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.

The article diuscusses the sociopolitical factors effecting populations who were exposed during the chernobyl disaster. It looks at effected population's access to healthcare, and government interventions effecting the post disaster recovery, resettlement, and healthcare. The article establises that there is an entire society built up in the chernobyl effected community which people are entirely dependant on health care systems and the politics governing them take the prescident over many other issues.

The reference section of this article tells us about the type and number of sources that information from this article was drawn from. This article's research was drawn from a mix of online and print sources, consisting of international policy, agency reports, previous peer reviewed research articles, and news reports.

This film suggests that physicians should learn to honor and accept that they need to assist terminal patients to accieve their last desires in whatever time they have. It suggests that doctors could learn alot from palliative care practitioners in how they help patients accept their fate and assist them through the dieing process.

Data for this article was gathered from previous studies done by health organizations in Boston, Baltimore, Hati, and Rawanda. He also references peer reviewed publications for more background information, and recent work by the PIH in Rawanda.

The players featured in this article were the following:

The emotionally disturbed patient who was punched multiple times in the face by the cops from the NYPD and ESU

The NYPD 67th precinct: New York Police Department Brooklyn Precinct, four members, including members from the elite Emergency Service Unit, were accused of roughing a combative patient.

FDNY and FDNY EMS: Fire Department, City of New York and their respective EMS branch. The report was filed by members of FDNY EMS who were treating the patient when they were roughed by PD.