That’s my mayor!
Nice article about a local Canadian mayor trying to make his neighbourhood a nice place to be as opposed to a rat run for commuters…
LUC FERRANDEZ’S last bicycle was a Kona, a sturdy model with thick tires, ideal for hauling heavy loads. During his 2009 campaign as the Projet Montréal candidate for the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, he would hook it to a trailer piled with a laptop, a projector, a collapsible screen, and (this being Montreal) a couple of bottles of rosé. After setting up his equipment next to a café terrace or a depanneur, he would distribute paper cups and launch a PowerPoint slide show of streets and squares in Copenhagen, Paris, and Madrid, as well as historical photos of local boulevards, all unencumbered by traffic. He figures it was these partys de trottoir, or sidewalk parties — during which he made the case that Montreal could be as clean, green, and safe as any place in Europe — that won him the mayoralty of the city’s most populous district.
Wifis.org is a start-up that aims to be a “contact form for your Wi-Fi network”. The new company, founded by Mathias Nitzsche, provides a free service that enables its users to be contacted by others through their wireless networks. How? People register a unique ID with the site (for instance wifis.org/example) and then rename their wireless network into that URL. People who spot your network can easily leave you a message by using the contact form on your personal page. Why would you use it? The company suggests that their service could appeal to “friendly neighbors might invite you to a beer, or ask if you want to share your Wi-Fi for a monthly payment”. What makes Wifis.org interesting is that it is a digital communication channel attached to place. Furthermore, it enables users to get contacted by others without revealing their personal details — the existence of a Wi-Fi network is enough to receive messages.
ooo geography. :)
Seems like a response to my musings from earlier.
The Connected States of America (by senseablecitylab)
I think of this on a city scale; what is a community? if it is based on who connects to whom, what is the modern definition of neighborhood?
When I first moved to this city, I joined a livejournal community for it, and met irl many cool people, geeky people (who for me does not preclude being cool), socially charming people, socially challenged people… But while I was meeting individuals, they were also meeting each other, and there was a major overlap of real life friend groups that emerged out of the virtual community.
So far I haven’t seen an effective method of working the other direction: creating a virtual connection for people who already share physical proximity in what was called “neighborhood”.
A recent study finds that members of Generation Y dream at a different scale than their predecessors. Instead of the dream house, it’s the dream neighborhood that they’re after:
Gen Yers are motivated by experiences (in an experience economy), not consumption, or home size. Smaller homes and apartments are both less expensive and easier to maintain, leaving more time and money for enjoying those experiences.
For Gen Yers, driving isn’t part of the American Dream anymore. Being connected is. That means walkable and transit-oriented, and that means downtowns and cities. Also, as far as connecting face-face, town squares and piazzas are the ultimate connectors in the built environment, especially with outdoor movies/dining/concerts in them.
Activating heritage, community, identity and public space, the powerwasher stencils will be in situ until the foot traffic of Clanbrassil Street erases them through the accumulation of new residues and traces. Why not have a walk down Clanbrassil Street and help build new relations as the work deteriorates. The Home Project explores the concept of ‘home’ against the changing landscape of the past, present and future of the Clanbrassil Street area. The words for this project are taken from a series of creative writing workshops run by Ursula Rani Sarma with 10-12 year old students living in the Clanbrassil Street area. (via culturge: Present absences: The Home Project )
