“Behind the Gates:" By Mousumi Haider

For the book assignment, I decided to read the “Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America” by Setha Low. The Center theme of the book is that, searching for community. Another theme is of the good is, safety of children. Setha Low took long time to write this book. She was actually living in “Gate Community”, so she can be a member of gate community. To write this book, Setha Low was being ethnography. Ethnography is a qualitative research method often used in the social sciences, particularly in anthropology and in sociology. It is often employed gathering empirical data on human societies and cultures. For data collection of gate community, Setha Low participated in gate community for observation, interviews and questionnaires.
“Two electronically controlled gates block the entrance: one marked “residents” next to the guardhouse, and the other “visitors.” On the visitors side is a sign instructing drivers that the gates close automatically to allow the passage of only one car at a time.”(Page 27) This remained me a time, when I visited one of my father’s friend’s house. He lives in Long Island, NYC. When we arrived there, the security guard won’t let us go. We had to call my father’s friend and then the security guard let us go inside the gate. I thought what are these people scare off? What they have inside the gate to hide from other? It’s true that, most of the people want security in their daily lives. But does living in close gate make it secure?
My favorite part of the book is the chapter 5: “Protecting the Children and Safety for All.” Reading first couple of lines gave me a huge smile on my face. The little kid “Alexandra”, who also wanted to be interviewed. Anyhow, the main point of the chapter was that sometimes people are scare to let children out. Especially in Gate Community, the adults hardly let the children out even to play. People from Gate Community thinks outside of the gate are threats of crime, violence, kidnapping and strangers that scare the member of the community.
This book is related to our class because it talks about the community, people, environment and society. In our Urban class, we also try to figure out people and their society. At first, I didn’t want to read this book. I wanted to read “Sidewalk” but somehow I end up reading the “Behind the Gate”. Honestly, I enjoyed reading the book, it was really very interesting.

Activity 9, Matt Blank

In the search for Urban Blogs, a few stood out to me.

Before I even searched though, I thought about tProxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

word itself, "blog". What a weird word. I suppose it comes from the word "log" but what is the "B" for? I looked for this information on the internet, and found that it's short for "Web log". Apparently "Wlog" and "Elog" don't have the same ring to it. Now that we put that behind us, my search for other urban blogs of interest.

The first one was http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/, a blog by the NY Times about business and the Economics of Everyday life. This is a fascinating topic to me because it is always relevant. No matter who you are, and what you do, economics are relevant to you.

Then I saw this site, http://www.nycbloggers.com/
This site has the ambitious job of organizing blogs in the city. It currently has over 6000 blogs attached to it. I tried to submit our blog but the site broke. Whoops!

The next one I went to is a friend of mine's blog, http://newyorknightsonline.com/
This blog focuses on the Business and Culture of New York Nightlife. The author recently published a book about the same topic.

This next one was not a blog about Urban life but had a topic about it which I felt deserved honorable mention.
http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/7790/Urban-Life-is-Bad-for-Brains
That is the specific link to the article.

Then I was drawn to this blog,
http://midwesternerinnyc.blogspot.com/
Because I felt it had an interesting outsiders perspective, but mostly because I saw the thing about Jimmy Fallon.

Activity 10 by Mousumi Haider

For activity 10, we were supposed to go for class field trip, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to join my class.  Therefore, I am inquiring about Environmental Justices. Environmental justice refers to an equitable spatial distribution of burdens and benefits to groups such as racial minorities, residents of economically disadvantaged area. To get more information about Environmental Justice, I called some Environmental Justice organization.
The first organization I contacted was “WEACT for Environmental Justice”. This organization has two offices. One office is located in Harlem, NY and another office is located in Bronx, NY. It was very hard for me to walk in the office, so I called them. I got the number form the website. http://www.weact.org/. Their contact numbers are also listed on their website. I talked to Evelyn Joseph, she is office manager. She said, right now the organization is working on West Harlem. They want to turn the abandoned 135th Street Marine Transfer in the Hudson River into a community. The next organization I called was CHEJ, Child Proofing Our Communities, Green Flag Schools. Their contact number is (703) 237-2249. http://www.chej.org/ I talked to “Kim” and she is membership Manager. She said, the main goal of the organization is to prevent harm in the community. The next organization I wanted to contact was “El Puente” http://www.nyceja.org. But I didn’t find a real person to talk to. Anyhow, El Puente is a community human rights institution that promotes leadership for peace and justice through the engagement of member in the arts, education, scientific research, wellness and environmental action.

Activity 10- Sharmaine Dais

For this activity I looked at an issue that is very pressing- Environmental Justice. According the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Environmental Justice is "as fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of race, color, national origin or income-- with respect to development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies." This is no doubt a very important issue, so I decided to investigate three Environmental Justice Organizations. The first one is Sustainable South Bronx (SSBX). SSBx "is a community organization dedicated to Environmental Justice solutions through innovative, economically sustainable projects that are informed by community needs" (http://ssbx.org/index.php?link=2#history). They identify their most pressing issue is with the industrialization of the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. The residents there do not have the same level of health and living conditions as other neighborhoods do. They have one of the most impoverished areas with a lack of jobs which effects all residents. The next organization I looked into was WE ACT. "WE ACT for Environmental Justice (West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.) is a non-profit, community-based, environmental justice organization dedicated to building community power to fight environmental racism and improve environmental health, protection and policy in communities of color. WE ACT accomplishes this mission through community organizing, education and training, advocacy and research, and public policy development" (http://www.weact.org/Home/tabid/162/Default.aspx). The most important issue in that area is currently the Gentrification of 125th Street. Another issue is the "GO Green project." The last organization is New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYCEJA). They identified their main issue to be about how to effectively advocate in behave of resides and community organization and support. This subject of environmental justice is very important, especially if you live in the aforementioned communities. Hopefully this blog will spread awareness on this topic.

Activity 10

Activity 10
Carmen Lam

It has been a very long time since I went on a class field trip. Honestly, going on this class trip definitely bring back memories when I was in middle school. Taking the Staten Island ferry for the second time was a fun and relaxing experience, because it was a beautiful morning and I get to sit outside and feel the breeze. Once I got to Staten Island I met with the rest of the group members and we took a private bus tour with Doug to see the recreation of Freshkills park. I was very surprised to see that NYC is actually willing to support a recreation of Freshkills park in STATEN ISLAND, because I would never expect the city to invest in Staten Island landfill.
It was interesting to learn that New York City garbage is being transported/ dumped into other landfill locations.Staten Island waste is sent to DSNY's Staten Island Transfer station. That is where garbage is compacted and sealed into shipping containers and railed by a private contractor to a landfill in South Carolina. Also Bronx and Brooklyn garbage is railed to a landfill in Virginia. Last but not least, Manhattan garbage is trucked to a waste to energy plant in New Jersey. It was interesting to see that garbage is going through a cycle from place to place.I am very excited to see the recreation of Freshkills park in 30 years because, there is going to have many activities such as cross-country skiing, environmental education, Promenade and Barge Gardens, Bridle Trails, Multi-use paths, canoe and kayak launches. It is amazing to see a landfill that once was a dump and soon it will become largest park in New York City.

Activity 9

Activity 9
Carmen Lam

Today I was browsing around google and typed in the search box “urban life blogs”. A various of blogs popped up and I choose these five blogs First, http://www.urbanlifeblog.com/ provide a mix of real estate, housing, market analysis, and provide information and restaurants reviews. Second, http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyncom/category/civics-and-urban-life/, blogs about Brooklyn that brings hyper local news to brownstone Brooklyn.
Third,http://gailatlarge.com/blog/category/urban-life, takes us around the world and takes wonderful pictures and descriptions of her journey. Fourth, http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.addresszero.com/index.php?cat=1. writes about Brooklyn. The reason I choose these five blogs is because I feel like it relates to the topics of our class. By reading their blogs it makes me want to travel and explore other parts of the world. Its interesting to read about their trip and what they have learned and by sharing the pictures they have taken during the trip makes look more creative and unique.

Activity 10, Matt Blank

For activity 10, we got to go to Freshkills Park in Staten Island.

Admittedly, at first I was not very happy about having to make time to go to a park in Staten Island. It'd been years since I was on Staten Island, let alone the ferry. Still, I signed up for the second tour, got to the Ferry Terminal and met up with another student. We braved the Ferry together. I remain very impressed with the gentleman who had so much gel in his hair that his hair did not move when he was on the bow of the boat.

When we arrived on Staten Island, we met our tour guide, who was awesome. We all gathered and met up and drove to the Park. On the way, we learned more about the park. In case you don't know, I'll give you the quick update:
For years NYC shipped all it's garbage to a landfill in Staten Island. Everyone except Robert Moses hated it, especially the people who lived near it. The garbage is literally piled 200 feet high in some places. Then they decided to capping the landfills and plant a park on top of it.
So now that you know what it is, let me first tell you that it is incredible. It was inspiring to think about how effectively and creatively all that trash was dealt with. The park itself is gorgeous and I highly recommend going. They even put a system in place to siphon out the methane from the landfill gasses to heat houses in Staten Island.

While the site won't ever be what it was, it is a very green way of dealing with the garbage we spent years accumulating there.