[p2p-research] Walkability: check it before choosing your next home!

[M. Fioretti]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 17:33:29 PM -0400, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:

> Yes, people have linked those policies with segregation; example:
>   http://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/causes1.htm

Thanks for all these references, they're really fascinating!

> Not only will they be forced to pick up the tab for a welfare system
> that offers far more to the elderly than to the young, but they will
> be forced to do so with less:

yes, that's me and anybody below forty...

> Europe, it seems, is increasingly split—not along class or racial
> lines, but between its young and its old."

Correct. True story: two weeks before the Italian general elections of
2006 (Berlusconi vs Prodi, who won that time), I happened into a bar
of a very popular area of Rome, one well known in earlier times for
NOT loving anything Right/capitalist/neoliberal etc... and for being
quite proud of it.

The bartender was not more than 20 years old. While we were tasting a
wonderful Espresso, an friend of his of the same age (which, I
understood, was apprentice mechanic, obviously without any contract,
in some car body shop along the same street) came in. This is what I
overheard:

Bartender:  Have you decided for who you will vote?
Apprentice: No, not yet. Actually, I haven't decided if I'll vote at all
	   (pause)
Apprentice: but if I do vote, I'll vote for Berlusconi. Prodi will
	    only defend those who do ALREADY have legal, full time,
	    lifelong employment today.
Bartender:  You're right

> Building on your last point on young people wanting to stay in the
> pyramid scheme and hope to climb to the top, sadly, I can see how
> that is likely and how that explains current politics:

Exactly. Around here I do see many youngsters who are more backwards
than their parents, meaning that they still think in categories
(sometimes "left", sometimes "right/yuppie" that made sense when the
Berlin Wall was still intact.

just for the record, apartment prices in Rome probably go (I believe,
not really up to date on this) from 2500/3000 Euro per square meter up
to the sky

> Well, let's run the numbers on "seasteading" and see how they look. :-)

I must force myself to finish some work by tomorrow morning :-( Next
week I'll try to come back to this conversation, but don't be offended
if I ignore it for a while or forget it. Before going back to work,
I'll leave a couple of objections to your numbers:

1) what you discuss in the rest of the message sounds much more like
   "boat people" than "seasteading" to me. Maybe I'm wrong, but the
   latter word makes me thing to self sufficient ways of living, not
   just moving from the city to 1 km from the beach.

2) (tied to #1) Let's assume this apartment ship magically appears
   because somebody (not the future occupants) pays for it. Then what?
   Either the inhabitants become all fishermen to feed themselves
   (that is, they exercise the same pressure on the environment as
   before, just floating on a junk ship) or they must leave every
   morning to go work somewhere to pay their commuting from the ship
   PLUS all the commuting from the landing point to the office or
   factory, plus food, which will cost more to bring and cook
   aboard (how? with gas or petrol? Bought how?)...

Biorock sounds messing with the sea, that is like geoengineering to
me. Right now I'm scared of any form of geoengineering, but I admit I
may very well be wrong on biorock and such.

> capsule hotels or university dorm rooms) and bigger public areas. Maybe 
> one could just call it a floating university instead of a "seastead"? And 
> then permanently dock it near the coast of Italy near Rome? :-)

Believe it or not, there already IS a project to build two or three
artificial islands just in front of the mouth of the Tiber River, very
close to Rome: of course, it's only meant to host casinos, luxury
hotels, theme amusement parks and the like. That's what we have to
face, not biorock or seasteading. Even limiting the damage is a
continuous struggle.

Oh, and taking advantage of the last Swimming world championship held
here in Rome last July, somebody stole public funds and building
permits to build a concrete cube working as pool and hostel for
athletes... which is not finished yet and will never be used for the
reason why they got the money to build it. So now there is this huge
empty box with many apartments inside like those you could have on a
ship, just better, already hooked to power lines, sewers and Internet.
And, now, almost no undeveloped land around.

Try telling homeless families or youngsters still living with mum in
that neighborhood how cool would it be to go seasteading, or even just
live into an old ship, when they see that empty box there, just 500
meters from the subway station they'd use to commute, every day. If
the ship magically appears and they get a free apartment in it,
they'll use it, otherwise they'll just kick our asses and some day
occupy that building. Which, environmentally, would make much more
sense anyway.

I know you're playing with ideas, and this is very necessary work that
must be done (thanks!) and I'm back on this list just because it helps
me immensely to look at all this playing and sometimes participate.
I'm just saying that here and now, housing-wise, making good use of
what's already available keeps looking to me much, much more sensible
than any alternative.

Sorry, but must really, really go back to finish an article now...

Marco
-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84