Arrival City: Thoughts, Pt.2

Having just read Chapter 2 of Doug Saunders' book on rural-urban migration, I am drawn to his focus that successful transitions to the urban environment is dependent on the success of relationships being created in these neighbourhoods. This intrigues me since, as an educator, I find that those of us interested in the 21st Century Classroom, tend to talk about the new emphasis of schooling as being on the development of relationships between students, especially between students of different backgrounds. Elsewhere on this blog I have suggested that the function modern K-12 institutions is to be more socialization than knowledge transfer, and it would seem that this is in keeping with the needs of these "Arrival" districts.

One of the immediate concerns that I have though is in regards to the quality of the physical school building. There is a tendency of school districts to believe in promoting universal values and attempting to insure a minimum of standards (in this case health and engineering ones) for all students. Creating a building along these lines in shantytowns is a very jarring idea, and one that would almost force the legitimization of these neighbourhoods. On the otherhand, I am not certain that the creation of a school as transient and immediate as the surroundings would necessarily be a bad thing. I'm not sure, either way.

The one problem that I keep thinking about, especially within the context of Calgary, is that immigration to "arrival" neighbourhoods, seem to promise eventual social mobility, but what about non-arrival neighbourhoods that appear to be stagnating? What is to be done here? Is the key to find ways to make them more attractive to urban newcomers? Is gentrification a different form of what Saunders is talking about, a kind of internal urban migration?

Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky, Ch. 2

I've finally gotten around to reading Clay Shirky's 2008 book Here Comes Everybody, despite having already read several of his articles (particularly on the collapse of print-based for-pay journalism) and watched a few of his talks. My takeaway from this chapter is Ronald Coase's discussion of transaction costs in the formation of management structures, dating back to 1937. Part of my hope by the end of Shirky's book is to have a better understanding of how to conceptualize the management structures inherent in the delivery of information found in our schools. While it's pretty easy to draw up District hierarchies running from the superintendent on down, I am suspicious that the route information needs to take in order for students to gain knowledge is not the same as that required to keep the lights on in the buildings.