Schivelbusch
What are the two parts of Schivelbusch's dialectic process of space alteration?
1. diminished -- shrinking of transport time
2. expanded -- expansion of transport space by incorporating new areas into the transport network
Where did Chicago's success come from?
It's proximity to New York.
In what ways would a ban on private cars help increase the bus industry?
1. The proposed grid would have the maximum walk to the nearest bus stop less than one-fifth of a mile.
2. Bus service is expanded and two-deck buses are brought back.
3. The end to congestion would allow buses to raise the speed limit to twenty-five or even thirty miles per hour. Making the transportation time quicker for travelers.
"The diminution of transport distances seemed to create a new, reduced, geography, yet it did not actually alter the size of the spaces between the points connected by the new mode of transport"
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, (528)
Schivelbusch argues that railroads seem to strike through space. What are the two contradictory sides of this space-time process?
1. Railroads opened up new spaces that were not as easily accessible before.
2. Railroads opened up new spaces by destroying the spaces between points.
What were the key principles of how journeys were priced?
1. Transportation distance
2. Fixed costs
3. Competition
What was the goal of Goodman's integral planning in family-residential neighborhoods?
To counteract the isolation of the individual in the mass society by creating a human-scale community intermediary between the individuals, families and the metropolis.
By banning cars and replanning the gridiron, new road-pattern allows for superblocks (six-nine acres), which is space that could be used for recreation and play.
"Our aim is to enhance the quality of our city life with the minimum of disruption of the existing pattern"
Paul Goodman, (146)
What does Schivelbusch mean when he states, "The train was experienced as a projectile, and traveling on it, as being shot through the landscape -- thus losing control of one's senses"?
Schivelbusch states "losing control of one's senses", in hopes the reader will understand that Trains affects all the senses through the loss of Landscape. Senses such as: smell and sounds, visual perception diminished by velocity, and exhilarating associations couldn't be connected in the projectile.
Newton's mechanics of travelers perceptions argues that 'Size, shape, quality and motion' are the only qualities that travelers were able to observe in the landscape.
What were some earlier transport systems that Railroads surpassed in the wake of technology?
1. lakes, rivers, and canals (water-based).
2. rural roads.
Why was parking a huge influence on Goodman writing this proposal on banning cars?
1. Parking is nearly impossible and growing more expensive.
2. Parking structures are extremely expensive ($20,000 per car) and extremely poor use of land in metropolitan areas.
"Distinctions that had once been crucial in dividing the days and months of the year -- separating night from day, we times from dry, hot times from cold, good weather from bad -- gradually became less important to travel even if they did not disappear altogether...When one boarded a train, one entered a world separated from the outside by its own peculiar environment and sense of time."
William Cronon, (78)
"No matter what one says or does, reading will remain the most natural occupation of railway travels".
What were some benefits and consequences to Reading while Traveling according to Schivelbusch?
Benefits:
1. The idea of turning the enforced leisure and the boredom of a long trip into enjoyment and excitement.
2. Increased sales of books and newspapers. Established a "railway library".
Consequences:
1. Reading disrupted the travelers' relationship to each other as it disrupted their relationship to the traversed landscape.
2. Exhaustion of the senses and of the mind.
What is one example of how greater speed, distance, volume, and power of railroads enabled individuals to break free from the economic and environmental constraints of earlier transport systems?
1. Railroads had the ability to alleviate many of the effects of winter such as rural farmers being able to travel to urban markets whenever they had the need and funds to do so, even in the deep cold.
2. Railroads also drastically shorten transportation time and allow a longer distance of travel.
3. Railroads broke the age-old restrictive relationship between biological energy and movement.
What are three advantages of banning cars?
Advantages:
1. Relief of tension, noise, and anxiety.
2. Purifying the air of fumes and smog.
3. Alleviating the crowding of pedestrians.
5. Getting rid of Traffic and parking difficulties.
4. Providing safety for children.
"And so, on November 18, 1883, the railroad companies carved up the continent into four-time zones, in each of which all clocks would be set to exactly the same time. At noon, Chicago jewelers moved their clocks back by nine minutes and thirty-three seconds in order to match the local time of the ninetieth meridian"
William Cronon, (79)
According to Professor Ekman, he mentioned in Lecture that Railroads were coherent systems that focused heavily on precision just like clockwork.
Thus, how did Railroads lead to Time Zones?
Using the United States as an example, Schivelbusch states that there was no cooperation whatsoever between the private railroad companies, each had their own time for where their headquarters were located. When there was a station with many different lines from different companies there were different clocks showing different times (at the time there were three times based in Buffalo, and six in Pittsburgh). It wasn't until 1889, where the U.S. was divided into four time zones (at first the times within the zones were regarded only as railroad time). Finally, in 1918, these time zones became regional standard times and finally given legal recognition.
In Lecture, Professor Ekman argued that Cronon's idea of Chicago was shifted from peripheral to central.
What did Professor Ekman mean by centrality, using the idea of Chicago?
Centrality is based on connectivities. Professor Ekman focuses on relative distances of all the nodes connected to the center (Being Chicago is the center and the node linkages are the other regions nearby passing through Chicago).
"Chicago became the link that bound the different worlds of east and west into a single system" (91).
In Goodman's conclusion, he states "Naturally, in sprawling cities like Los Angeles or Cleveland, one cannot get rid of the cars. Correspondingly, such places lack center and urbanity".
Thus, what makes Manhattan a good place for Goodman's proposal?
Goodman argues that Manhattan Island is a "world center of business, buying, style, entertainment, publishing, politics and light manufacture". He argues that the area is small and strictly limited.
"Panoramic perception, in contrast to traditional perception, no longer belonged to the same space as the perceived objects: the traveler saw the objects, landscapes, etc. through the apparatus which moved him through the world"
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, (551)