Engels writing, while anti-city, introduces an activist
journalism that raises questions of the planner’s role: are we advocates or
observers? Mixed with the individual ethnographical focused Chicago school, the
city is individuals—but are we not required (comprehensive plan) to agglomerate
the whole? Can we plan a massive individual endeavor?
These passages are a disturbing reminder of how they lived,
but also how billions live today. The squalor of the majority hasn’t diminished;
have our responsibilities? The conscious rancor bites at our professions legitimacy
and calls for response within each sphere of influence. There are quiet billions without essentials.
Engel’s power (and those aligned in personally uncovering society’s
unacknowledged externality) is not only in raising human concern and attention,
but demonstrating its proximity. Additionally, what role have we played through
pursuit of utopian or just ideal?
Engel also paints shadows of environmental justice,
illustrated in the TIMBYism (this-is-my-backyard) of these neighborhoods. The
areas described however, would likely (if not eroded, redeveloped or renewed)
be most popular today. These places with
the highest market demand stand on the backs of deprivation. Oddly enough, they
are areas un-creatable given our evolved development controls. Will suburbs someday
be hip?
Massy—why?
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