At the 48th Minute

(GuangKong by Joshua LAU, At the 48th Minutes)

DIS(RE)PLACEMENT, REFABRICATION & DISAPPEARANCE

In no more than 2 years time, a mega-metropolis will emerge above the land of Pearl River Delta. At the slice of completion, a newly created in-between fragement by the action of future-time liquidation appears to be what "shortened". It is temporary, transcient, impermanent and maybe imperfect as it does not describe nor project the essence of its origin. It is brand new, wishful, dynamic and attractive, breaks the state of balance between the two cities, re-configures relationship between the lands and their people. It is yet a process of another beginning.

In the 2006 Venice Biennale, the discussion of the Hong Kong Exhibition identifies the idea of "Displacement", as a phenomonon derived from a multiple restrains of hyper density, soaring land value and economicontests amongest other asian metropolises, cities are read as a fragmented palimpsest continuously being transcribed, transformed, trnansferred and even transported. The following 2 biennale exhibitions including the ShenZhen/ Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale and Venice in 2008 argues that Hong Kong is a city of "Refabrication" and "Disappearance" with alarming frequency of construction and deconstruction, leaving memories, how creative disciplines are able to engage in the process of generating and regenerating the city’s fabric in its various scopes and scales.

To continue the ideas and obervations by architects and scholars in the PRD, every action of "displacements" is a transaction of space and value causes "disappearance", "replaces" and "refabricates" fragment of the city. The Bi-City of Shen Zhen & Hong Kong already proved to have contributed over 50% of GDP in the PRD region. The new direct 48 minutes portal from the West Kowloon to GuangZhou will future strength these three cities in to a Mega-Urban Region, contributes up to 75% of GDP and not Tri-City in description. This integration of urbanity ignites by the greater PRD intercity transportation creates job opportunities within the region, meaning also creation of sustainable middle class which supports the regional economic stalization process.

Habitus; citizens of different background and perception would somewhat see this marriage of the cities with unlimited possibilites. "Displacement" continues to be prevailing phenomana takes place at the Great Leap of Red China in the Pearl River Delta. The displacements of economic activities from the better developed origins includes obsoletes manufacturing factories and labour intensive businesses, in order to make space for the service industries, refabricate the city wtih new set of citizenship. Spatial transactions continues to transform the relationship between each nodes in the PRD and shifts economic focuses from site to site until the state of equilibrium.

(Source: CBRE One Hour Living Sphere)

On the verge of the begining of new era in this One Hour Living Sphere, the story of GuangZhou and Hong Kong would become the "norm" within the region of PRD. The shortened time allows citizens better chance for transactions to occurs and translate existing culture and fabric into state of uncertainty. As economy will continue to reach its equalibrium during the period of massive displacement actions, the sense of origin will inevitably be ignored and becoming one.

In this sense, ideas previouly discussed were only temporary and imperfect. Passes the state of the definate actions of "DIS-" & "RE-" we are at the edge of losing identity and ego as a city, when the new world is looking at combined direct "Urban Actions" between two sites, hence "EXCHANGE", that includes PLACEMENT, FABRICATION & APPEARANCE. Inevitably cities identity becomes ambiguous, but is that so?

Technology and Space as Urban Forms

The text is formed out of footnotes from the lecture of Manuel Castells at GSD.
Mar. 18. 2009, Cambridge MA


The combination of informatics and telecommunication transform everyday the patterns of communication patterns in all kinds of relationships. As Richard Mayer (Professor of Psychology at the University of California) refers the cities have been always the result of their communication patterns.

In terms of concentration we already crossed over the threshold of 50% of urban population for the first time. The earth experiences the largest urbanization in history. Through observation and analysis of the contemporary social organization and the human activities we come up with the concept of a Polycentric Metropolis. While the urban sprawl is transformed in something much more massive that could be characterized as a De-centered Globalization, i.e. a multinuclear structure where the communication systems organize cities themselves as internal metropolitan networks. For example the local news of LA call the region that they refer to as the “South Land”, which includes the triangle of Santa Barbara-Tijuana-Las Vegas. This triangle translated in numbers accommodates no less than 21 million people in a multi-nuclear urban condition sprawled along 12,5 million km2. The tactic of the formation of this network reflects a manipulated real estate credit market in comparison with common communication networks i.e. economy and technology juxtapositions. The new urban geography is the overlap of amenities (urban infrastructure), chances for jobs, crime economy, informal economy etc. This urban amalgam creates a completely new issue in the planet where (1) land patterns don’t have a central political representation (2) public spaces – non functional areas ceased to exist and (3) the built points of reference (architecture) are not essential for any formation of identity.

The crisis of the already known urban or suburban space could be characterized as structural. All the latter networks are based in a financial capitalism of the easy credit. India and China are being developed in the same non-sustainable model, which is a guarantee for failure in the very near future. All-round the world the governments are shrinking the economy while ideologically there is no socialism (nevertheless corporations tend to be nationally supported). We definitely need soft design where wi-fi creates spontaneously self-organized public space and immigrants produce financial mechanisms through informal structures. Instead of rigid architectural structures we could force LeCorbusier to ride a bike.

Manuel Castells

Edit. Yannis Kitanis

a global map of accessibility

came across this "global map of accessibility" here, time and distances shrink, "little wilderness left", wilderness defined in terms of distance. 

how to allow for the "wild" to exist and develop here, next to us? 

MAPPING SOMALIA

A study of how body and mind are linked with territory.

Somalis are producing a unique type of globalization, which manifests itself under the regime of anarchy.

Somalia, [a country situated in the East-west strategic point of the Horn of Africa], from 1991 to present, is cited as a real world example of a stateless society and of the non-existence of legal system. From the fall of Siad Barre’s government in January 1991 until the capture of Mogadishu by the Islamic Courts Union in June 2006, there was no permanent national government in Somalia. Large areas of the country such as Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug, Maakhir, and Southwestern Somalia are internationally unrecognized autonomous regions. The remaining areas, including the capital Mogadishu, were divided into smaller territories ruled by competing warlords. Until now, taxes ceased to be collected, regulatory agencies ceased to regulate. Since that time, thirteen different peace conferences have attempted to create a new government for all of Somalia, but all of them have failed. How does, in our times, a stateless society continue to still exist? Could the survival of this advanced and complex system of distribution of power survive without the developing of strong relationships of global interdependence?

For some theoreticians, Somalia in its stateless period provided a unique test of the theory of anarchy. Following the downfall of the Siad Barre regime, there was effectively no formal monocentric government law in Somalia. While some urban areas such as Mogadishu had private police forces, many Somalis simply returned to the traditional clan-based legal structures for local governance, and they have been identified as “legendary individualists”, susceptible to anarchist forms of social organization.

Regarding the social existing conditions, the level of daily violence during all this period was catastrophic, since the impact of governmental collapse and the ensuing civil war led to the breakdown of political institutions, the destruction of social and economic infrastructure and the massive internal and external migrations. However, according to studies of 2005, Somalia ranked in the top 50 percent in six of our 13 measures, and ranked near the bottom in only three: infant mortality, immunization rates, and access to improved water sources. This compares favourably with circumstances in 1990, when Somalia last had a government and was ranked in the bottom 50 percent for all seven of the measures for which we had that year’s data: death rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, main telephone lines, tuberculosis, and immunization for measles and DTP.

This shows partially, that in the absence of functioning governmental institutions and regulations, voluntary, non-coercive alternatives emerged. Economical researchers identify areas where the private sector adapted to the stateless environment. The journalist Kevin Sites, after a trip to anarchic Somalia, reported that “Somalia, though brutally poor, is a kind of libertarian’s dream. Free enterprise flourishes, and vigorous commercial competition is the only form of regulation. Somalia has some of the best telecommunications in Africa, with a handful of companies ready to wire home or office and provide crystal-clear service, including international long distance, for about $10 a month.” According to the CIA World Factbook, private telephone companies offer service in most major cities via wireless technology, charging the lowest international rates on the continent, while The New York Times has noted the private provision of mail services. According to a 2005 World Bank report, the “private airline business in Somalia is now thriving with more than five carriers and
price wars between the companies.” In addition, the private sector grew impressively, according to the
World Bank in 2003, particularly in the areas of trade, commerce, transport, remittance and infrastructure
services and in the primary sectors, notably in livestock, agriculture and fisheries. The economist Peter T. Leeson, in an event study of “the impact of anarchy on Somali development”, found that “the data suggest
that while the state of this development remains low, on nearly all of 18 key indicators that allow pre- and
post-stateless welfare comparisons, Somalis are better off under anarchy than they were under government.”

Today, there exist 15-17 million Somali people, from whom only 9,1 million continue to live in Somalia. Most of the remaining live now in the state of constant movement, seeking refuge and are categorized from international organizations as internally displaced persons (IDPs). The rest of them are dispersed in the world, categorized in three major groups: a) immigrants, b) forced immigrants and c) refugees and asylum seekers. Somali refugees are amongst the largest refugee population in the world and the Somali diaspora is very widely scattered. How can we map a state of anarchy, or how can we map the people who do not live within the borders of their own country? Can we draw conclusions of how territory is linked with the people and their common identity?

In this case, territory, people and identity are linked in a very special way. Mapping the Somali diaspora – starting at the international level, continuing with the Horn of Africa and zooming into the Somali neighbourhoods of Addis Ababa, a city functioning as a “stepping stone” of their big exodus to Europe and America – shows that the idea of territory remains an obscure image for the Somalis. Studies of population movements, the economic flow and emerging political and cultural elements inside and outside the Somali “invisible” borders indicate that Somalia is everywhere. Somalis are producing a unique type of globalization, which manifests itself under the regime of anarchy and may constitute today of the most modern type of capitalism. War takes part in the erasure of national boundaries, questioning the classical notion of nationhood. The stateless society helps the development of multiple and complex interrelationships in a global base. However, we should also have in mind the unique culture of Somali people, who, belonging to a nomadic culture, live in the constant movement and change and produce a special way to organize their space and territory. They step into the land of the in-between: in search of an identity between then (before the civil war) and now using this dipole of body and mind, land and spirit. They know that they belong everywhere.

To be continued…


Somalia and the theory of anarchy. Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok, http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/04/somalia_and_the.html
-In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It, Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, 2007-04-27
-The Rule of Law Without the State, Spencer Heath Mac-Callum, Mises Daily Article, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007-09-12
-Violence continues unabated in Somalia. News & Special Reports, Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2005
-Somali Anarchy Is More Orderly than Somali Government, Benjamin Powell, The Independent Institute, 2006
-In the Hot Zone, Kevin Sites, Harper Perennial, New York, 2007
-World Bank Advisory Committee for Somalia Country Re-engagement Note, 2003
-Somalia After State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement?, Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, Alex Nowrasteh, Independent Institute, 2006

Distributed Capitalism

Thoughts on Jeremy Rifkin’s speech at Urbania Festival (Bologna)

In his January 2009 lecture in Bologna (Italy), Jeremy Rifkin states that the world is suffering from the progress of the recent past decades. He says that We underestimated the speed , of things that are changing today. We are facing now the second law of thermodynamics; the entropy-wrath is distributed in three parameters of a global crisis.

1. 1 Global Economic Meltdown

2. 2 Global Energy Security

3. 3 Real Time Impact of Climate Change

The Global Economic Meltdown is sustained by the concepts of “credit” and later that of the “mortgage”. The American Economy’s final collapse comes out of the 1989 and 2009 housing crisis and after a repetitively ambiguous economical administration throughout the last two decades the “super power” has eventually a 12.5 trillion dollars total depth.

Global Energy Security problem rises in a moment when the American Industry depends absolutely on the energy price since the first and second Industrial Revolutions. We are currently in the era of the “peak oil” where the price of $140 per barrel defines the upper limit of a surreal economic inflation. At the same time even if new oil sources are discovered all round the world, the exponentially increase of the energy demanding population (i.e. the industrialization of China and India) enhances the problem of the “peak oil per capita”. War is used as the absolute means to “secure” the precious energy and that’s more than harming for the humanity.

Contemporary western societies underestimate that everyday commodities like the buildings, the meat consumption and the mass transportation are the three emission pillars of the contemporary Climate Change. 40% of the CO₂ fuels come out of the built architecture. The issue of meat consumption is not even an issue in contemporary discussions. Optimistic analyses talk about an increase of temperature around the world of 3 degrees Celsius. 30-70% of the species are facing extinction. Exaggeration of natural phenomena like hurricanes and floods is now happening.

At this point Jeremy Rifkin argues that the aftermath of latter observations is the recovery of the planet through a sustainable globalization process coming out of what he calls “Third Industrial Revolution”. The latter will emerge only after a parallel idea in the way we communicate information and energy is created. Telecommunications run collaterally with steam and later oil energy in 19th and 20th century as a top bottom distribution of services. In other words both energy and communication were centrically organized around specific axis - nation-states along with supranational institutions - around the world. On the other hand, information and telecommunication networks, totally accessible and distributed do not coincide with the static form of old energy distribution systems. Energy is stored in specific pockets around the world while information travels high-speed throughout a global network.

Distributed communications (internet) along with distributed energy (smart platforms) create the so called distributed capitalism. It is a political matter of the household where data and energy can be stored and transferred freely in an internet-style platform. Free market based on networks that can derive from everywhere, i.e. households, institutions, governments. Imagine energy in a “shared folder” where everybody has access. The notion of distributed capitalism substantiates the “ultimate suburbia” in the 21^st century globalized world.

The umbrella of distributed globalization will be the very context of our investigation. Inside the era of “flat” urbanization, of the idea of a distributed network community with total accessibility, of the call for the “ultimate suburbs”, from Geo-politics to Biosphere-politics^*, architecture is not perceived as morphology anymore but as ecology. Everything belongs into a sustainable cycle, every single entity of this cycle is a Deleuzian Desert Island: absolute separate, absolute creator, a prototype. As Manuel deLanda observes there are some cultural-structural networks (units) that fit in the description of self-consistent aggregates. These networks might be igneous rocks, ecosystems or local markets. In other words they are self organizing-sustained aggregates that can absorb information and release energy and vice versa.

* Biosphere politics, which "envisions the earth as a living organism, and the human species as a partner and participant, dependent on the proper functioning of the biosphere and at the same time responsible for its well-being," seeks to unite democratic principles and a concern for the natural world in a modus operandi capable of healing the earth and securing a life for future generations.

Harris Biskos, Yannis Kitanis