On Fighting Against Hegemonic Urban Development

Disinfo
Jacob Sloan

BayOfRage reveals infrastructure and redevelopment projects in Oakland (and beyond) as a means of reshaping cities for social control:

Further development will not open space for meaningful social activity and will only constrict it — In the slew of development projects coming down the pipe, residents will be free to consume, travel to and from work, or stay inside to not bother anyone.

Mistakes in architecture will never be repeated in future developments. The UC system learned the danger in building large plazas where dissident students could gather during the free speech movement at Berkeley. University of California campuses built since the sixties are subdivided into a number to smaller campuses, to better contain and neutralize student revolt. Housing projects are built to make the space transparent and easily surveillable, often by the administrators of social services. Likewise, we can be entirely sure that the city of Oakland will never allow the construction of another space like Oscar Grant Plaza, where thousands of people were able to gather, meet their needs and organize an assault against capitalism.

Development, on its own, is only the evolution and transformation of the metropolis: The adaptation of the city to its present circumstances. This evolution is often predicated on facilitating new techniques of control and policing. That is to say, behind the smokescreen of politics, power is every day being consolidated, the production and reproduction of life is being controlled in the physical space of the city. New neighborhoods are being built to be better policed. Narrow pedestrian walkways and alleys are being replaced by wide paths for wheelchair access, yes, but also for police vehicles. Broad boulevards and gridded neighborhoods exist to simplify and reduce traffic congestion, yes, but also to mitigate potential urban uprisings.

As the entire physical space of the metropolis is constructed to reproduce a certain set of relations (capitalist, patriarchal, alienated), the entirety must be destroyed or subverted. In other places in the world, social antagonists have understood the need to attack infrastructural projects.

NO TAV activists in Italy have been opposing the development of a high-speed rail line since the mid-90′s. In Canada, indigenous communities have responded to attacks on their autonomy with rail line and highway blockades. More recently, in Greece, the opposition to a garbage dump in Keratea that was mandated by the IMF did much to destabilize the economy in that country. Current anti-colonial struggles reveal the same set of practices. The Afghan War Logs released by Pfc. B. Manning show a strong pattern of infrastructural sabotage by insurgents in Afghanistan, primarily of transmission towers and oil pipelines. The question to pose locally: How can we shift a narrative of struggle against gentrification to one of attack against development, and how can we expand that struggle to take on anti-infrastructural dimensions?

By focusing on the material situation in the city, we can direct our attacks against the apparatuses that reproduce society. The power to reproduce the misery of society is exchanged in the material realm, not in politics. The success of anti-infrastructural projects is that they actually disrupt the spread and strengthening of empire, rather than engaging on a spectacular level.

Bad gas: 100,000 could be affected

Sun Times
Carrie Napoleon

When he got in his 2004 Chevrolet Blazer to head off to work at his retail job in Hobart, Ind., the engine would not turn over.

“The car violently shaked back and forth and wouldn’t quite turn over. There was heavy smoke coming out of the tailpipe that had a real foul smell,” said Hussey, of Chicago.

He finally got it going and headed to Mike Anderson Chevrolet in Merrillville, instead of work. He was behind six or seven other motorists experiencing the same problems.

Hussey is one of what could be more than 100,000 motorists to get a batch of bad gasoline blended at the BP Whiting refinery and shipped to gas stations throughout northwest Indiana between Aug. 13-17.

BP on Monday issued a recall of the tainted gas, citing a “higher than normal level of polymeric residue” in the 2.1 million gallons shipped during that period.

The problems have attracted the attention of the Indiana attorney general, Greg Zoeller, who said he wants to make sure consumers’ rights are protected.

The affected gasoline could cause starting problems and other related issues in vehicles, the statement from BP said.

Lee Stahr, service foreman for Mike Anderson Chevrolet, said the dealership already has serviced more than 100 cars with fuel-related problems.

The most common repair involves draining the tank, flushing the fuel system and cleaning the injectors. That costs between $500 and $700 in most cases. In some vehicles, more extensive work is needed.

Hussey’s costs for repair work — about $1,400.

“I just spoke with a representative from Speedway,” Hussey said Wednesday. “I was never able to get through on the phone lines at BP.”

He did use the company’s website set up specifically to handle consumer complaints relating to the fuel recall — www.bpresponse.com — to file a complaint but he has not yet received a response.

“They claim they guarantee every gallon. I’m expecting them to make it as difficult as possible for people to receive compensation,” Hussey said. .

On Wednesday, Zoeller said: “Our office opened an investigation regarding the BP gasoline recall in order to protect the significant number of consumers impacted.” He added: “We are closely monitoring the response by BP. . . ”

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Study: Lifespan Declined In Hundreds Of U.S. Counties

Free Internet Press

Intellipuke

Americans are living longer, but not in every corner of the country. A new study shows that in hundreds of U.S. counties  - mostly in the South - life expectancy has fallen.
The researchers believe problems like smoking and obesity are partly to blame.

"There are enormous variations within the country" said Dr. Christopher Murray, a University of Washington researcher. He's a study author and an editor of the online journal, Population Health Metrics, which released the study Wednesday.

Overall, life expectancy in the U.S. is at an all-time high. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that a baby born in 2009 could expect to live 78 years and 2 months.

The CDC doesn't calculate estimates by county; Murray's research covers 2000 through 2007 when U.S. life expectancy grew a year to nearly 78.

A federal expert in these kinds of statistics said Murray's methods were sound, but the findings aren't terribly surprising.

The U.S. estimate actually dropped from 2004 to 2005, noted Bob Anderson of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Given that downward blip - and the fact that statistics fluctuate more when you're dealing with smaller populations - it's not unexpected to see some declines at the local level, he said.

The study found that life expectancy for women fell significantly in 702 of the nation's more than 3,100 counties. The largest declines - by nearly 2 years - were in Mississippi's Madison County, near Jackson, and the adjacent Hughes and Okfuskee counties in eastern Oklahoma.

Life expectancy dropped for men in 251 counties, by more than 2 years in Kentucky's Perry County in Appalachia and Mississippi's Madison.

In 158 counties, it dropped for both men and women. In some cases, counties with plummeting life expectancy were next to or very near counties with rising longevity.

There is some debate about why life expectancy estimates rose and fell more in some counties than others.

Murray and his colleagues said they checked issues like poverty or racial makeup, and those didn't explain the difference. They believe high rates of obesity, smoking and other preventable health problems may be main reasons.

Some experts disagree, saying the findings may be tied to the availability of good health care or with the migration of healthy people from one place to another.

Perhaps young blacks and whites are leaving to go off to college or work somewhere else. "That leaves the least educated and the least healthy" back in the original counties, Anderson said.

Or, in some places, the arrival of healthy Hispanic immigrants may be the reason, said Dr. Roger Rochat, an Emory University public health professor and trained demographer.

But Murray said his research finds migration theories are not the answer; there's been little movement in or out of most places with the lowest life expectancy.

The counties with the largest increases in male life expectancy, though, were metro areas lush with jobs and universities - almost four years in Georgia's Fulton County (Atlanta) and more than three years in New York City, Washington and nearby Alexandria, Virginia.

For women, the biggest jumps - 3½ years - were in Alexandria and a Wyoming County that includes the affluent Jackson Hole.

Curiously, third on that list was Louisiana's Orleans Parish even though it included the 2005 devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. A large number of healthy women could have stayed in the city or returned the next two years, said Rochat.

"I think it's a change in who's living there," he