The people's waterways.
4/8/10 10:36![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
futurebird.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsIt never fails to amaze me how disconnected New Yorkers are from their local rivers and tidal estuaries. It amazes me, yet I used to be one of them. Only dimly aware that I lived on an island at all. Terrified of the water as if it were made of toxic sludge. Incredulous that crabs fish or birds could thrive so close to such a large city. But, ever since I got my hands on a kayak paddle I have a totally new perspective on the waterways in this great city. Like the roads and green-ways of New York the water is means of transportation. It is a enjoyable, if impractical way of getting around. Due to the tides it is possible to go almost wherever you please with little effort if you time it just right.
We have taken to exploring every nook and cranny of the rivers and estuaries and along the way we have found abundant wildlife. Suddenly New York feels like a harbor town, a city connected with rivers and with the ocean. Nothing could be more exciting.
So, that brings me to the matter of safety, and how notions of what is safe shape the relationship urban people have with their waterways. All along the east river there are almost no good places to pull up a kayak. Most of the time the city meets the river in a vast sea-wall that affords no access. it is topped with a fence. The physical message this architecture sends is "Stay away from the water!"
In recent years, the city has begun to build parks that have water access, steps that lead in to the water. Docks for small watercraft. Mesh bridges that invite people to look down and see waves crashing under their feet. And slowly people have ventured back in to the water. Kayaks have become more common people fish from the piers. (The fish are high in mercury, but safe to eat in small quantities) One day I saw a family crabbing, it was a scene right out of New Orleans transported in to NYC. A beautiful thing. Beautiful like the cormorants and other shore birds that have returned to the city. Industry is gone, the water beckons.
And yet, form time to time tragedy strikes. It seems that every summer a child drowns in the water. This summer it was two. The lethal combination of city dwellers who don't know how to swim and deep unpredictable waters makes it tempting to fence the waterways off again. To keep the people safe, keep them dry.
But, as the summer newspapers around the county tell tales of drownings always peppered with statics about how few "city kids" "poor kids" "black kids" "those kids" "Latino kids" know how to swim I end up pausing. The solution given is to stay away from the water, but it is the lack of a relationship with water that has always been the problem in the first place! The water belongs no single person, waterways are public spaces they belong to the people. What would happen if we taught our kids to have a sense of pride an ownership in their water? Teach kids to fish, to swim to boat. Teach them to embrace the water and know it secrets and dangers and we would see fewer drownings, but we would see something even better: a city that cares for her rivers and estuaries.
We should be ashamed that fencing things off was ever considered to be a solution.
We have taken to exploring every nook and cranny of the rivers and estuaries and along the way we have found abundant wildlife. Suddenly New York feels like a harbor town, a city connected with rivers and with the ocean. Nothing could be more exciting.
So, that brings me to the matter of safety, and how notions of what is safe shape the relationship urban people have with their waterways. All along the east river there are almost no good places to pull up a kayak. Most of the time the city meets the river in a vast sea-wall that affords no access. it is topped with a fence. The physical message this architecture sends is "Stay away from the water!"
In recent years, the city has begun to build parks that have water access, steps that lead in to the water. Docks for small watercraft. Mesh bridges that invite people to look down and see waves crashing under their feet. And slowly people have ventured back in to the water. Kayaks have become more common people fish from the piers. (The fish are high in mercury, but safe to eat in small quantities) One day I saw a family crabbing, it was a scene right out of New Orleans transported in to NYC. A beautiful thing. Beautiful like the cormorants and other shore birds that have returned to the city. Industry is gone, the water beckons.
And yet, form time to time tragedy strikes. It seems that every summer a child drowns in the water. This summer it was two. The lethal combination of city dwellers who don't know how to swim and deep unpredictable waters makes it tempting to fence the waterways off again. To keep the people safe, keep them dry.
But, as the summer newspapers around the county tell tales of drownings always peppered with statics about how few "city kids" "poor kids" "black kids" "those kids" "Latino kids" know how to swim I end up pausing. The solution given is to stay away from the water, but it is the lack of a relationship with water that has always been the problem in the first place! The water belongs no single person, waterways are public spaces they belong to the people. What would happen if we taught our kids to have a sense of pride an ownership in their water? Teach kids to fish, to swim to boat. Teach them to embrace the water and know it secrets and dangers and we would see fewer drownings, but we would see something even better: a city that cares for her rivers and estuaries.
We should be ashamed that fencing things off was ever considered to be a solution.
(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 14:55 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 14:55 (UTC)So you'd do away with fences around dangerous industrial sites or manure pits or swimming pools or hydroelectric facilities, etc?
(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 14:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 15:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 16:02 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 16:09 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 17:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 19:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 20:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 22:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 16:14 (UTC)But, there are a lot of reasons some would not want people to embrace how polluted and contaminated the water surrounding NY, is. There almost always will be big companies and large corporations illegally dumping drums full of toxic chemicals and industrial waste into the ocean.
When I lived on a different island in hawaii, I remember at least one case of it happening. A lot of the time things like coal power plants will use ocean water for cooling, and release ash which deposits mercury into the water. And, in some cases, when the US military had ordnance it needed disposed of after world war 2 -- they'd simply dump tons of mustard gas containing aummunition into the ocean offshore, and even in hawaii there are numerous cases where said ammo will wash up on a beach. And, its not uncommon for people swimming at said beaches to possibly have elevated instances of cancer and other health anomalies.
One of the main reasons to keep people away from the ocean and for building those fences is to isolate people from many of the grim realities surrounding industrialization. Large corporations who are responsible for much of the pollution and the politicians who empower said corporate entities have a vested interest in ensuring that people remain in the dark as to the extent of environmental damage, etc.
While you and I may want to take better care of the environment, etc. There are a lot of people who don't see past the business end of a balance sheet, for whom the only thing a cleaner environment means is lower profits.
There's definitely a conflict of interests.
(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 19:55 (UTC)Sure. back in the 60s, when I was growing up, the Thames that flowed through our capital city might not drown you if you fell in, but the industrial effluent would kill you for sure.
Nowadays, sucessive Socialist governemnts have not only cleaned up the air , making the London ' pea souper ' fogs a thing of the pst, they have made the river so clean that salmon and eels are found upstream as far as Teddington Lock.
Of course this was only accomplished by savagely beating poor innocent capitalists with legislation iuntil they begged for mercy and found other ways to process industrial waste than dump it straight into the rver.
But the fact is that kids can now paddle at the water's edge, and people also said and windsurf along the upper reaches of London's main river. Let's hear it for the Evols of Soshulism !
(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 21:45 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 18:03 (UTC)OR... Stay away from the city!
(no subject)
Date: 4/8/10 20:03 (UTC)But seriously, I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I think it's great to have public access to waterways by means of parks, beaches, and docks. On the other hand, as