#KILL THESE URBAN PLANNERS

[haganez]

SOBBING I LOVE U WALKABLE CITIES ILL BE WITH YOU SOMEDAY

[reasonsforhope]

"A recent World Meteorological Organization report called heat waves the “deadliest meteorological hazard” from 2015 to 2019, affecting people living on all continents, and setting new national heat records in many regions.

‍Canada’s top weather event in 2021 was British Columbia’s record-breaking heat, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. The temperature in Lytton, B.C., hit 49.6 C on June 29. The following day a wildfire destroyed 90 per cent of the town, killing two people and displacing 1,200 others.

Heat waves also exacerbate existing health issues, including cardiovascular and respiratory disease. They’re associated with increased hospital admissions, psychological stress and aggressive behavior, as well as excess mortality.

During heat waves, the highest temperatures are often found in urbanized areas. Urbanization is almost always associated with an increase in paved, impervious areas, and often a decrease in greenery. Concrete and asphalt roads, and other built materials readily absorb, store and release heat, raising city temperatures, a phenomenon called the urban heat island.

Many studies have shown that urban forests can reduce the urban heat island, and many policies focus their attention on large green spaces.

Small green spaces, such as yards, rooftops and small parcels of undeveloped land, can make impressive contributions to lowering urban heat, but they are often overlooked when developing strategies for urban cooling.

The effect of small green spaces

Cities rarely have the opportunity to add large green spaces to help counter the effects of heatwaves. Smaller vegetated spaces, however, can still meaningfully decrease local land temperatures.

Small green spaces, such as yards, rooftops and small parcels of undeveloped land, can make impressive contributions to lowering urban heat, but they are often overlooked when developing strategies for urban cooling.

A recent study in Adelaide, Australia, found that tree canopy cover and, to a lesser extent, grass cover decreased local daytime surface temperatures by up to 6 C during extreme summer heat conditions. Further inland, suburban yards and gardens can decrease local surface temperatures up to 5 C.

At a quite small scale, on the order of tens of square metres, trees reduced daytime surface temperatures twice as much as grass cover. But grass and other small, low-lying plants, grow relatively quickly, compared to trees.

Cities should adopt short-term and long-term strategies to respond to extreme heat, including the replacement of paved and impervious surfaces with grasses and turf, and increasing tree plantings to boost canopy coverage.

Amplifying the cooling effect

Furthermore, when managing small green spaces, city planners and foresters can select tree species based on their ability to cool the environment. Green spaces with a high diversity of tree species have a greater cooling effect in spring, summer and fall. They also have a larger maximum drop in temperature in the summer, compared to spaces that are less diverse.

For example, tree canopies with large leaves and high transpiration rates — the evaporation of water from plants occurring at the leaves — could provide more cooling.

Planting a variety of species, of different heights, can have a larger cooling effect than tall trees alone.

The structure of green space may also influence its cooling efficiency. In summer, a plant community with multiple layers of trees, shrubs and herbs can further decrease air temperature by 1 C on a sunny day and 0.5 C on a cloudy day, compared with an area only dominated by tall trees...

But overall, trees usually have a stronger effect on cooling than grass. Planting trees in groups, not individually or in lines, is recommended for regulating the microclimate (local climate conditions near the Earth’s surface).

Small green spaces can offer a lot of summer cooling in cities. And cities can learn to manage the configuration of small green spaces better to get more cooling benefits and minimize the trade-offs."

-via GoodGoodGood, July 4, 2024

[stumpyjoepete]

Thinking a bit more about Megalopolis (see prev post). It's not really the case that the script is as disjointed or schizophrenic as my post makes it out to be. The central plot is pretty simple: an egotistical city planner has an ambitious and futuristic vision for redeveloping the city, and he butts heads with the Mayor and others who oppose him in this. He ultimately succeeds in building his utopian "megalopolis". Everyone is happy, the end.

And yet.

There's this... intense centrifugal force that prevents everything from cohering into a unified whole. It's like a puzzle where all the pieces are cut from the same picture, but upon closer inspection, no two pieces quite fit together. Or like that collection of nonsensical objects. A fork where the tines and the handle are connected by a chain. A watering can with the spout facing the wrong way. A quick glance leaves you confused, and that confusion is only deepened by further contemplation.

I think this is especially clear in the pseudo-intellectualism of the title cards, narration, monologues, and quotations/references:

Laurence Fishburne does this heavy-handed narration at the beginning and end of the movie (and several random points in between). And there are these associated title cards that look like they were made by applying an "Ancient Rome" theme to some PowerPoint slides. "Or will we too fall victim, like old Rome, to the insatiable appetite for power of a few men?" My brother in Christ, you are making a movie where the hero is named Cesar, and the happy ending is when he successfully pulls a Robert Moses. This is not a story about power corrupting or good intentions going awry. What are you doing???

Cesar Catilina interrupts Mayor Cicero's speech (where he is introducing a plan to build a casino) in order to lay out an early plan for "megalopolis", which is an ambitious and long-term alternative to the (short-term) casino plan. He prefaces his megalopolis pitch by reciting the Hamlet soliloquy. What exactly does Coppola think "To Be Or Not To Be" is about? He must thinks it means, "I am a dark and brooding bad-boy intellectual", since it's hard to see how "I'd like to kill myself, but I fear death" fits into an argument about the importance of long-term thinking in urban planning.

Cesar says several negative things about "civilization". "[Imagine] humanity as an old tree with one misguided branch called civilization... going nowhere." (Shot of notebook shows an illustration with 'war' and 'cruelty' offshoots from said branch.) "Emerson said the end of the human race will be that we'll eventually die of civilization." (Note: unsourced, probably fake quote.) "Civilization itself remains the great enemy of mankind." Umm... you're an urban planner! You're doing a high modernism. What exactly does it mean for you to call civilization the enemy? Is "megalopolis" somehow anti-civilization because it looks like a Georgia O'Keefe painting instead of a bunch of straight lines and right angles? Will the "war" and "cruelty" branches wither and die when buildings have labia?

Also, there's this amazing line read that completely inverts the meaning of a fake Marcus Aurelius quote (the quote was attributed to him by Tolstoy but is not actually something he said). "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape... finding yourself in the ranks of the insane." Why did you put in that pause??? Fake Marcus Aurelius is turning in his grave! You're supposed to be fleeing FROM the ranks of the insane! I suppose this isn't really inconsistent with the characterization of Cesar, it's just such a fucking batshit thing to say.

All of the cargo-cult intellectualism listed above could perhaps be excused if the vision that the film is supposedly about had any content whatsoever. Or, alternatively, if the movie was about something more substantive, and the vacuous megalopolis vision took place off-screen in an epilogue, like the "happily ever after" of a children's story. But no! The movie repeatedly interrupts the plot to grab you by the shoulders and scream in your face: "I have a vision! For the future!". And then--now that it has your undivided attention--it shits the bed like a man who has just polished off an entire bag of sugar-free gummy bears and washed them down with a fistful of Ambien:

"Conversation isn't enough. It's the questions that lead it to the next step. But initially, you have to have a conversation. The city itself is immaterial, but they're talking about it for the first time. And it's not just about us talking about it. It's the need to talk about it. It's as urgent to us as air and water."

"Mr. Catalina, you said that as we jump into the future, we should do so unafraid. But what if when we do jump into the future, there is something to be afraid of?" "Well, there's nothing to be afraid of if you love, or have loved. It's an unstoppable force. It's unbreakable. It has no limits. It's within us. It's around us. And it's stretched throughout time. It's nothing you can touch. Yet it guides every decision that we make. But we do have the obligation to each other to ask questions of one another. What can we do? Is this society, is this way we're living, the only one that's available to us? And when we ask these questions, when there's a dialogue about them, that basically is a utopia."

After the revolution, we won't have conflicts anymore; we'll have dialogue instead. We won't have a need for the "jobs" and "sanitation" of "now"; we'll have the "imperishable" "dreams" of "forever". We won't have problems that need solving; we'll all be too busy asking each other questions. Now, if everyone could just shut up and get the hell out of the way and let Cesar implement his vision, then "everyone" will soon be "creating together, learning together, perfecting body and mind." A chorus of children's voices gradually morphing into Laurence Fishburne's, chanting, "One Earth, indivisible, with long life, education and justice for all." It's eschatological anti-politics made entirely from cotton candy. Please, for the love of God, stop making Adam Driver monologue at me! Let's get back to Aubrey Plaza stepping on horny fascist Shia LaBeouf!

The incoherence of Megalopolis's vision is compounded by how anachronistic its depiction of our fallen world is. There are some half-hearted (and ham-fisted) gestures in the Clodio sub-plot towards the dangers of Trumpian populism, but the script was first written in the 80's, and it's extremely obvious that Coppola is writing about New York City in the preceding several decades. The city's finances are in dire straights. (There's literally a "Ford Tells City: Drop Dead" reference!) The city is full of slums, the streets are full of crime, and the elites are all decadent. (For Coppola, decadence means that ladies are doing cocaine and smooching each other in the cluh-ub.) The main character is Neo-Roman Robert Moses, and the conflict of the film is about urban renewal. In case you, like Mr. Coppola, have not been made aware, slum clearance is not a major political issue in 2020's Manhattan.

Two thirds of the way through the movie, a falling Soviet satellite provides a deus ex machina, blowing up the financial district and clearing space for megalopolis to take its place. Ironically, a previous attempt to produce the film came to its abrupt end when two planes flew into some buildings in the financial district. Perhaps you heard about it. The financial backers of the film at the time considered Megalopolis's plot a bit too close to current events for comfort and withdrew their support.

But Coppola's depiction of Manhattan was already decades out of date by then. Moses stepped down in '60. Jacobs' book railing against urban renewal came out in '61. The Power Broker came out in '74. One presumes popular opinion of Robert Moses soured in the following years. The crisis of the city's finances that peaked in '75 was over by '81 when NYC balanced its budget and reentered the bond market. The crime wave of the 70's and 80's had receded by the year 2000. The demand for housing in NYC proper is as high as it ever has been, and it's only getting higher. Megalopolis imagines America as an incoherent mishmash of several decades of mid-century NYC, dressed up in the toga of the late Roman Republic, calling out for (Robert) Moses to part the slums and take us into a promised land that is literally beyond any description, and whose only concrete feature seems to be glowing people-movers.

A Robert Moses with the power to stop time, at that!

Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Cesar discovers he has the power to stop time in the opening scene of the film. I forgot because it's literally irrelevant to the plot. Time stops a few times, and then it starts back up again, and the events of the film just plod inexorably forward. For a movie as temporally dislocated as Metropolis, perhaps that's just as well.

[childotkw]

Oh oh! How would Tom handle a time traveling Harry who does not go to Hogwarts but instead lives in the Forbidden Forest?

Like Tom, to stay fit or something, regularly works out every morning since he was seven. (Maybe in a misguided attempt to be adopted if he was physically appealing) and saw Harry fishing at the lake right by the forest while on his daily run.

He looks eleven, too, but Tom can't remember him from the sorting. The camper waved at him and hurried back into the forest before Tom could get too close, yanking his giant set up tent into a backpack that could not have been possible without magic.

For years, Tom asks about the boy in the woods, but no one believes him because no one has seen this boy, least of all in the Forbidden Forest of all places. Tom decides to prove his real and gets distracted from his bloodline.

Meanwhile, Harry is happy being a Forbidden Forest Hermit.

cryptid!Harry lurking in the woods and becoming an urban legend that only Tom has ever actually seen? Hilarious!

Now, the important thing to understand is that Harry never meant to end up in the Forbidden Forest. It wasn’t on his to-do list.

(Not that Harry’s to-do lists were ever that well thought out, more momentous tasks distilled down into: ‘stop voldemort???’ or ‘figure out why Death is such a bitch’. But hey - at least he has a to-do list. That’s better than most people he’s met.)

Regardless.

Waking up as a tiny, underfed eleven year old in the middle of the fucking Forbidden Forest the year Tom Riddle was set to arrive at Hogwarts? Not explicitly in his plans but Harry can adapt. Harry excels at adapting to whatever bullshit situation he’s thrown into. Death thinks this little temporal hiccup will stop Harry from separating them completely and reversing the MoD stuff? ha. Fat chance.

Harry had always nursed childish fantasies of running away from the Dursleys and living in the wildness, and he’s got a year living on the run in a tent under his belt. He knows how to survive.

(He’s always known how to survive. Some days, it’s the only thing Harry thinks he can do anymore. Survive survive survive - he’s doing it so well nothing would ever kill him again)

So, setting up in the Forbidden Forest is nothing. It’s safe to live in (if you know where to go and what to avoid), and it’s protected (thanks to it’s horrific reputation), and there’s plenty of food (so long as you ask the plants before plucking their fruits and only go after non-sapients - which, honestly, is just an awful term, Harry hates it, humanity was a mistake).

Does he mean to let a baby!Tom Riddle spot him on the boy’s morning run one day? Well…’no’ sounds like a lie but it’s not the truth either. Harry was curious, okay? He’s allowed to be curious about the kid who will grow up to ruin so many lives. He’s allowed to mess with Riddle a little after all the shit he put Harry through.

It’s karma.

But. See. Harry’s not a planner (note: his to-do lists). Harry doesn’t think years and decades in advance. It’s just not how his brain works.

How was he supposed to know that the handful of times he dangled his presence in front of Tom Riddle would kick-off a small obsession in the boy?

How was he to know that Tom Riddle, tenacious bastard that he was, would take Harry’s existence as a taunt?

How was he to know that Tom Riddle would spend hours and hours thinking about him, and that the one time Harry actually got close enough for a conversation - they were both fifteen, by the way, and maybe he wanted to see if he could curb the imminent patricide, sue him - that it would ignite that small obsession into a wildfire that would burn them both?

It’s hardly Harry’s fault. He can’t be blamed. He’s the victim here!

[heavyhitterheaux]

The Marriage Pact Part 4 (Slight NSFW)

For Richer, For Poorer

Synopsis: You have to deal with the consequences of Jack keeping secrets from you and having to tell someone else about the pact, all while also confronting Jack about the newest member on the team and how you don't like how much time he's been spending with her.

Pairing: Fiancé!Jack Harlow x Fiancée!Reader

Read Parts One, Two, and Three first

Series Masterlist

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Ariyana was on her way to meet up with everyone in Prague, since she had to fly to Atlanta for a few days to finish up wedding planner for another couple. She actually finished earlier than expected so decided to hop on a plane to come and keep her best friend company since she knew by now that Jack and Urban were probably getting on your nerves.

She had a short layover and was scrolling through her phone when she came across the story on all of the major gossip pages on instagram and she immediately began fuming and texting you at an intense speed.

Ari- Y/N ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW. DID JACKMAN CHEAT ON YOU?

Ari- I WILL KICK HIS KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN EATING ASS. I WATCH ENOUGH CRIME SHOWS TO KNOW HOW TO HIDE A BODY

Ari- Y/NNNNNNN!!!!!!

Ari- What is going on? Somehow I know Urb is involved and I’m coming to kick his ass too. Don’t even warn him either. Jack got another thing coming if he thinks he can cheat on my best friend and get away with it. Who the fuck does he think he is?

Not getting a response from you, she couldn’t wait until she touched down in Prague and there would still be a few hours before Jack’s show so that would give her an opportunity to give him a piece of her mind and it was going to be anything but pretty.

You had turned your phone off once you told Jack to get out of your shared hotel room and ventured down to the spa in hopes of getting a massage and facial to relax you and take your mind off of the absolute fuckery that had popped off since this morning. You held onto the fact that Ari would be here in a few days and she would be able to keep your mind occupied off of Jack, that was unless she wanted to kill him which you knew that she did as soon as she heard what was going on.

When you finished in the spa, you decided to head back to your room in the hopes of ordering room service when you found Ari in the hallway knocking on Urban’s door with her bags in hand. She turned down the hallway to look at you and she immediately waved you over.

“You get over here now. We have a LOT to talk about since you’ve been ignoring me all day.”

“I didn’t mean to, my phone was off.” You confessed while taking it out of your back pocket and turning it on to see a slew of missed calls and text messages from different people.

The door finally opened and Ari was now face to face with Jack and she was now fuming.

“I am literally this close to kicking your ass so you better start explaining and you better start now. Come on Y/N!”

Ari pushed past Jack and Urban looked at her wide eyed when he finally saw her.

“Oh, um I thought you were coming tomorrow?” Urban asked as he went over to greet her.

“I was, but I finished early and once I saw where someone couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and possibly cheated on my best friend, I decided to make this trip a priority.”

“I…” Jack started to say, but she immediately cut him off.

“If you are about to tell me a whole bunch of lies, you can keep it.”

“But I’m not!”

“YOU CHEATED ON MY BEST FRIEND!”

“I DIDN’T CHEAT ON HER! Y/N WILL YOU TELL HER, PLEASE?!”

All you were doing was sitting in the corner with your legs crossed staring at all three of them.

“Y/N, what is going on?” Ari asked you while coming over to sit across from you.

“He didn’t cheat on me, but he might as well had.”

“Oh my fucking goodness.” Jack said as he threw his head back in frustration and Urban immediately shot him a look. 

“Jackman, you’re on thin ice so shut up, now Y/N, sweetie, explain what you mean.”

“Me and Jack made a marriage pact when we were seventeen and it was decided by the time that we were thirty that if we were both single that we would marry each other. He proposed on my birthday and told me that he had had my ring for an entire year but was too scared to say anything. He had been fucking this girl named Gabrielle and the last time he slept with her was right before he proposed to me hence, why the baby could possibly be his even though he claimed to have used protection. She is blasting it all over social media because Jackman Thomas Harlow did not give her an NDA to sign. Now can I go lay down?”

“WHAT? Hold on, there is so much to unpack with all of that. So you two literally just decided to get married?”

“Yes.” Both of you said at the same time.

“Without actually being in a relationship beforehand?”

“I said the same exact thing!” Urban exclaimed while throwing his hands up in the air. 

“I…. okay…. Not what I was expecting. But, okay then.” Ari finally said while nodding her head.

“And Jack didn’t tell her even though I told him to do it before she found out from someone else and now look what happened.” Urban said while looking at Jack who simply sighed.

“Oh, so you knew and didn’t tell her?” Ari said while looking at her boyfriend of two years.

“Ariyana! That is not my place to do that! I told him to tell her as soon as he found out!”

“And you’re obviously still talking to this girl even though you have an entire fiance? Did I get that right?” Ari asked while looking over at Jack who just sighed.

“Right before I proposed, I cut her off. It wasn’t until she found out she was pregnant that she called me.”

“I… and now Y/N is mad and upset because you lied to her, is that right?”

“And brought another so-called manager to the team behind my back and claimed that he was going to tell me.”

“Well aren’t you full of surprises, Jackman?” Ari said while looking at him.

“Now can I go lay down? You’ve interrogated us enough.” You asked while standing up and making your way towards the door. 

“Hmm, well take Jack with you because me and Urb have things to do.” 

“She doesn’t even want to be near me let alone look at me.” Jack muttered while playing with the strings on his sweatshirt. 

“Well, that’s too bad. The two of you are about to be married aren’t you? Married people talk about their problems and work them out so hop to it. We’ll see you when it’s time to leave for the venue.”

You rolled your eyes at your best friend before opening the door and Jack quickly followed you to your suite that was across the hall. Once you opened it, you simply went to sit on the couch and turn on the television without even looking at him.

“Y/N…”

“Jackman.”

“Will you please talk to me?”

“And say what? Say what exactly?” You responded while finally turning to him.

“I know I messed up, but you don’t have to flat out ignore me.”

“And you didn’t have to flat out lie to me either.”

“I… know and I should have said something to you from the beginning and I’m sorry about that.”

Just then you looked down to see Jack’s phone ringing and saw that it was Maggie.

“Hmm, I’d answer that if I were you because if you don’t she’ll be calling me next and I will tell her exactly everything that her oldest child did.”

“And what am I supposed to tell her?!”

“You have a brain, figure it out.”

Jack simply let the phone ring and all you did was roll your eyes and sigh knowing what was about to happen.

“From this point forward, no secrets and I mean it.”

“So, you forgive me?!”

“I didn’t say that. I just said there needs to not be any secrets between us.”

“We can make this work, babe. I know we can and I know the baby isn’t mine.”

“You better pray hard that it isn't.” 

Another two months or so had passed since Jack had been on tour and even though you were still mad at him, you tried not to let it show in front of other people in the hopes of not tarnishing his image. You wouldn’t say that you had completely forgiven him, but the two of you were better than you had been before finding out about the potential baby being his. There was about another month or so to go until he was able to take the DNA test, but for now you put it in the back of your mind. Jack eventually did talk to his mother and the only thing that he told her was that she was probably trying to get money out of him and left it at that. 

However, you had another problem and her name was Neelam.

She was nice… enough.

But for some reason, she rubbed you the wrong way and you didn’t like how close and comfortable she was around Jack who, being a man, thought nothing of it. Urban also saw how she interacted with him and would shoot you looks of confusion knowing that Jack knew that he was about to be a married man and that the single life was behind him. 

It had been bothering you for a while and you decided to bring it up to Jack as the two of you were now laying down in the back of the tour bus headed to the next city.

It had become harder and harder to get him alone since it seemed like she was always everywhere. You shouldn’t have to fight for a few moments alone with your fiance. 

“Bubs, can I ask you something?” You said to Jack who simply looked down at you while nodding his head.

“Of course you can, baby. What’s wrong?”

“I… it’s Neelam.”

“Isn’t she great? She’s been really helpful since Chris brought her on.” Jack answered while smiling at you and all you did was look at him with a straight face. 

“Why does it seem like I always have to fight for your attention since she’s been here?”

“Huh? What are you talking about? Fight for my attention since when? You’ve had my attention since I was eight days old. Literally no one can compete with that.”

“She is always next to you every single time I turn around and I don’t like that.”

“Babe, you’re making a big deal out of nothing and it sounds like you’re jealous. You have nothing to be jealous of because you know that I’m yours.”

“Well tell her that because it seems like she acts like the two of you are in a relationship when you know good and damn well you’re about to be married to me, so what is up with that?”

“Where is this even coming from because no she doesn’t. She knows that we’re together and has been nothing but professional and respectful this entire time.”

“I beg to differ, but whatever. Just brush me off I guess.” You said while shrugging your shoulders and it was clear to Jack that you were now pissed off. 

“Y/N, no one is brushing you off, baby. I just don’t get those vibes coming from her. You have nothing to worry about because you are literally the only person that I want and I’ve told you that time and time again. That is never going to change.”

“I don’t like her and I want her gone.”

“It’s not that simple and you know it.”

“It is that simple when she’s on your team. What are you not getting? I told you from the beginning that if I didn’t like her, I wanted her gone.”

“But I do like her and you’re coming to me with this imaginary bullshit you made up in your head about her wanting me when I know that she doesn’t.”

“Because you’re a fucking man. Girls recognize when someone is after what’s theirs.”

“She’s not going anywhere, end of discussion. So drop it.”

You had been laying on Jack’s chest and promptly turned around to face the other way so that you wouldn’t have to look at him and all you then heard was him sucking his teeth.

“Seriously, Y/N? Now you turn away from me?”

“You told me, end of discussion so there isn’t anything further that needs to be said since obviously how I feel doesn’t matter so I’ll be over here.” 

“No one said how you feel doesn’t matter so stop putting words in my mouth.”

“You agreed with me when she got here that if I didn’t like her then she would be gone, but now what changed?”

“She is literally here to help you not to have to do so much so I would think that you would be a little more appreciative towards her.”

“You know what? It doesn’t even matter anymore. Do what you want.”

“Why are you always picking fights?” Jack asked while sighing. 

“How am I picking a fight when I simply told you how I felt? You turned it back on me and said that I was jealous and delusional.”

“Because that’s what it sounds like! How are you jealous of her being around me so much when it’s her actual job when you literally have me? I am literally yours and not going anywhere. At the end of the day, you’re the one that I’m coming home to.”

“Never mind. It doesn’t even matter anymore, goodnight.”

“Y/N, come on.”

Silence.

“I wish you could see how much I love and care about you. You’re my priority and no one else, I promise you that. Let’s just see how it goes and if you still aren’t happy we’ll let her go.”

You turned back around to look at him and simply nodded before turning back around.

“That wasn’t meant for you to turn back around, I want to look at my girl. Let me see that pretty face.”

“Well you can look at the back of my head because I’m still mad at you.”

Jack sighed before he laid you on your back before climbing on top of you and leaning down to kiss you.

“Compromising is a part of marriage, baby. Is it not?”

“We’re not married.”

“Yet, so why do you have to be such a smartass?” Jack asked while starting to tickle you and you were trying to push him off of you.

“NO! Jackman! DO NOT!”

“Say you love me and I’ll stop.”

“Now you want me to lie?” You asked between you laughing.

“I… stink, stop playing!”

“Okay! Fine, fine. I love you now, get off of me.”

“Give me kisses first.”

You reached up to kiss him and he eagerly kissed back with his hand reaching underneath the shirt that you were wearing as he slowly massaged your left breast with you letting out a small moan. 

Jack then tugged on your shirt meaning that he wanted for you to take it off so that he could have better access to you. 

“How are you so perfect?” Jack whispered while leaning down to kiss you.

Once you did, his mouth quickly attached the one that he had been massaging previously while his hand reached down to rub small circles along your clit knowing that the his shirt had been the only item of clothing that you were actually wearing and was thankful for that. 

Jack heard you let out a small whimper and began to suck harder as he then inserted two fingers into you and were pumping them slowly in and out as he switched to your other breast.

“Mmm. baby.”

“Shh, we have to be quiet. Can you be a good girl and be quiet for me?” Jack whispered in your ear and you eagerly nodded before he went back to his previous task.

You wrapped your arms around Jack’s neck in order to bring him closer to you if that was even possible as he added another finger.

Since he knew that you hadn’t had sex before him, he would periodically introduce you to new things to see if you liked it or not, but also made sure not to overwhelm you. The two of you quickly came up with a safe word right after the first time.

“So wet for me, baby. I want to taste you, is that okay?” He asked while looking up at you and a slow nod was given in approval.

“I’m about to make you feel so good, spread those legs for me.”

Jack made his way down your body while placing small kisses all over it along the way and once he got to your most prized possession, he slowly looked back up at you.

“You ready?”

You said a small yes in response and Jack took one long lick across your folds without breaking eye contact with you and instant pleasure took over your body.

“Keep your eyes on me and you better not disobey me.” Was all he said before he fully dove in.

He went at a slow pace at first wanting for you to get comfortable, but as soon as you least expected it, he sped up his pace making you moan out in pleasure. You quickly put your hand over your mouth in order to muffle the moans as best as you could, but knew that some were bound to slip out. However, previously everyone had been asleep except you and Jack.

His face was covered in your juices before he slowly began to suck on your clit and that was when you lost it.

“Fuck, oh shiiiiit.” You said as you closed your eyes for one second, and Jack immediately halted his movements making you look at him in confusion.

“What did I tell you?”

“I need to keep my eyes on you.”

“So do it and don’t let it happen again.”

Jack held onto your thighs tighter since he noticed that you had been starting to move away from him and you did your best to not wake up everyone in the bus.

“Come on pretty baby, you gonna cum for me? Be a good girl and cum all over my face.”

It took less than two minutes for you to hit your peak as Jack kissed your thighs as you rode it out.

As he made his way back up your body, he left a trail of kisses and finally ended at your lips and you eagerly kissed him.

“I didn’t want to do too much at one time, you okay?”

“More than okay.” You responded while laughing and Jack simply smiled.

“Now I need to return the favor.” You said while reaching for Jack’s shorts, but he pushed your hand away.

“Next time, baby. Just wanted to make you feel good. It’s almost three in the morning so I’m going to need you to go to sleep.” Jack said as he placed kisses on your cheeks, your nose, and then your forehead.

“I love you so much and there is no one on this earth that compares to you. Got it?” Jack said as moved from over top of you and simply nodded.

“I got it, I love you too.”

You had been wedding planning with Ariyana all day and left Jack in the hands of Neelam which was the last thing that you wanted to do. But talking with Jack the other night, you felt a little more at ease. I mean it was kind of hard to compete with someone that he had known for his entire life. 

It wasn’t until you came across her instagram story which had you fuming.

Neelam Thadhani added to their story

You immediately took a screenshot and sent it to him wanting an explanation.

You- Bubs, what the fuck is this?

All you saw was the text bubble appearing and then disappearing.

You- Hmm, so much for me not having anything to worry about.

Taglist:

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[fatehbaz]

all the time, gotta walk away, for a moment, take a break, infuriated, when reading about European implementation of forced labour, particularly and especially thinking about nineteenth and early twentieth centuries plantations, whether it's sugarcane or rubber or tea or banana, whether it's British plantations in Assam or Malaya; Belgian plantations in Congo; French plantations in West Africa; Dutch plantations in Java; de facto United States-controlled plantations in Haiti or Guatemala or Cuba or Colombia. and the story is always: "and then the government tried to find a way to reimpose slavery under a different name. and then the government destroyed vast regions of forest for monoculture plantations. and then the government forced thousands to become homeless and then criminalized poverty to force people into plantation work or prison labor." like the plantation industries are central (entangled with every commodity and every infrastructure project) and their directors are influencing each other despite spatial distance between London and the Caribbean and the Philippines.

and so the same few dozen administrators and companies and institutions keep making appearances everywhere, like they have outsized influence in history. like they are important nodes in a network. and they all cite each other, and write letters to each other, and send plant collection gifts to each other, and attend each other's lectures, and inspire other companies and colonial powers to adapt their policies/techniques.

but. important that we ought not characterize some systems and forces (surveillance apparatuses, industrial might, capitalism itself) as willful or always conscious. this is a critical addendum. a lot of those forces are self-perpetuating, or at least not, like, a sentient monster. we ought to avoid imagining a hypothetical boardroom full of be-suited businessmen smoking cigars and plotting schemes. this runs the risk of misunderstanding the forces that kill us, runs the risk of attributing qualities to those forces that they don't actually possess. but sometimes, in some cases, there really are, like, a few particular assholes with a disproportionate amount of influence making problems for everyone else.

not to over-simplify, but sometimes it's like the same prominent people, and a few key well-placed connections and enablers in research institutions or infrastructure companies. they're prison wardens and lietuenant governors and medical doctors and engineers and military commanders and botanists and bankers, and they all co-ordinate these multi-faceted plans to dispossess the locals, build the roads, occupy the local government, co-erce the labour, tend the plants, ship the products.

so you'll be reading the story of like a decade in British Singapore and you're like "oh, i bet that one ambitious British surgeon who is into 'economics' and is obsessed with tigers and has the big nutmeg garden in his backyard is gonna show up again" and sure enough he does. but also sometimes you're reading about another situation halfway across the planet and then they surprise you (because so many of them are wealthy and influential and friends with each other) and it'll be like "oh you're reading about a British officer displacing local people to construct a new building in Nigeria? surprise cameo! he just got a letter from the dude at the university back in London or the agriculturalist in Jamaica or the urban planner from Bombay, they all went to school together and they're also all investors in the same rubber plantation in Malaya". so you'll see repeated references to the same names like "the British governor of Bengal" or "[a financial institution or bank from Paris or New York City]" or "[a specific colonial doctor/laboratory that does unethical experiments or eugenics stuff]" or "lead tropical agriculture adviser to [major corporation]" or "the United Fruit Company" and it's like "not you again"

[communistkenobi]

re last post, this is also where the argument that a lot of north american urban areas are geographically racist and ableist and sexist comes from, that the built environment itself (re)produces particular types of oppressive violence. roads without sidewalks are not “poorly designed” in the sense that urban planners missed their intended mark with how roads should be built, these roads are designed around the automobile at the exclusion of all else. this exclusion then intersects with the very obvious fact that it costs a lot of money to own a car. and while not everyone has a car, everyone still needs to travel around cities. roads are (mostly) public infrastructure but cars are privately owned, and public transit is constantly made secondary to the private automobile, resulting in a lot of people having to walk long distances on concrete medians and in ditches at the roadside. this is not a mystery or a surprise to people who authorise and maintain urban policy. pedestrians killed by cars on roads like these should be considered a form of social murder

[opencommunion]

"The political agitation begun by Kasa-Vubu in August 1956 was to culminate in Lumumba’s mass rally of December 1958. Immediate independence had now become a national goal; the problem was how to obtain it. The working people of Kinshasa, including the lumpenproletariat, gave their solution on 4 January 1959.

The trouble began with the Belgian mayor of Kinshasa. On Tuesday 30 December 1958, the secretary of the local Abako section sent a letter to the mayor informing him of his party’s intention to hold a meeting on the YMCA premises, not too far from the place where Lumumba had held his rally, on the following Sunday, 4 January 1959. The letter reached City Hall on Friday 2 January. On the pretext that the letter did not explicitly ask permission for the party meeting, the mayor’s office replied on Saturday 3 January that if the proposed meeting did not have the ‘private character’ its planners seemingly intended, they would be held responsible for any consequences.

... When the crowd gathered as expected at the YMCA on Sunday, Abako leaders, including Kasa-Vubu himself, went over there to explain that since the meeting was not authorized, people should go home and reconvene in two weeks’ time. The crowd refused to disperse peacefully, and responded with violence by throwing rocks at the police and attacking passing white motorists, European-owned shops, and all other symbols of white privilege and authority. The entire African section of Kinshasa joined the rebellion, which lasted three days. ... Although official figures obtained from hospitals and burial services indicated only 49 people dead, all Congolese, and 116 injured, including 15 Europeans, estimates of people killed were as high as three hundred. Many Africans were buried by relatives and friends without any formalities, and all the people injured did not seek hospital care.

If 4 January is a public holiday in the DRC today as ‘Independence Martyrs Day’, it is because the mass action on that day in 1959 sounded the death knell of Belgian colonialism in the Congo. ‘Indépendance immédiate,’ the slogan of the Kinshasa protesters, soon became a nonnegotiable demand of the national independence movement all over the country. The revolt marked the beginning of a new and truly revolutionary phase in the movement, the phase of the radicalization of the struggle. This is a phase in which the initiative passed from the petty bourgeoisie to ordinary people. The Kinshasa revolt was entirely spontaneous, with the urban masses taking their own initiative to make the slogan ‘immediate independence’ a reality. The entire course of Congolese history was changed by their action.

The Belgians were extremely shocked by the violence of their presumably happy subjects. Faced with the people’s demand for independence, the lack of political will in Belgium for an Algerian-type colonial war, and an international context in which decolonization was the order of the day, they had to accept the idea of a negotiated independence."

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, 2002

[warmcoals]

downtown seattle is a fucking wasteland. every urban planner and landlord who ever had anything to do with it should be killed

[0utrenoir]

im desperately trying to find a walkable neighborhood to move to next year. 2 criteria: has to actually be walkable, with bars and terraces and has to be less ugly than the place i live at at the moment. i am open to move increasingly away from the city and my workplace if it means not wanting to kill urban planners anymore.

[catgirlforeskin]

hii u seem very smart and well read and I wanted 2 ask as someone who's just started reading capital (very slowly) what reading/theory resources do you recommend? Especially ones that have really shaped how you think and analyze things today :3 I'm also really curious how u became so knowledgable about the conflict Ukraine is having, I want 2 learn more but it seems like a lot of history and I'm not sure where 2 start

I’m honestly not sure what to recommend because I was mostly shaped by a very eclectic scatter of a million articles and whatnot, it’s hard to point to any one source. I wish I had saved more of the stuff I read in college, there were a lot of good academic journals and stuff I’d have no way of finding now.

When I was first getting into leftism/anarchism I read a lot of Noam Chomsky but I don’t think I’d really recommend him, he’s more of a “baby’s first” exposure to anticapitalism, and if you’re following me you’re beyond needing him lol.

I’ve always been a history person above all else and prefer reading on the ground reporting from conflicts/political struggles than more abstracted theory (though it’s useful to have that foundation and analytical skills built up).

The Daughters of Kobani, Generation Kill, and README.txt are good military history done by reporters on the ground (though README.txt is a lot more than just military history). The authors of those vary in political radicalism (the first two being mostly libs) but it’s hard to find that kind of reporting anywhere else.

I’m currently reading Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, Homage to Catalonia, and Rise of the Warrior Cop, and so far recommend all of them, Homage to Catalonia would be my one anarchism recommendation here I guess, wish I had more but I just can’t remember anything else off the top of my head. I’m sure some mutuals will have stuff to recommend down below.

With history generally, finding good sources is difficult, and historiography is imo the most important thing for leftists to learn. Figuring out how to compare different histories of the same events and tell the value of sources and how they’re cited is vital.

Something that really changed how I view stuff is the book There Are No Accidents by Jessie Singer, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Was life-changing for me, and it’s honestly the one thing I’d recommend for anyone getting into any kind of leftist politics. For me urbanism really is at the heart of my politics, everything is connected to it. I hate to recommend YouTubers/podcasts here but CityNerd is very good for learning urbanism, he used to be a city planner.

This got longer than I intended but I also feel like it’s still severely lacking. Part of me wants to go find every good article I’ve ever read and link it here, but I’ll cut this off before it becomes too sprawling haha. Mutuals if you’ve got good stuff, put it below 👇

[akuasucc]

for my final story im writing about how walkable atlanta is and im meeting with a urban planner to ask her questions. so i was doing some research and i found out that atl used to have efficient public transportation in the late 1800s and 1940s and it was killed cus of the private sector and ppl switching to cars.. and 3 decades later, marta came and people in surrounding counties didnt want it cus they hate black ppl and thats why marta is so wack compared to other rails in this country

[beardedmrbean]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An Afghan refugee was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in one of three fatal shootings that shook Albuquerque’s Muslim community during the summer of 2022.

Muhammad Syed faces life in prison for killing 41-year-old Aftab Hussein on July 26, 2022. He also will stand trial in the coming months in the other two slayings.

During the trial, prosecutors presented cellphone data that showed his phone was in the area when the shooting occurred, and a ballistics expert testified that casings and projectiles recovered from the scene had been fired from a rifle that was found hidden under Syed’s bed.

Defense attorneys argued that prosecutors had no evidence that Syed was the one who pulled the trigger. They said others who lived in his home could also access his phone, the vehicle and the rifle.

The defense called no witnesses; Syed tearfully declined to testify in his own defense.

Prosecutors on Monday said they were pleased that jurors agreed it was a deliberate killing. However, they acknowledged that no testimony during the weeklong trial nor any court filings addressed a possible motive or detailed any interactions that Syed might have had with Hussein before the killing.

“We were not able to uncover anything that we would indicate would be a motive that would explain this,” Deputy District Attorney David Waymire said outside the courthouse. “As best we can tell, this could be a case of a serial killer where there’s a motive known only to them and not something that we can really understand.”

Defense attorneys said the conviction would be appealed once the other two trials are complete. They too said a motive has yet to be uncovered.

The three ambush-style killings happened over the course of several days, leaving authorities scrambling to determine if race or religion might have been behind the crimes. It was not long before the investigation shifted away from possible hate crimes to what prosecutors described to jurors as the “willful and very deliberate” actions of another member of the Muslim community.

Syed, who speaks Pashto and required the help of translators throughout the trial, settled in the U.S. with his family several years before the killings. Prosecutors described him during previous court hearings as having a violent history. His public defenders argued that previous allegations of domestic violence never resulted in convictions.

Syed also is accused of killing Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, a 27-year-old urban planner who was gunned down Aug. 1, 2022, while taking his evening walk, and Naeem Hussain, who was shot four days later as he sat in his vehicle outside a refugee resettlement agency on the city’s south side.

Muhammad Afzaal Hussain’s older brother, Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain, was there Monday to hear the verdict. He has been following the cases closely and like others in the community is troubled that there’s still no answer as to why his brother and the others were targeted.

A student leader at the University of New Mexico who was active in politics and later worked for the city of Española, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain had a bright future, his brother said. They had come to the United States from Pakistan for educational and economic opportunities.

He said the life they had planned was just starting to come to fruition when his brother was killed.

“It was a big loss,” he said.

Police also identified Syed as the suspect in the killing of another Muslim man in 2021, but no charges have been filed in that case.

Authorities issued a public plea for help following the third killing in the summer of 2022. They shared photographs of a vehicle believed to be involved in the crimes, resulting in tips that led to Syed.

Syed denied involvement in the killings after being stopped more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Albuquerque. He told authorities he was on his way to Texas to find a new home for his family, saying he was concerned about the killings in Albuquerque.

The judge prohibited prosecutors from directly introducing as evidence statements Syed made to a detective while being questioned. Defense attorneys argued that Syed’s rights were violated because the detective, through an interpreter, did not adequately inform Syed of his right to a court-appointed attorney.

During the trial, prosecutors gave jurors a rundown of what happened the night of the first killing: Hussein parked at his apartment complex at around 10 p.m. and had just stepped out of his vehicle with his keys still in his hand when gunfire erupted.

“He stood no chance,” prosecutor Jordan Machin said during closing arguments. Machin said Syed had been lying in wait and that he continued to shoot even as Hussein lay on the ground.

Officers found Hussein with multiple wounds that stretched from his neck down to his feet. Investigators testified that some of the high-caliber rounds went through his body and pierced the car.

Prosecutors showed photos of Hussein’s bullet-riddled car and said the victim was killed nearly instantly.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Curitiba: Brazil’s sustainable green gem

In the 1950s, architect Oscar Niemeyer designed Brasilia as an avant-garde city of the future. Built in only four years (1956-1960), hotels stand side by side, there is a sector with hospitals, another section with embassies, residential areas (which have almost no stores)... all of which are linked by majestic avenues. Drivers do not experience the traffic jams that torment their compatriots, but few cities are as hostile to pedestrians as Brasilia. The distances are so enormous that no one considers walking or even cycling from place to place. Brazil’s capital was planned to cater to the automobile. Despite its unquestionable beauty and uniqueness, the Brasilia model is obsolete.

But Brazil does have a city of the future. It is called Curitiba. Brasilia’s inauguration was still fresh when this city located 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) south of the capital implemented an innovative public transportation system — similar to an above-ground subway — with futuristic stops shaped like transparent tubes. These innovations came by virtue of the courage of Curitiba’s mayor, architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner (1937-2021), who was appointed by the military dictatorship. A high-impact, low-cost revolution was beginning.

In a half century, the population has tripled to 1.8 million inhabitants, and public policies have turned Curitiba into a green icon, a sustainable city, a pedestrian-friendly space and the envy of the whole country because its streets are pristine. The city has 48 parks and 13 million square meters of native vegetation. It’s largely unknown abroad outside of environmentalist circles, which have given the city awards, and those who closely followed the legal situation of Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was previously imprisoned in a Curitiba police station.

Two words summarize the secret formula that made Curitiba a model of sustainability: orderly growth, an anomaly in a country that gave the world the word favela, the shantytown that emerges amid the disorder on the outskirts of cities and welcomes the poor labor force. But the favela struggles in the face of extreme weather events like torrential rains, which kill hundreds of Brazilians in their precarious homes each year.

Continue reading.

[cbc-bb]

If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

here's my query letter for a novel i started writing last fall (but have since given up on :\)

Jane is an urban planner, trying to make New York City’s streets safer one bylaw at a time — until her husband is killed by a car while cycling to work. No longer content to fix the streets through the legal system, Jane vows to avenge her husband and make the streets safer by any means necessary — legal or otherwise. Told from multiple perspectives, including Jane, an anonymous urban historian, and a dangerous Brooklyn intersection, [NOVEL TITLE] asks what it would take to shatter the car’s deathgrip on American cities and how far one group of activists is willing to go to take the streets back for the people. The book is literary speculative fiction, set in the 2020s and following our characters through a few decades of arduous work reclaiming city streets, grounded by the real history of American streets

[blurban-form]

love this blog! what a great way to showcase the attention to detail bluey has w/ things that will never b noticed by 99 percent of the audience... i think the playground post may b my favorite. i would've killed for a place like that to b walkable in my neighborhood when i was a kid! do u work as an urban planner? ur insights n research r very insightful

Thanks! I’m not a city planner but close, I’m a civil engineer in Canada, specializing in transport planning… I get to work regularly with land use planners, parks staff, etc.

Transit and compact land use are favourite topics.

I got into Bluey watching the episode “The Dump” and got interested in all the accurate details, and it grew from there -- love the attention to detail on the show.

Thanks for the ask and the kind words!

-Dave