Can I Get a Ride?

According to a recent NPR report, "Growth and Transportation," the Triangle population will increase by 120,000-150,000 people within the next ten years, as "one of the fastest growing metro areas" in the country. The specific area of concern is Raleigh, where the current transportation system is predicted to collapse if burdened with the aforementioned population growth. What are Triangle planners saying about this potential fiasco?

Mitchell Silver, Raleigh's Director of Planning, hopes to ease some of this burden by linking Raleigh to Chapel Hill by transit by 2020. Although one can travel between these two places now using the TTA system, it is far from being an express ride.

Another suggestion is to follow the example of Charlotte, whose citizens actually agreed to a tax increase in order to support a rail system. More than one planner seems to agree that Charlotte is home to some serious promising practices relative to transit solutions.

Suggestions vary from placing streetcars in downtown Raleigh and absorbing the population growth, to a downright refusal of allowing this growth to occur. The latter group seems to argue, "If you build it, they will come...so stop building."

I'm interested to know the thoughts of you Fellows who know much more than I about Urban Planning and Transportation. Do you foresee an addition of more than 100,000 people to the Triangle as having the potential to bring about a transportation collapse?

Last, if water shortage continues at this rate or worsens, I'm not sure that the transit system will even be our top priority in 2020.

The Personal is/as Political

I spent this afternoon finishing up Robert B. Reich's Supercapitalism, which was a very interesting and provocative read. His argument is that "democratic capitalism" no longer exists; "supercapitalism" completely overpowers democratic processes, leaving most of us - as both citizens and consumers/investors - in a tricky double-bind. Tracking through the progress of capitalism's steam-roll into "super" status, Reich clearly articulates the "double-mindedness" that we have about capitalism's success over democracy. On one hand, supercapitalism gives us - as investors/consumers - enormous power in determining business decisions, shopping decisions, etc. As Americans have progressively gotten better at "finding the good deal," we have gained great power over corporations' financial standings and financial choices. On the other hand, supercapitalism means that most large corporations end up making financial decisions that override the democratic process, acting more as "corporate citizens" than as corporate entities regulated by governmental policy. "The result has been a clamor of competing business interests - a cacophony so loud as to almost drown out any serious deliberation about the public good" (143). Reich argues that we have the agency to make consumer choices, but that certain restraints apply: not having enough income, for example, to afford to shop anywhere other than the large-box retailers (namely, Wal-Mart); unwillingness to make personal financial sacrifices to pay more for goods that are ethically manufactured; making "citizenship" decisions that do not support our consumer/investor best interests; vice-versa, and so on. At the end of the day, it is the consumer-as-citizen, or the citizen-as-consumer, that must somehow rise to change and create a political steam-roller large enough to force regulatory actions on corporations.

Throughout my reading of this book, the common mantra of second-wave feminisms ran through my mind: "The personal is political..." I often have knee-jerk reaction to that phrase, thinking that while the personal is certainly political, it is not enough to change The Political Situation. After reading Supercapitalism, I think Reich might agree with me.

"So," you ask; "what does this have to do with urban livability?"

Well - here's the thing: throughout our time together, we have spoken about, listened to, and blogged about issues relating to small and large choices that we as dwellers in, advocates of, and researchers invested in urban issues care about. As individuals, we can choose to ride our bicycles, recycle, grow container gardens, support local farmers (by buying our produce from them), etc. These are all personal choices, and they may or may not also be political choices. I am certainly in a position of privilege, because I live close enough to school and work that I can safely and feasibly ride my bike on a regular basis. I have the luxury of (at least a little tiny bit) of time to spend preparing meals from fresh produce. Recycling is free in my neighborhood. These are "citizenship" choices that reflect my political leanings, but relatively easy ones (and relatively inconsequential ones when written across a larger picture).

If we're going to take an active stance for anything, we've got to put the democratic system to use and raise collective voices as citizens fighting for rights for the public good. This starts (as you'd expect me to suggest, by this point) with dialogue.

For this, and many other reasons, I am very excited about the Weiss Fellows' upcoming participation in the Community Conference that will be held on April 6, which is attempting to bring together members of the campus community, those involved in the political arena, and members of the local non-campus communities from Orange and its adjoining counties to discuss issues related to immigration and immigration policy in this area. The hoped-for result, only reachable through dialogue and dialogic participation, is a small campaign of policy letters to sent to our local, state, and national representatives.

There will be more information about that to come.

I'm anxious to see what and how the Weiss Fellows continue to make personal and political choices and progress in our ever-ongoing quest in, with, and through issues of "urban livability."

La Haine

At our last meeting, the Fellow/as watched the movie La Haine (Hate), released in 1995 in French. Our own Lindsey West led the discussion following the film, and offered insight into a anthropological perspective of livable cities. She explained that La Haine was the first movie to talk about suburbs on outskirts of paris, although similar suburbs are outside other cities in France. The film offered a startling, terrifying portrait of life inside these suburbs, where hate and conflict with the police are ubiquitous. As Lindsey explained, these neighborhoods, or “venues”, were built to house Algerian guestworkers (after WW2 to supply labor for rebuilding after the war)… now, are essentially slums. Some are still state-run, although they suffer sever deficiencies in public services, such as a lack of public transit.

The violence in the neighborhoods is severe--Lindsey estimated that 80 cars/month are burned in France, and even more during periods of unrest. A substantial policy concern is the ghettoization of these immigrant neighborhoods. Frequently, the only people in charge of keeping peace in the neighborhoods are religious organizations, Lindsey mentioned. For anthropologists watching the film, the interactions between people and authority is especially interesting--for example, the youths in the film were treated very respectfully by police in Paris, but in their suburban community, they were treated contemptibly by the police. France has a "vibrant protest culture" which this film magnified to a very intimate level.

Much of our discussion explored immigration problems. In France, we talked about how not only immigrants face unemployment. Based on French legislation, it is very hard to fire employees, so fewer young people get jobs, resulting in a 20 to 30% unemployment rate for youth, and an 8% unemployment rate for country. We also expressed concern over continuing problems with antisemitism in France, and the confusion of anti-immigrant and anti-semitic feelings in France.

Several diverse thoughts about the movie were shared, including:

• The main characters were very young, but acted like men
• Perhaps the problems in the film are not so different than problems in other countries, even in the U.S. However, there didn’t seem to be so much violence between individuals in the suburbs [it was mostly with the police], compared to in U.S.
• There were many similarities between U.S. immigration issues and immigration issues in other countries, like France.
• After the movie was released, people felt empowered. For example, a dance group formed that gives profits to political groups that work on immigrant rights.
• Similarities and differences to the housing projects in the 1950s/1960s in the U.S. included:
• There is no movement in France to blow up housing buildings and change them, even though many seemed quite rundown.
• The French government built youth centers, which are no longer used for their intended purposes.
• France and the U.S. have very different justice systems. For example, Lindsey explained that you can be searched without a warrant in France. Does this perhaps imply that the French do not strive for absolute equal treatment of individuals?
  

We were all very interested in brainstorming ideas about what could be done to attempt to address the type of fundamental and violent problems that La Haine showcased. Perhaps any movement for change would necessitate bottom up action, or a politician from the immigrant community, or more representation of immigrant communities in the political system, or pressure from the European Union.

a car-free, solar city?

There seems to be no shortage of ideas for new cities out there, but this one is a little surprising. One of the newest innovations, according to a report by the New York Times, is for the construction of a 2.3 square mile city encased by walls that will exist without cars and powered solely by the sun. Perhaps surprisingly, this city will be created in the United Arab Emirates, in the center of the energy producing world.

Masdar City is being designed by Foster+Partners of London. That is Norman Foster who gave the world London's gherkin skyscraper. It is what should be a very interesting experiment. The city will be just slightly smaller than historic Venice, a comparison the designers and financiers will no doubt hope will be made regularly. The city evokes a utopian vision where: "Water will flow from a solar-powered seawater-desalinization plant. Produce will come from nearby greenhouses, and all waste will be composted or otherwise recycled."

There is more information available on this project in the Times dot-Earth blog, but it would probably be helpful to remember that the U.A.E. is also the country that produced a series of artificial islands in the Arabian Gulf that from the air looks like a map of the world. Grandiose architectural vision is in no short supply.

Northside Neighborhood Articles

Here are websites to some of the articles I have gathered – some of them are print only so I can’t reproduce them here (Note, some of the links need to be pasted into the browser because I had to cut them to fit here)

1. Firstly, the Town of Chapel Hill’s website on the Northside Neighborhood as a Conservation District:
http://www.ci.chapel-hill.nc.us/index.asp?NID=809


2. Letter to the editor to the Daily Tar Heel complaining about crimes in the area:
http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/
news/2007/12/05/LettersToTheEditor/Crime.In.The.Northside
.Neighborhood.Is.Common-3132294.shtml
Although this is just one example of the Daily Tar Heel’s letters to the editor, there is a clear dichotomy set up between the University’s students/outsiders to the community – and the community itself, which has had numerous parties (some from UNC were not looked upon favorably) in the past attempt to revive/revamp the area.

3. Blogs about making the community safer:
http://greenespace.blogspot.com/2007/08/northside-night-out.html


4. Here’s a DTH article about “locals” taking action themselves.
http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/
news/2001/02/05/UndefinedSection/Locals.Act.To.Clean.Up
.Northside-1341551.shtml
5. This article is about fear that a new development of condos would take away from the community’s established atmosphere and would destroy the traditionally black neighborhood’s historical significance – Some of the Print articles I have describe in a more detailed way some of the racial issues surrounding both the preservation and attempts at renovation to the area.
http://www.newsobserver.com/161/story/546772.html

6. This article about UNC’s own expansion. As the University’s presence grows some community residents, especially from Northside have reservations about how the expansion will affect them:
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A15384

7. According to this article, the Northside Neighborhood is considered to be the birthplace of Chapel Hill’s civil rights movement. The article is about one particular resident of Northside who has been active in bringing forward issues of concern of Northside residents to Chapel Hill’s mayor’s office.
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A20569

9. At this link we have minutes from some planning meetings regarding the neighborhood that may be of interest to us:
http://townhall.townofchapelhill.org/planning/HCD/
Neighborhood%20Initiatives/Northside,%20Sykes%
20Street%20Neighborhood/Upcoming%20Events.htm

Given all of these articles and more that I have in print with me, our group realized that we don’t want to start a project from scratch to contribute to the numerous unfulfilled promises/projects to the Northside Neighborhood by UNC students and others. Instead we would like to plug ourselves into existing projects that we hope will affect the Northside community as well as other areas of our surroundings.

Hate...reconsidered

Perhaps it's the rain, but I have "Hate" in my head today. Beyond the graphic images of struggle and frustration in yet another urban ghetto is this concept of isolation that I continue to think about.

We seem to have a tendency, perhaps a human tendency, to isolate those who don't look like us or practice our religion or live like us. We've done it in housing projects, through de facto structures like those "overturned" by Brown v Board of Ed, through laws about whether a religion can be practiced by a public employee at work. As we flesh out our project in the Northside neighborhood, this idea of isolation seems incredibly salient. As other fellas have remarked, Northside and Broad Street in Carrboro are the neighborhoods that other Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents don't talk about. People raised in Chapel Hill either avoid or ignore Northside, taught from a young age that people different and therefore less desirable live there. But will our project help to break down these invisible barriers? And should it?

Having never lived in a housing project or otherwise separate community, I rely on anecdotes about the pride, the sense of belonging that accompanies that knowledge that you don't belong with everyone else. Is it just an assumption of those of us included in the mainstream that everyone would want to belong to the mainstream? I think of Hubert, whose eyes just cried out for something different, for something outside of the concrete fortress he grew up in. Would it have been valuable for Hubert to seize an opportunity to step out facilitated by someone like me or does the true value lie in becoming independent and included on one's own terms?

Google Street View

Today Google added "Street View" for the Triangle area.It looks like it covers pretty much all of Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh and RTP. Just use Google Maps to find a location as you normally would, then click the "Street View" link for a panoramic, draggable, street-level view -- just like you're standing there. Any street bordered by the blue lines is included in this view. It's pretty fun to explore.....

For example, here is the Graduate Student Center....

View Larger Map

Some interesting images have now been preserved for posterity (e.g. this poor couple having car trouble across the street from the Grad. Student Center.)

Northside art exhibit

On Friday I went to the Hidden Voices Art Exhibit in the Carrboro Art Center. The exhibit showed pictures of the history of the Northside and West Franklin neighborhoods expereinces and struggles with Civil Rights, it was well presented and well attended. I learned a lot about this area that I live in. The legacy of segregation is mapped onto the land here in more ways than I knew, and I thought I had been getting a sense of it. We will hopefully be working with the group to get markers for the walking tour they have created of historically important sites in the area which would be rad. It was also interesting to learn about the influence of the University in these neighborhoods historically, influence that was not always positive.

Democracy or Delegatocracy?

Ok, I must admit that I am a bit of a political novice since this is the first time I have really watched a primary this closely. However, this will be the fourth presidential election I will vote in (yes, I am almost 30), and this is the only time I can remember having the primary still be relevant this late in the season. Last election, there was an incumbent president on the republican side, and it seemed like Kerry kind of took over after Iowa for the Democrats and never looked back on his way to the nomination. I know Bush and McCain fought hard in New Hampshire in 2000, but my impression was Rove took care of (dirty) business in South Carolina, and W was never really threatened after that

This year, the democrats have a heated battle, and I am glad to really like both candidates. Having voted in Illinois before this election, which is never a swing state, I am excited to be registered in North Carolina, as our primary may be the one to decide it all. However, I have been very surprised to learn that the delegates are not proportioned out equally based on votes/caucuses. In fact, the system is so confusing, that it is hard to even tell who is ahead. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about the New York Times does a decent job of explaining it.

And what is up with the superdelegates? I heard they were enacted to be sure the party had representation from someone they believed in, and it was enacted after George McGovern received the nomination in 1972. Still, does it strike anyone as weird that Bill Clinton gets to be a superdelegate since his wife is running. Does anyone think it would be funny for the political world to try to establish an anti-nepotism rule for elections? I do.

I simply feel weird that it is not completely in the voters' hands to decide who gets nominated, especially since the system is very different than in the general election, not that the electoral college makes much sense either.

Someone else told me that primary voting is a relatively recent thing. It used to be argued about during conventions where political power brokers essentially decided who we, the American public, got to vote for. If there is any sign that the two party system is insufficient, this may be it.

Still, I guess it is the system we have to use. Maybe one of this year's fellers can help explain the rationale to me. I know we have some political junkies out there...