A sustainable urbanism

City planners see the pace of development as their goal or accomplishment. In Zhuhai, the city where I used to live, there has been a drama which caused a huge reverberation from the society. In order to establish a modern and prosperous image of the city, the government decided to get rid of an area of old plants and an old park. Instead, the government decided to replace them with a small business district. This act pulled the public's nerves, especially for those original residents of that area. So people decided to fight for these old "heritages" of the city.

This dispute for the old urban heritage actually came from the protection awareness of the city residents. It is not just a simple question of removing the old trees and garden. It involves more issues such as how does a city protect its cultural heritages. The urbanization process will inevitably involve the struggle between what is considered as new and what is considered as old. No single urban city was built over night. What people should concern about is how to balance the collective culture for the urban residents and the new investment for the city.

Urban city is different from rural area. Scholars think that urban city is the product of industrialization. With the development of city, how to balance commercial business and culture? The reconstruction process should be a long-term plan with a more sustainable concern, whether it is about replacing, maintaining, or developing.

The culture heritage represents the history deposit of one city. It can be the symbol or signature of a city. However, urbanization forces people to compromise to get rid of part of the old culture. The lack of commercial element makes the culture heritage imcompatible with the modern society. As the city continues to grow, people have to sacrifice some of these old cultural symbols.

However, the problem is, some city planners get too carried away by the fast urban development. They just focus on the renovation of the city, and neglect the reservation of the original roots of the city. Surely there is no doubt that commerce and business can boost the urban development. We should prevent the commercial development of a city becoming an exploitation of the cultural heritages. The balance with the commercial development and reservation of culture heritage can achieve a Sustainable Urbanism.

The video is about Jeffrey Morgan, the Director of Real Estate Development for Historic Boston Incorporated, talking about the role of community development corporations at the intersection of micro-business development and inner-city neighborhood business district redevelopment.

Links:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Urbanism

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.113.3642&rep=rep1&type=pdf

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=xkjEzYg1PwU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxkjEzYg1PwU

Organization analysis

In this post, I compared three organizations: the Lawrenceville Corporation, the GLSEN Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh United.

Lawrenceville Corporation

Lawrenceville Corporation works with local stakeholders to creatively envision the future potential of the neighborhood while keeping an eye on national and regional trends and local opportunities . Thy rely on the board of directors for direction and planning. the board is volunteer based and it consists of 16 members. The organization depends on volunteers to run its programs, while they also utilizes a bunch of staff. Regular staff includes executive director, manager and department directors.

Lawrenceville corporation is community development corporation(CDC). The mission is to act as a catalyst and conduit for reinvestment in the Lawrenceville community. It mainly focuses on programs such as business district development, residential and commercial development, elm street program and community planning. It focuses much on the community assets and strengths. It is a organization that collaborates with many other organizations, which is a more horizontal structure.

GLSEN Pittsburgh
GLSEN Pittsburgh is a reginal chapter of a national organization, Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network(GSLEN). GLSEN Pittsburgh strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity in 11 county service areas of Southwestern Pennsylvania. It coversa variety of subjects and issues, from public policy to teacher training to supporting students and educators around the country. Under the supervision of the board, which has 5 members, there are six committees serving different functions. Unlike other organizations that have full-time or part-time paid staff, GLSEN Pittsburgh is entirely volunteer-based. It is a rather small size organization with about 20 regular volunteers and a floating number of spot volunteers who are available to offer help for major events. 

GLSEN Pittsburgh plays an important role in bringing GLSENnational's programs and visions to local communities. Itcurrently mainly focuses on three major programs include Gay-Straight alliances, youth program and educator training programs. GLSEN Pittsburgh works to support GSAs in schoolsto improve school climate around the Southwestern Pennsylvania area. Youth program includes PASS (peer advocate for safe school) and YES (youth empowerment service). Through the youth program, GLSEN Pittsburgh is committed to empower youth to bring about change in their schools. The Training Program is a training workshop offered to teachers, educators, and community-based organizers to gaining tools and resources to develop LGBT related trainings in schools to make schools safer and more affirming for LGBT students. 

Pittsburgh United

Pittsburgh United strives to advance social and economic justice in the Pittsburgh region by working to ensure that working families and low and moderate-income communities are able to share in the prosperity that is generated by economic growth and development. It currently has 12 board members. Regular staff includes executive director, manager and department directors. The organization is more like part of a national wide effort, so it is more vertical. 

Pittsburgh United focuses a lot on the social and economic justice in Pittsburgh area. As a part of the national network the partnership for working families, it promotes strategies that will transform the way that economic development impacts our communities so that all of the society may benefit from growth in Pittsburgh’s new economy.  Thus it is more like a advocacy organization working on campaigns and other events. It utilizes the existing social capitals to try to solve social issues. 

Links:

GLSEN Pittsburgh: glsenpgh.org

Lawrenceville corporation: lawrencevillecorp.com

Pittsburgh United: pittsburghunited.org

From a community to a city

Zhuhai is a modern city which has gone through tremendous transformation in the past decade years. It used to be a fishing village where people lived and gathered together because of kinship or friendship. However, today, it became a financial region with a image of urban prosperity and rapid economic development. The commercial culture has brought huge imacp on the city. In this case, what is the city image in the public mind, especially for the original residents and the new immigrants? How they see the city in different ways?

There is no doubt that Zhuhai has gone through a huge transformation. This transformation is structural. It has transformed from a Gesellschaft to a Gemeinschaft. The concepts of Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft were first introduced by Ferdinand Tonnies, a German sociologist. People usually refer the two concepts to "society" and "community". According to the definition, Gesellschaft refers to the society that is based on rational will and represents the non-human nature relationship which focuses on earning a living. This society aims at the exchange of interests. In this society, the capitalist industrial economy replaces the cohesion generated by family and blood.

Gemeinschaft is based on natural will, that people may associate themselves together as friends do. Natural will is the conditioning and originating element in any process of willing which is derived from the temperament, character, and intellectual attitude of the individual, whether it has its origin in linking, inclination, habit or memory. There are Gemeinschaft groups based on friendship, on neighborliness, and on blood relationships.

In the past, there were families and neighborhoods which composed the Gemeinschaft image of Zhuhai. The members of the community found their similarities, and operated under a collective conscience. Morality were upheld by the masses. Communication consisted of face-to-face interaction, and ideas are transmitted through an oral culture.

Later, with the transformation, it is now the economic interests which drove more immigrants together in this place and bond people together. Interests became the most motivation and concern for people. Relationship between people is relatively estranged and became more like a mean rather than goal. Divisions of labor and goal-oriented behavior in Zhuhai became distinctive to the Gesellschaft world. For this kind of Gesellschaft, there was only one factor that united people together, that is, the interest. People interacted with each other only for their own interests. They share a kind of working partnership or business relationship,and hardly develop or maintain any emotional bondage towards each other like people did in the past. The working relationship distanced people so they won’t be too intimate.They just know each other superficially. They do not really care how others were doing. What they focused was just whether they could make money through the business with other person. In this sense, Zhuhai as a Gesellschaft, is more like a mechanical construction, filling up with money, rather than a living organization.

Cultures in the city, also, transformed from pre-industrial, traditional communities into modern, urbanized societies with a more commercialized culture. But this community development is a inevitable phase for most of the modern cities nowadays. From Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, the society abandoned something but gained something new.  The transformation is not a bad thing, but it definitely has a great impact on how people interact with each other. 

Working on a more diverse and inclusive society

I have been in the United States for almost a year. Coming from a homogeneous society, I once concerned about myself being a ethnic minority. But the openness and inclusiveness of the American society really amazed me. I believe that is why it is such a place that keeps attacking people with different skin colors from all around the world. However, does it mean that I am assimilated to this culture? Does it mean that speaking the same language has made me lost my own cultural uniqueness? I don't think assimilation and diversity are conflict. Instead, both of them are the dynamics keep the society developing. 

Cultural assimilation is the process by which a person or a group's language or culture come to resemble those of another group. It has always been the trend that the strong and influential cultural assimilate small culture. Compared with the Western culture on the basis of industrialization, the Oriental cultural roots in agriculture. With the increasing globalization, what we can observe is the penetration of industrial culture.

However, in terms of ethnic minorities, will they fully integrate themselves into a new culture? There has been time when non-white immigration facing many difficulties integrating into the American society. It was easy for them to feel marginalized in life, employment, culture, and education. However, this pressure is not for one direction. The one hand, the ethnic minority felt depressed. On the other hand is the Whites also felt threatened, which could easily led to racial antagonism, thus destabilizing the society. 

Things got a lot better with the introduction of a series of equality act, especially the Civil Rights Act(1964). The society hopes to see all ethnic groups have greater initiative and power in the nation, which in turn is based on a common economic initiative as a key objective. Only in this way can we overcome the ideas and prejudices of individuals and groups. The cultural, racial equality and social diversity will be respected. 

With the efforts, there have been a lot of improvements in terms of the education, employment and overall social life of ethnic minorities or immigrants. Besides the diversity, culture assimilation becomes another very important theme nowadays. It does not refer to abandoning the original culture backgrounds of the ethnic minorities. It means to accept the values ​​of the mainstream of society, which is key to stabilize the country as a whole. This is the true intentions of the multicultural model. In believe that in the future, diversity will still growing in many ways, and it will be more diversity and inclusion of the society. 

Links:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaft_and_Gesellschaft

http://sociology.about.com/od/G_Index/g/Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft.htm

The impact of casino culture on the youth in Macau

When I was in my undergraduate school in Macau, I found a interesting phenomenon. Most of the local students had a part-time job while they were a full-time students, and their part-time jobs could still provide them a good amount of money to support themselves. They did not have too much pressure over the school work and they were not so ambitious towards the academic achievements as those students from outside the city. It seemed like for them, the future career was so promising that they did not have to worry too much about it. This phenomenon triggered my interest in the local environment and culture, and how it shaped the value of the local youth. 

Macau is known as a special administrative region within the People's Republic of China. It currently has 19 casinos and more are planned. It is a city where the gaming industry flourishes.  It is now the gambling center  in Asian which is also known as the Asian Las Vegas, which attracts millions of tourists to the city. Macau is undoubtedly a rich city, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US$17,500. But this prosperity leads to one of the biggest worry that Macau society expressed about their youth. It is that youth in Macau nowadays have presented a rather aimless attitudes toward their future and expressed less interests in furthering their education levels.

With the prosperity this industry brings, job opportunities related to casino and tourism still continue to increase with a considerably high salary. Casinos also provide all necessary training, which attracts young people without much work experience or higher education. The government also provide many welfare benefits to the adult citizens in Macau. But the majority fear that all these promising economic developments have made their teenagers lack of studying and working incentives and therefore become aimless.

According to the statistics given by Youth Education Bureau, we can find the increasing dropouts of Macau Youth. The youth problem is now considered to be one of the most concerned problems in Macau.

Form 2003-2004, there were 4908 students dropped out of school, among these students, 2060 chose to take a job, 76％ of which devoted themselves in gaming and its related industry.

In 2007, 20% of the working young adults in Macau were engaged in gaming industry, and it is said that this proportion will be continued increasing. The fact that casinos luring students away from school worried many citizens. 

What is the culture climate that derived from this flourishing gaming industry? The gaming industry has an indivisible inner relationship with the Macau youths' value problem. The low threshold of the gaming related employment as well as the opportunity cost of taking high education, all lead to the youth’s dropouts and devote into gambling industry. Students tend to sacrifice their future and long-term security by forgoing their education for the quick cash provided by casino jobs. which is not a good sign of a better development prospect for Macau. 

The casino culture is having negative effects on the character of local students, who end up with a skewed vision of what money means. The over exposure to this kind of culture has a great impact on local children's life value and how they view the society. Young casino workers see money changing hands quickly, with gamblers wagering tens of thousands of dollars at a time. With this kind of culture controlling children's philosophy, they tend to consider less about the job satisfaction, the possibility to develop their potential and the meaningfulness of the work. 

There are both pros and cons about the casino culture in Macau society. I think the impact will continue to be a social issue that people need to consider. Efforts should be made from different parties: government, school, family, mass media, etc. Although the casino industry has brought about huge economic development in Macau. However, it is crucial to avoid the negative impact that casino culture brings to the youth. 

Links:
Introduction to Macau society
http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Macau.html

Macau Youth Education Bureau
http://portal.dsej.gov.mo/webdsejspace/internet/Inter_main_page.jsp

Macau church officials worry casinos lure students away from school
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0501271.htm

Calling for a joint effort

Social work area in China is still in a backward position, let alone the efforts on community development. The lack of professional social workers and the overall low community participation lead to a poor image of community in China. Actually this concept was rarely brought up by people. Though for China there is still a long way to go in terms of community development, a joint effort should be made by two parties: the professional and non-professionals.

Local policy, demographic change, and outside investments all threw a growing variety of challenging issues to communities. As a result, the problem-solving capacity of a community must be created and put in motion. But who are considered to be responsible for solving the problems? When thinking about community development, people often rely on professionals. When it comes to community participation, a wider range of non-professionals, usually the community residents are expected to be involved  Both parties share equally important responsibilities in community development.

It is true that community problem-solving is about change and development, which relies heavily on professionals. Professionals can be managers, organizers, investors, educators, researchers, and more, working in communities to tackle important social problems and seize opportunities to promote change. They may get involved in a wide variety of community issues, such as housing, health care, education, environment, economic development, and public safety. They contribute to a comprehensive community change. For examples, community needs police to maintain order and enhance the public safety.

However, problem-solving is also a democratic process which needs the community participation with a broader population to be involved in and to contribute to the generation of ideas, decision making process and responsibility sharing. According to Richard Florida,"cities are not built from the top down, but from the organic, bottom-up, community-based efforts to strengthen and build on neighborhood assets." In this process, it is essential to engage non-professionals such as community residents, business owners, shop keepers, and local workers in the process of solving problem and making changes. Thus, the inclusion of a large number of non-professionals is necessary. Nicholas Lemann also pointed out that: "Bottom Up, Not Top Down. The people who know the most about the needs of poor neighborhoods are the residents; therefore, poverty programs should be designed and implemented by them, not imposed from above by mayors, members of Congress, social workers, intellectuals, Federal bureaucrats or other authority figures."

Thus, the development of the neighborhoods or community can not be entirely handed over to government or other professional developers. The engagement and enabling of local residents participate and build on community assets. The video shows the rebuild process of a neighborhood called Ravine Pintade in Haiti which was destroyed by the 2010 earthquake. The reconstruction project was based on a comprehensive and integrated planning process that involved experts, like architects and engineers, but also relied heavily on the participation of residents in the planning and decision-making required to rebuild the entire community. Now with the collaboration between the professionals and residents,  not only is the whole neighborhood living in better houses, also many of the problems they faced with inadequate water and sanitation have been addressed. 

The importance of building the links

A more sustainable way

I used to live in a city famous for its prosperity and urbanity in China. Our family moved to the city ten years ago. The city is known as one of the special economic region which was favored by some central government policies and had gone through a period of rapid growth. Back to decades ago, the city was once a small fishing village. But with the exceptional geographic advantage the central government decided to push the economic development of the city and make it a new economic center. Investment and talents were attracted from all over the country to the city in the past two decades, gave the city the best conditions to become one of the symbolic developed city in the South China. As a result of the talent introduction policy, a large group of new immigrants became crucial and dominant part of the city. They are highly competitive and ambitious, mastered the main operation and development of the city. As a result, the majority of the original people from the local area were somewhat marginalized since most of them were only trained with fishing and business trade.

As for me, I have always liked the city and felt proud of the harmonious environment and urbanity until I started my internship in a local newspaper. In the newspaper company there was a reporter who likes digging unknown facts about the city, the facts that were not allowed to be presented in our newspaper and the other mainstream media presses. So he chose to put them on his personal blog. He was originally from the local area and had seen its tremendous transformation from a fishing village to a modern city. He told me that there are a lot of places where people usually don't see and are hardly able to see. Places where the city bus lines failed to reach to and people can barely drive to given the unclear road sign. People always enjoy the life in the city because they are kept away from some "abandoned" areas, some blind spots of this modern city.

The reporter took me to some of these places during my internship, and what I saw worried me: there is this school poorly constructed and staffed in a very remote area of the city which was built for some students from needy households. It is not covered in the bus line, and the road to the school hasn't been repaired for a long time, so that students have to walk to the school for maybe up to hours. The classrooms were made with materials of the least quality, and stairs shake when people step on. There is also this neighborhood hidden in an unnoticed area of the city, which is made up of several extreme poor households. Clean water can not be guaranteed, let alone grocery stores. There is a river came across the neighborhood that is polluted and stinky, and sitting by the river was a small discarded factory.

Those were just a small corner of the unpleasant scenes of the city. There places were isolated from the other urban areas, and kept from the public's eyes. PETER APPLEBOME once pointed out that the image of cities in the public mind is not what the city really looks like. He also mentions  in his article "As Urban Blight Worsens, Victims Find Their Isolation Is Deepening" that the isolation of the urban poor is growing. However, what's more are out there besides these visible phenomenon? People always choose the convenient way to see the problem, turn a blind eye to the increasing rate of unemployment, and the ever widening gap between the rich and poor. But all these factors exacerbated and are still accelerating the lopsided development of this city.

This special immigration phenomenon and poor urban development planning added to a serious urban strain: the city becomes overcrowding and there is not enough resources to meet the basic housing and health needs of the existing population. The city was segregated and the poor areas remained unnoticed and lack of attention. People would argue that although the immigrants brought prosperity to the city, they also took advantage of most of the resources and left the local people little chance to improve their living. But I would say the less considerate urban development planning should take the fall for that. There is no policy favor the local residents or even refer to how to arrange their unemployment. There is no policy concerns the over-pursuing on environment. The unsustainable development caused damaged environment, unemployment, people leave at poverty line, large gap of individual wealth, etc. In a word, it caused the longevity of the city development.

To eliminate poverty and maintain the urban social justice, is the fundamental means to achieve the sustainable development of urban society. Community or neighborhood are the basic living units for urban area. However, the uneven development among different communities hugely affects the urban function, damages the city stability, causes poverty, and hinders the overall sustainable development.

Urbanity is how residents interact with each other and with the world. It should be about relationships, trust, hope, responsibility, and above all, community. But now we can seldom see our dream picture of the city. We see urban environmental degradation, which is often described to be directly correlated with rapid urban growth and industrialization. Urbanization is driven by a shift of jobs from agriculture to industry and services. Economic opportunities become more and more concentrated in urban areas. Behind all the rapid development, people are paying high price by putting increasing pressure on environment and disadvantaged urban residents. What is worse, because of urban poverty, the poor become the most affected by and at the same time contributing to environmental degradation. Usually, more disadvantaged neighborhoods in urban area encounter the most serious environmental problems.

So how can we establish a comprehensive urban anti-poverty system? In the process of urban development, the economic development, social development, and environmental well-being must be addressed together to achieve a sustainable development. Ignoring any aspect would bring down the other two, which implies that the importance of the interconnection of all the three aspects We need to increase the sustainability of urban resources. Initiatives could involve improving the social security, employment, health care, education, and housing, etc. The sustainable development means long-term synergy through changes in every aspects of city planning to stay within the limits of available urban resources. It is true that starting something new is often more attractive than fixing what we already have. Thus planning and developing in a sustainable way can be more convenient and economic in the long-run.

Population diversity leads to prosperity?

The United States is famous for its diversity and openness. People believe in the power of diversity, thinking that each individual's unique background and life experience add value to the whole society. Coming from a rather conservative and racially homogeneous country, I haven't experienced much diversity in my life, although it is not hard for me to imagine the difficulty of coordinating the cultural and ethical differences. Diversity in a community can be a double edged sword, it can either boost prosperity or cause chaos.

Jane Jacobs emphasized the importance of neighborhood diversity. But how about the population diversity? Cities such as New York, DC, Los Angelas, and San Francisco. These are cities with high living standards, and they are often associated with a more diversified population structure. They are also cities with high population mobility and changing demographics. The growth and development of these cities comes from their ability to embrace diversity and welcome newcomers. This fact undoubtedly challenged many people's stereotypes: Isn't it true that cities with more ethnic diversity and immigration often have higher crime rates thus leads to a general lower property value?

I believe it should not be a yes-or-no question. When you take the city or region as a whole to think about this problem. It is true that people experience rapid economic development, high living standards, and high property value in cities that are considered to be more diversified. Richard Florida once wrote in his article about How Pittsburgh's prosperity depends on diversity. He said:"The region was built by immigrants - the hard-working Italians, Irish, East Europeans, Jews, African Americans and other groups that powered this region's path to greatness as a center for heavy industry." The video below shows that America is facing a future defined by a diverse and multi-ethnic population. It is becoming a inevitable trend. 

It is true that diversity becomes a important theme today and can be a contributory factor to the uniqueness of a community. When comparing the prosperous cities high property value, we can easily find some commonalities among them: financial center, high population density, and high income level. People are usually driven towards areas with better living standards, which leads to a more diversified population construction. As a result, the dynamic between city and its population would be: a city with better living condition will attract more talents from different places, more rich people, and more resources to come, ultimately it will leads the city to be more prosperous and to attract more resources. Generally population diversity nowadays is linked to a higher property value. Neighborhoods with higher ethnic diversity, including Latinos, Asians, and African Americans, experienced higher housing appreciation over the decade. 

However, when we try to examine the inner environment within a city, high level of stratification comes in sight. It is easy to find segregation based on racial identity. Some districts are labeled by color and are considered as dangerous. Areas where the property value stays high are still dominantly white. There is a lack of common identity among people, thus generated many subcultures and segregation among different racial groups. These phenomenon imposed a negative effect on the community. The property value keeps low in a community with high crime rates because no one wants to move in. If a community failed to promote an understanding of, and appreciation for its cultural and racial diversity, the population diversity can become a damaging effect on the prosperity and property value. Unfortunately, this structural phenomena is still perpetuating racial segregation.  

The challenge is, how do we turn the population diversity into an advantage in community development. We want make people interact in a harmonious manner regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other backgrounds. But at least we know that diversity is important in influencing the urban community in many ways, and openness says a lot about a community. Just like Richard Florida said:" The key to growth in the new economy is to be open and have low entry barriers for human capital."