Activity 9
Rosedelle A Chery
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.
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