, that informal urbanism is destined for only unstable geologies and toxic manmade sites. But is this really the case?
What if downtown Detroit was settled by refugees from the sudan, or northern Philly becomes a bangladeshi shanty town? these sites may have bad capitalist karma or evil feng shui preventing them from thriving in the post-industrial world. But they have infrastructure and the urban fabric to support dense populations, or is the suburban fringe the next fronter for internally displaced people from the drought in Georgia and the Colorado River Basin?
Well, just because of my personal outlook and preference onto the world as a “sociologist” and “designer”, I hope suburbia is “the next frontier for internally displaced people”.
Considering how the question was posed.
(Of course in my aspiration to become a socially aware and active architect, I hope the field of architecture will work cooperatively to become proactive in the slum-solution in its concern in the built environment).
In layman terms, Davis seems to be talking about developing world countries (layman: third world) and what we in America, depending on the subculture, would call “the ‘hood”, “the projects” or “white trash trailer parks”.
However, it must also be noted that what Davis writes about is (even though underscored) environmental racism: the likelihood and eventual pattern that involves toxicity located where the poor, namely those of color, reside (Social Problems Eitzen Zinn) and what he describes as “informal [/] rampant urbanization” NOT ‘urbanization’.
He even goes on to specify the “urban poor”. This, to me, unveils that the issue- whether he intended it to be or not- is the poor. Period.
Despite the location and its affects, the urban poor are no different than the rural poor. The subject of his article is environmental disadvantage that inflicts upon the poor but his emphasis is on urbanity. (…is how I see it…)
LOGICALY, where the next slum is implemented (or is forced upon) depends greatly on what both writers have suggested in form or another, the economy and government established social structure.
IF environmental forces or government established (or allowances) push people from the rural or suburban areas than the people who were not already wealthy before the transport will struggle. Maybe even the people who had agriculture or rural/suburban based wealth or did not otherwise diversify their investments past rural/suburban means will struggle as well if they are not apt to industrialized/technological (depending on who you are/ask depends on what society phase America currently operates in) business savvy.
IF the government sees it fit that the poor survive on urbanity’s pre-structured/ready-made “infrastructure and the urban fabric to support dense populations” and relocate them there, than urbanization will include informal and rampant placement of disadvantaged people.
AS I SEE IT, America’s most likely slum will next arrive in suburbia. Here’s why I think:
-Urbanization is the new black; developers are growing cities “up and out”, seemingly for sport, but
-there’s a demand; everyone wants a loft, a view, to be “zen”, to be “mod”
(anyone noticed the ever-emerging glass contemporary interventions on ‘past style’ buildings?)
-people move from the city to raise a family not only when they’re partial to suburbia family life, but when they can’t afford to raise a family in the city. The city’s most developed sites are convenient, close-knit, utility expenditure saving, and safe because only people with megamoney can afford its luxury!
(anyone read Dwell’s snippet on suburbia’s “Mansions Make Bad Neighbors?)
-The world’s population is growing by approximately 81 million annually; the fear of impossibility often phases out wants, about how many people will be able to have their own yard of mature trees before long?
AS I SEE IT STILL “informal urbanism is destined for only unstable geologies and toxic manmade sites” by definition (provided by Davis)! Its “informality” is really social irresponsibility. (Yet and still, as I agree with the definition and result of informal urbanism, America is heading the-Leinberger-concept way).
*Leinberger also gave value to trend living: “Gone were the crowded tenements of the time; 1960s Americans would live in stand-alone houses with spacious yards and attached garages. The exhibit would not impress us today, but at the time, it inspired wonder. Seinfeld—followed by Friends, then Sex and the City—began advertising the city’s renewed urban allure to Gen-Xers and Millennials. These days, when Hollywood wants to portray soullessness, despair, or moral decay, it often looks to the suburbs—as The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives attest—for inspiration.”
If the “city trend” continues throughout the demand and need for urbanization, the people who cannot afford trend will be located elsewhere- outside of urbanity.
Food for Thought: even though “they [urban sites and people] have infrastructure and the urban fabric to support dense populations” does not mean they WILL. At this point, the earth has the ‘bio-structure’ and ‘bio-fabric’ to support all its population- but it doesn’t because of the SOCIAL structure and SOCIAL fabric and namely, stratification.
No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant, unless someone ensures and/or donates the help of human sustainability.
I cannot wait to utilize architecture to donate the help of human sustainability.
right on! i've been saying that detroit needs bodies more than architectural proposals for years now...especially after the displacement of the citizens of new orleans after hurricane katrina floods.
on another note...how come we have so many "urbanisms" now? and while we are at it, how come nobody is suggesting a "stripper urbanism"? that could involve some nice research.
well since corporations are sending their machinery to the 3rd world along with the jobs, why not send detroit to the sudan brick by brick and build a golf course in downtown detroit? that would help quite a bit. since we're being ridiculous oh and since we're worried aobut sustainability stop having children people.
If the “city trend” continues throughout the demand and need for urbanization, the people who cannot afford trend will be located elsewhere- outside of urbanity...No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant
I sense that I'm not completely getting your bigger point, ifYouCanSeeme, but I'll grab these two sentences to comment. Are there not already suburbs, I've heard about them outside of DC, in which two or more immigrant families buy a subruban house and have 16-20 people living in it? One would imagine as these families become more stable they will want to improve their house, so they will add bedrooms, etc. in a very ad hoc way with available materials and technologies. I think, ignoring the bigger and difficult social issues involved, that these buildings will be fascinating, especially to us designers.
Out In the northern suburbs of Chicago there are a number of villages that have require drawings indicating maximum occupancy for houses. This stretches to existing houses at time of sale. If they are for rent the icc property maintenance code governs. Annual inspections then insue.
While we stand aloof and say that family's trying to make due should be afforded every opportunity to do so. In reality I have seen 8 cars parked in the driveway, on the grass, and on the street. It is too dense, unsafe and not fair to the neighbors.
my point is that the suburbs are on to the densification and have already enacted steps to mitigate it.
I guess the question of whether it is safe in general is one issue, but whether it's safe for the neighbors is another - if the whole neighborhood is doing it, who would mind?
"And thus a slum is born"? Not necessarily - maybe "and thus a vibrant urban condition is born".
“If the “city trend” continues throughout the demand and need for urbanization, the people who cannot afford trend will be located elsewhere- outside of urbanity...No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant”
Okay Liberty Bell,
That exert was a conclusion to a part of my post.
City Trend- the popularity surrounding urban living
Demand- the people who have the $$$ to fulfill and perpetuate the concept of this popularity
Need- The government and developer’s response to the high influx of immigration and the 81million annual (domestic) people born to America
Urbanization- not what Davis was talking about but the American development of cities as we, from a social and creative standpoint, know it
People who Cannot Afford the [City] Trend- the poor, And be Relocated Elsewhere- suburbia (in partial agreement with Leinberger’s article)
“The [A] Bigger Point”:
You touched on it observing the disadvantage that already exist in suburbia. “No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant” is simply me saying that this informality and rampant-ness Davis talks about is really my observation that the government alongside builders (of any sort) do have the means to help people in relocation, whether by “global force” or government establishments or allowances, can solve these issues of subject in Davis’ writing. Unless people make social provisions for the impoverished, than no matter where they live can be described as informal and rampant… …whether it’s 25 people in a suburban house or 3 people in an urban shanty without the basic means of living…
“Are there not already suburbs, I've heard about them outside of DC, in which two or more immigrant families buy a suburban house and have 16-20 people living in it?”
Yes, there are and this describes what Davis would probably call “informal/rampant” living. (Let’s just replace ‘urbanization’ with ‘living’ in that Archinect-ers are not taking well to different forms of urbanization. I myself have already made the point that Davis’ article was really about environmental racism and social irresponsibility; his chosen emphasis was just on the urban area (which he calls “informal/rampant urbanization.) AND I also have already pointed out that despite location and its effects, the urban poor are no different than the suburban and rural poor in concern of ‘relocation’).
“One would imagine as these families become more stable they will want to improve their house, so they will add bedrooms, etc. in a very ad hoc way with available materials and technologies. I think, ignoring the bigger and difficult social issues involved, that these buildings will be fascinating, especially to us designers.”
I too think these buildings will be fascinating! People in the circumstances provided by you Liberty Bell seem to execute residential construction in the most logical, beneficial way; at times it’s too obvious to think of yourself unless you’re under those financial pressures.
It kind of reminds me of when I go surfing through the home and garden channels; people with less space and less money see to be the most efficient (and often the most creative) when it comes to home ‘adaptation’, especially more so than people 1 and 2 million dollar homes who just have good looking (often only okay looking) stuff than thought and design in their homes.
“I guess the question of whether it is safe in general is one issue, but whether it's safe for the neighbors is another - if the whole neighborhood is doing it, who would mind?”
“ "And thus a slum is born"? Not necessarily - maybe "and thus a vibrant urban condition is born".”
Again ignoring what Barry Lehrman, Leinberger, and Davis are talking about, I like your perspective on the design potential that awaits density, Liberty Bell. And am in agreement.
It transitions quickly. Less than two years. If you have ever field measured a house that has two to three families you would know what I mean. One house had 6 children, various ages, in one 10 x 11 bedroom.
The tough part is the second kitchen, un vented, shoe horned into the basement.
Before the sub prime meltdown we had designed a number of quasi two family houses. It will work as infill but the existing housing stock can't deal w/ the density.
suburbs are of course attining new immigrants and their extended families as the city itself (pick one) has become cost prohibitive for people without deep pockets. notice if you ride say a commuter train in from the burbs how often the passengers mixed in with the sales executives or secretaries are the janitors the fast food employees the hotel workers. this is not new.
"as the city itself (pick one) has become cost prohibitive for people without deep pockets."
Exactly.
"this is not new."
No, this is not new, but the articles along with the Barry Lehrman posed question maybe represents a conclusion, or at least some approaching result, of this "not new thing" is comming to surface. The question is, what will it be?
Just to quickly infere, I think one soon observable result is that the city will beome more glamorous, the city will become more than what we have known it to.
Well, "DUH!", yes developement and evolution are part of life and very much so evident but I think these ever emerging concerns about what is not new cues us that we are in the midddle of a turning point.
Both Mike Davis' article and the Leinberger one that sparked the suburbs thread are pushing their analogies a bit too far. The forces that push poor rural dwellers into forming these dense urban slums would not necessarily work in reverse in the US.
The Economist had a special report on cities last May (don't know if it's online) and one of the articles basically said that people form these slums because they prefer urban squalor to rural hopelessness, what the article calls "a strange allure". As terrible as conditions are in these places, the people that move to them are following a long established pattern of "country to city" migration on the part of the poor (which is unlike the "city to country" migration of the middle class which spurred the suburbs). This country had a similar migration when large numbers of Southern blacks moved to Northern cities - and mostly ended up living in not so great conditions in urban areas.
But even in the examples that Davis gives, as degraded as these urban accretions are, they are still "feeding" off of a city, and that relationship still offers something of value to the people living in them. A reversed situation, which is what many here are discussing, does not have the same dynamics, simply because a poor life in the middle of nowhere offers even less than such a life in a favela. The article also points out that one of the reasons that these slums are hanging in there and little effort is made to eradicate them or even improve them is that a flow of money (and, incidentally, votes) runs along a line from the slum dwellers to local politicians to state mininsters and on to the top. As that old movie set in our capital once pointed out, "follow the money".
In any case, there would first have to be a massive collapse into poverty of the middle class in this country (not saying that could not happen) before the scenarios being considered here would begin to happen, and even then I think the pattern would still follow the "rural to urban" pattern, even in this country.
there is a long tradition of having rural poor migrants into american live in high density, ghettos and slums, beyond the african american migration following the civil war. If you haven't visited the NY Tenement museum, it documents the living conditions of the lower east side at the peak of the early 20th c. influx of eastern european immigrants (most were rural and poor, a few urban and poor). Current equivalent is around NY's chinatown and the fujianese migrants living a secret life of squalor, and in some of the barrio's spreading through the post-industrial northern cities.
Absolutely Emilio, I agree with your 'transitional' observation; I touched on it earlier but did not elaborate.
Barry Lehrman's post is interesting although if you did not read the articles, you may end up with an askew perspective. Davis concentratged on developing world countries NOT America while Leinberger's article looks at the American past and (infered) present.
Davis' article could be used to make American inferences but I doubt that America's poor would parallel the developing world's poverty 'relocations'.
Yes, tk, those are good examples, as is the migration of large numbers of people from Puerto Rico to NYC (a subject sung about in Steely Dan's "The Royal Scam".)
Disaster Urbanism makes me think of Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine which is all about Disaster Capitalism... See
The link between either disasters and more "regular" disaster like conditions of urban living...On the Fringe and exploited.
I to read the Economist article, and obviously the idea of rural to urban migration is not new. Yes, the benefits may outweight the poor living conditions, but.....
Is this "strange allure" really the whole story?
People want work and a future, not slum living. Unfortunatly the promise of the first two often go hand in hand with the other...
Just to toss something out there (and my posts here are definitely confused with the suburban thread - sorry, I'm having a hard time distinguishing): There is also a huge swell of wealthy city people now, moreso than in the past decades, buying a second home out in the country. So much so that when I picture Montana these days all I can sense is huge private ranch butting up to huge private ranch, with very little public land available.
Migration to the cities by the poor, being mirrored in economic strength, though not in numbers of people, by urban people fleeing to the land?
although the wealthy are indeed buying ranches in montana (as well as large holiday homes in mountain and tropical areas) it's debatable whether most of these rich people are really migrating. most of them spend so much time traveling amongst all of their homes that it's debatable whether or not they actually live anywhere...except maybe on their jet planes.
i'm also a fan of klein's disaster capitalism. it's intreresting to layer her "red zone/green zone" on top of the landscape & speculate on the results
beware of stereotypes. my exgirlfriend/future wife's abuela lives in the mountains of puerto rico in a little cinder block house surrounded by goats and chickens. she has little education, however one son is a doctor, one an engineer and her daughter has a phd in social work. and my exgf/future wife has a phd from cambridge.(the real one)
these days i'd happily settle for a g350...but did anybody else read the recent article in arch digest about the renovated 727 where the owner bragged about how much better it was than a gulfstream? needless to say, i'm very jealous.
and for what it's worth, my house is surrounded by chickens and goats too.
Yes, nam, I think what most of the residents find in those slums is just another dead end.
The role of the World Bank as described in both the Davis and Klein article makes me sick: capitalist vultures going in under the guise of helping, but mostly just contributing to the poor's dead end (I guess we know where that money line described in the Economist article really ends).
Very interesting parallel... My question is, if those are such obvious parallels, what will the long term effect be on those people living in the slums (to be?) in the US...
Politicians love cranes; they need solutions within the time frames of elections and cranes deliver them. But there are only a limited number of problems that are susceptible to this kind of time scale. The result is a constant cycle of demolition and reconstruction that is seen as the substitute for thinking about how to address the deeper issues of the city.
Here is what I would say if I was a total pessimist and saw the glass as half-full:
"The city of the future is a vision of hell. If you're honest, you would classify humankind as a virus on the earth. Like that organism, our priorities are our multiplication and the killing of our host. These megacities are the beginning stages of the pestilence that will completely cover the earth and kill both humankind and the planet."
I'm not that pessimistic, but I've actually heard variations of that scenario from more than one person. Ok, time for a drink.
It's interesting that the colorado river watershed (the basin and range province) has the highest per capita disasters, followed by the rio grande and the ozarks. Something about flash flooding, tornadoes, and avalanches seem to find the less populated sections of the country. Hmm, maybe there is a natural reason that more folks don't live there. Of the major metropolitan areas, seems that denver, salt lake city, and san antonio take the lead. I'd have expected miami and the gulf coast to be higher risk.
that's a cool piece. interesting to note that they ended in 2004, and 2005 was the hottest, stormiest, deadliest hurricane season on record though. (oddly or fittingly enough, it was also the driest. wtf?)
katrina, rita, and wilma pummeled the gulf coast and florida, respectively, but it was stan that was the real killer.
stan was only a category 1 but demolished atitlan and killed probably 2000 in guatemala alone, though the real death toll will never be know. hundreds perhaps thousands more in el salvador and mexico.
immediately after stan was through ravaging the yucatan, inundating villages with floods and landslides, there was a volcano eruption AND a 6.2 earthquake.
a hurricane, an earthquake and a fucking volcano!
we need a new word in the lexicon: megacatastrophe
its interesting that both apocalypse (from + to cover = to uncover) and catastrophe (to turn down against/overturn) both come from a very basic compound construction: an individual's gestural verb (turn, hide) + directionally antagonistic prepositions(down, from).
meaning generated out of a self-axial motion, like a fat grub in a plastic tube turning on itself.
TK,
One wonders if the surprising disparity has alot to do with the capacity or experience of the California governement with such disasters.
I earlier this year during th efires I was amazed that they seemingly quickly got almost 80-100k people out of their homes and into a stadium. Especially in the gridlock that is southern Cali...
Also, not a new thought. But re-reading over some fo this threads posts, i got to thinking how the militaries of the world (especially USA and Israel) take the pessismistic view for the most part and see the new mega-cities (20+ million) of the future all over the world as the new battlefields and warzones of the world. thus there focus on al sorts of new techniques and methods for dealing with "insurgents" and non state actors...
how about, in response to cenocatastrophism (the continuous incarnation of the new from the death of the old) , a self-resurrecting urbanism (the reincarnation of the old in the birth of the new)? that is to say, an urbanism that mirrors itself on both sides of a temporal chasm (catastrophe) and therefore is always conscious of being intermittent and reversible, rather than one-directional and necessarily permanent. the ancient egyptian nile culture, the babylonian culture, aspects of the ancient greek culture all recognized this. global modernism, however, is inherently a gestating ground for shock (is in an absolute state of pre-emergency) when catastrophes rupture its progress and contradict its, modernism's, logic. fordism cannot fathom intermittence.
this is not original. birth in the enclave of a rotting carcass...etc.
perhaps i am posing acceptance in a vernacular cyclic culture of Ad perpetuam rei memoriam (an analogically memorializing/ mythologizing culture) contra the rejection of a solution-finding materially-cluttered /systems-layered culture of a forward-moving complexity. perhaps then, i have fallen for an already prepared-for cliché posing nature against artifice (whereas before, i've seen the artifice in nature). and if argue on the other side of the track, again, a cliché. archinect as the combating ground of prepared and packaged ration-alities; "taking a stand" as an old professor tried to teach me.
disaster urbanism
, that informal urbanism is destined for only unstable geologies and toxic manmade sites. But is this really the case?
What if downtown Detroit was settled by refugees from the sudan, or northern Philly becomes a bangladeshi shanty town? these sites may have bad capitalist karma or evil feng shui preventing them from thriving in the post-industrial world. But they have infrastructure and the urban fabric to support dense populations, or is the suburban fringe the next fronter for internally displaced people from the drought in Georgia and the Colorado River Basin?
you could probably make a book out of that idea
Hmmm…
Well, just because of my personal outlook and preference onto the world as a “sociologist” and “designer”, I hope suburbia is “the next frontier for internally displaced people”.
Considering how the question was posed.
(Of course in my aspiration to become a socially aware and active architect, I hope the field of architecture will work cooperatively to become proactive in the slum-solution in its concern in the built environment).
In layman terms, Davis seems to be talking about developing world countries (layman: third world) and what we in America, depending on the subculture, would call “the ‘hood”, “the projects” or “white trash trailer parks”.
However, it must also be noted that what Davis writes about is (even though underscored) environmental racism: the likelihood and eventual pattern that involves toxicity located where the poor, namely those of color, reside (Social Problems Eitzen Zinn) and what he describes as “informal [/] rampant urbanization” NOT ‘urbanization’.
He even goes on to specify the “urban poor”. This, to me, unveils that the issue- whether he intended it to be or not- is the poor. Period.
Despite the location and its affects, the urban poor are no different than the rural poor. The subject of his article is environmental disadvantage that inflicts upon the poor but his emphasis is on urbanity. (…is how I see it…)
LOGICALY, where the next slum is implemented (or is forced upon) depends greatly on what both writers have suggested in form or another, the economy and government established social structure.
IF environmental forces or government established (or allowances) push people from the rural or suburban areas than the people who were not already wealthy before the transport will struggle. Maybe even the people who had agriculture or rural/suburban based wealth or did not otherwise diversify their investments past rural/suburban means will struggle as well if they are not apt to industrialized/technological (depending on who you are/ask depends on what society phase America currently operates in) business savvy.
IF the government sees it fit that the poor survive on urbanity’s pre-structured/ready-made “infrastructure and the urban fabric to support dense populations” and relocate them there, than urbanization will include informal and rampant placement of disadvantaged people.
AS I SEE IT, America’s most likely slum will next arrive in suburbia. Here’s why I think:
-Urbanization is the new black; developers are growing cities “up and out”, seemingly for sport, but
-there’s a demand; everyone wants a loft, a view, to be “zen”, to be “mod”
(anyone noticed the ever-emerging glass contemporary interventions on ‘past style’ buildings?)
-people move from the city to raise a family not only when they’re partial to suburbia family life, but when they can’t afford to raise a family in the city. The city’s most developed sites are convenient, close-knit, utility expenditure saving, and safe because only people with megamoney can afford its luxury!
(anyone read Dwell’s snippet on suburbia’s “Mansions Make Bad Neighbors?)
-The world’s population is growing by approximately 81 million annually; the fear of impossibility often phases out wants, about how many people will be able to have their own yard of mature trees before long?
AS I SEE IT STILL “informal urbanism is destined for only unstable geologies and toxic manmade sites” by definition (provided by Davis)! Its “informality” is really social irresponsibility. (Yet and still, as I agree with the definition and result of informal urbanism, America is heading the-Leinberger-concept way).
*Leinberger also gave value to trend living: “Gone were the crowded tenements of the time; 1960s Americans would live in stand-alone houses with spacious yards and attached garages. The exhibit would not impress us today, but at the time, it inspired wonder. Seinfeld—followed by Friends, then Sex and the City—began advertising the city’s renewed urban allure to Gen-Xers and Millennials. These days, when Hollywood wants to portray soullessness, despair, or moral decay, it often looks to the suburbs—as The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives attest—for inspiration.”
If the “city trend” continues throughout the demand and need for urbanization, the people who cannot afford trend will be located elsewhere- outside of urbanity.
Food for Thought: even though “they [urban sites and people] have infrastructure and the urban fabric to support dense populations” does not mean they WILL. At this point, the earth has the ‘bio-structure’ and ‘bio-fabric’ to support all its population- but it doesn’t because of the SOCIAL structure and SOCIAL fabric and namely, stratification.
No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant, unless someone ensures and/or donates the help of human sustainability.
I cannot wait to utilize architecture to donate the help of human sustainability.
right on! i've been saying that detroit needs bodies more than architectural proposals for years now...especially after the displacement of the citizens of new orleans after hurricane katrina floods.
on another note...how come we have so many "urbanisms" now? and while we are at it, how come nobody is suggesting a "stripper urbanism"? that could involve some nice research.
well since corporations are sending their machinery to the 3rd world along with the jobs, why not send detroit to the sudan brick by brick and build a golf course in downtown detroit? that would help quite a bit. since we're being ridiculous oh and since we're worried aobut sustainability stop having children people.
Wow. Have they built a ruin of Detroit in Dubai yet?
I sense that I'm not completely getting your bigger point, ifYouCanSeeme, but I'll grab these two sentences to comment. Are there not already suburbs, I've heard about them outside of DC, in which two or more immigrant families buy a subruban house and have 16-20 people living in it? One would imagine as these families become more stable they will want to improve their house, so they will add bedrooms, etc. in a very ad hoc way with available materials and technologies. I think, ignoring the bigger and difficult social issues involved, that these buildings will be fascinating, especially to us designers.
Out In the northern suburbs of Chicago there are a number of villages that have require drawings indicating maximum occupancy for houses. This stretches to existing houses at time of sale. If they are for rent the icc property maintenance code governs. Annual inspections then insue.
While we stand aloof and say that family's trying to make due should be afforded every opportunity to do so. In reality I have seen 8 cars parked in the driveway, on the grass, and on the street. It is too dense, unsafe and not fair to the neighbors.
my point is that the suburbs are on to the densification and have already enacted steps to mitigate it.
do you mean post disaster urbanism?
I guess the question of whether it is safe in general is one issue, but whether it's safe for the neighbors is another - if the whole neighborhood is doing it, who would mind?
"And thus a slum is born"? Not necessarily - maybe "and thus a vibrant urban condition is born".
“If the “city trend” continues throughout the demand and need for urbanization, the people who cannot afford trend will be located elsewhere- outside of urbanity...No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant”
Okay Liberty Bell,
That exert was a conclusion to a part of my post.
City Trend- the popularity surrounding urban living
Demand- the people who have the $$$ to fulfill and perpetuate the concept of this popularity
Need- The government and developer’s response to the high influx of immigration and the 81million annual (domestic) people born to America
Urbanization- not what Davis was talking about but the American development of cities as we, from a social and creative standpoint, know it
People who Cannot Afford the [City] Trend- the poor, And be Relocated Elsewhere- suburbia (in partial agreement with Leinberger’s article)
“The [A] Bigger Point”:
You touched on it observing the disadvantage that already exist in suburbia. “No matter where the poor are relocated, it will be informal and rampant” is simply me saying that this informality and rampant-ness Davis talks about is really my observation that the government alongside builders (of any sort) do have the means to help people in relocation, whether by “global force” or government establishments or allowances, can solve these issues of subject in Davis’ writing. Unless people make social provisions for the impoverished, than no matter where they live can be described as informal and rampant… …whether it’s 25 people in a suburban house or 3 people in an urban shanty without the basic means of living…
“Are there not already suburbs, I've heard about them outside of DC, in which two or more immigrant families buy a suburban house and have 16-20 people living in it?”
Yes, there are and this describes what Davis would probably call “informal/rampant” living. (Let’s just replace ‘urbanization’ with ‘living’ in that Archinect-ers are not taking well to different forms of urbanization. I myself have already made the point that Davis’ article was really about environmental racism and social irresponsibility; his chosen emphasis was just on the urban area (which he calls “informal/rampant urbanization.) AND I also have already pointed out that despite location and its effects, the urban poor are no different than the suburban and rural poor in concern of ‘relocation’).
“One would imagine as these families become more stable they will want to improve their house, so they will add bedrooms, etc. in a very ad hoc way with available materials and technologies. I think, ignoring the bigger and difficult social issues involved, that these buildings will be fascinating, especially to us designers.”
I too think these buildings will be fascinating! People in the circumstances provided by you Liberty Bell seem to execute residential construction in the most logical, beneficial way; at times it’s too obvious to think of yourself unless you’re under those financial pressures.
It kind of reminds me of when I go surfing through the home and garden channels; people with less space and less money see to be the most efficient (and often the most creative) when it comes to home ‘adaptation’, especially more so than people 1 and 2 million dollar homes who just have good looking (often only okay looking) stuff than thought and design in their homes.
“I guess the question of whether it is safe in general is one issue, but whether it's safe for the neighbors is another - if the whole neighborhood is doing it, who would mind?”
“ "And thus a slum is born"? Not necessarily - maybe "and thus a vibrant urban condition is born".”
Again ignoring what Barry Lehrman, Leinberger, and Davis are talking about, I like your perspective on the design potential that awaits density, Liberty Bell. And am in agreement.
It transitions quickly. Less than two years. If you have ever field measured a house that has two to three families you would know what I mean. One house had 6 children, various ages, in one 10 x 11 bedroom.
The tough part is the second kitchen, un vented, shoe horned into the basement.
Before the sub prime meltdown we had designed a number of quasi two family houses. It will work as infill but the existing housing stock can't deal w/ the density.
suburbs are of course attining new immigrants and their extended families as the city itself (pick one) has become cost prohibitive for people without deep pockets. notice if you ride say a commuter train in from the burbs how often the passengers mixed in with the sales executives or secretaries are the janitors the fast food employees the hotel workers. this is not new.
"as the city itself (pick one) has become cost prohibitive for people without deep pockets."
Exactly.
"this is not new."
No, this is not new, but the articles along with the Barry Lehrman posed question maybe represents a conclusion, or at least some approaching result, of this "not new thing" is comming to surface. The question is, what will it be?
Just to quickly infere, I think one soon observable result is that the city will beome more glamorous, the city will become more than what we have known it to.
Well, "DUH!", yes developement and evolution are part of life and very much so evident but I think these ever emerging concerns about what is not new cues us that we are in the midddle of a turning point.
...for better, or for worse...
Both Mike Davis' article and the Leinberger one that sparked the suburbs thread are pushing their analogies a bit too far. The forces that push poor rural dwellers into forming these dense urban slums would not necessarily work in reverse in the US.
The Economist had a special report on cities last May (don't know if it's online) and one of the articles basically said that people form these slums because they prefer urban squalor to rural hopelessness, what the article calls "a strange allure". As terrible as conditions are in these places, the people that move to them are following a long established pattern of "country to city" migration on the part of the poor (which is unlike the "city to country" migration of the middle class which spurred the suburbs). This country had a similar migration when large numbers of Southern blacks moved to Northern cities - and mostly ended up living in not so great conditions in urban areas.
But even in the examples that Davis gives, as degraded as these urban accretions are, they are still "feeding" off of a city, and that relationship still offers something of value to the people living in them. A reversed situation, which is what many here are discussing, does not have the same dynamics, simply because a poor life in the middle of nowhere offers even less than such a life in a favela. The article also points out that one of the reasons that these slums are hanging in there and little effort is made to eradicate them or even improve them is that a flow of money (and, incidentally, votes) runs along a line from the slum dwellers to local politicians to state mininsters and on to the top. As that old movie set in our capital once pointed out, "follow the money".
In any case, there would first have to be a massive collapse into poverty of the middle class in this country (not saying that could not happen) before the scenarios being considered here would begin to happen, and even then I think the pattern would still follow the "rural to urban" pattern, even in this country.
Emilio- a bunch of great points.
there is a long tradition of having rural poor migrants into american live in high density, ghettos and slums, beyond the african american migration following the civil war. If you haven't visited the NY Tenement museum, it documents the living conditions of the lower east side at the peak of the early 20th c. influx of eastern european immigrants (most were rural and poor, a few urban and poor). Current equivalent is around NY's chinatown and the fujianese migrants living a secret life of squalor, and in some of the barrio's spreading through the post-industrial northern cities.
Absolutely Emilio, I agree with your 'transitional' observation; I touched on it earlier but did not elaborate.
Barry Lehrman's post is interesting although if you did not read the articles, you may end up with an askew perspective. Davis concentratged on developing world countries NOT America while Leinberger's article looks at the American past and (infered) present.
Davis' article could be used to make American inferences but I doubt that America's poor would parallel the developing world's poverty 'relocations'.
Yes, tk, those are good examples, as is the migration of large numbers of people from Puerto Rico to NYC (a subject sung about in Steely Dan's "The Royal Scam".)
Disaster Urbanism makes me think of Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine which is all about Disaster Capitalism...
See
The link between either disasters and more "regular" disaster like conditions of urban living...On the Fringe and exploited.
I to read the Economist article, and obviously the idea of rural to urban migration is not new. Yes, the benefits may outweight the poor living conditions, but.....
Is this "strange allure" really the whole story?
People want work and a future, not slum living. Unfortunatly the promise of the first two often go hand in hand with the other...
Just to toss something out there (and my posts here are definitely confused with the suburban thread - sorry, I'm having a hard time distinguishing): There is also a huge swell of wealthy city people now, moreso than in the past decades, buying a second home out in the country. So much so that when I picture Montana these days all I can sense is huge private ranch butting up to huge private ranch, with very little public land available.
Migration to the cities by the poor, being mirrored in economic strength, though not in numbers of people, by urban people fleeing to the land?
although the wealthy are indeed buying ranches in montana (as well as large holiday homes in mountain and tropical areas) it's debatable whether most of these rich people are really migrating. most of them spend so much time traveling amongst all of their homes that it's debatable whether or not they actually live anywhere...except maybe on their jet planes.
i'm also a fan of klein's disaster capitalism. it's intreresting to layer her "red zone/green zone" on top of the landscape & speculate on the results
beware of stereotypes. my exgirlfriend/future wife's abuela lives in the mountains of puerto rico in a little cinder block house surrounded by goats and chickens. she has little education, however one son is a doctor, one an engineer and her daughter has a phd in social work. and my exgf/future wife has a phd from cambridge.(the real one)
LOL, Puddles, that is something to be considered.
these days i'd happily settle for a g350...but did anybody else read the recent article in arch digest about the renovated 727 where the owner bragged about how much better it was than a gulfstream? needless to say, i'm very jealous.
and for what it's worth, my house is surrounded by chickens and goats too.
Yes, nam, I think what most of the residents find in those slums is just another dead end.
The role of the World Bank as described in both the Davis and Klein article makes me sick: capitalist vultures going in under the guise of helping, but mostly just contributing to the poor's dead end (I guess we know where that money line described in the Economist article really ends).
Isn't this exactly what all the fly-by-night mortgage brokers have been doing in the US for the last 8 years? Scumbags.
LB,
Yes exactly..
Very interesting parallel... My question is, if those are such obvious parallels, what will the long term effect be on those people living in the slums (to be?) in the US...
the ghost of ronal raygun and the deregulation of amerika...
Indeed.
Lets get rid of government. Completely!
another form of urban disasters is eloquently discussed in the gaurdian article and the soon to be released The Endless City.
but maybe I should just start a new thread (or just continue the chat here - thanks Orhan) instead of bringing this one back from the ashes....
Here is what I would say if I was a total pessimist and saw the glass as half-full:
"The city of the future is a vision of hell. If you're honest, you would classify humankind as a virus on the earth. Like that organism, our priorities are our multiplication and the killing of our host. These megacities are the beginning stages of the pestilence that will completely cover the earth and kill both humankind and the planet."
I'm not that pessimistic, but I've actually heard variations of that scenario from more than one person. Ok, time for a drink.
seems like a recipe for disaster... unless they can float.
LATimes
It's interesting that the colorado river watershed (the basin and range province) has the highest per capita disasters, followed by the rio grande and the ozarks. Something about flash flooding, tornadoes, and avalanches seem to find the less populated sections of the country. Hmm, maybe there is a natural reason that more folks don't live there. Of the major metropolitan areas, seems that denver, salt lake city, and san antonio take the lead. I'd have expected miami and the gulf coast to be higher risk.
that's a cool piece. interesting to note that they ended in 2004, and 2005 was the hottest, stormiest, deadliest hurricane season on record though. (oddly or fittingly enough, it was also the driest. wtf?)
katrina, rita, and wilma pummeled the gulf coast and florida, respectively, but it was stan that was the real killer.
stan was only a category 1 but demolished atitlan and killed probably 2000 in guatemala alone, though the real death toll will never be know. hundreds perhaps thousands more in el salvador and mexico.
immediately after stan was through ravaging the yucatan, inundating villages with floods and landslides, there was a volcano eruption AND a 6.2 earthquake.
a hurricane, an earthquake and a fucking volcano!
we need a new word in the lexicon: megacatastrophe
its interesting that both apocalypse (from + to cover = to uncover) and catastrophe (to turn down against/overturn) both come from a very basic compound construction: an individual's gestural verb (turn, hide) + directionally antagonistic prepositions(down, from).
meaning generated out of a self-axial motion, like a fat grub in a plastic tube turning on itself.
TK,
One wonders if the surprising disparity has alot to do with the capacity or experience of the California governement with such disasters.
I earlier this year during th efires I was amazed that they seemingly quickly got almost 80-100k people out of their homes and into a stadium. Especially in the gridlock that is southern Cali...
Also, not a new thought. But re-reading over some fo this threads posts, i got to thinking how the militaries of the world (especially USA and Israel) take the pessismistic view for the most part and see the new mega-cities (20+ million) of the future all over the world as the new battlefields and warzones of the world. thus there focus on al sorts of new techniques and methods for dealing with "insurgents" and non state actors...
how about, in response to cenocatastrophism (the continuous incarnation of the new from the death of the old) , a self-resurrecting urbanism (the reincarnation of the old in the birth of the new)? that is to say, an urbanism that mirrors itself on both sides of a temporal chasm (catastrophe) and therefore is always conscious of being intermittent and reversible, rather than one-directional and necessarily permanent. the ancient egyptian nile culture, the babylonian culture, aspects of the ancient greek culture all recognized this. global modernism, however, is inherently a gestating ground for shock (is in an absolute state of pre-emergency) when catastrophes rupture its progress and contradict its, modernism's, logic. fordism cannot fathom intermittence.
this is not original. birth in the enclave of a rotting carcass...etc.
perhaps i am posing acceptance in a vernacular cyclic culture of Ad perpetuam rei memoriam (an analogically memorializing/ mythologizing culture) contra the rejection of a solution-finding materially-cluttered /systems-layered culture of a forward-moving complexity. perhaps then, i have fallen for an already prepared-for cliché posing nature against artifice (whereas before, i've seen the artifice in nature). and if argue on the other side of the track, again, a cliché. archinect as the combating ground of prepared and packaged ration-alities; "taking a stand" as an old professor tried to teach me.
heres a demographic of downtown detroit
top left=1916
bottom left=1950
bottom right=1960
middle right=1994
top right=2006
for all those living near the ring of fire...
LSU teaches a whole semester long course on designing disaster resilient communities...
It was always the one reason why i was/am interested in LSU.
Why don't you move a bunch of sweatshop workers there so you can get a closer look at how nasty the manufacturing world can be?
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