CityStates: Commentary on an Urban World

Afghanistan Torture Allegations: Are We Worthy of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights?

In April of 2005, the Federal Government of then-Prime Minister Paul Martin authorized $100 million towards the establishment of The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and two years later current Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced it would be first national museum to be built outside of the National Capital Region in Ontario. Now under construction in Winnipeg, the Museum promises to become a "a centre of learning where Canadians and people from around the world can engage in discussion and commit to taking action against hate and oppression."

The significance of the museum and its potential impact on national and international human rights discourse is such that recently, Arthur Mauro, founder of the Centre for Peace and Justice at the University of Manitoba stated his belief that Winnipeg could become the Geneva for the 21st Century, as a centre for peace and cooperation.

However, Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin's disturbing allegations that bureaucrats and other officials in the the Harper government -- perhaps even the Prime Minister's office itself -- may be complicit in torture and war crimes, threaten to expose as fraudulent Canada's commitment to human rights in general and its newest museum in particular.

The allegations are shocking: that Canadian troops turned over all of their prisoners to Afghan security forces for whom torture was "standard operating procedure." Moreover, Canadian troops were widely known for capturing many times more prisoners than their American counterparts, and that many of these were not "high-value" combatants but rather, according to Colvin, "just local people: farmers; truck drivers; tailors, peasants – random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time...In other words, we detained, and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people." The Globe and Mail coverage, interestingly, omits Colvin's concluding statement: "Complicity in torture is a war crime."

Clearly these allegations must be independently investigated. If confirmed, they represent a profound betrayal of values Canadians have long held to be universal, and, most distressingly, principles that we have thought helped to define us as a nation and distinguish us from those we fought against -- namely the Taliban -- as well as the shameful history of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

That Canadian government officials would ignore, discourage and apparently seek to cover up Canadian complicity in torture and other human rights abuses is appalling and shameful. If those being accused of these crimes are not soundly and convincingly cleared of these allegations, or else appropriately punished, they will have undermined every positive thing Canada has declared itself committed to in Afghanistan and will probably destroy much of whatever trust remains in our forces there. They will also certainly embolden the Taliban and place our soldiers in greater danger.

However, this episode could have an even more lasting and shameful legacy. At this moment, the foundations of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights are being constructed at the Forks; in 2012 this fabulous building and the inspiring institution it contains will be operational. Yet in the eyes of the world Canada will have been exposed as a committer of war crimes, an abbettor to torture and atrocity. Regardless of official statements and millions of dollars in support of the Museum, our country will have shown itself to be unfit to build such a noble institution.

The only way we as a nation can show ourselves worthy of the Museum is to follow Colvin's accusations wherever they lead, investigate them to the full extent of our abilities and hold those responsible to justice. As citizens of this nation, we too must hold our elected leaders accountable; to dismiss this as another mere "scandal" that will eventually go away to be replaced by another will not do. To do anything less than a full accounting makes as all culpable as Canadians for what has been committed in our name.

For Winnipeg to truly become a Geneva for the 21st Century, all of us -- Winnipeggers and Canadians alike -- must face these allegations honestly. Only then can we prove to ourselves and the world that we are in fact civilized enough to warrant being home to a Museum for Human Rights.

If not, then in the eyes of the world the Museum will likely be seen as a monument to our hypocrisy.

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Will New Cabinet Position Give Housing a Boost in Manitoba?

For years, housing has been the proverbial political football: officially abandoned as a Federal responsibility in 1994, it has been left up to the provinces to address as best they can. However, with relatively few resources to bear on the challenges facing Canada's aging housing stock, the decay of the stock; conversion to condos; and a lack of new rental construction have all taken their toll on housing affordability, with homelessness declared a "national disaster" back in 1998, with almost no progress since.

These problems have been especially acute in Manitoba and in its capital city Winnipeg. As an older city with shifting economic fortunes Winnipeg has long been a slow-growth centre with an aging housing stock and one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country. At the same time it is a magnet for Aboriginal persons migrating from reserves, where housing conditions are largely deplorable and unhealthy, as the Free Press' current and disturbing series on tuberculosis has revealed. However, reserve conditions are a federal responsibility, and the province's approach to housing policy has been muted and fragmented, given the portfolio's burial in the department of Family Services, while housing renewal was financed out of the Neighbourhoods Alive! strategy in Intergovernmental Affairs.

Now, some of this fragmentation may be ending. On Tuesday November 3rd, Premier Greg Selinger announced his new cabinet. Alongside the standard shuffling, Selinger has instituted a Department of Housing and Community Development, overseen by Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross. Significantly, the Department will also be responsible for Neighbourhoods Alive!, Community Places (formerly in Culture, Heritage and Tourism) and co-operative development.

Having one Department now responsible for housing and community renewal programs has long been sought by housing advocates and should give a pronounced boost to Manitoba's ability to address at least some of the province's housing woes.

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Deep Time and Spectacle Collide at Niagara Falls

The words, “carved” into faux rock, shout out “Niagara's Fury”. And as you get closer to the edge, the unfathamable power of the water becomes ever more palpable – roaring in your ears, reverberating in your body. Once you are at the railing and see the massive surge flowing past you and over the edge, a delicious touch of panic arises. It become hard to imagine what it must have been like to have been the first to install these railings and stone walls, so close are they to so lethal a force of nature.

Yet in contemplating the three magnificent falls and their millenia-old purpose of wearing away the cliffs to dust on their way to the Atlantic, I sense no fury. There is no anger, no malice, no revenge in Niagara's heart. Anthropomorphizing nature is always a mistake, for the Earth is incapable of such small-mindedness. There is only the timeless quest for equilibrium -- as here at Niagara Falls the waters find their lowest point as part of the global, eternal hydrologic cycle.

Where one does see fury, however, is in the assault upon the senses that is the modern city of Niagara Falls. To say that it is filled with tourist traps would be trite in the extreme. It is worse than that: much of it resembles no “city” I've ever seen, so thoroughly has its core been denuded of any functions that might be of use to its own residents.

One can, however, see traces of what the city once was, and indeed might have been if we lived in a more moderate culture. Several of the main tourist streets are narrow, with most buildings adjacent to the sidewalks, rather than behind parking lots. And quite a few of those buildings appear to be original, hundred-year old houses and former dry goods stores and offices.  There is still, almost beyond telling, the echo of the charm and grace that horse-drawn Niagara residents must have once known.

However, these structures are now festooned with an appalling array of junk screaming to passersby about whatever low-rent “attractions” await within. And if this abuse of the cornea wasn't sufficient, almost every business also has inane recorded voices shouting at pedestrians as well.

The upper “downtown” is admittedly less garish, but is almost more depressing. The location of a number of Vegas-inspired hotels and a casino, the district is spectacularly soulless and lacks any visible function not tied to the tourism industry. There is little in the way of services or conventional stores, to say nothing of residences.

Meanwhile, the actual historic downtown on Queen street, many blocks away from the falls and hence the centre of tourism gravity, is undergoing an exciting arts-led renaissance after decades of abandonment. It is a wonderfully charming street filled with galleries and gift shops, and their owners were warm and bravely determined in their commitment to the street. Yet many desolate and empty storefronts remain.

This is because the action of course is the falls, and every business does its best to associate themselves with the massive torrent regardless of their actual proximity to them. Indeed, a number of businesses shamelessly photoshop themselves into absurd adjacency to the falls in their advertising. The pace of development is now appropriately, ”furious”, including a convention Centre and 5 more hotels.

Why this type of city building – which is by turns glitzy, tawdry, tacky and ghastly – should be desired at all here is a bit of a mystery to me.

I may be a grumpy middle-aged man with no sense of fun, but I don't get why, when one of the wonders of the world is at your feet, would anyone wish to go see a wax museum, a museum of criminals, or a haunted house (of which there appear to be at least three)? Unsatisfied or disinclined to appropriately respect what we're seeing, why do we crave more spectacle still?

If, as I say, ours were a more moderate culture, the city of Niagara Falls could have been a very different place. Were the Falls in Denmark or Sweden for example, can you imagine either country turning their nearby cities into cheap theme parks to draw attention to them? Livingston, Zambia overlooks Victoria Falls, and still retains its colonial-era charm.

The reason for this rotten urbanism – which is by all accounts even more excessive on the American side -- may lie at the heart of our culture, and its response to something that is, in turn, at the heart of Niagara Falls, something that is a bit difficult to comprehend, let alone face.

The “deep time” on display is profound. Scientists believe that the Niagara has been wearing away these cliffs for at least 10,000 years, or about as long as human beings have engaged in settlement-building. So on a geologic timescale, they're pretty recent, and, catastrophic climate change notwithstanding, they should continue to do so for thousands of years more, until they have eroded the cliffs to the shores of Lake Erie. That nature operates on such time scales, with no regard whatever for our little lives is – or at least should be – humbling. A modest people wholly comfortable with their own mortality and insignificance within the context of geologic time would draw wisdom from such a spectacle.

But not us. As we snap pictures and buy crappy souvenirs we are probably dimly aware that the powers on display are completely beyond us. We know we are doomed to exist for but an infinitesimal microsecond of the falls' existence, but the cognitive dissonance such knowledge instills in us causes us to turn away and seek something to distract us from that knowledge.

I wonder if this is what lies behind this city, with some of the most furious anti-urbanism I've ever seen. It was a relief to leave this place. The charm of Queen Street and the lovely people I met there notwithstanding, no city has left me feeling more depressed.

The memory of the falls, on the other hand, I will gladly return to for the rest of my brief life.

 

By Michael Dudley (including photos)

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Indicators for Democracy?

The Globe and Mail reported that a new study shows that communities whose residents demonstrate a higher degree of emotional attachment have higher GDPs:

"researchers found perceptions of economic prosperity are not the leading drivers of attachment feelings among residents. Instead, most of the 14,000 respondents rated social offerings (such as entertainment and other venues that promote interconnectivity among residents), openness (acceptance of diversity) and community aesthetics as the top qualities that influenced decisions on where to anchor their lives and careers."

None of this should come as a surprise to readers of Richard Florida. What is interesting is that the authors are attempting to draw a correlation (if not causation) between what are normally considered social intangibles and that golden standard of economic progress, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Except that critics have for decades been criticizing the GDP as an invalid measure, citing its inability to measure social well-being, health and quality of life. Indeed, it's often joked that a car accident victim with a heart condition whose going through a divorce is a hero to the economy for all the contributions they would make to the GDP through doctor and lawyer fees.

This is why a number of alternatives have been proposed over the years, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, which according to the Redefining Progress website

"adjusts for factors such as income distribution, adds factors such as the value of household and volunteer work, and subtracts factors such as the costs of crime and pollution...If today’s economic activity depletes the physical resource base available for tomorrow, then it is not creating well-being; rather, it is borrowing it from future generations. The GDP counts such borrowing as current income. The GPI, by contrast, counts the depletion or degradation of wetlands, forests, farmland, and nonrenewable minerals (including oil) as a current cost."

Essentially, the GPI seeks to deduct from the balance sheet many of the events, expenditures and externatlities that the GDP considers key elements of growth. Dissatisfaction with traditional GDP measures are such -- and have become part of the political discourse -- that this past week France's (right-leaning) President Sarkozy asked two Nobel-winning economists to produce yet another alternative to Gross Domestic Product on the grounds that

"current GDP statistics totally disregard questions of distribution. Policy makers addicted to GDP typically divide a nation’s domestic product by population to come up with a 'per capita GDP' — and then use this per capita to rate how well off different nations may be.But this per capita average can be incredibly misleading...If income is rapidly concentrating at the top of a society’s economic ladder, per capita GDP averages can show a 'rising' standard of living for that society even if incomes for great numbers of people at the bottom are sinking."

That this long-brewing revolt against mainstream economics is itself becoming mainstream is an indication that many of the tenets of classical liberalism (i.e., free enterprise and minimal government) have been discredited. While not everyone may agree with Michael Moore's contention that capitalism is evil, few would argue that our institutions are not just in crisis but have fuelled crisis, created it and as Naomi Klein argues in The Shock Doctrine, have profited off of it.  

Perhaps this is why novelist Arundhati Roy' observed this week in a profound essay that democracy itself is not just in crisis but has been completely denuded of meaning, its every principle honoured in the breach rather than the observance:

"The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasized into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximizing profit?"

Part of what has been "done" to democracy relates as she notes to its institutions; and a principal foundation of our institutions is information, data, knowledge. If what we choose to measure is premised not on values related to human well-being but instead to what Lewis Mumford called "unbuilding" forces, then it can be of little wonder that democracy is withering.      

Which is why I would be curious to see a study like the one referred to at the beginning of this article that would seek to correlate attachment to community a set of indicators more in line with the GPI than the GDP.

By Michael Dudley

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The Parking Problem

In Winnipeg, the number of commuters who drive downtown everyday has a noticeable effect on the urban form of the downtown.  For around eight hours a day, the cars of workers sit idly in parking stalls that have been built for that one solitary purpose.  After 6:00pm, though, the lots stand empty, and the space is wasted.  Can these parking lots be seen as something else?

September 18^th is 2009’s PARK(ing) Day, an annual event focusing on the designation of urban space as being for cars rather than people.  As the website puts it:

“Originally created by Rebar, San Francisco art and design collective, PARK(ing) Day is an annual, one-day, global event where artists, activists, and citizens independently but simultaneously temporarily transform metered parking spots into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public parks.”

Events such as these challenge us to view the urban form of our downtowns differently.  Commuters require the infrastructure to allow for them to live and work in separate locations. Roads, freeways, and, ultimately, parking facilities are all required.  This is especially relevant in Winnipeg, where surface parking lots are all too common in our downtown.

How common are surface parking lots in Winnipeg’s core? This summer, the University of Winnipeg’s student newspaper, the Uniter published a letter from artist Kristin Nelson in the annual “urban issue”.  In her letter, she described her recent pieces that used Google Earth to create composite images of Winnipeg’s downtown.  The images, entitled “Parking” and “No Parking” are collages of all of the surface parking lots and areas without surface parking of downtown Winnipeg respectively.  What is immediately evident when comparing the two images is the sheer amount of space that Winnipeg’s downtown has devoted to surface parking.

Other downtowns do not have nearly the same percentage of space devoted to parking as Winnipeg.  In Birch and Wachter’s 2008 book Growing Greener Cities, it is said that over 66% of Manhattan island would be covered in parking spaces if New Yorkers had the same level of car ownership and dependence as other North American cities.  This is not the case in all other cities, as some have been making strides to help remedy the overabundance of parking stalls.

An article in the Globe and Mail this week discusses a proposed condo development in Toronto that is 42 storeys tall, has 315 units, and zero private parking spaces.  Aside from nine spaces reserved for a car-share cooperative, residents of this condo development will have to rely on walking, cycling or public transit to get around.  Due to downtown Toronto’s density, and their robust public transportation system, this experiment could be successful in that context.  Whether or not Winnipeg could handle such an ambitious project, though, is unknown.

Winnipeg is ultimately a car-dominated city.  Despite a few innovative developments along Waterfront Drive, the vast majority of the urban development over the past few decades has been in single detached suburban housing.  With the recent expansion of Kenaston Boulevard announced, the need for more parking will continue into the foreseeable future.  Until we can see these places as more than storage for our cars, the urban form of the city will continue to suffer.

Brodie Lister

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Are we "Hard-Wired" for Google?

Emily Yoffe writing at Slate.com describes how our impulse to Google, Tweet and go on Facebook is rooted in our biological need to seek:

"For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing...our constant Internet scrolling is remodeling our brains to make it nearly impossible for us to give sustained attention to a long piece of writing. Like the lab rats, we keep hitting "enter" to get our next fix...if humans are seeking machines, we've now created the perfect machines to allow us to seek endlessly."

This is one more reason why the traditional library -- composed of actual books and journals -- is more necessary than ever. Genuine contemplation and synthesis are best achieved through the sort of sustained, focused study that books have given us for centuries. Furthermore, the dedicated physical space of the library can foster this contemplation through the opportunity to collaborate with others, enabled by all the tools -- virtual and printed -- at the library's disposal.  

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The Legacy of Winnipeg's Water Utility Decision

On July 22nd, Winnipeg's City Council -- as part of the final session before the summer break -- managed to approve three highly controversial motions. One arranged a land swap to facilitate the development of the rapid transit corridor, but opened up for development a beloved green space in northern Fort Garry to perhaps thousands of townhouse units. The second approved the demolition of a building in the jealously protected and historically significant Exchange District. Both of these proposals were passionately opposed by both members of the public and key Council members.

But by far the most contentious issue was the vote to transform the city's present water and waste department into an "arm's length" not-for-profit utility that would work in partnership with the private sector to upgrade infrastructure and provide water services to outlying communities. It would also be responsible for garbage and recycling pickup. In other words, it would take over four of the most important functions a municipality can provide. The proposal was initially approved by the Executive Policy Committee on July 16th.

On July 21st, over 200 protesters gathered outside city hall  waving placards, having been moved by the written campaigns of such groups as the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Council of Canadians and the Provincial Council of Women. The Winnipeg Sun argued the following day that the protesters were "ideological nutbars", "lefty" and "anti progress." Far from privatizing the city's water supply, the paper argued that

"what's being proposed is a 100% city-owned utility run by a board of directors that would operate at arm's-length of the city. The city would still own all the sewer and water treatment plants and its assets. However, a board of directors would run the utility outside of the city bureaucracy and partner with private-sector firms that would act as service providers in a number of areas."

However, even the Sun concedes that,"There are still a lot of details to be worked out."

Indeed. As reported in the Globe and Mail, there a great deal of confusion over the actual details of the proposal:

"So what exactly is the water fight all about? For the past several weeks, residents have packed community meetings, scrutinized a business plan and crammed the gallery of City Hall trying to figure that out. It's proved a confusing endeavour...the reigning grievance is the muddled language used in the proposal itself. 'It's very unclear,' said Josh Brandon, a co-ordinator for Resource Conservation Manitoba. 'What exactly are we signing on for?' Even the mayor confesses that the public pitch has been vague. 'The wording was very confusing,' he said. 'I'll be the first to admit that.'"

The same article explains that this ambiguity is helping to fuel deep concerns over where the proposal could lead: "they fear conversion of Winnipeg to a private-sector partnership could set off a cascading effect across the country. Such a trend could create a continental market for water services."

However, the paper's lead editorial on July 21st tried to allay such fears, while at the same time acknowledging the basic ambiguity of the proposal:

"The arm's-length utility offers a real hope of greater [financial] consistency. The idea of a private-sector partner is not fully developed, but does not seem to amount to a privatization, as opponents claim."

In a clearly self-conscious move -- and in effort to stave off opposition -- the City of Winnipeg's website headlines its page devoted to the issue by calling it a "City-Owned Utility", where it is described as an

"improved public utility and new arms-length management model [that] will deliver increased protection for taxpayers and the environment.  City-owned and controlled, its goal is to further protect and improve these vital public services with a comprehensive plan to ensure everyone wins."

This is a highly optimistic statement given the fierce opposition the proposal faced, and it is going to take a great deal of evidence to convince many Winnipeggers that they are, indeed, "winning" with the new utility.

But therein lies the biggest problem with the Council's decision: There was simply not enough time for such evidence to be presented.

The new utility may well be a great idea. But the information that was publicly available was confusing and contradictory, and virtually everyone connected with it from the Mayor to the protesters admitted as much. Councillors Russ Wyatt and Jenny Gerbasi argued that more time was needed to consider the proposal and that the vote should be postponed until Council resumed in September, but this motion was defeated.

The problem with this decision extends beyond the actual merits of the proposal. There have been enough decisions made at city hall in Winnipeg's recent history that have been criticized for a lack of transparency and public input. Now this decision casts something of a pall on the current "SpeakUp Winnipeg" planning process, which is being promoted as a new, inclusive and transparent initiative leading to the production of the new "Our Winnipeg" plan. 

It has also fuelled an organized response in the form of a new citizen's group, The Winnipeg Citizens' Coalition which has been formed to offer a "Shadow Council" and a "Council Watch" and, in general, make the work of the Council more transparent whether it wants to be or not.

This, I believe, is just one indication that the utility decision will have a significant legacy regardless of how well the utility ends up working. The hurried nature of the decision -- made seemingly with undue haste and with apparent disregard for the opinions of the majority of Winnipeggers -- will render future decision-making in Council that much more problematic and fraught with controversy.

By Michael Dudley

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Can Civilization Survive? And if so...What Would That Mean?

The 2009 State of the Future Report -- a Millenium Project co-production of UNESCO, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation -- has been released, and it contains a grim warning: that "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilization will collapse". According to the Independent,

"Although the future has been looking better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. Half the world could face violence and unrest due to severe unemployment combined with scarce water, food and energy supplies and the cumulative effects of climate change.And the authors of the report...set out a number of emerging environmental security issues. 'The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change – ranging from changes in weather patterns to loss of livelihoods and disappearing states – has unprecedented implications for political and social stability.'"

The Millenium Project is not alone. James Lovelock writes in his new book The Vanishing Face of Gaia that it's too late to do anything about climate change, that cap-and-trade schemes are a scam and that humanity will be "culled" by billions of souls in this century. He does believe, however, that some form of urban civilization will survive:

"Those who survive will be responsible for maintaining a high-tech, low-impact, low-energy society advanced enough to keep the flame of progress alive but small and smart enough to carefully husband what arable land remains. Lovelock guesses the rump human race will cluster around a few temperate islands in the far northern hemisphere, including his native U.K. He believes that if emergency preparations are made in time—he compares the present moment to 1939—and if the worst-case scenarios of geopolitical conflict are avoided—namely resource scrambles leading to global thermonuclear war—then something resembling a modern and even urban lifestyle could await the survivors."

If the Millenium Project and Lovelock are correct -- that "much" of civilization will collapse, but that some form of civilization will survive -- then it would seem pretty essential that we start thinking now about what that would mean. What would such a civilization look like? How would it be structured? How would it function? Most importantly, how would it avoid the sheer unsustainability of the one that preceded it?

Roger Osborne, in his 2006 book, Civilization: A New History of the Western World, argues early on that we err when we equate the term civilization only with the "positive" aspects of human societies, such as our arts and cultural productions. Any discussion of civilization must also include in his view the less savoury aspects, such as the will to power and militarism. In this he echoes Lewis Mumford, who, in his 1961 book The City in History, acknowledged these violent “unbuilding” tendencies inherent in metropolitan civilization. However, Mumford stressed that the will to dominate and exterminate that originally came with the institution of kingship and forms of political hierarchy have always coexisted with life-affirming reciprocal relationships, spiritual aspirations, arts and learning. These contradictions are expressed in the web of our social, religious, economic, political and spatial arrangements.

As such, a "post-apocalyptic" civilization will need to be a self-conscious one. It will need to re-evaluate what civilization is going to mean when all those values and accomplishments we cherish as life-affirming face unimaginable pressure under the exigencies of crisis. For, under such conditions of crisis, it will be all-too easy to lose our tenuous grasp on those things that will be most needed to save us -- and make our societies worth preserving.

For a glimpse of what I'm talking about, one could do worse than consider the new book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. It's a postmodern "mash-up" of Jane Austen's classic novel and a zombie apocalypse. While it is on the surface a patently ridiculous proposition, Grahame-Smith noted in a recent interview that

"Many of Austen’s characters are rather like zombies...They carry on single-mindedly in their bubbles of immense wealth and privilege, no matter what’s going on around them. They pride themselves on discipline and politeness and repression and subservience. These people simply carry on with their gossip and romances and manners and balls, despite the fact that people are being gored and eaten alive. You get the sense that they would act the same way even if the rest of England was falling apart around them. In this version, it just so happens that England IS falling apart around them."

As a result of these conditions, Austen's characters recede from recognition. Despite their impeccable manners, fine speeches and good breeding, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy are brutal and skilled killers, inured to death and mayhem. At one point Liza even thinks to herself that the occasional slaughter of innocents is of no concern, as long as zombies are being dispatched.

As a thought-experiment, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies illustrates the tension between the veneer of civilization and the threat of calamity. Against such threats, a civilization must respond, but to do so in such a way that it does not become coarsened, cruel and lose sight of those very things that make it worth preserving.

No "rump" of civilization (as Lovelock puts it) will long endure if all it seeks to preserve are the material productions of civilization. An entirely new set of civilizational processes -- including non-exploitative social and environmental relations -- will be required. 

By Michael Dudley

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On the Idea of a Private Park as an Integral Component of a High Rise Residential Apartment Complex

In previous posts I have set out our inherent need for contact with nature and the deficient arrangements with which the forces of urban development have attempted to meet this need in high-density urban areas.  I would like now to propose one means of creating a closer tie between humanity and factors in our spiritual bond with the natural environment whose presence, whether near at hand or at a remote distance is felt by human beings only by their impact on our sense of sight, sound, taste, or smell.  Accordingly I draw your attention to the architectural drawing below. 

It is the ground floor plan of a high-rise apartment building complex conceived by the architectural firm of Praxis Architecture Inc. of Esquimalt, B.C.  The striking feature of this ground floor plan is that it contains as an integral component of the high-rise residential structure, a built-in private park belonging to the residents in common.

The site of this architectural concept is located in the Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt, a local government authority whose area of jurisdiction lies in a fairly narrow strip along the eastern boundary of the City of Victoria, B.C.  The property on which the design is based is privately owned.  The owner, however, is unaware that it has served as the hypothetical site for this imaginative development concept.  It was selected by the architects for this exercise because they are located in Esquimalt and familiar with its development potential, but are also aware that there are sites in the high-density area of any city which can be developed with a high-rise residential building of which a private park is an integral component.

For our present purposes it is only the ground floor of this hypothetical complex that is relevant.  The architects who produced the ground floor plan also had in mind the residential component of the total project.  They assumed an apartment structure rising some 14 stories above the ground floor with approximately 104 apartments.  But that item like the ground floor design itself is part of the total imaginative concept that need not be dealt with specifically in the present paper since the purpose here is to examine the private park component of the concept.  It is only the ground floor plan with its private park and other contents and the site on which the concept is located which are relevant here.  However it should be noted that the complex would only function successfully if it were in condominium ownership.

The site on which this hypothetical complex is located is itself an interesting item.  It is bounded on its east side by Admirals Road, and on its west side by Constance Avenue, but between these two traffic arteries its rocky contours drop about 12’ from its Admiral’s Road side on the east to Constance Avenue on the west.  

The total area of the site is 12,000 square feet.   Admiral’s Road is a bus route and one of the main arterial roads into and out of Esquimalt.  Automobile access to the building however is only from Constance Avenue.  Entry to the underground garage for vehicle parking is from the semi-circular drive off Constance Avenue.  Access into the building is through two main doors – one on the east side giving entry from Admiral’s Road, the other on the west side giving entry from Constance Avenue.

The door on the Admiral’s Road side opens into a large landscaped garden area or “atrium” which in effect is a private park and is an integral component of the complex – the treatment of its walls, the furniture, the plants and trees etc. would best be left to the management committee (or a subcommittee) of the condo complex.  The maintenance of the atrium is also a matter for the resident-owners of the complex to manage and would probably be arranged with the advice and assistance from professional sources.  

The elevators up to the residential units are located near the centre of the atrium.  If one is a resident of one of the units in the building, but is outside and approaching the building on foot from the Admiral’s Road side then he or she must have a key to that access door to gain entry into the building.   That person must also have a separate key for the door to his or her dwelling, which would not be the same key as the one for the access door into the building.  The key to the building access door from the Constance Avenue side is the same as the one for the building access door on the Admirals Road side.  Clearly then each would have to have two keys – one for access into the building from either side, the other for access into his or her residential unit.  This may seem at first glance to be an elaborate arrangement but it ensures that the atrium is in effect a private garden or park and is an integral part of the residential complex and is not available to the general public at large.

On the Constance Avenue side the 12’ drop in the gradient from its level on the Admiral’s Road side provides the vehicle entrance to the ramp which leads to the parking level.  Pedestrian access to the building proper requires ascending an exterior staircase in order to reach the entry door to the building.  On the way up this staircase one passes by an exterior landscaped roof garden shown shaded on the plan.  The exterior landscaped garden area is directly accessible from the top of the exterior staircase but direct entry from the roof garden is not.  Adjacent to the roof garden is a room in the interior of the building which abuts the roof garden.  Access to the roof garden from inside the building is only one way - through the adjacent room whose door to the exterior only opens one way, outward to the exterior but not inward from the exterior.  From the top of the exterior staircase one can gain entry into the building and proceed along the corridor to the elevators and the atrium.

Underlying the comfort and livability of an apartment dwelling in a tall residential structure are a number of factors.  These include, among others, such items as the layout of the unit, the facilities available, the services and upkeep of both the building and the unit, etc.  Some of the underlying factors are also related to the personality and preferences of the apartment residents.  But generally speaking interpersonal communication among the residents of tall apartment buildings, in dense urban areas, is not as close or as frequent as it is among residents in single family dwellings in smaller rural communities.

The comparative infrequency of interpersonal contact among residents who live in dwellings so closely packed together is a puzzling phenomenon.  Perhaps it is due to the fact that people are drawn together personally by forces other than the occupancy of neighbouring dwellings.  Occasionally the same personal remoteness exists between the next-door-neighbours in single family dwellings.  On the other hand it may be due to the fact that each resident’s concern over property matters ends at the property line but matters of personal interest lie beyond the property line and persons with compatible interests must be found elsewhere. 

It may be that the concept of a ground floor private park – in which the identity of ownership of each individual apartment unit is erased and extended to the mutual ownership of the entire atrium - offers an environment in which the personal concern of the individual resident can find some basis of mutual interest among the co-owners of the atrium garden.  Again, much will depend on the furnishings and the management of the property.  But even if the extension of mutual interests isn’t fully achieved by the large attractive common private garden it would neverthe-less provide a very pleasant place to spend time away from the confines of the apartment in the broader ambience of a landscaped private park, perhaps even to discover mutual concern among some of the other resident - visitors to the park.

The total floor area of the ground floor is approximately 10,000 square feet.  The area of the atrium is approximately 2,800 sq.ft. and that of the exterior roof garden is about 2,600 sq.ft.  Taken together the combined area of the atrium and the roof garden is about 5,400 sq.ft.  which is approximately half of the total ground floor area.  All the dwelling units have exterior privacy areas, i.e. patios or balconies.

In addition to the possibility of finding new friends and better interpersonal relationships the atrium offers a park to the residents all year round and the roof garden offers that amenity during the seasons when weather is appropriate.  The spiritual bond between the residents and the natural environment is thereby strengthened and maintained throughout the entire year and is a constant attribute of that specifically created residential–garden complex environment.

By Dr. Earl A. Levin

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"When the Cities Lie at the Monster's Feet..." Do We Need to Destroy Society to Save the Earth?

In my previous post, I cited the work of Derrick Jensen, who, in his massive two-volume book Endgame  holds that civilizations cannot, in fact, be sustainable -- or, indeed, redeemed. Every aspect of what we refer to as civilization is in his view merely a form of violence and domination. His work is based on twenty premises, two of which are:

"Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time...The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after."

Therefore, according to Jensen, civilization must be “brought down” by whatever means necessary before it destroys the global biosphere and with it, humanity.

In the summer 2009 issue of EnlightenNext, Alex Steffen of WorldChanging muses on just this prospect. Citing the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, (as quoted in the title to this post) Steffen wonders if there's any point to letting civilization go on. He describes how, parking along the Colorado River one night, he imagines letting civilization crash, and, in his words, "watch it burn and build[ing] something newer, stronger, cleaner in the ashes."

This is precisely what Jensen argues for in his books: resistance to and the destruction of the material and political structures of our civilization. However tempting this vision may be to some ecologists, though, Steffen argues that such an accomplishment would have horrific consequences:

"Real apocalypses are sordid, banal, insane. If things do come unraveled, this presents not a golden opportunity for lone wolves and well-armed geeks, but a reality of babies with diarrhea, of bugs and weird weather and just everywhere, of never enough to eat, of famine and starving, hollow-eyed people, of drunken soldiers full of boredom and self-hate, of random murder and rape and wars that accomplish nothing, of many fine things lost for no reason and nothing of any value gained. And survivalists, if they actually manage to avoid becoming the prey of larger groups, sitting bitter and cold and hungry and paranoid, watching their supplies run low and wishing they had a clean bed and some friends. Of all the lies we tell ourselves, this is the biggest: that there is any world worth living in that involves the breakdown of society."

Not all extreme ecologists seek this breakdown. As Murray Bookchin has pointed out in his writings, there are some "eco-brutalist" Deep Ecologists who, instead of advocating tearing down existing structures of power to save the Earth, believe even more draconian structures will be necessary to force humanity to dial down its attack on the ecosphere, primarily through extreme forms of population control. Deep ecologists, Bookchin argues, have adopted a highly misanthropic outlook that includes, (in addition to government-led population control) the pointlessness of foreign aid to famine-stricken nations and the need for stricter anti-immigration policies.

However, a healthy and socially just human society is integral to resolving the ecological crisis. As such, Bookchin also argues against an ecologically-inspired crusade against human society, for it, too, is a part of nature:

"Human society, in fact, constitutes a 'second nature,' a cultural artifact, out of 'first nature,' or primeval nonhuman nature. There is nothing wrong, unnatural, or ecologically alien about this fact ...This second nature is uniquely different from first nature in that it can act thinkingly, purposefully, willfully, and depending up on the society we examine, creatively in the best ecological sense or destructively in the worst ecological sense...Taken together, all of these human traits---intellectual, communicative, and social---have not only emerged from natural evolution and are inherently human; they can also be placed at the service of natural evolution to consciously increase biotic diversity, diminish suffering, foster the further evolution of new and ecologically valuable life-forms, and reduce the impact of disastrous accidents or the harsh effects of mere change."

In other words (and contrary to the propositions of Derrick Jensen) it is in our nature to have the capacity to save nature -- willingly, and within the constructs of our societies. Like Bookchin, ecotheologian Thomas Berry also believes we are genetically coded as such (akin to Edward O. Wilson's Biophilia hypothesis), and have the potential to undertake what he refers to as "The Great Work". In the words of Stephanie Kaza,

"{Berry argues for] a reinventing of the human—with critical reflection, rethinking, readapting, and reevaluating our role in the universe. The challenge is enormous, impossible in its scale. Berry urges us to confront the 'profound cultural disorientation' of the deep entrancement with industrial civilization. Rethinking ethics is a place to begin, but ultimately a deep cultural therapy is required, one which will overthrow the governing dream of the twentieth century. For Berry, the most powerful recipe for liberation is awakening to the grandeur and sacred quality of the Earth process. This awakening is 'our human participation in the dream of the Earth, the dream that is carried in its integrity not in any of Earth's cultural expressions but in the depths of our genetic coding.' (The Great Work, p. 165).

(Myself? I wouldn't be in the business of city planning if I thought civilization had a terminal disease requiring euthanasia. Like most environmentalists,  I just hope I can contribute to the "cultural therapy"...)

Michael Dudley

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