Search

I am interested in the Macro scale and the macro effects evident at a city-scale level. I remember visiting New Orleans in 2016 and vividly remember seeing several signs with a large 'No' symbol drawn and the text  "neighbors not tourists" printed on the sign. Recently, as part of my research into New Orleans, I stumbled on this piece by the Guardian on how short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb are leading to gentrification in New Orleans. Highlighted in the article is how several Airbnb hosts do not reside on the listed premises. I remember the place we stayed, as we were a large party, having a 617 prefix number.  The prefix stood out as I knew the code 617 represented Boston and was curious what someone with ties to Boston doing in New Orleans as a host. In a similar vein, the article also highlights the problem of absentee hosts, hosts who acquire property for the sole purpose of setting up the property as an Airbnb site.

To tackle the problem, one councilwoman passed a law that required any Airbnb hosts in residential zones to have a homestead exemption verifying they live on site. In this case, a city-wide measure was taken and passed into law affecting the micro. It is common to have one host having several properties in different residential areas in New Orleans. From a technical standpoint, it could be viewed that Airbnb as technology is developed and presented as a scalable product. With no limits to reproducibility. Meanwhile, real-life discontinuities exist in the form of such homestead laws. It is impossible to live in more than one homestead at the same time. In other words, the concept of the human is not scalable.
Likewise, neither is cultural heritage. The city of New Orleans positions its self as a city with great cultural heritage. It is through this heritage that they seek to draw more and more tourists. How do cities think of scaling up successful initiatives and how do they navigate the political, social, ecological, or economic entanglements. At what point is downscaling necessary? Is culture scalable?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/13/new-orleans-airbnb-trem…

I am currently a Ph.D. student interested in exploring the entanglements of scale, especially in the context of environmental sensing.  My primary research seeks to engage in discourse around the value of scalability that is presented as inherent in computation. While the term scale-up is almost synonymous with computation, sustainability; on the other hand, is known as a problem of scale. Take for example, the discourse on climate change where the actions required to combat climate change requires interventions at different scales. In this context, demanding changes at individual scales while no corresponding changes happen at larger scales would not yield much.

In looking at New Orleans, I came across a video on IoT cameras developed by Cisco, the networking giant. What struck me other than the apparent rise of surveillance capitalism was the narrative of one of the police officers highlighted in the video. The officer mentions that it is not feasible for the city to place police officers on every corner. In the context of scale, the police officer is implying that cameras are useful as they extend the police officer's ability to surveil the city. In other words, cameras and the networks help scale up the police officer, making it possible for them to cover a larger scale than before.

One of the police officers, in the video, also mentions that New Orleans is a tourist and hospitable town. Which brings up the question at any given period, what scale of visitors can New Orleans support without stretching the city's resources? Several other cities in the world have made efforts to limit visitors, in order not stretch city resources. The recent crisis at Mount Everest is an excellent example of what happens when resources are stretched to accommodate the increasing number of local visitors. How could something of this nature similarly impact New Orleans?

At the communication center where the video feed is analyzed, the IT manager provides reasons as to why they chose Cisco as their vendor. One of the reasons he gives was that the system is easily expandable, allowing the ability to scale out/up the network.

This provision was drafted and enacted by the House of Representatives of the 99th Congress as part of H.R. 3128, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985.

The authors primarily rely on anecdotal evidence provided through interviews and testimonies presented by disaster survivors. They supplement this anecdotal evidence with data from analysis of the socioeconomic conditions following a disaster and from analysis of the mental health disorders suffered by patients who were affected by the disaster. 

As an activist organization, the IPPNW organizes awareness campaigns, conducts and funds research efforts, sponsors conferences, applies political pressure, and develops educational courses and training programs.

Emergency response, in the sense of immediate law enforcement, fire/rescue, and EMS, is not addressed by the author to an appreciable extent, though an argument can be made for potential connections.

The author primarily discusses the disaster investigation surrounding the aftermath of the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster. Dr. Knowles presents the investigation as having been marred by jurisdictional conflicts, clashes of authority among powerful institutions, competition among experts, and political pressure from both the public and the government. He argues that this phenomenon is not unique to the World Trade Center collapse but has occurred throughout every major disaster investigation in the United States, including the burning of the US Capitol Building in 1814, the Hague Street boiler explosion and building collapse in New York in 1850, and the Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago in 1903. He argues that disaster investigation is not the "dispassionate, scientific verdict of causality and blame" but is instead a "hard-fought contest to define the moment in politics and society, in technology and culture."

The author explores the impact of healthcare and immigration laws in France that impact the well-being and health of immigrants. Specifically referencing French legislation from 1997, the author discusses how protocols have developed and been adapted over the past decade to dictate that those immigrants who are suffering from illnesses should be provided care, treatment, and housing, rather than being deported or forced to fend for themselves. 

As a federal agency, FEMA employs federal employees who are coordinated and supervised by various administrators, supervisors, and directors. Their organizational chart as of November of 2016 can be found here. (https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1479239897769-7b1af74a3c8cf9c38…)

• "During our interviews in Turkey, many of the conversations we had--with those suffering seizures, with family members, persons in the community, and health care providers--were made up largely of stories. We were told stories of the sudden and shocking onset of seizures or fainting, of particularly dramatic episodes of seizures or extended loss of consciousness, of years of efforts in which families and individuals engaged in a quest to find a cure, of especially memorable interactions with physicians and with religious healers, and of experiences at work, with friends, and, for example, in marriage negotiations that were influenced by the illness."
• "As a result, however, the stories were often quite ambiguous as to the nature of the illness, and it was often unclear whether the stories were 'reports of experience' or were largely governed by a typical cultural form or narrative structure."
• "Much of what we know about illness we know through stories--stories told by the sick about their experiences, by family members, doctors, healers, and others in the society. This is a simple fact. 'An illness' has a narrative structure, although it is not a closed text, and it is composed as a corpus of stories."