Urban Improvement--Input for Film Thread

[RRAHH]

RRAHH
Government negligence (How/where would you mandate competency and effective engagement? Can we afford it?)

Lack of infrastructure for a safe and productive living and working environment (How/what would you improve that can sustain and grow?)
Legalize drugs (Is this how you would fund the above? Which drugs would you legalize?)

I cut out the rest so I can address only that which is asked of me specifically.

icanchangeit. I wasn't talking about government negligence. Personally, government is the problem. What I propose is taking government and putting it in the back seat. Let the communities do more for themselves. The only government mandated by the constitution is the protection of liberties, defense and general regulation of commerce. The problem is an overzealous government.

I would have the general infrastructure rebuilt from the ground up. Homes, roads, buildings for products and services, telecommunications services for the exercise of learning and commerce. I would do this all with the revenues generated from the low yet equitable taxation of domestic and foreign commerce that is done within the borders of this nations. That means a general commerce tax from whatever source derived. This would coincide with an elimination of the personal income tax.

[RRAHH]

Stop criminalizing it. That does not answer my question, who are you not criminalizing? Or what is legal to do, is it OK to be a user, is it Ok to be a seller, is it OK to sell crack at the curb on the corner or in the corner store? Please go into some detail as to what you mean by legalize drugs. And when you say drugs, what drugs, there are prescription drugs, acid, crack, heroin, pot etc etc etc. You can see when you say legalize drugs I have no idea what you mean. Forther what are you trying to accomplish.

Like I said it means many different things to different people.

What I mean by decriminalizing it is letting the free market do what the free market does. Make it legal to consume, buy, sell, traffic and even trade. Treat it as a commodity like everything else is on the free market. When I say drugs, I mean all drugs i.e. crack, heroin, LSD, ecstasy and every other drug that can be made or imagined. Legalize it all. The effect I want is an economic boom from the freeing up of resources and money normally spent on waste such as foreign entanglements and the housing of offenders who normally wouldn't be in jail in the first place. Of course. Like everything else, there should be minimal and simple regulations that need to be enforced i.e. protecting children and those that can't protect themselves through normal channels.

[Quinn]

Not having seen the whole film I don't know whether the general content of these two books is addressed. They're both rather old as social commentaries go and I understand they were given some attention in the field of urban planning at one time. Indeed many of her suggestions may now be accepted parts of modern city architecture

Nevertheless, one of the wisest things the author said in one of them is still true "I have not used diagrams in most cases, if you want a concrete illustration of my precepts, look around you."

http://www.spsu.edu/architecture/cla...0diversity.pdf

Amazon.com: The Economy of Cities (9780394705842): Jane Jacobs: Books

The first one is, IMO, the most relevant to the movie's overall subject as I see it. The second is less relevant but more interesting, though both are fascinating works.

Since I refer to the books themselves I will not sully her works with my poor interpretation except to say only this. Her main theme seems to be that our cities fail because they are designed to fail, NOT because of the people that live in them, or the many and worthy, but largely ineffective, programs that sincerely try to help these people

In the Great City I live close to something like 15 of the "superblocks" she so criticises in the first book above were demolished in one spectacular day about 20 years ago. They have since been replaced with virtually the same thing, only shorter, and they retain many of the same problems.

Just a quick question since I haven't become involved here yet. The last part (bolded) immediately made me think of this film I've seen about 3 or 4 times. It's called Koyaanisqatsi:

Koyaanisqatsi (IPA:*[ˈkɔɪ.ɑːnɪsˈqɑtsiː] KOY-ah-nis-KAHT-see), also known as Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.

The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. Reggio explains the lack of dialogue by stating "it's not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It's because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live."[5] In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living."

Great movie, great word. One of the scenes shows a series of buildings being demolished. As an aside, I believe the architect was the same person who designed the World Trade Buildings. Same buildings?

Just curious.

[imported_pramjockey]

Pram you forgot one eliminate of human nature, "greed" if one person can make 75K a yr then two people can make 150K. This is not about paying one person enough so the other can raise the kids. It's all about two incomes are better than one regardless of how much one makes.



The economics is "greed" wanting more than what one person can provide. Our coulture has changed to the faster lane and wanting more quicker rather than latter. Two BMW's rather than one and so on.



Bullying can be mitigated by schools clamping down on bullying, in the old days the teacher would slam a ruler over your knuckles if you acted up. Now days they look the other way, huge difference in the way kids are disciplined in school.



Parents have the tools, turn off the damn TV and the war games and the video crap. Now days more and more parents don't give a shit, they are busy with their careers and obtaining wealth, which is why both parents want to work. It's not because they could not live on one income but they choose to both work to move forward at a faster pace. Be part of the upper class and in most cases leaving the kids unattended.

There is an old saying and most forgotten. "If you want kids stay home and raise them" meaning one parent or the other.

I can't disagree that there is a greed issue for some. I'm enough of an optimist that I at least hope that it's not an issue for most.

I look at my own situation. My wife and I have discussed the possibility of kids (I'm getting a little long in the tooth, but she's still got several years before it's really a bad idea). We've talked about how it would be important to have one of us stay home for at least the first 4 or 5 years. But, one salary just wouldn't be enough to cover mortgage, cars, food, etc. at a reasonable level. We don't have a huge house. We don't drive luxury cars. We don't live extravagantly (especially with the equivalent of 3 mortgages - thanks student loans!). But, realistically, how much would it take for us to live a lifestyle that is reasonable for supporting us, and one or two kids? What kind of salary would one of us have to bring home?

[icanchangeit]

YouTube - THE SWEETEST LAND - UNOFFICIAL PREVIEW

RRAHH
Legalizing drugs. (Which American community can we work on first to legalize ALL drugs. How can we influence policy? How will that be rolled out? Can we identify 1 community, propose very specific evidence-based policy and influence its lawmakers? How can this board, through 6 degrees of separation, pool our assets, contacts, intellect and engage to improve. Is that possible?

THE SWEETEST LAND

Lack of infrastructure for a safe and productive living and working environment (How/what would you improve that can sustain and grow?)
Legalize drugs (Is this how you would fund the above? Which drugs would you legalize?)

Bearman
Education Policy
History classes in middle school Eliminate social engineering. (In what district would you start? How would you access?)
SIDE COMMENT - WAITING FOR SUPERMAN made it difficult for educational institutions and policy think tanks to screen the film by charging very large fees. I am also unaware of any action plan behind WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. It is that, which THE SWEETEST LAND wants to learn from so a vehicle for meanginful change can be in place and improvement can occur. This board can play a large part in that.


pramjockey
Violence for entertainment purposes/Media Effect (Censorship? How would you control?)
Bullying
Engaging Parents to invest more - (How? With what? Sustainable?)

Donahue
Taking responsibility (How? Who? Sustainable?)
Better leadership in minority neighborhoods (How can you create political accountability/will Is a standard of care developed?)
What about policy that incarcerates non-violent drug offenders? What of youth of incarcerated parents? How can we define responsibility (job skills?). If there is irresponsibility, who will teach otherwise?

CharlesDavenport
Constituency of dependents. (what can be done to create independents?)

RRAHH
DRUG POLICY - allow entrepreneurship mentality of all these "would-be" criminals to be realized. (how, with what in place of drugs?)

[Occam's Razor]

When a country's sole motivation seems to be making money, that's when life becomes a mess of half-hearted social programs to sweep problems under the rug, while the elite rich rape the market and the working class.

In short, it's every man for himself in this society.

If you want a community that can actually agree on enough to reach a solution to current ills, you basically have to move to another country.

[Amielle]

I have one anecdote (no murder) that brings up two issues. My apartment had been broken into, while I was at home. I lost a few hundred dollars, but didn’t file a police report. I actually saw the guy try to break in again. I drove around the block looking for him and ran across a cop. I asked for assistance and was told he couldn’t help because he was on “traffic duty”.

First issue: “traffic duty”. The fines collected from traffic violations, and for that matter any violation should not been seen as a means of income for any police department or local government. It is a conflict of interests. Granted traffic violations are a very useful tool to catch felons, but they should be a very low priority considering the vast improvements made in traffic safety.

Second issue: statistics. Departments and governments love to say they have low crime statistics, yet they are the ones that provide those same statistics. Again, that is a conflict of interests. If a crime wasn’t reported, then it didn’t happen. I’m not for expanding government, but there should be a huge wall between how a crime is reported and how it is policed.

My officer had no incentive to assist me. His choice was to file a police report (crime stat) or make money from traffic violations.

My fear is that even with violent crime, resources aren’t properly applied and are underreported.

[Amielle]

Another point I’d like to make. We place an incredibly high value on human life in (most of) this country. And in that environment, every violent death is an absolute horror. It makes the news, the Amber alerts, novels, songs, and movies.

War: Battle of Stalingrad: close to two million dead (Nazis vs. Stalin). 1st Battle of Fallujah: around 500.

Serial killers: Pedro López: 53-300+ (killed poor girls in 3rd world countries. Set free btw) Manson Family 9 (but they were rich & famous).

My point is that culture doesn’t treat life the same. How much news do the following get: a junkie shoots a junkie, a white-collar worker shoots a white-collar worker, and a millionaire shoots a millionaire?
It’s oversimplified I’ll admit, but the point is that culture plays a huge role. Change the culture and people will stand up.

[Scratcher]

Amielle I applaud your viewpoint and it is not a simple point you have made; but one with great complexity and insight.

If you want to know what true violence is watch 'The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds' (1971) starring Joanne Woodward. It is from a 1964 play by a New York science teacher, Paul Zindel. This film has NO GUNS BLASTING, NO EAR SPLITTING EXPLOSIONS, NO BIG BATTLES. It just has the struggle to overcome the abusiveness faced by many youngsters both rich and poor.

We can attempt to limit the violence portrayed on the silver screen; but not once mitigate the home violence lived everyday behind the screen door.

[domonkos]

Interesting trailer.

There is no one cause of the increasing culture of violence in our society. Many of us have been speaking about it for decades, but are constantly accused of being "anti-gun" or "anti-Constitution" or "pussies" or "pacifists" or "pro-censorship" or whatever. Towards the end of the trailer, the woman (a cop?) asks "how nobody can care?" Well, lady, it's simple - when you surround your children with violence in every entertainment, whether it's television or movies or music or books (like anyone reads any more) or games, and that violence becomes increasingly graphic and realistic, it has an impact. When bullying and violent hazing of children becomes more and more widespread, and those who raise concerns are called nasty names, attacked verbally (and sometimes physically), it has an impact. When the only solutions that children are taught are violent ones, it has an impact.

We've had 20 years of this increasing cycle and increasing permeation of this media into the lives of our kids, and decreasing involvement of our parents. How many parents filter what their kids see/hear/read/watch any more? How many parents have no problem with their children watching a movie or playing a game that depicts the killing of dozens or hundreds of other people, yet would be absolutely horrified if that same child saw a woman's bare breast or buttock?

As long as we have a society that so readily celebrates killing, worships revenge, eliminates all successes except those gained by violence, prevents men from having any emotions but anger, and is so absolutely terrified of sexuality - especially female sexuality - the violence will continue, expand, and become more brutal. We will continue to harvest the fruits from the seeds we planted 20 years ago.

Your sig is priceless!

As for the poor decimating eachother, yes that is a direct result of poverty. Criminality stems from desperation.