My Border Town City

Edinburg, Texas was a place abundant with orange trees and fields of cotton. Migrant farmers came and went with their families and a few small businesses flourished with the repeating faces of their customers. People tended to their ranches and the town was quiet and peaceful. All this change though when highway 281 was built! The quiet town became a connection between the border of Mexico to the larger cities of San Antonio and Houston. The small businesses in the city of Edinburg began to fade into the past while all the commotion of commerce migrated straight to the new areas surrounding this highway. Eventually the areas around 281 grew to be part of Edinburg and this transformed a quiet farm town into a city.

As a new city, Edinburg, like other towns along the Rio Grande border, began to experience a flood of people coming into its grasp. Not from the U.S, but rather from our neighboring country, Mexico. Attracted by jobs opening up, better schools for their kids, and the rights given to Americans, Mexican citizens along the border hopped the river like bunnies excited to be part of this growing city. The idea of a better life attracted so many people to the point where rules and restrictions had to be made and people in the hopes of being a part of the U.S didn’t have the money to follow them, so they found “other methods” (other methods led to terms like wetback…). Because of its history, Edinburg has grown to be defined by its population and the rich culture they bring to the table. The population is more than 80% Hispanic draping Edinburg with deep Hispanic and American traditions combined. The Spanish and English language slowly began to merge together presenting the city with Spanglish and imaginary words like “cagger (from the spanish word cagar), menso, wakala, sonso, watcha, and Welo.” These are some worlds that you can find only in the Rio Grande Valley(http://http://www.facebook.com/onlyinthevalley), but they drip off the tongues of Edinburg residents full of unique culture.

The food in Edinburg is also what makes the city unique. Restaurants paint the streets of Edinburg with their cheap prices and tasty cuisine. Most eateries in the area consist of family operated businesses sharing what they have to offer with the rest of the Edinburg population. Franchises pop up every now and then, but cannot compete against places that have been open and trusted since Highway 281 fell from the sky and blessed the small town. Panera Bread couldn’t compete against a panaderia’s 4 donuts for $1 and assortment of tasty treats for less than 15 cents each. Mexican food in Edinburg is like the smell of weed at ACL, It is everywhere. Streets give birth to Taquerias, Tamale places, and barbacoa restaurants as if it were trying to save a species. The problem is though and it is plastered all throughout the City is that Mexican Food = obesity. Mexican food tends to be layered in grease and fat that it has shaped the Edinburg population, therefore shaping the city. People are less active and tend to be lazy in the city partially because of obesity.
Part of the population that cannot be left out is the illegal population. They have probably shaped the City of Edinburg more so then anyone else who decided to play with clay and build a city. They provide the town with affordable food because they work and collect it for cheap. Lawns are always maintained and tidy because they are willing to cut half an acre of grass for 10 dollars including trimming trees. House keepers are easy to find because 80$ a week keeps your house clean every day. They do the jobs people don’t want to do themselves and it contributes to the city positively.

Like any other City, Edinburg has downsides. As the population grew, gangs moved into the city originally from Mexico. Theft occurs often because people can just take your belongings across the border and/ or sell them at a nearby flea market a.k.a la pulga. Being close to the border, means the drug trade is right under the cities nose. The United States demand for illegal substances from Mexico affects the City of Edinburg in so many ways bringing violence to areas. Teen pregnancies are high because not all families can afford T.V’s and the high school dropout rate is still an issue as families struggle to meet ends meet. Edinburg may have some chaos, but what’s a city without azucar, latino spice, and everything nice.

Smart Cities v. Jaywalking

There was an interesting article in the NYTimes this weekend about "Not-So-Smart Cities" that I thought relevant to the class. The author was responding to an experiment in New Mexico in which a company is building a city populated entirely by robots in order to test out new technologies for running cities more efficiently. This project is part of what is called a movement in urban planning focused on designing and constructing "smarter cities." You might have seen IBM commercials about "building a smarter planet":

In fact, IBM has a series of infomercials about building "The Smarter City" specifically.

The argument for smarter cities is well summarized by the author of the NYTimes piece, "that armed with enough data and computing muscle, we can translate cities' complexity into algorithms" and thus create a more efficient system for living. The basic argument of the NYTimes opinion article, though, is that a city governed by machines will always be inherently flawed, since humans are more dynamic and will never be entirely predictable. The author invokes the urban activist Jane Jacobs to make his argument.

Jane Jacobs's famous battle with Robert Moses over the Lower Manhattan Expressway is worth retelling here, as it pits two ideas of the "city" against each other. Moses was an urban planner and was the prime mover in the development of modern-day New York, responsible for a number of major bridges and expressways in and around the city. He certainly represents an early proponent of the "smart city" model, prioritizing efficiency of movement throughout the city above all else. His most famous projects were expressways.

Jane Jacobs was a community activist. She most famously fought against Robert Moses's proposed plan for the Lower Manhattan Expressway that would have destroyed a large part of the historic immigrant neighborhood of Little Italy. (This is where Jacob Riis took many of his photographs of tenement life on the Lower East Side.) Many families and businesses would have been displaced by the construction of the expressway. For Jacobs, the chaotic and beautiful life of the sidewalks in such neighborhoods was the heart of the city.