THESIS ETC.

URBANISM || MEDIUM MASSAGES || HERSTORIES

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Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto project offers a chance to get smart city building right

Project is unprecedented in many ways, but certainly in the level of input and discussion it has sought and processed from the community

[thesisetc]

An Excerpt from “Land Rights in Brazil: Recognition and Threats to the Role of Favelas in the City” by Theresa Williamson

“[Community Land Trusts, or] CLTs are associated with their American and European varieties, where they function as real estate developers— nonprofit and affordable, but developers nonetheless. Favelas, however, do not require property development, but rather a formalization of their existing housing and community stock. This begs the question: can favelas be retrofitted as CLTs? It turns out that the answer is a resounding yes. Starting in 2001, the Caño Martín informal settlements of San Juan, Puerto Rico, fought the gentrification of their communities. Today, the Caño is a widely studied example and shows that CLTs can effectively provide formal, titled ownership without the risk of gentrification, while building on the community’s existing social attributes.”

Entire article here: https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/land-lines-july-2018-full_2.pdf

[thesisetc]

Excerpt from “Private Dreams and Public Ideals in San Francisco” by Nathan Heller

Long before the founding of Rome, the Etruscans measured time by something called the saeculum. A saeculum spanned from a given moment until the last people who lived through that moment had died. It was the extent of firsthand memory for human events—the way it felt to be there then—and it reminds us of the shallowness of American history. Alarmingly few saecula have passed since students of the Enlightenment took human slaves. We are approaching the end of the saeculum of people who remember what it feels like to be entered into total war. The concept is useful because it helps announce a certain kind of loss: the moment when the lessons that cannot be captured in the record disappear.

The saeculum that shaped the current Bay Area started soon after the Second World War and will end shortly. The lessons that it offers should be clear to anyone who lived across that span. To have grown up through San Francisco’s recent history is to be haunted by the visions of progressivism that did not end up where they were supposed to, that did not think far enough ahead and skidded past the better world they planned. It’s to be paranoid about second- and third-order social effects, to distrust endeavors that cheer on sensibility more than sense. It’s to have seen how swiftly righteous dreams turn into cloister gates; to notice how destructive it can be to shape a future on the premise of having found your people, rather than finding people who aren’t yours. The city, today, is the seat of an atomized new private order. The lessons of the saeculum have not stuck.

Entire article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/06/private-dreams-and-public-ideals-in-san-francisco

[thesisetc]

MONTREAL via  Hypebeast: “Artist-Duo CYRCLE Transforms Underground Garage into Large-Scale Installation” https://hypebeast.com/2018/7/present-futurism-space-is-everything-installation-cyrcle-lndmrk

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Why Europe’s parks and playgrounds are so much more active than America’s

A Sidewalk Talk Q&A with Meghan Talarowski of Studio Ludo on the keys to more playable cities.

“The keys to London’s success include designing parks spaces for all ages (not just kids), spreading playful elements everywhere (rather than isolating them), and making structures that are riskier (yet still safe).“

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Drive economic growth in disadvantaged communities by helping young people uncover their interests and skills and guide them on their career path.

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The future of public space is now arriving — beneath a busy highway

A Sidewalk Talk Q&A with urban designer Ken Greenberg on Toronto’s Bentway.

[newyorker]

Today’s daily cartoon by David Ostow. 

[thesisetc]

What Anthony Bourdain Understood About Cities

The chef-turned-writer provided a model for a truly inclusive urbanism based on the creativity of all human beings.

[nprfreshair]

Comic Michelle Wolf Responds To Backlash: ‘I’m Glad I Stuck To My Guns’

In an exclusive interview after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Wolf addresses the backlash to her set. “I wouldn’t change a single word. I’m very happy with what I said, and I’m glad I stuck to my guns.”

[npr]

Definitely check out the full interview. -Emily

[thesisetc]

American Story: Tent City USA. A homeless community faces eviction from the land they are occupying

More films about the USA: https://rtd.rt.com/tags/usa/ Like most Americans, Steve had a home, a good job and a hobby—helping homeless people. Now Steve is th...

[thesisetc]

As one Twitter wag observed, San Francisco’s “tech culture is focused on solving one problem: what is my mother no longer doing for me?”

Corey Pein, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/17/get-rich-quick-silicon-valley-startup-billionaire-techie

[thesisetc]

Why is activism in the 21st Century nothing more than a series of morality lectures typed into devices built by slaves?

Jarett Kobek, I Hate the Internet: https://www.amazon.com/I-Hate-Internet-Jarett-Kobek/dp/0996421807

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This film was shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organized by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their...

[thesisetc]

Judd Apatow Puts Garry Shandling Under the Microscope

Mr. Shandling, the influential comedian who died in 2016, gets his due in a sprawling new HBO documentary.

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MORE - https://www.behance.net/gallery/45539037/Some-Abstract-Comics