Big cities suffer from numerous problems. One intractable and long-standing challenge has been a failure to provide residents, commuters, and tourists with adequate places to go to the bathroom.
From mothers with children in tow, to the burgeoning homeless population, this state of affairs presents an intractable inconvenience.
For example, few urban public transportation systems have public bathrooms located at their stops, stations, and major terminals.
Nonresidents, needing to go to use a restroom, are often forced to find a commercial location, like a restaurant, a fast food place, retail establishment, or a gas station to do their duty.
But even these locations pose their own set of problems. Sometimes the facilities are only available to customers, and/or you need a code. Often the bathrooms are out of order, and occasionally they’re disgustingly dirty making the user wonder if the experience would have been better if they would have held it in longer in order to find a more suitable place to relieve themselves. Meanwhile many establishments deny service to their bathrooms to homeless and mentally ill people who sometimes use these venues as places to wash up, or temporarily camp out in. That’s why so many people end up resorting to doing their business in a nearby back alley or behind a bush. This practice may be so normative, in some neighborhoods, that it is part of the street culture.
Additionally, go to selected parts of almost any big city in the world, especially during the hot summer months, and you’re likely to pass by areas where the smell of urine is prominent and almost overpowering.
Feces (whether they are human or animal) and urine attract flies, other insects and rodents that feed off of them. A pest control professional once told me shit is to rodents as steak is to humans.
Parts of the city where there are high levels of urine and feces are undesirable to live, work and pass through. Though difficult to prove, this situation is bound to have an economic effect on property values and the viability of businesses to thrive.
Live long enough in an area (or work close by) and you’ll learn the places where you can use a free public bathroom. And there are probably a handful of apps that one can use but if you’re homeless, the likelihood of you owning a smart phone to access that app is probably pretty low.
In many respects states, in particular their highway systems, have done a better job than municipalities and county governments, providing restroom facilities for motorists and their passengers who just gotta go. Some even have fast food restaurants located inside the structure, and others don’t.
Moving on, there are probably five major strategies that municipal governments can take to increase the provision of well-maintained and secure public restrooms.
First, while cities are developing new policies, practices and legislation in this area, they should install more portable toilets in public areas.
Second, if financially viable, municipalities should consider installing either portable or low cost/low maintenance toilets in abandoned buildings and structures.
Third, urban governments should take advantage of innovative designs that some cities around the world have adopted for self-cleaning and low maintenance public toilets.
Fourth, more taxpayer money needs to be allocated to this problem. This will require re prioritizing annual budgets devoted to this urban challenge either through a single line item in an annual budget or greater scrutiny of the subagencies that provide this kind of service. Part of this initiative should include insuring that urban parks that fall above a certain size have a well maintained and secure public bathroom.
Finally, similar to the approach adopted by the federal government, with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, cities should mandate that all newly constructed office buildings should have a well maintained and secure public bathroom on their first floor, that does not require going through a security gate just to use. This could include a tax break or other incentive to force property developers to comply.
These are just a handful of solutions to a long standing problem that is not simply an inconvenience but has social and economic implications too.
Photo credit:
Photographer: Jesse Steele
Title: Public Restrooms
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/13662094583_e63c90db03_o-scaled.jpg15332560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2023-04-13 07:29:202024-09-22 12:21:30Cities must prioritize the provision of accessible, well-maintained, and secure public restrooms
I periodically ask myself what are the top 10 books, movies, songs, pieces of visual art, television series, etc. that have influenced me and why? This exercise forces me to reexamine these items more closely, critically answer why I thought they were important, and why they may be better or worse than other creative works on my lists.
After considerable reflection, one of my top books is Ted Robert Gurr’s, Why Men Rebel (1970). His seminal scholarship (and other publications that he authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited) motivated me to reach out to him as I was completing my bachelors degree, express an interest in doing a masters under his guidance, and for Gurr to recruit me as his first graduate student at University of Colorado Boulder, where he relocated to in the mid-1980s.
During my graduate career, not only did I complete my masters thesis and doctoral dissertation under Gurr’s direction, co-author with him, but benefited from Gurr’s mentorship too.
Turning to the book, Why Men Rebel, was important during its day (garnering the American Political Science Association Woodrow Wilson best book of the year award), but as testament to its importance today, and as of this writing Why Men Rebel has 11,523 citations on Google scholar.
In short, Why Men Rebel attempts to answer a very simple question, one that has become increasing important to ask over that past five decades.
The book consists of ten chapters beginning with a chapter titled “Explanations of political violence” and ending with one on “Causes and Processes of Political Violence.” At the time this was one of the most comprehensive books. After an extensive review of competing explanations, drawing most from the social sciences, Gurr settles on the concept of relative deprivation (as the most important reason why individuals and collectivities engage in political violence against the state.
He begins by arguing that that frustration-anger-aggression undergirds most political violence, but not everyone who experiences this state of affairs automatically engages in violence. Moreover, frustration-aggression (for short) must be coupled with a feeling of relative-deprivation (i.e., a perception that compared to others who are similar to you and your group, your lot in life is less than satisfactory). Gurr then introduces the reader to the importance not just of different contexts, but how important elements of violence and the processes that lead up to it like scope, intensity, and duration commingle and effect the pattern of violence.
This background information is necessary to understand why some types of political violence (e.g., insurrections, oppositional political terrorism, coups d’etat) are more frequent in some countries or societies, during different periods, than others. And why in other contexts all that we may see and experience are things like acts of resistance, political protests, etc.
Undoubtedly, and in hindsight the book has a handful of drawbacks and criticisms.
To begin with the book is half a century old. And thus a considerable amount of scholarship (e.g., biological) has been conducted since that time, some of which has competed with Gurr’s explanations why people decide to engage in political violence against the state.
Others have, in my opinion, wrongly inferred that the title of the book meant that Gurr’s explanation was directed towards men, or that he was somehow gender blind. Moreover, those expecting a page turner will not find it here. On the other hand, the book is methodical, sometimes boring, but this is to be expected with this kind of careful scholarly analysis.
Overall the advantages outweigh the drawbacks. To begin with Why Men Rebel is one of a handful of comprehensive explanations in an increasingly crowded scholarly field. Gurr’s approach was also truly interdisciplinary. Per Gurr’s style, he reviewed a considerable amount of social science scholarship that dealt with this subject, pointed out its merits and shortcomings, and then outlined a series of hypotheses amenable to empirical testing. Unlike many scholars who produce similar kinds of work, and to his credit, not content to leave his work as a a book treatment, Gurr subsequently invested considerable resources testing the numerous propositions statistically and modified his perspective when the evidence was not compelling.
Why Men Rebel is worth reading not simply as a parsimonious explanation for political violence, but as a model of comprehensive social science scholarship.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2023-04-04-at-9.42.10-AM.png646578Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2023-04-06 14:02:352023-04-06 15:52:59On the importance of Ted Robert Gurr’s WHY MEN REBEL
Over the past half century, not only has there been an increase in the amount and types of graffiti and street art appearing in large urban centers, but so too has attention paid to this type of urban public art.
One of dominant questions, however, that pervades this activity is why do people and groups engage in graffiti and street art?
Temporarily setting aside definitions of graffiti and street art, since the emergence of these activities, one of the dominant perceptions is that graffiti and street art are acts of resistance.
Indeed a considerable amount of graffiti and street art has been produced during major social and political revolutions, protests (e.g., Black Lives Matter), and campaigns of resistance (e.g., against the Russian Invasion of Ukraine), etc. (thus leading to the term conflict graffiti), but there is a significant amount of graffiti/street art that is put up that bears no connection to these types of events.
Thus to suggest that all work done by street art luminaries such as Banksy or Shepard Fairey, for example, are works of resistance is a gross simplification of their body of work.
Based on similar arguments, some graffiti and street art practitioners and observers, will go so far as to suggest that graffiti is resistance, but street art is not. This, they argue, is tied to their unique (often non generalizable) definitions of these practices.
The reality is that some, but not all, graffiti and street art are acts of resistance, and thus to imply or infer that all graffiti and street art falls in to this category is probably some combination of romanticism and sloppy homework.
The latter argument probably derives from a failure to (or poor execution there of) to talk with, interview, or observe individuals who engage in graffiti/street art, or to immerse oneself in the scholarly literature on this subject.
I suspect that some of the people who subscribe to the graffiti and street art is resistance also suggest that all crimes are acts of resistance. An argument left for another day.
Notwithstanding the fact that many graffiti writers and street artists may have difficulty articulating why they do this sort of activity, in principle, there are as many different causes (i.e., anger, fun, sneaky thrills, recognition, etc.) as there are people who engage in this activity.
In short, whether we are talking about the causes of graffiti and street art or almost any kind of human behavior we should be careful and suspicious about any sort of monocausal explanations, Often times the message is ambiguous and thus to infer that resistance is the only or most dominant cause should be questioned.
Photo Credit: Daniel Lobo
#resist
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/25336115647_e0e7ff607b_o-scaled.jpg17072560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2023-03-30 16:44:222023-04-06 13:45:19Questioning graffiti and street art as acts of resistance
Cities must prioritize the provision of accessible, well-maintained, and secure public restrooms
/by Jeffrey Ian RossBig cities suffer from numerous problems. One intractable and long-standing challenge has been a failure to provide residents, commuters, and tourists with adequate places to go to the bathroom.
From mothers with children in tow, to the burgeoning homeless population, this state of affairs presents an intractable inconvenience.
For example, few urban public transportation systems have public bathrooms located at their stops, stations, and major terminals.
Nonresidents, needing to go to use a restroom, are often forced to find a commercial location, like a restaurant, a fast food place, retail establishment, or a gas station to do their duty.
But even these locations pose their own set of problems. Sometimes the facilities are only available to customers, and/or you need a code. Often the bathrooms are out of order, and occasionally they’re disgustingly dirty making the user wonder if the experience would have been better if they would have held it in longer in order to find a more suitable place to relieve themselves. Meanwhile many establishments deny service to their bathrooms to homeless and mentally ill people who sometimes use these venues as places to wash up, or temporarily camp out in. That’s why so many people end up resorting to doing their business in a nearby back alley or behind a bush. This practice may be so normative, in some neighborhoods, that it is part of the street culture.
Additionally, go to selected parts of almost any big city in the world, especially during the hot summer months, and you’re likely to pass by areas where the smell of urine is prominent and almost overpowering.
Feces (whether they are human or animal) and urine attract flies, other insects and rodents that feed off of them. A pest control professional once told me shit is to rodents as steak is to humans.
Parts of the city where there are high levels of urine and feces are undesirable to live, work and pass through. Though difficult to prove, this situation is bound to have an economic effect on property values and the viability of businesses to thrive.
Live long enough in an area (or work close by) and you’ll learn the places where you can use a free public bathroom. And there are probably a handful of apps that one can use but if you’re homeless, the likelihood of you owning a smart phone to access that app is probably pretty low.
In many respects states, in particular their highway systems, have done a better job than municipalities and county governments, providing restroom facilities for motorists and their passengers who just gotta go. Some even have fast food restaurants located inside the structure, and others don’t.
Moving on, there are probably five major strategies that municipal governments can take to increase the provision of well-maintained and secure public restrooms.
First, while cities are developing new policies, practices and legislation in this area, they should install more portable toilets in public areas.
Second, if financially viable, municipalities should consider installing either portable or low cost/low maintenance toilets in abandoned buildings and structures.
Third, urban governments should take advantage of innovative designs that some cities around the world have adopted for self-cleaning and low maintenance public toilets.
Fourth, more taxpayer money needs to be allocated to this problem. This will require re prioritizing annual budgets devoted to this urban challenge either through a single line item in an annual budget or greater scrutiny of the subagencies that provide this kind of service. Part of this initiative should include insuring that urban parks that fall above a certain size have a well maintained and secure public bathroom.
Finally, similar to the approach adopted by the federal government, with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, cities should mandate that all newly constructed office buildings should have a well maintained and secure public bathroom on their first floor, that does not require going through a security gate just to use. This could include a tax break or other incentive to force property developers to comply.
These are just a handful of solutions to a long standing problem that is not simply an inconvenience but has social and economic implications too.
Photo credit:
Photographer: Jesse Steele
Title: Public Restrooms
On the importance of Ted Robert Gurr’s WHY MEN REBEL
/by Jeffrey Ian RossI periodically ask myself what are the top 10 books, movies, songs, pieces of visual art, television series, etc. that have influenced me and why? This exercise forces me to reexamine these items more closely, critically answer why I thought they were important, and why they may be better or worse than other creative works on my lists.
More specifically. a number of books have significantly shaped my scholarship, including not only what I’ve chosen to study, but how I conduct research on that topic.
After considerable reflection, one of my top books is Ted Robert Gurr’s, Why Men Rebel (1970). His seminal scholarship (and other publications that he authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited) motivated me to reach out to him as I was completing my bachelors degree, express an interest in doing a masters under his guidance, and for Gurr to recruit me as his first graduate student at University of Colorado Boulder, where he relocated to in the mid-1980s.
During my graduate career, not only did I complete my masters thesis and doctoral dissertation under Gurr’s direction, co-author with him, but benefited from Gurr’s mentorship too.
Turning to the book, Why Men Rebel, was important during its day (garnering the American Political Science Association Woodrow Wilson best book of the year award), but as testament to its importance today, and as of this writing Why Men Rebel has 11,523 citations on Google scholar.
In short, Why Men Rebel attempts to answer a very simple question, one that has become increasing important to ask over that past five decades.
The book consists of ten chapters beginning with a chapter titled “Explanations of political violence” and ending with one on “Causes and Processes of Political Violence.” At the time this was one of the most comprehensive books. After an extensive review of competing explanations, drawing most from the social sciences, Gurr settles on the concept of relative deprivation (as the most important reason why individuals and collectivities engage in political violence against the state.
He begins by arguing that that frustration-anger-aggression undergirds most political violence, but not everyone who experiences this state of affairs automatically engages in violence. Moreover, frustration-aggression (for short) must be coupled with a feeling of relative-deprivation (i.e., a perception that compared to others who are similar to you and your group, your lot in life is less than satisfactory). Gurr then introduces the reader to the importance not just of different contexts, but how important elements of violence and the processes that lead up to it like scope, intensity, and duration commingle and effect the pattern of violence.
This background information is necessary to understand why some types of political violence (e.g., insurrections, oppositional political terrorism, coups d’etat) are more frequent in some countries or societies, during different periods, than others. And why in other contexts all that we may see and experience are things like acts of resistance, political protests, etc.
Undoubtedly, and in hindsight the book has a handful of drawbacks and criticisms.
To begin with the book is half a century old. And thus a considerable amount of scholarship (e.g., biological) has been conducted since that time, some of which has competed with Gurr’s explanations why people decide to engage in political violence against the state.
Others have, in my opinion, wrongly inferred that the title of the book meant that Gurr’s explanation was directed towards men, or that he was somehow gender blind. Moreover, those expecting a page turner will not find it here. On the other hand, the book is methodical, sometimes boring, but this is to be expected with this kind of careful scholarly analysis.
Overall the advantages outweigh the drawbacks. To begin with Why Men Rebel is one of a handful of comprehensive explanations in an increasingly crowded scholarly field. Gurr’s approach was also truly interdisciplinary. Per Gurr’s style, he reviewed a considerable amount of social science scholarship that dealt with this subject, pointed out its merits and shortcomings, and then outlined a series of hypotheses amenable to empirical testing. Unlike many scholars who produce similar kinds of work, and to his credit, not content to leave his work as a a book treatment, Gurr subsequently invested considerable resources testing the numerous propositions statistically and modified his perspective when the evidence was not compelling.
Why Men Rebel is worth reading not simply as a parsimonious explanation for political violence, but as a model of comprehensive social science scholarship.
Questioning graffiti and street art as acts of resistance
/by Jeffrey Ian RossOver the past half century, not only has there been an increase in the amount and types of graffiti and street art appearing in large urban centers, but so too has attention paid to this type of urban public art.
One of dominant questions, however, that pervades this activity is why do people and groups engage in graffiti and street art?
Temporarily setting aside definitions of graffiti and street art, since the emergence of these activities, one of the dominant perceptions is that graffiti and street art are acts of resistance.
Indeed a considerable amount of graffiti and street art has been produced during major social and political revolutions, protests (e.g., Black Lives Matter), and campaigns of resistance (e.g., against the Russian Invasion of Ukraine), etc. (thus leading to the term conflict graffiti), but there is a significant amount of graffiti/street art that is put up that bears no connection to these types of events.
Thus to suggest that all work done by street art luminaries such as Banksy or Shepard Fairey, for example, are works of resistance is a gross simplification of their body of work.
Based on similar arguments, some graffiti and street art practitioners and observers, will go so far as to suggest that graffiti is resistance, but street art is not. This, they argue, is tied to their unique (often non generalizable) definitions of these practices.
The reality is that some, but not all, graffiti and street art are acts of resistance, and thus to imply or infer that all graffiti and street art falls in to this category is probably some combination of romanticism and sloppy homework.
The latter argument probably derives from a failure to (or poor execution there of) to talk with, interview, or observe individuals who engage in graffiti/street art, or to immerse oneself in the scholarly literature on this subject.
I suspect that some of the people who subscribe to the graffiti and street art is resistance also suggest that all crimes are acts of resistance. An argument left for another day.
Notwithstanding the fact that many graffiti writers and street artists may have difficulty articulating why they do this sort of activity, in principle, there are as many different causes (i.e., anger, fun, sneaky thrills, recognition, etc.) as there are people who engage in this activity.
In short, whether we are talking about the causes of graffiti and street art or almost any kind of human behavior we should be careful and suspicious about any sort of monocausal explanations, Often times the message is ambiguous and thus to infer that resistance is the only or most dominant cause should be questioned.
Photo Credit: Daniel Lobo
#resist