The Urban Myth

I loved this week's readings in The Sustainable Urban Development Reader. They touched on many ideas that I had not thought about before. Specifically, I loved Dolores Hayden's "Domesticating Urban Space." I felt she gave me a new perspective on urban spaces.

"When nineteenth-centry men (and women) argued that the good woman was at home in the kitchen with her husband, they implied that no decent woman was out in city streets, going places where men went. Thus, it was "unladylike" for a woman to earn her own living. Because the working woman was no one urban man's property (her father or her husband had failed to keep her at home), she was every urban man's property. She was the potential victim of harassment in the factory, in the office, on the street, in restaurants, and in places of amusement such as theaters or parks."

- Dolores Hayden, 1984

I loved this excerpt because she's talking about 19th century culture, in 1984, and it has lost no relevancy to modern society. Recently a video has gone viral of a women who secretly filmed herself walking around New York City for 10 hours to showcase all of the sexual harassment she faced.

This video has created quite the conversation around what qualifies as sexual harassment, but I think the message of this video is that a woman can't walk down the street alone without it being a spectacle. To me, it does not appear that this woman can claim any ownership over the city she lives in. It almost seems like she's a visitor in a man's city, and everyone feels the need to acknowledge that. "Because the working woman was no one urban man's property...she was every urban man's property."

This got me thinking about the effect urban spaces have on this preconceived notion - that a city is no place for a decent woman. It can't just be that the type of people who live in the city are the type of people to sexually harass women, can it? I grew up in suburbia and although sexual harassment existed, it was not as outspoken and public. But suburbs appear to be much more domesticated than the city - they are clean and spread out. Not many people walk because everyone has a car. They are sterile whereas cities are seen as dirty havens of crime and filth.

Is it the fact that in cities there are more people walking around town, and thus more dirty and crowded, that make people more irritable or more comfortable catcalling? And if this is the case, is it the opposite effect in suburbs: less people walking around and cleaner streets mean less personal interaction and therefore less catcalling? 

Or is it that a large city has less governance and accountability, so you can get away with more. Maybe its that there are larger homeless populations in cities, and social issues in general are greater, so people are just grumpy and needy. Maybe there's just more people in cities and therefore more bad people who catcall. Or maybe the institutional racism that forced minorities to live in cities while white flight occurred, while not allowing them to work in high-paying positions or get a decent education, and then decades later moving back into the neighborhoods they occupy and increasing the rent so that they can no longer afford to live there, has finally taken its toll and created a hostile environment in cities.

What do you guys think?

I don't know what is is, and I don't have the money to do the research, so let's assume its any number of reasons why. But what is the solution? It's not just women who don't feel comfortable, either. Families and children are left out of many urban planning, too.

Perlman & Sheehan (2007) have many excellent solutions to making our cities feel more safe. Ensuring decent work and a basic income for all people seems to be the first step. More people working means less people in the street with nothing to do all day, which has got to be a net positive. 

Developing innovative infrastructure would be a great way to break up the monotony of city streets - give people something new to look at and change their ideas about who owns it, perhaps. Promoting intelligent land use is right along side this. The plaza from the video clip we watched in class belonged to all citizens of the city - not just the male or privileged. 

Fostering transparent governance is vitally important to securing a city's safety. In order to have any successful solutions, a city needs an effective governance set in place.

Overall, it seems the solutions come from changing up the infrastructure of cities and getting people out of their element a bit, while creating spaces for everyone in the city to live in together.

Fall Harvest Farmers' Market

On Wednesday I went to the Fall Harvest Farmers' Market at the Union. I found out about it from a listserv I'm on about food studies.

The flyer got my attention because of those two beautiful little words... "free" and "affordable". 

So I walked there with Sarah on my break and was impressed with the set up.

I'm sure many of you are in the same situation as me; I want to support local farmers and purchase fresh and organic produce, but I can't afford to shop at the Farmers' Market consistently. But this event was for the student population, so everything was discounted! From the fresh apples, pumpkins, cauliflower and other vegetables to the canned pickles, preserves, spreads and sauces - nothing was over $5! It was a steal and I wish I had brought a bag to take things home with, although I did manage to walk away with a can of pickles and raspberry preserves.

The cider and flatbread was delicious, too! It showcased how to use fresh veggies in a way that everyone loves - pizza.

Sarah and I were talking about how we would come to this every week if they had it. I'd like to know which farms these items came from. The canned goods came from Dillman Farms, but it doesn't look like they sell produce as I had originally thought. If IU could partner with local farmers and get them to provide discounted produce (perhaps what doesn't sell at market or if IU provides subsidies) I think it could raise awareness for local farmers and get people interested in understanding where their food comes from. Eating habits are formed in our childhood and are hard to break, but college is a very formative time for young adults and this forum could be very helpful in teaching healthy and conscious habits.

Step Three: Wiring

Rewiring the moped was the most difficult part of the rebuild and is actually what is still wrong with it right now. To begin to understand the wiring, I looked at several wiring diagrams. The moped is such a small bike that there actually aren't that many wires and connections to account for. What was difficult was tracing the wires to be certain full circuits were connected and dealing with the stater (I'll explain later).

This is what a wiring diagram should look like on a '86 Tomos.

 

When I purchased the bike the ignition switch was hardwired to "on", meaning the purple and yellow wires, on the left where it says "switch", were soldered together. This isn't a problem, it just means I need to lock it up with a bike lock because it doesn't require a key to start. What is a problem is that the speedometer didn't work. And the thing about electronics is that everything has to be on a complete circuit, so if one thing isn't working, the bike won't create electricity to start a spark to get the bike started.

So, I found a wiring diagram that more closely resembled the state of my moped and went from there.

This new diagram excluded the pilot bulb (speedometer) which was great, but it also excluded turn signals and the horn. My turn signals already didn't work but my horn was hooked up. So, I went through everything and corrected it to fit this diagram.

After getting that sorted, it still wasn't sparking. So now I had to look at the stater. The stater (called magneto in the images above) contains the points that create the initial spark. 

This is the stater, and as you can see on the left where the yellow wire connects, it has been soldered by the previous owner. This was concerning, but as it turns out what was wrong was the points weren't adjusted correctly. Now, what happens next was the excruciating process of adjusting the points. I will not bore you with the details, but if you are interested, the video below is a step-by-step guide of how I did it on my bike. 

After I finished that, it sparked! A few hours of tweaking later, it was running! I had officially rebuilt the Tomos by hand. This was a very proud moment for me.

...and then two days later it broke down. So it is now at the local moped shop, Wick's Wheels, and it should be finished next week. I am looking forward to posting about how life is riding it very soon!

Thanks for reading!

Where does the change occur in Climate Change?

These readings on climate change come just a couple of weeks after the 2014 UN Climate Summit. The event brought together global leaders to announce commitments to prevent global temperatures from increases more than two degrees Celsius. There are eight areas of action in which leaders chose to work on, including agriculture, cities, energy, financing, forests, industry, resilience, and transportation (un.org). The two-degree benchmark likely comes from the fact that a four degree Celsius increase in global temperatures will result in ecosystems drying up, extreme heat and weather events, sea-level rises, changes in weather patterns and food production (Roseland, 232). 

This is the 2014 UN Climate Summit's (awesome) promotional video.

These commitments include adopting absolute greenhouse gas reduction targets in cities, cutting natural forest loss in half by 2020, declarations to invest in renewable energy, among many others. You can read all about these commitments on their website.

Leonardo DiCaprio gave a speech at the event to rally policy makers.

The message I'm getting from the Summit is that we are past the point of change at the individual level having a significant impact on GHG emissions. We are in a place where only wide-scale, institutional policy change can neutralize the effect we have had on our environment. Yes, their promotional video is a call to action, but it is a little unclear who exactly needs to act.

Retrieved from here.

Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow discuss their solution to climate change - stabilization wedges that show how society can stabilize GHG emissions over the next 50 years (Wheeler, 173). Each wedge has a recommendation on how to stabilize that topic, and most of them suggest benchmarks that a governmental agency needs to set in place for automotive and other mechanical industries. 

Roseland points out that most of the GHG emissions come from our manufacturing industries (Roseland, 230). The graph below shows the changes in each GHG since the Industrial revolution. To me, this is reinforcing the idea that big manufacturing causes the bulk of GHG and therefore big changes must happen at a policy level to get the manufacturing companies to change their big ways. 

Taken from Roseland, 231.

Now, I firmly believe that individuals need to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint. But just to play devil's advocate... If everything is pointing towards policy-makers being the deciding factor in our ability to reduce climate change, why should individuals even try?

The People's Climate March recently took place in NYC where thousands of individuals came together to protest and raise awareness for climate change. This was one of the largest gathering of individuals on this topic to date. Jon Stewart covers the march on The Daily Show here. He wonders why people still need to raise awareness for a commonly accepted phenomenon, then shows clips from The United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology where U.S. representatives essentially try to debunk climate change.

Suddenly, it becomes very clear why individuals matter in policy change. If our decision-makers still don't believe climate change even exists, then the public voice and vote is essential in finding leaders that do believe and will act.

What do you guys think? Can individuals actually make a difference in stopping the increase of GHG emissions, whether through personal behaviors or advocacy? Or does it need to come from policy makers?

Just to end on a positive note, here is Jill Sobule singing global warming's theme song.

Step Two: Engine Rebuild

You may or may not know this, but mopeds only go around 25 mph. And since I want to make this my primary mode of transportation, I need it to go a little faster. There are things you can do to increase the speed, such as buy and install a new engine, which is what I did.

They are called bore kits and look like this.

You may remember this is what the engine used to look like:

That black part on the far left is what I replaced. This old engine is 49cc and the new one is 70cc. Basically what this means is that more air is able to get into the engine, making the explosion larger, making it go faster. Yeah, science! 

I'm guessing the moped can now go around 35-40 mph now, but since the speedometer is broken, I won't actually know. Maybe later I'll do some tests to try and figure out the exact speed...

It took a whole evening to put the new engine on. There are these tiny little pieces - see those G shaped wires? - on that thing that have to be stretched and pulled in the just the right way to attach. I kept thinking, how in the hell do mechanics do this?? I clearly didn't have the right took for the job (a pair of pliers) but after many frustrating hours, I got them attached and was able to put everything together!

The only problem was that because new engine is larger than the old one, it didn't quite fit. There was a piece of metal on the side of the bike that needed to be removed. So, what does one do at 11 o'clock at night when you're so close to finishing a project and there's just one thing in your way? Grind it off on your front stoop, of course!

Yes, Paxton is shirtless. But never mind that. I actually did the grinding to get it to fit, Paxton just came in as clean up crew to get rid of the sharp edges and make it pretty (I totally could've done that, just sayin'). 

So what I ended up with was this transformation:

 Ok, so I forgot to take a before photo.. but that's what it used to look like, the photo shown is just the piece on the other side.

Alright, now its time to put it on!

My engine selfie, and what it looked like post installation. By the way, headlights were a must for this project.

PARTS
Moped	$200.00
PAINT
Primer x3	$15.00
Yellow Pint x2	$20.00
Yellow Spray Paint x2	$10.00
Paint Thinner x2	$14.00
Sand Paper	$8.00
ENGINE	$200.00
TOTAL	$467.00

Here's the up to date cost. I didn't actually need to add on a new engine, I just wanted it for safety and travel reasons. I could have gotten around just fine on the old engine.

That's that! Next I'll post about electrical, and after that I'll get into life on the moped. It's still not working, but I think I know the problem now, and will get to work on it soon, just as soon as I have the time...

American Wasteland

Retrieved from here.

This week I went to see Jonathan Bloom talk about his book American Wasteland. His lecture was full of powerful statistics about industrial and residential food waste, such as the fact that there are 49 million food-insecure Americans presently and how 40% of food produced in America never makes it to American stomachs. In this post I'll highlight what I found most interesting.


Bloom starts by talking about the different ways food is lost in the production process. Production losses start with farmers, where food is left in the fields to rot. Produce gets left because its too ugly for consumer markets or because industrial machinery doesn't capture everything. Here is an npr story about gleaning, which is a way for that food to be reclaimed. Gleaning is when people gather up the left-behind produce at a farm site. Bloom shared personal photos from when he gleaned a ton of sweet potatoes with a group in his hometown. Numbers on food lost as this state is difficult because the USDA doesn't begin tracking food until it has left the farm.


After the food leaves the farms and goes to the packing plants, it is lost frequently to culling. This is when food is thrown out due to its appearance. It is deemed too ugly to be purchasable by consumers. Can we talk about how ridiculous a concept this is for a minute? The food we buy is THROWN AWAY if it is deemed ugly! I don't know about you, but my produce doesn't get framed and put in an art exhibit when I get home from the store, instead I devour it by crushing it with my teeth before digesting it for its nutrition. There's a movement in France called Intermarche where they are trying to decrease food waste by selling the "ugly" produce at a discount. Here is a video about it below.

I know this is ridiculous but you can tell that sometimes the ugly produce gets passed on by consumers. I would encourage all of you to buy that food! Its still delicious and nutritious, even if it is a little ugly.

Next food is lost in processing, when it is cut to edible portions. For example, when those adorable baby carrots get chopped down to size, there is a significant amount of carrot that gets cut off too. 

There are other losses, through distribution, retail stores and arbitrary expiration dates (Bloom says only infant formula is required to have a label) and food service. A graphic below shows food consumed versus food loss.

He goes on to discuss why we waste so much. Here he describes the usual suspects... over abundance increases waste at industrial and residential level... beauty - we value appearance over taste (which is funny, because I got my boyfriend who thinks he hates apples to eat a small Farmers' Market apple and he loved it)... and cost. Food is cheap. We spend less money on food than any other developed nation, due to subsidies artificially lowering the cost of produce.

One of the most interesting comparisons I think he did was show a Depression-era photo of people lining up to get food. He talks about how when society thinks about Americans being hungry, we think about the depression, and conjure up some image of city-dwellers eating bread and potatoes, etc. Something like this image:

But what we don't realize, is that people are still starving in America today. Like I said earlier, there are 49 million food-insecure people in America. We should start thinking of images like this when we think of hunger in America:

If you want to learn more about this topic, he has a blog with lots of great resources.

Step One: Paint

As I showed you in an earlier post, when I first got Lionel he was this weird orange color and all the beautiful chrome was painted black. After I decided I on a color to paint it (Sunburst Yellow) it was time to deconstruct!

As I would soon find out, this was the easy part. I started separating the pieces from the body. Every nut, bolt, rubber piece, etc. received a label and was put in a plastic bag for safe keeping. My boyfriend, Paxton, seasoned tinkerer and former Expert Tire employee, labeled them things like "rear fender left wing nut" whereas mine had descriptions like "stick thing to weird bolt on side." But, hey, we got there, and eventually everything was taken apart and had a legible label, at least to me.



Next, I began to prime. Primer is important because it sticks to the metal and the paint sticks to the primer. For this part, I used Rustoleum spray paint. We built a small painting station in our backyard out of old tarp and pvc pipe so that the overspray could be contained. I hung the parts from the ceiling of the tarp station using string and zip ties and began to paint!

Painting Station

I had to paint in shifts, since there was a limited amount of space to move around once there were some pieces hanging. So once the first batch was dry from a couple of coats of primer, I painted them yellow. For this section I used Paxton's paint sprayer and bought a pint of yellow paint. I mixed the paint with paint thinner to help it come out of the sprayer more smoothly.

Once they were dry enough to move, they were placed on the high-tech shed gutter hanging station, and in went the next batch. This went on for a couple of days until it was finally time to paint the body. Since the body is too heavy to hang from those strings, I hung it from a tree and put a tarp up behind it.

Next it was time to take off that awful black and red paint on the engine. I scrubbed for what felt like days with paint thinner, sand paper, dremel, or whatever else I could think of. Eventually, I got some pretty great results.

These aren't the best progress pictures but I was too focused on getting it done that I forgot to take photos. Eventually, all parts of the engine looked like the beautiful chrome you can see!

At last the paint was done! Now it's time to put it back together. This was much harder. Even though we had everything labeled, it took time to make the proper adjustments to put everything back together perfectly.

At the end of this stage it was just the body. There were no handlebars, engine, electrical, brakes, lights, etc. All that would come later. 

Running total:

PARTS
Moped	$200.00
PAINT
Primer x3	$15.00
Yellow Pint x2	$20.00
Yellow Spray Paint x2	$10.00
Paint Thinner x2	$14.00
Sand Paper	$8.00
TOTAL	$267.00

This is the cost at the end of step one. Next post, I'll show how I put the new engine on. Current status of the moped is not running unfortunately. After getting it to run for a couple of days, it died on me on my way home. I played around with it a bit and I can't figure out what's wrong. Today, I'm going to take it to Wick's Wheels, a local moped shop, and let them fix him up. I'm disappointed that I'm not able to complete this on my own, however I think the fact that I got him to start and run at all is impressive, so I'm happy with that! I'm limiting my car use to once a week, or for moped related reasons (such as taking it to the shop today). 

Hopefully it'll be running next week!

Thanks for reading!