thoughts on Klotkin's Urban Legends: Why Suburbs, Not Dense Cities, are the Future
If you're interested in community and social capital go and read this piece from Joel Klotkin over here.
OK. So it's interesting, right?
A few thoughts. First w/r/t:
But grandiose theorists, with their focus on footloose elites and telecommuting technogeniuses, have no practical answers for the real problems that plague places like Mumbai, let alone Cairo, Jakarta, Manila, Nairobi, or any other 21st-century megacity: rampant crime, crushing poverty, choking pollution. It's time for a completely different approach, one that abandons the long-held assumption that scale and growth go hand in hand.
I think this is a great point but a tiny bit confusing. For example, while I'm a far cry from a grandiose theorist i do spend a lot of time and energy tackling the problem of how automobile-centric neighborhoods reduce the number (and value) of relationships between neighbors. So while I try to implement solutions that encourage walking and biking through Red Bank I don't at all expect my solutions to be applicable to favelas. To argue that the today's digital nomads, telecommuting to jobs from remote locations aren't a practical response to some of the challenges and opportunities that we face in the US in 2010 simply because they are not solving the scale and growth problems of Mumbai doesn't make sense.
Which leads us to Klotkin's thesis:
The goal of urban planners should not be to fulfill their own grandiose visions of megacities on a hill, but to meet the needs of the people living in them, particularly those people suffering from overcrowding, environmental misery, and social inequality.
Another great point but I think it confuses a few different issues here. Sure, one of the goals of urban planning should be to alleviate the suffering that is created by how and where some people live. But another goal should be to help people flourish where they live, too. It reminds me of the current split in psychology: historically, psychologists have worked on alleviating illness and depression but a recent trend towards "positive psychology" concerns itself less with alleviating illness and instead focusses instead on moving the fairly happy person's needle a few notches closer to the very happy (or flourishing) end of the scale. Both of these efforts are needed.
So, absolutely, urban planners should find ways to alleviate suffering, but they should also spend some time finding ways to take communities that are not suffering and help them to flourish.
This diversity of efforts is necessary and helps more than if we just had one or the other. Perhaps it would be better restated as one of the goals of urban planners should be. . .
Which leads us to:
The most advantaged city of the future could well turn out to be a much smaller one.
To which I say, hell yes! Think Providence, RI for example which may be just about the most advantaged city in the US for a whole lot of reasons but its scale is definitely one of its best attributes. Or even a place as small as Red Bank. Dense enough to have mass transit, a walkable downtown and neighbors who know you. Completely the opposite of NYC where everyone's anonymous but also completely the opposite of many suburbs where people stare out from the window of their heinously large mock-Tuscan Villas and wonder about the strangers next door.
Anyway, I came across Klotkin's piece randomly through a link on instapaper this AM and was really glad to have had the opportunity to read it.
A few things stick out about apple’s announcements yesterday.
The lala.com acquisition gave Apple two things: a novel way to monetize streaming music from the cloud and an interesting structure for an online music-appreciation community. My money was on Apple building up the cloud streaming infrastructure into a digital locker for iTunes but instead they choose to take the general structure of lala’s community model and throw it into itunes and call it Ping.
Ping builds upon lala’s “following” model where I can follow the listening (really, purchasing) habits of people and be followed such that I can learn about new music and provide guidance to others. That’s great if I really dig Thievery Corporation and want to be turned on to Nicola Costa’s latest album but I think classical and jazz listeners are different.
I’m interested in cloud streaming and community as they relate to the classical and jazz listening communities. I believe classical and jazz communities are different than the pop community that is being cultivated via Ping. At the most basic level, what differentiates classical and jazz listeners from pop music listeners is that the “collector” mentality dominates in classical and jazz. This has a slew of repercussions that I should like to explore at some point down the road.
What was especially interesting to me yesterday regarding the future of digital music was Apple’s discussion about video and their new TV appliance. When talking about video, Jobs mentioned that people don’t want to know about “syncing” or being hassled with managing the storage of videos. That sounds a lot like streaming from the cloud if you ask me and I wonder why in the first half of the presentation “buying downloads” and “syncing” and “managing downloads” were perfectly acceptable when talking about audio but by the time we got to apple tv and talking about shows and movies Apple changes its tune w/r/t buying downloads and syncing and now “rentals” are the only way to go.
I think there are a few things going on here. Apple has a good thing going with its iTMS and selling downloads. I don’t think they have figured out how to monetize streaming from the cloud and digital lockers yet and since they don’t have any viable competition to their store that’s offering streaming/lockers they are not in any rush to roll the dice on streaming. Not that there isn’t money to be made on streaming and digital lockers, I'm just guessing that it’s going to be less predictable than the margin on 99cent tracks. Secondly, I don’t think apple has the deals with the labels yet to do digital lockers. My guess is that many of the labels want to get into the CDN business and rather than have a bunch of different companies offering their content via digital lockers, the labels themselves will want to get into the digital locker business. Or at least delivering their content to a third party digital locker.
In transitioning from the CD to digital downloads the labels really got hammered. As we move from downloads to streaming-from-the-cloud, I think the labels are going to be much more cautious in not letting a guy in black turtleneck define the future of their industry for them.
Ping builds upon lala’s “following” model where I can follow the listening (really, purchasing) habits of people and be followed such that I can learn about new music and provide guidance to others. That’s great if I really dig Thievery Corporation and want to be turned on to Nicola Costa’s latest album but I think classical and jazz listeners are different.
I’m interested in cloud streaming and community as they relate to the classical and jazz listening communities. I believe classical and jazz communities are different than the pop community that is being cultivated via Ping. At the most basic level, what differentiates classical and jazz listeners from pop music listeners is that the “collector” mentality dominates in classical and jazz. This has a slew of repercussions that I should like to explore at some point down the road.
What was especially interesting to me yesterday regarding the future of digital music was Apple’s discussion about video and their new TV appliance. When talking about video, Jobs mentioned that people don’t want to know about “syncing” or being hassled with managing the storage of videos. That sounds a lot like streaming from the cloud if you ask me and I wonder why in the first half of the presentation “buying downloads” and “syncing” and “managing downloads” were perfectly acceptable when talking about audio but by the time we got to apple tv and talking about shows and movies Apple changes its tune w/r/t buying downloads and syncing and now “rentals” are the only way to go.
I think there are a few things going on here. Apple has a good thing going with its iTMS and selling downloads. I don’t think they have figured out how to monetize streaming from the cloud and digital lockers yet and since they don’t have any viable competition to their store that’s offering streaming/lockers they are not in any rush to roll the dice on streaming. Not that there isn’t money to be made on streaming and digital lockers, I'm just guessing that it’s going to be less predictable than the margin on 99cent tracks. Secondly, I don’t think apple has the deals with the labels yet to do digital lockers. My guess is that many of the labels want to get into the CDN business and rather than have a bunch of different companies offering their content via digital lockers, the labels themselves will want to get into the digital locker business. Or at least delivering their content to a third party digital locker.
In transitioning from the CD to digital downloads the labels really got hammered. As we move from downloads to streaming-from-the-cloud, I think the labels are going to be much more cautious in not letting a guy in black turtleneck define the future of their industry for them.
Feelin' hot? Check that body heat. Mmmmyeahh.
I don't think the funk gets any hotter than this. Not today at least and especially not when you get to that bridge. Can you feel it?
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Him and his guitar.
Two beautiful tracks. The first is Salt Creek, a song that I've been playing mostly incorrectly for years and years and never knew what it was called until I listened to a live show of Peter Rowan and Tony Rice last night.
The second track should be familiar to most folks. It's Shenandoah played by Tony Rice (taken from the same show as the Salt Creek.) You can hear Tony Rice speak on the Shenandoah track and his disphonia is pretty evident.
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Red Bank Council passes "Complete Streets" resolution
Our council passed this resolution last night. Both the County and Boro have passed Complete Streets resolutions now. Hopefully these resolutions will begin to be implemented in some meaningful way.
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2nd place!!
Wow, I misread that results list! I landed 2nd place in this morning's mountain bike race. Totally psyched that I finished in 40minutes this year (compared to 44 minutes last year).
Sent from my iPhone.
- Posted from Middletown, NJ
Ella. 12 Nights. Great stuff.
Picked up this Ella CD today after hearing Jonathan Schwartz play it over and over since it came out. It's really something.
"the freest city in the world"
p.s. It's nice that he uses the word repudiate correctly. Unlike that Alaskan ignoramus.
Tatum Park/Woods Hollow Race GPX data
My GPS skillz are weaker than weak but I kept my Garmin turned on while I rode what I think is the Tatum Park/Woods Hollow MTB race course for this coming weekend. It may not be spot on but it's pretty close. Here's the GPX data file if you're interested in the track file. I have no idea if it's useful or not!
I'll be riding in the beginner class (again) this year. If you're interested in racing, drop me an email at sjwillis @ willisbros.net and I'll get you the registration info.
Menu for Good Karma Cafe in Red Bank, sorta
Went over to GKC to grab a menu so we could order takeout tonight but they didn't have any menus printed up yet for takeout. In the meantime....
Sent from my iPhone.
- Posted from Red Bank, NJ
