Urban Livability
I appreciate the post by Kelly on "what is urban livability." When thinking about this fellowship and Charles and Shirley Weiss, I think the one thing I may add--that maybe moves away from "material culture" that Kelly mentioned--is "roses," as in "give me bread, but give me roses, too." This is a famous phrase in labor history that illuminates how livability is not just material stuff, but intellectual stimulation. I believe that one part of urban livability, like the Weisses have suggested, is the opportunity to participate in community, through attending school, borrowing books from a library, visiting museums, and having access to, for example, the opera. In sum, I think that one aspect of urban livability is culture and the access to cultural institutions.
posted by jessie at
1:33 PM
3 Comments:
I like this thread. I agree that cultural and accessible intellectual pursuits are part of urban livability. From my perspective, it also deals with some notion of ecosystem health in addition to human health. Of course the two are linked in reality but are often treated separately when considering economic implications. For me, this is some footprint of resources used and waste created.
From an environmental finance perspective, I would also propose infrastructure as an essential and often overlooked component of urban livability. Transportation infrastructure (public buses, subways, trains, parking garages, safe bridges) is a very important aspect that provides mobility (freedom).
In a more pragmatic sense, urban livability infrastructure might also include the 'pipes' that I imagine many people take for granted. This infrastructure delivers power, drinking water, internet access, and phone lines. Infrastructure also carries away trash, sewage, and stormwater.
While I was thinking about more and more factors involving urban livability, I’m wondering how much I should extend the notion of urban livability into urban utopia? In thinking about how social and environmental injustice plays out in urbanization, there are clearly fundamental problems that need to be addressed, specifically in the US. It seems to me that some factors are more “essential” than others, however this might be due to my own paradigm in equating livability with actual survival and living a healthy or disease-free.
Interesting point, Kelly, and I hadn't really thought about it that way..."urban utopia." But I think I've always considered utopias more in terms of social perfection (i.e. the people live in accord, get what they need, and stability reigns supreme--I've also read too many silly utopian novels, like Herland). Of course, providing resources for people would ideally lead to a more stable society, but not necessarily the social/political control kind that I associate with the idea of utopia. But it is true that when I think about livable cities/towns, the places that strike me most do have utopic qualities.
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