Welcome to PR.JOB's blog. We're a group of classmates in an Urban Studies class at Hunter College. Over the course of the semester we were given assignments to explore NYC and write about it in a group blog. These assignments have helped us see the Flipside of New York City. Hope you enjoy our observations. Feel free to leave comments. Thanks for dropping by!
I had to search for environmental justice organizations and find out what there goals where and what they where doing to help their area of focus. In my search I came across and organization called EPA (United States Environmental protection agency). The headquarters of this organization are located in Washington DC so I unfortunately was not able to meet up with a member of the organization to talk about their mission which is to protect human life and to safeguard the natural environment. In order to find out more information about the association I tried to call them, which, was harder than I thought it would. At first the office was constantly busy and no one had enough time to talk to me. I tried calling another day and I kept being transferred from one person to the next. By this point I wanted to abandon my quest but decided to give it a last shot and call the Public Information Office in Buffalo. The woman I talked to was very nice and took the time to explain to me in an understandable manner what the possible effects of polluted water and air. She explained how it effects our environment and how the climate will keep deteriorating in the long run.
Another environmental justice organization I found is called NIEHS (National Institute of Environmental Health Science). I didn’t find a phone number I could reach someone at while I was searching the website but I was able to find their calendar of events and their goals. All of the events are open to the public but I was not able to go to any because none took place in Manhattan or nearby. This association focuses on the toxicological wastes and how they are harmful to the environment. NIEHS, located in North Carolina, is one of the 27 research institutes and centers that comprise the National institutes of Health. The mission of the NIEHS is to diminish the amount of human illnesses and disability by understanding how the environment influences the development and progression of human disease.
The last organization I found was the Department of Environmental Conservation. This organization is located around New York City and other major cities of the US. Its aim is to improve environment in communities, and specifically low-income communities, minorities and address disproportionate adverse environmental impacts that may exist in these communities. It was interesting to see that a note on the website stated: “Please Note: The purpose of this office is to serve the environmental needs of minority and low-income communities. It is not intended for general environmental inquiries unrelated to the issues of Environmental Justice. Please consult the list of phone numbers and addresses for other DEC programs to determine appropriate DEC contacts.” Right from the front page of the organizations website you are basically told to back off unless you are interested in improving the environment of low-income communities. This organization is good because not only does it help the environment but it targets the people who cannot afford or don’t have the availability to do something about it.
All three of these organizations have their own focus but contribute to a common interest being the well being of the environment. It was interesting to see how the first blog was so hard to get in touch with but was happy I managed to after I realized I wasn’t able to get in touch with any one from the other two blogs. It was nice to research these associations because it allowed me to be more aware of what is going on and how some people try their best to improve the environment.
While looking at the list of books of books we could read for this assignment, I instantly chose Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez because I’ve heard amazing reviews about the author. Rodriguez is the son of Mexican immigrants who began writing in his early teens and has won national recognition as a poet, journalist, fiction writer, children's book writer, and critic. He is currently working as a peacemaker among gangs on a national and international level. He has helped create Tia Chucha's Café & Centro Cultural, a multiarts, multimedia cultural center in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and im sure will continue to do great things to benefit his passion against gangs after what he has been through. Rodriguez tells the story of how he and his older brother one day entered a white neighborhood and were immediately assaulted. Racist comments such as "What do we got here? Spics to order - maybe with some beans?" were said by the local white kids. Overwhelmed by prejudice and poverty, Rodriguez and his friends drifted into gangs for protection and to gain self-respect. While writing about his many encounters with other gangs and the police, he describes the experiences as harder to defy the expectation of a “criminal” than just accept it and fall into the trappings. The outlaw life rapidly took its toll, and by the time Rodriguez turned eighteen, he had seen friends die right in front of his eyes. One day, he stumbled onto some radical literature in the library, which opened his eyes. An administrator at a local youth center took Rodriguez under his wing and brought him to a radical study group, where his political ideas took shape and began to organize protests against abuses at school. He also started to express his talents in dancing, writing, and painting. All of these productive activities helped Rodriguez to move on. Rodriguez’s life is the perfect example of how our society leaves minorities and the poor no alternatives leading normal people to join gangs. The problem Rodriguez makes clear is not with the gangs but with the society that creates gangs. I really enjoyed reading this book because it was heartbreaking especially knowing that it is a true story, with a purpose.
I did not attend the class trip to Fresh Kills because of a conflict with another class. Instead I researched three environmental justice organizations in New York. From the name I thought I knew what environmental justice entailed, but I was wrong. There is alot of work in this field that I never realized. Environmental justice is about changing existing policies to better reflect awareness of how pollution, factory placement, transportation and other factors affect our local communities. WE ACT (West Harlem environmental Action Inc)was the first environrmntal justice organization in New York, started in 1988. It is also the first to be run by people of color. Its focus is on educating Northern Manhattan communities about prejudiced practices that are detrimental to the African American and Latino communities. For example, placing all but one of the bus depots run by the MTA in Harlem neighborhoods has a negative effect on the air quality, which in turn can affect respiratory function, especially in children who are most vunerable. Other issues related to having a community say in what is built and maintained in Harlem has led to a better quality of life for the community. The organization was also recognized by the Rockefeller Foundation with the Jane Jacobs Award a few years ago for collectively working for the betterment of their own neighborhoods.
The New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund (NYLCVEF) is an organization based in New York state but has local offices in different urban and suburban areas, all with a focus on environmental justice; it was started in 1991. The office in NYC is currently working on making the five boroughs greener. This entails making local communities aware of what steps they can take to press elected officials to change policies that benefit all New Yorkers. For example, using alternate energy sources that decrease the carbon footprint of residential and commercial buildings.
The Sierra Club is a national organization with chapters in every state. The organization focuses on teaching individuals in local communities about the environment, threats to it and solutions to combat those threats. The members work at the local, state and federal level to effect change. In NYC, the Sierra Club works with local organizations and schools to expose children to the natural world. Through nature walks, hikes through parks, and visits to farms and state parks, children go bird watching, camping and learn about endangered species through these activities. These activities expose children to how pollution, global warming, drilling and neglect affect plants, animals, humans and the environment. Working with adults, the Sierra Club continues these activities, but also informs local communities and city governments about ways to live greener, healthier and with respect of the natural world around them. One project going on in NY is the painting of tar roofs white. Black tar roofs make buildings hotter in the summer by drawing more heat from the sun. This increases peoples' reliance on fans and air conditioners in their apartments which dominoes into a greater reliance on electricity, a limited and focused resource. Painting the roofs white deflects some of the heat and keeps the indoor spaces cooler. The Sierra Club has been working with local officials to address this issue; also organizing groups of people to work with the city to get their building roofs painted. I need to give them a call and organize to get my roof painted!
For this last assignment, I attended a trip with some of my classmates to FreshkillsPark, in Staten Island. This was the second assignment that forced me to go into a borough that I told myself I would never go. However, I actually enjoyed this trip, especially since it was a class trip. I don’t know why, but having the class together on this trip made it a lot more fun and interesting. Nonetheless, Freshkills was actually very beautiful and amazing, it was hard to believe that all this land, which seem to be as big and Rockaway, was a land fill just a few years ago. Its really shameful how the land was destroyed and wasted just to put trash in, it makes me really think about all the trash that I produce and contributed to this problem. “In 1999, bowing to political pressure from Staten Island, Rudolph Giuliani announced that he would be closing Fresh Kills landfill and that the city would ship its trash to South Carolina” according to New York Magazine, its hard to believe that people of Staten Island had to literally live with filth and the city would have left it like that had they not been pressured to close it. New York already has such pollution and to leave the landfill would probably have had an even worse impact on the health of New Yorkers.
While reading “Turning Trash Piles Into a Bird-Watcher’s Paradise” I couldn’t help to remember how the thought of seeing birds on this trip and being near them disgusted me, living in the city with all these nasty pigeons and seagulls has lead to an aversion of birds for me. However, when we got there and I actually started to see the birds, I couldn’t deny how beautiful they were flying peacefully around the park. It was exciting to read that native birds, “Upwards of 50,000 great black back gulls,” as stated by Edward Johnson are returning back to the park, taking back there habitat. Its very disappointing though that it would take up to 30 years for the park to be complete and that I wouldn’t to fully enjoy it in ma youth. However, I’m happy to know that by the time I have kids, or my dog, I would be able to enjoy the park with them. Humans have taken so much from the earth and animals through our selfish ways, it’s about time that we started to give back and take steps to bringing the land back to what it once was.
I believe the transformation of Fresh Kills Landfill into FreshkillsPark is one of the first steps to creating a more environmental and sustainable world for future generations. Lastly it’s funny that it will even take my computer time to stop referring to FreshkillsPark by its old name and stop trying to correct the spelling back to Fresh Kills.
The sidewalk by Mitchell Duneir was not my first choice of book to read for a book the book review. My first choice was The Hidden Dimension by Edward T. Hall, the title just attracted me but the book was not available at my bookstore any more. I was scared at first when I realized how thick the book was but soon found out that it was an easy and fast read. The book is more like a documentary than a novel. Mitchell describes the life of book street vendors and what happens on the sidewalks.
The author makes assumptions right at the beginning of the book, which he soon realizes where wrong. When he walks by Hakim’s book table he feels that it is not a place for him to hang around because the majority of people around them is black. Most of the street book vendors specialize in one or more areas such as “expansive art and photography books; dictionaries; New York Times beset-sellers; “black books”; new quality mass-market…” (p.19). Mitchell thought that the so-called “black books” that where on sail, defined the boundary of an exclusively black area were African Americans were allowed and whites where banned. The author goes through out the book making assumptions of this sort and is then to realize that they are wrong because once he approaches Hakim’s table he is welcomed like any other individual, yet he is uncomfortable for an unknown reason. The only reason why Mitchall thought that the ‘black books’ where reserved to an African American public was because the ones talking about them were black and they seemed to define themselves as the people. He was soon to realize that whites were also taking part of the conversations. Through out this documentary the author studies the lives of African Americans and two of them in particular, being Hakim the street book vendor and Jerome the young man that works at the Vitamin Shop by the corner of Hakim’s table.
The author observes what happens of the sidewalks of different streets and examines people’s actions and behaviors. He interacts with, as many people as he ca in order to better understand their living situation and life. Mitchell meets a lot of new people but always seems to be mainly fascinated by the African American population. When he describes the ‘new uses of the sidewalks’ you realize that every one is equal once you’re on the streets. Every one occupies the sidewalks according to Mitchall Duneier: “ But at all times the neighborhood lends itself to the affluent and to the unhoused, to the ph.D and to the unschooled, on the same sidewalk at the same time.” (p.119) Everyone uses the sidewalks for their own reasons. Some find a shelter in them while others use it as a path to another destination.
This book reminds me of Jane Jacobs one The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Both authors describe the various uses of the sidewalks. Everyone interacts with each other on the sidewalks whether it is the help the old lady with her grocery bags or the mother with the baby stroller. At the beginning of Mitchell’s book he describes how the delivery boy leaves a package to Hackim for the store next to him because Hakim is seen every day on the same spot so he is therefore trusted and aware of everything going on, on this street. In Jacobs book she describes a little girl being bothered by a man and soon the entire soon street was surrounding this man in order to protect the girl even though they did not know who she was. According to these two books the sidewalks may be the safest area to be in considering people will always intervene if need be to protect the tranquility of their street.
The search for urban life blogs was interesting. A Google search yielded so many pages that I randomly picked links on four different pages. The first one can be found at www.streetlifeworldwide.tv/slw-blogs.html. This blog focuses on using hiphop centered music, prose, and movies to minister to teens across the country, and expose them to the Bible and teachings of the evangelical church. At first I was a little surprised by the content, but as I read early blogs, I realized what they're doing. The organization responsible, Streetlife Worldwide Evangelistic Association, uses this forum, along with sports, cars, and hiphop to reach kids that are used to getting messages through their music and recreational activities. The blog specifically centers on Bible passages and their application to everyday life of young people. The second site, ecolifeblog.com, looks like an educational site on green living. The links all had to do with being more conscious of the environment and how to change current habits. The categories covered included conscious living, natural foods, natural building and environmentalism. Different people contribute to the blog with their own personal experiences, research on the topics and tips for readers to follow. There was a link to orble.com, another blog that covered many different topics, not all having to do with living green. The third site I found, loveurban.com/blog/urbanreef/urban_life, is written by the staff of a seaside bar/restaurant in Britain. It was funny! The blogs are personal stories of what happens to the staff in the day to day operations of the restaurant; also trips they take together, and local happenings related to food - marketplaces, shows, environmental concerns, cooking healthy, etc. Made me want to make a reservation!The site was easy to navigate, had lots of pictures and alot of the stories were entertaining. Link number four was urbanzoo.suedarroch.com, a Canadian mother of three daughters, who is into many things. Her main blog is about her home life with a new husband, kids, animals and her medical trials and tribulations. The other links on the page dealt with her work in paranormal studies, her interest in history and her fascination with science fiction and horror films. This blog was the funniest of all. It was very personal and candid. The blog had pictures of her many animals and kids, and their adventures as a family. The last link was pluckandfeather.com, about a woman in Oakland, CA who is an urban farmer. her blog centers on her life with close neighbors and the noise from her animals, but seriously on the issues of healthy living and eating, concerns about organic food production, and dealing with obesity in children.
I liked this activity because it gave me the chance to see just how many blogs are out there and the different things that people find to write about. Doing the blog for this class was something new to me, but something I'd like to embark on personally when the class is over.
Luis Rodriguez’s account of his life in Always Running La Vida Loca: Gang days in L.A focuses on themes of despair, hope, escape, with an undertone of angst towards the lifestyle he once had to endure. Always Running has the double meaning of stating what the author had to do to physically survive, but also what many other Chicanos and minorities are faced with due to the impossibility of success by staying in the same place and succeeding in life. Rodriguez’s message, in part, can be seen as STOP running. By repeating the cycle of running, we get nowhere, and by addressing the core problem(s) we can achieve actual solutions.
Rodriguez’s work is layered with statements of concern for why problems in the barrios occur. From the body of text Rodriguez writes, “There is an aspect of suicide in young people whose options have been cut off. They stand on the street corners, flashing hand signs, inviting the bullets.” (p. 9) Because of this it is clear why Rodriguez feels young people should be given a “complete literacy” so that they can “have the ability to participate completely and confidently in any level of society one chooses.” (p.9)
A surprising point of the book is the level of police brutality that the author faced in the 70’s and how it evolved to the Rodney King attacks in the 90’s. That along with actually reading of the troubles of many immigrants as the Arizona law comes in effect makes reading this book more personal in some levels.
In connecting this work to the topics from class, with regards especially to gender spaces and Private vs Public space(s), some examples in Rodriguez’s account are: how boys and girls can both be in school, and by junior high shape identities and roles. On page 44, in connection with gender spaces, Rodriguez writes, most if the Mexican girls weren’t cholas; their families still had strong reins on many of them.” (p. 45). This shows how the roles of girls were limited by family members and what was thought to be a females role. It was common for boys to be the majority when it came to being on the streets and getting involved with violence showing that boys were not controlled as much as females.
With regard to public versus private space, while gang life can arguably be said to be purely private, with initiations and secret meetings, publicly this form of social expression manifested itself violently several times in the book. On page 57 and 58 Rodriguez shares a clear account of how public the vida loca could get, “Automatic gunfire followed them as they rolled in the dirt…Windows flung upward. Doors were pushed aside. People bolted out of their homes. Mothers cursed in Spanish from behind weather-beaten picket fences.”
In summation, Always Running La Vida Loca: Gang days in L.A expresses a clear sample of urban life in the 20th and 21st centuries through the themes discussed in class.
I have always been a fan of class trips because I feel that it is easier to learn compared to when sitting in a typical classroom environment. After a while, the classroom and the routines that come with it become redundant and can possibly stump one’s intellectual growth since students learn to follow the routines instead of developing. This is why I believe that the trip to Fresh Kills in Staten Island was a great way to learn of this area, instead of having articles sent to us to read and discuss in class. While on the subway heading to the Staten Island ferry, I must confess that I did have some expectations about what Staten Island was going to look like. Although I was born and raised in New York, I had never stepped foot on Staten Island because it is so far away and I have no reason to go to this area in the first place. I do know people who have been to this area in the past and they had stated that Staten Island was a horrible area to be in because of all the garbage that it had accumulated. I believed that it was going to be “steaming, stinking, seagull-infested mountain of trash” instead it “now green, or greenish, or maybe more like a green-hued brown, the tall grasses having been recently mown by the sanitation workers still operating at Fresh Kills, on the western shore of Staten Island” (Sullivan). When we got to Staten Island, a tour bus took us to Fresh Kills, but I noticed that there was no garbage any in sight. To be honest, since Staten Island was never a major part of my life, I was not even aware that the garbage had been covered with soil and gravel, along with other things. This shocked me because it showed how I was so disconnected to the city that I was born an raised in. The tour group was told by the guide that we were actually standing on top of the garbage, which had been covered for the safety and health of citizens nearby and for the environment as well. At first I was disgusted at the fact that I was standing right in the middle of an area that was once considered dangerous for people to be around. I was bothered at the idea that my class and I were being put in harms way. In fact, the tour guide told us that “trucks enter the landfill, climbing the mounds and dumping clean soil over not-so-clean soil” (Sullivan), which is a way that the people in charge of the renewal in Fresh Kills continues to keep nearby citizens and the environment safe. I believe that the renewal of Fresh Kills is a phenomenal idea not only because of it becoming a healthier area for people to live by and for mother nature, but also because of the plans that are being made for the future. It is believed that in thirty years, Fresh Kills would go from being known as Fresh Kills Landfill to Fresh Kills Park. I believe that a park in this area would be a wonderful idea because it would increase the forms of entertainment that people on this island can engage in. It may also attract people from other areas which would then increase the money being brought into Staten Island. This money could probably be used to further develop Staten Island in ways that can benefit these residents. Whatever the plans may be for the future, I believe that this is an area that must be kept in good conditions for people to benefit from its beauty. Such beauty was seen while standing on the east mound, the tour guide showed us how we were able to see different landmarks from different boroughs. For example, some landmarks were “Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a span of the Outerbridge Crossing, and, on Coney Island, the very top of the parachute jump” (Sullivan). I believe that this is a place that people of all ages should enjoy since many residents of the five boroughs do not get to experience such beautiful views. Therefore, the view that can be seen from Staten Island is one of the many reasons why this area should be renewed and made more suitable for people.
Always Running: Living La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
Rosedelle A Chery
Always Running: Living La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. is a memoir written by Luis J. Rodriquez about his life in Los Angeles as a gang member, and his choice to escape to start a new life. By the time Rodriquez was 12 he was already a gang member, fighting to survive against racism, inequality and poverty. Some of the main themes of this book are man versus society and the need for family. Luis starts out as a boy heading down a path that would ultimately leads to his demise, becoming a man, only to have his son follow in his previously destructive path.
The main purpose Rodriquez wrote this memoir was to get his son to realize that a life in a gang was no life as at all. He explains, in graph detail all the fights, shootings, stabbing, death friends and everything he went threw while in a gang, hoping to get his son to change his life. Rodriquez is an American born Mexican growing in time, much like today, where Mexicans weren’t accepted and mistreated. He grew up being shuffled from place to place as his father searched for work to provide for his family. Even though his father was accomplished principal and writer in Mexico, finding a job amiss the discrimination was hard. The continuous a lack of stability and continuous fights with his siblings, left Rodriquez in desperate need of a family to call his own; this is evident when he states “I’m just a ball. Bouncing outside. Bouncing Inside. Whatever” (34). Like many gangs, Rodriquez started about in just started around with his friends, in a clique. However, after a dramatic experience with another gang at one of his school, Rodriquez felt as though he was missing and wanted power and control. Rodriquez states “I wanted to be able to bring a whole school to its knees and even make teachers squirm (42).
Growing up in one of the most dangers places in LA, most young teens felt pressure to joining a gang, for several reasons. For Rodriquez, joining a gang provided a family he could count on, power and protection from not only other gangs, but also from police and other people who attacked him because of his race. This is one of the major appeals of gangs, even today, especially growing up in poverty stricken areas. Young kids, particularly boys of minorities. Most of the time, in poor urban areas teens can feel victimized by society, which set standards that discriminates against them, leading to feelings of embitterment and powerlessness. The people that are supposed to protect, the cops, are the ones harnessing them and growing up around violence eventually desensitizes them to it. They join the most stable and familiar environment that they can find, one with friends struggling against the same causes. At this time, cites became safe haven for violence, whites continued to leave for suburbs as Mexicans moved in. James Kunstler, in his book The Geography of Nowhere, mentions that the influx to suburbs “drained [cities] of their few remaining taxpaying residents… [and] those left behind, inside the wall would develop, in their physical isolation from the suburban economy, a pathological ghetto.(pg 107)” City officials abandon these ghettos and label them slums and urban blight, along with the people in them. This was the situation that occurred on Rodriquez’s “side of the tracks” in Watt. When Rodriquez and his bother go to the “white side” to the grocery and they are brutally beaten for daring to leave their ghetto and entering the suburbs (pg 24). This, sadly, was the norm for Mexicans at that time. They were harassed by citizens and police if they didn’t say in their place, even if these were American born Mexicans.
Always Running: Living La Vida Loca: Gang Days is a perfect example of a bildungsroman. It really provides, in great detail, the development of Luis Rodriguez from a troubled young man to a successful man on the right path and father trying to save his son from going through the pain he experienced. This is probably the most interesting book I have read so far. The best thing about this book was that it was truthful and graphic. It didn’t seem as though he sugar coated anything, and you really are able to go through this experience because he lays out his truth for the world to see. The story in this book is very relatable, especially to me as a young black adult. Its allows a glimpse into the struggles that Mexicans faced, which is so similar to the struggles that Black Americans have also faced in this country. For example, when Rodriguez goes to the “white beach” with his friends and are then harassed and bullied by the cops (pg 67). Also reading about his friends dying or getting arrested reminds me of the all the young people to today, some of which were my friends, going through the same thing. I would definitely recommend this book because it is truly genuine and is applicable to today’s issues. As I read this book, I couldn’t help but to think of the new law that was passed in Arizona that allows cops to ask anyone who they think is an illegal immigrant to show documentation, this is just one step closer to reverting back to the way Mexicans were treated as described in this book. This was a great book and I truly did enjoy reading it.
1. http://www.urbanlifeblog.com/2009/10/welcome-to-urban-life-a-phoenix-real-estate-life-blog.html: The first blog I came across is focused on real estate in Phoenix. This blog discusses the different aspects of real estate in Phoenix. This blog is definitely not my favorite out of all the ones I found but it sure informs the reader of what is going on in the area. This blog is a little too plain and straightforward in my opinion. It sure does give information about real estate and how things are going in phoenix but I find it more like an information site than a blog where people can share thoughts and opinions, which is what I believe a good blog should be.
2. http://thisurbanlife.blogspot.com/: This blog is a mixture of the one, which posts one photograph a day and the one held by the mother describing her son’s journey through life. This blog shows random pictures of people or things that make up the urban life. My favorite pictures from this blog are the one posted on February 21st called Street Light and the one from March 7th called on the can. The first picture represents the city at night and how the streetlights can affect the perspective of the street while the second one is a simple picture of a bunny rabbit on a can of green olives. Like the other blogs I have found this one does not talk about the various uses of different parts of a city or how cities have evolved but it represents what surrounds in a particular manned. These blogs allow the ones who take a look at them to
3. http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/: This blog is very different to all of the other ones I came across. In my Urban Studies class we lately came across the subject that most of our lives where being digitalized. We mainly communicate via email or text messages. When you need to communicate with a teacher it is rare to find a time where both of you can sit down and talk so you email one another. Well this blog shows how people and their behavior can be represented through videos. What attracted me to this blog was that it managed to relate today’s modern technology with urban life planning.
4. http://www.onephotographaday.com/: This blog is by far my favorite one out of the ones I managed to find. The concept of this blog is to take a picture every day from the surrounding. The photograph for Sunday May 2nd is amazing. A group of immigrants marched in front of the white house in order to protest the Arizona law and to demand action for the federal Government. Another interesting post is the one from April 29th. A blogger was roller blading in Washington DC when he came across a group of colorful dancers called The Friends of Sironka Dance Troup performing around the White House. What was interesting about this picture was that when i first saw it, i assumed it was a group of black people who where protesting in front of the White House. I made the same assumption as Mitchell Duneier made in his book "Sidewalk". Mitchell felt uneasy studying Hakim because many of the conversations he had "heard were about so-called black books and because the people participating in them seemd to be defining themselves as a person. (p.20) The reason why I liked this blog was because any one can get involved as long as you find something interesting that you want to share with others. After all as long as something happens on the streets or anywhere in a city I personally consider it to be urban.
5. http://www.fertilegroundzine.blogspot.com/: This blog is interesting and unique at the same time. Unlike the other blogs a mother instead of several people holds this one. Her posts do not debate about global warming or other urban issues such as the use of the sidewalks in New York City. She describes certain events that are happening to her and her son as the young boy discovers the world. Urban is all around us, which is why probably anything can be related to urban life as long as it involves anything that surrounds us. In her blog this woman describes some of the important days of her son just like the one when they went to Whitton Farm. She describes how amazed the kids were to discover chickens and horses. Reading Stacey Greenberg’s blog was interesting because it is out of the ordinary and makes you realize that we cannot take what is around us for granted. We must care about our environment and protect it for the ones who will live in it after us.
This book takes a look at the lives of street vendors selling their wares on a few blocks of the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan. The author Mitchell Duneier is a sociology professor who wrote the book after a five year study. It all began when Duneier gets into a conversation with one of the vendors, who ask him if he’s ever read Jane Jacobs, and that he describes himself as a “public character”. Jane Jacobs, in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" describes a public character as “anyone who is in frequent contact with a wide circle of people”.
The author had become curious as to the background stories of the men, mostly African American, selling used books, magazines and other wares dug up from the trash and dumpsters. The book chronicles his observations and interactions over the five year period with these men, community residents and local business leaders and policy makers. Duneier writes about the work these men do, why they do it and what impact, both positive and negative is being made to the individuals and also the community surrounding them.
As the author questions why poor, older men of African American descent would position themselves in a predominately White upper middle class neighborhood to sell items derived from the trash, he begins to see how their presence helps define sidewalk life and how that life is beneficial to the neighborhood. As I read this book, I thought a lot of Jane Jacobs, William Whyte and the plaza observation assignments done over the course of the semester. I agree that what makes city life interesting are the ways that people from all walks of life can coexist informally on the street without becoming intimate. It is true that “the bedrock attribute of a successful city district is that a person must feel personally safe and secure on the street among all these strangers”. (Jacobs, p. 30)
Duneier begins to see that the men act like security for the blocks in which they set up shop. Some of the men are homeless, sleep on the street and panhandle in front of some of the businesses; they look out for and protect each other from the police; because of interaction with neighborhood residents who are also regular customers, there is a sense of safety and community among the vendors, panhandlers and residents.
The vendors also serve many other functions. The majority are formerly incarcerated, and past or current drug users. Their life on the street came about as a result of being released from prison and having no place to go; being asked by relatives to leave, or deciding that they could not function in a socially accepted business environment. They decide to branch out on their own. In their new life, the men are clever, insightful and resourceful; they work for each other setting up and clearing up tables, storing merchandise, finding things to sell, and guarding tables when the owners need breaks or have to be away for a time.
In the research process, the author takes on some of these roles that provide him with firsthand knowledge about the life of the men. In talking to local business owners and policy makers, he gets the stereotypical accounts of the vendors’ impact on the street. One of the most important roles I thought was the role of mentors and confidantes to each other. When someone new started to come around the older men would talk to and encourage them to find a better path in life that did not involve getting in trouble or abusing drugs or alcohol, which could lead to trouble once more.
I really enjoyed this book, even though in the beginning I was skeptical because the author has nothing in common with his subjects. I felt that he could not be as objective or understanding, but as I read, I saw how much he tried to understand and be empathetic to the street vendors. Duneier admitted throughout the book that he was different and could not fully understand the lives of poor, homeless, African American male street vendors, and he knew that as much information as he garnered from his five years with them, they did not fully trust him either.
My first blog that I found was from a site named http://animalnewyork.com/2010/04/give-me-your-tired-and-poor-unless-theyre-mexican-then-take-them-back/comment-page-1/#comment-26485. What attracted my to this article was picture of the staute of liberty crying and of course, the title,Give Me Your Tired and Poor–Unless They’re Mexican, Then Take Them Back. This blog was about the new law passed in Arizona that allows police to demand proof of residency and documentation from people they deem to “suspicious”. The official that passed this law claim that this isn’t going to be a case of racial profiling, and that officers will be trained in determining what/ who looks Mexican with out profiling. The blog states, and I definitely agree, that this law goes against everything this country was built on. As I was reading the article and hearing the news about this law I couldn’t help but think how can a country made and built by immigrants deny entry for other immigrants that want to make a better life for themselves. The worst part is that this law is only focusing on illegal Mexican, Hispanic, or darker skin immigrants, not on any European or white illegal immigrants. I think that this blog and this issue related to my blog and the class because police will be targeting urban places and this law is a ploy, in my opinion, to run out the “undesirables” from Arizona. Granted the language and some of this things said in this blog was pretty racist, but most were very true and that is other reason that attracted me to this blog.
For my second site http://www.urbanophile.com/2009/04/11/the-outsiders/comment-page-1/#comment-3222, I found a really interesting blog that kind of contradicted some of the things we learned in class, which is what made this blog interesting. In class, we learned from Jane Jacobs, the benefits of “Bottom-up Community planning”. This idea states the importance of people in the community taking main roles in how there city is built. She states “clusters of discount merchandise marts, the whole destructive, wasteful, toxic, agoraphobia-including spectacle that politicians proudly call “growth”” (10).
This fact was further illustrated in our community board activity, which focuses on people in the community trying to take part in the decisions being made by outside planners and officials. What’s interesting about this blog was the author believed that its important for outsiders to come in and input there opinions in order to make communities better. He states that people living in a community can become blind to things that need to change, and the fact they lived there all their lives impedes improvements to their community. He is basically saying that outsiders provide a fresh eyes and vision that can improve communities. What he is saying also reflects this quote “A reflective detachment on daily life [and] a means to push [myself] away from the ordinary” (99). I couldn’t find anywhere to comment on this blog, but I thought it was a really good blog that related a lot to what we learned in class.
My third blog site http://johnson.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/well-all-take-manhattan/ Steven Johnson talks about the growing importance of cities and how nowadays people are opting for the diversity, excitement and even overcrowding of the city, rather then the subdued suburban life. This blog reminded me of James Kunstler’s book, The Geography of Nowhere, where he talked about how people used to prefer to live in the suburban areas because it allowed them to feel as though they were living out the “American Dream”. The way cites and suburban area were built was to keep “undesirables” in the cities, and whites or affluent people would live in wonderful suburban towns (101). However, Johnson believes that in these changing times, the diversity in cities are drawing more people. He always talks about the transformation of cites, particularly New York , that has allowed this change to happen. I totally agree with Johnson that cites are becoming the main places that people want to live. In post Industrial US, most jobs and income came from life in the city, which was the initial draw of cites, and granted there was a period where people traded in the hustle and bustle of the city life to the peaceful suburban life that old TV shows depicted (Kunstler 104), more and more people are finding their way back to the city. This blog was written in 2006 and was no longer accepting comments; however I found Johnson’s twitter and post my comment and my blog link there. http://twitter.com/?status=@stevenbjohnson&in_reply_to_status_id=13277504553&in_reply_to=stevenbjohnson
My forth post, http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2010/02/07/the-slow-death-of-hawker-stalls/comment-page-1/#comment-339548, I found really interesting because it provided a glimpse into the situations in another major city, Hong Kong . Christopher DeWolf writes about “modifications” and gentrification of Hawker Stalls. In order to keep up with the recent influx of art and cultural that has penetrated this town, the government has build apartments and hotels that attracts tourist and talking spaces of some local businesses that can’t keep up with that changes. This particularly bad, according to Dewolf, because local street commerce drives the economy of this town, along with businesses being displaced, the government rarely gives out licenses in order to open such businesses. This blog really relates to Jane Jacob and her belief about the importance of local businesses in her idea of “Mix use communities”. Jacobs states “people who get marked with the planners’ hex signs are pushed about…and uprooted much as if they were subjects of a conquering power. Thousands and thousands of small businesses are destroyed and their proprietors ruined, with hardly a gesture at compensation.”(9) This is illustrated in many cities and countries all over the world, and more closely, in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
For my last post, http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2010/01/public-behavior-in-private-spaces.html?cid=6a00d83534ac5b69e20134805ddbc3970c#comment-6a00d83534ac5b69e20134805ddbc3970c , I found a blog that talked about a 2 topics we specifically talked about in class, which are private behavior in public spaces and public spaces vs. private spaces. In this blog Karen Sternheimer talks about the difference between walking in a mall and walking outside. The main difference between the two is that when you’re walking outside, you’re in a public spaces, however if you’re walking around in a mall, you are actually walking around in a private space. Prior to this class, I thought malls were public spaces, however, when you really think about it to see that there are rules that you must follow and you can be asked to leave. No one, expect cops maybe, can tell you to leave a public park. However, the lines between public and private is very blurry because, there are actually rules in public parks, like times when you have to leave or restricting smoking. Malls are much strict in there rules because they are privately own, such as telling you what proper entire you must to be able to go into the mall or even age limits to enter at certain times, as Sternheimer states. She also talks about the racial aspect to some of the mall’s rules against age and race. She mentions how someone who is rich or affluent will probably be able to bend the rules because they are spending a lot of money. I agree with this because even at my job, if we know someone is going to spend a lot of money they can do what they want and even stay a little longer after we are supposed to close. Jane Jacob states in her book “The Life and Death of Great American Cites” that "Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody."(101) For cities to have that capability, everything should be privatized or controlled by city officials to point that citizens can’t even gather in a group without a permit or permission from someone else. I definitely agree with Sternheimer when she says that people tend to think of themselves as consumers rather than citizens. I believe in doing that, we tend to forget our rights and think we have no control over what happens in our cities.Sternheimer even states that “might be difficult to think of public places that are truly public anymore”, which is similar to what I wrote in my blog for public vs. private, in which I said that nothing is truly public and free from control anymore.
