Infrastructure - Tumblr Posts
What pisses me off most about modern infrastructure is that it's possible to build a structure a certain way from the right materials that it stays COLD inside. Not just "cooler than outside." People in sweltering deserts have built "ice houses" that refrigerate food year round before electricity was ever understood. But our society's sick fetish for living in a wood and plaster cube with giant glass panels in every wall means that to bear living I have to pay more utilities and pollute the air to just barely cool down artificially.
Cayo Levantado, Samana, Dominican Republic
Cayo Levantado, Samana, Dominican Republic
i’m obsessed with the politics of architecture it’s not even a far stretch to say that one of the biggest hurtles a socialist project in the united states would have to face isn’t even the police state or the bourgeois media it’s the landscape
Texas could take a note yk, I’m lucky where I live there’s plenty of trees on walking paths, and they have it down pat in the Woodlands area (but that’s because they’re rich)
But godDAMN Houston, why do you have to look like an industrial concrete jungle gyms
Dracula Daily leading folks to read up on the historical background of its epistolary framing and discovering that same-day mail delivery used to be completely routine and not just a special perk available only to the largest corporations, and that its decline is a direct consequence of abolishing passenger rail in favour of ubiquitous car ownership isn’t the learning opportunity I expected this week, but you know what, I’ll take it.
So as a Floridian, I do disagree with this statement to an extent, our government fails us regularly and when I say government, I don't mean the Biden administration. They've actually been trying to help us here - that's Biden AND Harris. When I say the government has failed us, I'm speaking about Ron DeSantis and his ragtag Republican corporate slumlords.
Not only has DeSantis written the term climate change out of our state statutes by passing HB1645, but he's also denied funding that could help from anything from researching green energy sources to fight against climate change to infrastructure (those better building codes here? yeah, this is why we don't have it) and even potentially better shelters and evacuation routes during hurricane seasons. That isn't even the tip of the iceberg regarding a lot of our problems about the incompetency that is the DeSantis administration, either. Just a few months back? He wanted to turn our state's national parks into golf courses. He isn't trying to solve the housing crisis here. He isn't trying to help us with finding reasonable insurance. Ron DeSantis has a significantly low approval rating and before anyone starts with the "but you voted him in" I'm going to disrespectfully say: fuck all the way off, because no, I did not.
And believe it or not, I doubt a lot of people who are suffering from this storm did, too. And honestly? Even if they did? No one deserves it because they were lied to by a manipulative narcissist with a little man complex flying his "anti-woke" flag.
DeSantis is doing the bare-fucking-minimum as a governor here in Florida because he shouldn't be denying infrastructure funding or refusing to acknowledge climate change. Yes, he's allowing FEMA to come in and he's accepted phone calls from Biden, but why isn't he taking the necessary steps to make it so we don't have to get to a certain point?
I've been seeing a bunch of posts about "why didn't the government do anything in advance" Here are things that were done:
Massive amounts of food, bottled water, medical supplies, and beds were delivered to strong buildings designated as shelters in every town.
The National guard was sandbagging everything they could and knocking on doors all along the coast trying to convince people to evacuate. They were literally going door-to-door.
The government paid for free Uber rides to shelters and provided free buses to evacuate. Unfortunately it appears not many people knew about it.
The government organized and prioritized getting gas stations refilled along evacuation routes. It wasn't enough but it would have been much worse without official help. They also organizes tow trucks to get dead cars off the roads.
Everyone will probably get the same aid Helen victims got - $750 instantly to anyone with ID showing they lived in a hurricane damaged area, and then thousands to tens of thousands to help rebuild or move later on, once there are more detailed damage assessments and victims fill out a request for aid.
The government also speed ran trying to get debris from Helene off the streets before Milton so it wouldn't become projectiles (again not enough but they managed waaaaay more than expected), and will be the ones clearing roads tomorrow ASAP.
Heck, the government runs NOAA and is what told people approximately where it would hit and with what power days ago. They were the ones that did all the research to build the devices that let them make predictions like that. They were the ones flying into the storm to get windspeed measurements every couple hours.
Tomorrow the government will be delivering more generators and gas and bottled water, and a fleet of ambulances and firemen to rescue people.
Yeah we could do better. We could always do better. Florida needs better building codes in storm surge zones for one thing.
But to say the government did nothing? Nah, that's not true. It's not true at all.
EB 740 electric locomotive passes the iron bridge over the River Ticino between Lombardy and Piedmont. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kabelleger
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gothick
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/headway/hoboken-floods.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9kw.gbCb.cy56uUXSa4W2
"A study released by researchers for Rebuild by Design and Ramboll, an architectural engineering firm, suggests that every dollar invested in green infrastructure ultimately yields $2 in “avoided losses” (office closures, waterlogged inventories, flooded basements) and other benefits (improved home values and public health) [...] Just days before the September storm, New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, slashed $75 million that had been slated for the city’s Parks Department to deal with a budget crunch. Disinvestment in parks is going to cost the city in the long run because parks are a first line of defense against climate change."
if you stay i'll let you know