This week, we dip into the swamp of whether so-called "poor doors" (separate entrances for affordable and market-rate housing tenants) are discriminatory, highlighting discussion points made in the wake of New York's decision to make them illegal. We also follow up on the investigation into a balcony collapse in Berkeley, California that led to six deaths, and ask Brian Newman, Archinect Sessions' Legal Correspondent, what legal recourse is possible for everyone involved.
Virtual built environment wizards Thomas Hirschmann and Anthony Murray, founders of documentation and preservation firm The Third Fate, also join us for an interview. Their work seeks to document, preserve and activate the built environment through virtual realities.
Listen to episode thirty-six of Archinect Sessions, "Poor Doors of Perception":
Shownotes:
New York Observer's piece on so-called "poor doors" and the transition in New York City from Mayor Bloomberg to Mayor de Blasio's affordable housing policy.
Related to our discussion of discriminatory design vis-a-vis "poor doors", the Freakonomics podcast takes on "fitness apartheid"
Background on the Berkeley balcony disaster:
From our interview with The Third Fate:
BIG's Maze at the National Building Museum
Is immersive information the next frontier of data presentation?
A guerrilla teahouse pops up in LA's Griffith Park
Daniel Libeskind as inaugural guest editor of CNN's new "style platform": “In great cities, the great buildings tell you things you don't know and remember things which you've forgotten.”
Mitch McEwan's interview for Archinect Sessions, and her Patronicity - House Opera project
The incomparable Susan Surface and Design Public
The new Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive, designed by DS+R, gets an opening date
Inside Mario Ciampi's original BAM/PFA:
45 Comments
Great posting!
that was probably one of the most emotionally charged, bleeding-heart-liberal sort of discussions on the poor door issue that I have ever listened to.
not once were costs concretely addressed. it's like you guys live in the midwest or something.
null, what kind of "costs" are you referring to?
so Chris Rock I think has this stand-up routine about being wealthy and who your neighbors are......qualifier - in the midwest being rich mean acres and everyone knows you and in NYC you are just another tenant on Park Avebor something....back to Chris Rock - he pointed out that a really wealthy black basketball player who moves into one of these nice neighborhoods (the wealthiest zipcode for a while was/is in NJ with regard to property value) the basketball players neighborhood might be some white Dentist. as chris rock pointed out - better be the best dentist ever.
What qualifies someone as the "best" dentist: highest income, biggest practice, prettiest hygienists, wealthiest clientele ... ?
Emotionally charged? Good, I did my job. And fuck your concrete costs, whatever-the-fuck that means.
Wait so did you all say you were going to be interviewing Susan about her project at some point?
null pointer, I'm seriously asking what costs you're referring to? Development, tax, construction, externalities, social, environmental?
Okay let's play.
The building segment rule (I'm not caving into this media driven bullshit "poor-door" terminology) allows you to have two different "building segments" (defined term in the zoning resolution) in the same lot, while generating development rights (NOT TAX BREAKS, you goddamn idiots) that allow for a larger building in the lot.
The fact that you guys didn't take the 10 minutes that it takes to understand that, was disheartening at best, infuriating at best.
Now, what does the building segment practically allow?
A marked reduction in the construction costs of affordable units and the ability to isolate and separately price the market rate segment.
How?
The required labor quality is markedly less in affordable housing. You can build affordable housing for 250/sf, market rate construction goes for 400/sf in nyc, on top of the land costs which can go upwards of $1,000 buildable foot in nyc (I can only imagine how appalling this sounds for you midwest bros).
Now, the argument for "oh but the affordable finishes are inferior to the market rates ones"... let's get real. If you have an issue with minimum quality, you should start looking at building codes as the culprit, not affordable housing. So let's stop that on its tracks right now.
What would eliminating the building segment rule do?
Well... It's not what you think. New York still and likely forever will allow for "generating sites" to be located outside of the lot of the building being "bumped up" (the market rate building whose enlargement is predicated on the existence of the affordable units), as long they are located in the same community district and within a particular radius of the market rate building.
Now, what would a smart developer do when faced with this little conundrum? Do I take a hit and take a whole price bump on my building because I can't price out or optimally schedule the construction contract for the affordable units? Or do I say fuck it, get another property nearby and build exclusively affordable housing?
I'd build off-site.
But hey, I just went overboard... the building segment rule is still alive. Because lawmakers are stupid and let the "poor-door issue" lead the way.
I can keep my building segments, i just have to provide everyone with access to multiple lobbies, while just focusing on making the affordable units really remote, and providing closer, alternate means of accessing them.
Oops.
"If you have an issue with minimum quality, you should start looking at building codes as the culprit, not affordable housing. So let's stop that on its tracks right now."
What do building codes have to do with quality exactly, where in the IBC 2012, is there anything about that? Talk about bullshit.
Also, if you actually listened to the podcast, I pretty much said as much. That the building was likely two buildings, on the same site, with two different elevators/lobbies. I also said that it was likely that the property owner would have two separate management companies, and that each side would be service differently, which is also likely to be the case.
What do building codes have to do with quality exactly, where in the IBC 2012, is there anything about that? Talk about bullshit.
Nothing at all, and that's my point, genius.
Oh, you were intending that as SARCASM not as fact. Perhaps something is lost in your structuring of the sentence, because it reads as the code is the problem, that' it's the thing that governs quality.
The point. Yes there was one. Is that developers are doing things, because they either must, or there's enough incentive to coax them too, and none of stakeholders have any interest in engaging the poor in a dialog about what would respect their desires, or needs.
Nothing ever does.
But, maybe you were thinking the building code could help developers engage the poor in dialog.
i see no one checked my foggy memory so i did. it was Chris Rock and it was HIS neighborhood.........which brings me to the podcast and Null Pointers explanation above.........we are all architects here or people interested in architecture. i would not expect a lay person to understand how this all comes about legally so stopping at "poor door" is fine for a politically charged podcast that has little interest in the facts. but as architects it might be helpful to discuss this not as a political issue first but as an architectural issue first. this is the inherent problem of interjecting politics into architecture, because somehow its always becomes a politcal issue first and architecture gets thrown out the window............here is a positive spin on this, the Architect who did the market rate apartments also did a low income housing project in a wealthy neighborhood. these architects with the developer found a way to integrate the rich with the poor in an area where it is not really financially feasible to build low income housing. they should be getting awards. how is that for a political spin?
Everything is politics.
Thomas Mann
So that's it? My point isn't about the "poor door" per se, it's about the invisibility of the poor, as members of a city, where their voice is increasingly not heard, or not respected.
It's as though you people are going voila, poor people in a rich neighborhood, problem solved. We're done here, shit will take care of itself.
nothing is politics if you are interested in the truth.....and Hans Hollein said everything is architecture...............the entire conversation needs to be framed differently. the "poor door" is ultimately a result of the poor in fact being represented and heard. if it was not for various zoning incentives let alone a zoning ordinance Manhattan would be just one giant block after another of stacked Gold. the conversation can be very free of politics. you can discuss the history of zoning and market rates and how an island such as Manahattan created such a conundrum based purely on history, money,and laws - transportation and services. NO politics involved there and no silly media hype about "poor doors". stupid phrases like that just mask the issues and everyone goes about their delusional lives blaming somebody else or the illuminati or something.
^^^ What he said.
Olaf, you're my spirit animal.
WTF olaf! Just what the fuck! No politics in those decisions, really?!? None, huh? Jeez, you can just say anything on the internet and it's true 'cause you wrote it. Interested in the truth!?! I mean, read what you wrote : "history, money, and laws".....read it again......yea, sure, there's no politics involved in those. Are you fucking joking? There's no politics involved in laws??? WTF! Have you ever read any histories of New York at all, watched some good documentaries? Tammany Hall, ever hear of it? Controlled every fucking building contract given out in NY - and anything else of significance that happened - for years. Fiorello La Guardia, sound familiar? Worked with someone named Robert Moses. They liked to tear down old neighborhoods to put up building projects, particularly highways. But no, those were purely capitalist outcomes, no politics involved at all there. Yea, sure, zoning and market rates come in play, but just about any fucking thing that happened and still happens in NY - in just about any city for that matter - involves politics and pretty fucking raw politics at that (and that includes the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site).
Oh, and most of history is ultimately about the poor in fact not being represented and heard unless they tear the fucking place apart or march peacefully and let themselves be beaten and killed until people realize something is wrong.
^^^ What he said.
Don, you're my spirit animal.
don - define politics.
Facial spasms effecting pet parrots.
now thats my spirit animal.....
...on the back of this interestingly titled pamphlet by George Orwell - "Politics and the English Language"
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics;. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer."
you go and discuss media hyped terms such as 'poor doors' and swim in the bullshit...I'll stick with the facts and avoid the 'issues' and concern myself with tasks an architect can truly affect and handle.
bitch betta have my money!
pay me what chu owe me!
This discussion is a dead parrot.
Nice models! Will have to Netflix that one.
olaf,
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity
it seems to me ken and don don't care for the way low income housing is progressing in new york right now, and that the policies in place are not reacting to the concerns of the people they are intended to help. don't they come across as sincere in that, or do you think there is some other insidious aim behind their statements?
on the other hand, i can't tell if your statements about giving awards to developers for creating separate entrances for the 'other' people is supposed to be clear language or insincere.
it seems to me ken and don don't care for the way low income housing is progressing in new york right now, and that the policies in place are not reacting to the concerns of the people they are intended to help. don't they come across as sincere in that, or do you think there is some other insidious aim behind their statements?
curtkam,
i'd dare say they just don't understand the policies they're critiquing. maybe don does, he actually referenced a bit of new york know-how, but ken is basically just raging out. it's easy to criticize new york when you haven't lived here for a while. this place changes you, and for the best, i think.
Hey, fuck me, insidious this. I didn't come up with the term "poor doors" and I didn't use it on that other thread, either; take it up with the heinous "press" (yea, they're the villains here.....) and leave me alone, why dontcha.
And, just so we're clear, I ain't the one laying down doublespeak and gobbledygook on this particular discussion.
...but ken is basically just raging out. it's easy to criticize new york when you haven't lived here for a while....
You don't use politics to frame a question or a debate, you use the facts and then figure out if these so called 'politics' are involved.
Many people discount any credibility and are turned off immediately when 'politics' take precedent over the real conversation - history, law, architecture, ect...
Don, you really read things out of context or misdirect texts towards yourself, you're post was funny though...
Don, you really read things out of context or misdirect texts towards yourself.
Oh, I see, is that what I do? And you don't, huh? I commented on this thread mostly because your take on the development that is the thing called New York City was a steaming pile of shit...how's that for out of context. "These so called politics"?!? Man, why don't you get a fucking clue about how the world works. Oh, and I'll use any goddam thing I want to frame a debate, and it'll always be based on the facts as I find them, as we all do, mr. "truth".
And here's a nice song about the globe we live on.
Sorry I didn't weigh in earlier, I was on vacation. This "poor door" discussion still remains really challenging. I do think the references to terminology giving us something to argue over without ever getting to the meat of the problem is relevant.
null, thanks for the serious response, and thank you also for clarifying that we were using terminology (heh) incorrectly on the podcast: development rights, not tax breaks (some would say they are two sides of the same coin (heh), but since we were reporting on a news article we should have been more clear).
My first response to your response, null, would be what about all the other costs that we did consider: the externalities? What are the economic costs of a real estate market in which only the extremely wealthy can afford to own a home, in a society that values home ownership so highly? What are the social costs of people not being able to live near enough to work to make ti worth their while to work there?
To back up Don's posts: Olaf, anyone who says politics was not involved in creating the housing situation we are in today is being willfully ignorant: here are as many examples as there are words in this phrase.
All that said, I'm still not sure this is the battle that should be fought when it comes to solving what I see as a pretty horrible housing problem we face as a society. Outside of despising the term "poor door", I'm still on the fence.
Also: null, I know you mean well, but calling me a "midwest bro" sounds really provincial.
my issue is the constant diverting of the conversation to those externalities. when people don't know enough about a subject they do that. they go over to known absolutes and recite them at length. architects in nyc are expected to know a hell of a lot about issues related to affordable housing, yet the closest thing you had there was ken, an njit graduate, and he was to riled up to be reasonable.
if you issue is "why can't poor people live near their work": stop crying about the poor door when the real problem is a flat-rate subway system that allows you to come all the way from rockaway to union square for the same price as going from bedford to union square, therefore masking the out-of-pocket costs of commuting. the problem is facilitated by the system's misguided attempts at coddling the poor which have essentially resulted in the equivalent of subsidized labor.
if your issue is homeownership in nyc: start questioning the american dream. look at where homes are affordable and take note of how housing costs are higher in donor states as compared to places in the south and the midwest where the population is relatively more reliant on government programs funded by california and larger east coast cities.
it annoys me that the podcast became a huge collection of neoliberal tropes being recited in a predictable order. if you're going to talk about stuff, please spend a few hours researching the subject. it's not hard. it's also the responsible thing to do.
null, you might be right, it's been a while. however, i do live in a fairly progressive state, MN, and I've been part of the neighborhood organization many times, so I've seen CBA's work well, and poorly, I've seen TIF's work well, and poorly. When CBA's work well, we have market rate mixed with subsidized, or workforce housing, and there isn't the tension I am sure will come with this development in NYC - no one has really refuted my point about basic amenities that are conceivably going to get different standards of care - not to mention the increased tensions when the "separate but equal" hedge-fund douches start complaining about loitering, rap music, or baggy pants. Plus those different economic groups - in MSP - aren't the bottom and the tops, but middle and working class, or working poor, and the amenities are likely to serve both groups equally.
Am I pissed? Yeah, but not about finishes, or poor doors, but about this;
"By building affordable housing, a developer gets to add more floor area to a development beyond what the zoning code would normally allow. In the 10069 area code, homes have been selling for $1,359 per square foot, and in nearby 10023, they’re selling for just under $2,000 a square foot. Under those market conditions, an additional 50,000 square feet added to a development, for instance, could bring in a cool $100 million."
and this
"The building at 40 Riverside Boulevard is slated to have 274 units — 219 of them for sale as condos, and 55 for rent to people making 60% or less of area median income (60% of area median income is $51,540 for a family of four, according to NYC HDC; affordable 2-bedrooms will rent for $1,099 a month). The people living in those apartments will be chosen by lottery. The developer says that by building the affordable units it will earn credits allowing it to sell rights to other nearby developers that will let them add more floor area."
West Side Rag
even better piece;
Salon
"It’s easy to see, from an economist’s perspective, the shortcomings of the policy that produces poor doors. Essentially, New York City and state offer incentives for residential developers in expensive neighborhoods to include affordable housing in their projects. The result is a substantial deadweight loss: The more posh the neighborhood, the greater the difference between the price of subsidized apartments and their market value. If the 55 subsidized apartments at 40 Riverside Drive were instead sold on the open market, the city could likely collect tens of millions of dollars for the construction of affordable housing in a location less in vogue."
and;
"If there’s one aspect of mixed-income housing that has most obviously fallen short, it’s the promise of new social dynamics and inter-class bonding. “Cross-income interactions have been found to be infrequent and inconsequential for the most part,” concludes a 2010 Urban Institute review of the literature. According to a 2013 report in the HUD journal Cityscape, “research has demonstrated little interaction and community building between low-income households and more affluent ones.” And in a separate study from the same issue, researchers wrote that “economic desegregation occurs in mixed-income areas as a spatial fact — households of lower and higher income levels live near each other — but propinquity has led to little social or otherwise meaningful integration across lines of income.”
In short, mixed-income housing may be failing at one of its primary goals, even without a poor door to segregate and stigmatize low-income residents. And with it? As the authors of that last study report, to no one’s surprise, “elements of building design, such as lack of common areas or shared building entrances, can serve to limit informal interactions, which otherwise could serve as the basis for developing more significant ties.”
It's fiscally irresponsible, and backward thinking that I have a problem with; not finishes, or dumb door names.
Wait...was the podcast a bunch of neo-liberal tropes, or a bunch of liberal tropes?
finally! reasonable conversation! the salon article quote is pretty damn interesting.
regarding the quotes about price per square foot... valuations at range are the result of the free-flow of information. people selling land in manhattan are expecting upwards of $700 per buildable square foot, because now they know what can be built. it used to be that you had to pay 150 dollars a year to keep a copy of the zoning resolution and then pay a lawyer $1,250/hour to interpret it based on the original intent of the regulation rather than what is actually written in there. the internet changed that, and multiple changes in the administration of particular government agencies (and the wiping out of old knowledge) has changed that as well. at those valuations, there is no way developers can break even without catering to a wealthy clientele. How do you solve that? crash the buildable square foot. up-zone neighborhoods even when there's neighborhood opposition; then maybe, just maybe, we can start seeing competitive land prices again.
i should write a book.
One idea that San Francisco is exploring to address issues of affordable housing (rather than require/incentive developers to build both types of housing in same project) is to preserve more of the existing/dwindling affordable housing stock.
"Encourage new development to preserve buildings with tenants at risk of displacement: The City’s Inclusionary Housing Program requires developers to contribute to new affordable housing alongside their market-rate development. An option that allows them to acquire existing rent controlled units and convert them to permanently affordable, deed-restricted units would make an immediate impact in the neighborhood, offering tangible benefits to at-risk residents. The City should work with stakeholders to craft a pilot program that would allow acquisition and rehabilitation of existing units as an option for limited trial period, with specific recommendations available in spring 2015."
For more see
Yea, Donna, I asked myself the same question. It's fun to fun to be dismissed with clichéd put-downs, isn't it? And as to the not-so-coded language null uses, like the two you mentioned and "midwest bro" and my all-time favorite, “coddling the poor”, it’s very familiar to all by now. Null, you might think you know who the people in that podcast are, but we sure as hell know who your are now. (How about the notion of "coddling the rich"? Ever heard of that one? I could start a thread on that and I got about 100 good examples...but never mind.)
My interest in this issue was and is in fact to examine how to maintain in Manhattan a certain quality and richness of life that I associate with that amazing borough – and that Ken talks about in his post above - and what has been done to maintain it in the past. My irritation, null, (yea, irritation can go 2 ways) is that Donna gave you an opening to consider other costs (some not always so apparent) on top of the eye-glazing repetition of chapter and verse of $$$ and zoning codes being used like a cudgel, solely having to do with what benefits or does not benefit the “developer”. Yes, it’s very informed but also kind of myopic. To her question of how to keep affordable housing units in Manhattan you give as a villain the flat-rate subway fares...really, that’s the best you could come up with? There’s a few issues that effect affordable housing in Manhattan and they haven’t been brought up at all in all this furor.
First off, though, the people we’re talking about here are not “poor” – so the term for the doors is indeed a misnomer – and the fact that they can live in Manhattan and afford a market rate apartment tells you so. I personally have known at least 6 people who have lived in Manhattan apartments in different decades. They all had a university degrees and professional jobs and were not by any definition poor, and could still barely get by after paying their rent. All but two have moved away from the area; one I believe lives in Staten Island and the other continues to be able to live in Manhattan. Which brings me to the points:
There two really big issues (which you never even mentioned) that stand out to me (among others):
1. Are salaries keeping up with the costs of rent, that is, can someone who initially could afford an apartment in Manhattan keep up with rent increases through raises in his/her salary?: that will certainly tell you how livable Manhattan and New York might be. The answer: not very livable for even what would be middle class anywhere else:
Here:
As a classic rule of thumb, a rent-to-income ratio of 30 percent or lower is considered “affordable,” meaning that renters spend 30 percent or less of their monthly income on rent – freeing up the majority of their income for other costs of living and savings. Even when considering that residents of large cities will typically spend more of their incomes on rent than in less amenity-rich areas, New York is in a league of its own.
The median asking rent in New York City is expected to reach $2,700 in 2015, amounting to a staggering 58.4 percent of median income in the city according to StreetEasy estimates. High rent prices are only half of the picture, though. Stagnant income growth, short supply of rental units, and rapidly increasing rents is making New York City one of the most expensive and challenging rental markets in the country. According to census data, New York City rent prices grew at almost twice the pace of income between 2000 and 2013, meaning that over time rent has taken up a much larger piece of New Yorkers’ incomes.
On that 30% optimal rent-to-income ratio: in that article there is a chart and you can see that the sections of Manhattan considered ranged from 81% to 109%, with outer boroughs being somewhere in the middle of that.
And here:
The number dropped on our collective heads as lightly as an anvil: $4,042. That was the average price of a two-bedroom rental in Manhattan, according to Citi Habitat’s April 2014 market report. And even after the following month’s numbers provided modest relief (less than 2 percent’s worth of relief — it dipped to $3,998), it will still cost renters an average — not for anything fancy, mind you — of $48,000 (bold mine) a year to live in Manhattan with an extra room. The overall average wasn’t much better ($3,451).
Now, keep in mind the $48,000 figure above because I’ll refer to it shortly. Which brings us to:
2. The other issue that comes hugely into play (I mean, this is the gorilla in the room) in talking about Manhattan (and New York) affordability is good old rent stabilization (which, as null surely knows, is not the same as rent control, which applies to many less units and people). Now I’m not going to quote chapter and verse on the rules and regulations, you can Google it in 3 seconds. It applies to certain building larger than 6 units and built before 1974. Suffice it to say that rent stabilized apartments in New York are like hen’s teeth, very hard to find:
Why it stinks to be you: Rent stabilized apartments are very common (about 50 percent of all apartments) but nearly impossible to find because once you land a rent-stabilized apartment, you don't leave it. With rent-stabilized apartments priced $1,200 cheaper (on average) in Manhattan, it's understandable why renters don't leave them. Not only are they saving $14,400 in after-tax cash each year; but to qualify for the equivalent market-rate apartment, you'd need $48,000 more in annual income (bold mine). This limited turnover in the rent-stabilized market puts more price pressure on all other apartments.
So my younger friend in Manhattan is an architect not very far into his career and he is very personable and loves to mix, he’s a real mixer. He loves living there, and he attends all kinds of functions and art openings and fundraisers and what have you, and is sure he’ll meet the client(s) that will allow him to eventually go out on his own. It also happens that he scored a rent stabilized apartment (don’t ask me how he did).
Now, I don’t really know how much he makes at the medium size firm he works for, but if he were now to, for whatever reason, lose that rent controlled apartment but really wanted to stay in Manhattan, because he loves it, he’s looking at having to earn an average of $48,000 more a year to be able to do it. In other words, he’s headed to one of the boroughs, provided he can afford there, or out of the area altogether and then he won’t be able to schmooze and mingle and network in Manhattan any more, and enjoy all the other stuff there, unless he trains it in from his future office in Queens or Staten Island or wherever the hell, or if he keeps a job on the island he’ll have to stay late and then train it home, which he probably won’t do ‘cause he needs to get home to the wife and maybe future kids. So Manhattan loses one more who thought that if he could make it there.....So, should we even care? Many people wouldn't. I do.
No, I haven’t talked about possible solutions to the above. I don’t live in New York City, but I’ve done lots of reading and thinking on that famed city and go to there as much as I can; I don't think there's an apparent polio shot for any of this, and it's not just New York's problem. And I agree, 88,000 applicants for 55 units and sniping about “poor doors” ain’t gonna cut it.
Oh, and here's a decent WSJ article on the issue.
I don't believe in politics because they don't exist, but you can. it's all in your heads.
from Jean Baudrilliard "Illusion of the End" -
If something does not exist, you have to believe in it.
Don't take it from me though, Jean's a lot smart than I...
Don just qouting you because it serves my point well
"No, I haven’t talked about possible solutions to the above..."
exactly. let's all get into politics and brush over facts and knowledge an architect would have at minimum...which taken at face value are free of the so called illusions of 'politics'....
once you understand the face value, or real value, you can address them within your illusions of politics - personal agenda that matches some groups agenda - Liberals, Conservatives, etc...(they are all the same nut jobs when you get down to it, just switch out he principles and words - the modes of hysterical operation are same).
i'm not saying the world isn't political, the whole world believes in God as well, doesn't make God exist anymore does it? illusions do not substitute physical forces of real facts and if you are going to make a dent in the world learn the facts as they are now.
this is another way to re-iterate a point Null made above in his first paragraph.
it's not ignorant to ignore bullshit even if the bullshit is powerful. as much as I don't agree with Donald Trump on a lots, its quite the show to see a business man mock politics so easily and then watch journalists all confused trying to figure out if they should think or just go back to politics....
Most definitions of politics you look up deal with the issue of power: are you gonna tell me many humans don't every fucking day quest for power and control over others? I don't care what you call it, it's not about the CONCEPT, it's about the REALITY. It effects your life every day. Fuck Jean Braudillard, I'm talking about what I see in front of me and what I read about from all over this globe. Yea, God does or does not exist, but if you read, as I did yesterday, about Muslim fundamentalists yelling "God is great" while also yelling "Kill, kill, kill" then it really doesn't fucking matter if God really exists does it, because the concept of God is sure as hell effecting someone, especially the person or persons that are about to get killed. Obviously, I find power mongering and arbitrary control repulsive, no matter what label you place on it.
Also, I didn't say I can't talk about solutions with my facts and knowledge as an architect, I just said there's no easy solutions to the particular problem I was considering.
And finally, quit lecturing people here at Archinect (quite intelligent people, by the way) about seeing reality and how much you fucking know better then them. I think I've shown by what I've written in this thread and in other threads that I do nothing but look at "physical forces of real facts", so quit trying to be an asshole judge on a TV talent show and leave me the fuck alone. If you want to discuss, then discuss, but you know where you can stick your lecturing.
And as far as the Donald, it's also interesting to see someone be a racist xenophobe who doesn't even have his facts right on the immigrant issue. Talk about not seeing the truth. Mock politics my ass, he's a clueless pretender. He got his fortune handed to him by his father and brought his business into bankruptcy at one point and had to be bailed out. Please.
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