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All posts by arobbins
Congress Street: A Walk Through
My chosen area of focus is technology and education, but for my transect walk I chose to track how public messages were published and shared (a kind of public education). To study this, I walked along Congress St. from the Gulf Express Mart on Neal St. to the Eastern Promenade on the ocean side of Munjoy hill.
The difference in messaging was striking. While store fronts downtown were often densely populated with signs and posters, Munjoy hills’ stores (mostly at the bottom towards downtown) tended to have only store hours and sale items in a display. There were also far fewer stray posters. The posters that there were appeared to be restricted to neighborhood issues, like a lost cat and an upcoming play.
Public signage/postering is far less important today than it once was, but still connects social events and activities to spaces. While someone from Munjoy hill is very likely to see posters downtown, the exclusivity of presence of those posters suggests that the intended audience for the event is those immediately local to them. One idea for information access equality would be to simply install more poster boards like the one that I saw by Congress Square Park (shown further below).
State St Intersection by Longfellow Monument
The first media distribution hub that I encountered were these newspaper dispensers. Lots of stickers and markings on them.
Optimal Self Community Health & Wellness Center Window (between State and Park St.)
A collection of small posters for wellness workshops and classes. Includes such offerings as children’s yoga and polarity healing. This falls into a class that I call Window-based Self-Promotion (WSP).
More concert/event posters on the side of a building under construction.
High St Intersection by Congress Square Park
This is what I’m talking about! These are all live music events and parties happening in the next month or so in Portland. The exception is the “Coming Home After Lockup” poster, which is advertising a theater production and community discussion put on by the social justice organization Maine Inside Out. Interesting to note that this is a dedicated public poster board.
Empire (corner of Forest Ave. and Congress St.)
Another piece of WSP, this one a list of upcoming shows on the door of Empire.
The famous temperature and time sign is a very unusual and interesting example of public information publication/distribution.
Center St. and Congress
This poster collection had nearly all of the same posters that I saw at the High St. Intersection, this time stuck to a lamp post rather than a poster board.
There were quite a few window signs and “for rent” signs between Monument Way and Munjoy Hill that I did not photograph because they were not of particular interest.
St. Lawrence Arts & Community Center
The enclosed poster board outside by the door of the center had posters for two plays, a lecture on the life and art of Bernard Langlais, and a fundraiser.
Vesper St. Intersection
This poster-splattered lamp post stood in stark contrast to the one downtown. The only poster that was legible was for a missing cat, but all were black and white and very worn.
A Tale of Two Cafés, and a Funeral
It came recommended by not one, but two friends. It was built into an old gas station, but didn’t sell gas. It had a memorable logo that was at once cute and minimalistic. It was Tandem Coffee Roasters, and it was empty.
Of course I could not conduct an ethnography in an empty café, but, in Portland, such eateries have propagated like horny rabbits with extra sex organs – there would be another. The proximate sibling happened to be Speckled Ax. I ordered a cup of drip, sat down, and initiated that passive, temporary sort of stalking that we all now know and love: the ethnography.
4:10
Arrived at Speckled Ax Café on Congress Street
A generally young crowd, with the single exception of a middle aged woman discussing the prospects of graduate school with an enthusiastically gesticulating woman who is (you guessed it) young.
Young (half black?) man with a beautiful brown pitbull sits at the table across from mine talking with another young woman. A young woman with short blond hair sits behind them, working on her mac pro – engrossed and wearing a black hoodie.
I am sitting in the middle of them in a row of tables, aligned by a long bench that juts out from the brown walls. To my left is another young woman working quietly at her laptop, and to the left of her is a young woman who appears to be reading a book (but her back is to me).
There are a group of early 30s (?) white men beside me discussing a messy roommate and moving to one of their girlfriends’ places (hipsters).
4:20
Woman with the guy with the pitbull gets up to go to the bathroom. He takes pictures of his dog on his iphone. Another young man strolls quickly into the café – says hi to the pitbull guy, they appear to be friendly.
4:30
A couple shows up and walks to the counter to order. They stay standing there, and talk to each other until their coffee is ready and they leave. The group of hipster men beside me leave, but one has left their iphone and espresso on the table.
4:40
The hipster guys are back, minus one. Strong tobacco smell.
There is a young woman sitting at the table beside me also working on her laptop (not a mac!) The guy with the pitbull and friend discuss weed and alcohol. She doesn’t drink much and he doesn’t either, but he smokes “like, every day.”
young woman who was been working at the bar (not making coffee, on her laptop. there’s a small counter to work at) gets up to leave. Drinks water first.. I feel creepy watching all of this and writing it down. As she leaves, finally, she says hello to the hipster guy who also knew the pitbull guy. The hipster guys also leaves, but not with her.
4:50
Young woman sitting next to me packs up to leave, and the woman at the table across from me (black hoodie, engrossed in work) has also left. Meanwhile, the pair discussing grad school remain locked in conversation. It’s just me and these two talking pairs now. And the two employees chatting in the back.
5:00
Both pairs are still talking and no one has come in, though there is a lot of foot traffic outside. The pair across from me have their iphones out and are discussing them.
5:10
The pair across from me leave after friending each other on facebook. The pair to my right are still talking, but it’s just us three here now.
—
I needed paper and the Speckled Ax had emptied out. After grabbing a few sheets at Kinkos, I moved to Arabica café.
—
5:15
Much more diverse crowd. 14 people by my count.
In the front sections there is a middle aged woman reading the newspaper by the window, and a younger woman using a macbook air. There is a very stylish and tattoed man at the table beside her, also on a mac laptop. Then, at the table by him there are two women sitting quietly – one on a laptop, one reading. At the tably beside them there is a woman with over ear headphones and an IBM laptop working. Further down the cafe there is an older man in a tshirt tapping away at an ipad. A couple of seats down there is a small group of three skater-types, two guys and a girl (college age?). Towards the end of the cafe there are two couples quietly working.
5:25
One of the skater people leaves.
A group of three young women come in and head straight to the back of the café.
A middle aged woman enters and orders a drink – then sits on the couch behind the bar by herself, reading on her iPad mini.
5:35
The older woman by the door leaves, but the newspaper remains on the counter. Another middle aged couple come in and take her place. Two Bowdoin students show up and take a table in the back.
6:00
Café is closing; I have been asked to leave.
Mental Maps
Name: Savannah
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Occupation: N/A
– Grew up in Portland and lives on Munjoy Hill.
– Really likes Portland and didn’t have many problems or ideas.
– Thinks that humans shouldn’t have to work to have a home, and would like to have housing be free. Wants to see more community sharing of land.
– Wants trash bags to be cheaper
– Feels that she is approached by “narcs” a disproportionately large amount.
Name: Tim Wilson
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Occupation: Painter
– Grew up further North and has lived in Portland for five years. Currently resides in West End.
– Likes the trails in and around Portland, and biking up and down its hills.
– Thinks parking is a big issue. Wants to revamp the buses. (“Who takes the bus?” he asked. “It’s a cultural issue.”)
– Likes the park, but events are few and do not appeal to his interests.
– Would like to see more going on than just restaurants and bars.
(Note: Tim’s drawing is really cool looking, and it turns out he is a very talented artist: http://www.timothypowerswilson.com)
Name: Stella
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Occupation: Special Education Teacher
– Moved to Portland 22 years ago
– Panhandling is uncomfortable. She identifies as politically far left, but thinks that panhandlers are bad for tourism (take up benches, accost tourists), and make the city less welcoming.
–Thinks that Prebble Street or other organization should focus on getting homeless people to work, possible in an agricultural setting. Thinks farming could be very therapeutic. Wants the homeless to feel useful.
– Loves famers’ market and food coop, wants more local food.
Name: Laura
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Occupation: Marketing
– Grew up in Portland
– Wants better parking, affordable housing, and more sustainable development / sustainability projects in general.
– Thinks that homelessness is a big issue facing the city.
– Idea: bring back the train around the peninsula!
My time in these Portland cafés, and my discussions with this small sampling of its inhabitants, suggest that these middle class citizens are generally very happy with Portland as it exists today. The most pressing issues of daily life in the city seem to be parking and homelessness. Of these, homelessness was very clearly more significant.
In my own evaluation, Tim’s desire for more cultural attractions that go beyond bars and restaurants was a subtle but important one. It seems that the restaurants in Portland have assumed the role of old Boston’s pubs, Paris’s cafés, and LA’s pool parties – stoking the flames of a burgeoning culture that will inevitably spill over to other arts and activities. It also struck a strong chord as San Francisco citizens currently face a similar issue, but from a very different angle. While SF has long been home to an impressive variety of cultures and attractions, the recent tech boom in the city has sparked a steep increase in swanky bars and dressed-down, but still high end restaurants. The parallels don’t end there – San Francisco also faces a large and very present homeless population. Perhaps lessons learned in addressing cultural development and homelessness in Portland can be applied to San Francisco as well.
Dreams of Food, Robot Boats, and Other Phenomena
Experimentation is the root of knowledge; carrying nutritious information from the soil of the universe to the blooming, green leaves of the layered neural tissue of our cerebral cortex. Yummy. Before we can drink of this delicious nectar, however, we must first conjure up some insane and baseless ideas for the experiment to test. To this end, I have sat for some time in some number of spaces and seduced the mysterious magician – the ghost in the machine – to work her mysterious magic. She has obliged, but it’s a mixed bag.
1. Lobster Drone
Greenfield writes that, “interventions like [IBM’s] are, for the most part, a matter of incremental enhancement – of off-the-shelf products acquired through existing procurement channels, serviced via conventional contracts, tacked onto [pre-existing] spatial and institutional arrangements.”[1] Well, Mr. Greenfield, prepare to have your mind whisked to a pulp and pulled out through your nose like an Egyptian Pharoah undergoing mummification.
The autonomous lobster drone is a delivery boat (or fleet of boats) that carries packages to the many islands around Portland – and it is so new it will have to be built entirely from scratch. Okay, not entirely, you’ll want to use arduino or something – but what the heck does Greenfield want? Tell you what, we’ll source the arduino boards from local hacker communions. Is there such a thing? There should be. Moving on.
Why is this a good idea? Despite all of the incredible benefits of commercial drones (they are affordable robots built to do our bidding for god’s sake), they face two big non-technological hurdles, 1) they are called drones and they sound scary, and 2) the Federal Aviation Administration has, for good reason, banned the use of commercial drones, and the use of any autonomous aircraft over Class B airspace (i.e. major urban areas). The boat being dressed up as a lobster solves the first problem – but really, we need to have different words for war drones and lobster fishing drones. Being a boat means that it will not be subject to the same ill-fate as Taco-Copter, though I read that they might actually be launching soon (please Steve Jobs’s ghost, let this be my one more thing!). I’m sure there’s a ton of legal issues with autonomous boats too, but almost no one has been working on this so I think we can probably pull a Tesla and just start letting people order them up and see what happens. And I’m not sure if we are supposed to have all of our ideas be things that the city would implement, but this reeks of private sector gig. And lobster. And butter. I’m hungry.
2. Grow Box – Food As A (City) Service
Sofware is eating the world, but what is the world eating? Food. Lots, and lots of it all the time. Rather than teach software to eat food too, Grow Box teaches software to grow food. The idea is to design and manufacture smart hydroponic grow-boxes that fit a few different lifestyles: a large one for people with garages, a smaller one that doubles as a bookshelf for appartment dwellers, and maybe a big flat one that you can put under your bed. Unlike traditional urban gardening, this is not about spending your Sunday picking tomatoes and designing anti-bird defense systems. This is about fresh, cheap, local produce for everyone.
The grow box does all of the planting and even decides what to plant and when based on what other grow boxes nearby are growing. Your only job is to harvest the produce when it is ready, and to not eat too much of it while you do. The grow box always overplants, so it is okay to take some of what you reap, but most of it has to be left outside in your share box. The share box is picked up and your produce gets distributed out to the rest of the Grow Box members in the area – you will get a new share box full of produce as well. Initially, most of the produce will come from local farms, but as the program grows the proportion will shift and the total amount of food will climb. The goal is to provide members a healthy amount of fresh produce every day, or every other day.
This sounds a lot like an idea for a crazy startup, but I think it should be funded by the city. I believe that access to fresh produce is essential to living a healthy life and should therefore be a universal right of a modern society. We already provide huge subsidies for industrial farms, why not subsidize a distributed, urban farm?
3. Tethered WindMill Wifi Hotspots
This actually is Greenfield’s worst nightmare. Rather than design a new system from the ground up, I am proposing a mashup of pre-existing technologies: Google’s Loon internet weather balloons and Google/Makani’s airborne wind turbines. The airborne wind turbine is a great fit for Portland. It is tethered to the ground, so you don’t have to rip out pre-existing infrastructure or destroy your natural landscape, and it generates more power, more consistently, at lower cost than traditional turbines. Project Loon is building high altitude weather balloons that will form an interconnected web over the earth and transmit to special receivers on the ground, which can then be connected to a standard wifi router. A similar system could be used in Portland, but rather than a weather balloon, the airborne windmill could transmit to the receivers and the tether connecting it to the grid could also be hooked in to whatever kind of crazy networking rig you would need to handle thousands of connections.
While I am sure this is an extremely inefficient way to get free wifi, I would argue that mashups like this are actually a great way to build new technology, and I think Greenfield would actually agree so I will stop strawmanning him.
4. Operation: Get Fit, Get Lit
This is much more than a fantastic slogan. Portland is famous for its delicious food and its soul hardening winters. But all of that food, cold, and darkness leads to a lot of lighting and heating costs, and very little exercise. What if we encouraged fitness by creating a gym where everything you did generated electricity? And what if the sidewalks used the vibrations caused by footsteps to light the streets at night? The technology exists, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
5. City Gondola
Buses are noisy, guzzle gas, and take up lots of space. Trains require massive construction and are incredibly expensive to build and maintain. Gondolas are cheap, scenic, and don’t disrupt pre-existing infrastructure. Portland needs more than lobster and chique restaurants. It needs gondolas.
This is a very cool idea and, upon further reflection, it turns out it isn’t mine. It’s Frog Principal Designer Michael McDaniel’s, and he made a fantastic slideshow to 100% convince you that this would totally definitely work trust me I’m a designer.
[1] Adam Greenfield, Against the Smart City (Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader)
BRUNSWICK MENTAL MAP: SIERRA FRISBIE ’15
