Riots

The topic of last week lecture is riots. We concerned about the history and some relevant elements of riots. Generally, we define a riot is a kind of civil disorder involved disorganized groups threaten the public orders and against property, authority or people. However, different countries have different definitions on scales of riots. For instance, the 1716 British Riot Act defined a riot as 12 or more people disturbing the public peace for a common purpose; in India, the law defines a riot as an unlawful assembly of five or more people using violence. Also, riots can be characterized by types, such as police riot, an unlawful attack occurred where a group of peaceful civilians injured by police; race riots, an action by members of majority racial group against people of other perceived races. At this point, we focus on urban riots. According to Wikipedia, “urban riots are riots in the context of urban decay, provoked by conditions such as discrimination, poverty, high unemployment, poor healthcare, etc. “ urban riots have a closely relevant with race riots and police riots. Although riots seem like a worst personality human have, sometimes it might be the only way for civilians to express their dissatisfactions of society. There are many evidence can prove riots do happened in our society. I found the top ten riots happened over time, most of them happened in the US, the UK and India. The No.1 riot was Bombay Riots in India, 1992. Hindu extremists destroyed the Babri mosque sparked the history of Mumbai’s largest chain of terrorist attacks and about 900 people were killed. http://listverse.com/2011/09/04/top-10-worst-riots/

 

What I am interested is whether people felt more or less threatened after riots and how they impacted public attitudes. From the article I read, after the riots, citizens felt more threatened and these threats from different form such as economic position, security threats, society and culture threats.  However, along with the insight research, feeling of economic threat did not increase. Rather, people were more likely to feel that their safety was threatened and culture and society was under threat.

— Chuhan Yuan

Week 11

Last week, Dr. Scott Tate came in to talk to us about incorporating arts and culture into community development. He talked about examples in Roanoke, Virginia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland. To me, the most interesting example was Belfast. The troubles, a period of violence and unrest in Belfast, lasted from the 1970s to the 1990s. The fighting between Protestants and Catholics has killed thousands of innocent people of both sides. In an attempt to separate the different neighborhoods and bring peace to the city, thirty foot walls were built up around these areas forty years ago.
These walls have been a canvas for graffiti and murals that depict the struggles that the city has faced. Recently however, a new organization has begun a project to try to bridge the gap between the warring sides. Instead of the murals that focus on the conflict, this group has started to put up pictures of what the area would look like if the walls weren’t there. They are trying to show people what their neighborhoods could look like if the conflict was resolved and the walls were taken down. This is a very unique and interesting way of trying to bring both sides together. Taking down the walls would be a huge step for the city and programs like this one could make a big difference.

-Mike Tortoriello

Week 10

Last week, we invited Professor Schilling to give a lecture over the skype. The lecture is about the the promise of sustainability planning for regenerating shrinking cities. Sustainability offers policy framework that could guide transformation of distressed, older industrial cities. The older industrial cities are mentioned as shrinking cities. 65 older industrial cities identified by brookings- measures of poverty, economic viaility, education, etc. The three components of sustainable development are healthy environment, social justice, economic growth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development

Secondly, the urban form is a report by the american institute of architects sustainable design assessment team. It shows the relationship between urban core and urban village. The urban village relates to the urban villages nearby and the urban villages have connections with the urban villages near them. Between the urban villages, there might be oppotunity areas.

http://www.citypa.ca/TheCity/Departments/EconomicDevelopmentandPlanning/ThePrinceAlbertDevelopmentPlanProcess/tabid/347/Default.aspx

The relationship between regeneration, sustainability and traditional planning shows in the graph.

Also, the benefits of sustainability are remove vacant buildings, expand socio-ecological services, stabilize property values in housing markets, improve public health of residents, establish stronger horizontal and vertical plan coordination and consistency.

—Bin Han

Digital Cities

On last week’s lecture, we talked about digitals cities which are also known as connected cities, wired cities, smart cites, etc. digital city is a connected community that combines broadband communications infrastructure and innovative services to satisfy the requirements from people. According the article The Advancement of World Digital Cities, we learned that “digital cities can be defined by non-profit electronic community forums such as ‘freenet’ movement in the US, commercial service s local information portals by private companies, and governmental initiatives for city information.” In the class, Chattanooga, Tennessee has been concerned the most wired city in the US since it has the fastest internet speed up to gigabit per second.

There is a digital cities survey held in 2011 that indicates the top 10 cities are selected in four different population categories. At the population of 250,000 or more area, the first place of digital cities ranking is Honolulu, Hawaii. A innovative project called Kokua Wireless supported Honolulu to capture first place. http://www.govtech.com/e-government/2011-Digital-Cities-Survey-Winners-Announced.html

Also, the digital cities can be categorized according to socio-technical and virtual-physical dimensions. The article overviews the history advancement of American, European and Asian digital cities from the socio-technical and virtual-physical dimensions, which illustrate that Asian digital cities concentrated on using advanced information technology, American’s focused on strong social functions for supporting local community. I found a video about one of digital cities in Asia, Macau. Macau is not only famous as a tourism city, but the digital lifestyle affect residents’ lives every day.

–Chuhan Yuan

week 9

Last week, the teacher that our professor invited to our class stated definition and challenges. First of all, he said sustainability equals to stewardship, in which he mentioned using resources considering a balance among economic, social and environment goals, current and future impact, distributional equity and generational equity. Additionally, he mentioned the short term and long tern problem. Prices signal scarcity of resources, but externalities distort prices. As we all know, consumption impacts price, and price then impacts supply. The natural resource website point out the relationship between price and scarcity. (http://futurechallenges.org/wiki/index.php/Natural_Resources_/_Energy_-_Concepts)Prices might not change early enough to avert disaster. Taxes can adjust prices to reflect society’s perception of long term impact and externalities. Other market and non-market interventions might be needed. The strategies for sustainable sites: select an optimal site form a sustainability, pay attention to facility footprint and orientation, minimize site disturbance and or restore site ecosystems: low impact development practices, seek opportunities to restore ecosystems or reduce demand so them out side your sites. Finally, the teacher states suitability for urban uses: natural water quality and supply, infrastructure, soil type, slope, hydrology, proximity to existing development compatibility with existing land uses, impact on sensitive ecologies areas, adequate public facilities, and impacts on cultural and historic areas.

–Bin Han

Week 8

One thing that was brought up by the expert last class was the idea that countries like Germany are more efficient than America.  They adopted ideas to minimize traffic and increase the use of bicycle.  So I decided to go online and look up an article about possibly removing freeways in order to improve cities.  The article I found was “From Induced Demand to Reduced Demand” by Charles Siegel.  The main idea starts with the removal of freeways to get rid of most “environmental problems such as global warming;” as well as, “reclaiming land for new developments or parks and helps revive adjacent neighborhoods (http://www.preservenet.com/freeways/FreewaysInducedReduced.html).” This will also decrease the dependency for cars and increase the use of public transportation or even bicycles like the Germans.  Freeways also create traffic that wouldn’t be there had there not been that freeway.  The purpose of creating these freeways is to encourage long distances travel for regional stores and businesses rather than local ones.  He says that although this may help the gas industry and car industry, the consequences of environmental problems and traffic don’t break even with it.  The next step in the process to improve our cities is to, “zone and make more compact neighborhoods.” This would mean that the Federal government would have to give loans to apartment buildings, projects, and finally new transit systems.

-Austin Cheung

Week 7 (Public Spaces)

Before watching “The Social Life of Urban Spaces”, I never knew that so much research and design went into public areas. I had always thought that they were designed with only aesthetics in mind. The time put into creating such projects is well worth it as successful public spaces can help the economy and the looks of a city, as well as the happiness of their citizens. The more people these spaces attract, the more stores in the area will benefit. Designing public spaces to be attractive to passersby isn’t that difficult. Simple design changes such as lower walls so that people can sit on them, or water-works that people can swim in can greatly improve the chances of success of a space. The idea that public areas need to be fenced in and policed isn’t necessarily true. If an area attracts enough normal people, criminals and homeless people won’t inhabit these areas as much.
Artwork is also an important part of public spaces. Large sculptures draw people into an area and can start discussions and debates, which are a big part of the social aspect of these areas. Food is probably the most important aspect of a successful public space. If stores or hand carts aren’t around people will bring their own, but providing places to buy and eat food is the biggest draw. If people can easily get to an area, sit comfortably, eat food, and enjoy themselves, then the chances of that space being a successful public area is high.

week 6

Last week, we talked about the land rent and use of urban areas, and the land economics. Because the land is limited, as more and more people want land, the quantity will decrease and the price will increase. Also, the professor showed us the four eras of american growth and development, which are walking-horse car era, electric street car, recreational auto era, and freeway era. (http://cnre.vt.edu/lsg/intro/trans.htm)

We were talking about the urban ecology during the Thursday’s class. As the professor states, “urban ecology is the sub field of ecology which deals with the interaction of plants, animals and humans with each other and with their environment in urban or urbanizing setting. ” A good ecology leads to healthier and better communities. For my individual experience, the urban area is a whole community that should combine with everything, such as the schools, transportation, people, and communication. Also, the teacher mentions the three fundamental mind relative to traditional way of thinking, which are form linear, a focus on most of the results we get, and a focus on an operational view of how things work.  As the online materiel states, “System dynamics deals with how things change through time, which includes most of what most people find important.”（http://www.indynamix.com/?page_id=370）

–Bin

Week 5 (poverty)

Tuesday’s discussion on the connection between poverty, education, wealth, income etc. was a good topic for discussion and interesting to see different views that people have on the issue. Data  shows that lack of education/poverty are intertwined and can be directly correlated with one another. Education is the foundation of how our lives turn out, and without proper funding and resources, it can be tarnished. Education does not only mean that from which comes from formal schooling but self knowledge as well, which sometimes can be more valuable than the knowledge taken from grade school and collegiate levels. Success results from risk and sacrifice on ones own time outside of formal schooling and without the necessary resources available to do so, it can be very hard to have an abundant income, house, etc. The top percentage of income earners are comprised of professionals (entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers) and a big reason they got to where they are today is because of proper education and wealth.

-Mike Medina

Week 4 (Urban Divide)

Ever since urbanization truly began to increase in the 1800’s, the divide between racial groups was evident. As people moved into cities, they naturally moved into areas where they fit in, which was usually with their own race. In the article “Digital maps show racial divides in US cities”, Eric Fisher used the US census to make maps of US cities that showed racial divides, with different colors representing different races. Just glancing at these maps makes the racial segregation surprisingly clear. There are some areas with mixed races, but they are few and far between.
The most interesting aspect of this issue it that the neighborhoods segregated themselves. None of the groups involved were ever forced to live separately from each other, at least not legally. As the cities grew, the divides grew. As the divides grew, so did the inequality in the city overall. Unfortunately many of the racial divides go hand-in-hand with class divides.