the urban shift? 13:11

People supporting suburban sprawls use recent figures of the declining population of most major cities as proof that suburbanization of America continues. Unfortunately, figures do not tell the entire story. With governments turning towards austerity and refocusing on sustainable development, it is curious that one study shows, on the contrary, the downtowns of american cities actually growing. Yes, this does mean that cities are shrinking but more people are turning towards denser areas. Areas where people can walk or take public transportation to work, to the grocery store, to wherever they are headed.

This isn't anything new. The cities that we know of today all began as dense settlements and slowly became centers of commerce, education, and the arts. Cities in Western Europe or Eastern Asia have always been the heartbeat of the country. It was during the baby-boomer generation that America saw people moving away from the city and creating large suburban sprawls. (especially in places like southern California) This led to the decay of cities (New York and Los Angeles during the 70's and 80's were thought of as very dangerous places, ridden with crime and gangs) and a flourishing of small towns and a car-centered life. But before I offer my criticism of such a lifestyle, I will say that the suburban life is indeed nice and comfortable. Suburbs offer much more space and are safer and cleaner than cities. One could actually own property and a home for much less.

There will always be suburbs and even rural areas, and I do believe that there is a place for them. My only qualm is that the suburbanization of America was not a sustainable lifestyle for such a large group and now my generation will have to deal with its consequences. Because of voracious appetites for houses, developers built and people bought even if they couldn't afford it and the housing market crashed. Because the baby-boomers worked hard (which is a good thing), they thought they deserved generous retirement benefits and pensions (a bad thing and perhaps has nothing with urban or suburban life but I still want to include it), governments are bankrupt. Because of the car-centered life, we've become dependent on gas and the price continues to climb. This doesn't seem sustainable.

One allure of the suburbs was the ability to own a home and actually make money. It seems that many (here, here, here, here) (though arguable) are saying that what we saw in the last half of 20th century will never happen again. They say many in this generation will not be able to ever own a home. Some critics are optimistic that the housing market will come back up. People will always need a place to live they say. The one thing they don't take into consideration is that housing markets do go up when the job market in that particular area goes up as well. And unfortunately, that most likely will not be ameliorated anytime soon.

Many educated people of the post-baby-boomer generation are choosing to stay in cities because it offers many things that they did not experience as kids. They see the cities as an exciting place, where one can meet people, try new foods, and go to art shows and concerts. They do not need to drive as often. Thus, we are seeing a revitalization of cities. Go to New York and see how exciting of a place it is.

Washington recently opened up the Office of Urban Affairs in order to address sustainable urban living. They want to see more public transportation and better school systems in the cities. (here, here) Cities in return are investing heavily in railway. Inner city school problems are constantly being addressed. (Though we still have to wait and see whether anything happens at this time) Perhaps we will lose our individual space and landscaped yards but in the long run, I believe that our government is focusing on the right things. I do hope that people can see that we need to sacrifice our personal desires for the greater good of the society.

detroit 16:06

A hopeful but slow rebirth of Detroit.

first time in new york city 22:38

I've traveled a lot to other parts of the world but this was my first time on the east coast of America. I guess my thinking was that if I were to spend that much money to get there, I would rather pay just a little bit more and go to a foreign country. That was a hasty and an un-thought-out decision I think because New York turned out to be one of the best places I could have visited.

I went with my roommate John to hang out with his girlfriend Mary-Renee and her sister Carol. We all stayed in Carol's tiny but very design-conscious and hip apartment in East Village. East Village I suppose is where all the students and young people live and it definitely sounded like it at three in the morning when I was woken up by loudness of drunk kids.

We didn't have a must-see list of monuments so we just walked around and did whatever we felt like. That turned out to be a great idea at the end because none of us stressed out about missing important sites. Perhaps I can say it was one of the least stressful trips I have taken. We even forgot about the Statue of Liberty but none of us cared. But beyond the things we saw, the best part of the trip was the food. Carol took us to Grimaldi's Pizzeria which was the best Pizza I have ever had and according to many New Yorkers and Zagat, the best pizza place in New York. If I had the money, I'd go take another trip just for the pizza. We also went to DuMont which had excellent Macaroni and Cheese and Hamburgers. I definitely will be going back.

innovation 15:12

Nothing is ever too objective but charts and graphs give us a good picture of what is generally going on in the world. So what can this list of the fifty most innovative companies tell us?

1) US still dominates in innovation. 22 out of 50 companies are American. If one breaks down the companies by their countries, it would go something like: Japan in second with five, China and Britain with four, Germany and Korea with three, Switzerland, Canada, Italy, Brazil, Finland and Spain with one each.

2) Innovation is increasing in Asia (13 in total). Especially as China rises, the number of innovations, patents, and companies will naturally increase as well. We see this in the number of patents Asia is producing (The top three patent holders are America, Japan, and South Korea) and even in the number of gold medal counts at the Olympics.

3) Innovation is decreasing in Europe (11 in total). Although still a very affluent part of the world, many continue to wonder when and if Europe will ever be as powerful as it once was. Or perhaps, the social Marxist bent of many European governments tends not to lend itself to innovation? I personally wouldn't care to work hard to create if the government took care of all my needs. (Although with the collapse of certain economies (i.e. Greece), the E.U., especially with Germany's lead, is slowly realizing that their socialist governments were unsustainable and unrealistic. While our country, on the contrary AND unfortunately, goes the other way.)

4) Brazil is listed as well (although the one company seems to be an oil company). Will we start to see more companies from other parts of the world?

a surprise 14:03

It was pouring yesterday. It did feel good to be indoors but it was deathly cold in the apartment. I couldn't sit still for more than an hour. I had to study for a Chinese final but I was distracted by how cold it was! To keep moving and warm, I tried doing laundry. It turned out that laundry made me even colder and distracted. I had to walk over the next building to do it, got wet in the process, and lost ONE sock. (This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that every time I do laundry, I lose ONE sock!) The only redeeming factor was that I got a free car wash. For that, I am truly grateful.

As I shook and shivered, and tried to get my mind off the cold, somebody began knocking at the door. Who could that be in this awfully wet and cold weather I thought and immediately sprinted to the door. It was a surprise package! I looked at the return address to see who had sent it and it was from Chie... in JAPAN! (Every time I get boxes from people from foreign countries, it really makes me happy. There's some thing more special about it than 'normal American' packages)

I open it up and it's a little package of goodies and a book. It's a book called "Kitchen" and Chie says it was her favorite book when she was thirteen years old. I hope my Japanese level is at least at a junior high level because it would be embarrassing to tell her that the book is too difficult to read.

Well, after the big surprise, the rain stopped and I saw the most ginormous rainbow I had seen in my life! My balcony is littered with really ugly contraptions but the rainbow definitely out shines the ugliness.

east asian economic bloc 19:18

I am sure most people in America do not really know or care for that matter, but this year is the first year that the combined GDPs of China, Japan, South Korea, and the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN) equaled to about 12.67 trillion dollars or 21.1 percent of the world's GDP. This is significant because by next year, East Asia's economic bloc will surpass that of the Euro bloc. By 2014, it is set to equal that of the US.

While the economies of the West continue to decline, Asia's continues to grow, mostly of course through its interaction with China. There is much talk these days about integrating their economies - much like what has happened in Europe. Even Japan, with its newly elected liberal government, is courting South Korea and China and resuming stalled talks on Free Trade Agreements and historical issues that were left more or less unresolved. They are also trying to rebuild their military so that they will not have to rely on the US. South Korea has just landed a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union, yet another possible strategy to lessen American influence. (Although the FTA with America is still pending. Where that goes, who knows...) Naturally, this makes the US uneasy as two of their allies are now trying to break away American influence and assert themselves more.

Will China be able to claim once again, their position as the biggest economy in the world? I personally hope not.

what we owe the aztecs 22:06

Tonight my friends and I were dipping bananas in chocolate for dessert and I started thinking about where the word for chocolate came from. So, I did some quick research and found out that our word for chocolate originally comes from the Nahuatl language. For those of you that don't know, Nahuatl was spoken by the Aztecs in Mexico. It was called xocolatl and that was borrowed into the Spanish language and then subsequently ours. I find it quite amazing that certain words from obscure languages can have such an impact in all the languages of the world. 

Other words I found that were derived from Nahuatl were tomato, coyote, chili and avocato. They were called tomatl, coyotl, chilli, and ahuacatl respectively. 

winter time 20:02

I've been back in L.A. for about 12 weeks now and I honestly forgot that I once had a blog...

A recap of my 12 weeks back in America:

1) Got a free one-week layover in Japan on my Seoul-Los Angeles flight. Got to see my friend Wataru, visited Osaka, Kyoto, and Uji on my own, and met a kind lady in Nara who gave me a full on tour for free. That weekend, I met my friends Brian, Jen, and Angela in Tokyo and went to Nikko. Wataru took us to Tsukiji Sushi house and I had the best sushi of my life there. 

kinkakuji in kyoto

bustling downtown osaka at night

2) Went to Joshua tree with Kaleo the weekend I got back. It was so awesome and refreshing to be a part of the fellowship again. 

3) Started grad school the week after that. My classes included Chinese 1, Japanese Linguistics, and an art history/archaeology class on early Japanese temples. The quarter is now officially over but I'm still writing a paper for the Japanese art/archaeology class. We, as a class, asked our professor about the prompt and he replied, "Do your best!" 

4) For next quarter, I will be taking Chinese 2, Italian 1, Readings in Japanese, and a grad class on ancient city planning in East Asia. And yea, I know Italian seems a little out of place. 

5) I'm kind of on winter break. No classes to go to but my professor for my grad class assigned us nine books and a research project to start on all before his class starts in January. I don't mind reading but when each book is over 600 pages, it is a little overwhelming. As of now, I've read 5 chapters of a book on city walls and started another on the history of China. It's gonna be a looong three weeks. 

the most economically powerful cities 21:52

1) London, England.
GDP: 452 billion. population: 8,567,000.
2) Hong Kong, China.
GDP: 244 billion. population: 7,206,000.
3) New York, USA.
GDP: 1.13 trillion. population: 19,040,000.
4) Tokyo, Japan.
GDP: 1.19 trillion. population: 35,676,000.
5) Chicago, USA.
GDP: 460 billion. population: 8,990,000.
6) Seoul, Korea.
GDP: 218 billion. population: 9,796,000.
7) Paris, France.
GDP: 460 billion. population: 9,904,000.
8) Los Angeles, USA.
GDP: 639 billion. population: 12,500,000.
9) Shanghai, China.
GDP: 139 million. population: 14,987,000.
10) Toronto, Canada.
GDP: 209 billion. population: 5,213,000.

From Forbes.com