Unlimited "What defines a European city" urban theory debate thread

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OH NOEZ, SAYING I READ SOMETHING RECENTLY, EQUATES TO DOING THE SAME IN MINUTES! 

Sorry, I misparsed that. ("the other day" - is that about re-reading or me and my friend going off?). That was an exercise in stereotypical reading, I am sorry. My other point (about the rather specific example of cities being different) still stands.

Try again. What makes Xiamen not a city in the "first-world sense"? What you cited before, sanitation, public transit, etc. DOES exist in Xiamen (Cairo and Mexico City too, in fact, but let's just talk about Xiamen)

No-no, you try again. The first thing I did upon being challenged is to admit, straight up, that I probably picked the wrong cities and explain that it was not crucial to my point. Later on, Subsymbolic explained in painful detail what he thought my initial assertion was about, which was ignored or ridiculed. The difference between first-world cities and third-world cities (or parts of cities, because these conditions increasingly coexist in the same cities, within short distances of each other, as I attempted to explain above) is that in first-world cities, the proportion of entirely disenfranchised people in deep poverty is low, while in third-world neighbourhoods it is very high. In a first-world neighbourhood, if you show signs of above-average affluence, you may still walk around without clear and present danger of being mugged or beaten or even killed for a few of your possessions. This is partly because state-provided coercive mechanisms are in place to prevent this, but also partly because there aren't that many people who are desperate enough to do something like that. In third -world neighbourhoods, this is not the case.

First-world city story (true one, happened to me): my kid's bicycle gets stolen from my yard. I report it to the police. A couple of months later, in an unrelated case, police catch a petty thief. They find the bicycle I reported stolen in the thief's back yard. I get bicycle back.

Third-world city story (very likely to be true one, related by my Somali refugee friend Hussein, whom I've known for 15 years, and whom I helped get out of the terrible Hungarian refugee-processing meat-grinder): man arrives in Mogadishu airport (back when there were still commercial,scheduled flights going there). Leaves terminal. Man comes up, points at a car parked nearby with driver in it, and asks: "dou you like that car?" Recent arrival responds with a half-hearted 'yes'. Man proceeds to shoot driver and says: "You can buy it off me for 500 dollars".

I think the contrast there is real and actually bloody obvious. The obstinate efforts to turn it into a story about me failing to acknowledge that I was wrong are frustrating and unfair.

Nonsense. You made a completely ridiculous statement about the urban centers that the world's population increasingly resides in "not being cities in the European sense". When asked, you named some cities. Your definition of "European sense" was called into question, and what ensued was a frantic moving of goalposts as one aspect after another that you named was shown to be false according to your own premise. If you had started out by saying "Many of the urban centers in developing countries suffer from endemic poverty and a lack of sufficient urban services in the outlying areas", I don't think anyone would have disagreed with you. However, that is not what you stated, and your attempts to shift the focus to that from what you actually said is simply an example of flailing to justify an unjustifiable statement.

[Phox]

OH NOEZ, SAYING I READ SOMETHING RECENTLY, EQUATES TO DOING THE SAME IN MINUTES! 

Sorry, I misparsed that. ("the other day" - is that about re-reading or me and my friend going off?). That was an exercise in stereotypical reading, I am sorry. My other point (about the rather specific example of cities being different) still stands.

Try again. What makes Xiamen not a city in the "first-world sense"? What you cited before, sanitation, public transit, etc. DOES exist in Xiamen (Cairo and Mexico City too, in fact, but let's just talk about Xiamen)

No-no, you try again. The first thing I did upon being challenged is to admit, straight up, that I probably picked the wrong cities and explain that it was not crucial to my point. Later on, Subsymbolic explained in painful detail what he thought my initial assertion was about, which was ignored or ridiculed. The difference between first-world cities and third-world cities (or parts of cities, because these conditions increasingly coexist in the same cities, within short distances of each other, as I attempted to explain above) is that in first-world cities, the proportion of entirely disenfranchised people in deep poverty is low, while in third-world neighbourhoods it is very high. In a first-world neighbourhood, if you show signs of above-average affluence, you may still walk around without clear and present danger of being mugged or beaten or even killed for a few of your possessions. This is partly because state-provided coercive mechanisms are in place to prevent this, but also partly because there aren't that many people who are desperate enough to do something like that. In third -world neighbourhoods, this is not the case.

First-world city story (true one, happened to me): my kid's bicycle gets stolen from my yard. I report it to the police. A couple of months later, in an unrelated case, police catch a petty thief. They find the bicycle I reported stolen in the thief's back yard. I get bicycle back.

Third-world city story (very likely to be true one, related by my Somali refugee friend Hussein, whom I've known for 15 years, and whom I helped get out of the terrible Hungarian refugee-processing meat-grinder): man arrives in Mogadishu airport (back when there were still commercial,scheduled flights going there). Leaves terminal. Man comes up, points at a car parked nearby with driver in it, and asks: "dou you like that car?" Recent arrival responds with a half-hearted 'yes'. Man proceeds to shoot driver and says: "You can buy it off me for 500 dollars".

I think the contrast there is real and actually bloody obvious. The obstinate efforts to turn it into a story about me failing to acknowledge that I was wrong are frustrating and unfair.

By that logic, East St. Louis isn't a first-world city. I've seen plenty of comparable things happen there, and I'm sure that plenty of similar things happen like that in plenty of places.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Holist, can you quote any of my "bullying"? Or is that just what you call it when someone points out that you said something that sounds foolish?

I could, but I can't be bothered. Name-calling, ridiculing, and also affirmation and appreciation of name-calling and ridiculing by others is what I'd call it. If you can't find it or even remember it, there's no point in me digging it out, because you will then claim it was not bullying and call me sissy for suggesting it was.

Right, of course. Can't be bothered to verify your claims.

I'm sure you will chalk this up under "bullying".

[Dildo Argentino]

Holist, can you quote any of my "bullying"? Or is that just what you call it when someone points out that you said something that sounds foolish?

I could, but I can't be bothered. Name-calling, ridiculing, and also affirmation and appreciation of name-calling and ridiculing by others is what I'd call it. If you can't find it or even remember it, there's no point in me digging it out, because you will then claim it was not bullying and call me sissy for suggesting it was.

Right, of course. Can't be bothered to verify your claims.

I'm sure you will chalk this up under "bullying".

Nope, not this one. I'll go and find some, especially for you. Though I don't really see the point. Incidentally, is there a way of displaying all of a thread on one page? Would make this so much easier... Especially since you write a lot and so searching your posts is just as difficult as searching the threads in question?

[Dildo Argentino]

Nonsense. You made a completely ridiculous statement about the urban centers that the world's population increasingly resides in "not being cities in the European sense". When asked, you named some cities. Your definition of "European sense" was called into question, and what ensued was a frantic moving of goalposts as one aspect after another that you named was shown to be false according to your own premise. If you had started out by saying "Many of the urban centers in developing countries suffer from endemic poverty and a lack of sufficient urban services in the outlying areas", I don't think anyone would have disagreed with you. However, that is not what you stated, and your attempts to shift the focus to that from what you actually said is simply an example of flailing to justify an unjustifiable statement.

Oh, thanks, no need to dig now, this is an instance of bullying. You have done a great deal worse, but this will do.

"Nonsense"?? Completely ridiculous statement? I made a statement that was not a particularly clear expression of the point I was trying to make (which was simply that, when faced with the news that over half the world's population now live in cities, it is worth keeping in mind that a great many of those city dwellers live in cities that are very different to what I am used to - and I suspect what many of the people here are used to - in the ways that I described in detail in the post you simply labelled "Nonsense" - and also earlier, which you also ignored. Is being somewhat vague and less than completely clear cut and reframing points to make them clearer such a sin? No, it isn't.

[Phox]

Nonsense. You made a completely ridiculous statement about the urban centers that the world's population increasingly resides in "not being cities in the European sense". When asked, you named some cities. Your definition of "European sense" was called into question, and what ensued was a frantic moving of goalposts as one aspect after another that you named was shown to be false according to your own premise. If you had started out by saying "Many of the urban centers in developing countries suffer from endemic poverty and a lack of sufficient urban services in the outlying areas", I don't think anyone would have disagreed with you. However, that is not what you stated, and your attempts to shift the focus to that from what you actually said is simply an example of flailing to justify an unjustifiable statement.

Oh, thanks, no need to dig now, this is an instance of bullying. You have done a great deal worse, but this will do.

"Nonsense"?? Completely ridiculous statement? I made a statement that was not a particularly clear expression of the point I was trying to make (which was simply that, when faced with the news that over half the world's population now live in cities, it is worth keeping in mind that a great many of those city dwellers live in cities that are very different to what I am used to - and I suspect what many of the people here are used to - in the ways that I described in detail in the post you simply labelled "Nonsense" - and also earlier, which you also ignored. Is being somewhat vague and less than completely clear cut and reframing points to make them clearer such a sin? No, it isn't.

Wait, this is bullying? Saying that something is "nonsense" and that statements are "completely ridiculous"? HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS! We are playing the "let's make up definitions" game again, aren't we? Should I break out my Phoxionary? 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Personally I'd have opened a post like that (if I were to make one) with the words "bull fucking shit" or something along those lines. Makes me a nastier bully than Nigel? 

[Dildo Argentino]

Wait, this is bullying? Saying that something is "nonsense" and that statements are "completely ridiculous"? HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS! We are playing the "let's make up definitions" game again, aren't we? Should I break out my Phoxionary? 

That's sort of up to you.

But I think that telling someone that what they are saying is nonsense and completely ridiculous is verbal bullying. Especially if it is accompanied by complete disregard for the fact that in the meantime, that person backed down from that initial version of the statement, apologised and recast the point. The fact that the views being "criticised" are also consistently misrepresented doesn't help. Of course, all of it doesn't have much weight on a largely anonymous Internet message board. But that does not make it into rational argument.

[Kai]

Wait, this is bullying? Saying that something is "nonsense" and that statements are "completely ridiculous"? HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS! We are playing the "let's make up definitions" game again, aren't we? Should I break out my Phoxionary? 

That's sort of up to you.

But I think that telling someone that what they are saying is nonsense and completely ridiculous is verbal bullying. Especially if it is accompanied by complete disregard for the fact that in the meantime, that person backed down from that initial version of the statement, apologised and recast the point. The fact that the views being "criticised" are also consistently misrepresented doesn't help. Of course, all of it doesn't have much weight on a largely anonymous Internet message board. But that does not make it into rational argument.

No, it's not bullying. It's a description. "Nonsense", because your statements have no sense, and "ridiculous" because they are otherwise worthy of ridicule. I don't know why this isn't difficult to understand.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

WHY IS THE INTERNET SO FASCIST???
                           

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

(That might actually qualify as an example of bullying, FTR, if we assume that Holist finds me intimidating.)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nonsense. You made a completely ridiculous statement about the urban centers that the world's population increasingly resides in "not being cities in the European sense". When asked, you named some cities. Your definition of "European sense" was called into question, and what ensued was a frantic moving of goalposts as one aspect after another that you named was shown to be false according to your own premise. If you had started out by saying "Many of the urban centers in developing countries suffer from endemic poverty and a lack of sufficient urban services in the outlying areas", I don't think anyone would have disagreed with you. However, that is not what you stated, and your attempts to shift the focus to that from what you actually said is simply an example of flailing to justify an unjustifiable statement.

Oh, thanks, no need to dig now, this is an instance of bullying. You have done a great deal worse, but this will do.

"Nonsense"?? Completely ridiculous statement? I made a statement that was not a particularly clear expression of the point I was trying to make (which was simply that, when faced with the news that over half the world's population now live in cities, it is worth keeping in mind that a great many of those city dwellers live in cities that are very different to what I am used to - and I suspect what many of the people here are used to - in the ways that I described in detail in the post you simply labelled "Nonsense" - and also earlier, which you also ignored. Is being somewhat vague and less than completely clear cut and reframing points to make them clearer such a sin? No, it isn't.

Holist, you didn't try to reframe your original statement, you tried to justify why it was really true according to your personal and apparently malleable definition of "real cities" and "European standards".

[Dildo Argentino]

Well, Nigel, you do make your trolls jump through hoops, don't you?

Here's my initial assertion, and its context (in the quotes that follow, all bold is mine, now, to point to what I find most relevant now):

we all work on what we wish to work on
(those genuinely under coercion not included)

i happen to think that creating the res publica of a people, the establishment (or re-establishment, or restoration) of a country in the sense of a nation state is an outmoded enterprise with little merit

in order to find more timely and glorious work, it is expedient to review the situation that we find ourselves in first from a larger (global), then from a narrower (personal) perspective

none of what i will say is new

global perspective:

one earth, seven billion people

roughly one tenth of that number do not eat their fill every day of the week

at the same time, ten percent of the population dispose over eighty-five percent of all earthly wealth

within that number, the richest one percent control forty percent of the wealth

man does not live by bread alone

over half the population of the earth live in cities, though mostly not cities in the european sense

and well over half the population strive to realise, in their personal lives, the ideals of the welfare consumer society

lots of food, lots of channels, lots of clutter

estimating the size of the autonomous, adult population who hold their lives and their hands and thus purposefully form them is harder

after a small, highly subjective and far from representative opinion survey and a great deal of pondering i have concluded that such people occur in higher proportion in the third world (brutal existential uncertainty is a strong selection pressure at both the individual and the social levels)

the transitional margin between the autonomous and the slave/slaver group is quite wide and gradual along a number of distinct dimensions

globally, the proportion of autonomous, self-governing  adults is somewhere between 0.1 percent and 10 percent

as an incorrigible optimist, i would wager around 1 percent

one in a hundred people

*

personal perspective:

i posit that only sovereign, adult people, who know their own lives and hold them in their hands in order to shape them are capable of authentic political action

i posit that in the present situation authentic political action is impossible without first letting go of all sorts of national or racial phantasmagories, imaginings, emotional tangles

i posit that today, authentic political action may be aimed at the following two targets (possibly among others, i am not making an exhaustive claim here):

firstly, moving fellow humans in the transitional stages between being robots and being people (or half-asleep, or what have you) towards sufficient levels of sovereignity

such actions include raising children, clarity of thinking and speech and the exemplary practice of authentic ways of being

secondly, the strengthening, supporting, mobilisation, vitalisation of the networks, the systems of interrelationships of autonomous people

this includes tribal enterprise, active community building and maintenance, trust-based barter trade and the promotion of communication and cooperation between small sovereign communities

thank you for your attention

I note that this original assertion is largely correct, except that it should have read "though mostly not in neighbourhoods in the European sense".

Perhaps you were sensing a racist (that would have been understandable, though wrong), perhaps you were just in the mood to slap somebody down (that's less understandable, though by now it is obvious that the opportunity to indulge that urge is a significant part of the reason you use this board) - anyway, ignoring my entire "ars poetica" (which, I suspect, you largely agree with), you chose to respond to that single sentence. Here it is, along with my first response:

over half the population of the earth live in cities, though mostly not cities in the european sense

I don't understand this. What does it mean? What is a "city in the European sense"?

well spotted, the single most dangling end of a string in there

you see the piece was recycled from my blog, sans the rather long analysis of the hungarian situation in particular

and when i translated it, even though i saw it wasn't particularly connected to anything, i decided to leave it in, because i think this factette is somehow strangely relevant to the present-day human predicament

it just so happens, as of a few years ago, city-dwellers now outnumber country-folk

only, when musing about the implications, it is important to keep in mind that say the average of those cities is certainly closer to Xiamen, Mexico City or Kairo than New York, London or Berlin - no sanitation, no organised, clean public transport, no stifling regulations

networks, though, digital networks!

where that gets us, i'm not quite sure

You decided to go with the least charitable interpretation and to continue the slapdown session. Here's your next remark, and my response to it:

They may also have rampant poverty and sprawling slums, but that has nothing to do the "European sense of city", as London has historically shown us. Those all look quite like cities in anyone's sense, especially Xiamen.

I had a feeling I knew what you were going to reference, particularly with regard to cities in China, as it seems most Westerners assume that Chinese cities are basically collections of thatched huts.

In China, the standard of living is much higher in the cities than it is in the countryside, BTW.

i don't get it, but if it pleases you, i stand corrected

i may even have picked the wrong cities and not given it sufficient thought

(i picked Cairo because i spent 5 weeks there hanging out and believe me it is not like a western city in a great number of respects, despite the fact that the central part has a lot of luxury apartments,

i picked Xiamen because i recently finished REAMDE ,

and i picked Mexico City because it occurred to me)

i simply wanted to say that although over 3.5 billion people are city dwellers, the majority have an experience of living in a city that is quite different to the cities of the west

of course there is one essential thing that connects practically all city-dwellers: high population density, people all around, in many if not most cities with a wild plurality of cultures within walking range

You slapped me down some more, I apologised and attempted to explain myself better:

Well yeah, different cultures, different median incomes, different standards of living... but that's not what you said. Defend what you said, not what you wish you'd said. Or, be a biped and admit you were wrong.

quadru, actually

this is what i said:

"only, when musing about the implications, it is important to keep in mind that say the average of those cities is certainly closer to Xiamen, Mexico City or Kairo than New York, London or Berlin - no sanitation, no organised, clean public transport, no stifling regulations"

i was wrong, and failed to express myself clearly, for which i apologise

what i meant to say was that the average city dweller, globally speaking, does not have access to reliable sanitation or institutionalised public transport, sewerage in the European sense, his/her life is much less constrained by social organisation/regulations than in European cities

i am truly sorry but suspect you are irate with me due to homeopathy

Then you jumped on that last sentence, all righteous indignation. (Having spent the last half hour retracing those steps, I think it was actually justified. I still think you became positively hostile because of the homeopathy thing.) I'm not going to continue. If these quotes don't speak for themselves, I don't know what does.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But I think that telling someone that what they are saying is nonsense and completely ridiculous is verbal bullying.

Oh, fuck off.   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, Nigel, you do make your trolls jump through hoops, don't you?

Why the fuck is ANYONE still debating this tard?