Sotsgorod: A Brief Introduction to Soviet Urban Planning Eco Gecko 2020-06-17 | Utopian visions confronted pragmatic realities across the Soviet Union's eighty years of existence, as the USSR designed and built cities they hoped would transform their people from a nation of peasants into model socialist proletarians. In this video, we review the history of Soviet urban planning from the 1917 Revolution all the way to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, and discuss the core principles used to design Soviet neighborhoods, towns, and cities. You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGeckoAll music courtesy of MusOpen: musopen.orgThis video is licensed under Creative Commons--you are free to share, reproduce, and modify it as long as you attribute the original work and do not use the product for commercial gain.
Are Americans Getting Richer or Poorer? (Ecos Journal Club #1) Eco Gecko 2022-02-10 | You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGeckoIf you're at all interested in politics, you've probably seen a graph of the divergence of worker productivity and wages, suggesting that for most people in the US, pay has stagnated since Reagan's presidency. But other sources, especially on the right, contest this, claiming that the last 40 years have been a period of unprecedent prosperity for Americans. So what's really going on? In this video, I dig into the latest academic literature on incomes in the US to figure out the truth of the matter. In Eco's Journal Clubs, we deep dive into recent, cutting-edge academic research on specific socio-economic topics to separate fact from fiction in an internet increasingly packed with overwhelming and contradictory information. I'm always open to suggested future topics--please let me know if there's something you'd like addressed.---Introduction: 0:00Part 1: What's happening? 2:10Part 2: Why is it happening? 12:46Conclusion: 23:21---Sources used in this video:Autor, Katz, & Kearney (2008). Trends in US wage inequality: Revising the revisionists.Congressional Research Service (2020). Real wage trends, 1979 to 2019. Kristal & Cohen (2017). The causes of rising wage inequality: The race between institutions and technology.Kristal, Cohen, & Navot (2020). Workplace compensation practices and the rise in benefit inequality.Piketty, Saez, & Zucman (2018). Distributional national accounts: Methods and estimates for the United States.Purcell (2018). Trends in men's wages, 1981-2014. Stansbury & Summers (2020). The declining worker power hypothesis: An explanation for the recent evolution of the American economy.Taylor & Omer (2019). Race to the bottom: Low productivity, market power, and lagging wages. ---This video is published under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You are free to share, copy, redistribute, adapt, and transform the work as long as your give me appropriate credit.
Alternatives to Sprawl: Case Studies in Building Better Burbs Eco Gecko 2021-12-06 | You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGeckoSince the 1950s, the United States has gone all-in on sprawl, building tens of millions of single-family homes in sterile subdivisions while strangling its cities with highways and urban renewal projects. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In this video, we visit a range of groundbreaking suburbs in Denmark, Germany, Austria, and Sweden, from the commuter village at Skarpnäcksfältet to the eco-city at Seestadt, and examine how suburbs large and small can be designed and built as livable, green, and family-friendly communities. None of our case studies are hypothetical: they all have anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of residents. We conclude by reviewing the policies and practices that make better suburbs possible. Any country can build better ‘burbs, we just need to follow the example of those that already do. Introduction: (0:00)Galgebakken: (2:31)Rieselfeld & Vauban: (4:36)SolarCity & Seestadt: (9:14)Skarpnäcksfältet & Nærheden: (15:43)How do we get there: (20:50)---Apologies for the inconsistent audio, I moved during the production of the video and wasn’t able to set up an adequate recording environment for parts of it.---Research cited in this video:hstalks.com/article/783/freiburg-principles-of-sustainable-urbanismjstor.org/stable/24579281journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0885412212451029?journalCode=jplbtandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02665430801906349?journalCode=rppe20researchgate.net/publication/333932982_Large_Scale_Urban_Developments_in_Austria_-_Challenges_and_Opportunities_Based_on_Two_Case_Study_Examplessemanticscholar.org/paper/In-search-of-a-healthy-balance-on-the-example-of-of-Wiedniu/7aba3b22cbaaf6803f06cf7c7d50b076f8d63292See also the excellent book by urban researcher Jan Gehl: “Life Between Buildings”. ---All music is available under a Creative Commons license from MusOpen. This video is published under a Creative Commons license. You are free to use or reproduce its contents so long as you cite the original video.
Thin Blue Facade: The Broken Windows Disaster & Policing the Postmodern City Eco Gecko 2021-06-29 | As a wave of violent crime hit American cities in the 90s, municipal governments began to turn to a novel and untested policing strategy: rather than targeting serious crime directly, police would tackle signs of social "disorder" like graffiti and drug use to prevent more serious criminal activity from settling in. The strategy, commonly known as "broken windows policing", soon became wildly popular, even as scientific research and practical experience proved that it had almost no impact on serious offences. Yet broken windows remains the dominant policing paradigm in the US and increasingly abroad, intended not to fight crime but to form a facade of order and prosperity to obscure a society increasingly plagued by soaring inequality and intractable social problems. In this video, we will discuss the origins and consequences of broken windows policing. Archive of the original Broken Windows essay: theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGecko---Many thanks to tessa from the Armchair Urbanist Discord for the title suggestion.Some stock footage is from levinkoshy: videvo.net/video/roads-and-cars-aerial/4778 ---A lot of research for this video came from Dr. Bernard Harcourt's book "The Illusion of Order". If you see a fact or statistic in this video not directly taken from one of the papers below, it came from that book. Other research used in this video: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362480607085792jstor.org/stable/4495553https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cl_pubs/124/journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396817717149heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/cdozo37&div=31&id=&page=tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10439463.2018.1448396jstor.org/stable/26677656journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1095796015579993?journalCode=nlfa---Music links (first appearance):(0:00) Kai Engel: Evermore(1:14) Kai Engel: Meekness(4:49) Kai Engel: Interception(7:02) Kai Engel: Downpour (Pon X)(10:09) Chad Crouch: Just a Memory Now(12:51) Kai Engel: Blur(15:37) Chad Crouch: Lonely Warbler (Instrumental)(19:23) Lex Villena: Mandy 12Full music information is available at the below links:freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engelfreemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouchfreemusicarchive.org/music/lex-villena---This video is published under a Creative Commons license. You are free to copy, reproduce, and alter its contents as long as you cite me in your work.
The Suburban Wasteland: How the Burbs Blight Childhoods Eco Gecko 2021-03-29 | Suburbs have long been idealized as the perfect place to raise one's children, away from the noise, danger, and crowding of cities. Yet over the last few decades, a steady flow of research has shown that on the contrary, the suburban upbringing many children today receive in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and other sprawl-oriented nations may actually be incredibly harmful, with major negative impacts on the physical, mental, and psychological well-being of millions of kids. In this video, we explore the evidence and discuss what can be done. You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGecko---Thanks to levinkoshy for their stock footage: videvo.net/video/roads-and-cars-aerial/4778 ---Research used in this video: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18094097tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733285.2011.638173link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10834-021-09752-wsciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1353829213001561jstor.org/stable/41514991?seq=1tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504620701581612ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6267483ajot.aota.org/article.aspx?articleid=2755038tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733285.2013.812277onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jcop.20140mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/16/2862sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494402902434core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82652755.pdftandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13549830120024233nature.com/articles/802207tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733285.2013.812311---Music links (first appearance):(0:00) Handel, Music for the Royal Fireworks: musopen.org/music/6201-music-for-the-royal-fireworks-hwv-351 (2:45) Gemiani, Concerto No. 10 Sarabanda: musopen.org/music/45664-concerto-no-10-in-f-major(7:50) Albinoni, Adagio for Organ & Strings: musopen.org/music/12394-adagio-in-g-minor(13:20) Mozart, Clarinet Quintet Mov. IV: musopen.org/music/3009-clarinet-quintet-in-a-major-k-581(16:52) Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 3 Mov. I: musopen.org/music/2863-violin-concerto-no-3-in-g-major-k-216---This video is published under a Creative Commons license. You are free to copy, reproduce, and alter its contents as long as you cite me in your work.
Sotsgorod: The Socialist New Cities & Planning for Utopia Eco Gecko 2021-02-02 | Starting in the late 1940s, nearly every Eastern Bloc nation dedicated resources on an incredible scale to the construction of a socialist town to signal the dawn of each nation's communist era. Equal parts propaganda efforts and industrial powerhouses, utopian "new cities" like Nowa Huta, Dimitrovgrad, Dunaújváros, and Eisenhüttenstadt transformed the lives of tens of thousands of their citizens and left a permanent mark on their nation's urban landscapes.You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGeckoAll music courtesy of MusOpen: musopen.orgThis video is licensed under Creative Commons--you are free to share, reproduce, and modify it as long as you attribute the original work and do not use the product for commercial gain.
Mallification: Fear, Fun, and Shopping in the Neoliberal City Eco Gecko 2020-11-02 | Over the last fifty years, American cities have largely rebranded themselves not as places to live and work, but as brands and destinations for tourism, investment, and shopping. But this transformation, with its colossal sports complexes and shining megadevelopments, not only failed to resolve cities' financial and demographic crises, but was deeply linked to skyrocketing inequality, rising police brutality...and the suburban shopping mall. In this video, we discuss the false promise of America's urban renaissance amidst the rise of neoliberal order, the stripping back of the state to its core policing functions, and the dominance of the ultra-wealthy across contemporary society. You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGecko---------------- Sources cited in this video include: jstor.org/stable/2569414?seq=1 journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1538513204264755?journalCode=jpha https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674015906 uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/spaces-for-consumption/book231794 ---------------- This video includes music by Chad Crouch and Kai Engel. You can find their work here: freemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouch freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel ---------------- This video is published under a Creative Commons license. You are free to copy, reproduce, and alter its contents as long as you cite me in your work.
Vroom Doom: The Dark Causes and Consequences of Americas SUV Mania Eco Gecko 2020-04-15 | Sports utility vehicles, once a specialized product for niche markets, have exploded into the most popular type of car in America, with General Motors estimating that over 80% of its sales will be trucks or SUVs by 2022. But this isn't an innocent consumer trend--rather, the SUV is the face of several worrying social and economic trends in contemporary America. In this video, we explore and elaborate upon the arguments Dr. Josh Lauer of the University of New Hampshire made in a prescient 2005 paper connecting the dots between booming SUV sales, violent crime, exploding economic inequality, and a widespread belief in a coming apocalypse. You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGecko----------The full paper is available at the following link:https://mypages.unh.edu/sites/default/files/jlauer/files/lauer_2005_driven_to_extremes.pdfThe full music list can be found at the end of the video. Much of the music used was composed by Kai Engel and made available via Creative Commons licensing. More of their work, as well as license information, can be found at the following link:freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_EngelThis video is licensed under Creative Commons--you are free to share, reproduce, and modify it as long as you attribute the original work and do not use the product for commercial gain.
The Suburban Wasteland: What is to be Done? Part 2 Eco Gecko 2020-02-24 | The urbanist challenge confronting America today is perhaps unparalleled in scale across human history. Fortunately, we don't have to solve it blindly--there are plenty of examples from across the globe that give us insights into how to best tackle sprawl. In this video, we finally discuss the broader regional and national policy changes the United States, or any sprawling nation, needs to make in order to ensure a better future for its residents. --- Thank you very much to reddit user /u/Paulo_Pablito for generating excellent subtitles in both English and French for this video.Thanks to levinkoshy for their stock footage: videvo.net/video/roads-and-cars-aerial/4778 Journal articles cited in this video:sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264837715302945tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2017.1337494?journalCode=cjud20jstor.org/stable/40326167?seq=1sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275115300226sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X13000383sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204615002017tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697451003740288Congressional report on sports stadiums:govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg51756/pdf/CHRG-110hhrg51756.pdf---Selected music links:musopen.org/music/7951-3-songs-op-7musopen.org/music/25719-ma-vlast-vltava-the-moldaumusopen.org/music/2496-symphony-no-29-in-a-major-k-201186amusopen.org/music/2479-symphony-no-38-in-d-major-prague-k-504
The Suburban Wasteland: What is to be Done? Part 1 Eco Gecko 2019-11-21 | For the first time since the dawn of the suburbs, America seems ready to begin realizing its urbanist mistakes, and transform policy to encourage healthy neighborhoods, towns, and cities, rather than building endless sprawl. But recovering from half a century of mismanagement will take a lot of work. In this video, we discuss what changes can, or really, must be made at the local level to help our communities recover. But local policy is probably not enough, and next time, we will conclude this series by discussing critical regional and national policy changes if we are to avoid the spiral of suburban decay. NOTE: The city at 14:40 is in fact Florence, not Milan. Thank you to several users for pointing that out. ---Thank you very much to reddit user /u/Paulo_Pablito for generating excellent subtitles in both English and French for this video.Thanks to levinkoshy for their stock footage: videvo.net/video/roads-and-cars-aerial/4778Journal articles cited in this video:core.ac.uk/download/pdf/52945910.pdflink.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-006-9104-6link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:PORT.0000037086.33893.9fsciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264275114001474sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119015000200sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140517300853tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13574809.2016.1234335link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-017-0602-zsciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254619300560sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264275118302701link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41289-018-0076-xonlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9787.2010.00701.xsciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204615002017
The Suburban Wasteland: How the Burbs Eviscerate the Environment (Part 2) Eco Gecko 2019-09-02 | The expansive grass lawns and spread-out homesteads give the suburbs a superficial green appearance. However, America’s millions of acres of suburban turf grass have the opposite effect in practice, acting as the leading contributor to widespread chemical pollution, destruction of ecosystems, chronic water use and misuse, and the creeping insect apocalypse. In this second part of our reporting on the suburbs and the environment, we cover a range of chronic environmental disasters that suburbanization creates and exacerbates—not just global warming. Thank you very much to reddit user /u/Paulo_Pablito for generating excellent subtitles in both English and French for this video.Oh, I'm on Twitter now, come say hello! twitter.com/EcoGeck---Journal articles cited in this video:link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-012-9766-8cfpub.epa.gov/npstbx/files/Norming_Survey_LawnCare_NewEngland_July2010.pdfhttp://www.pinellas.wateratlas.usf.edu/upload/documents/294_Golf%20Courses-%20Minimizing%20the%20Impact%20of.pdfascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%290733-9372%282007%29133%3A4%28435%29pubag.nal.usda.gov/catalog/801982pubag.nal.usda.gov/catalog/5156623sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016920460400146Xnature.com/articles/ncomms2380journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-014-0788-1science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6229/1255957nature.com/articles/nature11148https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/water-retention-potential-of-forestssciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212420918312950ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1332684nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09269-z.pdfhttp://tcwp.tamu.edu/files/2015/06/WetlandLossPub.pdfsciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204613001345ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28456051https://www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu.sustainability/files/Change_et_al_2010_Water_Hillsboro.pdf
The Suburban Wasteland: How the Burbs Eviscerate the Environment (Part 1) Eco Gecko 2019-07-12 | The first expansive modern suburbs, built during the Industrial Revolution, were meant to get people out of dirty industrial centers and into the cleaner, greener periphery. But the world has changed, and today it's the suburbs that are destroying the environment, while urban life may hold the key to preserving it. In this first part of our reporting on the suburbs and the environment, we cover suburban greenhouse gas emissions, and the many ways in which the suburbs cause us to pollute. Thank you very much to reddit user /u/Paulo_Pablito for generating excellent subtitles in both English and French for this video.Oh, I'm on Twitter now, come say hello! twitter.com/EcoGeckInteractive US Emissions Map: coolclimate.org/maps---Journal articles cited in this video:pdfs.semanticscholar.org/707f/a7f3faea996c241ab96dfa774244d23221b8.pdftandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09640560802423780sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512004855sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261919303691nber.org/papers/w14238iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/034034sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143622810000020sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204618304080sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421505003691sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0386111214601795
The Suburban Wasteland: How the Burbs Kill Us, Fast and Slow Eco Gecko 2019-06-01 | 40,000 Americans die in auto collisions every year, while millions more suffer from respiratory and heart diseases while our kids become ever more obese. These facts aren't inevitabilities of modern living, but are the result of a built environment which leaves us with no choice but to live incredibly unhealthy lives.In this video, we explore some topics related to health in the suburbs, specifically, the epidemic of car fatalities and the ever-growing rate of a wide range of chronic illnesses among Americans. While other factors are important, our nation's dispersal into car-dependent suburbia is a bigger factor than many realize.Thank you very much to reddit user /u/Paulo_Pablito for generating excellent subtitles in both English and French for this video.You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGeckoOh, I'm on Twitter now, come say hello! twitter.com/EcoGeck------------------------------------------------------Papers cited in this video:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4523897ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12133740ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27090435ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21335262ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28834525ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19769998sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743507003052ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24512868ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16829327ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29056372ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28178850ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24262973core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11541568.pdf
The Suburban Wasteland: How the ‘Burbs Bankrupt Us Eco Gecko 2019-04-20 | The Suburban Wasteland is a new series which explores the social, economic, and political consequences of suburbanization in the United States. Deteriorating health, political radicalization, social isolation, ecological destruction, and enormous financial waste can all be linked to a development pattern previously unheard of in the whole of human history, and here, we explore why that is. In this first video, we explore how the suburban experiment puts enormous financial pressure on its residents and governments, and just might be building up into a fiscal time bomb for the entire nation. You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGeckoThank you very much to reddit user /u/Paulo_Pablito for generating excellent subtitles in both English and French for this video.Oh, I'm on Twitter now, come say hello! twitter.com/EcoGeck------------------------------------------------------Some sources referenced in this video:journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1078087407309282http://www.newgeography.com/content/004349-from-jurisdictional-functional-analysis-urban-cores-suburbshttp://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/lsecities.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/NCE-Sprawl-Subsidy-Report-021.pdfamazon.com/Suburban-Nation-Sprawl-Decline-American/dp/0865477507strongtowns.orgpolitico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/evanston-illinois-what-works-213282
Neoliberal Anxiety: Depression, Loneliness, and Suicide under Late Capitalism Eco Gecko 2018-11-07 | Content Warning: Mental illness, suicide. Across the developed world, people are becoming more anxious, more depressed, and unfortunately, in some cases more suicidal, even as neoliberalism has nominally delivered on its promise of material prosperity. But this isn't a new phenomenon: our social bonds have been dissolving for decades, so video games, TV, and social media can't be to blame. What's going on?In this video, we examine anxiety and depression as symptoms not of individual neurological defects, but of the social and economic world around us.You can now support me on Patreon! Link: patreon.com/EcoGecko----------Articles and papers cited:independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suicide-prevention-minister-ukip-joke-beachy-head-jackie-doyle-price-conservative-a8577496.htmlncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17151166psychotherapy.org.uk/news/new-figures-workers-reporting-anxiety-depression-risen-nearly-third-last-four-yearssciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171030134631.htmfred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEhttps://economics.mit.edu/files/586pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ff1/815a89a36895f2704df9633e0d7f4acdeb48.pdfhttp://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.532.5200&rep=rep1&type=pdfajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.81.9.1148ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2834184asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/press/docs/pdf/June06ASRFeature.pdfphys.org/news/2018-05-americans-socially-isolated-theyre-lonelier.htmlpsychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201706/social-loneliness-may-make-the-depressed-even-more-sojournals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182145calmclinic.com/anxiety/isolation-lonelinesstime.com/5212558/loneliness-social-isolation-heart-healthBooks cited:Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone", 2000.Karl Polanyi, "The Great Transformation", 1944.
