The Hierarchy of District 9

Statue in front of District 9 caption saying: "District 9, Paving the way to unity"

District 9 is a motion picture directed by Neill Blomkamp which depicts the compartmentalization of an alien race, segregating them from the rest of the population. The "prawns" are only allowed to live in a government camp that translates to a real world slum or ghetto. This movie consists of a classic problem with urbanization, the separation of classes. In a city, someone has to be on the bottom of the social/economic ladder.

In Johannesburg, South Africa this is true for the immigrating aliens who are not accustomed to the social norms of human society. In the picture above is a statue showing the unity between the aliens and humans. This statue is only an act to satisfy the ironically named "humanitarians" of earth but the aliens are still a completely seperated part of the community. One woman when being interviewed for the documentary style

A picture showing the would be new residence for the aliens

movie says "[the government is] spending so much money to keep them here when they could be spending it on other things. At least they're keeping them separate from us." The aliens are considered to be hostile and gross creatures. In district 9 there is an abundance of gang activity and crime but what is not acknowledged is the fact that the aliens are uneducated. For instance when Wikus van de Merwe is going from shack to shack asking for the signatures of residents agreeing to move out of their homes within 24 hours many do not know what eviction means and yet are still forced to sign the document. But why keep them confined on earth if they only contribute violence and crime to human society? Because their weapons are more powerful than anything ever created by man yet men have not been able to control or reverse engineer any of the weapons.

Humans had been performing cruel experiments on the aliens for years trying to master their technology. And although the aliens have more advanced technology they are still confined to their camp and looked down upon. Having to live amongst the discarded remains of Johannesburg, the aliens become such monsters that society systematically organized them to be.

Movie Trailer

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.

London (Bridge) is Falling Down

Most people are familiar with the song called "Our House" by Madness as a happy goofy pop song from the early 1980s. And it is. But, a lot of the music that came out of England from that period was more critical of London and the British Government. Songs from groups like the Clash, The Jam, and even the Sex Pistols, better illustrate the unrest and dissatisfaction among England's working class. These songs identify many of the conditions that made young people in London and other cities in England feel so alienated.

In the 1970s, England like many other countries, including the US, experienced a recession. Unemployment, inflation, and prices were high, which especially affected middle and lower class workers. Whole sections of London had become run down and even abandoned. An influx of immigrants from former British colonies, such as India and Pakistan, added to racial tensions. The general feeling in London was that England's best days were behind her and that she had little to offer younger generations.

In "London Calling," the Clash mentions that "Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust," meaning that the pride England might have felt about the Beatles can no longer cover up the country's real problems. The song lists some of these problems as clashes between police and youth, the decline of manufacturing jobs, drugs, and the fear of nuclear war. The singer's refrain that "I have no fear/'Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river" is an ironic acknowledgement of how few options existed for many young people in London in the 1970s and 1980s.