Big streets, small streets

I came across an interesting piece on today’s CBC News. The article asks us to rethink some words and phrases we use in our daily lingo. CBC Ottawa came up with a list of words which were submitted by readers as well as some of their journalists who are Black, Indigenous and people of colour. Seeking insights from anti-racism and language experts it turned out that a number of phrases which people use in everyday dialogue can be hurtful to various groups of people for the historical and cultural context of such terms.

Of these phrases, the term “ghetto” and “inner city” caught my attention greatly. As the article states:

[…] terms like ghetto and inner city grew out of the industrial revolution in North America. The word ghetto also has a painful historical root in Europe during the Holocaust, and was likely derived from Jewish settlements in Italy centuries ago. Meanwhile, from the late 1900s onwards, political rhetoric and media representation showed suburbs as pleasant, quiet and gentle areas, while inner city was seen as dangerous and risky (CBC Ottawa, 2021).

This enchantment of the suburbs and the tensions between city and the suburbs remind me of Paul L. Knox’s Metroburbia, USA (2008). The American Dream, as writer and historian James Truslow Adams coins in The Epic of America (1931), is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone. In depicting metroburbia—a fragmented mixtures of employment and residential settings, combining urban and suburban characteristics—Knox further notes that the entire residential fabric of metroburbia rests on the American Dream, founded on the promise of ever-increasing levels of material consumption, the expectation of single-family home ownership, the accumulation of wealth, and systematic upward social mobility through ingenuity and hard work (Knox 2008, 132).

There are numerous and various causes of suburban development; looking beyond what contribute to suburban development (the causes) Knox seeks to explore the why—why do these causes lead to the rise in suburban development. Placing human beings as the centre of the why Knox identifies self-awareness as the key force that interacts with the causes of contemporary suburban development. Self-awareness, in Knox’s words, is a state of mind as well as a commodity. With signs of new materialism appearing everywhere, people want nice things—things that act as symbols of style and distinctiveness; things that range from imported mineral water, designer clothes, expensive makeovers, to houses and cottages. With the emergence of the new economy that is based on digital technologies, economic, and cultural globalisation, new bourgeoisie and new petit bourgeoisie quickly emerged and gained significant economic influence.

To the class fraction generated by the new economy, the reenchanted suburbs proves to be the enchantment; an enchanted suburbia house feels right and in Knox words, is the right “stuff”. House, in any case, is more than a place for home, it is a medium in which clear statement about the owners themselves and their lifestyles could be pronounced. Material consumption hence gains yet another role—a role in the fulfillment of dreams, images, and pleasures. With the rise of the new role of material consumption and a rising emphasis on the ideological principles of houses, suburban homes and patterns of home-related consumption become a powerful social processes in which owning suburban house and shaping the house mold people’s consciousness of place, identity, and power.

Perhaps it is this enchantment of the suburbs, embedded with the ever-rising of materialism and its implication on social status, that further contributes to the decades-long divide between suburbs and inner cities.

The CBC article says that ghettos and inner cities are typically seen to be places where less refined people live—people who aren’t up to date culturally, development-wise. Thus using the terms “ghettos” or “inner cities” implies a negative connotation toward people of a certain socio-economic class (often associated with racialised groups) — typically those who have recently immigrated and often move to large metropolis areas and not suburbs.

If the streets of the ghetto are small streets, streets of the non-ghetto parts of the city could be the big streets. If the streets of the suburbia are big streets, streets in the city could then be small streets. This complex and fluid nature perhaps signals a time for us to rethink not only the use of phrases but also to realise the social, historical, and political context that give connotations to phrases that seem evermore quotidian.

Night, darkness, and precarity

In “Because the Night Belongs to Lovers: Occupying the Time of Precarity”, Sharma (2013) uses Occupy Durham as an example in reminding us that precarity is not just experienced as an economic reality and as it has been argued, women and other social groups have long been precarious without recognition. Sharma considers “temporal insurgency” as the possibility of a new political strategy. In recognising the interplay between differential lived time and political struggle, one can then re-think precarity and re-strategise social movements so as to avoid reproducing patriarchal temporality.

In acknowledging that the night is experienced differentially and by contrasting the Occupy Durham case with the Occupy Wall Street case, Sharma calls for the need to strengthen the link between shared precarity to the night and political struggle. Reflecting on Sharma’s accounts where different social groups are put to the foreground, I would like to propose another add-on layer to how the night is experienced differentially. I propose that darkness and its associated precarity is also being experienced differentially based on the hours [of the darkness-ness].

What I mean here is that different hours in the darkness may evoke differential experiences on precarity. For example, based on my own reflections and experiences, I found New York city subway more precarious at 22h than at say 24h or 1h or even 2h. My observation was that at 22h, the off-work-going-straight-home crowd was gone (at home already) while the hanging-out-after-work crowd was still scattering at different places in the city hence the subway felt emptier and this emptiness evoked precarity.  Once the hanging out crowd starts their way home at around mid-night, the subway is again filled with people.

Another example is my experience with campus in darkness. Being a student in the city of Philadelphia, I had heard numerous horror stories associated with nights and especially women alone in the night. Walking back from the 24/7 library to my place in the darkness, I noticed how different hours in the dark produce differing levels of precarity. At 4h or 5h while the campus was still in darkness, the space felt rather calm and quiet whereas at 1h to 3h one would encounter all sorts of people and at times some unexpected events. Based on my personal accounts and observations, I would like to posit that adding a lens focusing on the darkness’ hourly differentials when studying night-time spaces could be potentially interesting.

Surf and turf: what the city of Montréal offers

An afternoon stroll at the Cité-du-Havre neighbourhood in Montréal presented me with a surf and turf feast. Walking towards Dieppe Park I encountered people—not those who dressed like me with shorts and a hoodie—but those in wetsuits or colourful bermuda shorts, carrying full-sized surfboards. I happen to be a curious person so I followed them into a green space, passing through a 20-meters long segment with “No Trespassing” signs onto a trail next to the rapids. The trail has several signs that say the City of Montréal which lessened my worry about the earlier trespassing. Nonetheless at this point trespassing or not was no longer an issue at stake. My attention was fully drawn to those surfers who were already catching the waves on the St. Lawrence River.

This is urban surfing and I enjoyed what I saw. I like to think of water as an extension of urban space. The activities happening on the water also represent a unique human-space relationship. Surfers appropriate the urban space as they maneuver the waves. It was later that I learnt (from an all-season surfer there) that this particular spot has four waves. As he pointed towards the waves I imagined those waves as natural designs on the water and as surfers paddle in and out of the currents, perform with the standing wave, and ride with various sorts of surfboards they are concurrently initiating a dialogue with the water space. In this sense the surfer, the surfboard, the waves, and the techniques together engage in the interaction with the urban space—the water.

The surfing spot I was at is known as the Habitat 67 surf. The trail next to the rapids is adjacent to the Habitat 67 housing complex. Habitat 67 is an experimental urban residential complex designed by Israeli-born architect Moshe Safdie. It was designed as the Canadian Pavilion for the World Exposition of 1967 with the intention of exploring experimental solutions for high-quality housing in dense urban environments. Habitat 67 was constructed from 354 identical and completely prefabricated modules (referred to as “boxes”) stacked in various combinations and connected by steel cables. Safdie aimed to create a series of properties with their own identities hence each housing unit featured its own roof garden and could be accessed from an external "street". Today Habitat 67 remains an iconic building in Montréal.

That afternoon I had a feast. Toward the St. Lawrence River I savoured the surf—the surfers and their performativity with the water space; toward the land I savoured the turf—the iconic building which shows and tells stories and ideologies of the past as well as the present.

Figure 1. The trail next to the rapids borders Habitat 67. This trail leads to the spot where surfers launch. Image source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Figure 2. Habitat 67 housing complex. Image source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Figure 3. The surfers on the St. Lawrence River. It was truly an amazing experience to see real surfers in the middle of the city. Image source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Figure 4. Surfing the Habitat 67 river wave. Surfing is a unique addition to the cityscape. Source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Additional reading

The Unexpected Benefits of Surfing (BBC, 2021)

Of borders and islands

American Dirt was one of my summer reads. Written by American author Jeanine Cummins it tells the fictional story of a Mexican mother and son’s journey to the border after a cartel murders the rest of the family. The story covers various themes, from the love and strength of a mother for her son, cartels’ geographical spaces of power, the potential risks journalists face to the hardships migrants endure and the sacrifices and choices one made to keep the family safe.

The story begins in Acapulco, Mexico. The opening chapters depict how a tourist city and its inhabitants find themselves in a tension with the presence of the growing narcotic power. Acapulco is one of Mexico’s coastal tourist destinations—until violence scares most of the tourists away. Many of its inhabitants, like Lydia the protagonist, not only suffer financially from the decrease in tourists but also feel the quotidian suffocation—torn between wanting to know if quieter streets mean less violence and insulating themselves from the ugliness of the narco violence.

The falling apart of the city leads to the path of migration. Forced to leave Acapulco, the protagonist takes her son on the journey to the border. It is then I learn the meaning of city to migrants. City means hope. The sight of a city signals numerous possibilities—the geographical proximity to the North, the shelter of the Church or migrant centre, food and water provided by those kind souls, and the encounter and information exchange with other migrants.

The story of American Dirt reminds me of the book I read for my Latin American Studies course at UIUC many years ago. Tunnel Kids by Lawrence Taylor and Maeve Hickey. I remember how much I enjoyed the book. I was fascinated by the story of twin cities, Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona. At the U.S.-Mexico border and beneath the streets in the drainage tunnels, tunnel kids, as referred by the authors, make a place out of their own struggles and survivals.

I am very drawn to issues of border. The idea of crossing a “line” and entering a different country while still sharing the common ground fascinates me. In the years I spent in Philly and New York for every family visit to Toronto I chose bus as my ride—even when sometimes airplane tickets were significantly cheaper. In this 13 hours of bus ride I got to pass through many different cities. I got to see city at its dawn and its dusk. I got to see streets, buildings, and people. I enjoyed watching and observing. All the way until I hit the U.S.-Canada border I found it intriguing how by crossing the border—which is both visible and invisible—the nationality of the land changes. Though sharing the common ground and similar geographical features different cities and different countries denote differences in culture and society. This, in turn, leads to the observed differences in the human-space interaction and relationship.

Taiwan is my home country. The island of Taiwan. Perhaps it is this—being raised on an island without land borders—that cultivates my interest toward borders, border-crossing and the stories of and around borders.

Pocket libraries in the city

I was thrilled last month when I learnt that the school library has reopened. On a Monday morning in August I went to the library to pick up the books I reserved; the librarian informed me that the library has reopened. I remember asking her, with my eyes wide open, “Does that mean I can come at anytime and check all the books I want from the shelf?” She gave me a big smile and said yes. She also said that it has been too long, “18 months,” she said.

The pandemic has brought changes to many things and in various aspects. One thing I missed a lot was the library visit. Contactless pick-up allowed us to have access to books but the whole library experience was no longer the same. I missed the access to the library environment. It was then I realised how the physicality of libraries mattered so much to me. I want access to books but I also long for access to libraries. I miss walking back and forth the library aisles, looking for books on the shelf, and occasionally, peeking at the books others picked up. Many of my library visits ended with more books than planned—though I always brought a ‘books to check out’ list the actual library visit often changed the game. In the act of looking for the books I had in mind, I also got attracted by books that were on the same (or near-by) shelf. I also enjoyed finding the library carts, scanning through books that had been checked out, returned, but hadn’t made their way back to the shelf. In searching for books I found more books and more nice surprises. This library experience is very different from contactless pick-up in which you only got what you asked for.

During this period of library closure, the little libraries in the public serve to alleviate my longing for the library experience. One can find this book-sharing box at various parts in the city. The take a book, leave a book movement has grown in popularity over the past years. Advocates believe that little free libraries improve access to books, help tackle low literacy rates and encourage community building and creativity.

Despite some critics facing these little free libraries (the main critique was on the issue of branding and trademarking the word ‘library’) , I enjoy spotting these pocket libraries in cities. I feel excitement at the first sight of the book-sharing box—look, there is a little library that I can visit—then I feel excitement by the fact that I am allowed to pick and hold a book and turn its pages. Pocket libraries are hidden treasures in the city; you don’t know when and where you’d spot them and you won’t know what books await until you visit the little library.

Figure 1. The free little library located outside Limestone Organic Creamery. Scones and books are the perfect pair for teatime. Image source: Judy Chen. Kingston, 2021.

Figure 2. An old backyard BBQ turned book-sharing box. I found this little library on a residential driveway while on my bike. Image source: Judy Chen. Pointe-Claire, 2021.  

Figure 3. The Free Books shelf located outside Phoenix Books on Sherbrooke. The time when I went for photos they only had one book left on the shelf. Image source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Doughnut in the City: From GDP to the Doughnut

My undergraduate major was in Agricultural Economics. For years agriculture-related themes have taken up a larger proportion of my attention (and interest) than economic-related issues. The term Doughnut Economics, I have to admit, grabbed my attention because of the word doughnut. How can economics, a hard-core, rigid field, be shaped, represented, and interpreted as doughnut, a cheerful and colourful treat?

English economist Kate Raworth shows us how. The concept of Doughnut Economics was first published in 2012 with the aim of offering a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century. The Doughnut calls for meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. The Doughnut’s inner ring depicts the social foundation which sets out the basics of life on which no one should be left falling short. The outer ring represents ecological ceiling of which humanity should put no further pressure beyond the planetary boundaries.

The social foundation ensures that no one is left falling short on life’s essentials while the ecological ceiling ensures that humanity does not overshoot planetary boundaries. The doughnut comes in between these two boundaries—the doughnut-shaped space lies between the boundaries represent an ecologically safe and socially just space in which humanity can thrive. Raworth emphasises on the urgent need to shift the mindset from endless growth (i.e. the GDP) to thriving in balance—the Doughnut.

The Doughnut concept has been applied to cities to reimagine and remake the urban space.  Earlier this month the City of Barcelona in Spain announced its plan in embracing the tools and concepts of Doughnut Economics to guide actions to address the combat on climate emergency.  

Raworth sets out the seven ways to think like a 21st century economist and posits that when the goal is to achieve human prosperity in a flourishing web of life the economy should be best thought of and drawn like a doughnut.