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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.

The article highlights public health security and "biosecurity" in the context of large scale efforts/interventions in response to public health threats. Various frameworks have been proposed and implemented to analyze and respond to the new range of pathogenic threats. These take form as research groups, global health initiatives, legislation and emergency preparedness plans. The article proposes looking at biosecurity with an STS multidisciplinary approach (though not explicitly stated as such) and has separated biosecurity into four unique domains. These are emerging infection disease, bioterrorism, cutting-edge life-sciences, and food safety. These all overlap throughout the article. The article further highlights the faults of the "public health" approach and emphasized the trend towards a preparadness model.

The article cites the merits and failures of the investigations following three disasters. These are the burning of the Capitol Building in 1814, a boiler explosion in 1850, and the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903.

The author cites a number of cases in which the law proved difficult to enforce. One example is seen when looking at the difference in residency application acceptance rates between different locales/prefects. The much larger and metropolitan areas would accept down to 47% of the applications, indicating a possibly fair division of candidates reviewed. Other more rural areas would accept over 90% of the applications, showing almost no distiguishment between ailments. The question becomes whether this is reflective on the doctors' judgements of "serious ailment" given location, the political beliefs of the prefect, or simply the lack of caring whether someone emmigrates or not. Another example of the flaws in this law is highlighted by a personal anecdote from a patient. The patient was given a diagnosis when originially coming to France on a personal visa. They were told their condition was quite serious and would require ongoing care. However, when the doctor who diagnosed him was asked to sign for evaluation for the residency permit, the doctor changed his diagnosis to something much less serious. The political thought behind the poicy came into play and interrupted the normal proceedings, tearing doctors between their obligations to the law (and only allow exceptional cases) and to medicine (and err on the side of caution).  

The author also highlights the development of this law and its effects in three stages. Pre-1990: Serious illness was a factor in residency completely at the discretion of local government. Immigrants were seen as workers and they served that purpose only. If a worker was sick, they were of no use to society. 1990-1998: Illness was more often factored into the decision making process, but those allowed to stay received no paid employment or social wellfare benefits. Post 1998: Written into law, ill immigrants were allowed to stay with the opportunity for pay and legal status in France. 

Emily Goldmann is an Assistant Research Professor at NYU in the College of Global Public Health. Her research primarily focuses on the social and environmental factors affecting mental health. She has written several articles on the mental health conditions in soldiers, which can sometimes be extended to emergency responders in disaster zones. 

Sandro Galea is a professor and dean at Bostom University and former Chair of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He formerly was an emergency physician and served with MSF. His research primarily focuses on the causes of mood and anxiety disorders in realtion to urban populations. He also talks on inequality in health care and the consequences of traumatic events on specific populations.

That is a very good question, I have seen reviews of it, but never about it actually being used for the intended purpose. Thats not surprising given the subject content. As a college student, I personally would be offended and more or less turned off if my partner decided to pull out their phone and record consent on it while we were going for it. Thats probably why its hard to find any good reviews...