Pocket World in Figures

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Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

Park Slope Brooklyn as a droopy blanket

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:22:00 +0000

I'd never seen Nokia Maps before, just heard of it. We're working on incorporating their visuals into our current planning project.

My block

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Make your own here.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

git - the simple guide - no deep shit!

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Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

Introduction | MapBox

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Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

Carbon Tool
Estimate the potential contribution of any area in the world to climate change mitigation
The Invisible Mother | Retronaut

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Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

EarthNow! Landsat Image Viewer

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Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

The Restart Page - Free unlimited rebooting experience from vintage operating systems
155 Freeman
155 Freeman Street is an arts-and-culture venue and the home of three nonprofits: Triple Canopy, an online magazine, Light Industry, a cinema, and The Public School New York, an open-source classroom with no curriculum. Our shared home will act as a cinema, classroom, publication studio, and venue for performances, readings, and workshops.

Links for 2012-01-09 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

Making Sun and Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:12:00 +0000

Free Association Design

Drawing Water

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:29:00 +0000

David Wicks via Neil Freeman

The Internet's Urban Form

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:22:00 +0000

Note: This is a paper from my Spring semester at the Pratt Institute. It may or may not turn into a larger work. For more recent (and interesting) work on this subject, check out Kevin Slavin's talk, or this video by Ben Mendelsohn on 60 Hudson.

One Wilshire, Los Angeles [Kazys Varnelis]

“Concentrated [city] cores dominated not only the physical but also the telecommunicational realm. Dispersal of the latter would prove more difficult.”
-Robert Sumrell and Kazys Varnelis – Blue Monday

In a neat paradox, as populations decanted across the country in the postwar years, the United States’ growing telecommunications network became ever more concentrated and dependent on the traditional urban centers of the previous century. As information technology began to dominate the American economy and culture, many writers and thinkers predicted the decline of “place” in society, specifically the decline of concentrated urban centers, as the population, able to live anywhere and stay connected, increasingly turned towards the network for work and play. These authors, fascinated with the possibilities of a cyborg culture, envisioned an equal access network that would obliterate the limitations of geography. These writings often neglected the fact that the network relied, and still relies, on very physical, very geographic network infrastructure. As Stephen Becker of the blog mammoth writes, “the globalized world is still very heavy.”

Early Network Growth

At the start of the 20^th century, communication lines relied heavily on a nodal system - telephone and telegraph networks emanated from exchanges at a centralized “Company Office” in each neighborhood, which was then connected to a central switching station in the center of the city.

Early ARPANET network models, Paul Baran [Martin Dodge]

Cold War concerns about vulnerability led to planned redundancy and dispersal for these systems, allowing communications to continue to function even in the event of nuclear catastrophe. AT&T, the largest provider at the time, often built centers that could withstand nuclear attack (the Long Lines Building at 33 Thomas Street is one example) (Sumrell 72). While network planners, notably Paul Baran at the Rand Corporation, advocated for the creation of nodes outside of city centers, in general they were not built to their planned extent (Hart 668).

This early system later grew into the communication network we know today. The predecessor to the Internet, ARPANET, was largely built on these phone lines. As the Internet expanded, it grew increasingly dependent on these central switching stations. Until deregulation, the same traditional telephone carriers only became more essential to the functioning of the network. These paths of least resistance in infrastructure development occurred because the cities that tended to dominate spatially in the age of the telephone and telegraph remained dominant in the age of telecommunications.

Networks and the Information Economy

UUNET (now Verizon) network map, with urban nodes

Manuel Castells and Peter Hall explore the increasing importance of broadband and “wired” cities to the global economy, citing the growth of new “technopoles” which rely on high-bandwidth networks and clustered information technology to become economic powerhouses. In addition to covering new tech cities in Portugal, Silicon Valley, and Japan, they cite older cities like London and New York as former industrial powerhouses gone high tech, now technopoles themselves. The shift in technology allowed the dispersal of manufacturing and traditional production outside city limits while “command and control” knowledge work, dependent on fast and reliable networks, replaced them in the city’s economy. The new dominant industries of insurance and finance, along with the public and private institutions that supplemented them, grew alongside the network.

At the start of the Internet Age, many writers anticipated the decline of dense urban centers, as fast connections would allow highly dispersed workforces to telecommute without leaving their homes. The explosion of home computing and ubiquitous networks, they argued, would end “place” as it had traditionally been known. The increasingly dense connections of the web do allow for greater mobility for both companies and workers, but at the same time geographic density and clustering becomes even more appealing, as companies place their offices near attractive high-bandwidth sites.

The clustering of businesses, especially in finance and insurance, “provide the specialized social connectivity that allows a firm or market to maximize the benefits of its technological connectivity (Sassen 23). In other words, connectivity intensifies the need for physical proximity in industry clusters, as social connections become more valuable through the increased efficiency of global network connections.

Earlier telegraph and telephone networks, which were heavily subsidized by the state, encouraged companies to locate in centralized cities. The expansion of the Internet, however, “did not require the blessing of centrally-controlled telephone or television networks, but instead proceeded in a decentralized fashion as increasing numbers of private and public operators adopted the new networking model and peered with existing participants to join the Internetwork” (Bar et al, 110). Later telecommunications networks were then largely laid privately for the benefit of existing companies and institutions, which had the resources to build out access to this new network (Sussman 38).

Networks in an Urban Environment

New York City's major data centers [datacentermap.com]

The high-bandwidth networks that currently serve today’s cities take on a specialized architectural form in dense urban areas. Known as carrier hotels or colocation centers, high-rise buildings serve as essential nodes for the dozens of companies that provide telecommunication services to the city. As there are “relatively few high-bandwidth transcontinental and transoceanic fiber-optic lines… even fewer Tier-1 carriers that sell space on these lines, and […] still fewer mobile phone operators and last-mile connection (DSL or cable broadband service) providers that allow the end user to access bandwidth,” (Varnelis and Friedberg, 28), the inner city “peering” points represented by these carrier hotels are essential points of access to the global Internet for millions of local users. Cities and their inhabitants communicate with the wider world through a small number of these specialized buildings.

Carrier hotels are typically “carrier neutral,” that is, they do not favor one telecom carrier over another in renting space, allowing telecoms to share connections and exchange traffic between Internet networks. Because costs in bandwidth continue to drop, most colocation centers offer use of their equipment for low prices, making most of their income from the value of real estate alone.

One Wilshire, Los Angeles [Kazys Varnelis]

This is the case at One Wilshire, a 30 story building in the heart of Los Angeles. Law offices in a former life, the building now hosts 23 stories – 665,000 square feet - of servers, fiber cables, and other network hardware. Nearly 300 different telecom companies share space in the building (Jardin). This intensive use brings high profits - by one estimate, One Wilshire has the highest per-square-foot rent in North America. One Wilshire’s important second life as a colocation center happened by coincidence: MCI, a telecommunications company, needed a tall structure near AT&T’s central switching station to locate their long-distance microwave antennae. After finding a suitable location at One Wilshire (actually located at 624 South Grand), MCI was soon followed by other Internet service providers, long distance carriers, and other communication companies. In fact, the One Wilshire site became so successful that over a dozen other buildings in the surrounding blocks were converted to carrier hotels as well.

Kazys Varnelis and Robert Sumrell, writing as AUDC, comment on the outer blandness of One Wilshire and its surroundings, noting “its neutral grid lacks symbolic content, making it a tower without qualities” (61). This is a common feature of most urban network centers like One Wilshire: besides telltale rooftop cooling systems, there is little that distinguishes carrier hotels from the surrounding urban fabric.

David Grahame Shane was aware of this phenomenon in his work on “recombinant urbanism.” “It has,” he writes, “become clear that heterotopic developments are one of the norms of the network city. They allow for great flexibility in the retrofitting of previous, specialized built structures for new uses” (295). Heterotopias, the dominant urban form in 21^st century cities, are flexible spaces that transform according to a city’s needs. A common trend, as we will see in New York, is that data does not seek new forms in existing urban fabric, but repurposes existing forms for its needs.

One Wilshire may be the most important hub on the West Coast, but even less-trafficked network hubs are nearly as valuable. Most cities, or even entire states, have just one multi-carrier hub. The majority of Internet traffic in Minnesota, for example, is routed through a single building across the street from the Mall of America Field in Minneapolis (Blum).

Carrier hotels, like other network infrastructure, make special demands on city resources. The Lakeside Technology Center, a 1.1 million square foot data center located at 350 East Cermak in Chicago, is currently the second largest power customer for Commonwealth Edison, behind only O’Hare International Airport. In order to guarantee continued service for its customers (and the millions of network users they serve), Lakeside maintains more than 50 generators throughout the building, fueled by multiple 30,000-gallon tanks of diesel fuel. Despite its size, one of the founding developers of Lakeside, Doug Humphrey, guesses the site only represents between one to three percent of all the data/colocation space worldwide (Miller).

Data in New York City

New York City’s network shares similarities with other cities in the United States, but its high concentration of data-intensive industries and leading role as one as Saskia Sassen’s global cities leads to increased broadband demands and a special role in the regional and national network, as more transoceanic and transcontinental lines meet here than any other city in the country (Blum).

Los Angeles may have the most valuable network space in the country at One Wilshire, but in New York, data and real estate are even more intertwined. In an overheated retail market where space is at a premium, broadband speeds become top selling points for corporate realtors. “If the value of real estate in the traditional urban fabric is determined by location, location, location (as property pundits never tire of repeating), then the value of a network connection is determined by bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth” (Mitchell 17). William Mitchell wrote the above quote in 1995, when the value of geographic location was assumed to be receding in the advent of ubiquitous computing. In the case of New York City, real estate value now seems highly dependent on both factors.

Recently, for example, the tech company Google made a $1.9 billion purchase of 111 8^th Avenue, a high profile carrier hotel which houses major companies like Digital Realty Trust (the owner of Lakeside), Equinix (which owns several of the carrier hotels around One Wilshire), Telx, and others. The building, which covers an entire city block, was originally constructed for the Port Authority in 1932. It saw new life when it was redeveloped for telecom use in the late 1990’s. Though only about a quarter of its 2.8 million square feet are dedicated to data and colocation, its status as an intensely wired building enables office space which may be rented and sold at a premium, whether it is to telecom or other industry tenants. Most tech companies like Google run their data centers in suburban and rural areas, due to the lower costs of energy and land (these centers have their own unique spatial and economic impacts on their localities, but due to corporate secrecy, many are not very accessible (Holmes)). Google, with its increasing interest in the telecommunications space, may have its own reasons for becoming the landlord for some of North America’s largest telecom companies.

Several of the most important data centers for New York City (and therefore the entire Northeast) are located further downtown. 32 Avenue of the Americas, a landmarked building just south of Canal, hosts dozens of companies on its 24^th floor “meet-me” room. This building also had a past in communications, as evidenced by the mosaic extolling radio and telephone wires in its lobby. The building was originally known as the AT&T Long Distance Building, but underwent extensive renovation in the early 2000’s to become a full-featured data center. It currently hosts around 50 customers, ranging from universities to the United States Military and its contractors.

Telephone wires and radio unite
to make neighbors of nations
- 32 Avenue of the Americas

32 Avenue of the Americas again highlights the ability of data centers to function smoothly in a variety of sites - even landmarked buildings. Aside from its landmark status, the building has no special zonings or otherwise notable entries in the city’s land use map. Unless one notices the high number of electrical work permits filed with the Department of Buildings or the intensive rooftop cooling structures and microwave antennae, it blends in with the surrounding fabric.

Only a short distance away, the building at 60 Hudson has a similar background and architectural style. Originally the headquarters of Western Union, the building was adapted from telegraphs to telecommunications, now hosting over 100 companies. Like Lakeside, 60 Hudson requires extensive generating power. The building underwent public scrutiny in 2006, when the owners requested a variance in the building code to store additional 275-gallon diesel tanks on six floors. While this was only a slight modification to fuel storage rules, neighborhood activists were dismayed to find that over 80,000 gallons of diesel fuel were being stored in a dense residential neighborhood. The representative to Congress for the neighborhood of TriBeCa stated he would like the fuel stored elsewhere, but because 60 Hudson is an important, if not the most important junction for data traffic in the city, it is unlikely that the fuel will move.

Rooftop antennas and cooling at
32 Avenue of the Americas [coresite]

Two other notable hubs sit nearby, 375 Pearl Street, better known as the Verizon Building, and 33 Thomas Street, also known as the AT&T Long Lines Building. Both buildings are important hubs for telephone operations. Unlike the other sites in New York City, which are older and originally built for different purposes, 375 Pearl and 33 Thomas both have a distinctive architectural form specifically tailored for telecommunications. In this regard, they are what Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown would label “ducks,” that is, their forms advertise their function. In an interesting turn of events however, 375 Pearl, under new ownership, may see a full conversion into a new colocation and data center (Miller).

33 Thomas is an especially important node for New York City’s communications network. It was built to withstand nuclear attack and is equipped to run without outside electricity for up to two weeks [Dankwa]. During the September 11^th attacks, both buildings were essential for restoring AT&T and Verizon’s services, as both companies lost offices and equipment and essential city services lost the ability to communicate effectively [Yoo]. Their centrality and size creates risks however, as witnessed in 1991 when a 6 hour power outage at 33 Thomas grounded air traffic at all three of New York’s major airports, delaying thousands of passengers (Lee). Though more redundancy has been built into the network since these and other events, there is still the danger that a disruption at one site can cause issues throughout the network.

Shortcomings: Access, equity, and ways forward

Patchwork access to fiber optic lines, New York City 2010 [broadbandmap.gov]

Aside from the local, physical issues these sites can impose on their surroundings, the service they provide can also prove problematic. As Stephen Graham and others point out, network construction favors the already powerful, exacerbating issues of inequality. “High capacity broadband networks, for example, are tending to be constructed first in high-demand metropolitan spaces and corridors.” (33) These urban data centers all have one thing in common: their proximity to existing institutions and businesses. For a planner, they also pose a challenging contradiction: they bring resources and money into cities, but do not require much in the way of staff to stay operational. The carrier hotels surrounding One Wilshire may be extremely valuable in real estate terms, but the neighborhood surrounding this data center cluster is largely empty. While the Internet offers incredible opportunities for citizen empowerment, the physical limitations of broadband networks currently restrict this effect to neighborhoods and regions with access and ability to navigate these high-speed networks.

The hubs which served telephone lines in the past are as essential now as they were then, perhaps even more so. The difference is in what motivates their construction and expansion. As long as construction of the network is motivated by profit, the poorest residents of our cities will be last to gain reliable, affordable, and fast broadband access. As Dominique Lorrain writes, “these new developments in urbanization move cities from the realm of megalopolis, corridors, or urban regions, characterized by sprawling, urbanized spaces, to that of an archipelago, where cities represent islands concentrating activities and exchanges.” (18) Even within cities, we see this archipelago effect. A quick glance at the fiber optic map above indicates that the network does not treat all geography equally.

A panel on the Network City at Cooper Union recently discussed the empowering benefits of access to power and a stronger voice in community issues. One subject that continually arose, however, was: Who lives in this Networked City? According to Anthony Townsend, most people do not live there yet. If network development thus far is not inclusive, what is the way forward? What ways can we make our networks support citizens with the least power traditionally?

As noted by the Federal Communication Commission, the United States, with an average download rate of 4 megabits per second, ranks 15^th in the world for Internet connection speeds. The FCC has set goals to bring true high-speed Internet to 90% of the country’s population by 2020. It is unclear, however, how this will happen. Currently, development plans include incentives for existing telecom companies as well as voluntary donations of valuable broadband spectrum. This public-private partnership is just beginning, making it difficult to judge its progress.

New York City has also begun to address the “digital divide” that may be most striking within its own city limits. The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications’ most recent annual report includes plans to partner with private providers to improve access and adoption for lower-income residents and seniors. Because New York City is such a wired metropolis, most equity issues stem from high prices and few education resources rather than a true infrastructural deficit.

The network we’ve constructed in New York City, as well as it may serve business, government, and institutions, was not built for residents. Are there options beyond the current business-dominated model? Google is attempting a fresh attempt at providing good citywide data infrastructure starting this year in Kansas City, Kansas. Google’s goal is to offer speeds of about 1 gigabit per second, brining fiber optic cable service directly to consumers’ homes.

In Utah, several cities, representing a population of about 500,000, have partnered to form the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or UTOPIA. This network is built by municipal governments, and funded and owned by the cities’ taxpayers. Like Google, UTOPIA does not provide Internet service, but allows companies to compete on its network, hopefully driving down costs through competition. It will be interesting to see whether Google or UTOPIA can create a successful new model for network development, which will favor individuals over corporations and institutions.

Data centers, hubs, and networks are increasingly important to our daily lives, yet perhaps the greatest issue with our network today is its invisibility. Saskia Sassen recently wrote

I have long thought that all the major infrastructures in a city—from sewage to electricity and broadband—should be encased in transparent walls and floors at certain crossroads, such as bus stops or public squares. If you can actually see it all, you can get engaged. Today, when walls are pregnant with software, why not make this visible? All of our computerized systems should become transparent. The city would become literally a publicly shared domain.

One Wilshire, Robert Sumrell and Kazys Varnelis write, only reveals its complexity and indispensability through the cryptic marks on the pavement surrounding the building which mark the many fiber connections running in and out of the site. In New York City, our data flows through landmarked prewar skyscrapers in the Financial District and Midtown. It is doubtful that an average passerby recognizes the power wrapped up in these often-mundane urban sites. For citizens to engage with their network cities, they need an understanding of how it all works. Andrew Blum agrees with Sassen, stating, “we should be paying more attention to the provenance of our bits. I think the analogy with food is strong: the first step towards more sustainable agriculture is merely knowing—and caring-- where your food comes from. Why can’t the same be true of our connections?”

A person or group’s ability to navigate and take advantage of local, regional, and global data networks will largely define agency and power in 21^st century cities. A first step forward is to reveal some of the very physical and geographic underpinnings of this ever-growing and evolving system.

Works Cited

Becker, Stephen. "Starting from Zero." M.ammoth.us. Mammoth, 17 June 2010. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Blum, Andrew. E-mail interview. Spring 2011.

Blum, Andrew. "Netscapes: Tracing the Journey of a Single Bit." Wired.com. Wired, 4 Nov. 2010. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Castells, Manuel, and Peter Hall. Technopoles of the World: the Making of Twenty-first-century Industrial Complexes. London: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Castells, Manuel. High Technology, Space and Society. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985. Print.

Castells, Manuel. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban-regional Process. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Print.

Cave, Damien. "Waiver Upheld on Location of Fuel Tanks in TriBeCa Building - New York Times." The New York Times. 18 Oct. 2006. Web. 05 May 2011. .

"Chicago Data Center: 350 E Cermak Road." Digitalrealtytrust.com. Digital Realty Trust. Web. 5 May 2011. .

CoreSite: Data Centers, Colocation, Peering. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Coutard, Olivier, Richard E. Hanley, and Rae Zimmerman. Sustaining Urban Networks: the Social Diffusion of Large Technical Systems. London: Routledge, 2005. Print.

Datacenterknowledge.com. Data Center Knowledge: New York City Archive. Web. 5 May 2011. .

Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications 2010 Annual Report. Publication. New York City, 2011. New York City Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications. Web. 5 May 2011. .

Dodge, Martin. "An Atlas of Cyberspaces- Historical Maps." University of Manchester. Web. 05 May 2011. .

"Fair Share Criteria: A Guide for City Agencies." NYC.gov. New York City Department of City Planning, 1998. Web. 5 May 2011. .

Goldman, David. "Google Chooses Kansas City for Ultra-fast Internet Service - Mar. 30, 2011." CNNMoney.com. CNN Money, 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Goldman, David. "No Easy Fix for America's Broadband Problems - Mar. 16, 2010."CNNMoney.com. CNN Money, 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 05 May 2011. http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/16/technology/fcc_broadband/index.htm?iid=EL

Grima, Joseph, Adam Greenfield, Natalie Jeremijenko, Anthony Townsend, and McKenzie Wark. "The Networked City: Panel Discussion." Cooper Union Great Hall, New York City. 5 May 2011. Lecture.

Hart, Jeffrey A., Robert R. Reed, and Francois Barr. "The Building of the Internet." Editorial. Telecommunications Policy Nov. 1992: 666-89. Web. 5 May 2011. .

Holmes, Rob. "A Preliminary Atlas of Gizmo Landscapes." M.ammoth.us. Mammoth, 1 Apr. 2010. Web. 05 May 2011. .

The Hub at 32 Sixth Avenue. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Jardin, Xeni. "A Los Angeles 'Hotel' for Internet Carriers : NPR." Npr.org. National Public Radio, 19 Feb. 2007. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Lee, Leonard. "Making The Connection." Disaster Recovery Journal. 1991. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Miller, Rich. "Sabey, Young Woo May Buy NY Verizon Building « Data Center Knowledge." Datacenterknowledge.com. Data Center Knowledge, 4 Feb. 2011. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Miller, Rich. "WSJ: Google Is Buying 111 8th Avenue « Data Center Knowledge." Datacenterknowledge.com. Data Center Knowledge, 3 Dec. 2010. Web. 05 May 2011. .

The Minnesota Gateway Data Center and Colocation Facility. Web. 05 May 2011. http://mngateway.com.

Mitchell, William J. City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1995. Print.

National Broadband Map. Web. 05 May 2011. http://broadbandmap.gov

Nyiix.net. Telehouse America. Web. 05 May 2011. http://www.nyiix.net

Sassen, Saskia. Global Networks: Linked Cities. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Sassen, Saskia. "What Matters: Talking Back to Your Intelligent City. http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/. What Matters, Essays about Topics of Global Importance, Curated by McKinsey & Company, 1 Feb. 2011. Web. 05 May 2011. .

Shane, David Grahame. Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design, and City Theory. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2007. Print.

Sumrell, Robert, and Kazys Varnelis. Blue Monday: Stories of Absurd Realities and Natural Philosophies. Barcelona: Actar, 2007. Print.

Sussman, Gerald. "Urban Congregations of Capital and Communications: Redesigning Social and Spatial Boundaries." Social Text 60 (1999): 35-51. JSTOR. Web. 5 May 2011. .

"Special Report: WTC Tenant Relocation Summary." Tenant Wise, Sept. 2003. Web. 5 May 2011. http://www.tenantwise.com=

UTOPIA. Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency. Web. 05 May 2011. http: www.utopianet.org.

Varnelis, Kazys. Networked Publics. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2008. Print.

Varnelis, Kazys. The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles. Barcelona: Actar, 2009. Print.

Yoo, Hans. E-mail interview. Spring 2011.

Little Boat

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:03:00 +0000

Little Boat from nelson boles on Vimeo.

Waning Moon - Morris Graves

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:03:00 +0000

from [HiLobrow]

Hudson River looking choppy

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:27:00 +0000

seen on google maps

Ciudad Nazca

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:59:00 +0000

A robot tracing the city in the desert.

From a great interview with the artist, Rodrigo Derteano at [we make money, not art]

33 Thomas

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:38:00 +0000

My favorite building in New York City

All that's left

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:55:00 +0000

I got to spend a few hours in Oberlin this spring, and to my surprise, one of my senior art projects is still standing. It's seen better days, but it looks like it will be around for a while longer, at least. Mixed feelings seeing it again.

East New York Farms

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:52:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to visit East New York Farms, a working farm in the middle of East New York, Brooklyn with my urban agriculture class at Pratt. It's an inspiring place. More photos here.

Çatal Höyük

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:56:00 +0000

"The city was an endless building"

- deconcrete - cities without streets

Field Guide to Urban Industrial Canals

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:37:00 +0000

Open publication - Free publishing - More canal

by faslanyc

LARP Pastoral

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:39:00 +0000

Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Urban Agriculture

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:22:00 +0000

Currently working on a proposal for a rooftop farm similar to the Brooklyn Grange.It's for my new office headquarters. The idea is exciting, but developing programming and site design for a landmarked office building has been giving me a headache all week.

The Dingo Fence

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:26:00 +0000

I recently learned about Australia's dingo fence, which is an absolutely mind-boggling piece of infrastructure. At 3,488 miles, it's the world's longest fence. Constructed in the late 19th century to keep dingoes out of Southeastern Australia, it is still effective today, as that part of the continent is nearly dingo free, with massive consequences for the local ecology. It is amazing the lengths we will go to accomplish our goals.

I'm reminded of another massive construction project for a single-minded purpose - the Great Hedge of India, which was constructed by the British throughout the 19th century. The hedge, originally a wall, stretched across more than 2,500 miles. It was built to stop smugglers seeking to avoid the Salt Tax, and at its peak employed more than 14,000 people. The hedge, at its zenith, grew up to twelve feet tall and fourteen feet thick. Nothing remains of it today.

Architecture of the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:09:00 +0000

Telehouse's new London data center.

[the new aesthetic]

Camel Corps

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:40:00 +0000

photo by andreakw

I learned on Twitter today that there are about 25,000 wild camels in the Australian outback, one of the more interesting invasive species to plague Australia.

Australia is not the only country coping with feral camels. While I was writing my term paper I returned to AUDC's great Blue Monday and the story of the US Army's failed Camel Military Corps.

Instead of serving the Confederacy, in 1863 the Camel Corps was sold off at auction. Most would wind up in private hands, but some would be released into the desert where they became feral. Hadji Ali, now known as “Hi Jolly” remained behind although whether this was to pursue the American dream or simply because he was marooned far from home is unclear. After a time running a camel-borne freight business, Hi Jolly, who was actually half-Greek and also known by the name Philip Tedro, married a Tucson woman and moved to the west Arizona town of Tyson’s Wells, nine miles west of Quartzsite, Arizona, where he worked as a miner until he died in 1902, reportedly expiring with his arm around one of his camels during a sandstorm. In memory of his service, the government of Arizona built a small pyramid topped by a metal camel on his gravesite in the 1930s. Feral camels would be seen roaming the desert until the early 1900s.

on the suburbs

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Vitruvius - Satyric Scene

"One need only contrast this definition with the realities of the eighteenth-century city to see how radically suburbia contradicted the basic assumptions that organized the premodern city. Such cities were built up on the principle that the core was the only appropriate and honorific setting for the elite, and that the urban peripheries outside the walls were disreputable zones, shantytowns to which the poorest inhabitants and the most noisome manufactures were relegated.
[…] From its earliest usage in the fourteenth century until the mid-eighteenth century, a 'suburbe' - that is, a settlement on the urban fringe - meant (in the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary) a 'place of inferior, debased, and especially licentious habits of life.' The canon's yeoman in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales says of himself and his master, a crooked alchemist, that they live 'in the suburbes of town. We lurk in corners and blind alleys where robbers and thieves instinctively huddle secretly and fearfully together…'
In Shakespeare's London so many houses of prostitution had moved to these disreputable outskirts that a whore was called 'a suburb sinner,' and to call a man a 'suburbanite' was a serious insult."

- Robert Fishman, Bourgeois Utopias

Jonathan Zawada

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:13:00 +0000

[but does it float]

Complete US Census Data Released

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:36:00 +0000

The Census Bureau finished releasing population data from the 2010 Census. They created the useful interactive map below.

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The data gets even more interesting at the state level. In Illinois, you can see the big growth in suburban collar counties - a trend mirrored across the country. What's missing at the county level is that Cook County, while experiencing a loss of population, had a big increase in the area surrounding the Loop. I'm guessing the .6% decrease in the black population statewide is largely due to the dramatic decanting of traditional black neighborhoods on the South Side.

This phenomenon, which again isn't unique to Chicago, is addressed in further detail here.

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THE GHOSTS

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:25:00 +0000

Ronald Reagan on Collective Bargaining

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:43:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Hamby) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:55:00 +0000

"The city of to-day is a dying thing because it is not geometrical."