The following was posted by Xiaolu Xu, one of my students and a native of Shanghai, who is studying development and historic preservation in her home city this summer; I included an image of a hutong neighborhood from the New York Times article that she cited:

With the advent of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the world is paying more attention to not only the impressive economic achievements of China, but also every facet of the city, such as the disappearance of historical architecture that once helped in defining the culture of the city. 

A recent New York Times article on this topic can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/arts/design/27ouro.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin.

The suburban ideal that arose in the twentieth century has in large part been dependent on the automobile and, by extension, affordable gas.  The recent hike in gas prices may be doing what decades of criticism of the social and ecological costs of suburban sprawl may have failed to do: end, or at least slow, the tide of suburban sprawl that has been devouring our open space, contributing to climate change, and ruining our cities.  See the article in yesterday's New York Times, "Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs," by Peter S. Goodman: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/business/25exurbs.html?ex=1215057600&en=56789d1b23fed0f4&ei=5070&emc=eta1 .

The Phantom on the Menu: Chatham Cod

The New York Times recent ran an article on the misrepresentation of food items on the menu's of upscale New York restaurants. In question is the origin of where codfish is caught. While menu's adverstise white flakey filets as "Chatham Day Boat Cod," the origin of the fish is likely Gloucester or New Bedford, especially during the months that Cod is not harvested by Chatham's fishing fleet. It is interesting how the idea of aparticular place can affect how consumers percieve the value of a fish. While the fish that is served is fresh, it seems that the public values something about the community of Chatham more than the fish. I'd be surprised if someone could actually tell the difference of what port the fish came through. Do certain characteristics of community make you more or less likely to purchase a particular product, all else being equal?

The Brazilian government has recently begun working towards a new “Plan for a Sustainable Amazon (PAS),” which acknowledges the necessity for both acts of founding and preservation in the inhabited and ecologically critical region of the world.  As Harvard law professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the man spearheading the PAS project, accurately notes, “The Amazon is not simply a collection of trees…it’s a group of people: 25 million Brazilians.”

            The plan, in theory, seeks to promote the individual and collective environmental stewardship amongst the residents of the Amazon, who are driven toward deforestation by global economic forces.  This is accomplished through economic incentives for residents who learn about environmental conservation and pledge to stop deforesting their land, as well as those who take part in sustainable-use activities.

            While this may sound like a promising initiative, there are those who critique it as an authoritarian attempt to impose specific land-use activities, however environmentally-conscious as they are, on a wide range of land and cultures.  Additionally, the emphasis on economic reinforcement techniques may not truly establish an ethic of use within the Amazonian people.

            The project is a unique and promising direction for government-sponsored conservation efforts; the success of the PAS may be revealing as to the potential for such policy implantation elsewhere.

See the May 15 BBC article for more information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7399109.stm

Here is an interesting article that talks about the development of garages as places. It is a Canadian article, but applys to our American garages as well. It is interesting to think about the development of a garage. Originally barns or other spaces were altered to allow a car inside to protect it from the elements. But, with the advancements of car exteriors, such protection from the elements is not needed as much. Yet, we still have 1, 2, 3, and even more, car garages. It is a testament to the reliance of our culture on our cars and a representation of the importance of cars that our society creates.

But there also has been the development of the garage into another place. No longer is it necessarily used to house a car, but rather for a work room, storage, or a gym (like pictured below). It is also a genderized place, as the article mentions: a male-dominated space. The author writes, "He notes that in the traditional sense, the garage is male territory. Women tend to allow freedom of the space to the male. Men, as the hunter-gatherers of the family, tend to fill up garages with their finds." But, he argues, women use it as well, mostly as a last resort to get things out of the house they do not want before they eventually make it to the dumpster.

Usually not included in the total square footage of a house on the market, it is interesting to note the importance of the garage as a place within in the home and its importance in our society.

autos.canada.com/news/story.html

So I was reading through some of the other posts, and I saw the one about Syracuse and the loss of an architecture school, so it got me thinking about Scranton, my home town, and what was happening there. Since the premier of "The Office," the "coolness" level of my hometown has definitely gone up. I went on to the city's website and read articles about Scranton in the Times and the Washington Post, where I found this one about Scranton and "The Office." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092501819.html The article talks about what is real in the show and what is not, and how the writers admit that what is real in Scranton is a lot of times more funny than what they could have come up with about it. It also talks about the revitalization that Scranton is going through right now, and the proposed tourist attraction of a tour of Scranton, highlighting "The Office" hotspots. Scranton as a place is changing, revitalizing the outside of its downtown, but also becoming more renowned for its real and fantastical appeal on "The Office."

This story seems to fit in appropriately on the heels of our discussion about Hurricane Katrina and Gulf Coast displacement. One week after Cyclone Nargis battered Myanmar and left tens of thousands dead, some 1.5 million survivors are left with essentially nowhere to go and nothing to eat. Earlier today, the United Nations officially lifted barriers to aid, but that which is scheduled to come into Myanmar is deemed "woefully disproportionate to the needs of survivors." Because of the slow response, the country is at a heightened risk of epidemics such as cholera and malaria, malnutrition, and starvation. To read the full article from today's edition of the New York Times, click on the following link: www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/world/asia/09myanmar.html.

On a more positive note, have a wonderful Class and Charter Day.

 http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080506-senator-to-isps-think-twice-about-net-neutrality-or-else.html

Senator Ron Wyden recently delivered a speech to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) asking or rather telling them to "think twice" about net neutrality. The internet has become something of a philosophical haven for those who fight for an ultimate forum for freedom of expression. Although this freedom might be infringed upon or fluctuate depending on the country, the disbanding of net neutrality will segregate the internet monetarily. Each voice will have a price tag on it and visibility or popularity of a website will not have just to do with its content, but with the amount of money the creator was willing to pay for his or her webpage. For those of us who use the internet on a regular basis, if net neutrality was destroyed the internet if it can be defined as a place would be changed forever. And for some, the change might be so drastic that the internet for them is no longer a place, rather, a space that companies are able to have their websites prominently displayed and the common internet user or blogger silenced. 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/05/05/jaguars.fence/index.html

The idea of building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border has been controversial from the start, but now there are new questions being raised about the impact the fence could have on wildlife. Jaguars are known to populate northern Mexico, but it is only in the past couple of decades that they have been seen in the hills of southern Arizona, now thought to be a breeding ground for the endangered population of roughly 120 Jaguars. Conservationists are becoming very concerned that the fence, which is built in the path of the Jaguar crossing from Mexico to the U.S., would limit the growth of their population and would propel the species towards extinction. This issue is extremely relevant to our society’s conception of place. Humans have constructed real borders, establishing places in what were once just spaces. Jaguars see no distinction between the land north and south of the border, however we protect this distinction through a process of founding borders which has now been elevated to the building of fences. In order to build the fence the Department of Homeland Security has already waived 30 environmental laws. Conservationists argue that the fence will have a dramatic affect on the regions wildlife without actually achieving its objective; Mountain lion tracker Jack Childs has pointed out that “A fence like that is going to inhibit wildlife movements and migrations back and forth. It’s not going to effectively stop human traffic. They’ve got wire cutters and torches.” The building of the fence has raised many questions about place, and we must now focus on wildlife concerns in that space as well the human and political questions.  

This story is a few weeks old but was particularly amusing at the time. A Boston construction worker working on the new Yankee Stadium buried a #34 David Ortiz jersey in the cement under a future restaurant concourse, presumably to curse the Yankees. In response, Hank Steinbrenner is filing a lawsuit, has defamed the offending party in several media venues, and used expensive GPR techniques to search for additional Red Sox paraphernalia.

            When discussing a place it is easy to forget that the bundle of human relationships enabled by a locale are at least as important as the physical dimensions. In this case, the Yankees are moving from a storied national monument to a relatively new and profane stadium (in the parking lot). The fact that the place associations, rivalry, and history of the House that Ruth Built are being lifted wholesale onto the new park foregrounds the role of people in place. Also it shows how brutish Hank Steinbrenner is and how superstitious baseball fans can get.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2008/04/14/ny_yankees_remove_buried_red_sox_jersey/