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The Chronicles of Benjamin Jamison 2. Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond. Shelve Diamond Mine. In , a young woman in love and a veil was kidnapped and found murdered in a small Missouri town. A priest took the fall, literally. But the FBI has now di… More. The Family Journal by Carolyn Brown. Something is incessantly born out of nothing.
Every micro-bubble becomes a world in itself. What is continually recreated is entropy. All we care scale, any bigger scale order actually, if it existed, it would be Fayard, You think this could be really sublime: bigness is always sublime. Quite the contrary. This is the definitive ar- limity in their time and communists were some absolute mod- tificiality: we produce only well-controlled acclimatised interiors.
Yet Relations to anything outside have disappeared. Vicinities do not they have failed. All is not lost though. Being superb at smaller scales is not a waste, it is not excessive. It is rather part of the spatial Space physics logic of entropy itself: the extravagant micro-particles take it all.
Actually, our cities of foams are rather collections of isolated ob- All that can be invested into the urban space now is invested in jects, floating in spatial fields where the only interaction is sheer their bubbles, which can thus flourish in full splendour. Splen- gravity: the one with bigger mass prevails. The only laws in effect dour in the grass. And what do excess or waste mean, when all here are the laws of physics. The city coalesces by accretion from is entropy? What is superfluous, when there is no order, there- simple elementary bubbles into discontinuous patches of agglom- fore no good measure either, to be exceeded?
They overflow overboard the compact city, The superbness of each of the elementary particles is part of but still keep close to it. The force of gravity is maybe weak, but how the urban space works when downscaled to the lowest lim- also implacable.
And, as relativity theory describes it, it is maybe its. It is a sure symptom that the absolute degree zero of space not even a force, but the warping of space itself.
What we have has been reached. From now on, the scale of urban order can here is simply the result of how spatial mechanics works. When physicists studied matter at its smallest scales, what they found was uncertainty, a lot of empty space, and some very ex- travagant micro-particles. It goes the same for the urban space reduced to its smallest scale, the degree zero of urbanity — such as the space of Romanian periphery. A normal apartment with 2 rooms cost about euro, in the city, not necessarily only in the centre.
It was the economic boom period, when every- body was building and the prices were extremely high. It was practi- cally the second apartment we looked at. S: And did it suit you? E: Yes, the price too, and we decided to buy an apartment here. S: Do you know the neighbours? Here it was much easier to make friends. We are all approximately the same age. S: Do you go out, at night? E: As far as free time goes, we prefer the city centre.
We theoretically work till five, and practically till six or seven. We would lose too much time if we would come home and then go back to town. According to Deleuze and Guattari, the frontier is a place of lib- The mechanism of creating private property was, initially and erty.
Should one open any book on town planning history, this inevitably, based on the right of inheritance. Meanwhile, after is one of the main striking ideas. This time, it was a the town walls, while at the same time, in Bucharest, those who Lockean type of mechanism, based on work.
With western mon- wanted to make illegal business simply had to move beyond the ey made from working abroad, Romanians had villas erected city entrance barriers! There, on the outskirts of the city, the for themselves or purchased cars to mark their emancipation. Our intention is not to find further explanations, Built in the proximity of neighbourhoods made of collective we are suspecting that behind this behaviour rests the need for buildings, the new suburbs of the post-revolutionary age have safety a house is indeed the expression of this basic need , but been perpetuating this archetype.
For quite a long time after also the need for social acknowledgement and personal pride. In fact, the Consequently, these people purchased some land and started to instauration within society of a new functioning mechanism have their houses built. Without bothering to look left or right, based on private property, cumulated with the widespread so- they just did what they thought best. Because town planning came attributes of modernity. Through these characteristics, suburbs to be associated with a communist-type social organization.
The are a continuation of a solid modernity; they are the expression desecration that occurred after affected many spheres of of a primordial shelter. In other words, if we semble in any way with the principles of urban public policies. Since in the old regime people failed to see where their The fact that, after so many years, the suburbs still do not benefit own individual interest lay within the collective good, the fact from the much-needed infrastructure emphasizes, on the one that now the only focal point was the individual interest did hand, the absence of local governance, and on the other, these not surprise anybody.
This is proof of should have been played by the authorities. This can be translated by the coming into a minority. Hence the question: how much can glued itself perfectly onto this mentality, whose origin lay in a dis- one learn, how much can one change and how can one do that? They found a good place for this freedom on the up and can trigger unexpected, perverted, dysfunctional effects.
In a way, this was a return to the state of than from his own mistakes? By seeking more freedom, the own- nature described by Hobbes, in which cooperation is refused ers of these houses found themselves caught in a network of con- and the presence of a Leviathan declined. Consequently, these ditionings and privations more powerful and constraining than suburbs, which came into being as a result of individual actions, the one governing the neighbourhood they had just left, which is are ultimately an expression of selfishness and, definitely, not of something that they could not have anticipated, due to their in- individualism.
Because what separates a selfish person from an substantial cultural capital. In other words, one could say that limitation: either the person cannot identify his own interest with at the bottom of this stands an insufficient collective intelligence in this greater common good, or he deems this action inefficient.
How did it come to this? By seeking autonomy and freedom in relation to the State, the villas: their size. What I found most striking when I visited such a inhabitants of the new suburbs chose an opponent that was dif- neighbourhood was the impressive size of the houses — a symbol ferent than what it used to be. The politi- point, as it used to be in the Modern age, but a finish point. And an and was reduced, as we have previously shown, to a trivial curios- accomplished personality is indeed the mark of the final victory!
I assume the owners had made some calculations on how much What is most unsurprising is the fact that all these houses look the building of the new house would cost, but I doubt that they alike, as they are all characterised by two common features. The ever pondered on how much their maintenance expenditures first of them is the fence. While marking the protection of the pri- would be. These suburbs are spaces dominated by fear, by the desire him, thus embracing the model of the extended Romanian family to keep oneself unseen by the others, to protect oneself from the of the past centuries, or that of the present lifestyle of the Roma.
He spent about 20, Euros communities, seems to be unknown in these parts. How can one on maintenance and when he finally started adding up all the ex- persuade these people to collaborate, if they are dominated by penses, he freaked out. Now he would gladly sell the house, but fear and lack of trust? Their problems are similar, but they do not he cannot find any buyer. This example indicates a problem. Should one stroll through our villages, one can find sheds that have a room to the right side.
The stable is connected to this room by a door, and on the other side of the stable there is the shed proper. The peasant and his family used to live in that small room. By living next to the stable, they were trying to cut down heating expenses and were also able to intervene quickly, if animals were to give birth. Back then, people had to sell milk or animals to get the money to build a house.
Time was not a problem, and the reward came, as Tocqueville described would happen in a desirable modern world, after long and strenuous efforts. That it would be worthwhile knowing how the owners managed to find the resources enabling them to raise such villas?
How they forecasted the future of their business? This is a much broader phenomenon, as it can be also seen at the level of office buildings and especially at that of buildings meant to be public institutions.
Or, this is where things start to get plau- sible. Our first guess is that the person never thought one bit about the maintenance expenditures of a house, since he had lived in a block of flats previously and that his first concern was his need of space, and definitely not maintenance costs.
Thus, the villa is nothing more than an apartment taken out of its natu- ral background — the block of flats — enlarged accordingly and having no connection whatsoever to the neighbouring buildings. Finally, it is possible for the owner to have been one to their real possibilities, but based on their wish to live a life of those initiated in the new economic game, for whom build- that was not theirs, the life not of those who were like them, ing a house involved no sacrifice and the inhabitation issue was but of those who were different.
Romanian women who worked not connected to the money-producing machinery. Where the as social assistants for wealthy families in Italy wanted to have idea of sacrifice is missing, the idea of value is missing, as well, houses like those of their Italian employers.
Thus, there occurred and, therefore, the building and maintenance costs cannot pos- a transfer of lifestyles into other spaces, transfer that has at the sibly have been important. They did that be- gam. To live like a football player, like a model or like a pop singer cause money-awareness had not been inculcated in their pre- became a commonplace dream, likely to come to life thanks to vious education — proof of the flawed, imperfect modernity in the present-day banking system.
Life, understood as an identity- which they were raised. In other words, the no- come of a certain type of political economy. Basically, people were no longer willing to However, this reality is now history and the scapegoat carry- postpone receiving their reward. All of a sudden, people realized they do not have enough money either to finalize the Should one look at other countries — some of which more pros- building of their house, or for the infrastructure.
Hence, they re- perous than ours — one can see the same phenomenon, which quested the support of the local administrations for space plan- in Romania can be explained by historical factors, taking place ning. Promptly, the administrations discovered that the respec- over there, as well, even though these societies have not under- tive buildings had been erected without an authorization. They gone the same social-political experiences as ours. One might did so not out of legal prudishness, but because of the lack of then ask if there cannot be yet another explanation, one related available resources, the idea being to hush dissatisfied voices.
Let us explain. Fifty years ago, when people an irritated face when approaching their electorate. The democratisation of desire, a phe- ing body, supposedly having nothing to do with management. Therefore, we might witness a control transfer from classical coercive means making use of physical force or money to more subtle control means, such as values.
The consequence? Those 15 operating with values, namely the media, became increasingly powerful in the public sphere. This change in the domination inadequacy of the political system facing a new reality. The is- type by controlling time is related to the economic logic of capi- sues that used to be solved within specialised institutions, fol- talism, of the added value law, as it was defined by Marx in Capi- lowing long public negotiations, are now dealt with late at night, tal, as being related to the decrease in the work time socially on television.
Moreover, it seems that nowadays, no one is will- necessary to produce a good. How far derived from that of the market and audience. These new inte- are we going to push this refusal? Shall we answer to extremism grators are legitimised by clear-cut financial measurements, by through extremism, thus heading towards a world in which any their audience and advertising. Are we going to sacrifice our freedom on the basis of financial means, and those who control time and now for a bit of extra security and comfort?
This is in line Bibliographic notes: a wild rabbit ran from one property to another, those involved with a Foucauldian interpretation describing the sovereign medi- Bauman, Zygmunt, Mo- gathered together to discuss the need to reform the State.
Are we nity, between security and freedom. ART, I consider it an apartment block. This is why the address is 5H Sub Cetate Street.
The other row is 3H, 5H, 7H … H is actually the house, and the number is the row. The houses are alphabetically ordered. Our complete address is 5H, apartment 2. Superbia: But if you call a taxi, they know how to get here, right? C: Yes, they learned. Every bad thing has its good part. Because the cars are parked on both sides of the road, you have to drive in slalom to get here. This implies low speeds, so the children are actually safer here. S: Do you know some particular mothers, with whom you talk to or sit together with the children?
C: We are all quite alike. This family has a lot of land and they retired here because they found the area good for them. Most of our neighbours are years old, with small children or they are planning to have children. Just a little bit up the road a family moved in with 2 small children. At the end of the street there are 4 families without children, but planning to have some.
You have your own intimacy, but at the same time the surroundings form a unitary atmosphere. We found the house in the newspaper: square meters constructed, with garage, courtyard… S: So it was exactly what they promised.
C: Yes. A: There were small differences. C: Because the plots were smaller, they had to adapt the same project to the different plots, reducing cm here and there. A: cm from the kitchen or from the living room. Two houses are never identical. Instead, one finds a conflicting and differences are more important than the overlapping. Moreover, unpredictable land. A phenomenon worthy of criticism, but un- in order to be able to overcome our professional bias and cyni- doubtedly inciting.
As architects and town planners, we have certain knowledge of the new peripheries, either through projects or by walking Suburbanisation, as a process, is replaced here by something around.
The most important difference between During discussions, these places invariably raise criticism, a the two lays in the fact that the latter does not exclude the un- vague shame and, in the best of cases, a sort of ironic curiosity.
Suburbanisation — a pejorative term for recent urbanisa- Writing about the recent suburbs in Romania is thus a challenge, tion — essentially tames the next piece of land; it is, on another in the sense that it seems difficult to understand them at first scale, the known neighbour who, until recently, had a garden glance other than as chutes full of town planning and architec- and now has decided to start building on it.
Colonisation is, on tural garbage, ignored, somewhere at the end of the city, where the contrary, an adventure, and as such, it is equally triggered by good quality architecture can only be found as an exception. This promises and threatened by dangers. Maybe even more relevant is why we decided to visit these places, either by car, by bicycle for us, it has an open ending.
A few years ago, the officials of Sibiu were it already has a tradition. The second conclusion: the new pe- ready to include in the city a large landscape ca.
One can find similar examples, and the new peripheries. Equally, that is no matter their location, di- city dissolving into the landscape. However, in order to be able mensions, available facilities, type or way of occupation etc. In other words, they create a territory of uniform urban sig- plot, homes of all sizes come one after the other: from ten-floor nificance, vague and with restrictions limited largely to existing blocks, villas for several families and one-family houses of all topographic challenges.
The permission to occupy these lands only depends on technical In a society living predominantly in rural households and social- and bureaucratic formalities, which are relatively uncomplicated, ist-era blocks of flats, the new peripheries seem laboratories for and one can obtain them as a private individual. The increased testing little known habitation forms: aligned houses, terraced accessibility in obtaining bank loans and the co-enthusiasm of houses, multiple-level apartments, penthouse apartments etc.
The new territories must be explored plotting action of the s, neighbouring on the opposite end in the proper sense of the word: since they are not covered by the central area of the city. The land cannot be considered neither urban, nor rural, nor a landscape, Even today, in relation to the set of morphological, typologi- despite the fact that it contains all three.
Lacking any order and mediation, plot beside tally different structure. So what are the differences between the Suburbia, in its generally of the new residents do not know for themselves, but only imag- accepted meaning, and the new peripheries of the Romanian cities? Most of the apartments in the dle of the middle-class family, and even — what triggers the most new residential complexes are sold even before the start of the criticism — a place of uniformity brought to boredom, even if it construction sites.
Using credit, that is, virtual money, people is good quality boredom. By contrast, living in the peripheries buy scale models and graphic illustrations, that is, virtual homes. But the most important unknown element, for apartments look bigger than they are etc.
Renaming places helps both optimists and pessimists, is its development in time, a thing annulling the context, thus the unwanted reality. A simple inven- radically opposed to the planned immobility of most suburbs.
Despite being new, the neighbour- hood they moved into was known to them, in the sense that Real estate commercial, September the they were familiar with a certain residential typology and a cer- pieces of furniture are tain lifestyle. Determined by their wellbeing, by demography or depicted on a different simply on a whim, the new owners were taking an aware step scale than the apartment, making the rooms seem towards something obviously better and in the same time within much bigger.
The dimen- their reach. Compared to them, most residents of the new pe- sions of inner spaces and ripheries are taking a brave leap into the unknown. Just like their the degree of completion grandparents, they want normal and simple things: a better life, are the most appreciated qualities of homes on the a happy family, the tranquillity of their own courtyard, social Romanian real estate standing, a safe property etc. Yet, unlike their forefathers, most market. The lack of public space Common rules vs.
In the new suburbs, common, but governed by rules. The disadvantages of their creation are obvious space, lays at the foundation of community formation. There and the arguments against them are too well known to be de- are self-aware communities, which recreate, on a suburb scale, tailed here: the alienation of the inhabitants through isolation, the symbols of the larger community they consider to be part the fragmentation of the landscape, the rendering of the city of, namely that of the city.
Public areas, squares and neighbour- ugly, infrastructural and ecological costs that cannot be covered, hood plazas scaled down replicas of the city centre coagulate social risks on the long run etc. Beyond the criticism — otherwise funded and useful — one also needs to shed a different light on the matter, searching for The new peripheries are an area of manifestation of individual- qualities or, at least, for opportunities.
From a quantitative point ity and pioneering. The families that retreat here subject them- of view, the new periphery is the most important visible prod- selves to a situation of refuge on their property, which they try uct of the society we have lived in for the past 20 years.
This is to protect from the vicinities. The inhab- itants of the large block- of-flats neighbourhoods move in places where not long ago they went out for picnics. Following the administrative measure mentioned in the begin- For this reason, instead of offering conclusions, we aim at continu- 1 according to a classifi- cation created on a glob- ning of this text, from a statistical perspective, Cluj is now in the ing our exploration of the new peripheries.
The aim of knowing and al scale by the MioTech- top 10 greenest cities in Europe! According to the part of nature, still, it has not become a city. In the end of the 90s, the urban perimeter of Cluj was clearly divided in a relatively compact urban body and several hundred hectares of untouched landscape.
A city that is a focus of controversy: criticised by the NGOs, promoted by real estate agents, regarded with bewilderment by the administration and largely ignored by specialists. However, we all agree on two things: 1 the new peripheries are an irreversible reality and 2 their development seems impossible to foresee and even less, to control.
How could these areas be integrated in the city? In order to answer these questions, the first step is to integrate the new peripheries and bring them in the focus of public and professional discussions. We stayed in Cluj for 3 years, renting a bachelor flat in the Grigorescu area. After that we looked for an apartment or house to match our desires and expectations.
In the city we found old and expensive apartments, not very well taken care of. We wanted to be able to do the finishing the way we wanted, but the prices were the same as for this house. We have a small courtyard that makes all the difference. S: So you also have a garden? When we started the construction work here, it was just the corn and us. S: How many houses are in a row? On the one hand, they crowded us with the blocks and population, but, on the other hand, we were also lucky, because this is why the entire infrastructure was made.
It was just a village road going to a field of corn. It seems to me that, more than any sta- lands, industrial areas dating back to the socialist era, groups of tistics or territorial analysis, the things mentioned above indi- villas and remains of the former villages once surrounding the cate the chaotic development of peripheries and the non-urban capital. Maybe, as we shall see at the end of this article, these developments also indicate a pos- The building is modern, with glass curtain walls, air conditioning, sible change of paradigm and the changing of a wild suburb in a super communication technologies and employees in suites, but sort of city, in fact just as wild in itself.
It is the Of course, no suburb in the world is coherent, but in compari- same solution employed by the residents of the nearby villas, son to the scale of development of metropolises in Southeastern but on an aberrant scale. One day, all employees in the building Europe which did not undergo Communism, such as Athens or received a message on the intranet in which they were being Istanbul, the Romanian phenomenon might even seem benign.
Just like the house owners, the companies patiently await tions, their departure from all planning and infrastructure proj- for the administration to build the necessary networks. The passionate taking over of western schedules in order to relieve some of the monstrous traffic jams models comes in contradiction of principles with their deeply at the entrance.
One company, a bit further away, ensured for non-western and, eventually, non-urban implementation. Villas were built leading to segregation and collisions, the destruction of natural envi- on gradually bought village lots and former agricultural fields. Eventually, as absence of public space. Ironically, the first inhabitants of the subur- and sometimes overlapping of functions and, secondly, an increas- bia ended up in the blocks of flats they wanted to run away from, ing density.
Either way we look at it, these are typical elements for not as a form of politically imposed habitation, but as a prod- the city and not the periphery. Maybe the explosion of the scale uct of the market. Of course, nobody planned buildings with and the sudden creation of new functions during the last years in- adjacent functions such as shops, schools, kindergartens and dicate not only a galloping deterioration of a territory, but also the churches, therefore, these started to be built strictly as a result tendency to city production, aberrantly yet authentically.
The raising of land prices and the acquisi- is a city lacking in urban character, a city that does not deserve to be tion of most of the plots inside the city which, in any case, were thus called. Instead of accepting passively what is happening or, on even more expensive , were the main reasons for the erection the contrary, trying to control it which has proven to be impossible , of isolated buildings and office complexes.
Obviously, rules should be set; leaving ing and the troubles are but a small price to pay in comparison to the everything to the market, as was the case until now, would be expected increase of value. However, I think that, especially in contexts such as the Romanian one, regulations that are both What is the result so far?
I mentioned before the almost identical restrictive and permissive might work better. Such areas might host, when the authorities will allow it, the public equipments on local or metropolitan scale. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Acceptance and access are key, says Myles E.
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