ocean howell

[Blue Fescue]

While I agree that education doesn't always equal smart Architectural/Landscape Theory is not something that you can slide by on.  Especially urbanism, which is a high profile subject in arch/land right now with emerging theories being tested and debated.  A Phd from Berekely, which is a good design school, is not easy to obtain.  Even as an undergrad the work load is 7 days a week 10-12 hours a day and it is normal to sleep in the studio.

[sheffledge]

some people are good at making thier bodies move to manipulate thier boards into stellar feats

some people can rap (have you ever heard jadakiss or nas talk in an interview? the nigga sounds like he just escaped to the north and not so as so much as seen a fukkkin school ever

the pressure of the pull of the street cred vacuum sukkks these very articulate, intelligent, brilliant negro kings into a niggery abyss of 'real world' thug life and homage to the ignorant

thing is

these niggas aint ignorant anymore

they are ignorant on purpose

but they make alotta money 

yet listen to how they talks over a beat

that shit aint easy

thats work

some people can flip the shit outta a burger

some people can convince you to buy shit you never thought of

some people use people

some people can shoot a basketball

some people can keep track of shit real good

some people lie for a living

some people can drink alot of beer

everyone is good at something that someone else is not

intellingence cannot be measured

even when dealin with mental retardation

we have no idea what is going on in thier heads

if they had the resources to accomodate thier conditions in a society of just them

would they still be regular

 to me its more like you know what you know

and your good at what your good at

however

everyone doesnt speak on shit and let you know how they feel

there are more silent geniuses than those that are recognized for whatever knowledge they shared with the world

most people are never heard

some people share some truly stellar thoughts

[Blue Fescue]

WTF!!!!!!  Fuck your rich neighborhoods! It's about fucking time something was in favor of the underdogs!

HONESTLY FUCK THAT DUDE THEN IF HE'S REALLY TRIPPING ON THAT! I was born in that neighborhood and had to move because it's just too expensive. So some fucking artsy rich dude( who doesn't have any roots there) is mad cause his son don't have delores park to play at? Let's just roll out the red carpet even more for the rich. As if frisco doesn't throw enough rose pedals under their feet.

You are looking at it incorrectly.  In urbanism the development of public spaces is good (poorer neighborhoods in this case).  I haven't read it but would go out on a limb and say that he is promoting how the poorer areas have developed in terms of community while the rich areas are a clear cut example of what not to do.

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

I don't want to jump to conlusions but...  He moved into  the city  and thought he should question why the poor kids in the neighborhood I was born at have something more to play with now than syringes in the gutter.

I don't know if I can respect someone like that.

[OttoMaddox]

Expand Quote

Ocean Howell, Architecture
Ocean Howell is a Ph.D. candidate in UC Berkeley’s Department of Architecture. He holds an M.S. in Architecture from Berkeley, and a B.A. in Modern Literature from UC Santa Cruz. Ocean has worked as an editor for Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Company, where he created a series of books on Community Building. His dissertation research examines how various conceptions of “publicness”—and their spatial expressions—have factored into the uneven development of San Francisco. Using San Francisco's Mission District during the twentieth century as a case study, the project asks why this predominantly Irish, and now Latino, working class residential neighborhood has flourished with public spaces and institutions—an armory, a Carnegie library, Progressive Era playgrounds, baseball stadiums, a theater district, among others—while during the same period the city’s elite residential neighborhoods have contained virtually no public geography.

[close]

WTF!!!!!!  Fuck your rich neighborhoods! It's about fucking time something was in favor of the underdogs!

HONESTLY FUCK THAT DUDE THEN IF HE'S REALLY TRIPPING ON THAT! I was born in that neighborhood and had to move because it's just too expensive. So some fucking artsy rich dude( who doesn't have any roots there) is mad cause his son don't have delores park to play at? Let's just roll out the red carpet even more for the rich. As if frisco doesn't throw enough rose pedals under their feet.

I really don't think anything negative is insinuated by this project.

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

 project asks why this predominantly Irish, and now Latino, working class residential neighborhood has flourished with public spaces and institutions—an armory, a Carnegie library, Progressive Era playgrounds, baseball stadiums, a theater district, among others—while during the same period the city’s elite residential neighborhoods have contained virtually no public geography.

from that quote it don't sound like it. My bad if I'm wrong.

[bert]

I don't want to jump to conlusions but...  He moved into  the city  and thought he should question why the poor kids in the neighborhood I was born at have something more to play with now than syringes in the gutter.

I don't know if I can respect someone like that.

What he seems to question is the lack of public (as opposed to private) space in the richer areas.  How is that bashing the poor?

[OttoMaddox]

project asks why this predominantly Irish, and now Latino, working class residential neighborhood has flourished with public spaces and institutions—an armory, a Carnegie library, Progressive Era playgrounds, baseball stadiums, a theater district, among others—while during the same period the city’s elite residential neighborhoods have contained virtually no public geography.

from that quote it don't sound like it. My bad if I'm wrong.

It seems he is investigating what about this community allowed it to "flourish" while other areas with more bountiful financial resources did nothing.  I don't see how this is negative; he seems to be saying that this area is unique and culturally significant while rich or "elite" neighbourhoods in the city lack any unique or interesting qualities/ public spaces.  I really don't think he is 'mad' about this, quite the opposite I'd assume based on reading his articles over the years.

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

I'm not gonna backtrack on any words. Look at the quote I read. If you can't understand my stance oh fucking well.

Regardless, the rich have all the help they need. It's not that they don't need more but there's a FAR more important issue of poor kids not having a safe place to go after school or even a decent school to go to.  Great skater, nice guy, but I wish he'd care a little more about making a far greater impact on the world with the resources he has. My father volunteers all his time to help poor kids out and he knows a ton of people who have crazy education backgrounds but have chose to take less money in order to have more of an impact on others who are NEEDY.

[OttoMaddox]

He's an advocate for putting even more funding into rich neighborhoods.

Where do you get this from?

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

you're right. I'll take that off cause everything else was on point.

[Blue Fescue]

He is planning future impact on the city.  He is asking how these lower income areas maintain such a vibrant public life despite having little money.  Whereas areas with a lot of money to do what they want haven't fostered the development of "community.  

He does this research,  it is debated, councils planning for future development take aspects on board and the city develops as a whole in a more positive manner.  He is, i feel sure, advocating the spread of what he sees in the poorer neighborhood to a greater area of the city.  This is positive.  This research and research like it is a part of the reason that parks like EMB, designed by Laurence Halprin a landscape architect and theoretician, and Pier 7 get designed.  Theory and research is also  the reason they get designed in different styles EMB - modernistic, Pier 7- Contemporary/post-modern/art as place.

He is in no way advocating putting money into richer neighborhoods, this is more of the cities future as a whole.

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

Well that makes sense. Thanks for that. I'm just going off of the original post I quoted.

I will say though, that public funding has to come from somewhere and I bet ANYTHING as a result IF he gets his playgrounds  the ones in the Mission won't see 1/4 of the upkeep. They'll literally rot away. Maybe he should go back to bum fuck nowhere and address his concerns there.

[Blue Fescue]

For the most part cities can't afford to buy land in richer areas to be turned into parks so it is rare, plus the rich fight it because they don't want public infiltration into their area.  The less amenities for the public the better is a common rich view.

Anyways, these aren't playgrounds, though they can include them, these are public spaces that create community and define and area/city.  I'm not really sure how maintenance is his concern unless he works for the public works department.

In all this is research promoting positive aspects of poorer areas of the city as a model for future development, intending to show people that stories of the "ghetto" they hear aren't necessarily true and that there are things happening there that the rest of the city could benefit from.  What is wrong with that.

Lastly, he is going to school at Berkely so he is studying San Francisco because it is close and as a phd student he probably isn't making much money, it is an issue of what he cares about and what is accessible

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

Good for him. I like it much better when people like that stand for issues that  DESERVE more attention.
I think there's a far greater need in making sure poor kids have a place to go after school, cause for one, they're probably latch key kids (no supervision) that are at FAR greater risk. 2, the neighborhood is more dangerous and it's easier to get involved with the wrong crowd or even killed. As I said before, Frisco caters to the rich enough as it is. The whole world does. I'm not attacking his views on poor and rich. I just think he's not doing Frisco some great deed to make the city better. In fact, I see it having a negative effect on how much money is set aside to maintain those parks etc in the Mission, cause that's what would happen. If you don't think at that point that Mission parks would turn to complete shit and ones in nice neighborhoods would get pampered, open your eyes! If he wants that situation to be solved why take off the cape at that point? Why not stand up for equal education for lower class? I could on and on about real issues but it won't change a thing.

[sebastian toombs]

well semantics my friend, they will get you nowhere with me.

are you anti-semantic?

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

I'm anti-waisting tax dollars on dumb shit.

My bad, thought you were talking to me.

[Blue Fescue]

http://bss.sfsu.edu/urbanaction/ua2001/ps.html

good article he wrote

[bobcat]

Sanch, you're missing the point.  First, a disertation isn't going to do shit in the public or private sphere.  Nobody reads disertations except faculty advisors and the board that approves them.  They're published and put onto a shelf in a library that nobody ever goes into, where they disapear forever, maybe showing up as references once or twice in other phd disertations.   I obviously haven't read it (and neither have you), so judging it or Ocean based solely on a single paragraph isn't fair at all. 

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

I know what I need to know. Maybe you should read a few a posts up.

Are you saying that if they put parks in the rich SAFE neighborhoods than the ones in the
mission won't be ignored? That's just common sense. They have a hard time as it is keeping
up with the ones they have. I'm not saying he's bad, but he's sure not doing frisco a favor.
Frisco's one of the richest cities in America let's not forget that.

Bottom line, can you even put up a legitimate arguement that there isn't more important issues
he can tackle? He's waisting his time. What's his next quest, more tax breaks for the rich?

[monster network]

i might be wrong but i think he was just showing a connection between a community's public spaces such as parks and community centres and a community's sense of spirit and belonging and that the connection isn't based on how prosperous the residents of the community are.

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

That's a  complete 180 from what I was being told before.

The fact he's in an I path video and asking why snobhill or the marina district don't have what
the mission got is odd. I don't know, dude's always been a stand up guy and very cool to me.
I just like it when someone out the skate pack gets in a powerfull position and does something cool.
I may be wrong though.  I don't know shit about that kind of stuff but I do know public funding for
parks is low.

[Derka Derk]

Sanch you probably misunderstood the goal of this disertation, it's just to show his understanding of the subject matter of his field of research, if he is as objective as he can be (a lot of philosophic crap why you can't be truly objecitve) he will not promote anything. He is just describing a certain relation between certain features and changes of this area his investigation is about. The bigger things  which you hoped for, as you say your dad does, are to come after this disertation. That shit comes when you got a real job, in this field of science / city planning.

that doesn't mean i don't understand your rage. i'm working on an paper and studying for a course (university) on development aid and am shocked by how horrible the rich north helps the south. That shit got me really angry, especially i was one of the few saw from articles the hypocricy and lack of intelligence inside development organisations and the UN.

[bobcat]

Again, none of us really know what Ocean's disertation will say about the divide between poor and rich in SF, so I'll refrain from making judgments about it.  You can do what you want.  As for doing more importants stuff, maybe he feels like this is important.  Or maybe he thinks it'll earn him money.  Or maybe he wants to be a teacher.  Either way, who cares?  What are you doing to improve SF?  Cause I know I'm not doing shit myself and I suspect that goes for most of us.  Why does he have to "make a difference" just because he's in grad school?

[PATruth]

I bet Ocean can spell better then Sanch...not that has anything with his edumacation.

[jimmy_chadwick]

hey Sanch, do you go to City College?

[jimmy_chadwick]

hes prolly nowhere near as street smart as you and kelchmonster when it comes to pros

they mean smart as in knowing alot about alot of things

that most would either have to experience themselves

or study (books) to ever have a clue about

its funny that kids say they are stoked on ocean

when he hasnt had a part in dumblong (not including the i path promo)

but these fukkkers have no clue

i just think the kids like his name

...is smoking crack included in being "street smart"?...jus wondering

[whatnot]

http://bss.sfsu.edu/urbanaction/ua2001/ps.html

good article he wrote

I'm reading it by now, its very good indeed. Even Foucault was quoted.

[Alan]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

Sanch you probably misunderstood the goal of this disertation, it's just to show his understanding of the subject matter of his field of research, if he is as objective as he can be (a lot of philosophic crap why you can't be truly objecitve) he will not promote anything. He is just describing a certain relation between certain features and changes of this area his investigation is about. The bigger things  which you hoped for, as you say your dad does, are to come after this disertation. That shit comes when you got a real job, in this field of science / city planning.

that doesn't mean i don't understand your rage. i'm working on an paper and studying for a course (university) on development aid and am shocked by how horrible the rich north helps the south. That shit got me really angry, especially i was one of the few saw from articles the hypocricy and lack of intelligence inside development organisations and the UN.

You say I'm now misunderstanding cause what was presented to me is apples and oranges to what was presented to me before. Well, if that's the case, cooool. I'm not here to hate on him. just saying with what I WAS PRESENTED with that he isn't doing frisco any favors.