Embracing the Age of Disruption

This week, MIT is offering an online course on “Tackling the Challenges of Big Data.”  In pitching the course, CIO Today opines that without an understanding of what makes data good or bad, business users “may make decisions based on insight that’s fallacious.”

As they are refined, measure of such characteristics as race and income may assist in avoiding unfortunate lawsuits such as the Supreme Court’s Texas disparate impact case, New Jersey’s Fair Housing Act disputes, and the redlining cases against lenders brought in New York. Big data allows the analysis necessary to go beyond the either-or choice between neighborhood revitalization and moving to opportunity, especially in circumstances involving non-discriminatory policies and programs. 

Place-based policies and incentives will continue to evolve as we discover new ways to disrupt the status quo and avert the consequences of bad behavior – intentional or not.  Disruptions are occurring in many disciplines – energy efficiency and green construction, education and job re-training, and healthy homes and living, to name a few.  

The common thread of bringing people, resources, and communities together is another type of disruption - civic disruption - envisioned fifty years ago by planner-lawyer Paul Davidoff, and those that followed, as the foundation of progressive community planning and development.  

Davidoff was among the first wave to recognize and address the inherent problems of inner city communities and the discriminatory effects of white flight to the suburbs, later founding the Suburban Action Institute to challenge exclusionary zoning in the suburbs. A half-century later, we have abdicated much of that debate and resolve to the courts and simplistic measures of disparate impact. 

Big data and the promise of civic and economic disruption offer us new ways to influence public policy and decision-making – if we have the personal courage and moral conviction to set aside the physical isolation and socio-economic conditions that racial and class inequalities have wrought.

65 and still alive

Well, it's beyond 60 and a long time since my last post.  Long enough for my precious friends to write volumes of beautiful poetry, docu-novels worthy of Hallmark dramas, and social commentary and dissent (Woody Allen calls it dissentary) to rattle the Republican-controlled Congress.

I, on the other hand, have spent my declining years perfecting my Chinese conspiracy theory. Just check out the recent Amazon product reviews if you don't believe me. The toaster riffs alone will scare you into a bomb shelter. With all those defective parts, we are all toast - or not.

I will be 65 soon and able to ride the bus for half price - assuming, I guess, that I only have the strength to go half as far.  But they are wrong.   I am on my way to the golden years.  I only hope those golden arches I see in the distance are made by Dr. Scholls.

So You Want a Revolution (Part 2)

It is hard to believe another year has gone by.  It seems I say that every year, but this year, I seem to be saying it more often.  I've noticed that I no longer think in days or seasons but in year, as in, "Can you believe it's been xx years since ....."

Even the Occupy movement has been around long enough to be celebrating an anniversary - or Strike Back convergence, as they call it.  It seems that at least some of the (Re)Occupiers are becoming Yippies in their old age, talking about love and billing this year's reoccupation as a festival full of "Occuplay and other special performances."

I remember walking through Farragut Square last year where many of the D.C. Occupiers were encamped.  It was an interesting experience on many levels that brought back memories of my own protest trips to Washington during the 60s and 70s.

The first person I encountered among the many tents and make-shift shelters was a homeless man who looked somewhat bewildered by all of the energetic young people joining his quest for spare change.  As I continued, I was approached by someone who looked decidedly un-homeless.  "Got a few minutes to talk about fracking?  It's destroying our water tables and ruining the environment."  Earth Day meets The Blind Side.

I think back to the 60s when taking over the streets and controlling guns had a very different, and more personal, meaning to us and the National Guard blocking our way during those civil rights and anti-war demonstrations.  Too bad we didn't have Facebook, Twitter, and texting to provide instantaneous updates, streaming, and video postings.  Take a look at the Krishna-like sound explosion called GlobalNoise.  [occupywallst.org/.../160-cities-joining-globalnoise-o13-get-banging/].

Sounds more like Trilling than Trotsky.  Take the in-your-face Hungarian Prime Minister, for example.  Displaying the bravest act of nationalism since the Ottoman Empire, Prime Minister Viktor Orban decided to unfriend the International Monetary Fund last month for having the nerve to impose tough loan conditions on his country.  And where do you think he announced his brave deed?  In a video message on his official Facebook page!

Learn something from the Boomers and the Occupiers, Viktor.  Make love, not war.  Start your own T-shirt company and sell out to Urban Outfitters.  Your country will thank you, and someday, you will have a square named after you where hordes of idealistic Hungarians will Tweet your name.

So You Want a Revolution (Part 1)

Few authors reach the fame of Jane Jacobs, whose masterpiece The Death and Life of Great American Cities celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. In the best tradition of radical reformers, Jacobs wrote and acted to influence the political process and offer constructive options to urban sprawl and decline.

In examining urban settlements through history, Jacobs concluded that “lively diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration.” She saw cities as dynamic eco-systems that required those designing and preserving the built environment to respect natural patterns of human use and interaction.  

For Jacobs, diversity was a natural part of neighborhood evolution. “You don’t get new products and services out of sameness, she said. “This is one of the things that is boring people – this sameness. All kinds of things show us … that the more diverse we are in what we can do the better.”  

Jacobs had little patience for standardization and far less for regulation.  And as a grassroots urban activist, she continued to rail against federal intercession in local affairs that caused the “self-destruction of diversity.” Jacobs offered an alternative she called “unslumming and its accompanying self-diversification.”  She urged the continued but gradual flow of money and public buildings into established communities.

 While Jacobs spoke critically of planning and planners, she encouraged people to enjoy and think about their environments. After decades of fighting the establishment, Jacobs welcomed the emergence of environmental and community groups pressing for green infill development, sustainable smart growth, and the reclamation of degraded land.  

Jacobs died in 2006, the year after the Sierra Club published a guide to “America’s best new development projects.” The Sierra Club report highlighted twelve projects “based on their ability to offer transportation choices, revitalize neighborhoods, and preserve local values” – characteristics that Jacobs had proffered a half century earlier. Given more time, she undoubtedly would have reported on the evolution of these projects and the way these communities have embraced their diversity through affordable, green developments. 

Jacobs urged in The Death and Life of Great American Cities that we imbue our cities and their neighborhoods with the ability to update, enliven, and repair themselves by breaking traditional barriers, taking a balanced, regional approach, and promoting inclusive growth.  If successful, she told us, they would be “sought after, out of choice, by a new generation.”   That generation, and all generations, still have much to learn from Jacobs’ words and wisdom.  

A Christmas Story - Cain Isn't Able

The Bible tells us a story about two brothers.  One a shrewd farmer named Cain decided to offer a pizza with no toppings as a scant sacrifice to his God.  The other an obedient and good shepherd named Abel obeyed God's command and offered his best lamb.  When God accepted Abel's sacrifice, Cain became jealous and set about to kill his brother and win favor with God by offering free delivery.  When God saw what Cain had done, he asked, "Cain, where is your brother?" This led Cain to respond in a manly way, "He's in Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan." Upon God's reproach, Cain fell to the ground saying, "We need a leader, not a reader."  And so began the political demise of a Pokemon poet who realized too late the Power of One.

Hype the Gripe: Pet Pee-ves and Other Annoyances

Last year, a nationally representative survey, reported by no less an authority than Consumer Reports, found that we Americans are annoyed by many of life's little complaints (being surveyed about them apparently did not make the top-ten list).   That list runs from hidden fees to inaccurate weather forecasts and reveals as much about our public wrath as it does our personal foibles.

The cure for many of these complaints is beyond modern science, but some of them seemed easy enough to remedy.  Like putting all of the very slow drivers (complaint #12) in traffic jams (#14).  They won't know the difference. Or putting tailgaters (#3) in the same lane with speeding drivers (#19).  They can chase each other to oblivion.  And speaking of oblivion, how about pairing complaint #4 cell phone use by drivers and discourteous cell phone use (#8) with #13 unreliable cell-phone service -- no service, no obnoxious talking-while-driving.  Bingo.

The synergy seems endless - how about putting noisy neighbors (#15) next to shouting on TV or radio show viewers (#17)?  Or using shrunken products (#11) to solve the problem of dog poop (#6). One estimate puts the average dog's contribution at 276 pounds per year. Less in the bag, fewer trips to the potty.

It appears that complaints about dog waste have been piling up for years, and the matter is getting out of hand, so to speak.  Things are coming unwrapped.  In Massachusetts, an apartment manager is using doggie-DNA to apprehend the canine culprits and fine their irresponsible owners.  And in Virginia, of all freedom-loving places, a woman recently gave new meaning to the people's business.  In her Circuit Court testimony, she accused a doggie defendant of wasting her neighborhood with its unclaimed land mines. 

In a huge win for privy privacy, the judge believed the owner's claim that she always obeyed the local popper-scooper law. Without asking for cheek swabs or saliva tests, he at least cleared the court's docket if not the neighbor's lawn.  

Ever since B.F. Skinner invented the pigeon, we Americans have been searching for the right mix of negative reinforcement and punishment to avert irresponsible human behavior.  Short of death, deterrence is not an easy thing to achieve.  

Leave it to little Loganville-Grayson, Georgia to provide us with a worthy alternative.  The town paper recognizes random acts of kindness and is creating a kindness community that everyone is invited to join.  In fact, towns all over Georgia are asking their denizens to practice and report such acts of kindness.  

Now, that's positive reinforcement worth scooping up. 

Cracks in the System - Wise and Otherwise

House Speaker John Boehner said last week that "there's no daylight between the Tea Party and me," while some Democratic stalwarts suggested that he should put that sentiment "where the sun don't shine" permanently. 

Such volleys marked the beginning of what turned out to be a nail-biting battle to break the budget impasse that threatened to shut down the federal government.  Rather than a victory, however, the 11th hour compromise felt more like our collective kidneys declaring war on our body politic.

In a show of what is fast becoming a signature expression of his personality type, President Obama coached the Congressional leadership from the sidelines until the bitter end.  He then showed up at the Lincoln Memorial to announce that to save money and appease the Republicans, he had handed all of our national monuments over to NATO. 

President Obama assured the American people that he had not acted unduly.  A lot of Lincoln-like soul-searching had prompted his unprecedented action to bind the nation's gaping deficit wounds.  And to clinch the deal, the GOP threw in a White House membership to Sam's Club.

If NATO can work in Libya, why not the national mall?  NATO after all is our trusted ally, able to hit any physical, and hopefully fiscal, target it chooses - but it remains to be seen in these crazy times if even NATO can restore balance to Washington's self-imposed no-fly budget.