Urban Environments

[Ol' Dirty]

How do we help people in cities? How can we fix the illiteracy, hunger and violence in urbitats (a newly forged word, the mixing of the prefix urb- and the sufix -itat)?

If you believe this is imporant, put in your answer to the poll created by drain.you and I.

[red team]

Short term solution: build schools, libraries and urban greenhouses. Train social workers, psychologists and police.

Long term solution: Create pre-planned, high technology urban centers instead of cities. Build virtual reality tutoring machines, information networks, food laboratories.

[KickMcCann]

In the cities that require the most help, you usually find a systematic abandonment of the city by the upper classes and government. In a situation similar to a natural disaster, the people of the city are forced to survive on their own and find ways to subsist.
The despiration and neglect usually creates a depression-based economy, with most of the community's money being circulated in escapist ventures like drugs, alcohol, prostitution, guns, and religious institutions, to the benefit of a few and the detriment of many. It creates a self-serving cycle that only worsens the situation.
Now as horrible as the abandonment of the people by the rich and the state can be, it also creates an opportunity to establish and practice radical leftist solutions- no one with power will care (at first) what anyone does with the areas and people they care nothing about.

The are many things which can be tried- socialized collective housing-buying apartment blocks from landlords and giving ownership to the community or tenents. Cooperative/collective education, cooperative/collective businesses that will provide jobs as well as goods and services to the urban people. Urban gardening is also a great idea.

The bottom line is, you must realize that these places have been abandoned by bourgeois society, in order to survive they must recognize their independence from the formal economy and state, and become self-sufficient in every area possible--food, housing, health, production, education, etc... if they are ever going to survive or improve.

Now the catch is of course financing, how and from where are you going to get the funds neccessary to implement these measures? Money has to come in from the outside and be directed to establishing institutions that will produce money for further community investment and lead to self-sufficiency. Part of that is education and training, having outside soviet-style commisars making every decision is undesirable, the people must reach a point where they can do it themselves.

So the first step would be picking a city, developing a plan, getting some agricultural, archeitectual, supply, education, development, etc... experts on the team, and getting financial backing to carry it out.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 10:15 PM
How do we help people in cities? How can we fix the illiteracy, hunger and violence in urbitats (a newly forged word, the mixing of the prefix urb- and the sufix -itat)?

If you believe this is imporant, put in your answer to the poll created by drain.you and I.
You know your on a revolutionary forum and you know the answer is to take over the means of production and distributing resources based on need.

We dont have 28 step "economic programs" like your local scam artist (politican) does.

[Scars]

Firstly, the term that I've most commonly heard used is 'urbanite' when being polite and 'townie' when being more casual (or insulting, as the case may be).

Secondly:

1) Education:
Don't sit around, run your own classes. Even if you only get 5 people to turn up it's better than nothing. Many people here would be capiable of running a basic Marxism course- nothing too deep or complex, but just giving people a basic understanding of the theory. There are also generally existing literacy programmes in many places, you can go volunteer at them if that's more your thing.

2) Reducing dependence:
One of the ironies of the Capitalist system is that they are completely dependent on people buying their shit. Learn to bake- it's incredibly easy and if you buy flour and the like in bulk each loaf will cost only a few cents overall. Then go and sell it for 10 cents (to pay costs, not make a profit) or better yet- give it away. Then they don't need to buy bread. I'm sure you can think of other things. The less reliant people are (on an individual basis) on the capitalists the stronger they become and more importantly, the weaker the capitalists become.

3) Free housing:
In many cities parts of the city suffer from urban decay, and thus there are perfectly good buildings sitting empty. Break into them (this is generally fairly easy), clean/fix them up to the best of your ability and set them up as squats. Squats don't have to be crappy places, they can be quite nice if you put a bit of effort in.

4) Take over unused land:
In many cities there are hunks of land that are completely unused. Sometimes they're neglected parks, sometimes empty sections- whatever. Take them over and put them to good use- grow food which can be given away, for example.

[loveme4whoiam]

Excellent post Scars :D Just for that I think this thread should be moved into Practical, as those ideas of simple and effective, and we can all do them.