[sudoroom] Friday Filosophy

[Tony Barreca]

In fact, this whole conversation was filled with great information and
great pointers.  Thanks to all!



On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Tony Barreca <tony.barreca at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great link, Marina.  Thanks!
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Marina Kukso <marina.kukso at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> i'm sure there are many mike davis fans at sudo room!
>>
>> i would also be interested in learning more about architecture and urban
>> planning as it relates to these kinds of issues. i recently got
>> http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/pastoral-capitalism and have been enjoying
>> it greatly ^_^
>>
>> - marina
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Felicia Betancourt <
>> fmbetancourt at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks eddan.com !  Sadly I missed today's class, but I'll be there
>>> next week.  The example given (reproduced below) reminds me of Mike Davis'
>>> deconstruction of Los Angeles in City of Quartz.  Architecture and urban
>>> planning are a great place to start, especially for someone like me who is
>>> self-taught in these areas.
>>>
>>> One suggestion: how about "Technical Arrangements as Forms of Imposed
>>> Order" to distinguish political, top-down constructs from organic,
>>> bottom-up systems???  Just my 2 cents.
>>>
>>> Also, it might be fun to use Nassim Taleb's trichotomy (omg, that really
>>> is a word!) of fragile:robust:anti-fragile as an analytical tool as we
>>> explore these technical arrangements.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Eddan Katz <eddan at eddan.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Technical Arrangements as Forms of Order
>>>>
>>>> Anyone who has traveled the highways of America and has become used to
>>>> the normal height of overpasses may well find something a little odd about
>>>> some of the bridges over the parkways on Long Island, New York. Many of the
>>>> overpasses are extraordinarily low, having as little as nine feet of
>>>> clearance at the curb. Even those who happened to notice this structural
>>>> peculiarity would not be inclined to attach any special meaning to it. In
>>>> our accustomed way of looking at things like roads and bridges we see the
>>>> details of form as innocuous, and seldom give them a second thought.
>>>>
>>>> It turns out, however, that the two hundred or so low-hanging
>>>> overpasses on Long Island were deliberately designed to achieve a
>>>> particular social effect. Robert Moses, the master builder of roads, parks,
>>>> bridges, and other public works from the 1920s to the 1970s in New York,
>>>> had these overpasses built to specifications that would discourage the
>>>> presence of buses on his parkways. According to evidence provided by Robert
>>>> A. Caro in his biography of Moses, the reasons reflect Moses's social-class
>>>> bias and racial prejudice. Automobile owning whites of "upper" and
>>>> "comfortable middle" classes, as he called them, would be free to use the
>>>> parkways for recreation and commuting. Poor people and blacks, who normally
>>>> used public transit, were kept off the roads because the twelve-foot tall
>>>> buses could not get through the overpasses. One consequence was to limit
>>>> access of racial minorities and low-income groups to Jones Beach, Moses's
>>>> widely acclaimed public park. Moses made doubly sure of this result by
>>>> vetoing a proposed extension of the Long Island Railroad to Jones Beach.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> felicia
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Tony Barreca
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tonybarreca
> Skype: tonybarreca
> Twitter: tbarreca
> Mobile: (510) 710-5864
>



-- 
Tony Barreca
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tonybarreca
Skype: tonybarreca
Twitter: tbarreca
Mobile: (510) 710-5864
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