Raise the Hammer

Here are a few thought from 'Zygmunt Bauman' which may help in healing the damage that has been done from - poorly articulated desires to accelerate progress in our downtown core.

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"The most seminal consequence of the unprecedented urbanization of the planet is the elevation of 'living with strangers' to the rank of the most important of arts which humanity must develop and learn in order to survive."

"Living in the company of strangers prompts two contradictory sentiments: of mixophilia and mixophobia. The proximity of strangers arouses curiosity and attracts with its promise of new yet untested experience, of pleasant surprises, adventure, untried possibilities. But proximity of strangers also instills fear: fear of the unknown. Strangers, because of being strangers, are a mystery; it is difficult to be sure what steps they will take, it is impossible to read clearly their intentions. Mixophobia prompts an urge to separate, to hide in closely guarded 'gated communities' which only 'people like us' are allowed to enter, to build high walls and hire armed guards. Or, in the case of those who can't afford such costly investments, to frighten the unwelcome strangers away and bar them from entering by making one's own space a 'no go' area: by riots, violence and lawlessness of the place."

"Present-day massive migration that results in the accelerated urbanization is not caused by local conditions, but by global transformations. In this case, like in so many others, cities serve today as dumping sites for globally created problems, and there is only so much (much too little) that the elders of the city and its residents may do to resolve those problems while confined to their own limited resources. But cities serve today also as the laboratories in which the new art of living permanently with strangers is developed and experimented with, and as schools in which that art is learned and put to practical test. So, in the long run, what we presently gain in the cities, meeting strangers face-to-face and interacting with them with mutual benefit, may yet become a decisive factor in resolving the issues which on a global level, where 'strangers' appear as abstract entities in the equally abstract context of the 'war of civilizations,' seem intractable."

--from: "LIQUID TIMES: Living in an Age of Uncertainty - By Zygmunt Bauman

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