Daily Archives: July 30, 2006

Urban Neighborhood Narration

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Who knew iPods could be useful for a rich urban experience? Well, at least not so soon. Jennifer Coleman, an architect in Cleveland has hit upon a novel idea to implement iPods for city walk narration. CityProwl, the website that lets you download a neighborhood narration [for free!!!] is her brainchild. You can easily install the narration; basically an audio file just like any other MP3 song and listen to stories of the streets as you walk down them. Otis White at Urban Notebook listens to one of her narrations:

Coleman’s first narration is a walk through downtown’s Lower Prospect
Avenue, a business street that boomed a century ago, faded and is
coming back. The tour takes a little less than 40 minutes. In her
pleasant voice, Coleman begins with some rules of safety and courteous
walking (and a legal disclaimer), then sets off down Prospect Avenue
from beneath the awning at Flannery’s Pub (you can hear her shoes
clicking on the pavement).

I hope such narrations are soon available for other cities as well. Each urban area has plentiful stories to keep us busy for ages. At least our spatial experiences or urban walks are complemented by historical insights that make it doubly pleasurable.

Update: Great! Rob has created a narration for a neighborhood in Birmingham, UK. Only if more people joined in this effort, we could have a online library of such audio narrations for neighborhoods around the world.

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Unemploy Immigrants?

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One of the few concepts I disagree with liberals in the United States is their stand on immigrants; in spite of the fact that this nation was built on immigrant power. Michael Dukkakis and Daniel Mitchell in a NY Times op-ed offer an economic solution to reduce dependence on immigrants.

Basically their argument lies in raising the minimum wage. As known, the minimum wages causes disproportinate unemployment amongst the least skilled individuals and as many immigrants have a lower skill set than native, any rise in the minimum wage is likely to affect them adversely.

Alex Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason rightly points to the social injustice angle of this move by asking whether the Times would have published this op-ed if it “advocated minimum wages as a way of creating unemployment among
African Americans and raising white wages.” Probably it makes sense and even works perfectly economically but then no nation is a purely capitalistic society where concepts such as social justice is ignored completely. It is always a balancing act that varies with the times. But I guess political climate is a more influential factor.

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'Portfolio Diversification in Income'

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According to this article in the NY Times, having to work two jobs in order to afford to live in New York city is an investment portfolio advantage [via]:

Middle-class city dwellers across the country are being
squeezed….In New York, the supply of apartments considered affordable
to households with incomes like those earned by starting firefighters
or police officers plunged by a whopping 205,000 in just three years.

….Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs, said W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bankof Dallas. “I think it’s great,” he said. “It gives you portfolio diversification in your income.”

Did he really say that? If yes, I hope it was tongue-in-cheek but I fear it isn’t.

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