Category Archives: I Speak of the City

unwinding in the south bronx
Originally uploaded by nuvole

[An excerpt from the introduction to “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs]

Nothing is static. It is the same with cities. Thus, to investigate either natural or city ecosystems demands the same kind of thinking. It does not do to focus on “things” and expect them to explain much in themselves. Processes are always of the essence; things have significances as participants in processes, for better or worse.

This way of seeing is fairly young and new, which is perhaps why the hunt for knowledge to understand either natural or city ecology seems so inexhaustible. Little is known; so much yet to know.

We human beings are the only city-building creatures in the world. The hives of socially different in how they develop, what they do, and their potentialities. Cities are in a sense natural ecosystems too –for us. They are not disposable. Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon; they have pulled their weight and more. It is the same still. Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.

It is urgent that human beings understand as much as we can about city ecology –starting at any point in city processes.

Full text here.

Subway Chinatown NY
Originally uploaded by DJ Axis

Riding the subway is an adventure
especially if you cannot read the signs.
One gets lost. One becomes anxious and
does not know whether to get off when
the other Chinese person in your car
does. (Your crazy logic tells you that
the both of you must be headed for the
same stop.) One woman has discovered the
secret of one-to-one correspondence.
She keeps the right amount of pennies
in one pocket and upon arriving in each
new station along the way she shifts one
penny to her other pocket. When all the
pennies in the first pocket have disappeared,
she knows that she is home.

© Frances Chung
from Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple

Genesis Rising
Originally uploaded by f1r3storm85

The Book of Genesis According to St. Miguelito
by Miguel Piñero

Before the beginning
God created God
In the beginning
God created the ghettos & slums
and God saw this was good.
So God said,
“Let there be more ghettos & slums”
and there were more ghettos & slums.
But God saw this was plain
so
to decorate it
God created lead-based paint
and then
God commanded the rivers of garbage & filth
to low gracefully through the ghettos.
On the third day
because on the second day God was out of town
On the third day
God’s nose was running
& his jones was coming down and God
in his all knowing wisdom
knew he was sick
he needed a fix
so God
created the backyards of the ghettos
& the alleys of the slums
in heroin & cocaine
and
with his divine wisdom & grace
God created hepatitis
who begat lockjaw
who begat malaria
who begat degradatiom
who begat
GENOCIDE
and God knew this was good
in fact God knew things couldn’t git better
but he decided to try anyway
On the fourth day
God was riding around Harlem in a gypsy cab
when he created the people
and he created these beings in ethnic porportion
but he saw the people lonley & hungry
and from his eminent rectum
he created the companion for these people
and he called this companion
capitalism
who begat racism
who begat exploitation
who begat male chauvinism
who begat machismo
who begat imperialism
who begat colonialism
who begat wall street
who begat foreign wars
and God knew
and God saw
and God felt this was extra good
and God said
VAYAAAAAAA
On the fifth day
the people kneeled
the people prayed
the people begged
and this manifested itself in a petition
a letter to the editor
to know why? WHY? WHY? qué pasa babyyyyy?????
and God said,
“My fellow subjects
let me make one thing perfectly clear
by saying this about that:
No…………………..COMMENT!”
but on the sixth day God spoke to the people
he said . . . “PEOPLE!!!!
the ghettos & the slums
& all the other great things I’ve created
will have dominion over thee”
and then
he commanded the ghettos & the slums
and all the other great things he created
to multiply
and they multiplied
On the seventh day God was tired
so he called in sick
collected his overtime pay
a paid vacation included
But before God got on tha t.w.a.
for the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico
He noticed his main man Satan
planting the learning trees of consciousness
around his ghetto edens
so God called a news conference
on a state of the heavens address
on a coast to coast national t.v. hookup
and God told the people
to be
COOL
and the people were cool
and the people kept cool
and the people are cool
and the people stay cool
and God said
Vaya . . .

© Miguel Piñero