Cities and Sea Levels

Just ten years ago news stories about the catastrophic effects of climate change were phrased largely in hypothetical terms. As I recall, such stories would appear in the mainstream media only once every several months. Nowadays the stories are not hypothetical; they are about real changes underway right now: melting polar ice caps, species extinction, unprecedented numbers of hurricanes and droughts, and on and on. Such stories are an almost daily occurence, providing a frightening backdrop to our lives. Just last week a story was published in the Times of London that reported on scientific findings that "dozens of the world’s cities, including London and New York, could be flooded by the end of the century." This article is based primarily on research appearing in the latest edition of Science. Time also leads its current edition, which focuses on global warming, with the front page headline: "be worried, be very worried." All of this made me wonder whether anyone was thinking concretely about how this might impact our lives and our childrens' lives. Surprisingly, it is difficult to find much information that is local rather than global in orientation (please suggest resources if you know of any). One exception I just came across is a 'mash-up' which overlays data about sea level increases onto google earth. Check it out here. You can look at cities around the world and then watch how a 2, 4, or 12 meter increase in sea levels would affect them. For most coastal cities it doesn't look good.

What we can't learn from the map is how this will affect the social life of cities and nations. Much will depend on the speed of the changes. It's certainly an area which requires a lot more anthropological research. So if you're thinking of graduate school, keep that in mind. As a friend of mine who worked at Human Rights Watch once told me when I was thinking about going into human rights work: "Well, you should consider doing it because, unfortunately, it's a growing industry." Unfortunately, so too is global warming.

Banking on Minorities and the Poor

In the documentary film, New York: City of Tomorrow, we saw how banks helped to create the conditions for the emergence of slums in NYC. By providing better lending terms to people living in racially homogeneous neighbourhoods, banks essentially provided a structure of economic incentives that led whites to move to the suburbs and blacks and latinos to stay in increasingly segregated neighbourhoods in the inner city. In the post-War period, the system changed, but American banks continued to be roundly criticized for their failure to provide adequate lending to poor and minority groups. Lest we think this is merely an American problem, the Toronto Star showed last week that a similar phenomenon is evident in Toronto communities like Regent Park where banks have abandoned the poor. The problem might not always be abandonment, however. The Christian Science Monitor reports on a change underway in cities like Boston where banks increasingly see poor neighbourhoods as "the promised land - or at least the land of promises. Their airwaves are jammed with commercials urging residents to refinance and "cash out;" their telephone poles are papered with ads luring first-time buyers to apply for loans..." Needless to say, this binge is driven by a desire for profits and is being accompanied by increased numbers of foreclosures. How that will alter the spatialization of povery in the city remains to be seen.

Wikipedia vs Encylopaedia vs Nature

I mentioned in passing yesterday that Nature had published a paper comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia to Enyclopaedia Britannica. This was a few months ago so I was surprised to see that today the BBC is reporting that EB is fighting (pdf) back by accusing Nature of doing a shoddy study. Nature then provides a response (pdf). This controversy transcends urban anthropology. Essentially we are watching 19th century encylopedism fight it out with 20th century science and 21st century socialware. Stay tuned to this one as it could have far-reaching consequences for how truth is arbited in our society.

Mumbai as the Sorcerer's City

In a recent talk at the University of Toronto, Vyjayanthi Rao described the radical transformation underway in Mumbai's cityscape. Using remarkable images, she showed how slums were being displaced to the city limits while the new architectural forms of the global city rise up from within the skin of the old industrial city. Rahul Srivastava, an urban anthropologist in India who is a colleague of Rao's in the impressive PUKAR urban studies institute, describes this process as a kind of sorcery in which new technologies reveal land available for new construction that even longtime residents knew nothing about: "...there must have been some hidden, powerful magic in the city’s polluted air. Otherwise how else would acres of land suddenly emerge from its congested belly? Land — collectively the size of Nariman Point — has appeared apparently out of nowhere, in the middle of the city’s industrial heart, ripened and ready to bloom into malls and posh skyscrapers. It must be Mumbai’s famed magic." Read Srivastava's article in the Mumbai Mirror here.

The Invisible City

Hi folks - I came across a new city paradigm : the Invisible City!! Check out the article on the Guardian's website. Snippet follows:

"Chongqing is the fastest-growing urban centre on the planet. Its population is already bigger than that of Peru or Iraq, with half a million more arriving every year in search of a better life. And yet so frequently is this story repeated in China, that outside the country its name barely registers. Jonathan Watts spends 24 hours in the megalopolis you've never heard of"...

Disaster Entrpreneurs in New Orleans

More on the globalization of urban destruction and reconstruction: “When I landed at the airport, I overheard two people talking who saw the hurricane as an opportunity. They were disaster entrepreneurs,” says Aguilar. “Then I get to the city, and it’s crazy.” In these Times has an article on the tensions emerging in New Orleans between "disaster entrepreneurs" and undocumented day labourers. Many of the latter are from Mexico and Central America, and it is they who are doing the dirty work of destruction and reconstruction, while camping out under bridges and in exhorbitantly priced tent parks. Are these tensions not merely a more extreme example of the kind of class tensions that Sassen associates with the globalized economy?

Toronto: A Culture City

"Culture is at the centre of city-building in Toronto", proclaims the AGO on its website. An exhibition entitled "Culture City: New Toronto Buildings" (on now, through December) examines eleven architectural projects that demonstrate Toronto's "cultural critical mass". Scale models, maps and colour photographs of various architectural initiatives and transformations (the ROM, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, OCAD and the National Ballet School, to name a few) are included in the collection, intended as a spectacular display of Toronto's cultural innovation and prestige. The exhibit raises a few questions for consideration: is Toronto a world player on the culture scene? To what extent is the vibrancy of a city reflected in (or dependant on) its cultural institutions? What type of cultural (and national) identity is forged through these grandiose projects?

Miller on "Building a Great World City"

David Miller, mayor of Toronto, is presenting the 2006 Keith Davey Lecture at Victoria College. On Thursday, March 30 at 4.30 p.m. Miller will deliver his lecture, entitled "Building a Great World City for the 21st Century", at Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles Street West (admission free).

Urban Destruction and "Reconstruction"

We live in a world where entire cities are regularly being destroyed and then "reconstructed". The source of their destruction may be war (Kabul, Bagdhad, Dili), disaster (Banda Aceh, New Orleans), or simply modernization on an immense scale (Beijing). [One of our newer members--Sheri--is conducting research on the Dili case]. Whatever the cause, urban reconstruction and redevelopment add a whole new social dynamic to urban life. An example of this is provided by Kabul, where foreign workers, security forces, narco- "war lords", and ordinary Afghanis are all active in rebuilding the city following the war. Some analysts, like Marc Herold, believe what is happening to Kabul right now is highly problematic. He cites a Bloomberg article which describes how foreigners are affecting city development: "This is a new Kabul, a rebuilding city full of high-rises put up by the nouveau riche modeled on gaudy Pakistani buildings they remember from their exile. With their black-and-white marble trim, fussy columns and multicolored glass facades, they stand like arrogant peacocks over their humble adobe neighbors. Paid handsomely for working in a war-ravaged country, the burgeoning ex-pat community rebuilding the country flocks to trendy international restaurants like L'Atmosphere, owned by a Frenchman who originally came to Kabul to train Afghan journalists. Here, behind high steel walls, a passageway meant to mimic a Provencal farmhouse gives way to a well-kept garden, complete with a swimming pool. Bikini-clad French women exchange greeting kisses on the cheek as Bridgette Bardot-era music pumps gently from well- hidden speakers. Tables fill up quickly with hungry U.N. workers and diplomatic staff who pore over the menu, looking for the best Beaujolais." See Herold's scathing take on Kabul here (his views are not necessarily my own, but they certainly deserve consideration).

Experiments in transforming public space

Follow this link to see a group that plays with public space - fun ways to think about Michel de Certeau's place becomes space. I am currently trying to put "mission" together with a couple of people based on the MP3 experiment on this site. I am going to do this in an institution space with about fifty people. I was thinking that one interesting spin on it would be to layer four or five separate tracks each of which would play out a different senses of the space; the space seen as a historical location, the space experienced accompanied by a surreal music track, an interpretation of the space as a panopticon etc., I would be interested in hearing about possible ideas. http://www.improveverywhere.com/mission_view.php?mission_id=44