All posts by lpaniagu
Hilltop Cafe’s Ethnography and Mental Mapping
Cafe Ethnography
The setting is very mellow. The music is mostly indie melodies, but at the same time soothing sounds. The dim lighting and the hardwood creates a mood for peace and relaxation. The red walls and chairs creates a fiery atmosphere where it is meant to have an absence of mind.
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The numerous plants and flowers are very welcoming to the customers. The windows cover the whole front wall next to the entrance. There is beautiful light entering the “glass wall” created by the large windows in the front. The seating is arranged for larger groups, but can easily be manipulated for the purpose of a single person. Obviously the location/shop smells like coffee, but it also smells like a good fragrance, more likely coming from the numerous flowers and plants. Overall the sense of Hilltop Coffee Shop is amazing and comforting. I am excited and glad to spend the next 2.5 hours here.
People come in to look for jobs. The person is in college and loves the atmosphere of the place. He is available for some late shifts, but the coffee shop seems to have a full staff.
A couple sits next to each other to read their respective books while drinking their coffee.
Customers walk in and buy their regular items for the day and quickly leave.
Women came in with sporting clothes, probably went on a run, bought an iced drink and left.
The cashier seems to know some customers as “regulars.”
A customer compliments the nice flowers by the register.
People usually walk in two’s or alone outside chatting about their day and goofing off. The three men crew, whom I am referring to as goofing off, is laughing a lot, looks like they are having a good day.
Sounds like mild traffic, some beeping of larger vehicles and normal car sounds.
Kids are coming from a sport practice, looks like soccer due to their long socks.
An older couple walked by holding each other (pretty adorable).
Some people came in to buy tea or coffee and sat down while checking their smartphones.
A young woman sat around waiting for another man (waited for a period of 7 minutes and seemed frustrated)
Met Professor O’Brien from the math department and got him to draw a mental map for me. Only thing he is not a resident, but he grew up in Portland, so I thought it would be interesting if he drew a mental map of Portland when he was growing up in the East Side. 
(Extra Credit, am I right?)
I have seen many individuals, usually by themselves, walking and smoking a cigarette.
Younger folks with ear buds passed by listening to music.
Bicyclists pass by on the street, but sometimes went on the sidewalk.
Road worker came in and talked to the person attending the register and seem to know each other. I guess he came in earlier and had his coffee, and now he is just checking in and chatting.
Another male individual walked by while smoking, except he was using an E-Cig.
Lastly, the shop was closing up, but lady at the front was very nice and generous and gave us the bagels and cookies that were going to be thrown out as well a free refill of coffee. What a lovely spot it has been; I am glad to have chosen the Hilltop Coffee Shop. The atmosphere is great to study or do work in, and the people running the shop are extremely nice.
Mental Maps
This map is very personal and the woman who drew this was very nice, but she did not want to give any information. Her map shows what she thinks of in different locations and the purpose of each location. I like her Old Port representation as”Shiny things I do not need.” She did draw on the map where she lives which is by the Deering St. Park. Her map showed me the importance of trails and paths I did not even know. Maybe these paths should be used when thinking of implementing pathways that create energy. I am specifically talking about the “Strolling Trail”, “Back Cove Trail of Bliss”, and the “Route to a slow escape (by sea).” These are clearly important routes to this resident.
This map was drawn by a new resident; he actually moved to Portland a year and a month ago. He lives on Woodford and Forest and is 23 years old. He is from Utah and white. Most importantly he is “80% not sober.” I thought it would be interesting to see how his mental map would turn out. He had difficulty with the task, but I know he put his best effort. He labeled Blitliff’s Cafe and Preble Resource Center. I couldn’t really tell the rest, but I found it interesting overall.
This map pertained to a 24 year old female who has lived her whole life in Portland. She draws the “booze alley”, the shelter on Peble St, the library, and the YMCA. She on the other hand, is “80% sober.” She also notes where the train tracks are and the importance of the Nickelodeon theater. In addition, she told me she believes bicycle routes would benefit the city the most. The oaks is also an important space for her.
This guy was super interesting to talk to. He is the guitar player for his band Tumbling Bones. His band is actually really good if you are into folk music check them out on spotify, soundcloud, or their website at www.tumlingbones.com. He gave me a very simple map, because he told me “Portland was one for him”/he probably could have just been lazy to draw a map, but he does show the highway, where he lives (the star), the docks, and a very accurate shape of Portland. He pointed out that musicians in Portland try to find good places to play, and they adopt well, but it would be nice to have a bigger open space. That way even first friday could be less congested.
This assignment was great, because I met some rally cool people. They have given me a lot to think about. Does Portland even need new infrastructure? Many of the people I met never really thought about technology; they just want more efficient space which includes more bicycle routes and parking. Other than that they feel content. Again not the most diverse group of people, but they had important inputs. I still believe that Portland could benefit from some sort of technological innovation, like energy absorbing sidewalks.
Transect Walk from Hilltop Cafe
The walk on Congress Street from Hilltop Café to the cemetery on Mountfort Street is a nice street to walk down. I noticed the very few sitting areas on that short walk. There is definitely a lack of benches along the street. The few seats that exist are owned by private firms meant to seat their customers. For example, Donatelli’s Tailor Shop has a couple of seats outside of their shop. I must say that even though I knew the seating was private it did not feel hostile to seat without being a customer. It felt welcoming using their seats, but I believe that the main reason for this is that they are local shops owned by local residents. There were two benches in front of a Portland Fire Department office, which is public.
Another important quality I saw were the wide sidewalks that are not typical for Portland. These sidewalks are wide due to the traffic of Congress St. There is a considerable amount of foot traffic, but definitely not as much traffic as there is in the Art District/Old Port. I saw many people with grocery bags, so I guess a good amount of people choose to walk to their local store. I also thought I would see more bikes. It was also a chilly day, maybe that affected the number of people outside. I also thought about the amount of snow that falls every year in Portland, and wondered why not on top of adding energy-creating sidewalks add a top layer that is heated to melt the snow on public walk spaces. This way it would create a greater incentive for people to walk outside and use the pathways at the same time create energy. There also needs to be a better access for bicycles. I asked an individual that seem to be a bike-owner on the importance of cycling in Portland, and she told me (she also drew a mental map for me) that Portland is mall enough to have an efficient bike system where people could get from one end to the other in 20 minutes max. She brings up a good point, because it is highly inefficient to have cars in Portland. It is not easy to park, so why does the city not create a bigger incentive to bike?
On my way to the cemetery, I passed on a developing housing project called 118 on Munjoy Hill, and I actually met the developers this summer, but I did not get a chance to see the building until today. (I can not paste pictures from the 118 project website for some unknown reason, but here is the link http://118onmunjoyhill.com/residences/views-2/) These new condos being build are not cheap; in fact, it is more of a luxury home. The condos have a bunch of really cool features and perks. It is kind of the bridge between condos and smart condos. I asked another person about the housing in Portland (she did not have time to draw a mental map), but she said, “Portland needs more affordable housing, not more low-income housing.” Which is something we have not really discussed yet. There seems to be some low-income housing options, but what about the people who are trying to buy a nice home? Is there a big gap between cool, new, expensive housing like 118 on Munjoy Hill and low-income housing? It seemed that there was according to this person.
Creativity Through the Use of Open-Source Networks
Infrastructure where information is used free to the public is most useful in smart cities. Open-source hardware is open-source because of “its deign process”[1]. When people cumulate ideas together there is an increase of product efficiency. The means that the contributors to the design of the item is “entangled in the social process of making or hacking property.”[2]
This is influential to the productivity of the city and, more importantly, initiates creativity and room for improvement. Being able to connect and improve ideas in real times is a goal and useful tool smart cities need to adopt. This would help create more efficient traffic. Flow within a city “imposes its own idea of efficiency, always calibrated to keeping going, not stopping, overcoming impedance and resisting inertia.”[3]
To create infrastructure for the common good there needs to be a richer flow through the city. Sorkins describes it as non-stopping or in other words fluid. Part of the problem that Sorkins notices is the small spaces where humans interact in our economy. Simone describes the issue in an Urban African city by seeing the activities of “cooking, reciting, selling, loading and unloading, fighting, praying, relaxing, pounding, and buying happen side by side, on stages too cramped, too deteriorated, too clogged with waste, history, energy, and sweat to sustain all of them.”[4] He uses such words to visualize the amount of waste. Avoiding these spaces that promote social and openness creates an open creative one. The process of a scene where everyone is contributing to society allows more complexity toward ideas and social capital which is beneficial.
Portland needs infrastructure that promotes open source spaces where the ideas are evolving becoming more innovated and useful. The issue with this is that there needs to be a regulating committee to check if the design is being hurt or mishandled in a way. Portland could use a system that connects these individuals together toward a greater society and city.
[1] Jimenez
[2] Ibid
[3] Sorkins
[4]Simone
Real Estate Markets & Technology
Uffer argues a “Cyber-Physical Social System”[1] within a city creates and distinguishes it as a smart city. For example, he believes “deploying sensors in buildings is relatively cheap and time effective.”[2]
Sensors would be useful for a smart city because it would be effective feedback, and by controlling more information, society could live in a cost-effective way for monitoring costs like electricity. Housing would need to be innovated so it keeps track of these types of data. Algorithms would be able to run within one’s home to provide daily essentials more efficiently.
In order to promote the common good there needs to be housing that is least involved with financial capitalists. This means that major banks should not be allowed to monopolize the real estate market. Fields calls this “financialisation” which is due to the “global expansion of finance capital and favourable market conditions created through the roll-back of affordable housing regulations.”[3] The public state needs to implement more regulation in the housing market in order to promote housing for the common good. This is needed, because the housing market creates incentives to buy lower-value estates since it has lower prices. In order to maximize profits in a real estate investment, the firm could prevent owners from receiving loans. If the housing market is not regulated by the public sector, it incentivizes firms to “pocket the money that should have gone to repairs and upkeep…[which] effectively destroy[s] the building and establishe[s] a rent gap”[4] By doing so, the firms have been able to create an opportunity to capitalize on a new real estate investment. Thus creating new establishments for people that could afford it. The gentrification process is motivated by a deregulated real estate market, which needs to be shadowed more by the public sector. To serve the common good, there needs to be opportunities for all residents to be able to repair their homes. If residents are oppressed of home investments, their housing-value decreases creating investment opportunities for large firms.
Portland needs to be able to see what neighborhoods are investing toward their homes, and help the neighborhoods that are not in repairs. This way the city is limiting the incentive for financial firms to profit from low-income neighborhoods at the cost of their residents’ enjoyment. That’s a solution to serve the common-good, but if the city wants to tackle long-term sustainability issues, establishing homes with sensors would be ideal. They would be able to cut energy consumption and help create daily efficient improvements.
[1]Uffer
[2] Ibid
[3]Fields
[4] Smith
Bowdoin’s Vibrant Spaces and Portland’s Out-Dated Space
Public spaces are essential to societies, because if all properties were private, then the population would have isolated and homogeneous lives.[1] Imagine if Bowdoin only had dorms and classrooms. There would be little to no interactions with other students. The quad, Thorne, and in some ways college houses create an interactive college experience. Mitchell describes that public spaces should be in an “adequate space” with “adequate technology” to create a more “vibrant sphere.”[2] This suggests that a central location is best to serve the public in order for people to interact more. Technology keeping up to date in public space creates a larger utility for people, which would popularize the public space. Bowdoin has wifi across campus and that creates a limitless arena for students to do work, which creates a more interactive scene. Even printing stations could be evaluated as communities coming together through technology, to be fair printing stations are not the most social locations.
Low suggests that public spaces should not be touched by the private sector, because it would “limit participation to those who can afford it and conform to middle-class rules of appearance and conduct.”[3] This is an important statement, because in order to provide a space for the common good, one needs to get rid of all types of oppression. Privatization would mean the space’s priority is to create consumers of people trying to enjoy it. Mitchell states that “property rights are necessarily exclusive” meaning the owners of the space could oppress or act anyway to maximize profits.[4] Corporations owning the space would appeal and give priority to those consumers who are willing to spend the most. By doing that there is a lost of utility by the other population. Public spaces need to attract all classes, genders, and race to create the most vibrant community.
In my opinion, Portland has a good amount of public spaces including plazas and sitting environment. Portland, in order to develop their public spaces, needs to have adequate technology integrated. Portland is one of the younger cities in New England, which means that a bigger portion of their population is more comfortable with technology. In addition, the start-up scene is growing and is attracting more entrepreneurs. These attributes make Portland one of the few cities in the nation that would greatly benefit by integrating technology into their public spaces. It would make sense because they have a population for it. This technology can include public wifi, charging stations, kiosks, etc. It could also include from what I suggested in my last blog post pathways/sidewalks/plazas that absorb kinetic energy of pedestrians and turning it into electricity thus benefiting the common good. This will help more people in Portland achieve the “the right to urban life, to renewed centrality, to places of encounter and exchange, to life rhythm and time uses, enabling the full complete usage of…moments and places.”[5]
[1] Mitchell, Don. 2014 [2003]. “To Go Again to Hyde Park: Public Space, Rights, and Social Justice.” In The People, Place and Space Reader, edited by Jen Jack Gieseking, et al, 193. New York: Routledge, 2014.
[2] Mitchell 194
[3] Low, Setha M. 2002. “Spaces of Reflection, Recovery, and Resistance: Reimagining the Postindustrial Plaza.” In After the World Trade Center: Rethinking New York City, edited by Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin, 164. New York: Routledge.
[4] Mitchell 193
[5] ibid
Sustainable Energy Through Pathways
This, I must sat say, is a tough assignment. Picking five smart city infrastructure suggestions that specifically applies to Portland, ME is not an easy task. At the end, I chose these:
- Sidewalks and plazas that create energy as one walks by
- Industrial outdoor heaters
- Scenic public waterfront view
- Free public wifi
- Outdoor public theater
(Webster)
The infrastructure idea I will focus on is the kinetic energy absorbing pathways. The above picture is from a company called PaveGen™. These are grounds that would be implemented into popular high kinetic energy locations like roads, sidewalks, pathways, plazas, and even sport fields. Every foot step could produce “enough electricity to keep an LED-powered street lamp lit for 30 seconds.” (Webster) Greenfield would argue that because the technology is effortless “the behavior of a system offers users little insight into how it actually works. And this opacity leads to trouble when things breaks down. “(Greenfield 50) This technology is taking advantage of Human’s mindless acts and in return is creating electricity. People will not know how it works, but they would be able to understand they create energy from moving, and depending on the ground it can absorb it. On that note I suggest the service be handled by the public sector, because like Greenfield points out, “The notion that cities are machines with work-flows that can be optimized seems more clearly misguided.” (Greenfield 54) Meaning it can not be run like a business effectively. One can not privatize the energy to companies, because it makes no sense for companies to make a profit on what consumers generate, nor can the technology be fully optimized to cut costs.
(Webster)
During our field trip, we saw a lot of movement around old port and the by the shipping docks. According to the areavibes™ website, 10% of workers in Portland, ME walk or bike to work. That is at least 4,577 people who rely on Portland’s walkways to get to and from work. One of the most popular events in Portland is First Friday also known as the Portland Art Walk. The Portland Press Herald says, “Every month, more than 60 venues participate in the Art Walk, and as many as 3,000 people from Maine, New England and beyond experience the state’s largest monthly free cultural event.”(Letters to the Editor) These are the minimal numbers that will at least be constant through good days. Lets say every person takes at least 100 steps to get to and from work and enjoy first friday, that would be enough energy to charge 30,000 smartphones from every first Friday of the month.
The Portland City is funding two thirds of the renovation of Somerset St where they are elevating the street between Pearl and Elm Street and adjusting the utilities to support increase in pedestrians and vehicles due to new private development (City of Portland). It also addresses flooding issues in Bayside (City of Portland). These new development can include PaveGen™ technologies; the problem is that this project is increasing the city of Portland’s debt by 70,000 (City of Portland). Increasing their debt even more is another debate. I would propose the increase in sustainable energy is worth it and will pay off in the future.
Cit of Portland, ME. City Council. Agenda Regular City Council September 15, 2014. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2014. <http://portlandmaine.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/09152014-605>.
Greenfield, Adam. 2013. Selections from Against the Smart City. 1.3 edition. Do projects.
“Letters to the Editor: Art Walk, a Beloved Tradition, Turns 13 – The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram.” The Portland Press Herald. Maine Today Media, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2014.
Webster, George. “Green Sidewalk Makes Electricity — One Footstep at a Time.” CNN. Cable News Network, 13 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
Power Struggles Within the Infrastructure of a City
I would like to take part on the infrastructure research group. After the Portland field trip, I noticed how much of Portland’s infrastructure was due to the industries generating the most revenue at different times. Every industry created different social structures within the economy, and are present in the organization of Portland. The working class placement within a city is unique, interesting, and influential to the overall quality of life. What is surprising though, is the way those areas have changed over time and reasons why it changed. How could one area be a community for the working class and then become a real estate worth easily over half a million?
The Hayden reading pointed out how our cities have been segregated throughout time and the effects in the urban landscape. I grew up with a mix of ethnic social normalities that represented the different cultures within my area. 
Here, one can analyze the power struggle within the design and construction of cities. This can be seen from where I grew up, Las Vegas, and see the areas that are demographically separated. The inner city around the strip is heavily populated with the hospitality workers that work in the major casinos. Compared to the outer areas tend to be resided by professionals in gated communities.
The Townsend lecture was interesting to me, because of the questions that arose from it. For example, “Control and ownership, Who is controlling the infrastructure of our new cities? Who is owning that new information? Is this a form of digital enhanced public services or is this a form of privatization?” Leana Khan, a corporate consolidator, points out Chicago went through a technological advancement in the late 19th century. This is the kind of relationship that interests me in a city.