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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.

1. "Having the capacity to continue functioning after a traumatic event is common and characteristic of normal coping and adaptation"
2. "The first challenge lies in identifying the correct sampling frame, which generally comprises all persons affected by the disaster. The sampling frame may be even more difficult to identify in natural disasters, when the geographic area of impact is larger and less defined."
3. "These studies can help us understand what factors are associated with different courses of mental illness, which can help us identify the most vulnerable populations and inform tailored interventions"

Emergency response is not the focal point of this article; instead preventing future disasters by investigating and making necessary regulations or improvements.

The Chernobyl Accident was the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear technology. It is the keystone poster-child of most fears with nuclear energy. By addressing this accident—how it happened, what went wrong, how to prevent it—the IAEA seeks to reassure the future prosperity of nuclear power.

The hardest thing that they have to deal with is trying to convince uneducated legistalors on topics that can affect millions of lives. The material that seems simple to them must be conveyed in a mundane matter.

This book which the article is from received a positive review from Metapsychology. (http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=6430)

Another well recived review was done by Dr. Duncan Wilson on the Centre for Medical Humanities website. (http://centreformedicalhumanities.org/humanitarian-reason-a-moral-history-of-the-present-reviewed-by-dr-duncan-wilson/)

1)  “Our goal in collaborating with this project was to develop a set of anthropologically oriented case studies, drawn from a community sample (in contrast to more common clinical studies).”

2)  “We invited persons identified as suffering seizure disorders, along with their families, to tell us stories about their illness and to describe their illness experiences - to tell us about their seizures, their efforts to find effective treatment, the responses to their condition by persons in their community, and the effects of the illness on their lives.”

3)  “Data from this study provide the opportunity for addressing not only problems of medical care and public health, but for reflecting on theoretical and methodological questions central to this book as well.”

A way to improve would be to include more national statistics as it seems very localized with its current content.

The authors talks about Katrina and the failure in leadership which led to a poor response and worse results which impacted first responders. The emergency response did not have the resources or personnel to tackle the problem. The article also looks at the long-term view of emergency response and the failures in current protocol or the lack there of.