Are we kidding ourselves that there are humanist goals in Urban Planning? Is it a long slow slide towards business (or the hyperwealthy) controlling public space and how it is used/planned?
We’ve seen Amazon rake cities over the coals for the best financial packages to site their HQ2. I came across this article about the microcosm of ski towns no longer being livable towns accessible to anyone but the 1%.
Certainty there have been efforts to mold civic planning to civic goal. That goal hasn't always been altruistic, or even 'not bad'.
That's besides the point though. People don't have any rights to be able to use any spaces. It's an unpopular opinion but hear me out. We don't have rights. We have privileges
. It's not a right if it can be taken away and every right you have (even in the US) can be legally taken away.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do good and improve the world around us. Just be realistic about your expectations and outcomes.
In a more optimistic spin on CM's comment above: any abstract ideal won't get you very far, turning the world into a sodden disappointment.
Humanism is a bit of a joke, capitalism is very real and extremely destructive, blah blah. Yes. The world is also much more complex than our ability describe it.
I find enjoyment in directing my attention to localized, specific power dynamics; I can use the very same abstract concepts (neoliberalism, resource extraction, aesthetics, etc.) to inform, but not overdetermine, my understanding of reality.
Chad, I take it you're not a religious person, there was once a place called Paradise where men and beast lived in harmony.....JK.
Proto, as Chad said, things are always run by resources, and today there's too much money in the hands of very few egotistical individuals who want to shape their world as an image of their stupid dreams whatever they are. It's happening in small communities, but you see it also in big cities, like the infamous Hudson yards, that new tech town they want to build in napa or the deeply stupid NEOM crap happening in a desert. We're fucked as a species but some individuals want to keep going at it.
democracy could prevent this, but elected officials are also human, and they get sucked into these fever dreams by promises of funds for the fiscal arks. and at the top, corruption is always a staple.
"there's too much money in the hands of very few egotistical individuals who want to shape their world as an image of their stupid dreams whatever they are."
Who should be the arbiter of what constitutes dreams that aren't stupid?
If your dream isn't killing, harming, or hurting the majority of other people around you or in the world then it's not stupid. If it is causing harm then it's a stupid dream. Fair enough?
May 20, 24 1:22 pm ·
·
JLC-1
A majority of the people who are to be subjected to whatever intervention an individual wants to make in a community, that's who should be the arbiter. Or do you like dictators when they're wealthy and dressed in ferragamo?
Fair? - I don't thing your pursuit is for fairness. Life's not fair and a fool's errand. As is the notion that the built environment is either the result of one (Urban Design) or the other (*Private* Equity)
awkeytect - I can't tell if you're deflecting in an attempt to not acknowledge my comment or if you're just really high. Regardless - the not hurting someone is a good metric to decide if your dreams are stupid or not. Do you agree?
Side note: life isn't fair however that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to make it so.
May 20, 24 5:55 pm ·
·
awkeytect
Ah - sorry man; no deflecting here - its just that the question to which you were responding began with the word 'who'. Your response made it evident you thought it was YOU who should be the arbiter which I find uninteresting.
The phrasing of your question used 'who' as a generalized term. If you wanted a specific person or persons to be recommended you should of worded it differently for clarity. My response never stated a particular person be responsible for the decision nor did it refer to myself.
Also, I think you're still high or at the very least trolling. Both of which I find uninteresting. ;)
May 21, 24 10:11 am ·
·
bowling_ball
I'll bite. I don't believe there's any (human-directed) action whatsoever that doesn't negatively affect somebody or something. It's not possible. I guess we don't do anything at all then? Not trying to be obtuse, just realistic. I'd buy your argument if it was to "do less bad" but then again we come to the inevitable question of "bad to whom?"
Anyone who read The Lorax knows that resource extraction to the point of complete destruction is stupid. The Lorax is the book we should be teaching in school.
Similarly: A city where workers can't afford to live is unsustainable. if that's not stupid then I don't know what is.
Possibly related: I remember reading a news article in about 1995, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Already in Moscow there were glitteringly expensive nightclubs and shops serving the extremely wealthy elite. I was struck by the description of an obscenely wealthy "businessman" (mobster) getting frustrated with traffic and directing his chauffer to just park on the sidewalk because he knew no one would stop him. I remember thinking that level of flamboyant lawbreaking by the wealthy could never happen in the US. Boy was I stupid.
"On 8 July 2022, after a city buildings inspector halted construction at one of Hu’s hotel developments on West 39th Street citing a serious safety issue, Cockfield phoned top officials at the New York City department of buildings at about 10pm that night, pushing them to clear the violation and allow work to resume, according to one source familiar with the agency’s operations. Just after 11pm, the agency reversed its stop work order at the site for Hu, department records show."
Urban Planning vs Private Equity
Are we kidding ourselves that there are humanist goals in Urban Planning? Is it a long slow slide towards business (or the hyperwealthy) controlling public space and how it is used/planned?
We’ve seen Amazon rake cities over the coals for the best financial packages to site their HQ2. I came across this article about the microcosm of ski towns no longer being livable towns accessible to anyone but the 1%.
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/slippery-slope-nick-bowlin-big-sky-montana-ski-town-private-equity/
Are cities democratic spaces? Or just conveniences molded by money? And have they always been this way?
No space has ever been democratic in the history of the planet. Things have always been run by resources and who has them.
At best you can hope to be granted privileges.
Yes, agreed. But to keep this from just being a jaded question, certainly there have been efforts to mold planning to a civic goal too, no?
Certainty there have been efforts to mold civic planning to civic goal. That goal hasn't always been altruistic, or even 'not bad'.
That's besides the point though. People don't have any rights to be able to use any spaces. It's an unpopular opinion but hear me out. We don't have rights. We have privileges . It's not a right if it can be taken away and every right you have (even in the US) can be legally taken away.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do good and improve the world around us. Just be realistic about your expectations and outcomes.
In a more optimistic spin on CM's comment above: any abstract ideal won't get you very far, turning the world into a sodden disappointment.
Humanism is a bit of a joke, capitalism is very real and extremely destructive, blah blah. Yes. The world is also much more complex than our ability describe it.
I find enjoyment in directing my attention to localized, specific power dynamics; I can use the very same abstract concepts (neoliberalism, resource extraction, aesthetics, etc.) to inform, but not overdetermine, my understanding of reality.
Chad, I take it you're not a religious person, there was once a place called Paradise where men and beast lived in harmony.....JK.
Proto, as Chad said, things are always run by resources, and today there's too much money in the hands of very few egotistical individuals who want to shape their world as an image of their stupid dreams whatever they are. It's happening in small communities, but you see it also in big cities, like the infamous Hudson yards, that new tech town they want to build in napa or the deeply stupid NEOM crap happening in a desert. We're fucked as a species but some individuals want to keep going at it.
democracy could prevent this, but elected officials are also human, and they get sucked into these fever dreams by promises of funds for the fiscal arks. and at the top, corruption is always a staple.
"there's too much money in the hands of very few egotistical individuals who want to shape their world as an image of their stupid dreams whatever they are."
Who should be the arbiter of what constitutes dreams that aren't stupid?
If your dream isn't killing, harming, or hurting the majority of other people around you or in the world then it's not stupid. If it is causing harm then it's a stupid dream. Fair enough?
A majority of the people who are to be subjected to whatever intervention an individual wants to make in a community, that's who should be the arbiter. Or do you like dictators when they're wealthy and dressed in ferragamo?
I dunno, that sounds like evil socialism . ;)
Fair? - I don't thing your pursuit is for fairness. Life's not fair and a fool's errand. As is the notion that the built environment is either the result of one (Urban Design) or the other (*Private* Equity)
awkeytect - I can't tell if you're deflecting in an attempt to not acknowledge my comment or if you're just really high. Regardless - the not hurting someone is a good metric to decide if your dreams are stupid or not. Do you agree?
Side note: life isn't fair however that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to make it so.
Ah - sorry man; no deflecting here - its just that the question to which you were responding began with the word 'who'. Your response made it evident you thought it was YOU who should be the arbiter which I find uninteresting.
Not at all.
The phrasing of your question used 'who' as a generalized term. If you wanted a specific person or persons to be recommended you should of worded it differently for clarity. My response never stated a particular person be responsible for the decision nor did it refer to myself.
Also, I think you're still high or at the very least trolling. Both of which I find uninteresting. ;)
I'll bite. I don't believe there's any (human-directed) action whatsoever that doesn't negatively affect somebody or something. It's not possible. I guess we don't do anything at all then? Not trying to be obtuse, just realistic. I'd buy your argument if it was to "do less bad" but then again we come to the inevitable question of "bad to whom?"
True. I was thinking in the narrower sense of will a dream cause noticeable harm to the majority those who cannot 'get out of the way' of said harm.
Not that it matters though. awkeytect wants us to pick a person to make the decision and he / she finds that uninteresting so there is no solution. ;)
Anyone who read The Lorax knows that resource extraction to the point of complete destruction is stupid. The Lorax is the book we should be teaching in school.
Similarly: A city where workers can't afford to live is unsustainable. if that's not stupid then I don't know what is.
Possibly related: I remember reading a news article in about 1995, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Already in Moscow there were glitteringly expensive nightclubs and shops serving the extremely wealthy elite. I was struck by the description of an obscenely wealthy "businessman" (mobster) getting frustrated with traffic and directing his chauffer to just park on the sidewalk because he knew no one would stop him. I remember thinking that level of flamboyant lawbreaking by the wealthy could never happen in the US. Boy was I stupid.
I was reading this and remembered this conversation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us...
"On 8 July 2022, after a city buildings inspector halted construction at one of Hu’s hotel developments on West 39th Street citing a serious safety issue, Cockfield phoned top officials at the New York City department of buildings at about 10pm that night, pushing them to clear the violation and allow work to resume, according to one source familiar with the agency’s operations. Just after 11pm, the agency reversed its stop work order at the site for Hu, department records show."
Yikes.
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