{"id":764,"date":"2014-10-08T06:53:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T11:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/?p=764"},"modified":"2014-10-08T06:56:58","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T11:56:58","slug":"the-welcoming-city-revisited-open-access-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/post-5-infrastructure-reflections\/the-welcoming-city-revisited-open-access-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"The Welcoming City Revisited: Open-access Infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have focused my last two posts on how urban planning can and should help create a welcoming city. Perhaps beyond ensuring affordable housing and temporary shelter options, or designing recreational public areas appealing to residents of all socioeconomic classes, we need to rethink the process by which we produce urban space. After all, a city will not feel welcoming to all sectors if those designing it are only representative of a single demographic. This highlights the need to create new pathways influencing political decision-making and governance. In his article, \u201cThe right to infrastructure: a prototype for open source urbanism,\u201d1<\/sup> Alberto Cors\u00edn Jim\u00e9nez presents a revolutionary idea about how to do this: through open-source\/open-access infrastructure. Jim\u00e9nez notes that open prototypes are at their core a symbol of what the production of cities should look like: they are an ongoing discussion, trial, and revision, and a process anyone can participate in. Allowing open-source infrastructure is, in Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s words, an \u201cinvestigation into the very nature of the city as an open educational frontier.\u201d By implementing open-source infrastructure in New York City or Portland, we would transform the way the city is produced by bringing previously disregarded voices, speaking about how they envision the future of their<\/em> city, to the forefront of the conversation.<\/p>\n

One of the first days of class, we reflected on whether a resident could feel as important to the production of New York as they could to the production of Bowdoin. We came to the conclusion: \u201cWe, the students, are<\/em> Bowdoin, we make<\/em> Bowdoin; in New York City, each person is only one peon among millions.\u201d Upon further reflection, I disagree. The identity of New York City is no less dependent on the wonderful contributions of its myriad residents than is the identity of Bowdoin dependent on the contributions of its students.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/vimeo.com\/85667490<\/a><\/p>\n

Humans of New York founder Brandon Stanton has, through photography, found a way to highlight the paramount contribution of the individual New Yorker to the vibrant mosaic of the New York identity. He would not have been successful without the open-access online platform, Facebook.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bowdoin feels more inclusive because the way it is structured allow students to play a bigger role in deciding how the college functions. Some would argue New York has too many residents to allow each to play a bigger decision-making role, but with the advent of technology, this is no longer the case. In cities including Portland and New York, with an open-access internet-based platform as well as more powerful and efficient ways of screening data (a la \u201cHow to Read a Million Books\u201d seminar), crowdsourcing for infrastructure is not only a viable way to incorporate city voices in a completely new way, but also economically favorable.<\/p>\n

Open-access infrastructure platforms would echo AbdouMaliq Simone\u2019s notion of people as infrastructure.2 <\/sup>Given the Mirriam-Webster definition of the term infrastructure<\/em>, \u201cthe basic equipment and structures; the system of public works; the resources (as personnel, buildings, or equipment)\u2026 needed for a country, region, or organization to function properly,\u201d3<\/sup> Simone goes one step further by thinking about ordinary residents\u2013\u2013innovate, determined and unyielding\u2013\u2013as the \u201cresources\u201d needed for the city to survive. In Portland, implementing Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s open-access platform would amplify residents\u2019 ability to shape the culture and experience of the city, while simultaneously saving the city from paying over-charged design fees and patents. I strongly advocate that Portland implement open-access infrastructure; doing so would be a step towards simultaneously creating a Smart City and one concerned with the common good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References Cited<\/p>\n

1<\/sup> Jim\u00e9nez, Alberto Cors\u00edn. 2014. \u201cThe Right to Infrastructure: a Prototype for Open Source Urbanism.\u201d Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32 (2): 342\u201362.<\/p>\n

2<\/sup> Simone, AbdulMaliq. 2014 [2004]. \u201cPeople as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg.\u201d In The People, Place and Space Reader, edited by Jen Jack Gieseking, et al, 241\u201346. New York: Routledge.<\/p>\n

3<\/sup> \u201cInfrastructure.\u201d Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary. <\/em>Accessed October 6, 2014. http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/infrastructure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have focused my last two posts on how urban planning can and should help create a welcoming city. Perhaps beyond ensuring affordable housing and temporary shelter options, or designing recreational public areas appealing to residents of all socioeconomic classes, we need to rethink the process by which we produce urban space. After all, a … Continue reading The Welcoming City Revisited: Open-access Infrastructure<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-5-infrastructure-reflections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p50q0U-ck","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}