Comments for Emergent Urbanism

Comment on Poundbury in China by Where In The World Am I? - Page 86 - Nordinho.net Community

Where In The World Am I? - Page 86 - Nordinho.net Community — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:35:57 +0000

[...] some sunshine. Scouser, that is brutally difficult… but thanks to my bionic eye, I found it here at Thames Town in Shanghai, [...]

Comment on Review of Home by Yann-Arthus Bertrand by William Spiritdancer

William Spiritdancer — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:55:31 +0000

Man. The Earth is dying or rather the systems that sustain life and all you care about is pretty pictures!

Comment on Review of Home by Yann-Arthus Bertrand by William Spiritdancer

William Spiritdancer — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:54:43 +0000

What do you mean turn the sound off! Are you crazy! They have a totally valid message to deliver. Uncontrolled growth is what got us in this mess in the first place. Yes I do believe in their argument. We need sustainable systems. So according to you we should ignore what is happening because you did not provide any alternative solutions, and just grow ourselves into oblivion. That is what the Chinese are doing. God help us if China becomes the new America.

Comment on Review of Home by Yann-Arthus Bertrand by Mathieu Helie

Mathieu Helie — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:33:27 +0000

Dear François,
You are very passionate about these issues, but you are not taking in the whole picture. What is the the global warming pact if not the creation of a global USSR? What is the cause of Haiti’s deforestation, if not a political disaster starting with the American invasion and occupation in the early 20th century?

In fact, I do know better than all scientists brought together, in some things. That is the fundamental problem of tacit knowledge in complexity science – you can’t know everything everywhere. Only by connecting people through systems of individual action do you bring their total knowledge into one system. Appealing to authority is what creates disasters.

Comment on Review of Home by Yann-Arthus Bertrand by Francois

Francois — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:58:47 +0000

Funny argument really! And calling this propaganda is surprising too. All day long you are surrounded by commercials on the streets, on radio, on tv, on the internet and even hidden in movies that try to brainwash you to consume more. And that seems ok with you? Then you see ONE movie citing scientific realities and you say it is propaganda? My intuition is that you have been brainwashed long ago and refuse to face reality by admitting that your lifestyle isn’t sustainable.

You refer to social disasters caused by fighting global warming? Well I’d love some examples of those! I don’t have to give you social disasters of problems caused by over exploiting nature as the movies is packed with examples. If you want others, look up the Aral sea disaster, Haiti, all the major rivers running dry,…

And I don’t understand why you focus only on global warming since this is only one problem the movie pinpoints. What about deforestation, water pollution, air pollution, excessive water exploitation,… Should we just continue doing that too?

Lastly you say: “Green politics fails not because it relies on facts that are incorrect, but because it relies on facts that are inherently unknowable”. So what do you know about the situation if we would just continue business as usual? Do you know better than all scientists brought together?

Comment on To walk the path of Jane Jacobs – review of What We See, Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs by Catbus

Catbus — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:48:10 +0000

I’ve been trying for years to get a trained economist — just one — to walk with me through the pages of Cities and the Wealth of Nations and either to acknowledge that Jacobs is probably right or to point out exactly where she’s wrong and why. To this day, none has ever been willing to give this book the time of day, even to debunk it.

Comment on The complex grid by Donovan Gillman

Donovan Gillman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:07:32 +0000

I still don’t understand how you propose to accommodate complex natural and service infrastructure systems in such an emergent system – will they also be sequentially aggregated and thus revolve around local generation of power and treatment of waste. Can such a process be accommodated at eh speed necessary to accommodate the rapid urbanization currently being experienced in many parts of the world?

Comment on The rules for changing rules by Donovan Gillman

Donovan Gillman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:29:38 +0000

What are the rules you speak of and are there examples – how would such rules accommodate necessary (?) ideas like water sustainability and protection of natural resources?

Comment on Don't demolish Detroit by Serrano

Serrano — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:54:04 +0000

The idea of saving cities like Detroit is a mistake. It has old infrastructure which will also need replacement. It was built on a business model that is obsolete, in a location that is obsolete, in a brutally cold region with high energy costs. The old people who remember its heyday will be dead very soon. Let it die too, plow it under and be done with it.

Comment on The Journey to Emergence by Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 02:47:20 +0000

I came across your site while searching for pictures of Le Corbusier’s hand floating over Plan Voisin. I’m a graduate student of architecture from Miami, FL and I’m in the process of writing an essay on understanding the city from a new discursive perspective as an “emergent entity.” Lately I’ve felt like I’m way out on a limb with the concept. I’m thrilled to find others with similar ideas about urbanism!

The work I’m doing now attempts to deconstruct the discourse surrounding urbanism so that the city can be theorized and discussed as emerging from a process that unfolds in space over certain amount of time. I’m applying media theory to urbanism in an effort to strip away the layers of aesthetic clutter that contemporary urban theorists use to describe the city. I’m arguing that the tendency to describe the city in terms of discrete historical and stylistic periods (in the same way we describe individual works of art and architecture) inhibits a total understanding of its history as an emergent entity.

Your site fills in all of the gaps that I’ve been trying fill. This is great!