Our Winner article discussed a number of different ways that technology can be political in nature and divided it’s discussion in to three distinct categories. Though I considered examples statecraft and engineering, I felt that statecraft was too innately political and engineering rather vague at times. Fascinated by the example from our lecture involving the bridges of Robert Moses, I reflected on other ways in which the overall design of the environment we live in could be used to oppress people.
Recalling my experiences with the film La Haine, I came to realize that the centers of urban decay in France were a prime subject for consideration. Not only is this a clear example of physical architecture being manipulated for ideological effects, but it satisfies something I’ve come to consider a prime requirement for our discussions in this course: objectivity.
In order for us to discuss the concepts in this course, we must be able to view that which is often mundane and everyday in a new light; to force ourselves to shed our preconceived notions and to look at things in new and interesting ways. Realizing this, I came to understand an additional nuance to the film we watched in class. An objective stance is one that attempts to view the facts and dispel one’s personal feelings from the consideration.
France’s slums, therefore, were an opportunity for me to look at an issue which is both familiar and relevant to my life as an American citizen, and distant in it’s unique and foreign aspects.
Political Architecture.pptx
Ultimately, I determined that the most uniquely different feature of France’s banlieue is its proximity to the city; pushed to the outskirts, rather than clustered in urban “centers.” And that this feature of the banlieues was a natural progression of the socio economic development of the city in regard to a sense of chronology.
Where American cities formed around growing populaces of low wage laborers, their suburbs developed in response to the birth of the automobile and its restrictions (an elitist technology) to a higher wage earning client base. Conversely, France’s low wage earning majority arrived at a time after the cities layout had been created and simply had nowhere within the confines of the city to establish themselves. This, coupled with the active architectural choices of political bodies, created a system of meager living conditions for the financially distraught, largely immigrant population. Not only are these second class citizens relegated to a lower standard of living, but their engineered alienation causes a damaging sense of disenfranchisement fostering an atmosphere of resentment and violence in an abject youth community.