debunked & busted

There is no shortage of lament over neighborhoods of the past and establishments gone for good.  wonder | wander | women noticed there’s not much retrospective about what we - as planners and designers and city enthusiasts - used to think and believe. Nothing ages so badly as our intellectual history. 

Whether it is Trump hunting and pecking selectively throughout America's brief newly minted history - to declare whatever strikes his curdled mind. Or the Philippines' Marcos clan desperately trying to whitewash their parents' conjugal dictatorship. Selective historical amnesia strikes far too many of us. 

not to be confused with history of human thought

It is embarrassing when the ideas that guided us are revealed to be wrong or worse yet become outdated or do not age along with our time. We don’t need to be too critical of our half-formed or none too evolved thoughts from the past. But it’s instructive to connect the dots and see how our beliefs may have translated to the reality around us. 

Bestselling history and travel author Bill Bryson points out that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history - than to considering what history really consists of. Centuries of people going about their daily business - eating, sleeping, endeavoring to be more comfortable. 

Richard Florida writes in The Rise of the Creative Class, a pop-academic book all too easily criticized -arguing that as more refined and innovative knowledge-driven sectors come to undergird the economy, cities appeal for residence by competing for and courting their residents’ tastes and dispositions. 

lost in time

Recording histories of nearly everything, no matter how profound or miniscule. Peering at domestic and private lives through a microscope, telescoping backward or forward in time. There is a huge amount of history, interest, entertainment, and even danger about the way we live. 

The argument is not exactly revolutionary - human capital, broadly defined, has become more important as we move from an industrial society to a more complex economy - based on advanced technology and logistics. 

Florida dressed this human capital up in the nebulous cloak of creativity, a “Creative Class” including everyone from artists to programmers to financiers who moonlight as deejays. This was, in hindsight, a stroke of genius. 

urban creativity leads to gentrification & inequality

While it invited much scrutiny and even mockery, it nonetheless directed all the attention towards discussion of who should be counted as a part of this exclusive group, and what should be done to cultivate them. 

Florida flattered his audience to join in the debate, and the planners, designers, community developers, local politicians, and other upwardly-aspiring urbanites counted themselves in the creative camp. Until the moneyed few decided to massage, manipulate, and mutate matters into their own world view. 

However brilliant or eccentric the minds behind the actions taken - they created change and that change was what we live in and with today - whether to our benefit or detriment. 

preserve, protect & stand up for what matters

Everything from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the marvels of towering monoliths, from fashion and design to comforts and conveniences like indoor toilets, heating, or running water. 

What was the motivation and drive that brought them into being? How have our lives been changed and affected? What have they done to on an individual, community, and global scale? 

The land we live in, the homes we have created for ourselves, how our lives turn out - these are all the accumulated histories that have led to the times we are living today. Is this what we wish to pass on to our descendants? The choice as always is ours - whether we survive to see it or not.