Guerilla Gardeners Pics!

Erin Wood has kindly provided us with some pictures that we were supposed to see during her presentation this morning. Here is where you can find them.

antropologi.info Takes Note

Metropolis 347 was recently added to a blog aggregator created by Lorenz Khazaleh. Khazaleh, who is based in Norway, maintains an anthropology news blog called antropologi.info. Our own latest posts are available here. The aggregator comes with a convenient newspaper that provides a way of reading--on one web page--the latest posts to dozens of anthropology blogs from around the world. Take some time to look around this site and get a feel for how it works. Besides being a useful resource for anthropologists, its aesthetic style and its mode of information management exemplify the cutting edge of web design. In the city of bits, Khazaleh is building an important intersection.

Mix Your Own Soundscape

Is it possible to explore immigrant cultures through soundscapes? The Tenement Museum in NYC has a wonderful website focusing on the soundscapes of the Lower East Side. Many of the sounds available on their map are recordings of street life in that part of the city. What's interesting is that the web site allows you to mix the sounds from different places and create your own sound image of "immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side". Recordings of visitors' mixes are available here. I particularly like the one called 'Sounds kinda like home'. (Thanks to Shaylih for the link).

Urban Livestock

"At the top end of the urban livestock scale are pigs. Now it is theoretically possible to keep pigs in fairly small gardens, but it won't be nice either for you or the pigs. They need plenty of space... So for most of us, urban pig-keeping is not practical. Plus there is quite a lot of paperwork involved - medical and movement records, and your site may need to be assessed before you are given the appropriate permissions." For more on urban gardening, urban livestock, and how they affect relationships within the stereotypical anglo nuclear family, see this article from the Guardian.

Undistracted Citizens

A group of concerned Venetians have taken on the task of pickpocket patrol, walking the crowded streets of Venice in a hunt for thieves who target tourists. They call themselves Cittadini Non Distratti (Undistracted Citizens), and over 200 Venetians have registered as card-carrying members. The group enjoys immense popularity among the public and the media, and even the police have warmed up to these crime-fighting allies. Rome Police Chief Aldo Zanetti terms their actions "participative security" - indeed, some Venetians have taken to calling the Cittadini, rather than the police, when they see a petty crime in progress. City Hall is less enthused about the group, believing that its existence reflects poorly on the city's ability to take care of its citizens, and, perhaps more importantly, its lifeblood - tourists. However, the collaboration between these vigilante citizens and the police is working - pickpocketing has significantly decreased. As an unofficial security force surrounded by mystique and accolades of heroism, the Cittadini possess a status not shared by the more conventional police.

U of T Parkour

You can also check out the somewhat less impressive version of this sport at Hart House, U of T, among other places.

Extreme Parkour

Parkour is a form of urban gymnastics that has gained worldwide popularity over the last few years. Like skating, it involves a refashioning of the human relation to the built environment. Even more than skating, however, this refashioning highlights the capacity of human beings to bring the immensity of urban structures down to the scale of the human body. Check out a remarkable video of this activity here. Note the post-industrial landscape that serves as the backdrop for the performance.

The Role of the Academy in the City of Puzzles

"Greatest of all the institutions in Perplex City is the Academy. The Academy is where the brightest, most creative people in Perplex City go to try and understand the world through the lens of puzzles. After all, decoding ancient languages and decoding the human genome are just two different types of highly specialised puzzles. As well as solving puzzles, the Academy creates them for its students and people in the city, not just for entertainment but also for education."

Blogging the Bird's Eye View

What happens when cityspace and cyberspace merge? Another Copernican revolution? This article may ultimately prove to be an understated description of changes in our perception of geography that result from new Internet technologies: "The Google Earth view of my neighborhood in Washington shows a red truck parked down the street. The front bumper of that truck has a different GPS address from the windshield. And in the same way that a “traditional” blog, if we can use that term, might have links pointing to a particular news item or posting, Google Earth allows the equivalent of bloggers to attach annotations to specific geographical points." Article available from Atlantic Monthly for a limited time here.

Metropolis Mapping Project

I've just added an interactive map to the blog. Scroll down and find it on the right. Add new waypoints and notes to the map. Add comments about particular places in the city or links to posts on our blog. All you have to do is click on the map, press the 'edit map' button, and create an account. Very simple. Think of it as a less embodied version of the murmur project. A mixture of the birds eye view and the pedestrian view of the city.

Torontoist Takes Note....

Ever at the forefront of the latest urban happenings, another Joshua over at the Torontoist has kindly taken notice of our activities. Perhaps he will consider running a follow-up to the grafitti post that drew our attention to the Torontoist in the first place? I noticed the other day that someone had actually broken one of those shiny new panes of glass they installed on the Dovercourt side of the Starbucks (repaired almost immediately). It made me wonder what people think of that Starbucks now that it is actually up and running.

Share your story: [murmur] takes over Hart House

[murmur] is coming to Hart House! Members of the Hart House staff are currently collecting stories from the university community for a [murmur] installation, which should be in operation by March 15th. If you recall, [murmur] is the location-based cell phone documentary project spearheaded by last month's guest speaker, Shawn Micallef, and others. The Hart House press release describes it aptly as an "archival audio project". So think back to all your fondest Hart House memories and e-mail them to co-ordinator Jenifer Newcombe. This seems particularly timely, considering that the Arbor Room is set to close this year...perhaps some poignant Arbor Room stories will add strength to the petition that has been circulating to save it!

An Eternal Battle

Many of you have likely heard about the recent altercation between a motorist and a bicyclist in Kensington Market, precipitated by the bicyclist's act of retaliation against the motorist's littering. I won't rehash the details (they can be found here and here), but it is worth reflecting on what this incident reveals about two enduring, and conflicting, roles. The motorist and the pedestrian are constantly set up as opposing forces: who has a more legitimate claim to the street? Is one privileged over the other? Does this change, depending on what part of the city you are in? Could this have happened in the suburbs?

One consequence of this incident is that it has sparked a major on-line debate (see the first link above) as commentators argue about pedestrian rights versus driver's rights, the responsibilities of spectators and the need to respect public space, among other things. The sides are equally represented, as the battle between motorist and pedestrian rages on.

Olivo Barbieri's model world

There is an article on Metropolismag.com about a man who takes aerial photos from real metropolitan areas, and makes them look like models. I thought it was interesting in light of the urban planning we've been talking and reading about: models are not simply 'harmless' creative expressions of a particular discourse - some of them do eventually become the reality that we have to live in. http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1760