I was quite excited to hear the opinions of writers and scientists who live and study the urban environment talk about their perspective on what direction cities are heading. Unfortunately, even though the program was featured in the English speakers section and was advertised as 'Consecutive translation in English', only two of the panelists spoke in English, which was then translated to German, but the same was not done for the two panelists and moderator who only spoke German.
What I was able to understand was interesting and I'm glad I made the trek out to the Berliner Festspiele Haus.
Perihan Magden, Turkey, spoke first. She is a self-described old, ugly, lonely woman who doesn't see a place for her in how cities are developing. She lamented the rise of apps to help people order food from their corner kebab shop instead of calling down and making human contact. At the same time, she railed against the falseness of social media and how it makes us think we're connecting to others, but having thousands of followers on Twitter isn't the same thing as person-to-person interaction.
I thought this quite amusing, considering I was making notes to update this blog with her comments for my faithful readers, most of who I do know in person, making this the best way to keep connected with friends from around the world.
Suketu Mehta, India/USA, was a bit more positive on the future, though he did bring up the problems of gentrification. He made a point I quite liked about his favorite place in the world- Coney Island, NY. This is a place you see all people of the world, but not necessarily mingling. Each kind of person, whether of an ethnic or chosen social group, has their place on the Boardwalk. Not every party may be your cup of tea, but there's bound to be one where you'd feel welcome. This is the virtue of a good city- it doesn't necessarily include everyone, but it doesn't exclude anyone.
The dangers of our modern cities deal with the increasing cost associated with living in them. He talked about a familiar situation that my readers in Seattle will identify with- an art collective coffee shop moves into a former heavily immigrant neighborhood due to the cheap rent and the neighbors of this collective are saddened that the people of the collective seem to have no interest in mingling with the current residents. He mentioned the idea of a tax for new-comers to a neighborhood that will benefit the historical people who live there.
I'm of two minds on the subject. The nature of a city is to change, and artists will always flock to low-rent areas, which will then be followed by middle-class settlers, until the neighborhood looks completely different. This process used to take more time, but an interconnected world helps people find out about these areas more quickly, and so I think we are just taken by surprise by the speed of gentrification in our time. One of the first thoughts I had when he mentioned the current resident complaining about the newbies not mingling was, 'Why don't the current residents feel comfortable using the new spaces and mingling with the new-comers themselves? Why is it incumbent on the art collective to reach out and not a joint effort with both parties? I can't imagine the collective would have been hostile to some cultural events being organized by the current residents.'
Sonja Beeck and Jutta Deffner, both from Germany, spoke only German and I was not able to get enough detail to relate their point of views. One day, I will be able to understand spoken German as well as I can read it.
Overall, an evening well spent. Free intellectual stimulation and a reminder that the problems we face in one part of the world are not nearly so unique as our politicians would have us believe.
