consider the implications of this in the context of the extinct Amazonian culture I mentioned here some time ago.
All slum households in Bangkok have a colour television. The average number of TVs per household is 1.6. … Almost all of them have a refrigerator. Two-thirds of the households have a CD player, a washing machine, and 1.5 cellphones. Half of them have a home telephone, a video player and a motorcycle.
They've clearly improved third world slums significantly since the last time I walked though one (1970). I read this section to someone who asserted that Asian slums tend on average to be better places to live than North American ones. Interesting if true (and the slums I walked through in Rio get described in the context of How Not to Do It, and are what Brand calls 'feral zones').
Some Carlos bait:
This is what is called the “informal economy.” It is to economic theory what dark energy is to astrophysical theory. It’s not supposed to exist, but there it is, and it’s huge.…
It's not sanctioned but outside of self-deluded states like the Soviet Union, I don't know of many that claimed it didn't or couldn't exist and it seems like a logical and predicable outcome. Brand's not an economist, though.
The comment about slums being dominant is obviously meant only to be a temporary condition. They won't stay slums.
Short version: if you like people, cities good. If you like plants and animals, cities also good. If you're fond of small towns or lives of desperate squalor out in the bush, cities not so good.
More later, maybe.
