Seth Low: Public Space Matters

WATCH VIDEO HERE

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life on the Sidewalk

Sidewalk Personalities Play a Role in Public Spaces Not just BOOK vendors (Hakim and Jerome) representatives of their community trusted gate-keepers people with information (directions, advice, suggestions, warnings) mentors/counselors Hakim in the role of " old head " (African American tradition of mentor informal relationship between old men and younger children and adults teach, support, encourage and socialize young men to be responsible Black adults can also be young women replace or enhance relationship of father voluntary relationship old head represents positive values for young men not just very successful people, but people they can relate to as role models " Black Spaces ": How are they defined? content of conversation types of books patrons location class Old Heads and the exercise of " influence " advice need not be followed for the relationship to maintain itself crux of relationship is the importance of conti...
Read more

The Limits of Informal Control

The Appearance That "No One Cares." said to lead to the downfall of social order (visible forms of social disorder) requires police (institutional) intervention into serious crime follows in such circumstances if a single broken window means no one cares, then people have licence to break more leads to an unrelenting campaign against the forces that were said to be diminishing the QUALITY OF LIFE for conventional city dwellers* *Crime in cities has diminished in the last four decades whether these policies were applied or not. FOUR INDECENT BEHAVIORS (of street vendors) TARGETED: public urination detaining residents in conversation selling stolen goods sleeping on sidewalks The Logic of the Habitat about 1/3 of the men working the sidewalks sleep outside instead of in inexpensive flop houses all the sustaining elements of the environment are there friends are out there and he feels safe and comfortable NOT a trade-off between drugs or a room sp...
Read more

Susan Sontag: Illness as Metaphor, AIDS as Metaphor

In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote  Illness as Metaphor , a classic work described by  Newsweek  as "one of the most liberating books of its time." A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows  how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is -- just a disease.  Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment  and, it is highly curable, if good treatment is followed. "Susan Sontag's  Illness as Metaphor  was the  first to point out the accusatory side of the metaphors of empowerment that seek to enlist the patient's will to resist disease.  It is largely as a result of her work that the how-to health books avoid the blame-ridden term  'cancer personality'  and speak mo...
Read more