What has happened in the past 10-15 years is the democratization of information dissemination. Anybody can start a news bureau and do direct journalism now. There are hundreds of millions of smartphone high-definition video cameras in people's pockets, ready to capture events on the scene directly and without official narrative control. This has radically decentralized information flow, destroying the power of the traditional media corporations to control the narrative. They really, really, really hate that, because controlling our social narrative and thereby defining the Overton Window was not only hugely profitable, but gave them vast, anaccountable power.
Those days are over. The 2016 election was proof of that. All the major media groups united to try and put Hillary Clinton in the White House while simultaneously trying to destroy Donald Trump's reputation. It didn't work. They used every trick in their book, and only managed to expose how powerless they now are. Trump used direct communication and internet media channels to completely bypass media gatekeeping. That's a big part of why he was able not only to win, but do so with a far lower campaign expenditure than his old-media-backed opponent. Media personalities, used to a position of privilege where they are never challenged, found that regular people can directly confront them over their mendacity in forums like Twitter and Facebook.
That has all left them crying about "fake news" and trying to censor channels they do not control. It's a losing battle. The more they cry about it, the faster they will fall. Their stock prices are already in free-fall.
Under old centralized media, the most important function of journalism was a combination of cognitive dissonance management, marketing the regnant orthodoxy of elites, and controlling the boundaries of acceptable discussion. Walter Lippmann wrote the definitive how-to guide on that mode of operation 94 years ago, laying out a template for mass media narrative control that has been operative from the Roosevelt Administration until just recently, when it finally failed for the last time.
With new media, now it's about access to raw data, direct communication, cross-linking information, and drawing our own conclusions. That's a hugely positive development for regular citizens. A very bad development for the official power structure which has depended on telling you what to think for a very long time.
Welcome to the age of distributed information flow and direct communication channels, where tweets from @POTUS trump the entire combined White House Press Corps and Punditocracy and you have to start thinking for yourself again.
"Those days are over. The 2016 election was proof of that. All the major media groups united to try and put Hillary Clinton in the White House while simultaneously trying to destroy Donald Trump's reputation."
No, Donald Trump destroyed (and is still destroying) his own reputation by tweeting out his 3am garbage rants. Just accept that 50% of this country is uneducated, uncouth and uncivilized, rather than try justify Donald Duck.
"All the major media groups united to try and put Hillary Clinton in the White House while simultaneously trying to destroy Donald Trump's reputation."
Oh, I see, so the media was making up what Rathead did and said while campaigning and throughout his public life...and all that was not enough to destroy his reputation...that is, just straight reporting? What we have here is willfull ignorance by half the country, ignorance as in ignoring. Any one of the many things Rathead said and did in this campaign and previously would have killed ANY other presidential candidate in the past; Howard Dean's campaign was destroyed by one "waaaagh".
But now Rathead can just do what he wants, insult anyone, calling every story on him, even stuff obviously on the record, a lie, post any steaming pile on "social media" and half the country loves him. Ah, but even just straight reporting the stuff (which you could never make up in a million years) this wackjob says and does is the media's fault? They were "tricks", huh? Get the fuck out of here with that garbage. Rathead didn't destroy any fucking media, he rode on the tails of social media because it's the only way to influence clueless, thickheaded morons that wanted to "make America great again" to vote for him. You really think because these idjits got a direct text from Rathead they do any more actual thinking about what he's actually saying than from something they read in the NY Times or other media, written by someone who might have actually done some research and fact-checking? What a steaming pile of horseshit.
And one more thing: after these wise Trumptard citizens get their "alternative news" and tweets fed to them, there isn't a whole gargantua of "traditional media" that they then follow that will reflect just exactly what they want to hear, Fox News et al, talk shows, etc. that will "tell them what to think"? Nice to label "traditional media" as one thing, a monolith with one point of view, as if Rathead's sickening ideas are not then parroted by a whole parade of talking heads. Thinking for yourself my ass.
Finally, then you can all get back to talking Patrik: if as you say, the "new media" was used by Rathead to destroy the old media, and people 18 to 25 years old are voracious users of new media, how do you explain the 18-25 voting map?
An almost unanimous win by Clinton, so if "Trump used direct communication and internet media channels to completely bypass media gatekeeping" he obviously didn't do a very good job. In fact, Rathead was voted in mostly by older white males (one CNN poll found that 63 percent of American white males voted for Trump while only 31 percent voted for Clinton) and I would bet many of them could give a fuck about "new media" or old for that matter.
Well, great, what that graph now tells me is that a large amount of white USA, and male white in particular, treated Rathead as the "great white male hope", making the hideous statement that they would take any piece of shit right now over the two terms of a black president or the possibility of one or two of a woman president.
"White Millennials" - yes you are right, and shame on these white millennials. Hope all of these losers lose their jobs in the next great recession propagated by Donald Duck.
Millennials seem to be incredibly passionate, contrary to the old-folks' sarcastic view of them. They have been raised with infinite information at their command, as opposed to friends, family, TV, Radio, and a ratty encyclopedia like previous generations. I think lumping them all together is more dangerous than lumping Boomers, Xers, or any previous generation.
also, under gwharton's view of new media, all we have to do is lie to a bunch of white trash hillbillies, and it becomes truth-enough, so the quality of data isn't really important. you can change the demographics and create a link to tell whatever narrative you like, then tie it to a headline that's only loosely related to the source, such as 'NASA says 20-something liberals caused global warming.'
Both sides blamed the media this year. Trump was generally considered to be the more anti-press candidate but Hillary's surrogates were constantly complaining about how much time was spent on her email controversy, the Clinton Foundation, and the Podesta emails from Wikileaks. They also blame the media for manufacturing the idea that Hillary is unpopular.
It is also true that the some reporters and high profile bloggers did coordinate with the Clinton campaign when it came to the language and details of specific stories:
...or in the case of bloggers, with promoting particular themes:
There were also fierce propaganda efforts by David Brock (former Anita Hill basher turned Clinton operative) intended to shape the narrative. Brock is the owner of Blue Nation Review and Media Matters and the organizer of Correct The Record, which actually hired pro-Clinton trolls to take on anti-Clinton trolls. Correct The Record also deployed "trackers" during the primary. These were people sent to video tape Sanders and O'Malley public appearances.
Many of these approaches to the media backfired in one way or another. Ironically, by promoting propaganda and even targeting other Democrats, they alienated a lot of potential Hillary voters and helped to promote the idea that the media is just an extension of the "establishment".
"What's crucial to understand is that a great many commercial media outlets now are not so much liberal-leaning as Democratic-Party leaning.
There's a huge difference between advocacy journalism and electoral advocacy. Not just occasionally but all the time now, private news organizations are doing the work that political parties used to have to pay for in the form of ads.
In the same way that Fox used to (and probably still does) save on reporting and research costs by simply regurgitating talking points from the RNC, blue-leaning cable channels are running segments and online reportsthat are increasingly indistinguishable from Democratic Party messaging.
Trump really sent this problem into overdrive. He is considered so dangerous that many journalists are beginning to be concerned that admitting the truth of negative reports of any kind about the Democrats might make them complicit in the election of the American Hitler.
There's some logic in that, but it's flawed logic. When journalists start acting like politicians, we pretty much always end up botching things even more politically and crippling our businesses to boot."
I was about to write that this discussion has very little to do with Patrik Schumacher's vision of a blobby plutocracy, but then I remembered his emphasis on communication theory:
"If all problems of society are problems of communication, then the focus on communication is a precondition for upgrading architecture’s social efficacy. Especially within the Post-Fordist network society (information society, knowledge economy), total social productivity increases with the density of communication. The life process of society is a communication process structured by an ever more complex and richly diversified matrix of institutions and communicative situations."
Part of the problem is that he also seems to emphasize the "self-sorting" that goes on in cities, which to my ear sounds a lot like de facto segregation. Schumacher's communication would probably improve in an exclusive community of people similar to him, but obviously that takes us down the path of discrimination and cultural homogeneity etc. Our media echo chambers are perhaps a natural outgrowth of "self-sorting", but they are clearly problematic for a democracy.
The problem right now is that, as much as Patrik Schumacher thinks he is giving a good service to architecture by trying to put us back in a better and more powerful position in the society, we need a second voice-- because right now, as much as some of us question his disposition, the next generation of architects who are currently in school are probably turning their heads towards that one dominant voice that is Patrik. His vision is brilliant but, we need someone to at least try to swing the pendulum to the other direction.
Davvid, self-sorting can be seen as segregation or as a sort of way station with regards to immigrant communities. This has been a mostly positive force in cities like NY. Little Italy, china town, Korea town, little Odessa, etc...
Self organization is a main principle of PSs work. While I agree with it in part, any ism at its extreme is a recipe for disaster. Anarcho-capitalism would have a more realistic bite if he embraced a sort of minarchism rather than a complete absence of state.
By the way, Schumacher's reference to "Post-Fordist" is a tell. It means he's been reading and thinking about managerialism, the administrative state, and the post-WW2 order that is now coming apart at the seams because it can no longer sustain its internal contradictions. Specifically, it is a Gramscian critique along the same lines as James Burnham's, but from an opposite, Marxian perspective.
In short, it means Schumacher is probably not the right wing nut you seem to think he is.
But since you all are so smug about condemning those who disagree with you as racist hillbillies, you probably haven't had the time or desire to actually inform yourselves about what is actually going on in the world beyond the pages of the NYT or CNN clickbait.
Self organization, as opposed to top-down planning, is a recipe for diversity imo. Much of the homogenization that we see today is a result of overbearing govt planning efforts. The city cannot be planned. The best cities are the result of self organization and organic growth alongside given economies . PS is simply advocating this. My main critique is more a matter of degree. when met with basic govt protections, i.e. Property rights, basic public infrastructure, etc...what we end up with is not all that different from delirious NY...without such basic govt...it would likely resemble Monrovia.
That said, the "grid" that enables a "delirious NY" is too restrictive and exclusive for it to ever manifest as a city "by the people rather than for the people". It's units of ownership are too large and too expensive for the average citizen. It's set up To be controlled by the elite. To rescale such a grid and allow capitalism to manifest itself in a more decentralized and democratic way is the most empowering urbanism imaginable. Imagine if the ghetto was owned by its inhabitants. Would that not empower them to leverage it for upward mobility? Would that not give them a sense of pride in ownership? Would that not break the patriarchal control that dictates what's best from top down as well as create a sense of self-destiny? Imo PS is not "right wing", and I agree 100% with GW that people need to open their minds and stop associating less govt with rednecks and racism. It's quite opposite actually.
Would your imagined future allow for "the ghetto" to grow beyond the boundaries handed down to them by the folks who are realizing this brave new world? Even in this imagined utopia, there's some group in charge. Are we to pretend they will be benevolent overlords?
It's about ownership. My "imagined future" would allow anything to expand anyway it wants as there would be no "handing down" of anything. Do you think expanded ownership would help or hurt the ghetto? Some of the most entrepreneurial minded people live in ghettos. The scale of our cities buy-in and overly burdensome regulations prevent upward mobility. neo liberalism has led to greater centralization of the ownership class which defers the control of upward mobility on to employers (often corporations). This gives power to bigotry...making it what we call institutional racism. A black community owned by black people seems like a good idea to me. Zoning regulations prevent this by limiting the division of real property into units that are financially accessible and to a scale fitting with the given economics of the community.
Archieteci. Sure a favella is an obvious one. Not the best manifestation of the idea because of the failure of the surrounding society to provide it with ample resources to combats gangs and violence, but none the less it exists. A souk is another and more empowering example. A US example would be a neighborhood where sfh are divided so that the top floor and basement are rented as apartments. Legal or not, this was very common in my old neighborhood. I grew up in a house like that. The ability to sub-divide space more freely is economically empowering and sometimes financially necessary. My "future utopia" is somewhere between a favella and NYC I guess...
Hey what if Walmart called itself allmart and started selling off 10'x10' sections where small entrepreneurs could sell goods or do whatever they please? Dumb idea, but think about for the sake of a thought experiment.... being that there are already Walmart's in every crevice of the nation. A bunch of micro-urbanisms of sorts would occur maybe all over the place. A city within a Walmart. Sam Walton is now an emperor, dictator, or benevolent ruler you may say...but what if each space was given equal land ownership rights...?
I like in-law suites, accessory dwelling units, duplexes, micro-neighborhoods, and other voluntary methods of providing additional housing that also increases density.
I do not agree with complete anarchy. It will always devolve into tribalism. Human nature. I do think that a minimal govt would however be better. So yes, govt must exist to at the very least ensure basic constitutional rights and provide a basic infrastructure.
"Sure a favella is an obvious one. Not the best manifestation of the idea because of the failure of the surrounding society to provide it with ample resources"
I'm actually finding jla-x's expounded writing educational because I've had similar lines of thought, and it's helping me look at things from a critical place. I'm not attacking him (you), I am curious to see what, if any, solutions can be gleaned.
SneakyPete, It all goes back to Scale. We designers talk about human scale, but rarely economic scale. Just imagine for a second, assuming the same land ownership laws that we have today apply, that we were to take a plot of land and rather than subdivide it into the typical 60' x 120' suburban lot we instead divided it into 30'x 60' lots. 4x density. Imagine the typical suburban lot cost 100k. We now have 4 lots at 25k a piece. Or to be realistic and give incentive to the seller, 30k per lot...imagine if those lots were arranged in a way, that when full, would provide a pleasantly scaled walkable community. Imagine we do away with erroneous setbacks, zoning, land use, etc and allow each lot to be developed organically. Commercial, residential, A sculpture by some artist ....an orgaized chaos. A Delirious NY in a way but by the regular people...a more democratic urbanism. Isolated as a "pocket utopia" or more integrated into the overall urban fabric...
Without a clean slate, what would prevent deep-pocket investors from gobbling up prime real-estate, putting in filthy industry next to residential, etc.? I respect the desire for a smaller, more efficient government, yet most of the solutions seem to suggest free reign which can immediately be capitalized on by monied interests.
It is true that architects don't deal in scales of economy- but their clients often do across user groups and building types. Small sounds great until the client says they can't get the numbers pencil out properly w/o too much risk.
that said- small scale economic development exists- especially in food. It represents one of the easiest entires into business with a relative chance of success. Clothing isn't good unless you've made a name making bespoke pieces and there can be only so many t shirt shops. Other related goods such as artisanal items are space and material intensive. And electronics- nuff sed.
So food-
1- the food truck phenomenon is not an accident, revealing the entire problem with rents at the small scale.
2- another example is the state fair food circuit. This is an especially interesting model given the need to guarantee that demand will supplied based on the requirements at each fair.
3- Or there is the bazaar or food court incubator that requires an entire level of management above the individual stall owners to ensure stability.
And- what about the top down nature of banks (redlining and predatory loans)- explicit acts to deter economic development in selected communities?
did anyone fact check whartons last post? did anyone look up who Zahas father was attracted to in social and economic theory? in the age of FB thats too much work....i know
He was more interesting when he tried to face the architectural scene with achitecture's non-political nature than now when he, as an architect, plays the role of a politician, as he does here, and a neoliberal idealogue at that.
Furthermore, his "style" should be put aside (ex. Brutalism functioned in socialist/state capitalist and liberal capitalist economies) while evaluating this current pronouncement.. Funnily enough, this instance he is playing the opposite role: not an architect denouncing the assumption of a political valour in architecture but rather a politician who's rhetoric has nothing to do with architecture. And on that plateau, he brings no evidence from social science or from economy. In fact, many thinkers and experts would argue that the catastrophies - ecological and social- miseries has much to do with the conséquences of the economic model he espouses that has been beneficial to the very very few at the expense of the very many.
As for différences between right and left, the americans view it in a very warped and twissted way after a peculairly american history of a virtiolic wat waged against the real left who wish to redistribute weath, who want to protect worker rights against capitalists...very concrete aims that are not rhetorical. In fact, what you have in the US goes from extreme right (with varying versions, some neoloberal some protectionist - for instance, there is a substantial difference between the discourse of Trump and that of Brannon), to centre right (the so called liberal institution, Obama, Clinton, who are fiscally more 'right-wing') to the left of center (Sanders- who has no qualms about capitalism). Yes there are différences between fiscal and social proclivities . Clinton is fiscally more right wing than Trump yet less socially right wing.
But this is also the same case with the Nazi era. Hitler was fiscally a state capitalist (this is why Germany was one of the most successful to recover after the devastating 1st World War ) whereas he was, of course, rabidly racist right wing.
Aside from the bonkers, click bait diatribe, but subversive enough if any journalists will pick up on it, the build a city in Hyde Park and leave 20% did make me laugh, is that for the allocation of cavilary?
I'm pissed off with Patriks seeming pride that one of ZHA's employees is living in a 20 square metre "flat" in the Barbican, because that don't meet regs as designed, and surely that is not a spatial configuration to advocate. Also stick up for Architecture, and Architects in general please.
Mohammed Hadid attended the London School of Economics between 1928 and 1931, and achieved a degree in Economics. It was there that he is said to have been influenced by the ideas of Professor Harold Laski, a "widely known socialist and agnostic".
The Martin Shkreli of the architectural profession. He should have taken his own advice and not implicate himself politically. AltoughI would argue that he sees his political stance as post-political (as in, when history ended, so did politics).
Zaha was more of an artist who had the vision for her projects who had zero clue about programming and the technical aspect of things (just watch her AA interviews) while Patrik was more of the driving force behind the design's rationality. Love their designs or not, both individuals were considered pillars behind ZHA's success.
Look at their latest project without the founder's vision - GZ Infinitus Plaza. It lacked the finesse or rather Zaha's touch.
If there is anything untrue about what is being said, please point it out so that it can be corrected.
My point of view is that there are real life consequences to ideology. We are at a point in history when corporate interests basically push governments around by either bribing people, or arguing that free trade and global capitalism naturally leads to more global interdependence, and therefore less unemployment/poverty, and less war. But we are seeing the limitations of that thinking and the major problems that result from an intertwining/merging of government agendas with multinational-corporate agendas. We're seeing widespread corruption, massive wealth and income inequality, a weakening of legitimate global and regional collaborations, war, refugee crises, and an increase in racist white nationalism. Schumacher is arguing for an acceleration of those neoliberal tendencies to an extreme degree. This would bring us further down the wrong path of privatization, exclusionary planning, social stratification, and an overly controlled and surveilled public sphere. For me, it doesn't matter if the man is well-spoken. There are well-spoken men on every side of every issue. There always has been. What matters is that we have the clarity and courage to see what our problems are, and work to solve them. In my opinion, Schumacher's reckless and inappropriate thought experiments represent the worst psychophantic tendencies in Architecture.
"do you realize how incentivized developers and private equity partners are by the government?"
Obviously, I do. Can't you see that from my comment when I wrote: "an intertwining/merging of government agendas with multinational-corporate agendas"?
"...I got more and more radicalised and was soon ready for Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism.
The political ideology and programme of anarcho-capitalism envisages the radicalisation of the neoliberal roll-back of the state. As a special form of anarchism based on private property as society’s most basic institution, its call for the extension of entrepreneurial freedom and competitive market rationality pushes to the point where the scope for private enterprise is all-encompassing and leaves no space for state action whatsoever, positing the privatisation of everything, including cities with all their infrastructures, public spaces, streets and urban management systems. Even the provision of the legal system can be imagined fully privatised, via markets with competing jurisdictions, multiple competing sets of statutes, competing private courts, etc. These are, intellectually, incredibly stimulating propositions and the rapidly growing literature around such libertarian themes is rather sophisticated."
Nov 29, 16 5:04 pm ·
·
Frank Lloyd Wrong
"As a special form of anarchism based on private property as society’s most basic institution..." Ahh yes, private property, the institution held in highest regard by anarchists throughout history LOL. Also, imagine how much worse the legal system would be than it already is if his imagined hyper-privatised version ever came to fruition... I shudder at the thought of "competing sets of statutes, competing private courts".
Patrik Schumacher's Right-wing Agenda
What has happened in the past 10-15 years is the democratization of information dissemination. Anybody can start a news bureau and do direct journalism now. There are hundreds of millions of smartphone high-definition video cameras in people's pockets, ready to capture events on the scene directly and without official narrative control. This has radically decentralized information flow, destroying the power of the traditional media corporations to control the narrative. They really, really, really hate that, because controlling our social narrative and thereby defining the Overton Window was not only hugely profitable, but gave them vast, anaccountable power.
Those days are over. The 2016 election was proof of that. All the major media groups united to try and put Hillary Clinton in the White House while simultaneously trying to destroy Donald Trump's reputation. It didn't work. They used every trick in their book, and only managed to expose how powerless they now are. Trump used direct communication and internet media channels to completely bypass media gatekeeping. That's a big part of why he was able not only to win, but do so with a far lower campaign expenditure than his old-media-backed opponent. Media personalities, used to a position of privilege where they are never challenged, found that regular people can directly confront them over their mendacity in forums like Twitter and Facebook.
That has all left them crying about "fake news" and trying to censor channels they do not control. It's a losing battle. The more they cry about it, the faster they will fall. Their stock prices are already in free-fall.
Under old centralized media, the most important function of journalism was a combination of cognitive dissonance management, marketing the regnant orthodoxy of elites, and controlling the boundaries of acceptable discussion. Walter Lippmann wrote the definitive how-to guide on that mode of operation 94 years ago, laying out a template for mass media narrative control that has been operative from the Roosevelt Administration until just recently, when it finally failed for the last time.
With new media, now it's about access to raw data, direct communication, cross-linking information, and drawing our own conclusions. That's a hugely positive development for regular citizens. A very bad development for the official power structure which has depended on telling you what to think for a very long time.
Welcome to the age of distributed information flow and direct communication channels, where tweets from @POTUS trump the entire combined White House Press Corps and Punditocracy and you have to start thinking for yourself again.
Or is it simply another example of human beings' propensity to cut off their noses to spite their own faces?
"Those days are over. The 2016 election was proof of that. All the major media groups united to try and put Hillary Clinton in the White House while simultaneously trying to destroy Donald Trump's reputation."
No, Donald Trump destroyed (and is still destroying) his own reputation by tweeting out his 3am garbage rants. Just accept that 50% of this country is uneducated, uncouth and uncivilized, rather than try justify Donald Duck.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/19/donald-trump-us-election-prediction-richard-rorty?client=safari
Nailed it.
^opps wrong thread...
That sentence is just astounding:
"All the major media groups united to try and put Hillary Clinton in the White House while simultaneously trying to destroy Donald Trump's reputation."
Oh, I see, so the media was making up what Rathead did and said while campaigning and throughout his public life...and all that was not enough to destroy his reputation...that is, just straight reporting? What we have here is willfull ignorance by half the country, ignorance as in ignoring. Any one of the many things Rathead said and did in this campaign and previously would have killed ANY other presidential candidate in the past; Howard Dean's campaign was destroyed by one "waaaagh".
But now Rathead can just do what he wants, insult anyone, calling every story on him, even stuff obviously on the record, a lie, post any steaming pile on "social media" and half the country loves him. Ah, but even just straight reporting the stuff (which you could never make up in a million years) this wackjob says and does is the media's fault? They were "tricks", huh? Get the fuck out of here with that garbage. Rathead didn't destroy any fucking media, he rode on the tails of social media because it's the only way to influence clueless, thickheaded morons that wanted to "make America great again" to vote for him. You really think because these idjits got a direct text from Rathead they do any more actual thinking about what he's actually saying than from something they read in the NY Times or other media, written by someone who might have actually done some research and fact-checking? What a steaming pile of horseshit.
for a second there I though I was on FB, lets get back to Patrik and what exactly he is up to and his overarching objectives
And one more thing: after these wise Trumptard citizens get their "alternative news" and tweets fed to them, there isn't a whole gargantua of "traditional media" that they then follow that will reflect just exactly what they want to hear, Fox News et al, talk shows, etc. that will "tell them what to think"? Nice to label "traditional media" as one thing, a monolith with one point of view, as if Rathead's sickening ideas are not then parroted by a whole parade of talking heads. Thinking for yourself my ass.
Finally, then you can all get back to talking Patrik: if as you say, the "new media" was used by Rathead to destroy the old media, and people 18 to 25 years old are voracious users of new media, how do you explain the 18-25 voting map?
An almost unanimous win by Clinton, so if "Trump used direct communication and internet media channels to completely bypass media gatekeeping" he obviously didn't do a very good job. In fact, Rathead was voted in mostly by older white males (one CNN poll found that 63 percent of American white males voted for Trump while only 31 percent voted for Clinton) and I would bet many of them could give a fuck about "new media" or old for that matter.
White Millennials voted for Trump over Clinton. Just FYI.
Well, great, what that graph now tells me is that a large amount of white USA, and male white in particular, treated Rathead as the "great white male hope", making the hideous statement that they would take any piece of shit right now over the two terms of a black president or the possibility of one or two of a woman president.
....but the campaign wasn't racist or misogynist at all.....
"White Millennials" - yes you are right, and shame on these white millennials. Hope all of these losers lose their jobs in the next great recession propagated by Donald Duck.
Millennials seem to be incredibly passionate, contrary to the old-folks' sarcastic view of them. They have been raised with infinite information at their command, as opposed to friends, family, TV, Radio, and a ratty encyclopedia like previous generations. I think lumping them all together is more dangerous than lumping Boomers, Xers, or any previous generation.
i think the data behind this is probably somewhat questionable, but fun tool nonetheless
https://today.yougov.com/us-election/?view=demographic
also, under gwharton's view of new media, all we have to do is lie to a bunch of white trash hillbillies, and it becomes truth-enough, so the quality of data isn't really important. you can change the demographics and create a link to tell whatever narrative you like, then tie it to a headline that's only loosely related to the source, such as 'NASA says 20-something liberals caused global warming.'
'They have been raised with infinite information at their command"
You mean twitter and snapchat?
Yup. That's exactly what I meant. You hit the nail on the head.
Both sides blamed the media this year. Trump was generally considered to be the more anti-press candidate but Hillary's surrogates were constantly complaining about how much time was spent on her email controversy, the Clinton Foundation, and the Podesta emails from Wikileaks. They also blame the media for manufacturing the idea that Hillary is unpopular.
It is also true that the some reporters and high profile bloggers did coordinate with the Clinton campaign when it came to the language and details of specific stories:
Politico's Glenn Thrush to John Podesta: "Because I have become a hack I will send u [sic] the whole section that pertains to u - Please don't share or tell anyone I did this - tell me if I fucked up anything"
...or in the case of bloggers, with promoting particular themes:
There were also fierce propaganda efforts by David Brock (former Anita Hill basher turned Clinton operative) intended to shape the narrative. Brock is the owner of Blue Nation Review and Media Matters and the organizer of Correct The Record, which actually hired pro-Clinton trolls to take on anti-Clinton trolls. Correct The Record also deployed "trackers" during the primary. These were people sent to video tape Sanders and O'Malley public appearances.
Many of these approaches to the media backfired in one way or another. Ironically, by promoting propaganda and even targeting other Democrats, they alienated a lot of potential Hillary voters and helped to promote the idea that the media is just an extension of the "establishment".
See Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone Piece titled "The Summer of the Shill":
"What's crucial to understand is that a great many commercial media outlets now are not so much liberal-leaning as Democratic-Party leaning.
There's a huge difference between advocacy journalism and electoral advocacy. Not just occasionally but all the time now, private news organizations are doing the work that political parties used to have to pay for in the form of ads.
In the same way that Fox used to (and probably still does) save on reporting and research costs by simply regurgitating talking points from the RNC, blue-leaning cable channels are running segments and online reportsthat are increasingly indistinguishable from Democratic Party messaging.
Trump really sent this problem into overdrive. He is considered so dangerous that many journalists are beginning to be concerned that admitting the truth of negative reports of any kind about the Democrats might make them complicit in the election of the American Hitler.
There's some logic in that, but it's flawed logic. When journalists start acting like politicians, we pretty much always end up botching things even more politically and crippling our businesses to boot."
Schumacher.
Tony Schumacher or Michael Schumacher?
I was about to write that this discussion has very little to do with Patrik Schumacher's vision of a blobby plutocracy, but then I remembered his emphasis on communication theory:
"If all problems of society are problems of communication, then the focus on communication is a precondition for upgrading architecture’s social efficacy. Especially within the Post-Fordist network society (information society, knowledge economy), total social productivity increases with the density of communication. The life process of society is a communication process structured by an ever more complex and richly diversified matrix of institutions and communicative situations."
Part of the problem is that he also seems to emphasize the "self-sorting" that goes on in cities, which to my ear sounds a lot like de facto segregation. Schumacher's communication would probably improve in an exclusive community of people similar to him, but obviously that takes us down the path of discrimination and cultural homogeneity etc. Our media echo chambers are perhaps a natural outgrowth of "self-sorting", but they are clearly problematic for a democracy.
The problem right now is that, as much as Patrik Schumacher thinks he is giving a good service to architecture by trying to put us back in a better and more powerful position in the society, we need a second voice-- because right now, as much as some of us question his disposition, the next generation of architects who are currently in school are probably turning their heads towards that one dominant voice that is Patrik. His vision is brilliant but, we need someone to at least try to swing the pendulum to the other direction.
Davvid, self-sorting can be seen as segregation or as a sort of way station with regards to immigrant communities. This has been a mostly positive force in cities like NY. Little Italy, china town, Korea town, little Odessa, etc...
Self organization is a main principle of PSs work. While I agree with it in part, any ism at its extreme is a recipe for disaster. Anarcho-capitalism would have a more realistic bite if he embraced a sort of minarchism rather than a complete absence of state.
By the way, Schumacher's reference to "Post-Fordist" is a tell. It means he's been reading and thinking about managerialism, the administrative state, and the post-WW2 order that is now coming apart at the seams because it can no longer sustain its internal contradictions. Specifically, it is a Gramscian critique along the same lines as James Burnham's, but from an opposite, Marxian perspective.
In short, it means Schumacher is probably not the right wing nut you seem to think he is.
But since you all are so smug about condemning those who disagree with you as racist hillbillies, you probably haven't had the time or desire to actually inform yourselves about what is actually going on in the world beyond the pages of the NYT or CNN clickbait.
Self organization, as opposed to top-down planning, is a recipe for diversity imo. Much of the homogenization that we see today is a result of overbearing govt planning efforts. The city cannot be planned. The best cities are the result of self organization and organic growth alongside given economies . PS is simply advocating this. My main critique is more a matter of degree. when met with basic govt protections, i.e. Property rights, basic public infrastructure, etc...what we end up with is not all that different from delirious NY...without such basic govt...it would likely resemble Monrovia.
That said, the "grid" that enables a "delirious NY" is too restrictive and exclusive for it to ever manifest as a city "by the people rather than for the people". It's units of ownership are too large and too expensive for the average citizen. It's set up To be controlled by the elite. To rescale such a grid and allow capitalism to manifest itself in a more decentralized and democratic way is the most empowering urbanism imaginable. Imagine if the ghetto was owned by its inhabitants. Would that not empower them to leverage it for upward mobility? Would that not give them a sense of pride in ownership? Would that not break the patriarchal control that dictates what's best from top down as well as create a sense of self-destiny? Imo PS is not "right wing", and I agree 100% with GW that people need to open their minds and stop associating less govt with rednecks and racism. It's quite opposite actually.
Would your imagined future allow for "the ghetto" to grow beyond the boundaries handed down to them by the folks who are realizing this brave new world? Even in this imagined utopia, there's some group in charge. Are we to pretend they will be benevolent overlords?
Jla - Care to cite some examples? (genuinely curious) Favelas come to mind as per your description.
It's about ownership. My "imagined future" would allow anything to expand anyway it wants as there would be no "handing down" of anything. Do you think expanded ownership would help or hurt the ghetto? Some of the most entrepreneurial minded people live in ghettos. The scale of our cities buy-in and overly burdensome regulations prevent upward mobility. neo liberalism has led to greater centralization of the ownership class which defers the control of upward mobility on to employers (often corporations). This gives power to bigotry...making it what we call institutional racism. A black community owned by black people seems like a good idea to me. Zoning regulations prevent this by limiting the division of real property into units that are financially accessible and to a scale fitting with the given economics of the community.
Archieteci. Sure a favella is an obvious one. Not the best manifestation of the idea because of the failure of the surrounding society to provide it with ample resources to combats gangs and violence, but none the less it exists. A souk is another and more empowering example. A US example would be a neighborhood where sfh are divided so that the top floor and basement are rented as apartments. Legal or not, this was very common in my old neighborhood. I grew up in a house like that. The ability to sub-divide space more freely is economically empowering and sometimes financially necessary. My "future utopia" is somewhere between a favella and NYC I guess...
Hey what if Walmart called itself allmart and started selling off 10'x10' sections where small entrepreneurs could sell goods or do whatever they please? Dumb idea, but think about for the sake of a thought experiment.... being that there are already Walmart's in every crevice of the nation. A bunch of micro-urbanisms of sorts would occur maybe all over the place. A city within a Walmart. Sam Walton is now an emperor, dictator, or benevolent ruler you may say...but what if each space was given equal land ownership rights...?
jla-x, archizoom knew what to do w/ big boxes...
I like in-law suites, accessory dwelling units, duplexes, micro-neighborhoods, and other voluntary methods of providing additional housing that also increases density.
So the examples you give are either unable to exist on their own or are already in existence (flea-markets)?
I'm unconvinced.
"Unable to exist on their own"?
I do not agree with complete anarchy. It will always devolve into tribalism. Human nature. I do think that a minimal govt would however be better. So yes, govt must exist to at the very least ensure basic constitutional rights and provide a basic infrastructure.
"Sure a favella is an obvious one. Not the best manifestation of the idea because of the failure of the surrounding society to provide it with ample resources"
Emphasis mine.
Sneaky, aren't you loving this circle-jerk?
I'm actually finding jla-x's expounded writing educational because I've had similar lines of thought, and it's helping me look at things from a critical place. I'm not attacking him (you), I am curious to see what, if any, solutions can be gleaned.
SneakyPete, It all goes back to Scale. We designers talk about human scale, but rarely economic scale. Just imagine for a second, assuming the same land ownership laws that we have today apply, that we were to take a plot of land and rather than subdivide it into the typical 60' x 120' suburban lot we instead divided it into 30'x 60' lots. 4x density. Imagine the typical suburban lot cost 100k. We now have 4 lots at 25k a piece. Or to be realistic and give incentive to the seller, 30k per lot...imagine if those lots were arranged in a way, that when full, would provide a pleasantly scaled walkable community. Imagine we do away with erroneous setbacks, zoning, land use, etc and allow each lot to be developed organically. Commercial, residential, A sculpture by some artist ....an orgaized chaos. A Delirious NY in a way but by the regular people...a more democratic urbanism. Isolated as a "pocket utopia" or more integrated into the overall urban fabric...
Without a clean slate, what would prevent deep-pocket investors from gobbling up prime real-estate, putting in filthy industry next to residential, etc.? I respect the desire for a smaller, more efficient government, yet most of the solutions seem to suggest free reign which can immediately be capitalized on by monied interests.
It is true that architects don't deal in scales of economy- but their clients often do across user groups and building types. Small sounds great until the client says they can't get the numbers pencil out properly w/o too much risk.
that said- small scale economic development exists- especially in food. It represents one of the easiest entires into business with a relative chance of success. Clothing isn't good unless you've made a name making bespoke pieces and there can be only so many t shirt shops. Other related goods such as artisanal items are space and material intensive. And electronics- nuff sed.
So food-
1- the food truck phenomenon is not an accident, revealing the entire problem with rents at the small scale.
2- another example is the state fair food circuit. This is an especially interesting model given the need to guarantee that demand will supplied based on the requirements at each fair.
3- Or there is the bazaar or food court incubator that requires an entire level of management above the individual stall owners to ensure stability.
And- what about the top down nature of banks (redlining and predatory loans)- explicit acts to deter economic development in selected communities?
Edit- and farmers markets, can't forget those.
did anyone fact check whartons last post? did anyone look up who Zahas father was attracted to in social and economic theory? in the age of FB thats too much work....i know
He was more interesting when he tried to face the architectural scene with achitecture's non-political nature than now when he, as an architect, plays the role of a politician, as he does here, and a neoliberal idealogue at that.
Furthermore, his "style" should be put aside (ex. Brutalism functioned in socialist/state capitalist and liberal capitalist economies) while evaluating this current pronouncement.. Funnily enough, this instance he is playing the opposite role: not an architect denouncing the assumption of a political valour in architecture but rather a politician who's rhetoric has nothing to do with architecture. And on that plateau, he brings no evidence from social science or from economy. In fact, many thinkers and experts would argue that the catastrophies - ecological and social- miseries has much to do with the conséquences of the economic model he espouses that has been beneficial to the very very few at the expense of the very many.
As for différences between right and left, the americans view it in a very warped and twissted way after a peculairly american history of a virtiolic wat waged against the real left who wish to redistribute weath, who want to protect worker rights against capitalists...very concrete aims that are not rhetorical. In fact, what you have in the US goes from extreme right (with varying versions, some neoloberal some protectionist - for instance, there is a substantial difference between the discourse of Trump and that of Brannon), to centre right (the so called liberal institution, Obama, Clinton, who are fiscally more 'right-wing') to the left of center (Sanders- who has no qualms about capitalism). Yes there are différences between fiscal and social proclivities . Clinton is fiscally more right wing than Trump yet less socially right wing.
But this is also the same case with the Nazi era. Hitler was fiscally a state capitalist (this is why Germany was one of the most successful to recover after the devastating 1st World War ) whereas he was, of course, rabidly racist right wing.
Rushed the above
Aside from the bonkers, click bait diatribe, but subversive enough if any journalists will pick up on it, the build a city in Hyde Park and leave 20% did make me laugh, is that for the allocation of cavilary?
I'm pissed off with Patriks seeming pride that one of ZHA's employees is living in a 20 square metre "flat" in the Barbican, because that don't meet regs as designed, and surely that is not a spatial configuration to advocate. Also stick up for Architecture, and Architects in general please.
what's crazy bruh!
Mohammed Hadid attended the London School of Economics between 1928 and 1931, and achieved a degree in Economics. It was there that he is said to have been influenced by the ideas of Professor Harold Laski, a "widely known socialist and agnostic".
that's Zaha's pops.
Sam, I'm with ya, all bullocks.
Update:
Phineas Harper: "It is time to stop listening to Patrik Schumacher"
Schumacher: "My friends know that the emerging Mr Nasty image is no more than a media caricature constructed to shock and entertain."
The Martin Shkreli of the architectural profession. He should have taken his own advice and not implicate himself politically. AltoughI would argue that he sees his political stance as post-political (as in, when history ended, so did politics).
He's done.
Finis.
#longlivetgedame
^ Nope.
Zaha was more of an artist who had the vision for her projects who had zero clue about programming and the technical aspect of things (just watch her AA interviews) while Patrik was more of the driving force behind the design's rationality. Love their designs or not, both individuals were considered pillars behind ZHA's success.
Look at their latest project without the founder's vision - GZ Infinitus Plaza. It lacked the finesse or rather Zaha's touch.
Black_Orchid,
Who is slandering?
If there is anything untrue about what is being said, please point it out so that it can be corrected.
My point of view is that there are real life consequences to ideology. We are at a point in history when corporate interests basically push governments around by either bribing people, or arguing that free trade and global capitalism naturally leads to more global interdependence, and therefore less unemployment/poverty, and less war. But we are seeing the limitations of that thinking and the major problems that result from an intertwining/merging of government agendas with multinational-corporate agendas. We're seeing widespread corruption, massive wealth and income inequality, a weakening of legitimate global and regional collaborations, war, refugee crises, and an increase in racist white nationalism. Schumacher is arguing for an acceleration of those neoliberal tendencies to an extreme degree. This would bring us further down the wrong path of privatization, exclusionary planning, social stratification, and an overly controlled and surveilled public sphere. For me, it doesn't matter if the man is well-spoken. There are well-spoken men on every side of every issue. There always has been. What matters is that we have the clarity and courage to see what our problems are, and work to solve them. In my opinion, Schumacher's reckless and inappropriate thought experiments represent the worst psychophantic tendencies in Architecture.
"do you realize how incentivized developers and private equity partners are by the government?"
Obviously, I do. Can't you see that from my comment when I wrote: "an intertwining/merging of government agendas with multinational-corporate agendas"?
From this interview:
"...I got more and more radicalised and was soon ready for Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism.
The political ideology and programme of anarcho-capitalism envisages the radicalisation of the neoliberal roll-back of the state. As a special form of anarchism based on private property as society’s most basic institution, its call for the extension of entrepreneurial freedom and competitive market rationality pushes to the point where the scope for private enterprise is all-encompassing and leaves no space for state action whatsoever, positing the privatisation of everything, including cities with all their infrastructures, public spaces, streets and urban management systems. Even the provision of the legal system can be imagined fully privatised, via markets with competing jurisdictions, multiple competing sets of statutes, competing private courts, etc. These are, intellectually, incredibly stimulating propositions and the rapidly growing literature around such libertarian themes is rather sophisticated."
"As a special form of anarchism based on private property as society’s most basic institution..." Ahh yes, private property, the institution held in highest regard by anarchists throughout history LOL. Also, imagine how much worse the legal system would be than it already is if his imagined hyper-privatised version ever came to fruition... I shudder at the thought of "competing sets of statutes, competing private courts".
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