Johanna Kelly-Activity #9

Johanna Kelly
Activity #9

The blogs that I visited were:

1) http://networkedblogs.com/3Erqz
This blog was very interesting because it spoke about a city in a near by state, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The blog describes the beauty of Pittsburgh and the many attractions the city has to offer. The blog describes how Pittsburg is identified mostly for its Super Bowls and other sports activities. However, it highlights that it has other features as well. It discusses how there are many “hidden neighborhoods” to see in Pittsburgh. The blog also included vivid photographs of the city and I never imagined how beautiful of a city it is.

It is very interesting that this blog mentions the incredible neighborhoods and even compares them to a “renaissance bloom.” I found an excerpt in Jane Jacob’s book where she speaks of Pittsburgh. “Thus a Pittsburgh study, undertaken to show the supposed clear correlation between better housing and improved social conditions, compared delinquency records in still uncleared slums to delinquency records in new housing projects, and came to the embarrassing discovery that the delinquency was higher in the improved housing” (Jacobs, 113). However, this was written over thirty years ago and this blog was written recently. Therefore, it is interesting to see how throughout time, neighborhoods in cities have changed. Neighborhoods in urban spaces that use to be considered dangerous and “delinquent” are now improved. I realized with this blog that it is very helpful to keep the status of your city updated in order for people not to think of it how it use to be but how it is now.

2) http://theurban.blogs.com/
This blog discussed issues occurring in Seattle, Washington. One of the main issues in this blog was about real estate investors buying old buildings and planning on changing them. This also includes in renewing these historic buildings. I quote directly from the blog, “After these changes, the building will have no chance of being listed as historic, and the developer or investor can then build a skyscraper full of condos for the affluent urbanite.” In this blog, this person expresses his true opinion on issues such as changing old buildings in the city. Thus, this brings more awareness to the people out there on the Internet in order to take action and to have opinions on these kinds of issues. Jane Jacobs would disagree with renewing old buildings and turning them into skyscrapers. As she quotes in her book, “Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them. By old buildings I mean not museum-piece old buildings, not old buildings in an excellent and expensive state of rehabilitation” (Jacobs, 187). She emphasizes on how old buildings are a major and positive contribution to urban life. It is important to preserve the old buildings and allow them to be used for their true purposes. This reminded me of the old fire escape buildings that are here in New York City. As much as it is nice to associate New York City with skyscrapers, old fire escape buildings are also a major part of the look of New York City.

I was glad to read this blog because it spoke about important urban issues that are occurring today. This blog brought attention to me how people do state their opinions on blogs in order to defend their city.

3) http://ctrlshift.co.uk/2010/05/05/craneloft-yorgos-rimenidis-michalis-softas/
I liked this blog because it discussed environmental issues in the city and how to reduce these problems. Interestingly, this blog is shared across the world from students in Volos, Greece. These students were basically sharing a proposal idea on their blog. They were planning an experiment in order to transform port cranes into lofts. The main idea of this project would be showing that this crane loft is a global friendly character. This blog highlighted the importance of reusing objects, structures, and engines that are left behind in the port. The blog included fascinating pictures of their plan for this construction. After reading this blog, it reminded me of the trip that we took to Freshkills Park. This is because it also talked about how to be more eco-friendly in our urban environment in order for there not to be so much garbage in the city. So this blog that I looked at showed how people in other parts of the world are looking for such solutions in order to take care of their urban environment.

4) http://shinelittleglowworm.blogspot.com/
I enjoyed reading this blog because it was separated into small excerpts that made it very simple to read. The author of this blog was a young girl who lives in San Francisco, California. However, based on her blog, it seemed that she traveled to a lot of different cities. For example, in her blog she wrote about her upcoming trip to Ireland and also visiting local areas in her state, such as Santa Barbara. The girl seemed someone I could relate to because she also lives in a big city however, she enjoys visiting new places. I compared myself to her because I also live in a big city, New York. However, throughout this semester, I have been visiting new and unfamiliar places that I’ve never been to or even heard of. The girl’s blog included photographs of the places she visited. It was an engaging blog to read because she spoke directly to the reader and made the blog completely relatable.

5) http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/
This blog was quite intriguing because it spoke about having farms in the New York City boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens. This was fascinating to me because I have never seen any farmland here in the city. The only farms that I saw were in the countryside of Poland. So it was very interesting to read the blog and actually learn that these kinds of things exist in my city. One of the biggest farms is located in Brooklyn Grange and it grows one of the nation’s leading vegetable producers. Ben Flanner started the farm; his plans of the farm are to grow tomatoes, eggplants, chilies, and various other leafy greens. In this blog I learned that the farm is located on the roof of an industrial building in Long Island City. This idea reminded me about the Freshkills Park project because the park is being built on top of piles of city garbage.

After examining these various blogs on the Internet, I noticed how they were closely related to our blog: http://sohoflaneurs.blogspot.com I left comments on these five blogs and made sure to post the link to our blog. Similarly, people also enjoy posting photos that is related to what they are writing about. My group and I also had a lot of fun during our field trips and we definitely made sure to post pictures up to make the blog come to life.