Monday, March 10, 2008
Levy and Jacobs: Digital Urbanism
Compare Jane Jacob’s vision of the city as a case of “organized complexity” and Pierre Levy’s vision of the internet as the “weaving of a social bond” and “a particular form of urbanism and architecture.” p. 177. In what ways, in your view, is the internet like a city? In what ways, in your view, do digital forms of communication either enhance or detract from social and political life?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
The relationship between cyberspace and the city, between collective intelligence and the territory, is primarily a question of political imagination. The way in which cyberspace developed suggests that it is not a conventional territorial and industrial infrastructure but a self-organizing technosocial process. The internet strive toward an ideal of collective intelligence. The goal of the internet, cyberspace in general, is the ability to articulate and resolve problems using a logic of proximity and implication.
Essentially, we inhabit (or will inhabit) cyberspace just as we do the geographic city, and it will become a significant part of our global living environment. The development of cyberspace is a particular form of urbanism or architecture whose importance can only increase with time.
Internet is like a city primarily because the internet brings communities together and collects all information which is widely available to its’ citizens (in this case, the users of the internet) and relays is back to the community. Digital forms of communication greatly enhance social and political life because it is a new medium to communicate and express ourselves more efficiently and effectively. Take for example, the modern cell phone. A decade ago hardly any people had it, but nowadays, one cannot possibly survive without a cell-phone. This just goes to show how incredibly fast our rate of technological process is proceeding and how well we are accommodating to these changes.
i like the idea of city as community. do you all buy levy's separation of the productive from the destructive qualities of cyberspace and technology. or can you think of cases where this is not so clear?
Alex Wong:
In my opinion, the internet and cities function in very similar ways. Jacobs speaks of the city as an isolating space where neighbors often do not associate with on another as in the case of suburban and village life. The internet is a similar space of nameless isolation. For example, crime in cities is much easier to commit simply because people do not recognize one another anymore. The same is true on the internet because users can easily hide their identities behind nicknames and screen names.
Over the internet, digital forms of communication both enhance and detract from social and political life. It is shortsighted to pick one effect over the other. Similar to the workings of cities, the internet is "abstraction" which is neutral until human interaction pulls it one way or the other.
The relationship between the Internet and Cities is somewhat similar. Jacobs states the the main difference between a town and a city is that a city is full of strangers. The internet is the same, it's cyberspace that encompasses works and books and pieces created and composed, more or less, by strangers who come together because they share a commoon interest. In cities, strangers pass by one another every minute but they still come in contact and maybe shake a hand or two. The internet is the same because complete strangers meet online or in collaboration of a website where their passions spark interest in someone else.
The internet, according to Levy is "the weaving of a social bond" which is absolutely true in the sense that social bonds are formed when people post their pictures or comment on blogs.
This idea, based on digital communication, helps social life in the sense that people can communicate via email, facebook, or blogs. Yet it detracts because now people don't have to leave the comfort of their homes and can finish work, find a restaurant or even read a book online. I think that this isn't exactly what Levy planned because people wouldn't go out for social outings and hence wouldn't meet those strangers while walking down the street.
Human beings have an intrinsic want or desire to maintain ownership. Historically in regards to the "manifest destiny," Americans continued moving West to attain more space. Now that most of the geographical estates have been occupied, we look to own intellectual territories. The cyberspace provided us with the opportunity to once again relive "manifest destiny" and continue expanding our ownership. Potentially, this digital urbanism has no limits. However, both internet and cities are similar in that human beings navigate and nourish both infrastructures. Internet and cities both have the problem of organized complexity. They present situations in which a half dozen or even several dozen qualities are all varying simultaneously and in subtly interconnected ways. If a park is not located in a convenient area where different people with different schedules would pass, it will eventually become an abandoned vacuum. Just as if a website is not conveniently made accessible or made with a perfunctory purpose, it will not be viewed or used.
Post a Comment