Salton Sea: the beauty of ruins

 My eldest daughter has gone to Salton Sea and took these pictures. Both her and me are moved by the beauty of the ruins. "It's like a ghost town, " she explained to me. I was curious and so I read about the town's history in Wikipedia.org. The link is below to complete the reading.

All pictures by Vera Makianich, please do not reproduce without permission.

 The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, predominantly in California's Imperial and Coachella Valleys. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink in the Colorado Desert of Imperial and Riverside counties in Southern California. Like Death Valley, it is below sea level. Currently, its surface is 226 ft (69 m) below sea level. The deepest point of the sea is 5 ft (1.5 m) higher than the lowest point of Death Valley. The sea is fed by the New, Whitewater, and Alamo rivers, as well as agricultural runoff drainage systems and creeks. The Sea was created by a flood in 1905, in which water from the Colorado River flowed into the area. While it varies in dimensions and area with fluctuations in agricultural runoff and rainfall, the Salton Sea averages 15 mi (24 km) by 35 mi (56 km). With an average area of roughly 525 sq mi (1,360 km2), the Salton Sea is the largest lake in California. Average annual inflow is 1,360,000 acre·ft (1.68 km3), which is enough to maintain a maximum depth of 52 ft (16 m) and a total volume of about 7,500,000 acre·ft (9.3 km3). The lake's salinity, about 44 g/L, is greater than that of the waters of the Pacific Ocean (35 g/L), but less than that of the Great Salt Lake (which ranges from 50 to 270 g/L). The concentration increases by about 1 percent annually. (...) 

Accidental creation of the current Salton Sea

 In 1900, the California Development Company began construction of irrigation canals to divert water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sink, a dry lake bed. After construction of these irrigation canals, the Salton Sink became fertile for a time, allowing farmers to plant crops. Within two years, the Imperial Canal became filled with silt from the Colorado River. Engineers tried to alleviate the blockages to no avail. In 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell, overrunning a set of headgates for the Alamo Canal. The resulting flood poured down the canal and breached an Imperial Valley dike, eroding two watercourses, the New River in the west, and the Alamo River in the east, each about 60 miles (97 km) long.

Over a period of approximately two years these two newly created rivers sporadically carried the entire volume of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink. The Southern Pacific Railroad attempted to stop the flooding by dumping earth into the canal's headgates area, but the effort was not fast enough, and as the river eroded deeper and deeper into the dry desert sand of the Imperial Valley, a massive waterfall was created that started to cut rapidly upstream along the path of the Alamo Canal that now was occupied by the Colorado. This waterfall was initially 15 feet (4.6 m) high but grew to a height of 80 feet (24 m) before the flow through the breach was finally stopped. It was originally feared that the waterfall would recede upstream to the true main path of the Colorado, attaining a height of up to 100 to 300 feet (30 to 91 m), from where it would be practically impossible to fix the problem. As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding, and Torres-Martinez Native American land were submerged. The sudden influx of water and the lack of any drainage from the basin resulted in the formation of the Salton Sea.

The continuing intermittent flooding of the Imperial Valley from the Colorado River led to the idea of the need for a dam on the Colorado River for flood control. Eventually, the federal government sponsored survey parties in 1922 that explored the Colorado River for a dam site, ultimately leading to the construction of Hoover Dam in Black Canyon, which was constructed beginning in 1929 and completed in 1935. The dam effectively put an end to the flooding episodes in the Imperial Valley.(...)

Environmental decline

The lack of an outflow means that the Salton Sea is a system of accelerated change. Variations in agricultural runoff cause fluctuations in water level (and flooding of surrounding communities in the 1950s and 1960s), and the relatively high salinity of the inflow feeding the Sea has resulted in ever increasing salinity. By the 1960s it was apparent that the salinity of the Salton Sea was rising, jeopardizing some of the species in it. The Salton Sea has a salinity exceeding 4.0% w/v (saltier than seawater) and many species of fish can no longer survive. It is believed that once the salinity surpasses 4.4% w/v, only the tilapia will survive. Fertilizer runoffs combined with the increasing salinity have resulted in large algal blooms and elevated bacteria levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea

Holiday lights in the cities

Brussels, Belgium Photograph by Thierry Roge, Reuters/Corbis During Plaisirs d’Hiver, dramatically lit buildings and piped-in music lift spirits in the historic Grand Place. At the Christmas market, 240 chalets serve Belgian waffles and conical cuberdon candies. November 25-January 11.

Vienna, Austria Photograph by Sandra Raccanello, SIME Advent brings out Vienna’s romantic side: Garlands of bulbs glisten over thoroughfares and shops are decorated with pine branches and silk ribbons (November 26-December 31). Giant chandeliers lead to St. Stephen's Cathedral, and daily Advent concerts take place at Schönbrunn Palace.

Gothenburg, Sweden Photograph by Roberto Rinaldi, SIME The aroma of toasted almonds and glogg heralds the arrival of Saint Lucia to this charming river town illuminated all season long. Five million lights glitter on the buildings and on the 700 Christmas trees at Liseberg Amusement Park’s Christmas Market (Scandinavia’s largest, open November 18). Choirs sing and sweethearts smooch along a three-kilometer Lane of Light leading to the harbor beginning December 9.

Hong Kong, China Photograph by Francisco Martinez, Alamy It’s an over-the-top Christmas in Hong Kong, where lights twinkle along Main Street in Disneyland, the city’s malls try to outdo each other in awesomeness (Roppongi Hills Galleria created a ground-level Milky Way galaxy of lights one year), and the downtown skyline dances with colorful lights and piped-in music. The city center, crowned by a giant Swarovski crystal tree, bustles with carolers, and Victoria Harbour is fantastically illuminated. Stick around for Chinese New Year festivities—China’s traditional family holiday—for more fireworks and action. November 25–January 1.

REFERENCE:

These are the pictures I liked most from the Holiday lights at National Geographic.com. See them all:

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/holiday-lights-photos/

School shootings and modular classrooms

Needless to say how bad I feel about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. 

Yesterday, we picked up our youngest girl from the High school and she told us her version of the shooting, which was explained by professors as soon as they learnt about it.

My daughter made a point about security; her school has approximately 3000 students. How to control them all? I remember the old times in our Faculty, the last months of the Junta Militar, when the police opened our bags, one by one, at the entrance. Only one entrance was open. 

Of course, this is a different case.

And sometimes the shooting is provoked by somebody who has direct access to the school, it could be anybody. It usually doesn´t happen in a compact building, the schools I´ve attended at the city of Buenos Aires, are designed with cloisters and there´s one main entrance, that´s it. A worker called ¨portero¨ is in charge to open the door, and a stranger, a parent, relative, friend, can never walk farther than the hall. Until the portero finds out if somebody is waiting for him/her. 

In extended cities in USA we have this layout of open schools. See the picture above that I´ve downloaded from The Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323297104578179271453737596.html#project%3DCONSHOOTsub1215

The kinder is isolated and, without ever being there, I can tell you that this building has multiple doors.

The next picture is from Harbor View Elementary School, in Huntington Beach. I know it very well, my daughter has attended this school.

And for one or two years, she was at the side construction, the one you see at the right. You can access these ¨modular rooms¨ from the street, from the avenue, from the park. I´ve done it myself, many times.

Teachers and student inside free standing modular rooms on campus are isolated.

I was asking my daughter about metal detectors at school and she answered, how do you think they can add them with so many doors?

I understand, a metal detector is not a final solution, shootings could happen even at the street. And we are not under military control.

Today, I´m scared and I´m wondering what the authorities will do to protect our children. Please keep in mind that it is too easy to acquire a gun in USA and something has to be done about it and -even worst- the illegal purchases of guns and similar weapons.

My condolences for the loss of so many, it´s so sad...

One of the earliest urbanization: Provadia-Solnitsata (5500-4200 BC)

In a Bulgarian mound, archaeologists have found perhaps Europe's earliest massive fortifications. Photograph by V. Nikolov, Bulgarian National Institute of Archaeology/EPA

Researchers announced last week (beginning of November 2012)  they'd discovered 10-foot-tall (3-meter-tall), 6-foot-thick (1.8-meter-thick) stone walls around the settlement. The find is among the evidence for Solnitsata's oldest-town status—and further proof of an advanced Copper Age Balkan trade network, according to dig leader Vasil Nikolov, a Bulgarian archaeologist.

Long before the first wheel rolled through Europe, precious goods were likely crisscrossing the Balkans on pack animals and possibly in carts with sledlike bottoms. Salt, essential for preserving meats, joined gold and copper among the most prized cargo. And with its rare and coveted brine springs, Solnitsata, near present-day Provadiya, was a key producer, boiling off the salt and baking it into ready-to-trade blocks to supply its region with the essential mineral.

Salt wealth might explain those heavy-duty walls, which archaeologist David Anthony called "quite unusual."

"You can find evidence of fortification at many sites of this period, but they tend to be timber palisade walls. [Solnitsata] had a much more substantial, permanent, and unburnable stone wall," said Anthony, of Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, who did not participate in the excavation.

Trees would have been plentiful in the region at the time, so the decision by Solnitsata's inhabitants to build a wall using stone is revealing, Anthony added.

"It tells you something about the level of hostilities of communities at the time," he said—and about Solnitsata's wealth.

Europe's Oldest Town?

Pottery remains at Solnitsata have been dated to 4,700 to 4,200 B.C., about a thousand years before the beginning of the Greek civilization. The site's age, its prehistoric population of about 350, and its Copper Age status as an agricultural, military, and ideological center help make Solnitsata the oldest known town in Europe, says Nikolov, whose conclusions appear in a recentpaper released by Bulgaria's National Institute of Archaeology (PDF).

But archaeologist John Chapman thinks Solnitsata housed only about 150 people. The idea that it was a town—let alone Europe's oldest town—is, in Chapman's words, "hyperbole."

Solnitsata "isn't really that different from hundreds of other Bulgarian tells [archaeological mounds created by building new structures atop older ones] that I know quite well," said Chapman, of Durham University in the U.K.

"These are not town-sized using any sort of objective criteria at all," added Chapman, who was not involved in Nikolov's study.

Anthony, of Hartwick College, also thinks the oldest-town claim is an exaggeration.

"Heck, when I was a graduate student, I worked on a ... site in what is now Serbia that covered a larger area" and was dated to an earlier time, Anthony said.

For his part, dig leader Nikolov—who could not be reached for comment—seemed to downplay his own claim last week, telling the AFP news service, "We are not talking about a town like the Greek city-states, ancient Rome, or medieval settlements but about what archaeologists agree constituted a town in the fifth millennium B.C."

EXCERPT FROM

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/11/121107-europe-oldest-town-bulgaria-walls-science/

Read the paper´s abstract by Vassil Nikolov:

http://naim.bg/contentFiles/ARH_2012_1_res1.pdf

Huntington Harbor by Vera Makianich

These pictures were taken by my daughter, Vera Makianich, at Huntington Beach Harbor.

The houses are decorated with Christmas lights, also the ships. Every year there´s a contest for the best Christmas decor. This is part of our city, Huntington Beach, in Southern CA.

Please do not reproduce without her permission.

Huntington Harbor by Vera Makianich by Vera Makianich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

BONUS:

Derricks extract petroleum from wells drilled out under the sea on Huntington Beach in California, January 1945.

PHOTOGRAPH BY B. ANTHONY STEWART, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
http://natgeofound.tumblr.com/?source=hp_125_found_tumblr_20130806

Future homesites: landscape art or the image of a decaying economy?

Future Homesites of “The Falls” at Lake Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada (2011). [Photo by Michael Light]

Photographer Michael Light has spent the past decade exploring the development of the American West from the perspective of helicopters and light airplanes. On recent flights above half-built resort communities outside Las Vegas, he observed a more literal connection between mining and land development:

[This was] something I’d long suspected abstractly: that the extraction industries and the habitation industries are two sides of the same coin. Seeing entire mountains graded into building pads for gated luxury homes and ‘purpose-built communities,’ only to be left to slowly revert to sagebrush in bankruptcy, was the most naked and skeletal revelation of the speculative habitation machine I’d yet seen.

Indeed, in his photographs of these sites it is sometimes difficult to discern whether you are looking at an abandoned mining operation or an aborted housing development. Only the iconic shape of a cul-de-sac tips you off.

EXCERPT FROM 

http://places.designobserver.com/feature/lake-las-vegas-photographs/37566/

Urban visual contamination

There´s always a concern about urban visual contamination in cities. But these examples are excellent to illustrate the issue.

From 

http://busan.for91days.com/tag/esl/

¨The Streets of Daeyeon-Dong. A narrow section of streets in the central neighborhood of Daeyeon separates Kyungsung University from Pukyong University. ¨

Photos by Mike Powell.

Some urban photographs by Michael Wolf

From the series "Transparent City" 

I've just discovered photographer Michael Wolf's web page and I'm still enjoying his great urban pictures. Most of what I'm showing is from Hong Kong.

From his web page

http://photomichaelwolf.com/#

michael wolf 

 lives in hong kong born munich, germany the focus of the german photographer michael wolf’s work is life in mega cities. many of his projects document the architecture and the vernacular culture of metropolises. wolf grew up in canada, europe and the united states, studying at uc berkeley and at the folkwang school with otto steinert in essen, germany. he moved to hong kong in 1994 where he worked for 8 years as contract photographer for stern magazine. since 2001, wolf has been focusing on his own projects, many of which have been published as books. wolf’s work has been exhibited in numerous locations, including the venice bienniale for architecture, aperture gallery, new york; museum centre vapriikki, tampere, finland, museum for work in hamburg, germany, hong kong shenzhen biennial, museum of contemporary photography, chicago. 

From " Tokyo Compression" 

" Night 1"

"Night 23"

"Architecture of density 4"

"Architecture of Density 99"

"Architecture of Density 119"

"Architecture of Density 122" 

The real toy story. Installation

Toy's factories

What is Biophilic Urbanism?

Image from biophiliccities.org

¨For Professor Heerwagen, biophilia is best defined by the amazing biologist E.O. Wilson, who came up with the actual concept. It relates to the “innate emotional connection of humans to all living things.” In cities, for example, this means that people are attracted to trees and will pay more to live in areas with them. People will pay more for hotel rooms with views of nature. “These are things we intuitively know. We chose places that are greener.” Dr. Richard Jackson, former head of environmental health at the CDC, also made a similar point but connected nature with physical and mental health. Heerwagen quoted him: “In medicine, where the body is really matters.” Health is essentially place-based.

Research on the Benefits of Nature

Heerwagen outlined some fascinating recent research: In a recent study that examined the impact of exercising in nature vs. working out in areas devoid of nature, researchers found that “green exercise” in natural spaces “lowered tension, anxiety, and blood pressure,” beyond the benefits of exercise itself.

For kids, playing out in nature also has big benefits: “nature play is more imaginative.” Kids playing in nature play longer and more collaboratively. In contrast, in a closed-off playground, the play was “more aggressive and shorter.” While playing in nature, kids are “particularly attracted to spaces that offer protection and safety,” or “prospect and refuge.”

Researchers in the Netherlands recently looked at the benefits of what they call “Vitamin G.” Examining 10,000 residents in a massive study, the researchers found that the amount of green space in a 5-km zone around a person really impacts their health. “A 20 percent increase in nearby green space was effectively equivalent to another 5 years of life.”

Nature, said Heerwagen, also promotes positive emotions, psychological resilience, and wellbeing. Pleasant environments, researchers have demonstrated, stimulate opioid receptors so we actually feel a sense of pleasure.

Excerpt from: 

http://dirt.asla.org/2012/11/22/why-we-need-cities-in-tune-with-nature/

Image from biophiliccities.org

THE POWER OF NATURE

Edward 0. Wilson, a Harvard myrmecologist and conservationist, in popularizing the term "biophilia," suggested that we need daily contact with nature to be healthy, productive individuals, partly because we have co-evolved with nature.  Specifically, Wilson describes biophilia as "the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. Innate means hereditary, and hence, part of ultimate human nature."  To Wilson, biophilia is a "complex of learning rules" developed over thousands of years of evolution and human-environment interaction:

For more than 99 percent of human history people have lived in hunter-gatherer bands totally and intimately involved with other organisms. During this period of deep history, and still farther back ... they depended on an exact learned knowledge of crucial aspects of natural history... In short, the brain evolved in a biocentric world, not a machine-regulated world. It would be therefore quite  extraordinary to find that all learning rules related to that world have been erased in a few thousand years, even in the tiny minority of peoples who have existed for more than one or two generations in wholly urban environments.

The empirical evidence of biophilia, and of social, psychological, pedagogical, and other benefits from direct and indirect exposure to nature, is mounting and impressive. Research has shown that a connection with nature has the ability to reduce stress, aid recovery from illness, enhance cognitive skills and academic performance, and aid in moderating the effects of ADHD, autism and other child illnesses. A recent study by MIND, a British mental health charity, compared the effects on mood of a walk in nature with a walk in a shopping mall."' The differences in the effects of these two walks are remarkable, though not unexpected. The study concluded that "green exercise has particular benefits for people experiencing mental distress. It directly benefits mental health (lowering stress and boosting self-esteem), improves physical health (lowering blood pressure and helping to tackle obesity), provides a source of meaning and purpose, and helps to develop skills and form social connections."' The results showed marked improvements in selfesteem following the outdoor nature walk (ninety percent improved), compared to much smaller improvements for those walking in the shopping center (seventeen percent improved).'" Indeed, a large percentage of the indoor walkers actually reported a decline in self-esteem (forty-four percent declined). Similarly, the green outdoor walk resulted in significant improvements in mood. (....)

Ideally, biophilic urbanism requires action on multiple geographic scales in a "rooftop to region" or "room to region" approach. Access to nature can occur in many different ways and through access to a range and variety of natural features. The type and extent of these features will vary in part depending on the scale of attention. Ideally, multi-scalar attention results in a nested set of natural features that move from building and site to region and bioregion, creating the conditions for biophilic living. This, in turn, results in an extensive biophilic design palette.

Excerpt from:

Biophilic Urbanism: Inviting Nature Back to Our Communities and Into Our Lives

Repository Citation

Timothy Beatley, Biophilic Urbanism: Inviting Nature Back to Our Communities and Into Our Lives, 34 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 209 (2009), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmelpr/vol34/ iss1/6

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=wmelpr

A more specific definition:

• Biophilic cities are cities of abundant nature in close proximity to large numbers of urbanites; biophilic cities are biodiverse cities, that value, protect and actively restore this biodiversity; biophilic cities are green and growing cities, organic and natureful;
• In biophilic cities, residents feel a deep affinity with the unique flora, fauna and fungi found there, and with the climate, topography, and other special qualities of place and environment that serve to define the urban home; In biophilic cities citizens can easily recognize common species of trees, flowers, insects and birds (and in turn care deeply about them);
• Biophilic cities are cities that provide abundant opportunities to be outside and to enjoy nature through strolling, hiking, bicycling, exploring; biophilic cities nudge us to spend more time amongst the trees, birds and sunlight.
• Biophilic cities are rich multisensory environments, the where the sounds of nature (and other sensory experiences) are as appreciated as much as the visual or ocular experience; biophilic cities celebrate natural forms, shapes, and materials;
• Biophilic cities place importance on education about nature and biodiversity, and on providing many and varied opportunities to learn about and directly experience nature; In biophilic cities there are many opportunities to join with others in learning about, enjoying, deeply connecting with, and helping to steward over nature, whether though a nature club, organized hikes, camping in city parks, or volunteering for nature restoration projects.
• Biophilic cities invest in the social and physical infrastructure that helps to bring urbanites in closer connection and understanding of nature, whether through natural history museums, wildlife centers, school-based nature initiatives, or parks and recreation programs and projects, among many others;
• Biophilic cities are globally responsible cities that recognize the importance of actions to limit the impact of resource use on nature and biodiversity beyond their urban borders; biophilic cities take steps to actively support the conservation global nature;

Excerpt from

http://biophiliccities.org/what-are-biophilic-cities/

Image from biophiliccities.org

The urban sprawl of Istanbul

From http://www.51n4e.com/publication/test-site-istanbul-iabr-2012

Priorities in Conserving Community Murals

Excerpt from Priorities in Conserving Community Murals. By Timothy W. Drescher. 2003

Compilation of papers 2004. The J. Paul Getty Trust

http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/drescher.pdf

The crucial point has nothing to do with the technical aspects of materials, surfaces, and exposure; nor is it a matter of incorporating the visual field, especially architecture, into the design; nor is it a matter of size, but of the “social field.” 

I have seen community “dance murals,” heard “word murals,” and witnessed artists holding up postcard-sized paintings that they called murals. What is going on here? It is this: community murals are primarily social. They exist at the interface of the social and the artistic, but insofar as conservation is concerned, the key fact is to recognize that they are part of an ongoing social process. We use the word community for this social field in which community murals exist. It refers to the daily audience of the mural as well as to its producers and to the painting itself. This combination, whose interests generated the mural (otherwise it is not a community mural), is the most important aspect of any conservation project. However, the fact is that over time people in communities, including artists, change their attitudes, their likes and dislikes. Their murals reflect this variability, this dynamism. This changeability presents unique problems for conservators. So for community mural conservation, the most important factors are the determinant social contexts surrounding each mural, the complex social field of which the mural is a dynamic acrylic symbol. 

Many murals preserve marginalized or devalued histories specific to particular locations that have become recognized as significant to the broader society. It is unclear to me whether or not civic and government agencies, other institutional bureaucracies, or, indeed, the conservation community itself fully understand and share this priority. This situation is one reason that collaboration is essential in the conservation of community murals. For conservators, conservation of murals requires a different approach than usual. The traditional conservator’s job has been to conserve a static object, but community murals are not static—or they are, but only in a very limited sense. 

This observation does not mean that conservators have no role in the restoration of community works. Conservators bring vast technical knowledge to any project, expertise that is invaluable to any successful conservation. The fact is, many muralists and communities would like a conservator to do the work with no changes in imagery. If there are no problems, fine. Obviously, collaboration among “the community” and its artists and conservators (and others) is the optimum basis of successful community mural preservation. But problems can arise. Differences between accepted conservators’ practices and a community muralist can be determined and then resolved only in conjunction with the community, as described below. The roles of the several participants in a proposed conservation project must be reconceived in light of a community mural’s distinctive characteristics—that is, considered not merely as an art object but, most importantly, as part of a social process. The conservation of a painted surface must conserve the social, creative process of the original work as well as the painting itself. I will use a new word for this: sociocreative. With community murals, the goal of conservation is to preserve the entire sociocreative project.

Read more essays, proceedings, research about conservation at the Getty Conservation Institute:
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/index.html

Do cities make us sick?

See the pictures gallery at

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46043926/Most_Stressful_Cities?slide=1

I have no doubt that living in big cities is really stressful. You walk pushing all the people and feel the fear somebody could steal anything from you; everyday listening to vehicles´ horns, the sounds of cars and buses, vendors everywhere, homeless, shouts and so on. I have an architect friend who at noon gets out of the office and goes to the park, and for at least half an hour, sitting on the grass, eating a sandwich, she forgets about the city. I never could imitate her example. It seems there´s a pretty serious research about this issue, let´s read from the article by Brian Merchant at treehugger.com: 

¨ In 1965, health authorities in Camberwell, a bustling quarter of London's southward sprawl, began an unusual tally. They started to keep case records for every person in the area who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder or any other psychiatric condition. Decades later, when psychiatrists looked back across the data, they saw a surprising trend: the incidence of schizophrenia had more or less doubled, from around 11 per 100,000 inhabitants per year in 1965 to 23 per 100,000 in 1997 — a period when there was no such rise in the general population. 

One possible explanation was that exposure to the city itself, and its myriad stresses, was driving the decline in mental health. Statistics collected in the United States and Germany seem to corroborate the finding. Nature notes that "In Germany, the number of sick days taken for psychiatric ailments doubled between 2000 and 2010; in North America, up to 40% of disability claims for work absence are related to depression, according to some estimates." 

But nobody's making any conclusions — cities are vast, complex human ecosystems, and it's extremely difficult to pinpoint how, if, or why living in them may give rise to mental health problems. There's still a ton of study to be done, and there may be more specific reasons that city residents are suffering from mental health woes. So, scientists have embarked on ambitious projects to map entire metropolises, follow citizens with mobile app tech as they go to work, and to better understand how the urban environment causes stress. One thing seems to be certain; better-planned cities, with ample green spaces and areas in which residents can find relief from the bustle are preferable to the concrete jungle. Research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that city dwellers who lived closer to green spaces exhibited better mental health; they were less likely to be stressed or to suffer from more serious ailments.¨

http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/living-cities-may-literally-be-driving-us-insane.html

See the list of the most stressful cities in USA:

http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/stressful_cities_2012_list.aspx

An eloquent picture of urban sprawl. Wikimedia/IDuke/CC BY 2.0

And from Melissa Breyer´s article at treehugger.com:

Newly developed areas characterized by urban sprawl are wreaking havoc on the environment by any number of reasons, one of which is an integral piece of suburban design – a reliance on cars. But neighborhood design also influences the health of human populations, according to a new study from St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

The researchers found that the less walkable one’s neighborhood is, the higher risk its inhabitants have of developing diabetes.

The study looked at data from the population of Toronto aged 30-64 and identified those without diabetes. For five years the participants were tracked to see who developed diabetes, which was compared to where they lived and analyzed against data on neighborhood walkabiliy.

To figure out how walkable each neighborhood is, the researchers created an index looking at factors such as population density, street connectivity and the availability of walkable destinations such as retail stores and service within a 10-minute walk.

The results were surprising, with up to a 50 percent increase in the risk of developing diabetes for those living in a less walkable neighborhood, when compared to long-term residents living in the most walkable areas, results were regardless of neighborhood income. Within these findings, the team found that the risk was especially high for new immigrants living in low-income neighborhoods. As noted in the study, past research has demonstrated a precipitated risk of obesity-related issues for new immigrants within the first 10 years of arrival to Canada.

http://www.treehugger.com/health/how-neighborhood-design-can-make-us-sick.html

Aerial Video of How Cornell-Technion Campus Will Change the Landscape of New York

From:

http://betabeat.com/2011/12/aerial-video-flyover-cornell-technion-12212011/

A night in Bangladesh

This picture belongs to Reshad Kamal. I´ve downloaded it from National Geographic as a reminder that not everything is the work of ¨starchitects¨. That´s why I called my blog ¨Thoughts on Architecture and Urbanism¨, I´m not always showing beautiful buildings. This is the real world. From the National Geographic´s ¨Your shot¨:

There is no other space for some people to sleep at night in Bangladesh. They lay down in open places like railway station, bus stop, terminals. This railway station is like that! Here lots of people stay at night to sleep, including the animals. These two individuals are friends by the same condition of living homeless, foodless, and security-less!

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/daily-dozen

Landscape, people and cities in a ¨hyperlapse¨ video

Though the technique is not new, I´ve enjoyed this video by Ben Wiggins that I´m sharing from The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/09/bored-of-epic-time-lapse-videos-check-out-this-hyperlapse/262843/

COUNTER TOURISM: An interview with Phil Smith

Phil Smith

Phil Smith is an academic, writer and performer, who lives in South Devon, UK. For twenty years he worked predominantly as a playwright in experimental, physical, community and music theatres, during which time over one hundred of his plays received professional productions. In 1997 his work took a sharp turn towards working in non-theatre sites and this led to his interest in walking as both an art in itself and as a means to making art and performance and everyday political interventions in public spaces.  

I have the pleasure to interview Phil Smith again, this time advancing on from his theory and practice of Mythogeography – the art of ‘walking sideways’ – as an opportunity to  learn about Counter Tourism, the subject of Phil’s new project that includes micro-movies, online presence, and two new publications: a pocketbook and a handbook for everyday tourists.

MM Which are the basic differences between Mythogeography’s walks and the ones for Counter Tourism?

PS They are inspired by the same ideas – those that come from the ‘drift’ or dérive – but where Mythogeography’s walks (or at least their intentions) are unbounded, Counter Tourism takes the boundings and prescriptions of heritage tourism as its object. Where Counter Tourism’s visits step to the side or go off at tangents, they do so in order to later loop back to the discourse of heritage tourism, in order to destabilize or re-frame or vivify that discourse.

MM If we don’t feel nostalgia is that a problem? How does Counter Tourism work in a country which we don’t know anything about?

PS In a way, such a visit, knowing nothing, is already Counter Touristic. For heritage sites are very often presented on the basis of invisible, unspoken but mutually understood narratives. For example, in English country houses the lives of the uniformed staff are often remembered and re-presented, but the non-uniformed staff  (labourers, gardeners) are not. The recognition of uniformed servants is regarded as a democratic innovation, but it contains its own discrimination. So, actually preserving one’s lack of knowledge or feeling might be a good tactic – you will very quickly begin to feel the meaning-making machines get to work on you and that sensation might illuminate the nature of the site and the nature of ideological production in it.

MM Considering the attendance of British people to the trips of Counter Tourism, what do you propose for a different culture, in other words is there a pattern to follow or you’d change the strategy in another country?

PS When as a member of Wrights & Sites I was part of publishing ‘An Exeter Mis-Guide’ we assumed that the book would be mostly used in the city it as written about, yet it has been used in many different countries – France, USA, India, Australia, and so on – as a tool for exploration. Rather than me trying to anticipate how Counter Tourism might be adapted for different countries I would rather leave that to people to discover in their own improvised visits. At one point I write “if the guards are armed” – there are no armed guards at UK heritage sites, so I am signaling my awareness that conditions for visits will vary from country to country and region to region.

MM Your research panel members come from a wide range of working backgrounds. What’s your experience working with both professional artists and also people with a background not related to arts and architecture?

PS Well, the whole basis of Mythogeography is the idea of multiplicity so it was a joy to have so many insights and perspectives. What the panel members brought were insights and attitudes that disrupted many of my assumptions. Sometimes they de-composed what I was thinking and doing, at other times their ideas and mine were synthesized or fell into mutual orbits. It worked differently with different people, but almost always adding to the multiplicity. 

MM Why do you include popular songs and some informal disguises, like hats? Is it a kind of postdramatic theatre?

PS There is an inspiration for Counter Tourism in postdramatic theatre – yes, definitely. The performance walks from which Counter Tourism developed might be characterized in the way that that Hans-Thies Lehmann characterizes the postdramatic: ‘disintegration, dismantling and deconstruction’ , ‘de-hierarchization of theatrical means’ , and an ‘experience of simultaneity’  sited on a plane of synchronicity and myth: ‘not a story read from... beginning to end, but a thing held full in-view the whole time... a landscape’. Songs and disguises are for using sparingly – there is a danger that Counter Touristic visits can flip over into showing off and exhibitionism. But in one of the films - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7FZkd1Qaw – I do sing, but I think I’m probably trying everybody’s patience with this moment of self-indulgence! So hats and songs maybe, but very sparingly!

MM Does everybody participate in the performances or maybe you found reluctant ones among professionals?

PS When a visit is explicitly a performance – like a mis-guided tour – then almost everyone will be prepared, if asked, to take some active role or part – modeling ghosts or holding a rope for me to ‘dangle’ from. I never set out to make people feel uncomfortable or self-conscious, I always aim to make people feel comfortable and secure and then challenge them to step a little way out of their comfort zone for the purposes of the collective event. Using the Counter Tourism tactics people can choose how performance-like or how discreet they want to be.

MM I was surprised to see that in GeoQuest video old people are participating, also kids and adults. Is there any different approach for the eldest?

PS Well, these were older people in ‘sheltered housing’ so the visit of the GeoQuest there had to be to them in their homes rather than taking them to the site – so we took rocks and sand to them rather than them visiting the cliffs and beaches. But no, apart from being sensitive to our impact – the arrival of three men in strange costumes could be disturbing for very elderly people if too noisy and boisterous – we treated older people in the same way and with the same intentions as everyone else.

MM You say there are variations and re assemblages of what tourists see based on their own experiences of life. Is it valid to manipulate them to find the multiplicity of points of view?

PS I hope that Counter Tourism is an offer rather than a manipulation. It requires the tourist to make a leap that only they can make – one can offer the different viewpoints, but if a visitor wants to stick to a homogenized narrative of the site then they will be able to ‘pull the shutters down’.

MM In GeoQuest video, people are making sound with stones, while the leader is playing a song related to geology, also in another scene, people are using pink glasses. Is it part of the exorcism of familiar forms of heritage?

PS Yes, I think “exorcism” is a very good word to use – heritage (in this case a geological one) is often seen as a view through “rosy coloured spectacles” (a nostalgic’ overly sunny view of the past that confirms our own prejudices) and using the glasses forefronts and challenges that tendency and then seeks to bend it to a new kind of impact. The fundamental tactical-principle of counter-tourism is to exorcize or hollow-out existing ways of visiting sites and then re-animate those ways in exorbitant and excessive ways (either as spectral versions or highly coloured, comic or emotional versions of themselves).

MM On the other hand you show the importance of signs on the monuments’ walls - what’s the purpose of it, wouldn’t it reinforce the idea of heritage?

PS I try to encourage people to ‘over-interpret’ the signs – rather than as simple narratives of the heritage we can (half-seriously) read them as esoteric crypto-messages or discover double meanings or you tell ourselves tales about how they unintentionally reveal the secrets of the site.

MM Is it allowed to take pictures, if they are a static representation of reality, not in the spirit of Counter Tourism?

PS O yes, even without a stills camera or a video camera we see through those lenses and frames all the time – just as many urban nineteenth century people might have seen the landscape as if framed like a painting. So I suggest that we use those internal frames knowingly – and photography can help – as well as being a means to disseminate counter-touristic ironies and opportunities to others.

MM Based on the film of ‘Mythogeography’ at the Royal William Victualling Yard, are mythogeography’s walks exclusively for students?

PS Not at all! I wanted to make a film of this walk and I wanted to take my students on the walk as part of their course – so I was ‘killing two birds with one stone’ – my walks are almost always open to the general public and I have no idea who will turn up – often my subject matter is adult but my means are playful, so children can often get involved in those means – for example, in my recent ‘Spaces’ walk in Weymouth I referenced the murders of a local serial killer and dragged around a bath (he drowned his victims) – the children loved the way that the water in the bath bounced around as I dragged it over the cobblestones (something I had drawn everyone’s attention to as a useful means – the break up and reforming of the site’s reflection - to re-interpreting the site).

MM In the overall context of Counter-Tourism, what was the significance of your “water walk?”

PS Water Walk was a mis-guided tour around an area of industrial heritage and former quayside in Exeter during which we tried out some innovative ideas for a tour that came to have a bearing on the devising of Counter Tourism – myself and the other guide began by explaining that we were going to relinquish most of the roles of guides, we told the audience all the history we were not going to tell them about on the tour, we enacted all the pointing we would not be doing and we took off our guides’ jackets – we then led the tour mostly in silence enacting various secular rituals using water (crucial to the former industrial processes of tanning, cloth manufacture, driving the water mills, and so on) – we ‘exorcised’ the tour and then resurrected its tactics in excessive ways. The responses of participants were qualitatively different from other tours – not only did they describe the multiple meanings of the sites appearing, but they became self-consciously aware of how they were constructing a multiplicitous heritage-consciousness while in the act of actually constructing it in their own minds - this quality I came to attribute to this tour’s accessing of ‘chorastic’ qualities in the site - a space somewhere between being and becoming, temporarily resistant to obligations of exchange and commerce, a temporary evasion of identities and hierarchy, a potential space of transformation, a transitory space that a particular kind of performance might be able to provoke and sustain for a while. From this walk I took the idea of the double movement (exorcism and excess) to which Counter Tourism subjects the ordinary tactics of a tourist visit, the idea that the guide should step back and let the participants be the driving force, and that the driving aim should be access to the ‘chora’ of a site rather than the performance intervention in it.

MM Is it helpful for your objectives to see the landscape indirectly, for example through the many reflections on the water, or through lenses, or to imagine the landscape through the sky?

PS Yes – frames and mirrors – I am always using them and advocate them – they allow us to become aware of the internalized frames, mirrors and representations that we use and make.

MM In Counter Tourism, can the human body have a direct approach to Nature? I was just imagining myself laying on the grass, listening to the sounds of Nature and in this way recreate the landscape….

PS Why not? Yes, sometimes there is a moment to drop all the clever tactics and go for a direct sensual immersion – but without any romantic illusions – there will be all the same ideological framings at play even in this sensual act as in, say, an intellectual inquiry.

MM This question was inspired by thinking of the movie directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, “Stalker” ; I suppose you find some relations between Stalker and Counter Tourism?

PS To some extent, yes, because ‘Stalker’ is about a kind of pilgrimage which is partly ordeal – and both those qualities can be introduced into the touristic visit with subversive or disruptive effects. And, of course, pilgrimage and tourism have always been close. I like to use anachronisms knowingly – to disrupt ideas of ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’.   

MM What do you suggest for those tourists in the shopping malls who are missing the “counter tourism” or even the conventional tourism?

PS I would say – do the counter tourism in the malls. One of my tactics    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGAQTJAKSAA  is to walk a mall or supermarket as a zombie, treating the mall as the museum of a post-apocalyptic society. In the Handbook I move on to discuss how all spaces are heritage spaces – but some have a gate and a ticket office and some do not.

MM Where is Counter Tourism going?

PS I hope that it will be seized upon as a pleasure by as many everyday tourists as possible – firstly as a means for enjoyment, but one that will change the nature of heritage from a looking backwards (whether serious and analytical or nostalgic and chauvinistic) to what others have called ‘anticipatory history’ – a use of the past for making the best futures.

MM Thank you so much Phil!

Above, three shots from the video Mythogeography at the Royal William Victualling Yard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGdBtWmbc4A&feature=player_embedded#!

To buy Phil Smith’s  books on Counter Tourism and Mythogeography go to: http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Counter-Tourism-Pocketbook.htm , http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Counter-Tourism-Handbook.htm 

and http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Mythogeography_Guide_to_Walking_Sideways.htm For more about Counter Tourism check out www.countertourism.net and for 31 micro films on counter-touristic tactics click on the links at 

http://countertourism.blogspot.co.uk/p/tactics.html