I’ve seen miracles happen. I’ve seen ordinary people do the most heroic things. When you’ve had the privilege of knowing so many great fighters and resisters, you can’t lay down the sword, even if things seem objectively hopeless. — The Guardian
The terminally-ill City of Quartz author sat down recently with The Guardian to discuss his waning health and look back at prescient early warnings of the state’s slow-motion social and ecological demise that has taken three decades to manifest. True to form, Davis was critical of everything: from “fascist” LA novelist Raymond Chandler to Governor Gavin Newsom’s penchant for arrogating his administration’s response to the climate crisis that has been exacerbated by even increasingly harmful and foolhardy attempts to mitigate the housing crisis in Los Angels and other non-urban areas across the state.
“Our ruling classes everywhere have no rational analysis or explanation for the immediate future,” he said. “A small group of people have more concentrated power over the human future than ever before in human history, and they have no vision, no strategy, no plan. It’s not just global warming, and drought, it’s the fact that two-thirds of the new homes built in the American west are in high fire-hazard areas, and the Democrats refuse to talk about a moratorium on construction or even rolling back construction in the urban-wildlife interface.”
6 Comments
Mike Davis, terminally ill with cancer? Damn... sad times. Loved his stuff way back when I was in grad school. Planet of Slums in particular.
Well, Lake Mead is three feet higher than last week and is releasing water downstream of the dam at a rate of 70,000 gallons per second which is the planned release rate for the foreseeable future.
oh cool then we can just carry on as normal then
It was 65 in Minneapolis! Global warming OVER!
I've read that part of adapting to the extremes of climate change, farmers are giving land over to reservoirs so that when it pours, water can be released during periods of drought. This is only part of how we adapt, but adapt we must. The other interesting thing is how Europe will respond to being black mailed on gas energy. If anything deserves a Marshall plan it's the turn to green energy. Remember when President Carter installed solar panels on the White House? So much to despair, but no time as future generations are counting on us. Thank you Mr. Davis for focusing on this all important issue.
Mike Davis had a deep influence to me as architecture student at SCI-ARC in the late 80's and early 90's. He would have elective classes that allow you to take trips to Utah, Nevada and remote areas in California. He would bring Wallace Stegner's "Beyond the Hundreth Meridian" book as source material. He was a cool instructor that didn't overburden you on what to do with your projects or ideas. He pretty much let you do what you want to do without too much scrutiny.
With all the events that has happen in the pass 2 years and 3 decades of warning which Mike Davis predicted, what role does architecture have in our future where we need to sustain ourselves?
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