From Mike Davis’ Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control, The Ecology of Fear, 1992:

The current obsession with personal safety and social insulation is only exceeded by the middle-class dread of progressive taxation. In the face of unemployment and homelessness on scales not seen since 1938, a bipartisan consensus insists that the budget must be balanced and entitlements reduced. Refusing to make any further public investment in the remediation of underlying social conditions, we are forced instead to make increasing private investments in physical security. The rhetoric of urban reform persists, but the substance is extinct. Rebuilding LA simply means padding the bunker.

As city life, in consequence, grows more feral, the different social milieux adopt security strategies and technologies according to their means. Like Burgess’ original dart board, the resulting pattern condenses into concentric zones. The bull’s eye is Downtown.
In another essay I have recounted in detail how a secretive, emergency committee of Downtown’s leading corporate landowners (the so-called Committee of 25) responded to the perceived threat of the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Warned by law-enforcement authorities that a black inundation of the central city was imminent, the Committee of 25 abandoned redevelopment efforts in the old office and retail core. They then used the city’s power of eminent domain to raze neighborhoods and create a new financial core a few blocks further west. The city’s redevelopment agency, acting virtually as their private planner, bailed out the Committee of 25’s sunk investments in the old business district by offering huge discounts, far below market value, on parcels in the new core.

Key to the success of the entire strategy (celebrated as Downtown LA’s `renaissance’) was the physical segregation of the new core and its land values behind a rampart of regraded palisades, concrete pillars and freeway walls. Traditional pedestrian connections between Bunker Hill and the old core were removed, and foot traffic in the new financial district was elevated above the street on pedways whose access was controlled by the security systems of individual skyscrapers. This radical privatization of Downtown public space - with its ominous racial undertones - occurred without significant public debate or protest.

Last year’s riots, moreover, have only seemed to vindicate the foresight of Fortress Downtown’s designers. While windows were being smashed throughout the old business district along Broadway and Spring streets, Bunker Hill lived up to its name. By flicking a few switches on their command consoles, the security staffs of the great bank towers were able to cut off all access to their expensive real estate. Bullet-proof steel doors rolled down over street-level entrances, escalators instantly stopped and electronic locks sealed off pedestrian passageways. As the Los Angeles Business Journal pointed out in a special report, the riot-tested success of corporate Downtown’s defenses has only stimulated demand for new and higher levels of physical security.

I bought new shoes yesterday. This quote from Koolhaas on shopping seemed accurate:

For instance, what you can get in Lagos [Nigeria] is infinitely varied, but what you get here is a deliberate narrowing — an undoing of variety to clarify brands and identities. That is the ambiguity of this moment: on the one hand, the possibilities are becoming limitless, but at the same time, the choices are becoming more coherent — they form a single pattern, address a single group, and are becoming more exclusive.

A segment of a script written by Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Reminds of how hard it is to remember what it was like before getting AOL in 7th grade.

People have been concerned with finding their place in a physical, political or social space for a long time. For example, all of Velasquez’s paintings are concerned with spatial problems. Space was like glue. Our problems are different now. They date back to 1972, the year the last few radical architecture groups disappeared and Spielberg, Lukas, Scorsese and Coppola took over Hollywood. Some could precisely date it at 3:32 pm on July 15, 1972 when the Pruit-Igo housing development was blasted in St Louis, Missouri. It had been a prize-winning example of the clean-lined, boxy, international style of architecture and what architects called a “machine for living”. By 1972 it was considered a failure. People hated it and the city declared it uninhabitable. The same year Robert Venturi declared that most people’s ideas were closer to Disneyland or Las Vegas than to a modern glass-box apartment.

It’s hard to think about the present because the past always glows.

In the good old days before cappuccino and sushi and ruccola went global. Well before red peppers spiced up our salads. Before adventure became a sport, and nature became a spot. In the good old days the Paris Metro smelled like cigarettes and lofts were reserved for only the New-York elite. Before seat belts beeped when they weren’t fastened and spies really did come from the cold. Before cell phone conversations were banned on trains. Before googling became an aspect of human behavior. In the good old days when every second person was not a hero and every third was not a victim and every fourth was not stressed. Before we had an identity on line. Before toll-free numbers were delocalized and sent to Africa or India. Before the idea of a preemptive war existed. Before we thought there would never be any billionaires in Moscow. Before beach volleyball and snowboarding became Olympic sports. Before fusion cooking and before liquid nitrogen was used to make minute ice cream. Before you could get an espresso in Hamburg or Milwaukee. When Thai food was exotic and cholesterol a curious word used only for Scrabble games. In the good old days when people walked on the moon and snow covered London for weeks during Christmas time. No, it’s too far away, I don’t remember all that. It never happened.

A time when things were not weird, but strange, and then they were really strange, a David Lynch kind of strangeness. In those disconnected days before Blackberries and SPVs. Before voicemail became the interlocutors in our lives. Before Gollum appeared on the screen. What a great actor. Before the Euro and before a wall was erected in Israel. Before democracy and free market became the only alternative. When New Zealand was not yet known as the set of The Lord of The Rings. Before people started using “like” to make similes about anything and everything. Before Shrek appeared on screen and everyone loved him because like us, he doesn’t understand any metaphors. When you could smoke in bars in New York and Los Angeles. Before the Bush Dynasty. when Schwarzenegger was the Terminator and not a governor. Before IPods, EBay, Viagra and spell-check. Before Western architects were lining up to build towers in China. Before people start ordering salads at McDonald’s. Before music became our soundtrack. Before clothing became a costume. Before we start looking at the world as a standing stock of material. Before the word “tree” did not mean “wood”.

Nice book trailer. I wonder if this form is the best way for Klein to come across. Maybe one really does have to use the existing communication infrastructure as a platform, but cautiously…The membrane between detournment and recuperation is super porous these days.

Also, it’s strange how the banksy aesthetic is being occupied by both Hollywood (Shoot Em Up: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jlx4n_ibNZE) and by people like Klein and Cuaron. The former isn’t so surprising, but isn’t banksy precisely the kind of culture jamming turn urban marketing that Klein spoke so cautiously about in No Logo? The visual arts still seem to be just a seagull on the progressive radar.