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Future Of The City
fabulation session 20131107-8 AltArt, Transylvania. Faciliated by Istvan Szakats
(notes from day 1)
Group – Rarita
Cities – general ideas
- Most population in Europe lives in cities (60%?) – one cannot escape statistics
- Surveillance – recent history ante ’89 vs traffic surveillance; to be watched (CCTV) vs, feeling constantly watched; anonymity in public spaces vs rural “surveillance” where you can’t escape getting noticed
- City annihilates or amplifies individuality
- Sectoral industry cities are different from continent to continent / country to country
- Paris as example of homelessness, rats, misery vs tourism mania
- Cities have different orientations (industrial, cultural, touristic)
- The issue of ghost cities, abandoned or failed cities (ex. Detroit, Chinese cities)
- Pathological behaviors in cities
- Homelessness – big in capital cities, small or non-existence in small cities
- One is always a minority and never the target of everything that is going on in a city.
- Sustainability – cities are the least sustainable form
- Everything that has to do with cities is a paradox
- Every city has a potential for a better path to the future
- Rural-urban distinction
Characteristics :
- Lots of people
- Crowds
- Special districts for all tastes/hobbies – thematic, food, cultural, for specific groups
- Concentration yet variety
- Cities cluster/marginalize on specific purposes (case of immigrants- rent price control, parking control)
- Communities that always “flock together“, small communities
- Traffic – the too many cars issues yet cars define social status and become a ”must have”
- There is always a chance for leisure activities (running exercise)
- Biking is more and more used
- Lots of services
- Geography / landscape defines cities
- Eco-cities and real sustainable cities– can they exist ?
- Food – farmers, bio products
Likes – What do a like/love in a city??
- There are communities for everything
- Divers population
- Safety
- Cities are “walk-able”
- Multicultural and the challenges to deal with it
- History
- Multiples, culture crash
- Cities are too big to experience
- The chance to change cities
- Concentration
- Gaining anonymity
- Variety
- Cities as culture magnets
- Velocity – speed, access, information, mobility
- Variety of foods / cuisines
- Connectivity, internet and easy access
- Freedom and obscurity
- Different cultural backgrounds and different styles
- The chance to make choices
- Regenerative cities – cities can transform, improve themselves – urban planners, architects , landscape architects can use challenging concepts to transform cities
- Love a city that still has/keeps a human size
- Changing realities
- Friendly people
- Interest in marginal groups
- Infinite freedom
- you can find communities that welcome you
- getting the chance not to be noticed
Dislikes – What do I hate most in cities?
- Stigmatization
- Racism
- Bad urban planning – historical vs new neighborhoods
- Lack of forests
- Traffic jams
- Claustrophobic
- Dependence on resources
- Distance from nature
- Concentration of people that never talk to each other
- Loosing anonymity
- Social/public spaces that make you feel strange
- Intolerance
- Getting the chance not to be noticed
- Lack of interest of who you are
- Distraction
- Burden of making choices
- Loneliness (an appearance? Lonely groups cancel themselves out)
- No place for losers – just for successful people
- The social pressure to show you are successful
- Hating the city itself because everything manmade is not perfect
- Crime ; crime happens if neighborhood structure allows it.
- The inhumanity of the city – it does not work on human scale, timeframes, imposes roles, lack of access,
- Dependence on resources (ex. electricity)
- Bad urban planning..
- Garbage / waste
- Ignorance
- Many choices but actually trivial
- Lack of safety
- Crime – riots
- Protests , strikes
- Pollution,
- Strikes
- Unfriendly for animals – created for the interest of the supreme human race.
- Cities grow without a limit
- Sexual violence, sexual assaulting, domestic violence
- Ignorance
Others
- Poverty vs richness,
- Rules and slaves,
- Small image, big image,
- City is always on the verge of collapse
- Using more images then before
- Internet – urbanization of mental space
- You have limited time to generate as many identities as you like.
(notes from day 2)