I know that in the 1700s and 1800s cities like London, Birmingham, Paris, and other established European cities were associated with cholera, pollution from the factories of the industrial revolution, and urban slums. Initially density and large population sizes were thought to be the causes of this unpleasantness, though we now know that a lack of public health measures like basic sanitation were to blame. All cities in the developed world have advanced sanitation infrastructure like sewage and water treatment facilities, slums are very rare, and unless you happen to live in a city plagued with car traffic cities aren't that polluted anymore.
Still I can't help but notice that anti urbanist attitudes persist to this day, especially in English speaking Canada and the United States. Small town life is idealised, and cities are associated with crime, poverty, and "bad schools" (especially in the US). Public transit is associated with weirdos, poor people, and crime. Most Anglo North American cities have pitiful public transit compared to their counterparts in the European, Asian, and Latin American world. Cities certainly aren't thought of as good places to raise a family, with their "bad public schools" and crime. And NIMBYism runs rampant in communities anytime a new denser development is proposed. I know that some of this has to do with racism/classism but even countries with noted racism problems of their own (such as Colombia and Brazil) don't hate urban areas and large cities as much as Canada and the US do.
Why is this?
Note: I am not talking about queer theory being a scientific discipline or not. I am not arguing it’s methods are not scientific. I am instead talking that queer theory has a hostility towards science and it’s methodology and seeks to deconstruct it.
Queer theory, and it’s lack of a fixed definition (as doing so would be anti-queer) surrounds itself with queer identity, which is “relational, in reference to the normative” (Letts, 2002, p. 123) and seems preoccupied with deconstructing binaries to undo hierarchies and fight against social inequality.
With the scientific method being the normative view of how “knowledge” in society is discovered and accepted, by construction (and my understanding) queer theory and methods exclude the scientific method and reason itself as a methodology.
Furthermore, as science is historically (as in non-queered history) discovered by and performed by primarily heterosexual white males, the methodologies of science and its authority for truth are suspect from a queer theory lens because they contain the irreversible bias of this group.
As seen here, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=queering+scientific+method&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DwwD50AI5mkgJ in Queer Methods: “A focus on methods, which direct techniques for gathering data, and methodologies, which pertain to the logics of research design, would have risked a confrontation with queer claims to interdisciplinarity, if not an antidisciplinary irreverence”
As Queer Theory borrows heavily from postmodernism, which itself features “opposition to epistemic certainty and the stability of meaning” it undermines the ability of scientific knowledge to have any explanatory or epistemic power about the “real” world, and thus for an objective reality to exist entirely.
Science, on the other hand, builds and organizes knowledge based on testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It therefore assumes a universe and objective reality exists, although it is subject to the problem of induction.
My parents constantly think I'm trying to rebel from them. Like, all the time. I'm starting to wonder if it's because I'm queer.
A few weeks ago, I went to my friend's house, and as soon as I got home, my mom started interrogating me on if we were doing drugs or not. (I'm young enough that kids my age doing drugs is pretty rare) My friend is the most innocent person I know, so it's ridiculous. She won't eve turn in her homework an hour late, that's too crazy for her.
Anyways, my parents have only been acting like this since I first came out as LGBTQ+. (Last year, I came out as a lesbian, then came out as FTM a few months later.) Ever since then, they've been warning me about all this stuff. Everytime they turn their backs, they think I'm getting high and stealing stuff. I've asked them why, and they say things like "Sorry, but you seem like you would do." They've also told me all these facts about how queer kids are more likely to commit suicide and abuse drugs. Their response? Not "You can talk to us about anything if you need it," but "Just don't do that. It's bad." Well, duh. It's not so much about me rebelling, but it seems like this is all about them not wanting me to be queer.
I've asked for shorter hair, but they told me that I would look like a lesbian, and people would make fun of me. (Jokes on them, I already wear mens' clothes) To me it kind of seems like they are trying to erase my identity as a LGBTQ+ person. Surprisingly, they've never told me I'll grow out of it. To them, my gender is me trying to rebel from them, and make a point that I'm a "crazy teenager." It's not. All I want is to be myself, but I guess that's too hard to understand.
My mom is generally more accepting towards me. She's asked if I want to go by my preferred name at home, but she acted very weird and cagey about it. More like, "I can call you Jackson, if that stops you from being a 'depressed punk teen.'" I guess that's what she read on her Facebook parent support groups. She needs to learn more about what being trans means, if you ask me.
My dad doesn't understand me being trans. He thinks I have rapid onset gender dysphoria, and that I'll grow out of this, if I don't overdose and die by then. (I'm. NOT. DOING. DRUGS. WTF.) So accepting.
I know that they're just worried about me, but it seems like more than that. Anyone have advice?
“Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship density, and accept that walkable transit-rich urban areas are the most sustainable and economically efficient form of development the world has ever known, even greater than the sprawling car-dependent American suburb!”
At this moment a brave, medically obese boomer and Nextdoor user who drove 40 minutes to work every day for 30 years and still hadn't paid off his mortgage, stood up and presented a graph of housing construction.
“What does this graph say, developer shill?” he asked.
The arrogant professor smirked like a georgist know-it-all and smugly replied “It clearly showcases that new housing construction has not kept pace with population growth, you stupid nimby.”
“Wrong,” said the brilliant neighborhood watchman hero, the rolls of his fat swaying gallantly. “This graph has been charting housing construction for 50 years now. If, as you say, additional housing puts downward pressure on costs, rents should have decreased by now, since we all know that population growth isn't real.”
The professor was visibly shaken and dropped his copy of Triumph of the City. He stormed out of the room, his eyes full of urbanist crocodile tears.
The 500 students all applauded and tore up their metro cards that day. A bird named "single-family-home zoning” flew into the room and shed a tear, and put historical building designations on the parents' houses of all the students in the room (where they all still lived). The "but where will they park?" victory screech was chanted several times, and the students all rose up and demanded the removal of bus lanes in their town. Robert Moses watched all of this with great joy, smiling from the heavens.
The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day after the local homeowner's association used their accumulated assets to purchase the university. He died bedridden in a homeless camp later that year after being injured by an SUV at a crosswalk.
Hey, I'm looking for urban fantasy books like The Dresden Files and Skulduggery Pleasant but with prominent queer characters, does anyone have recommendations?
Thx
10 years ago it seemed like New Urbanism was all the rage and in a bunch of headlines. It seemed promising to become a major force in curtailing sprawl. I rarely hear the name anymore and noted that when I did content search for it.
Has it been discredited? Are its principles still relevant?
/r/vancouver , Can we talk about something? There have been a lot of posts lately about driving, walking and transit issues in our city. We are doing really well in general, but I feel the need to clear the air here. There is a 'new urbanism' movement afoot, fueled in part by the pandemic. More of us are walking and biking around the city than ever before, and we're starting to get to like it! But we're also noticing problems with it. We have a great city despite what the mood in this sub sometimes suggests, but there are ways that we can make it better!
I'm a resident of Gastown. I own a car. I own a bike. I own shoes. I use all of them to get around the city and to get in and out of the city. I prefer walking to all other methods as does my partner and many of my neighbours. Unfortunately though, I feel the balance of infrastructure in our city is out of kilter. Moving about the city is often not a pleasant experience here regardless how I'm doing it. My main gripes come down to:
- Aggressive motorists not paying attention, or being dangerously impatient make walking and cycling very very scary at times. Especially in the rain.
- Small sidewalks which force pedestrians to scuttle by each other to pass, and mere feet from very fast moving vehicles. There is more space in our city for cars that aren't in use than there is for us to walk once we've gotten out of our cars.
- Where separated bike lanes don't exist, cycling between those gaps is a high adrenaline testosterone fuelled event. A bike lane that isn't separated from car traffic is not one that will get used. The test I have for whether they're a good bike lane or not: Would you allow your child to ride in them?
- When I'm driving, there are too many places where I need to watch for pedestrians (who might be wearing all black), cyclists, scooters and of course other drivers who are impatient and dangerous. It is very hard to drive safely here, especially in the dark and the rain.
- Transit is generally good for a city our size, but I think that we could use something in between buses and skytrain. There is a gap there.
Now I want to mention - I use all of these methods to get around. I've gone down the rabbit hole of New Urbanism recently though and I think there are some things that we can do better. Here are some thoughts to start us out:
a) The Burrard bridge bike lanes have been *hugely* successful. The most successful project of its kind in North America. People will still argue wi
... keep reading on reddit ➡“Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship density, and accept that walkable transit-rich urban areas are the most sustainable and economically efficient form of development the world has ever known, even greater than the sprawling car-dependent American suburb!”
At this moment a brave, medically obese boomer and Nextdoor user who drove 40 minutes to work every day for 30 years and still hadn't paid off his mortgage, stood up and presented a graph of housing construction.
“What does this graph say, developer shill?” he asked.
The arrogant professor smirked like a georgist know-it-all and smugly replied “It clearly showcases that new housing construction has not kept pace with population growth, you stupid nimby.”
“Wrong,” said the brilliant neighborhood watchman hero, the rolls of his fat swaying gallantly. “This graph has been charting housing construction for 50 years now. If, as you say, additional housing puts downward pressure on costs, rents should have decreased by now, since we all know that population growth isn't real.”
The professor was visibly shaken and dropped his copy of Triumph of the City. He stormed out of the room, his eyes full of urbanist crocodile tears.
The 500 students all applauded and tore up their metro cards that day. A bird named "single-family-home zoning” flew into the room and shed a tear, and put historical building designations on the parents' houses of all the students in the room (where they all still lived). The "but where will they park?" victory screech was chanted several times, and the students all rose up and demanded the removal of bus lanes in their town. Robert Moses watched all of this with great joy, smiling from the heavens.
The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day after the local homeowner's association used their accumulated assets to purchase the university. He died bedridden in a homeless camp later that year after being injured by an SUV at a crosswalk.
“Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship density, and accept that walkable transit-rich urban areas are the most sustainable and economically efficient form of development the world has ever known, even greater than the sprawling car-dependent American suburb!”
At this moment a brave, medically obese boomer and Nextdoor user who drove 40 minutes to work every day for 30 years and still hadn't paid off his mortgage, stood up and presented a graph of housing construction.
“What does this graph say, developer shill?” he asked.
The arrogant professor smirked like a georgist know-it-all and smugly replied “It clearly showcases that new housing construction has not kept pace with population growth, you stupid nimby.”
“Wrong,” said the brilliant neighborhood watchman hero, the rolls of his fat swaying gallantly. “This graph has been charting housing construction for 50 years now. If, as you say, additional housing puts downward pressure on costs, rents should have decreased by now, since we all know that population growth isn't real.”
The professor was visibly shaken and dropped his copy of Triumph of the City. He stormed out of the room, his eyes full of urbanist crocodile tears.
The 500 students all applauded and tore up their metro cards that day. A bird named "single-family-home zoning” flew into the room and shed a tear, and put historical building designations on the parents' houses of all the students in the room (where they all still lived). The "but where will they park?" victory screech was chanted several times, and the students all rose up and demanded the removal of bus lanes in their town. Robert Moses watched all of this with great joy, smiling from the heavens.
The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day after the local homeowner's association used their accumulated assets to purchase the university. He died bedridden in a homeless camp later that year after being injured by an SUV at a crosswalk.
