القاهرة

كتب محمد قدري قائلاً.. يقول بن خلدون عن القاهرة :

"... فرأيت حاضرة الدنيا وبستان العالم، ومحشر الأمم، ومدرج الذر من البشر وإيوان الإسلام وكرسي الملك، تلوح القصور والأواوين في جوه وتزهر الخوانق والمدارس والكواكب بآفاقه، وتضيء البدور والكواكب من علمائه..."

وهذا عندما رأى ما بها من منازل وقصور .. مدارس ومساجد وجوامع .. قباب ومآذن ومحاريب ومنابر وإيوانات.. كتاتيب وأسبلة وخانقاوات وتكايا ورباط .. حواري وأزقة ودروب وشوارع... وكالات تجارية وقيساريات وأسواق وحمامات وحتى أحواض للدواب وأوقاف للبشر بل وكذلك لقطط وكلاب الشوارع رأفة بهم ...وغير ذلك مما لا يمكن حصره في مقال واحد.

أما عن مقابرها يقول عالم مغربي آخر وهو الرحالة علي بن موسى يصف قرافة المماليك:

إن القرافة قد حوت ضدين معا...دنيا وأخرى فهي نعم المنزل

كم ليلة بتنا بها ونديمنا ... لحن يكاد يذوب منه الجندل

والبدر قد ملأ البسيطة نوره ... فكأنما قد فاض منه جدول

وبدا يضاحك أوجها حاكينه... لما تكامل وجهه المتهلل

من عجائب القاهرة.

ملامح وآثار مختلطة للحياة في مدينة الموتى.

القرافة : موت وحياة !

Egypt's New Capital

This is a creation of Capital Region.. despite the failed Megapolis..

Unfortunately, Egyptian Planners did not adhere to the decentralization concepts, which had made many nations, wealthier, healthier and mightier.. Adding 30% to existing urban land is not a solution.. Threats of Eastern-Invasion are not valid anymore..! However, threats of urban poverty are more likely and further destructive..

Egyptian "Urban Lobbyists" had created a distinct culture, which many middle-eastern nations had copied, and further excel.. Property is a market known for secrecy, which enables monetary greed to grow.. Urbanity is synonymous for the Excellence of Living.. Urban poverty is not measured by building quality, but by Tenants Quality, which is not only the GDP share, but scores at MGDs.. Egypt sharply slumps, despite the generous donations and loans.. despite the fantasy homes on the desert..!!

Arabic Spring.. or Illusion..?

 

لأن سائر الأفكار والتواريخ والوقائع قد تعاقدت في مدينة ، صارت نيويورك مستحيلة ، فهي سائر المتناقضات والأحلام والتجارب والمؤامرات والبشر ، هي الانسان ، ذلك الكائن المستحيل الغريب والمتناقض ، الذي أقبل بعفوية على حمل أمانة تراجعت عنها سائر المخلوقات

 

 

لست أدري ؛ لماذا نتحلق دوماً حول اللامعقول والفاسد والمنتهية صلاحيته؟

ثم نردف نعلق عن حجم الغباء والعمالة والخيانة في حديثهم
هل في الأمر "استثارة" نفسية أو بيولوجية أو جينية؟
لعل أحدهم يكتشف الهرمونات التي تنطلق بفعل "مشاهدة" المرفوض
فيتحول الأمر الى "إدمان" إسراف الوقت والجهد في ما هو مرفوض أصلاً

أقول هذا ؛ بينما أصحاب الرأي والقول يمارسون "رذيلة" اللاجدوى
يتابعون من يعرفون سلفاً حجم السفسطائية ...والانتهازية والدونية لديهم
عوضاً عن صرف الوقت والجهد في بناء مكوناتهم المعرفية
فليس للمعرفة حدود في عالم تتجاوز تقاريره الجديدة الآلاف كل يوم

فاذا كانوا يظنون أنهم عرفوا كل شئ ، فالمصيبة عظيمة
واذا كانوا فقط ينشطون باستثارة النفس والهوى ، فالمصيبة أعظم
واذا لم يدركوا مضمون حديثي ؛ فعلى الأرض السلام والبقاء لله تعالى 
بمناسبة الأحاديث والتعلقات عن نافع السودان وباسم مصر وجزيرة قطر وغيرهم

لا تختلف مقولة "أعرف عدوك" كثيراً عن التبريرات الساذجة والمضحكة لتعاطي المخدرات والحرية الجنسية وحجر النساء وزواج القصر وزواج المثليين

الشاهد أن أجيال ما بعد الحرب العالمية قد فشلت تدريجياً في تربية أبنائها ، وبالتوالي تواصل انهيار منظومة القيم ، بينما الجميع ، وبلا استثناء ، يبرر لذلك

 

معظم براهين التربية الحديثة قد استوردت مبتورة من بلاد تجاوزت مفاهيم الحداثة ، ولذا صار معظم الأباء والأمهات لدينا قاصرين عن تقويم أبنائهم ، يبررون ذلك بالحداثة والديموقراطية والتطور ، وهو في واقع الأمر افتقادهم "الفعلي" لمعايير ومرجعيات الصواب والخطأ ، واختلط المنطق بالهوى ، ودليله استشراء العقوق والعنف والنرجسية والخصوصية

لدى معظم الأمم ذات الرقي ، نظم صارمة لبناء شخصية الأطفال ، تتراوح ما بين منهجيات التعليم الأساسي ، ورقابة الاستقرار الأسري ، وتنظيم الدعاية والاعلام ، والتدخل القسري ، وبرغم تفاعل المشكلات المتعلقة بالفرد الناضج ، فالشاهد أن استقرار وثقة وبنيوية الصغار لا خلاف عليها ، وعندما استنسخنا هذه النظم ، فات علينا أنها تعبر عن مرجعياتهم ، وما يصلح لهم قد لا يصلح لنا بفعل التاريخ والجغرافيا والموارد والفلكلور

هكذا أخذت مجتمعاتنا في التردي ، ليس فقط التعامل مع مفردات النفس والآخر والجماعة ، ولكن كذلك في التقنية والادارة والسياسة والفن ، وحيث أن طبيعتنا الثقافية تتفاعل وتمجد الحرف والقول والمأثور ، فان قواعد الفكر الحديث قد نمت لدينا مبتورة دون أطرافها الخفية من الرياضيات والاحصاء والجماليات والهندسيات والفنون التطبيقية

هكذا صار كل ما لدينا حق يراد به باطل ، أو فعل يراد به تزكية ، أو معنى يراد به تبرير
فلنتوقف عن التغرد بحضارة قد أفلت ، وتاريخ قد مضى ، وقصص قد فقدت الروح
ثم نبدأ من جديد ، بواقعية وعقلانية وموضوعية
وعسى أن نستطيع تجاوز معضلات النضج الجمعي
وعسى أن نكون بالفعل أوفياء لأنفسنا قبل آباؤنا أو أولادنا أو حتى ديننا

 

الواقع الفاسد هو منتوجنا ، لم يستورد من الخارج ، يجب أن نتوقف عن فكرة كوننا ضحايا لمؤامرات محلية أو عالمية ، الفساد والشرف يتواجدان داخل أي مجتمع ، والفارق هو الحوكمة داخل كل مجتمع للسيطرة على الفساد ، ولدعم الشرف والنبل ، وللأسف ، فان مجتمعاتنا قد فشلت في الاختبارين الحضاري والحضري معاً ، فليس رقي الحياة بالنوايا الحسنة ، ولكن بالأفعال المنطقية والرشيدة

 

اختلافي مع الغالبية هو في مفاهيم الثورة والتغيير والمرجعيات والأليات ، فلست أرى ثورة بل مجموعة تناقضات أدت إلى تفجر مؤقت للعقد الاجتماعي ، ولست أرى حوجة للتغيير بل حوجة لتأكيد التراكم الايجابي وليس الابتكارات التنافسية ، ولست

أرى مرجعيات بل أفكار طوبائية تفتقد الرشد والواقعية العملية ، ولست أرى أليات بل افتراضات ترسمها جماليات المثالية
بكم ما أدري أن كلمات قاسية ، بكم قناعتي بأن التغيير الحقيقي على مدار الحضارة الانسانية قد أفرزه الصدام بين الواقع والحلم (هتلر ، فرانكو ، ماو ، أتاتورك ، ناصر ، جورباتشوف ، لولا ، ميركل ، وانتهاءاً بـ أوباما)

ليس البديل اعادة بناء هياكل المجتمع ( فليس الأمر بناية يعاد انشاؤها) ولكن تطوير الواقع من خلال عقد جماعي يتبنى بواقعية استبدال السيئ وتفعيل الحسن ، فلا يمكن حجر 5% من المواطنين لأنهم مختلفين ، ولا يمكن ضمان صلاحية 5% من المواطنين لأنهم يجيدون الكلام والحديث

فهل بمقدور شعوبنا التوافق على أن فقط 0.001% يملكون الرؤية السياسية ، وعلى البقية التراجع من صفوف الفلسفة الى صفوف العمل والانتاج؟

 

Smart City-ing..!!

Bigger than Google Fiber: LA plans citywide gigabit for homes and businesses

Free broadband for all, and gigabit for those who can afford it.

Many Mayors are talking about Smart Cities.. and their dreams or plans to transform their own Megapolises.. This noise comes from Asia, Africa and Middle East.. Yet, almost none is capable to bring these words into reality.. It is all about the definition and what is meant by the Smart-City-ing..?

This is not about cheap digital devices, cyber tools, or software businesses.. It is about the freedom of information and connectivity to be granted to every citizen; which would enable smart use of civic and domestic utilities.. and eventually the progression of livelihood.. It is a Sociopolitics at the bottom line..

Usually the speechless achievers in London, New York, Sydney, Tokyo and Berlin.. who had already brought the future, and sustain it.. Now LA is providing a challenging example..

 

Los Angeles is about to unleash one of the most ambitious city-led broadband projects to date, with the goal of bringing fiber to all of its 3.5 million residents and all businesses.

Next month, the city plans to issue an RFP (request for proposals) "that would require fiber to be run to every residence, every business, and every government entity within the city limits of Los Angeles," Los Angeles Information Technology Agency GM Steve Reneker told Ars today. The City Council this morning unanimously voted to move forward with drafting the RFP and will vote again in a few weeks to determine whether it's ready for release, he said.

LA expects the fiber buildout to cost $3 billion to $5 billion, but the cost would be borne by the vendor. "The city is going into it and writing the agreement, basically saying, 'we have no additional funding for this effort.' We're requiring the vendors that respond to pay for the city resources needed to expedite any permitting and inspection associated with laying their fiber," Reneker said. "If they're not willing to do that, our City Council may consider a general fund transfer to reimburse those departments, but we're going in with the assumption that the vendor is going to absorb those up-front costs to make sure they can do their buildout in a timely fashion."

The new fiber network would offer free Internet access of 2Mbps to 5Mbps (possibly subsidized by advertising) and paid tiers of up to a gigabit. The fiber network would also power Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas.

The winning bidder would not be required to offer landline phone service or television, but it's likely that they would. "I would think that's how they'll justify the buildout, is being able to offer triple play [packages]," Reneker said.

Residential broadband in LA today typically ranges from 5Mbps to 50Mbps from the likes of AT&T, Time Warner, Verizon, Cox, and Charter. Gigabit speeds are available to businesses, but at a higher price than other communities, Reneker said. By expanding gigabit access and hopefully lowering the price, LA hopes to attract new entrepreneurs and keep existing businesses from leaving the city.

Reneker said the network would be open, meaning the vendor would have to sell access on a wholesale basis to other network providers that want to deliver services over the fiber. "We're not looking at trying to... be monopolistic and try to force anybody out of the market," he said. The winning bidder should make out well, though, as it would gain lots of new residential, business, and government customers.

The RFP would favor companies that can offer not only fiber Internet but also cellular service and data center hosting. That makes AT&T and Verizon possible candidates. In one potential scenario, the city would pay the winning vendor for its monthly broadband, phone, cellular, and data center needs. Los Angeles has 24 distributed data centers that it would like to modernize and consolidate while boosting disaster recovery and replication, so the data center component alone would be lucrative.

If you took out the cellular component, more companies beyond AT&T and Verizon could offer compelling bids, Reneker said. Time Warner, Cox, and Charter would be among those.
But Google Fiber in its current form wouldn't be considered. "They would have to change their business model," Reneker said of Google. "They only run residential. We're requiring a component for the business. That would be a new market for them. There are two things: would they be willing to change their model slightly, and also would they be willing to respond to an RFP? I don't believe they've responded to RFPs in the past in other communities, but they would need to here in Los Angeles."

This project was spearheaded by recently elected council member Bob Blumenfield and has the support of Mayor Eric Garcetti, Reneker said. Reasonable pricing for residents is important, as one-third of the city's population makes less than $45,000 a year. LA schools are also rolling out iPads to 650,000 students and struggling to ensure that everyone who gets one has affordable connectivity, he said. LA wants the winning bidder to make donations of home broadband equipment to nonprofits that distribute them to needy residents.

Once the RFP goes out, the city will take bids for three months. Contract negotiations with the winning bidder could "easily" take six to nine months because there will be numerous services, each with their own service-level agreements, according to Reneker.
It will be a lengthy process, but the time is right to get it started. "It just seems like now is a good time to give it a shot," he said.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/bigger-than-google-fiber-la-plans-citywide-gigabit-for-homes-and-businesses/

A Short History of the Highrise,”

 

“A Short History of the Highrise,” a four-part interactive New York Times “Op-Doc” reminds me of a pop-up book. The very first lever I pulled (actually it was a wooden bucket) added a couple of stories to a medieval tower! I even snagged a couple of complimentary factoids about the Tower of Babel! Bonus!
The kids are gonna love it!
There are doors to push, scenic postcards to flip, a little Roman guy to drag to the right… what a creative use of the Times’ massive photo morgue. Director Katerina Cizek skitters throughout history and all over the globe, swinging by ancient Rome, Montezuma’s Castle cliff dwelling, China’s Fujian province, 18th century Europe, and Jacob Riis’ New York. Apparently, vertical housing is nothing new.

( I did find myself wondering what director Cizek might be angling for at the Dakota. The storied apartment building was long ago dwarfed by taller additions to New York City’s urban landscape, but its multiple appearances in the series indicate that it’s still its most desirable. Mercifully, none of the interactive features involve John Lennon.)

Would that a similar restraint had been exercised with regard to narration. I would have gladly listened to Professor Miles Glendinning, the mass housing scholar who lends his expertise to the project’s subterranean level. Alas, the non-interactive portion is marred by a bizarre rhyme scheme meant to “evoke a storybook.” If so, it’s the sort of storybook no adult (with the possible exception of the singer Feist, who was hopefully paid for her participation) wants to read aloud. A sample:
Publicly sponsored housing isn’t everywhere the diet
Beyond Europe, North America and the Soviet Union, high rise development is rampantly private.
Seriously?

Given the level of discourse, I see no reason we were deprived of a rhyme for “phallic symbol.” Those animated buildings do reach for the sky.
If it all gets a bit much you can head straight for “Home.” The final installment jettisons the cutesy-bootsy rhymes in favor of a lovely tune by Patrick Watson, which makes a pleasant soundtrack to reader-supplied photos of their balconies. The images have been arranged thematically – pets, storms, night – and the cumulative effect is charming. Click “More readers’ stories of life in high-rises” to read the first-hand accounts that go with these views. If your perch is high enough, you can submit one of your own.

You can watch a video trailer for “A Short History of the Highrise” up top and Part 1 of Cizek’s film below that. But to get the full interactive experience you’ll want to head over to the New York Times web site.

Related Content: 
Ten Buildings That Changed America: Watch the Debut Episode from the New PBS Series
The ABC of Architects: An Animated Flipbook of Famous Architects and Their Best-Known Buildings
The History of Western Architecture: From Ancient Greece to Rococo (A Free Online Course)
Ayun Halliday has temporarily relocated to the ground floor, but she still can bust a rhyme. Follow her@AyunHalliday

http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/interact-with-the-new-york-times-four-part-documentary-a-short-history-of-the-highrise.html

The Urbanity Martyrs..

 

Certainly the curve of Urbanity is wider than that one of Civilization..

Civilization may scores despite the atrocities within; but Urbanity can't..

It had took the Global Urbanity all history of humanity to get where it is today..

During the time, several mighty Civilizations had been born, grown and died or practically aging towards death..

Yet the value of Global Urbanity will continue spreading, gaining influence and stamping domination..

As how many had fallen down to develop our patriotism.. as time comes to call for honoring the Urbanity Martyrs..!

 

 

In memory of the victims of the West-Gate of Nairobi..!

Ross Langdon / Elif Yavuz

http://www.windgrove.com/blog/ross-langdon-elif-yavuz/

September 23, 2013

 

This morning I slammed down the phone hard and burst into tears when told of Ross Langdon’s death in Kenya at the Nairobi mall. The screams that came out were guttural and intensely grief stricken.

He was a much loved local lad. He was a colleague and friend who went out into the world as an architect doing wondrous things. Yet Ross always returned to his family and cultural roots here on the Tasman Peninsula and we all took immense pride in both his architectural abilities and his very generous, positive, and loving personality. There just was no dark side to Ross that I ever saw in the twenty or so years I knew him.I would always bring up Ross as an example of how a young person — growing up in a rural setting — benefited from this closer connection to nature than could be had at the more “elite” urban schools.
 

He designed  – pro bono —  an aids hospital in Kenya. Being in his early 30′s he had already given a TED talk. In Uganda he designed and supervised a unique eco-village employing only local labour. There is much, much more. For one so relatively young, the list of achievements is long.

Let me just mention this, however: Ross was about to start on a $35 million museum centered around the earliest fossil record of humanoids walking: two adults and one child. Ironic, because equally tragic is that his partner Elif Yavuz and their unborn child (due in two weeks) were also killed in the massacre. When they visited me at Windgrove a year and a half ago, Elif had just completed a PhD at Harvard; last month she was personally visited by Bill Clinton in her role with the [Bill] Clinton Health Access Initiative based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

A week ago I wrote about how talented people needed to move out of their comfort zones and get involved with changing the world before the ongoing “unraveling” tipped into the No-Return stage. For me, and a big reason for today’s grief, is that Ross and Elif symbolized the sort of people doing the Work. They were agents-of-change in the best sense.

Both had dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful world. Both had so much to offer.
Besides a personal loss for myself, this is a major global loss. This cannot be underestimated or glossed over by the political pundits who will label Ross and Elif and their unborn child as unfortunate casualties in the war on terror.

Yes, I have been punched in the stomach. Yes, I have collapsed emotionally. Yes, I am not feeling particularly happy or even “forgiving”.

But there is another Yes. And this is a bigger “yes” that says — in honour of Ross and Elif — I will eventually pick up the pieces and continue on with the sort of work they themselves were so involved in: bringing about change to a tattered world based — not on religious grounds or economic gain — just a pure love for all of humanity and the natural world.