The question of gentrification The question of gentrification is made complex by the fact that the urban qualities it produces—lively street life, profuse commerce, preservation and upgrading of old buildings—are highly desirable, the substrate of urbanity. The problem with gentrification is with its particulars and with its effects. Gentrification suppresses reciprocity by its narrowed scripting of formal and social behavior, by turning neighborhoods into Disneylands or Colonial Williamsburgs, where residents become cast members and the rituals of everyday life become spectacle or food for consumption. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan gentrificationurbanism
Dark satanic steel When poet William Blake wrote of "dark satanic mills", he couldn't have been looking at a steel mill because there were none in 1804. Nevertheless, when I visit a steel mill, Blake's phrase always comes to mind. With the heat and the pounding noise, the dust and smoke, and the red glow against the night sky, it's hard not to see these places as infernal. And yet the process of making steel also produces some of the most hauntingly beautiful images found anywhere in the world of industry. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape Dark satanic millsWeathering Steel resourcesmetal