Every Major’s Terrible - xkcd
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Welcome mats, intensification and multi-lingual signage.
I found this article on non-English signage interesting, although disputable.
Overall I disagree, and feel the author is being overly reactionary. There is a comment in the thread after comparing the contemporary complaints with those of ‘too many brown faces’ in the 70s, which I felt was very appropo. However, from an social and urban design perspective, I do think he has (buried in the mire) a sole good point.
This is the concern that as more individuals of a specific culture gravitate to an area, partly because of local shops that cater to them, and partly because of neighbours who speak like them, dress like them and think like them, you get more shops catering to them. So far, so what? Sounds good. Until you get a critical mass - as the blogger at Tumeke! called it - at which point other cultures may feel excluded and move away, the specific culture that now inhabits that area doesn’t have to go elsewhere, and the integration we all consider to be so important, so crucial, doesn’t happen. In other words: you get ghettoisation.
With the drive towards intensification, we want to push the local high street as a work location, a hangout, & a shopping destination. This isn’t going to work if people can’t read the signs. They’ll move somewhere where they can. Or stay living there, and work, shop & play elsewhere. So the threatened cultural ghettoisation is potentially a problem for intensification.
How do we get around this?
Work with the shop owners to help them understand the importance of bilingual (or even multilingual) signage. I don’t buy into this notion that the lack of English signage is deliberately exclusionary in intent, I think it’s partly a lack of awareness that non-Chinese/Malaysian/Korean/etc people are interested in what they have to sell, and partly a forgetfulness that others can’t read it - just like English speakers assume everyone else on the planet speaks, or at least should speak, English.
Institute a cultural awareness programme in the media, to help non-Chinese/Malaysian/Korean/etc speakers feel comfortable with the languages and products, thereby reducing the sense of otherness, or alienness. Many of the middle-class liberals so disparagingly spoken of in the Tumeke! article are comfortable with the signage due to a sense of familiarity, whether it is from cuisine travel, reading or social interactions.
Lastly, but certainly not least, consider why these immigrants feel the need/desire to move into an area where they are surrounded by those ‘like them’. What does this say about our own welcome mat?
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Source: xkcd.com
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Why the protests?
This is a very good outline of what those protests in Chicago are about: NatoProtest.org
via The People’s Record.
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Chicago. One day before the protest.
The No Nato protest in Chicago is billed for tomorrow; thousands have already arrived and gathered. In the last few days police have reportedly used falsified warrants to raid protestors apartments and charge them with aiding terrorists - the new threat it seems are the anarchists - seizing a home-brew kit (for beer) saying it was for making molotov cocktails. [EDIT: Lawyers for the defense have asserted that Chicago police “trumped up the charges to frighten peaceful protesters away, telling a judge it was undercover officers known by the activists as “Mo” and “Gloves” who brought the firebombs to a South Side apartment where the men were arrested.” NZ Herald] Now the pre-protest gatherings are likely to turn into riots, before tomorrow ever happens. See the following tweets from protestors, journalists and live-streamers on the ground:
@YourAnonNews: “@triplef54: @YourAnonNews whats goin on in chicago?” The NATO protests start tomorrow. The cops are getting crazy at the pre protests.
@YourAnonNews: . @Timcast citizen journalist was briefly arrested and then raided at GUN point tonight by police. Freedom in America is past fantasy.
@Jiraffa: Shit is so close to fan. Reports of national gaurd, cops seen changing into black bloc, police ran over #ows jack, police readying tear gas.
@Lukewearechange: Omfg just got stopped by 12 cop cars interrogated and searched me @Timcast @Jiraffa fishy things going on now with our apartment
@PennyRed: Two of most prominent livestreamers covering protest in the US cuffed, searched and interrogated. Heads up 1st Amendment. #ows #nonato
@PennyRed: I mean, jesus, the livestreamers. There is noone at a protest LESS likely to be doing something illegal. Including the police #ows #nonato
@YourAnonNews: PHOTO: Chicago police van plows through crowd of #NATO protestors - http://bit.ly/KmcKre | VIDEO: http://bit.ly/KmcJ6I #NoNATO #OWS
@AnonymousIRC: HIT AND RUN [evidence] Chicago police van just plowed through the crowd of people!!! #noNATO #OWS via @LiborVonSchonau
@YourAnonNews: After violent police attacks @OccupyChicago & one protester ran over w/ a van, now chanting “They-fired-the-first-shot!!!” #NoNATO
@YourAnonNews: RT @sabokitty Cops changing into civilian clothes to scout out location where anarchists are on Van Buren #nonato #ochi #ows
@Occupy_Syracuse: Rumors abound! of water cannon and National Guard being called to the protesters. Be a witness to what’s happening @tim http://www.ustream.tv/timcast
Please do tell me if you read about any of this in the paper later…
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Threatening Privilege
Today I am sickened by the eejits coming out of the woodwork after Louis Crimp’s nasty little spiel in the NZ Herald this morning. Seriously, WTF?
I want to be absolutely clear about this: such attitudes don’t stem from rational thought, or from careful analysis of the state of the world. They don’t even stem from ideology or ignorance. They stem from selfishness and lack of compassion.
In answer to all those who say that the Maori Party is ‘racist’, that having Maori seats, and positive discrimination is ‘racist’: I challenge you to look at our failing school children, look at our prisons, our homeless and disenfranchised and count how many are white middle class males.
Every single one of the people I have seen making pro-Crimp comments, saying that ‘white New Zealanders’ fed up with the discrimination against them have been white, middle-class men. Every. Single. One. All this of course is reminiscent of the ‘poor me’ cries of (some) men when women take a stand against sexism. In fact I believe it is part of the same brand of self-referential idiocy.
White middle class males are hardly suffering in contemporary Western society. No, what their* real problem is, is that they are no longer allowed to ride rough shod over everybody else. That maybe, if they want to be top of the tree, they’ll have to actually earn it instead of simply being born to it. It is not a threat to their masculinity, to their culture, their beliefs, or to society, that has got them so riled up - it is the threat to their privilege. Therein lies the clue to why there is a Maori Party, Maori seats, and positive discrimination - they are an attempt to subvert privilege, and to put everyone on an even footing.
Anyone who gets upset about that is simply afraid of losing the benefits of privilege.
*Please note: I’m talking about the ‘poor me’ whingers and whiners not every white middle class man ever. Some are very nice. I’m even related to them.
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Beauty & Feeling
Aesthetics is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty, but the theory of feeling. - Sigmund Freud
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Six months
Some six months after returning to New Zealand, and starting Fraser Architecture Ltd, the legwork is starting to show signs of reward, with several new and potential projects being added to our books.
Although the current economic situation is concerning, there are signs of a slow but steady lift to the industry. There is still an enormous amount of work yet to be done in Christchurch - if only a master plan can be agreed, and the insurance companies be induced to make reasonable payment. The indomitable spirit of the residents of Christchurch is remarkable. Here in Auckland, there is a housing shortage, especially affordable housing. Both developers and the new Auckland Council need to step up to the plate to ensure that Auckland can continue to grow, but in a sustainable and productive fashion. The Council’s proposed plan is making some excellent moves in the right direction, but appears to lack some of the core steps required to enable the achievement of their goals. If they really want to intensify, they should focus on underutilized main roads, such as Great North Road as it runs through Grey Lynn. This stretch is occupied largely by car-yards - an unsustainable and unattractive use of a main thoroughfare. However, to enable intensive housing along this strip, the Council would need to liaise with the Government and the Ministry of Education to establish new schools in the area - unfortunately not likely in the current economic and political climate.
I remain positive for the future, for all that it may yet be a while coming. To quote Daniel Libeskind: “architecture is that complete ecstasy that the future can be better.”
