Ramble 1 and Ramble 2: Into The Heart of the City

This past weekend, (which also happened to be Thanksgiving weekend), I ventured into downtown Salt Lake twice; once as a passerby and once with my friend who was going Black Friday shopping.  When I was alone, I went to the Library and picked up a book on my way to Daybreak.  I was only there for 20 minutes, but it was still a very unpleasant experience.  For some reason, out of all the TRAX stops I have been to, the one at the library feels the most unsafe, though that isn't for the lack of people.  When I have a friend, especially if he is a guy, I feel very at home there, but when I am alone I feel extremely uncomfortable.  I feel uncomfortable because the TRAX station, as well as Library square, always have people smoking there.  Visiting the library for 20 minutes caused me to be nauseous for the rest of the day.

I also feel uncomfortable because of the people I encounter on the TRAX platform and on the small part of Library square that leads up to the North-west entrance to the library.   The people that I encounter there usually come in four groups: middle aged men that smell bad and look slightly homeless, people who are mentally disabled and their caretakers, couples that verbally abuse each other and bring strangers into their confrontations, and people who are alone that keep to themselves, who are usually in their twenties or thirties.  There is also the occasional group of outgoing high-schoolers, but they are less regular.  This is not to say, of course that the Library only contains those groups of people, but they are the only people I have encountered walking from the TRAX station to the library and back.  Most of these confrontations happen while waiting for the light to change so the pedestrians can walk across the street, either to or from the TRAX station.  Weirdly, almost every time I've gone there has been someone who is not quite right in the head who stands by the button to cross and pushes it at least 5 times.  I am always annoyed by the loud chirping sound it makes as it registers the button press, but there is nothing I can do.   I feel slightly appalled at myself for being scared to go to the Library, but I just don't feel comfortable during that small walk from the train to the building.  But then, I also need my books, so I go.

Another reason I think I feel uncomfortable there is because of the small outdoor space just before the door to the Library.  It says no smoking, but people always smoke there and the smell doesn't go away because the Library shelters that part of Library square from much of the wind.  It smells disgusting.  There are also benches lining the north part of the space, and a fence with a cliff at the other side.  Bikes are always locked to the fence, and they are always either disassembled, or part of them has been stolen/is missing.  I try not to look at the benches because I am afraid I am being watched.  When you are walking through that space you feel like the Library has turned a cold shoulder to you, because while most of it is sloping and round, you are entering at the tallest, sharpest part of it.  If you were in the south plaza of the library where there is a fountain and a lot of open space, it might be different.  Over there you almost feel like you are being hugged by the Library, but at the north entrance you feel like it's telling you to go away.  Then there is the greenery that is southeast of the Library.  There are benches and a bit of a rambling garden up there, but I try not to spend too much time there because I don't feel comfortable.  There are often homeless men there, and though William Whyte says that homeless men often don't make a difference in the use of a space, I avoid the garden areas because of them.  I can't speak for all women when I say this, but in my personal experience, homeless men, particularly overly friendly ones or ones that smell bad, make me very uncomfortable.  I suppose it wouldn't bother me if there were people who were not homeless men or smokers that frequented the gardens; I would feel more at home.

William Whyte also pointed out that some men tended to group together and lean against a wall and watch girls.  Though he pointed out that most girl watchers never speak to girls, I can't help but notice that this aspect of being in public makes me uncomfortable too.  I don't like being looked over like cattle, and I feel that it both encourages men's right to openly judge and rate women that they see in public, and also validates their right to speak to any in a proprietorial way, if they should feel the need to change something about the situation.

While walking from the library TRAX station to the next street west of it late at night, I discovered a plaza/courtyard.  It was inside of a building with the letters City Center I on it.  It looked creepy at nighttime, but luckily I had a friend with me.  My guess is that most people don't use this plaza, and most people don't even know it's there.  It was hidden from the street, and open to the public in just one direction.  Not good plaza building, according to Whyte.  Tsk tsk.

When I got on the train to take me away from the Library, I picked a bad seat.  There were two boys there playing shitty music loudly from their shitty phone speakers.  I am tolerant when it comes to most music.  I'll even sit there and tap my feet to country for a few hours if you want.  But I can't stand lazy or violent rap that has no meaning.  It was extremely discourteous of them to play music aloud, and they knew that, and they would turn it off if they thought someone was around who would catch them.  But they didn't care that they were being discourteous to other people because they didn't think about why people aren't supposed to play music aloud.  It seems that people don't think about why rules are there anymore, they just think about not getting caught breaking them.  Personal escape has taken precedent over public comfort.  But I'm just as bad as the rest.  I could have moved to spare myself, or I could have asked them to stop, but I felt too scared that I would offend them to do either.  I'm not sure how to address that, when the only solution is my not being a coward.

My other trip into the city with my friend on Black Friday took me to City Creek Center.  On the way there from the Courthouse TRAX station, we observed the seemingly public space on Main Street at the foot of the Wells Fargo building.   I noticed that the ledges there were made of a fancy, shiny, black stone, but they had protrusions on them to keep people from sitting or loitering there.

These pictures show some of the area between the Courthouse TRAX Station and the City Center TRAX Station.  The last is a picture of a supposed seating place at the Gallivan Plaza TRAX Station.  The seating place does not meet Whyte's observational requirements, and it was rather awkward to sit on because it faced away from the other convenient seating on the planter box and was not wide enough when used in the conventional form.

There was not much to see or do in that part of the city, and Gallivan Plaza, which is just behind the building, has a crowded ice rink in the winter, but is otherwise deserted.  Perhaps this could be fixed if there was a good opportunity for eating in the plaza, but people don't seem to think of that.  There are not too many take-away restaurants downtown, and hardly any food carts, at least in the places I visit.  However, the section of Main Street between the Courthouse TRAX Station and the City Center TRAX Station is trying.  It is painted green, which gives it a different feeling than regular road, and there is only one lane on either side of TRAX, which makes it more pedestrian friendly.  But I have never hung out there, and I probably wouldn't want to.  It would be very noisy from TRAX and the occasional car, and if I were to sit there for more than 10 minutes, a smoker would walk by and I would have to gag on the already polluted air until a rare breeze blew the smell away.  So, it's not a place I would voluntarily choose to spend my time, I only tend to use it for getting from one place to another.  I have no ownership of the street, an neither do any of the businesses that operate there, other than the occasional one that features a small outdoor seating area.  But again, given the choice, unless the weather was particularly fine, I would choose to eat inside.

Looking back at my own recounting, I would say that how a place smells matters a great deal to me.  If downtown smelled like delicious pastries all the time, I would go there more often.  If the library didn't smell like dried pee and cigarette smoke on the outside, I would spend more of my time there.  I suppose I'm spoiled because, relatively, the U smells good.  It smells like clean mountain air, and food, and clean laundry, and grass.  And it also smells like cars and pollution and smoke occasionally, but mostly it doesn't smell dirty, which is why I like spending time here.  Smell is an avenue that we haven't fully explored yet, and I'd like to play with it the same way we've been playing with lighting.  I also notice noise a great deal.  I love TRAX, but I wish there was a way to make it less loud and less hard to enjoy myself next to.  

An Aquarium Can Flourish Though the Sea is Dying

Over the semester, I've been exposed to a variety of unique ways that other people have chosen to implement change in their cities to make them just a little bit better.  Each time I see one of these ways of change, I feel disappointed with myself for not thinking of that first.  However, I also know that Salt Lake City is extremely unique.  It is filled with Mormons, which makes the social environment different from anything else in the world.  We are blessed with a foul smelling lake that defines the ultimate Northeastern border of the city, when it finally does expand that far.  We are also bounded in every other direction but straight south by vast mountains.  I like to think of these mountains as boundaries too, although the city does expand up onto their foothills in neighborhoods like the Avenues.

This outward expansion is disconcerting, because there is plenty of space existing within the bounds of the valley.  Suburbs, though an ideal part of the American dream, do not further a healthy social environment, as we have discussed in class.  Salt Lake City has a beautiful blueprint already laid out, and within this blueprint the city could blossom into a lively, contained metropolis.  The area we have to work with could be easily combed with public transit to make all areas of the city accessible.  We already have this beautiful grid laid out, which can be both a blessing and a curse.  The grid promotes uniformity, which lends itself to the assumption that all areas are and should be the same.  However, in order for Salt Lake City to become the city I see it as, each of the areas must embrace what they have that is unique.  The roads should not all be the same width, and some roads should not be roads at all, but public walking plazas.  Most public walking plazas that we have are not integrated into the grid system.

Unfortunately, the beautiful geographic blueprint that has already been laid out for us also serves to trap us in our own filth.  By this I am referring to the inversion, which happens in the winter months.  The mountains here, which are such an attractive feature for so many people, also hold us accountable for our pollution.  While the inversion makes me wish I didn't live where I do, I am also glad that we are held accountable for our awful pollution regulations and our higher-than-average commute distance/time.  If I lived in another city, I might own a car by now, but living here makes me see how irresponsible using a car is.  If there was one thing I could change about Salt Lake, it would have to be the pollution habits of the citizens.  Whether this means that my pinprick of change is expanding the public transportation network to include a TRAX line on Foothill or re-doing the entire city bike lane commute system, I know that my priority is to try to implement something that changes commute habits and the way that people think of the inversion.

The main categories that I can think of that we could implement change in are transportation, social space, social programs, forming a non-profit company, and natural landmarks (such as water).  There are so many directions that this project could go in, but I would ultimately want to change the transportation culture of the city.  To me that seems like a really big task, which the PRAXIS lab can't accomplish on its own, but hey, a girl can dream.  I am also struggling with my selfishness.  The easiest place/way for me to imagine change is close to or relating to the University of Utah Campus, because it is my genus locai.  I would love to put a TRAX line in on Foothill, and I would love to turn the area that forms a "T" at the base of President's circle on University street and 200 S into a red rock pedestrian plaza with a fountain and bustling storefronts.  However I feel selfish thinking of these things because they directly benefit me, and they benefit the rest of the city less. I'm not sure how to alter my perspective to encompass more of the city, because I don't use much of the city besides my little corner.  

The Absence of Shadow

There is no such thing as light, only the absence of shadow. 

Last year in my dorm room, I had an illegal candle (as in, housing regulations prohibited me from having something with a burnt wick in my room).  I would light it when I wanted to feel warm or when I wanted to feel more in-touch with myself.  It was extremely comforting to watch the flame light up a small spherical area on my windowsill.  I would often light it when I wanted to take a nap, as a silly comfort to myself that no monsters would get me while I slept.  I also hung a small strand of Christmas lights in my room, which, combined with the candle, gave great ambient lighting.  I hated the fluorescent light that resided in my ceiling.  It was large, rectangular, and though it was the brightest thing in the room, when I needed to see I still preferred to use my desk lamp, which gives off a lovely warm-yellow glow.  Unfortunately, when I started this year, I did not have a candle.  I got one recently, and I noticed that my productivity and confidence have gone way up.  Lighting it just makes me feel powerful and strong, and for as long as it’s lit, it’s easier for me to do my homework.  Not having it for so long made me realize how much I missed having fire as a constant part of my life.  How I feel about lighting elsewhere is just an extension of how I feel about my candle.  I thrive in spaces that are pleasantly lit, and feel scared in places that are lit harshly or in an unfriendly way.  Firelight gives me something to walk toward, and fluorescent light gives me something to walk away from—quickly.

                Moonlight is also sacred to me, in a different way than firelight is.  Moonlight is blue light, which is not usually considered ambient.  Most of the light I prefer to be in is yellow, but I also love the color of moonlight.  I have never had the chance to walk in only moonlight without other man-made lighting around, so I’m not sure whether it would make me comfortable or not.  However, I have sometimes gone up onto the mountains and looked out at the city at night, and seeing the city from far away while I am in the dark makes me feel safe.  I enjoy the beauty of the city because I am not surrounded by light. 

                Sometimes though, I like to be in spaces that aren't lit at all.  I would prefer it to be completely dark everywhere outside rather than have it poorly lit.  That way it is easier for me to quietly and efficiently keep to the shadows and avoid being seen.  If it is poorly lit I have no choice but to occasionally reveal myself to whomever may be interested in me.  The poor lighting also makes me feel jittery and hunted.  So, yes, I suppose there is something to be said for opting for no lighting at all.

                Shadows are another form of darkness that I find is undervalued.  So many of the shadows in the world today are binary.  What I mean by that is, the shadows are either there, or they are not there.  The shadows created by trees are analog; you can be in sun and shadow at the same time.  I like analog shadows because of the temperature change from sunlight to shadow.  If you’re not dressed exactly right for the weather, a shadow can make or break your comfort level.  In concrete jungles, analog shadows are practically nonexistent.  We are increasingly living in a binary universe, where you can have all or none, good or evil, and present or gone.  We are little encouraged to access the empathy that would let us have some, be both good and evil, and be there sometimes.  A little shadow appreciation here or there would go a long way...

The Theoretical Societal Wealth Baseline

As humanity progresses through technology and the automated age, we continue to reduce the amount of effort needed for an individual to live.  Once it was necessary for most people to obtain food for themselves, which took up most of that individual's energy.  Now, a portion of people collect food for the others, while the others perform different work like scientific research or building bridges, which is generally supposed to advance humanity.  However, I reason that there must be an attainable level of progress that could permit all people to work less and still live in comfort.  Right now, to attain a level of financial stability associated with comfort, you have to work extremely hard to advance over your peers.  If, instead of existing in a cutthroat system where competition for an excess of money means working extra long hard hours in order to earn that money, we were to reach a level of wealth in our species that would allow everyone to live in comfort no matter how hard they work, it would mean that our species has truly progressed.  In this ideal/future society, hard work could still be rewarded with excess wealth.  So really the main problem I see in current society is the focus on individual advancement, as opposed to the assurance of everyone's basic level of comfort.

Eventually, there will be too many people competing for the few jobs left.  Society will be so far advanced that most people will have nothing to do.  But I think that if we are that advanced, instead of rewarding the most competitive people with a way to make a living for themselves, everyone should live in a basic level of comfort, and people who want to attain more should be able to work for it.  However, the needs of everyone would be addressed before the wealth/individual achievement of the ambitious people.  Call me a communist if you like (however the correct term would be a socialist), I just see this being the natural state of things in the future.  Fuck you, capitalism.