Hours later, when the merciless sun has finally passed behind one of the city’s seven hills, I make my way to the cozy restaurant with wifi, where I always hold court when I am in town. I’m greeted by one of Lisbon’s busiest and kindest restaurant owner-entrepeneurs, my good friend David. He reminds me to make myself at home and I ask how is business, with my best “businesslike” tone. “Really really good actually”, he tells me with an air of satisfaction, “It has already been a great summer business wise.” David looks up motioning towards the upper floors of the building which he rents to tourists for several years now. He clears a few tables and chit-chats with various costumers in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, before he finally pulls up a chair to ask me about my journeys and get up to speed with my offline life.

Outside the night air is still hot and people move slowly through the beloved streets of the Bairro Alto. They love to talk about how bad the economy is here, they being my fellow Portuguese citizens. Yet when I look around, I see people everywhere, walking, eating, photographing, talking business on the phone, opening up another bizarre pseudo-clothing shop-bar-club.

Alas I love Lisbon and I was once an urban anthropologist in this town, my hours of study were between 11pm and 6am. But now I am an outsider, observing and enjoying still, but out of touch with what is what for the people of this proud city. Then again, I was probably always an outsider.

Photo in the Bica (Lisbon) from the Archive (2006)

Photo by Flickr member jit bag

After all the glamour and hoopla surround the World Cup in South Africa, what about the actual costs and benefits of such an event for South Africa. The construction of massive new stadiums, the infrastructure projects, the tourism… was it everything people hoped? Was it everything FIFA promised? Where did the money come from? And do the benefits outweigh the costs?

Chris Bolsmann, Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Aston (UK) has been following the topic since before SA got the world cup. He has been speaking and writing about the real costs of such a tournament for the nation. He joins me on the program from South Africa.

Laura’s audio as part of the NOS Haiti file

Outside Port au Prince, Haiti, Photo by Talea Miller, PBS NewsHour

Not the World Cup in Rwanda photo by flickr member kigaliwire

Amidst my recent rush to dig for information about what effect world cups and high profile soccer tournaments have on nations, I almost missed a very valuable voice on a recent edition of Radio Open Source.

Who is Vishwas Satgar, I’ll use Chris’s description over at ROS:

Vishwas Satgar is a labor lawyer and leftwing activist, an insurgent ex-Secretary of the South African Communist Party who’s way out of alliance with the ANC on the uplift politics of the World Cup.

In this interesting interview, Satgar talks about the democratic deficit of this World Cup for his country.  He gets into the struggles that have intensified in the time leading up to the tournament, by social movements demanding the state meet long promised needs.  Specifically he talks about marches for Quality of Education, HIV-AIDS, and anti-privatization – among others, all which have held demonstrations during this high profile event.

Apparently at this very moment there is a national newspaper in South Africa that has gone to court to demand the government be transparent about the total cost of the World Cup. The total might turn out, when the information is finally released, to be around 5 billion dollars.  Beyond that, many cities including Johannesburg went way over budget and have spent themselves into massive debt.

There is much more to talk about and be heard in this interview, I recommend you give it a listen of you’re at all concerned about this topic of what does this tournament DO to or for a country.

Aveiro Stadium, Photo by flickr member moacirpdsp

It is surely an unpopular topic when so much national pride seems to be placed on large international soccer tournaments, but while everyone is high-fiving each other or fuming about their team being eliminated, there is a tremendous cost for all this fanfare.  Who bares this cost? How much is it? Why is it so expensive?

Few are brave enough to ask these questions, to question such a loved and long-running tradition is surely a risky dinner conversation.  In an era where sustainability is so vital to the future of our existence on this planet, fans don’t seem to care if this applies in the context of the sports. But what if they knew the truth about their beautiful game?

In a future post I will get into South Africa and Germany, the current and most recent host of the World Cup. But since I have a personal connection to the Portuguese republic, I’d like to take you back their massive soccer tournament Euro2004.  In this case, not to go back to the highlights of what player did what unbelievable thing, but to go back to what was built, invested, loaned, and promised then as compared to how things are now.

Let’s do it by the numbers:

• 6 cities, 6 new stadiums
• Total cost of 6 projects – 445 million euros.
• Total cost of these stadiums to these cities annually 19.9 million euros.
• City of Leiria pays 5 million per year in interest alone
• Aveiro, a city with around 73,600 inhabitants, has a new stadium with a capacity of 30,000.
• Mayor of Aveiro once suggested blowing up their stadium, which costs 4 million per year in loans and maintenance.
• Algarve’s stadium, capacity 30,000+ costing over 3.1 million annually, does not have a team in the 1st division of Portugal’s national soccer league.
• Cities of Leiria, Aveiro, and Faro are all hoping to sell their stadiums.
• The city of Braga is now expanding their previously expanded stadium in hopes of qualifying for a Spain-Portugal World Cup Bid.  They pay 6 million euros in loans annually

Ok so that wasn’t just by the numbers.  Because beyond the numbers, both the lack of use of these massive structures, and the tremendous cost burden for municipalities who openly want to rid themselves of these problems, indicates that when all is said and done the beautiful game has a financially crippling effect.

Yet the big name sponsors and FIFA would like you to ignore the man behind the curtain. Ignore the elephant in the room. Relax and enjoy the game, everything is fine.

Next up: Germany 2006, perhaps a better case?

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PS: For those who do register for plumbercon after reading-hearing this post, use the promo-code “Citizenreporter” when signing up. You won’t regret it.

What particularly sparks my attention are the details that, even as a socially conscious and worldly journalist, I have missed over the years.  One that will not come as a surprise to most of you as it has been true for several years now, they renamed Pretoria – a fact I was not aware of.  Though the complete name change is still being discussed in some levels of government in South Africa, my new friend informed me that in her home town now known as Tshwane, most signs and official markers have all been changed already.

I didn’t have to ask her why they changed it. Thinking about it for a moment I realized the name Pretoria, even for me an outsider, makes me think of the apartheid era. Specifically I always loved the film Biko, about Stephen Biko’s life, and the depictions of police and Pretoria from that film are indeed prevalent in my head. Beyond that, when I think of former Portuguese colonies like Luanda in Angola (formerly Nova Lisboa) and Maputo in Mozambique (formerly Lourenço Marques), I understand the concept in the context of breaking with traditions and gruesome reminders from colonial times.  So although I hadn’t heard Pretoria was renamed, I immediately did the math in my head and understood what was happening.

It was my seat companion that brought up the issue that inspired this post, when she expressed great frustration at the renaming.  Not because she had some deep seated love for the name Pretoria or for the Apartheid era, but because for this young South African of Afrikaner decent (if I may add with no disrespect intended), the time, energy, and resources dedicated to the process of renaming cities like Pretoria could have better improved the nation by helping to address poverty and the needs of the most vulnerable people of the nation.  Instead they spend huge sums of money and hold endless discussions, all to change a name of a city.

Looking back and forth between this very articulate person and the clouds outside, I was reminded of that great scene in Clint Eastwood’s Film Invictus (about Mandela’s intial time as the new president of South Africa and the end of apartheid).  In this specific scene there is a meeting of the new sports commission about changing the colors and name of the South African rugby team. Rugby having been the sport synonymous with those in power during apartheid. Without going into the extended version of what happened, nor to ruin a powerful scene in the film, just as the new commission is going to approve of a motion to change the name and change the colors of a team that was so important to many white South Africans, Mandela begged them not to.  He felt rugby could be changed from a symbol of division to a symbol of unity.

Mandela has been out of the presidency for a long time and I haven’t read his comments about the Pretoria name change. Maybe it isn’t fair to compare them and indeed the name should go away like Salisbury in Zimbabwe and Leopoldville in Congo. Or maybe the creative and unifying spirit that Mandela brought is gone now, and his fear of people playing politics with symbols and names has come true.

India Unheard
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Problems? Sure they’ve got a fine list of economic, social, and political problems. Some that seem to get worse (like the national debt), some that are just made to sound worse by leaders who benefit from fear, anger, or some other form of rabid regional patriotism.

Even with these problems, the nation is still has a long list of successes and virtues, that would be the envy of pretty much any other continent on the planet.  Take any sector, from health to agriculture, to science and beyond, you’ll find plenty of achievements in Belgium.

Despite all this, we still sit ever closer to what seems like the break up of the nation. With every passing election, it feels like a loud majority have forgotten what a great place they live in, and all that they have in common with their neighbors.  Instead they believe the solution to all their problems will come with the end of Belgium. Putting an end to one of the most unique and beautiful nations the world has ever known.

In an unexpected podcast conversation, Aki takes us to post-war Japan where the country adopted a tradition of renting only single rooms or apartments for people unless they were married. As a result the idea of having a roomate, or living together with someone without getting married, is not only unheard of, its considered unacceptable by many landlords.

Then came the television program Friends along with a whole generation of Japanese young professionals who had lived abroad, they wanted to live with roomates and had to find ways to get past cultural restrictions. Aki tells the story of how this movement came to be and what kinds of situations they find themselves in. In between we also learn a whole lot more about Japanese urban culture.

Roomshare Japan (classifieds)
Roomshare Guide (online guide. Japanese)
The Book “Roomshare suru seikatsu“(A Life in Roomsharing)

The latest victim on the list of celebrated traditions that exist in few other places the way they exist in Amsterdam is the tradition of squatting.  At the height of squatting in the 1980′s, in Amsterdam alone there were at least 20,000 residents living in occupied buildings. Long after the city and private owners had left buildings abandoned and in disrepair, this community of hands-on, do-it yourself individuals took the initiative to not only take over these buildings, but to repair them and create a new community around them.  An empty hospital, a forgotten warehouse, an obsolete police station, a crumbling school house, no matter where you look in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, there is surely a squat that has been repaired and re-purposed by groups of artists, activists, and other creative types. And they don’t stop at housing, in the city of Amsterdam alone squats are home to organic vegetarian restaurants, affordable atelier space for artists, live performance spaces, film houses, saunas and more.

Yet despite the unique and incalculable contribution squatting brings to a city such as Amsterdam, in the halls of city and national government there has apparently not been enough voice to defend that tradition.  As June 1st, 2010 came and went, Dutch parliament passed a law making squatting illegal, in effect turning hundreds if not thousands of citizens  into instant criminals. This comes only days before a parliamentary election where the ruling parties are expected to lose badly, the very political elites who have led the charge against squatting.

A bizarre juxtaposition, as governments throughout the world sit around having meetings about how to attract the “creative class” to their cities. They spend millions on urban planning consultants and sociologists who subscribe to the Richard Florida school of finding ways to bring smart people to your town, thus creating vibrant and interesting cities for work, life, and visiting.  These same decision makers who dedicate so many resources to trying to make a city special, now stand by idly- or worse, lead the charge, to turn one the most innovative urban movements on the planet, into a collection of criminals forced to leave the hubs of creative energy and homes that have been part of the urban social fabric for more than 50 years.

As we strolled through the beautiful gardens in the Chinsan-zo area of Tokyo, Chiew told the story of how once he got to WWF, he had some ideas that had never been tried before by that organization… a sustainable investment fund. He explained the goal of such a fund and what makes it unique. Beyond all that, with a wise and curious spirit, Chiew tells more than a story about a fund, he tells the story of a personal evolution that he believes has been and will continue to spread throughout the planet like wildfire.

To read more about the Living Planet Fund, visit their website.

The following is what I believe to be a very unique cultural experience here in Tokyo, a place where those who cannot or do not own cats can pay a small fee and go spend time in a wonderland of felines.  Here they can sit for hours just watching cats or actively petting and playing with them.  Why? Who cares? All these questions are valid, and as your intrepid reporter, I considered these questions.  With help from my Japan anthropologist friend Semisara, here is what we learned in the form of a video entry.

Wandering the streets of Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Akihabara and beyond, I’m observing a culture and a city that for my entire adult life people have been explaining or trying to describe to me.  Yet of course it is one thing to be told about Japan and this crazy capital, yet it is entirely something else to experience it first hand.

This type of writing isn’t unique because it is found on this blog; throughout the internet, intrepid and less-intrepid travelers have been musing about Japan for as long as there has been a WWW.  Before that they stuck to tv documentaries, films, novels, and I’m sure many a pamphlet.

Still, my Japanese experience is most unique in that it is shaped by all of you. You being the twitter people, the facebookers, the comment leavers, the online and offline friends. Through your recommendations, your photo-memories, and your in-person meetups, in what is a short visit to such a culture and adventure rich nation, I manage to learn and soak in more than I would have otherwise; on my own, with a guidebook.

Many would say, I’m curious to travel to Japan and far away places like that, but I would feel lost or intimidated by things I don’t understand.  But the online-offline communities I have the good fortune of being a part of – the hackers, the journalists, the podcasters videobloggers, the couch surfers, the frisbee players – they all ensure that no matter what, I’m never truly traveling on my own, unless I want to.

I hear the lamenters. Those who say – ah but traveling on your own is rewarding too. Discovering things for yourself is important. I hear them and I keep this in mind as I do indeed take the time or the effort to discover things for myself. However when I turn a corner that I would not have otherwise turned, because someone walking next to me or following me on twitter recommend I do so, and I find myself somewhere magical, those fears about how things are changing, don’t seem so important.

A recent edition of All in the Mind, ABC Radio National’s Mental Health radio program, looked at historical connections between protest and mental illness.  One of the main points of the program is to point out that historically, those active in protest movements of various kinds, have often been said to be or officially diagnosed as mentally ill. In this way their goals or grievances with social structures and practices are seen as not worthy of being taken seriously, as they are brought on by a sickness.

The main interviewee on the program was Associate Professor Jonathan Metzl, author of the book The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease, published by Beacon Books. Through his work Metzl explains a long list of cases where black people active in the civil rights struggle in the US were in incarcerated and while in prison diagnosed as schizophrenic or psychotic, then having their sentences extended and the array of treatments and medications expanded til the point that even if they had never been mentally ill before, they would become so.

From the era of slavery to the days of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, the discussion is a very interesting one that still has a big impact today in how we look at people in mental institutions, prison, and protest movements.

Highly recommended listening, full transcript is also available.