The Real Simcity

There are six discourses that make up the concept of the postmetropolis. One of them actually is the term simcity-whose definition is similar to the movie and graphic novel of the same title. Basically, a simcity is a zone of hyperreality in which things are both real and unreal. In other words the line that separates the real from the unreal is blurred and it becomes difficult to tell which is which. An example of a simcity is NYC. So many bizarre things occur there on an everyday basis that it feels practically unreal. For instance, several weeks ago, me and my friends went to see Avenue Q on Broadway. While walking around Times Square afterwards we saw the Statue of Liberty hanging out in one area where you could apparently take pictures with "her." That's pretty weird but it gets weirder-Spiderman and Dora the Explorer are in another area where you can basically also pay money to take pictures with them. Yet the strangest thing in my opinion is the following: Three Elmos, two Cookie Monsters(who looked more like blue Elmos) and Shrek were wandering around Times Square(Not in one spot like Spiderman or the Statue of Liberty) waving at people and carrying Christmas stockings. Also the costumes seem rather bootlegged-as in not official costumes. I think this actually occurs on a regular basis because the last time I was in NYC in October I saw Minnie,Mickey and Elmo wandering around-also carrying Christmas stockings. Perhaps these people find it completely normal to wander around dressed like well known characters in order to earn a tip from taking pictures with people-as well as a great way to make money. (So that's what the Christmas stockings are for.)

Here is a definition of hyperreality online-the cartoon characters randomly wandering around NYC totally fits in there.http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hyperreality.htmhttp://

Attack of the Deranged,Delinquent Homeless People-or Not...

According to Mike Davis ecological view point, cities are organized based soley upon fear. Cities are seen as zones of danger. Another belief is that this damage and danger must be contained in order to make the city a safer place.Key targets that cause fear in cities include immigrants, those of the lower class, and as obvious by the title of this post-the homeless.

In an attempt to contain homeless people social boundaries are hardened-in other words fortified against the homeless. Another way to explain this is that select groups-such as the homeless are kept out through psuedo privatization. They are also kept from loitering around the city because they are considered unwanted. Examples of "keeping the homeless from invading the city" are such like how in NYC ledges of buildings have spikes on them in order to discourage the homeless from spending the night there. In some cities, park benches and bus stop seats have been replaced with tubes, also in order to prevent the homeless from sleeping there-and for the record the tubes are solid so the homeless cannot sleep INSIDE the tubes.

Truthfully though, I feel that most of this "fear of homeless people" is inside the majority of the city's populations heads. Acting like this against the homeless makes it seem as if the homeless are going to run around ruthlessly attacking people if something isn't done to prevent this from happening. In truth, this sort of behavior is rare-yet not impossible. Years ago I read in a Daily News tabloid that a homeless woman on a train in the city killed a father (in front of his young daughter) because she detested the way he was looking at her. Yet I seriously doubt that cities are going to become any safer once the homeless are detained from loitering around on park benches and bus stop seats.

Below is an article with examples of how parks and other places in Tokyo are preventing the homeless from getting comfortable by providing uncomfortable "anti-homeless" devices.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=&no=321234&rel_no=1

No Barriers Between Us

According to Jane Jacobs barriers are actually a negative thing in societies. In general fences are put up between neighbors in suburbs or cities in order to prevent people from breaking and entering via backyards as well as to prevent prying eyes from snooping on us all the time. In other words the fences are also for privacy. Yet Jane Jacobs finds these barriers to be negative because not only do the fences keep out burglars and nosy neighbors it also keeps out diversity as well. In fact it has been proven that fences actually aren't ideal protection. Buildings can be broken into because the fence actually makes them seem less secluded not to mention that with more people wandering around pedestrian traffic is increased-quite possibly also increasing the amount of crime.

In fact public housing projects have been discovered to be high crime areas due to eyes being on the streets rather than on the houses themselves Also there is no separation of commercial and residential buildings which make the buildings even more vulnerable if a burglary were to be commited. So fences apparently draw more attention to crimminals rather than preventing them from breaking in. Without fences, privacy may be reduced, but diversity would be able to increase. Perhaps also neighbors could become closer friends due to there being no boundaries in sight-as is normally the case with true friendship.
Here's a link to an example of the downsides of a fence.http://media.www.trinitytripod.com/media/storage/paper520/news/2006/01/31/Opinions/Fence.Creates.Ugly.Border-1546026-page2.shtml

Garden Cities have nothing to do with Gardens

Ebenizer Howard came up with the concept of the "Garden City of Tomorrow." The purpose behind it was to remake the city in order to contain it. Cities generally were notorious for their rapid urbanization with no end in sight and neverending sprawl. Originally there were only two "magnets" (various areas to live that usually attracted people to them) the town and the country. In otherwords, these were the only two options: the city which had the drawbacks of being uncomfortable, expensive, and brutal, while at the same time provided drainage, employment and amusement, or the country with it's clean air and water.

Ebenizer thought it would be efficient if the two were blended together in order to provide the best of both "magnets." The idea of this so called garden city would allow everybody to own a building collectively rather than individually. In other words the entire community would be owned by everyone thus eliminating private speculation. Prices would be moderate, stabilized, and consistent. The population size would be limited: garden cities would be capable of holding a maximum of 30,000 people. To add an aspect of the country, tree would be required in order to surround the city with a park-a greenbelt of sorts. The park would provide access to nature and would keep the city nice. This part would not be permited to be developed.

Here is a link to an article on the Garden City Movement.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement

ecological model of cities according to chicago school

Sociologists at the Chigago school around the early 1900s were trying to come up with a way to understand why the city of Chicago was transforming so rapidly. In other words, Chicago grew rapidly in a short period of time. In 1860 there was a population of 112,000 and by 1900 it had increased to 1.5 million. The sociologists decided to follow an ecological model in which the population was refered to as biological entities that interacted with their environment. To the sociologists- in particular, Park, the reason why the city increased so rapidly was related to land use-in other words it was biotic. The city was apparently attempting to remain functional. Thus by continuously transforming, it was able to maintain itself.
According to a functionalist the ability to function is centered upon a system oriented towards being able to function. Also to functionalists, nothing is random and everything serves a purpose. In other words, Chicago wasn't just randomly increasing poplation wise. There had to be a specific reason behind it.

Here is a link explaining the origin and purpose of the CBD-the Central Business District, which is the geographic center of a city.http://geography.about.com/od/urbaneconomicgeography/a/cbd.htm

What if The U.S. Wasn't Colonized?

It's a well known fact that America became colonized around the 16th century when Western European explorers began to investigate and explore the "New World". Their main basis for establishing colonies was in order to discover resources or something known as "the three Gs"-Gold G-d and Glory." In other words they were trying to find resources and wealth in order to directly link these colonies to their continental empire. Iit was quite obvious that this European Expansion move was mainly for profit.

While cities clearly did not spring up overnight, founded towns eventually developed into large cities-but not until perhaps decades or even centuries later. Yet now I'd like to get to the topic at hand. What would the U.S. have been like if Western Europeans never arrived to colonize it. Would there even be cities today? What about industrialization? Perhaps there wouldn't even be any societies. Life would be totally different and unrecognizable and Native Americans would live their lives without any fear that the white man would arrive to completly destroy the world as they knew it-or at least their land.

Several cartoons have made a few small gags about this. Basically New York City would be shown-however because Native Americans lived there before anybody else did, the cityscape of tall,stately skyscrapers and appartment buildings would suddenly be replaced by rows and rows of teepees.( A rather obvious stereotype) Let's be more realistic, though because obviously it would not be Teepee City-or even a city at all. In fact, if the White man never showed up in North America to colonize it I doubt there would ever be any cities-or at least the kind that we recogized today. Native Americans in general lived in communities or tribes. These tribes were very close with one another and regarded one another as their kin-even if they weren't biologically related by blood. They were generally peaceful individuals-although once in a while there would be war with other Native American tribes,and "Nations." If America still belonged to the Native Americans I dare to believe that despite life being perhaps more simple, without industrialism or technology such as televisions and cars, it would be perhaps a closer and maybe even better place. Native Americans depended upon the forest for food, medicine and shelter, yet they never abused the resources that nature offered them. They never completely demolished forests or drove animals to extinction. Native Americans would never waste what they had killed-if a bison was killed, they would use all of it-bones, organs, everything had a use-unlike how American hunters would merely shoot the animal for its skin, horns, maybe its meat, but leave the rest of the poor animal behind to rot. Also, they always killed more than they needed, unlike Native Americans. Everyone within a tribe would know one another too, unlike in a city in which there are societies but no communities. Keep in mind that I'm really thinking outside the box these days. Perhaps this means that we could survive without cities. Life would be totally different but it would be the only life that we would know-as Native Americans of course. If Western Europeans never colonized America, we'd all be Native Americans-maybe from various tribes and nations but Native Americans Nevertheless.


Anyhow, here is a link regarding Native Americans. There is a lot of interesting information such as their culture, and various tribes. http://www.nativeamericans.com/

Monsters Love Cities

The reason I set up a blog was so that I could reflect upon what I've learned in my Urban Sociology class at least once a week. So you're probably wondering why there's a picture of Godzilla up here. I'd better explain myself.
After my last class I was pondering how to symbolize cities-as in how they represent good or evil. Notice that Godzilla runs rampages of rage through cities-be it Tokyo ,Japan or the Big Apple itself, New York City.
While I'm definately NOT a monster movie expert, I have noticed that most gigantic monsters in movies are seen wrecking havoc upon cities such as how King Kong and the Cloverfield Monster are shown performing a dramatic number upon New York City. Basically these monsters are more prone to attacking a well known, crowded city than a suburb such as Paramus New Jersey. In other words it is highly unlikely that a monster would ever wreck havoc upon a suburb because they are city monsters.
If anything I'd like to symbolize cities as being vulnerable victims. In other words, cities constantly suffer from corruption,crime,overpopulation and terrorism. This backdrop makes it perfect for movies to place a rampaging monster on the loose in an equally enormous, loud and exciting city. That and a city such as Tokyo is much more recognizable and well known than say a generally quieter suburb such as Fair Lawn New Jersey.
I guess cities are better for monsters too. With all those buildings and cars everwhere, there is plenty for the monster to stomp on, and with the crowded population, there are plenty of people to snack upon. In a fictional manner, a monster movie can portray how frightening a city can seem at times. In fact some children who have watched classic Godzilla movies decided that they would never visit Tokyo as they truely believe that the monster rampages the city on a regular basis.
Anyhow, thanks for bearing with this bizarre rant. It wouldn't leave me alone so I had to post it. I promise that next time I'll post something more serious complete with a link to a website related to the topic. This time I was merely testing out the waters of my new blog.