Annette Koh
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Stumbled across a very nice video that someone posted of a bike trip from 양평군 in Gyeonggi province to 충주 in North Chungcheong province. Note to...
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“The Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski famously argued that the map does not represent the territory which it depicts; the map conveys instead a...”
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HAWAIIAN CONSCIENCISM with Linda Tuhiwai Smith on May 2, 2013 at UH Manoa. She spoke on activism, feminism, culture, difference,...
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After 666 comments, a friend of mine was kicked off Metafilter. That was ten years ago. He told me his old screennames over drinks a...
Photo and text from Neal Oshima’s Urban Landscapes portfolio.
“I came to realize that most of the squatters were there by choice. More often than not, they paid rent to someone who had connections with local authorities, were building on tiny plots of untitled, marginally-habitable land and had made a carefully considered choice to live on the edges of what was legal and prudent. I found that invariably, they had created communities that were self-governing and humane, pockets of sanity in a city of three hour a day commutes through blinding pollution in the chaos that is Metro Manila.
“Informal settlers face the same urban problems as others in the city, of course, with the added dangers of violent eviction, sweeping fires that can raze entire communities in minutes, institutionalized crime, and sanitation problems characteristic of an urban sink.
“On the other hand, in many communities I visited, shoes and sandals are left out on the doorstep without fear of theft, and young children play without danger, supervised by all neighboring adults. I found that people were highly aware of and genuinely concerned about their neighbors, expressing a sense of cooperation and tolerance that is often rare in formal communities. In addition, I found that the architectural solutions were often surprising in their use of materials and space, often redefining the limits of human habitation.”
