May 1st - Light

This is really nice reading. I had read something about the nuclear shelters on New York City a while ago, and at the time they were built it certainly made sense that it should be so, as people within the military really believed in a possible attack from the communists.

I think this book makes a lot of sense if we look at things in the social order perspective. To plan and build a city in a way, for instance, that would enable a fast and effective intervention in case of chaos, and at the same time making it hard for those who might be thinking of disturbing the order of the polis, is an idea that has a solid rationale behind it, and historical instances to prove it right.

However, the history served implementation purposes, but when the entire idea proved itself not effective, why would military insist on it? Much like the reading from last week (which I can now safely consider the best of the entire course), it seems like the military would not like to give up their prominence in matters of social order, even if its primary role is to defend the country from external forces.

In the case of a possible, atomic attack, what difference would it make how fast people could run out of a city? It seems that, in any event, the military minds were looking at a cost management, rather than a strategic plan. By allowing people form the suburbs to run away without help, they could intervene in the most 'important' sectors of the society.

My main question is: is there something that, in the minds of city planners, would trigger a mass displacement of people in a city other than a foreign attack? If so, is it a threat to democracy as it has been conceived? Perhaps the downfall of a military urban model is not the impossibility of maintaining the social order, but the idea that urban planning is an entity that has a well-defined objective in itself, and not a developing process that involves the people that are mostly affected by it.

I might be wrong here though, and appreciate comments on this posting. I really struggled to get to the point of this book. I may not be in class to ask her about it next week...