Forum Index > Full Moon Saloon > Gentrification? There’s an app for that.
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Cyclopath
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 9:23 am 
We already know the impact Uber has had on taxis, Airbnb on hotels, and even, perhaps, dating apps for gay bars and queer culture. But apps are also taking on long-standing local independent businesses that may not be standing for much longer: everything from cobblers (with the Shoe Drop app) and barbers (Shortcut, “Uber for haircuts”) to launderettes and dry cleaners (Laundrapp, ZipJet). Should these on-demand services really catch on, it will be a serious challenge for a whole swathe of independent businesses offering everyday services that are already suffering. If we no longer need to walk to the local shops to get our groceries, drop off our dry cleaning and fix our shoes, just how long will it be before the cafes charging extortionate prices for cups of coffee swoop in to take their place? https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/07/streets-without-shops-apps-changing-neighbourhoods-gentrification

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RichP
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 9:35 am 
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zephyr
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 1:19 pm 
Great topic---Cyclopath. All this recent connectivity in the past couple of decades has had an enormous impact and will continue to do so.
RichP wrote:
There's a cure for that.
RichP this is an excellent article. Thanks for posting. Will add more comment later. up.gif ~z Edit to add: This article discusses ideas and projects of Tristan Harris a “product philosopher”. Some pull quotes: As the co founder of Time Well Spent, an advocacy group, he is trying to bring moral integrity to software design: essentially, to persuade the tech world to help us disengage more easily from its devices. ... Under the auspices of Time Well Spent, Harris is leading a movement to change the fundamentals of software design. He is rallying product designers to adopt a “Hippocratic oath” for software that, he explains, would check the practice of “exposing people’s psychological vulnerabilities” and restore “agency” to users. “There needs to be new ratings, new criteria, new design standards, new certification standards,” he says. “There is a way to design based not on addiction.” Here is a TED talk he gave in Brussels if you want to view a video clip. Yes, this is a long read. I could have done with half as much. I do have a smartphone, but mainly use it for texting/calls and taking quick photos. Sometimes the map comes in handy or asking Siri a question. But I was a slow adopter and only came on board three years ago. wink.gif Some good information here for web designers I should think.

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Ski
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 1:32 pm 
Cyclopath wrote:
"We already know the impact..."
It's had no impact on me at all. I still do not know how to use a cellular phone, and "cloud" is still something made up of water molecules that floats around overhead. The "impact" is easily seen in any supermarket checkout line or sitting at any intersection waiting for the light to turn green: shoppers focused more on their "smart phones" than the business transaction they're engaged in, and oblivious drivers tapping away sending "text messages" that must be far more important to them than paying any attention to the traffic around them. Rich, that was a very interesting article, and while the animated advertising boxes in the margins made their best attempts to insidiously suck me into reading about whatever it is they were trying to sell me, I've successfully managed to train my eyeballs to completely ignore the superfluous nonsense (in the form of advertising) on my browser screen. I confess that I feel honored to be considered one of many "troglodytes" who has neither the need of or knowledge about any of the "new and improved" means of communication via wireless devices. I am completely and totally removed from that universe; standing outside looking in and laughing at the fools "texting" their lives away on "social media" sites in search of that Holy Grail of more "like" emoticons. While the "internet", as it has become known, has allowed us the ability to source any kind of information about any subject with a few clicks on a keyboard, and given us the means to communicate in real time with other people around the globe, it has become (as did television) more a means to suck us unwittingly into being constantly bombarded with advertising for goods and services. We are no longer humans capable of independent thoughts and emotions; we are simply potential consumers. The recent talk about the acquisition of AOL-Time-Warner by AT&T should be clear evidence that complete control of our lives by a few gigantic multi-national corporations is the ultimate goal. It would appear Mr. Tristan Harris has experienced some sort of epiphany, having seen the darker side of "the man behind the curtain" pulling the strings. There was a man named Orwell who attempted to caution us about it in 1949 in a work that was required reading for some of us during our formative years. Please do me the favor of not "liking" my post. wink.gif

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Ski
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 2:05 pm 
A little anecdote to underscrore how stupid "smart phones" have made some people: Driving at 85 mph between Weed and Dunsmuir Saturday morning, I pulled over into the outside lane to allow the driver of a silver SUV (going at least 90) to pass me. He was holding his "smart phone" in his left hand and typing on it with his right.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Cyclopath
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 2:11 pm 
RichP wrote:
There's a cure for that. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-breaker/501122/
Thanks for the link! That was a long read. It's not talking about gentrification, though. This is an article about how the apps in our phones are designed to capture and hold our attention, even when we don't benefit from that. That's a real thing. But the other article is about how things like Uber and many similar apps allow property values to remain high in neighborhoods that have no real value of their own. If the laundry mat closes down, people can use an app to get somebody else to pick up their dirty clothes, wash them, and deliver them clean. If the mom and pop restaurant goes belly up because the rent keeps going up, well, Uber Eats can bring you a meal from another restaurant. Phones aren't causing any of this, for sure. But they're making it easier to happen, making it more tolerable to live in a world that isn't walkable because neighborhood-level local doesn't matter so much anymore.

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Cyclopath
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 2:11 pm 
Ski wrote:
Driving at 85 mph between Weed and Dunsmuir Saturday morning, I pulled over into the outside lane to allow the driver of a silver SUV (going at least 90) to pass me. He was holding his "smart phone" in his left hand and typing on it with his right.
That's not what we're talking about either. wink.gif

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Ski
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PostTue Oct 25, 2016 9:46 pm 
^ True, although I would argue that all things are connected. Going back to your original post above - the snippet quoted from the Guardian article - I'm not really sure if you're trying to make a statement or asking a question or just making an observation here, Cyclopath. In respect to the subject of "gentrification", I'm sure that for the affluent it's all fine and well. For those below them on the socio-economic ladder - those who are washing the windows on their high-rise apartments or peddling the bicycles delivering their take-out meals - where is their place in this grand scheme of things? History clearly shows that huge disparities in income levels and quality of life result in social upheaval. Pierce County spends over two thirds of its budget on "public safety" and law enforcement. ( numbers here - be sure to compare the dollars spent on "Sheriff" to those spent on "Parks" ) I suppose, however, if the putative "gentry" doesn't object to the lions' share of their tax money being poured into the bottomless pit of law enforcement and the justice system, so be it. Again, I'm not really sure where you were trying to go with this.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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treeswarper
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 6:29 am 
Your cell phone doesn't work very well here.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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Schenk
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 9:07 am 
Ski wrote:
^ True, although I would argue that all things are connected.
Nice pun Ski!

Nature exists with a stark indifference to humans' situation.
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NacMacFeegle
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 10:12 am 
Cyclopath wrote:
everything from cobblers (with the Shoe Drop app) and barbers (Shortcut, “Uber for haircuts”)
Cobblers were disappearing long before apps were replacing them - a casualty of our throwaway society. If an app could get people to repair their shoes rather than replace them then that seems like a good thing. A haircut app seems a bit weird to me - how does it work, tap a button and shortly a stranger bearing sharp implements shows up at your home?
Cyclopath wrote:
just how long will it be before the cafes charging extortionate prices for cups of coffee swoop in to take their place?
Despite the alarming rate at which coffee shops spring from the ground like mushrooms, there are only so many that a given population can support. Also, if many other businesses were to close I suspect coffee shops would be negatively affected by this. Fewer people out shopping means less business for them. However, I don't see apps driving physical businesses into extinction - though they will certainly take a bite out of their profits. The ability to watch movies at home didn't kill the cinemas - people go out to "brick-and-mortar" shops for the experience in addition to necessity.

Read my hiking related stories and more at http://illuminationsfromtheattic.blogspot.com/
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Ski
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 10:27 am 
Schenk wrote:
Nice pun Ski!
lol.gif it was. didn't intend it to be.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Cyclopath
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 11:08 am 
Ski wrote:
Going back to your original post above - the snippet quoted from the Guardian article - I'm not really sure if you're trying to make a statement or asking a question or just making an observation here, Cyclopath.
None, it was a quote from an article, it wasn't my observation or point at all. Sorry for not making that more clear. Here are some of my own observations: I used to work in Fremont. There was a really good Greek restaurant on one of the main corners, I used to walk there for lunch some days. Now it's a Chase bank. I used to live in Queen Anne, and shop at the used CD store. Now it's a Chase bank. There used to be a Kid Valley fast food restaurant, which is hardly a cultural gem, but at least was a local chain; now it's a Walgreens and that corner looks like any corner in any city in America. I feel like the city is impoverished for it, not so much for the Kid Valley though. And in the past I feel like neighborhoods needed things beyond housing, like affordable restaurants and laundry and groceries. But now a neighborhood can be a desirable place to live even when there's nothing there, because residents (who can afford to pay for it) can have whatever they like delivered to them, on a whim. I've known middle class people who've been forced by ever-higher rents to move further and further away from the neighborhoods they'd always lived in. And then they pay more for transportation to keep their jobs when they're pushed further from them.

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Ski
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 11:47 am 
Cyclopath wrote:
"...looks like any corner in any city in America..."
Funny you should say that. I had to drive down to California last week with my mother to attend a service for a family member. I pulled my camera out as we pulled off in Medford and snapped a shot looking through the windshield. My mother asked me why I was doing that. I told her that years ago, when I was working on the road, I would haul my camera along and take photos looking out the windshield in the different cities I travelled to. Somewhere around here, buried in a box, is a large manila envelope full of those photo prints. Some of them have been neatly trimmed with manicure scissors. They were for a project that got back-burnered about 20 years ago due to a major life change. The plan was to arrange them into a photo montage on a large panel (about 3 feet x 5 feet), the title of which was to be "The Homogenization and Mediocratization of the American Landscape". I suppose at some point (if I live long enough) I should dig through those boxes and finish that piece; it's just another one of many uncompleted works that got sidelined along the way. Short story: looking at the photographs, unless you turned them over and read the notes on the back, you couldn't tell where they were taken. Medford, Oregon looks the same as Hillsboro, Oregon or Boise or Logan or Salt Lake City or Denver or Pueblo or Cheyenne, Wyoming. The unique features which identified different cities have become overwhelmed by the proliferation of strip malls, fast-food outlets, and convenience stores. Pete Seeger noted it in a song years ago, although he was referring to the "little boxes" that were erected in the post-war housing booms of the 1950s and 1960s. Effectively the same thing has happened in the cities, with the exception of the behemoth monuments we refer to as "skyscrapers" that shape city skylines.
Cyclopath wrote:
"I feel like the city is impoverished for it..."
We are all impoverished by the cookie-cutter architecture that has become the norm at countless shopping malls and within urban cores. Chrissie Hynde spoke eloquently to the issue in a song that unfortunately came to be identified with an overweight AM-radio blowhard. I got banned on another forum for speaking to the issue of the proliferation of the mediocre architecture and design that has become the accepted norm. We've come to accept gargantuan edifices erected to commemorate the over-inflated egos of their financers, like the Darth Vader building in downtown Seattle, and view as acceptable the dismal excuses for "architecture" and "design" such as newly-built schools which more resemble correctional institutions than places of learning. This is the fault of City planners and architects and designers, but we are as well complicit in our acceptance of the mediocre. Nobody wants to be the little boy and step up to scream "The Emperor has no clothes!" It seems the days of the sort of genius seen in Louis Sullivan's "jewel boxes" are unfortunately behind us; we settle for the pop-up garbage design of Walgreens and WalMart and Kentucky Fried Bucket. And yes, it is all connected, even down to your wireless communication device.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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NacMacFeegle
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PostWed Oct 26, 2016 11:50 am 
Cyclopath wrote:
I've known middle class people who've been forced by ever-higher rents to move further and further away from the neighborhoods they'd always lived in. And then they pay more for transportation to keep their jobs when they're pushed further from them.
ditto.gif I have family members who have been and are being affected in this way. I think apps such as you've described are not so much a cause as they are a symptom of the problem. The real cause seems to me to be the ever growing wage gap and the decline of the middle class. The high cost of education, the deficiencies of the education system, the high cost of health care, poor zoning laws, and insufficient taxes on the wealthy are among the contributors to this. We need to dramatically raise taxes on wealthy corporations and individuals and put the resulting revenue into making education completely free and abolishing health insurance and making health care a government institution. Next we need nation wide zoning regulations aimed at making housing affordable, concentrating populations in cities, and reducing urban sprawl.

Read my hiking related stories and more at http://illuminationsfromtheattic.blogspot.com/
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