Author Archives: blupeople

The True Utopia?

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After much deliberation and reading of other ideas I am still finding myself staring outside my porch door with a cup of coffee wondering what I could do to change Rutland. My answer strangely is nothing. I would love to plant trees that grow money, and pave a road that take me straight to the University without having to use highway 97 or Rutland road; these ideas however are highly unrealistic.

What I am trying to get at is as I read the articles presented within lectures examining all these different theories that strive for change, and I start to think of the possibility that there could be universal change. Change that could be presented to all major urban societies and in the end it affects them all in a positive manner. An idea, that as a whole, could not be affected by human’s or nature a like.

Much like Einstein strove to solve Unified Theory, as he chose to dismiss all claims of Qutaum mechanics, is it not possible to create a basic outline on how a city should be laid out encompassing, all natural terrain, the populations wants and needs, and human natures cruel emotions of greed and envy, all the while allowing the city to be self sustaining, and prosperous through exporting of its main industry.

It’s a wordy task, with no starting point. As a whole the checklist for the perfect urban scheme would be unfathomable, and this as a whole makes this thought an unrealistic venture. But what if it wasn’t. What if one could lay out the perfect city that could be implemented anywhere throughout the world? This then would be the creation of the true utopia.

 

Culture and The City

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The research paper that I am writing is on the effects that UNESCO’s “World Heritage Sites’ are having on an urban society. As I started to research the effectiveness of UNESCO’s program in the preservation of culture , I started to question the overall effect that it has on a city. It would occur to me that in the beginning of the semester we discussed Max Webber’s,Within nature of a City. During our discussion it was pointed out, that to be held as a modern definition, we had to include a few more ideas; culture being one of them.

What effect does culture have on a city?

Simply put, culture has many categories. It can be seen as historical, “pop”, artistic and even musical or theatrical. When one thinks of New York, they think about the Stature of Liberty, the cliché “I Love New York” t-shirts and Broadway. Paris has the Effel Tower, Berets, and The Louvre.  These examples are stereotypical at best, but as a whole are used by society to paint an overall image of a city. Even when major cities advertise they attract tourists by using their different forms of culture as their main points. Instead of using their sustaining industries or economies.

Now let’s picture a city without culture. There would be no music, art, books, monuments, sculptures, museums, and the general knowledge of the past. Without it then we would be stuck in the present with only the future in mind. F. T. Marinetti, the writer of the Futurist Manifesto, would have seen this as heaven. With no culture we would be rather emotionless, almost robots in a sense.  A city simply needs it just to keep going. Interpret how you like; culture within a city distracts us from the hardships that were and are still around us to this day.

Culture then allows a city to progress, and shine within the eyes of its surrounding urban areas; while allowing its past to live on. In conclusion, much like a first edition book missing its clear protective shell, culture is the missing book cover of Mark Weber’s city. Without it, his city would one day fall apart, while its value vastly diminished over time.