Tangentially Pynchon. see today's Google Doodle

[David Morris]

Sorry to beat this horse corpse, but I want to inject the possible factor
of minority/poverty-specific factors in the results of public housing
resulting in war-zones. Public housing way back then was meant to be
temporary assistance (Depression-era), and was primarily used by widows or
other survivors of tragedies, and was all-white.  I don't think blacks got
accepted into the ranks until much later (post segregation}.  Ethnic
Euro-white immigrants were more easily assimilated than blacks or other
browns.   So public housing demographics back then that were at first lily
white, and meant to be temporary assistance, eventually became more
stubbornly brown and black, and permanently poor.  Minority poors became a
permanent population, and so did the war-zone.

David Morris

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 3:42 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> As a designer I obviously don't like #3.  I firmly believe that the
> physical environment influences social interaction, which is central to an
> urban ecology.  Obviously it is not the only, nor even predominant factor.
>
> Concentrated poverty (ghettos) existed in neighborhoods that were not
> catostrophic failures before modernist anti-urban neighborhoods became war
> zones.  Ghettos (old-style)  were usually staging grounds for the newest
> wave of immagrents on their way up and out.  So poverty doesn't necessarily
> create war zones.  Thus I posit that concentrated poverty plus inhuman
> design environment seems a likely culprit to urban war zones.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sunday, May 8, 2016, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I pick #2, and that's what I was trying to say earlier with this: "Design
>> does matter, as does concentrated poverty.  Money might trump (is that word
>> still usable?) poor design. But design can help mitigate the effects of
>> poverty."
>>
>> I would guess that ST/PCV isn't a place of concentrated
>> multi-generational poverty.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 5:55 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't take anything said as personal attack or criticism. I'm simply
>>> telling you that in my own experience, and in what I know of that the
>>> almost 70 years that ST/PCV has existed, there has been
>>>
>>> NO deterioration or trashing of "indefensible" public spaces (neither
>>> halls, elevators and lobbies nor lawns, walkways and playgrounds between
>>> buildings)... and a consistently very low crime rate. In 1960, when I was
>>> turning 11, I and younger children were going unescorted between apartments
>>> and playgrounds, roller skating and scootering on the (mostly vehicle-free)
>>> interior drives -- as children were in Sept. 2015, the last time I was
>>> there.
>>>
>>> NO shortage of multiple, varied forms of social solidarity and
>>> engagement. There are no restaurants, bars, churches, or athletic fields
>>> within ST/PCV. But its population strengthens (in many cases is the primary
>>> support of) scores of them in the adjacent blocks. Within the apartments
>>> were more rather than fewer poker nights, book clubs, crafts groups, small
>>> potluck suppers etc, per capita than the small-town and suburban
>>> communities I've lived in.
>>>
>>> Possibilities (none exclusive):
>>>
>>> (1) ST/PCV is a freakish anomaly
>>>
>>> (2) demography/socioeconomics and property management entirely
>>> compensate for the destructive effects of modernist design
>>>
>>> (3) those destructive effects are much exaggerated. Maybe architects and
>>> community planners of *all* persuasions -- Jacobites and New Urbanists as
>>> well as their Modernist predecessors -- ascribe much too much influence to
>>> their own work.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 12:16 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Monte,
>>>> I'm not sure I understand your response either. I certainly didn't
>>>> intend my comments to be taken as a personal attack or criticism.
>>>>
>>>> Www.innergroovemusic.com <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
>>>>
>>>> On May 7, 2016, at 11:53 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> What?
>>>>
>>>> Have you been drinking? Or what?
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 5:33 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I assure you I will give due weight to these insights, and due weight
>>>>> to 25 years of my family's (and 25,000 neighbors') experience.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 2:45 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Also I forgot to mention another very important aspect of
>>>>>> old-urbanism's semi-public spaces where "owners" of the street could be its
>>>>>> defenders:  Those stoops, porches and fire escapes naturally resulted in
>>>>>> residents interacting with their neighbors, forming community bonds,
>>>>>> knowing who on the street lived in their neighborhood, and who didn't.
>>>>>> Streets thus had many "mayors" wise to normal street patterns, and they
>>>>>> defended their neighbors as well as their streets.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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