City Scenes: Cycling L.A.'s new 6th Street Bridge (w/ video)

While I missed out on all the excitement surrounding the opening of L.A.’s new Sixth Street Viaduct back in July, I finally got to see the bridge in person during a visit to California this October. I also got to try out the city’s bike share system.

There is a Metro Bike station near the western end of the bridge at the intersection of Willow and Mateo streets. It was a typically bright and clear Monday morning, and traffic was light in this corner of the Arts District.

Traffic was light on the bridge, as well. It was almost hard to imagine the bridge crowded with revelers or subjected to “street takeovers” as it had been in the weeks following its opening. The structure’s broad, bright surface seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, and in a state of quiet that was only occasionally interrupted by passing vehicles.

Much of the discourse around the bridge’s opening this summer focused on the unruly appropriations of this new urban space and on how to maintain an uninterrupted traffic flow. I noted that the speed humps which had been touted as a quick-fix solution for stopping road racing on the bridge have not been installed.

Another strand of discourse placed blame for the unanticipated disruption not on the “unruly” bridge users but rather on the designers and planners whose ingrained transit biases and myopic mobility visions laid the foundation for an emergent repurposing of the infrastructure that was ultimately inevitable rather than unexpected. The L.A. Times editorial board barely stopped short of invoking the Lefebvrian “right to the city” in calling for a vision of public space oriented around people rather than vehicles. My own urbanist inclinations are entirely in agreement with this rhetoric. Having now seen the bridge in person, however, I have to say that I quite like the new Sixth Street Viaduct. The bridge may not represent anything revolutionary, nor does it offer a bold new vision for urban space, but for what it is I found it to be accessible enough for pedestrians and cyclists, while offering expansive views of the river and downtown skyline. Even the bike lanes, which the Times editorial derided for being insufficiently “protected” from traffic, offer a better sense of separation from the road relative to what I’ve seen in U.S. cities.

On the bridge’s aesthetic features my feelings are more ambivalent. The concrete surface conveys the sense that the bridge is merely an extension of L.A.’s sprawling freeway network, and the canted arches smack of the sort of cosmopolitan “starchitecture” that renders all spaces in a homogenizing image of sameness. I am also preferential to the original bridge design and was in favor of the early proposals that the replacement viaduct be designed as a replica of the former structure (the preservation of historic and landmark architecture is one of the issues that brings out my conservative side). Regardless, I enjoyed my brief time on the bridge. I also unconsciously recreated my GTA avatar’s 6th St Bridge photo from back in August:

Here’s some video I shot during my bridge crossings:

South Side streets, micromobility misfires, e-bike discourse

For the entirety of the past year East Carson Street – the central corridor through Pittsburgh’s South Side – has been undergoing a slow and stymying overhaul. The construction project has involved street closures, blocked sidewalks, and haphazardly reconfigured intersection crossings (I previously chronicled my own frustrations with mobility in the neighborhood). Supposedly the project is finally drawing to a close, although a basic visual survey of the streetscape suggests that a significant amount of work remains to be done. Street paving operations, one of the final stages of the project, were recently shifted from overnight hours to the daytime due to harassment of workers. Prior to the re-paving the street was jackhammered and stripped down to the underlying stone (I’m actually not sure if these are considered cobblestones or setts).

I read an unsubstantiated claim on the Pittsburgh subreddit saying that the Carson Street project was being overseen by PennDOT instead of the city Department of Public Works as a cost-saving measure, and as such the overall approach and materials used are typical of highway maintenance rather than street repair. I have no idea if this is accurate but it might explain why the current state of Carson Street is such a motley mix of materials and surfaces. Frankly, the redesigned streetcorners and placement of new utility posts along the sidewalk suggest an ignorance of fundamental pedestrian use and mobility.

Meanwhile, Miami-based micromobility startup Bolt Mobility abruptly ceased services in a number of U.S. cities this summer. A Tech Crunch article considered the broader implications for a depopulating micromobility market.

In a Time editorial published last month, Paris Marx (author of the recently published Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation) scrutinizes the myopic mobility visions of Elon Musk:

“Elon Musk has wielded a virtual monopoly on how we think about the future, but will his visions really deliver better lives for most people in our society? For all the tech industry’s talk of ‘disruption,’ keeping us all trapped in cars for decades into the future by equipping them with batteries or upgraded computers doesn’t feel like much of a revolution.”

Over the years this blog has referenced writings by Ian Bogost, typically on issues relating to technology or video games. Bogost recently penned a new piece on technology, this time tackling the e-bike. People have dogpiled on the article on Twitter already so I don’t want to recapitulate those responses here, but without even getting into the potential merits of the essay’s sentiments it’s easily the lamest writing I’ve personally seen from Bogost.

“Perhaps my e-bike ambivalence comes in part from the bike’s strange social status. An e-bike isn’t cheap—the least expensive ones are about $1,000, and they go up to $5,000 or more. But the symbolic value one receives in exchange is minimal. Spending five large on a conventional bike would get you a status symbol—you’d come off as a cyclist for sure. For that matter, spending that dough on a Vespa would infuse you with an Aperol-tinged Italianate cool. You’d want to be seen arriving on your moped. But I don’t want anybody seeing me on my e-bike. It’s just kind of embarrassing.”

Anyway, Vice writer Aaron Gordon penned a response piece arguing that America does indeed have an “e-bike problem,” but it’s not one of those identified by Bogost:

“E-bikes do have a big problem in the U.S., one that I have been increasingly concerned about as someone who very much advocates for e-bikes and wants to see them take off in this country. It is related to Bogost’s point that e-bikes don’t quite fit with any American identity, but in a much more—literally—concrete way. E-bikes don’t belong anywhere in particular on American infrastructure, which makes them both more frustrating, more dangerous, and more annoying than they otherwise could be. And it’s unnecessarily generating friction between traditional cyclists and e-bikers despite their obvious shared interests in repurposing street space from automobiles.”

Writing at Streets Blog USA, Kea Wilson focuses in on Bogost’s fixation with the “symbolic value” of the e-bike in comparison to other modes of transportation:

“Two-wheeled transportation has been cast not just as the purview of the “twee,” the “jerks,” or the “pathetic losers,” but, variously, of the middle-aged man in Lycra and the snot-nosed kid, the gentrifying hipster and the lazy poor person, the scofflaw stoplight runner and the insufferable nerd who’s holding up traffic and deserves to be mowed down by motorists with important places to be. And to be fair, even among bike advocates, cycling can too easily be stereotyped as a silver-bullet solution to some of society’s most enduring problems; it’s what Dr. Melody Hoffman calls a “rolling signifier” that can easily morph into or a scapegoat, or a superhero, or something else entirely, depending on who’s looking and what their agenda is.”

Incidentally, I had my first e-bike experience just last week, riding a POGOH electric-assist cycle back home along the river trail. It was fun and even thrilling, but it did feel uncomfortably overpowered for the bike path. However I’m eager to try one out on the uphill commute into Oakland.

L.A's 6th Street Bridge, startup shutdowns, bumpy roads

Last month the city of Los Angeles celebrated the opening of the new 6th Street Viaduct bridge. The new structure replaces the original 6th Street bridge, an iconic landmark that spanned the L.A. river, connected downtown to Boyle Heights, and appeared in numerous films and other media. The original bridge was constructed in 1932 and demolished in 2016 due to structural problems.

The fanfare around the viaduct’s opening was quickly replaced by media coverage of illegal activity and street takeovers bringing traffic across the span to a standstill. In addition to reported road races, spinouts, and wheelie exhibitions, the new bridge was soon employed for a variety of unintended uses:

Video on social media from last weekend showed drivers spinning their wheels and performing other antics on the bridge, leaving the pavement scarred. Some people even crawled onto the ribbon-like arches that line the bridge to get elevated views of the action. Other isolated incidents have included a man getting a haircut in the middle of the bridge last Wednesday and another shadow boxing while wearing a red cape.

Reading about the commotion – and the flurry of responses – from afar, I was tempted to catch a flight to L.A. for a first-person perspective of the proceedings before the proposed preventive measures could be implemented (I had to settle for visiting the virtual ghost of the original bridge in Grand Theft Auto V, see photo above). The new 6th Street Viaduct, the disputes over its utilization, and the discourse around the controversy represent a confluence of urban communication issues. In the first month of its opening, the bridge has supported a communicative convergence of contrasting visions of city form and function.

On one hand is the bridge as symbol, as a medium for communicating urban identity and values. In response to the “unruly” behavior overtaking the new viaduct Los Angeles city council member Kevin de León highlighted the bridge’s symbolic function as an iconic landmark communicating an elite cosmopolitan status:

He predicted the bridge would become as famous as Griffith Park Observatory and Venice Beach. “We do have a new star in town,” he said. “It’s something all Angelenos deserve. This would be a symbolic icon for not just the region ... but for the entire world.”

This perspective attests to the role of iconic architecture (or “starchitecture”) for communicating urban distinction and “world city” status, as well as acting as lightning rods for attracting additional investment. But other Angelenos see the new bridge as symbolic of the attendant processes of gentrification. As stated in one community organizer’s account:

I begin to explain once again that the new Sixth Street Bridge Project is often hated for the wrong reasons. Though mostly because many people are quite convinced that this new bridge is a symbol of gentrification and displacement of a culture-rich community. And its hard to see how not to get that impression, given the characteristics of this project and the inequity in the end results.

From this perspective the viaduct is not merely a route for moving traffic between downtown and Boyle Heights but is a corridor for carrying capital into new extractive territories.

Beyond the bridge’s symbolic status as communication medium, the material form of the viaduct also functions as an infrastructure, not only for traversal but for expression. The aforementioned councilmember de León has targeted graffiti on the new bridge, asking the city council to allocate additional funds for graffiti removal.

The proposal to clean up graffiti passed 3-1 after De Leon and San Fernando Valley area City Councilman John Lee got into a debate, with Lee saying that spending that kind of money downtown takes funding away from other districts in Los Angeles that are trying to clean up their own local graffiti.

De León’s comments advocating for residents to take “collective responsibility as stewards of the bridge” moved beyond graffiti to the range of behaviors by which individuals were using the bridge to get their fifteen minutes of fame:

De León urged people to “step up and do everything within our power to make sure that we don’t allow a small group of individuals that are looking for their virtual fame to go viral on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook or Twitter — whatever it may be, for them to hijack the bridge that ultimately, at the end of the day, is the people’s bridge. This bridge belongs to everybody.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. De León’s emphasis on collective responsibility and assertion that “the bridge belongs to everybody” are ripe for analysis, but in the particular context of graffiti I can’t help but think of Richard Sennett. Sennett’s prolific career of urbanist writings began with the influential articulation of the “uses of disorder” for city life. In later writings Sennett addressed graffiti with a somewhat ambivalent attitude (to my reading anyway) that viewed it as a form of private address indifferent to the general urban public, and expression of an “aggressive” relation to the environment.

But De León also references the role of mediation in drawing crowds to the bridge, particularly the influence of social media. In our mediated era the opening of a new urban landmark offers an occasion not only for individual exploration but for seizing the novel infrastructure as a platform for creating “content” to add to the endlessly circulating stream of online images. The ever proliferating ways in which urban environments are mediated represent a wrinkle in Sennett’s theories of disorder and individual expression, as social media participation has incentivized new ways of relating to the urban environment.

A letter to the editor published in the July 27th Los Angeles Times shifted blame for the bridge chaos away from the unruly individuals taking over the traverse to the designers of the new viaduct who “forgot to include human beings” in their plans:

The resulting design was full of what engineers call “affordances” — design aspects that vividly suggest how an object or space should be used. They invite (afford) an almost inevitable human response: An elevator button affords you to push it, a chair’s design affords you to sit on it (or avoid it), and wide-open lanes afford teenage boys the irresistible impulse to drag-race.

The letter writer is evincing a perspective of spatial determinism that closely accords with Keller Easterling’s writings on medium design, and echoes insights of many antecedent urbanists. The same day the letter was published the Times editorial board issued a statement that expressed similar sentiments:

Instead, focus on the crowds of pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders, Instagrammers who’ve flocked to the bridge and made it their own. Despite less than ideal conditions (the speeding cars and the flimsy “protected” bicycle lanes), the 6th Street Viaduct has become a spot for family strolls, bike rides, scenic views, even quinceañera photos and a podcast recording. This is no mere roadway connecting Boyle Heights and downtown. It’s an opportunity to rethink L.A. transportation infrastructure and public space. The viaduct was built for cars, but it should be reclaimed for people.

Again, the editors advance a vision of public space that is designed for people rather than cars, an argument that has a long history in American urban planning. They also come close to positing a Lefebvrian call for a right to the city. The statement closes by imagining the possibilities for the new bridge that goes beyond its exchange value as a symbolic icon to its latent use value as a cultural space:

Imagine having a safe, beautiful connection between the two communities. The first chaotic weeks of the new 6th Street Viaduct could turn into a rare and wonderful opportunity. The bridge is already a visual landmark. What if it became a cultural landmark as well — marking the beginning of a new era in Los Angeles, one that elevates people over cars.

The quick-fix solutionist strategies that were proposed (and possibly already implemented as of this writing) to restore order on the viaduct were predictable: speed bumps in the traffic lanes and additional fencing along the bridge sides. These “solutions” are just an extension of both defensive architecture in urban space and myopic mobility approaches. The new 6th Street Viaduct is an event, a new urban space that has already changed the urban landscape and altered the Los Angeles skyline. But the discursive space that its reception has opened reveals the broader scope of its transformative potential.

WYEP Summer Music Festival & OpenStreetsPGH June 2022

The last weekend of June was also the first official weekend of Summer, and it was a busy one in Pittsburgh. On Saturday I headed into Oakland for the WYEP Summer Music Festival.

The concert was held in Schenley Plaza. It was nearly 90 degrees fahrenheit with lots of sun. When I arrived most of the shaded areas on the edges of the plaza were occupied, so I situated myself in a sunny spot in the grass.

The infrastructure and trailers behind the stage occupied Schenley Drive.

One of the event sponsors was Pittsburgh Regional Transit, the newly-rebranded name for Pittsburgh Port Authority. Their booth with free PRT hats was very popular.

They also had one of the newly-rebranded buses on site for viewing.

The streets of Oakland had responses to the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Sunday featured the second OpenStreets event of the summer. This course ran from Market Square down through the Strip District and Lawrenceville. I rode across the Hot Metal Bridge to the northern side of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and took it to Downtown, riding surface streets to the Square.

The crossing from Market Square to Penn Ave was regulated by event volunteers, just as last month.

From Downtown the course continued up through the Strip District.

People were still doing their Sunday morning shopping, frequently having to traverse the gauntlet of OpenStreets riders to cross the street.

Even with the Sunday shoppers the Strip District never felt as congested as South Side did last month.

One of the dismount zones was demarcated by a pair of giant purple hands.

As with previous events there was also live music throughout the course.

Helpful chalk writing alerted riders to road hazards as well as dismount zones.

The course went past Allegheny Cemetery.

The Lawrenceville Doughboy looked over the proceedings.

My ride along Butler St was invigorating not only for building the speed that I did but also for gauging what had changed and what had stayed the same.

Road Blocks: Mobility & Sidewalk Accessibility in Pittsburgh's South Side

When I moved to Pittsburgh’s South Side last summer I found it to be a dramatically different experience compared to my years living in the city’s East End neighborhoods. Most notably the entirety of South Side Flats seemed imminently accessible, with the major thoroughfare and commercial core of East Carson Street providing a walkable central corridor through the dense and dynamic neighborhood. I also immediately took advantage of the neighborhood’s unique mobility infrastructure including the nearby river trail, dedicated bike lanes, and ample neighborways. However, for the past several months more and more of my daily traversals through the neighborhood have featured scenes like the one pictured in the above photo.

Pennsylvania publications recently marked the beginning of “PennDOT construction season” with the release of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s 2022 budget. But here in the South Side it has felt like an uninterrupted construction season from last fall all through the winter. Some of this has to do with an apparent modernization project that has been taking place all along Carson Street: a block-by-block construction effort that has seen the upgrading of street corners to feature more even pavement and new curb ramps, as well as the installation of new traffic lights. In the photo above you can see a newly-installed yet-to-be activated traffic light alongside an existing fixture.

The above photo shows the view of Carson at 23rd Street as seen from my apartment. The median embankment was constructed last fall. You can still see the faded paint lines of the crosswalk that enabled protected traversal over Carson until it was disrupted by the new median. There is now a crosswalk that allows pedestrian traffic to continue along Carson across the South Side terminus of the Birmingham bridge, however this crosswalk wasn’t constructed until a couple of months after the original crosswalk was disrupted. Accordingly, for several weeks pedestrians on this block were confronted with the dilemma of either forging into traffic to navigate the newly impeded crosswalk, or doubling-back to cross over at the end of the block. From my vantage point I watched as numerous pedestrians – including people in wheelchairs or using crutches – opted to step into the line of traffic in order to continue their progress.

The road work along Carson and adjoining streets has been incessant for the past many months. Although I am free of physical impairment and able to negotiate these disruptions with relative ease, I have been frequently frustrated by my inability to to maintain uninterrupted progress in my journeys and particularly mindful of the inconveniences experienced by people with lesser mobility than myself.

Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure was founded in 2017 under the Peduto administration. From my perspective, the department’s title and mission statement have always reflected a capacious understanding of “mobility” that not only considers the needs of physical movement but also attends to the broader spectrum of social and economic mobility. There is much about the DOMI mission and purview that I support. As stated on the department’s website, DOMI evinces several “mobility principles.” One of these principles is that “all trips less than 1 mile are easily and enjoyably achieved by non-vehicle travel.” After months of mounting frustrations with my own daily peregrinations, I decided to document a short and simple journey that I make on a weekly basis in order to illustrate how my experience falls short of DOMI’s stated goals.

The nearest grocery store to me is only 0.3 miles from my apartment (one of the many mobility advantages that I have enjoyed in this neighborhood). I make the trek to the grocery once a week, traveling on foot. For the past several months my travel along this route has been fraught with impasses and obstructions. So I documented my experience last week in order to illustrate the degree of difficulties encountered during a single, simple journey. All of the following photos were captured last Saturday, April 2nd. It is worth noting that the various hindrances documented herein stem from a variety of sources: not only city projects but also private construction. Furthermore, the street closures and sidewalk disruptions along Carson and adjoining streets are subject to rapid change from day to day, however they have been a persistent presence in aggregate for several months. These pictures are therefore indicative of the range of obstacles to mobility and accessibility encountered during a short walking journey on a recent afternoon.

Upon leaving my apartment I head east along Carson Street following the most direct route to the grocery store. I encounter my first obstacle as soon as I reach the end of the block: the sidewalk on the opposite side of 24th Street is inaccessible.

It may be hard to believe, but this configuration is actually more forgiving than it had been in the past. For several weeks previous the fencing extended all the way to the edge of the sidewalk, forcing persistent pedestrians to step out into the street to continue their travels. The fencing has recently been moved toward the mid-point of the sidewalk, however the placement of temporary signage and permanent presence of light poles and trees makes this sliver of sidewalk treacherous for any traveler, not to mention unsurpassable for individuals using wheelchairs or other mobility aids.

So, stymied at the very first street crossing along my journey, I turn right on 24th Street. The next potential passageway that would enable me to continue toward my destination is Carey Way, an alleyway that bisects the block. However, due to this building construction that has enveloped the entire area, the alley is also blocked off. So I continue to Sarah Street, only to find that the sprawling construction has also claimed the sidewalk on this side of the block.

As I’ve been doing for the past three months or so that his fencing has eliminated the sidewalk, I travel into the street to circumvent the obstruction, hewing as close as possible to the chain-link barrier and hoping that approaching vehicles offer ample leeway as they pass. After negotiating the lane of oncoming traffic and navigating around the parked cars that stand between me and the curb, I am back on the sidewalk. This reprieve is short-lived, however, as halfway down the 2500 block of Sarah Street there is a sudden interruption of the sidewalk in front of a house that is being renovated.

I carefully tread along the narrow berm of the curb with arms outstretched, like a gymnast traversing a balance beam, and continue my harrowing journey to the market. Thankfully there are no major obstacles for the remainder of my transit (if we are overlooking the radically uneven sidewalks along Sarah Street, where the alternating concrete and brick surfaces are routinely broken up by the subterranean courses of tree routes). Finally I arrive at the grocery and complete my shopping for the week. For the journey home I have no desire to retread the hazardous path that brought me here, so I eschew the Sarah Street exit and depart from the Carson Street entrance instead. Immediately upon exiting the store I am confronted with a construction sign admonishing me to cross the street, as the sidewalk up ahead is apparently closed.

However, upon turning right to follow the direction indicated by the arrow on the “sidewalk closed” sign, I see that the opposite corner is itself inaccessible, cordoned off by construction cones and temporary barriers.

Unable to follow the construction sign’s directive to cross the street, I continue along Carson Street back toward home. Sure enough, at the end of the block the way becomes impassable.

As you can see in this photo, every corner of this intersection was marred by construction impediments.

Once again I venture into the street and precariously brave oncoming traffic, having been left with no other viable alternatives along my route. I make it only to the end of the next block before encountering the next roadblock.

Again stepping off the curb into the street, I walk around these obstructions to return to the initial obstacles that I first encountered along my short journey.

These photos attest to the wildly inaccessible conditions that I encountered during a very short walk on a recent weekend afternoon. In stark contrast to DOMI’s mobility principles, this 0.3 mile journey was far from easily and enjoyably achieved. As mentioned earlier, this snapshot of a recent afternoon captures street conditions that have been rapidly and continuously fluctuating, and indicate both private and city construction projects. However, what I believe these photos make abundantly clear is that the sidewalk conditions in South Side have been absurdly inconsistent, and the maintenance and mobility and accessibility in this neighborhood has fallen far short of reasonable standards.

Mobility for Who? Pittsburgh Mobility Report

I’ve been deep in the weeds with a writing project — as well as dealing with all the other stresses of life and getting through the winter — so activity at the blog has unfortunately been sparse. However I wanted to make my regular weekly update with some further news about mobility in Pittsburgh (one of the blog’s favorite subjects as late). This Thursday (Feb. 17th) there will be a panel discussion with members of Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Tech 4 Society to discuss the current status of mobility initiatives in the city. From the news announcement:

“Under the Peduto administration, Pittsburgh has poured taxpayer funds and time into private mobility techology, while failing to prioritize core infrastructure needs such as sidewalks, bus shelters - even roads and bridges. High tech investment has also driven gentrification and displacement to transit-poor areas, exacerbated by acute lack of affordable housing.

Transit accessibility is an equity issue. SPIN scooters, autonomous vehicles, sidewalk delivery robots, and other technologies have all been touted by Pittsburgh leaders as increasing mobility access for residents. These technologies are often inaccessible to many who need transportation most: senior citizens, the disabled, youth, families, low-income people, the unbanked. As Mayor Ed Gainey steps into office, now is the time to revisit decisions to invest limited city resources into inaccessible technologies. ”

More details on the meeting and how to attend are available here.

Bridges, Biden, and the Sublime Object of (Pittsburgh) Infrastructure

Last Friday President Joe Biden stopped in Pittsburgh in order to use some of the Steel City’s post-industrial transition into technology research and development as the backdrop for a speech about the Infrastructure Bill. News of Biden’s visit only broke the day before, and the timing seemed coincidental for me personally because Biden was to deliver his remarks at Mill 19, a redeveloped tech office-park in Hazelwood that has featured in my research for several years and that I’m currently writing about (and also visited during Open Streets last July). The timing of the President’s Pittsburgh pit-stop would end up proving much more coincidental, however, when the Fern Hollow Bridge that traverses a ravine in Frick Park in between the neighborhoods of Squirrel Hill and Regent Square collapsed around 6:00 AM Friday morning, just hours before Biden was scheduled to touch down in the city. No one was killed in the collapse, though the loss of a major thoroughfare will pose ramifications for mobility and accessibility in the city for a long time.

The timing of the collapse seemed like an unwelcome surprise engineered by the Cosmic Coincidence Control Center (although I saw several Twitter users deduce that the bridge failure was a false flag event designed to further Biden’s radical-left agenda; a conflux of phantasms). Throughout the news coverage journalists and other commentators made the absurdly obvious observation that the bridge failure underscored the importance of funding for infrastructure maintenance. The impotence of these assertions is only exacerbated by the preceding months of political discourse that hinged upon the necessity of public infrastructure investment so that, you know, bridges don’t collapse.

Biden visited the collapse site prior to his speech and talked with the local officials and first responders who were on scene. It seems that one of Biden’s aides included the trivia about Pittsburgh having more bridges than any other city in the world into his briefing; Biden repeated the factoid throughout the day. I lost my bet that Biden would refer to his credentials as a “bi-partisan bridge builder” in his remarks, but I did correctly predict that he would trot out the well-worn anecdote about “going to the McDonald’s parking lot to use the WiFi” that seems to feature in every single one of Biden’s infrastructure stump speeches. 

Locally the Fern Hollow bridge collapse was seen as a call to action, even as experts advised that it will take far more than the Infrastructure Bill to address all of the region’s outstanding issues. It also sparked reflection on previous instances of infrastructural deterioration and breakdown.

At the beginning of this month I wrote about the inauguration of new Pittsburgh mayor Ed Gainey and the legacy of outgoing mayor Bill Peduto through the lens of mobility infrastructure. I highlighted Peduto’s choice to describe his place in Pittsburgh history as “a bridge over troubled water.” Immediately after the collapse of this troubled bridge last week the incident was politicized as residents sought to assign blame. Many assigned fault to Peduto: some ascribed the collapse to Peduto’s choosing to fund police over infrastructure (Peduto has been very active on Twitter discussing the collapse and responding to other users); others claimed it was the result of diverting money to bike lanes (this is incredible but true…the goddamn “bike lane” discourse lives on!).

The excited murmuring over Pittsburgh infrastructure that the Fern Hollow collapse incited seems like a locally-inflected variant of the politicking that played out in national discourse over the past many months. Even the signifier “infrastructure” has become as ubiquitous as its signified, just part of the background of everyday life. Something that you tend to take for granted and overlook until it breaks down or fails. The constant repetition of this word, the application of its meaning to a vast array of potential interventions, indicate a “sublime” aspect of infrastructure as both materiality and discourse. In a material sense the all-encompassing and pervasive nature of our infrastructural environments suggest an inexorable sublimity.

And in this recent political discourse – whether on the national or local level – the way the term is operationalized and the various ideological investments revealed in these debates illustrate how infrastructure may function as sublime objects, imagined as the satisfaction of our desires.

Moving forward in Pittsburgh

The New Year started with a boom in Pittsburgh, and this period of calenderial transition portends more changes than usual. When I returned to Pittsburgh this past summer after an extended absence I had to steel myself for the changes wrought by the pandemic. It seemed unfathomable that a popular nightlife spot like Brillobox would close, or a hallowed neighborhood haunt like Take A Break would go for up for sale (however, the proximity of both these venues to Lawrenceville leads me to wonder how much the pandemic can be faulted, or whether the economic impacts of covid-19 only exacerbated the already established patterns of gentrification, capitalization, and dispossession…see also the massive new development taking shape on the former Penn Plaza site, a project that seems to have shifted from stalemate to speed train after the advent of coronavirus.). The closing days of 2021 saw similarly unthinkable news with the announcement that Pamela’s was shuttering its iconic Squirrel Hill diner location.

The long tail of the pandemic and the pervasive encroachment of gentrification will continue to remake the landscape of Pittsburgh, just as they are shaping cities around the world. But this new year also marks a political shift in the city. Today (January 3rd) Ed Gainey will be inaugurated as the 61st mayor of Pittsburgh and the city’s first mayor of color. Over the past weeks there have been numerous reflections and retrospectives on the legacy of outgoing mayor Bill Peduto. For me, Peduto’s mayoral tenure will always be associated with mobility and infrastructure. Not only did his administration create the Pittsburgh Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, but these were central focal points for my research into neighborhood change and development in the city over the last several years.

The final year of Peduto’s term saw further inroads in transit policy and innovation. Last July the city launched Move PGH, which was touted as the country’s first transit app for non-car transportation. The new initiative was accompanied by the introduction of e-scooters onto Pittsburgh’s streets, part of a comprehensive approach toward making the city a “leader in car-free mobility.” The fleet of electric scooters soon became an ubiquitous presence in Pittsburgh and sparked a rash of complaints over where the vehicles were being ridden or abandoned on city streets and sidewalks. Local media began covering scooter sightings on highways and in tunnels. As with the introduction of autonomous vehicle testing on the city’s streets years earlier, the Pittsburgh city council had to explore ways of legislating and regulating the new transportation technology.

In August a transit report ranked Pittsburgh the third-best 15-minute city in the country. The 15-minute metric refers to the availability of daily necessities and amenities within a 15-minute walk or bike trip. The study also highlighted the impact of affordable housing on mobility and accessibility, echoing a recent report that linked public transit funds to racial equity. That same month census data revealed that Allegheny County saw its first population growth since 1960, while also providing further statistical support for the much-discussed displacement of Black residents from Pittsburgh.

In September the Peduto administration announced the 2070 Mobility Vision Plan, a framework for the next 50 years of infrastructure investment in the city along with a commitment to “mobility justice.” The announcement of the vision plan was preceded by a host of new and proposed transit initiatives from the Pittsburgh Port Authority. The latter half of 2021 brought numerous other transit-related developments in the city including debate over the impact that a proposed Amazon distribution center would have on the streets of Lawrenceville, and a grant to transform a section of South Side’s 21st Street into a “complete green street.”

The closing month of 2021 saw a final flurry of mobility moves in Pittsburgh. Mayor Peduto announced plans to transform an abandoned road behind Bakery Square into a “living street,” with visualizations of the re-imagined streetscape. Residents of Hazelwood received news of a long-awaited sidewalk improvement, while mayor-elect Gainey announced a pause on the Mon-Oakland Connector that has long featured in debates over the remake-formerly-known-as-Almono that has been incrementally emerging in Hazelwood. Also in December, the city passed new legislation that bans parking in designated bike lanes.

All of these mobility-related initiatives are “on brand” for the Pittsburgh identity that Peduto has promoted during his term, but the bike lane legislation is a particularly appropriate measure for his final days in office. As I’ve mentioned before, bike lanes took on a distinct symbolic resonance in the mayor Peduto era. The newly dedicated lanes and other cycling infrastructure became synecdoches for the generational culture wars: bike lanes were regularly mentioned in letters-to-the-editor and the comment sections of local news websites as Pittsburghers decried a perceived shift away from traditional Steel City values toward the lifestyle preferences of the hipster-millenial-industrial-complex. While my own political values were typically at odds with the spirit in which bike lanes were cited in these cases, there is a germ of truth in what these Pittsburghers were responding to: bike lanes have been mobilized by municipalities as attractors for members of the “creative class,” and the social disparities inherent to “walkability” and “complete streets” rhetoric have long been noted. Indeed, my main contention with Peduto’s tenure hinges upon an overreliance and uncritical acceptance of “creative class” development initiatives (in conjunction with a pervading ethos of hegemonic liberalism that often expressed the right sentiments while falling short of inscribing them into policy).

This inherent ideological antagonism between the residual imaginaries of Pittsburgh’s gritty industrial heritage and the glossy banalized tech-sector landscape that has taken its place was aptly captured in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial published on New Year’s Day. Aside from correctly identifying the dominant contrasting urban identities that characterized Peduto’s mayoral term, the editorial seems ambiguously ambivalent toward the outgoing mayor (the conclusion is that Peduto was good for Pittsburgh but could’ve been better?). The compromised tone of the editorial may indeed be the result of a compromise among staffers: the Post-Gazette editorial board has long been highly suspect if not entirely disreputable due to the nefarious and noxious influence exerted by its right-wing ownership, but it seems that the editorial board will also be changing in the new year.

Mayor Peduto has given several interviews recently, reflecting on his accomplishments in office with a considerable degree of candor (I want to especially recommend this excellent write-up from Public Source). In one such reflection Peduto said that he might be remembered as “a bridge over troubled water.” It’s such a perfect cap to Peduto’s history of on-brand messaging rhetoric, drawing upon the bridges with which Pittsburgh is so closely identified as well as the emphasis on mobility and infrastructure that he foregrounded as mayor. It occurred to me this week that Peduto was first sworn in as Pittsburgh mayor in 2014, the same year that I arrived in the city. I remember watching his episode of Undercover Boss later that year. His approach to governance and vision of the city that he put forth has been integral to my experience of Pittsburgh.

Moving forward, and as long as I remain in Pittsburgh, I will continue to track the unfolding patterns of neighborhood change and development strategies, particularly as they relate to both old and new mobility infrastructure initiatives. Some of the ongoing infrastructure investments I am most interested in are not necessarily driven by transportation. For instance, Peduto’s “Dark Sky initiative” to combat light pollution by replacing 35,000 streetlights with LEDs. And more recently the Pittsburgh City Council approved the designation of six greenways to become city parks, a move that among other things addresses the importance of urban greenways in a post-pandemic world.

Incoming mayor Gainey has reasserted his commitment to a more diverse and inclusive Pittsburgh. As I’ve stated before, I am excited for this new era of civic leadership in the city, while also anxious about the racist rhetoric (whether explicit or implicit) that will surely emerge in public discourse during Gainey’s tenure. I wonder what will replace “bike lanes” as the metonymic signifier for competing cultural values and ideological struggles in the coming years.

Niantic responds to Pokemon Go players, acquires scanning company

In an earlier post I wrote about how Pokemon GO developer Niantic was rolling back some gameplay changes implemented during the pandemic, and how many players were pushing back against the reversion to the pre-pandemic status quo. Last week Niantic posted a response to the Pokemon GO community:

“We have heard your feedback about one change in particular - that of the PokéStop and Gym interaction distance. We reverted the interaction distance from 80 meters back to the original 40 meters starting in the U.S. and New Zealand because we want people to connect to real places in the real world, and to visit places that are worth exploring.”

Several threads on Pokemon GO-related subreddits featured reactions to Niantic’s statement. Some users dismissed the developer’s message as diversionary corporatespeak and crisis PR. This was echoed in several of the top comments in an r/Games thread:

“tl;dr We heard you. Now shut up and leave us alone. Quit telling us how you should be enjoying our game. But just to make you be quiet, we promise to make an investigative task force who will look into the risks and benefits of increasing the distance and get back to you at a later date.”

“Ah the classic "we need an internal team to decide the best course of action" when the solution is already right there and had been implemented for months. They're not changing anything, they're attempting damage control and hoping it all blows over.”

Over on r/PokemonGo, several users found Niantic’s stated rationale of “encouraging exploration” as dubious:

“This game is like 2% exploration and 98% visiting the same neighborhood pokestops and gyms over and over again, and Niantic knows this.”

“You want to give us exploring? Give us biomes, give us rare Pokemon in hiking areas, give us better pokemon in eggs so we see the benefit of walking. Why the hell would I want to walk any extra to get the same dumb pokemon that is in the wild? Do I really need to "explore" a QFC parking lot? Lies. Exploring has nothing to do with it.”

Many of the comments in the above thread posited that Niantic was appealing to virtues of “exploration” and “exercise” in order to mask their purely financial interest in prompting players to move to Poke stops. Niantic is clearly invested in maintaining their edge in geolocation and augmented reality technology: last week the company acquired a 3D scanning company called Scanverse. As Greg Kumparak wrote for TechCrunch:

“As I first wrote about years ago, one of Niantic’s goals is to build a detailed and endlessly-evolving 3D map of the world — a step they see as fundamental to enabling true, rich augmented reality experiences if/when the world ever embraces something like AR glasses. It’s a rather massive (and never-ending) task, but one made a bit more feasible by way of its ever-roaming player base across games like Pokémon GO, Harry Potter Wizards Unite and Ingress.”

Meanwhile, debates over the gameplay changes have now spawned divisive conversations over Covid and vaccines on the Pokemon Go subreddit. One user asked why Niantic was reversing the pandemic gameplay decisions when the virus is still with us, and the board moderators have affirmed a zero tolerance policy toward Covid denial or anti-vaccine posts.

Shots from the Block: Pittsburgh Highline

Among the many discoveries I’ve made during my initial journeys along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail is the Pittsburgh Highline. I rolled into the open air plaza on a recent weekend morning and was totally caught off guard, wondering if this was a brand new development or I had simply been unaware of the location during my previous years in the city. It turns out that the Highline opened last summer. Press coverage of the August 2020 opening positioned the property in relation to broader reimaginings of public spaces that proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with the general aesthetic and approach to postindustrial re-development at the site, the Highline moniker itself is indicative of the intracity circulation of urban development and branding strategies. News coverage of the opening and the developer’s own description of the property point out that the name is a nod to New York’s famous High Line, which repurposed a disused elevated railway into a pedestrian park.

The Pittsburgh Highline similarly repurposes and incorporates rail infrastructure into its design. The development is centered around a former terminal warehouse, and sits right alongside still active train tracks. There is also a vintage rail car positioned as a centerpiece in the ground-level plaza. The carriage is covered with graffiti, which aesthetically links the Highline with the nearby Color Park, though I am unclear whether this is sanctioned by the property owners as the promotional images I’ve discovered depict the train car sans graffiti.

The plaza also excellently incorporates new cycling infrastructure to connect with the river trail, helping riders and pedestrians transition to McKean St and back to the riverfront. For my fellow aficionados of Pittsburgh filming locations, the upper plaza overlooks the concrete plant where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s detective character takes out two of Bane’s evil construction workers in The Dark Knight Rises. Below is my photo of the spot and then an image from the relevant scene in the film for comparison.

City Scenes: Cycling from the South Shore to the North Shore

Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood stays up late. While the major urban artery and commercial corridor of E. Carson St channels a significant amount of traffic all day long, the South Side Flats district is particularly known as a nightlife hot spot. For area residents, the abundance of after-hours revelry can be a nuisance: complaints about parking availability, incidental vandalism, and excessive noise are commonly espoused in online discussions (As a new arrival I get to experience this firsthand: I live next door to a popular neighborhood bar’s outdoor patio, and am also the proud new owner of several sets of deluxe ear plugs). 

There are more distressing dimensions to this nocturnal activity as well. Since I arrived in South Side three weeks ago there have been two serious shootings and a conviction in an earlier shooting incident. On my way home from the Pirates game last Friday I got to witness the first night of new traffic restrictions, as police are cordoning off inbound traffic along a eight block stretch of E. Carson on weekend evenings in an effort to curtail late night violence. That same evening there was yet another shooting in the immediate vicinity of the restricted zone.

So South Side is a neighborhood that stays up late, in ways that may be experienced as alternately frustrating or frightening by community members. But in my experience so far it is also a neighborhood that sleeps in, especially on the weekends. I’ve attempted to utilize this early morning inactivity by going out for morning sojourns. The forenoon quietude is conducive to walking around the neighborhood or going for a run on the river trail, but I have found it especially amenable to cycling, as the vacant sidewalks and sparsely trafficked streets are accommodating for a novice rider like myself.

This past Sunday I endeavored on an early morning bike ride. My ambitions were modest: I simply aimed to ride along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail to the furthest point that I have reached during my runs, namely the site of the Highline (I’ll have more to say on that location later this week). Yet as the ride unfolded I found myself compelled to travel further and further, and I ended up on a three hour trip from the South Shore to the North Shore and back again.

This was my first time traveling beyond the Color Park heading west on the trail. Along the way I enjoyed cycling around the open and uncongested Color Park, pausing to read the assemblage of spray painted messages and attempting to decipher the graffitied signifiers. From there it was past the Highline and onto McKean St, detouring to Station Square. (The route also took me past a new-ish looking residential development dubbed “Glasshouse”...I’d love to know whether the developers intended the subversive smirk suggested by the proverbially-resonant moniker, but I find it extremely funny regardless). I hadn’t been to Station Square since I first moved here seven years ago. The complex is still dominated by tacky chain restaurants and the grating sounds of piped-in muzak, but it took on a special charm from the saddle of my cycle. The area also features some mobility infrastructure placards as pictured above.

I rode the south shore trail to its apparent terminus point just past the River Hounds stadium across the river from Point State Park. At this stage I considered calling it a day, having greatly exceeded my original ambitions for the outing. But looking across the river at the Point fountain I felt compelled to explore how to bridge the gap and reach the point. So I pedaled back through Station Square and then up and across the Smithfield St Bridge.

Over on the downtown side a series of switchbacks and side ramps brought me to Point State Park. The area around the fountain had already drawn a number of visitors. As I rested my bike against the edge of the fountain reservoir two freight trains passed in opposite directions along the south shore rail lines and boaters maneuvered their pleasure craft around the confluence. I was reminded of the phrase I had used during previous visits to the Point: “city on the move.”

I decided to continue along the opposite side of the golden triangle. I rode past the large Black Lives Matter mural and other racial justice messages that have been painted there in the last year, but I have refrained from photographing or reproducing the murals here so as to avoid reducing these expressions to commodified images or consumable aesthetic representations.

When I approached a ramp leading up from the riverfront toward the Roberto Clemente bridge I took it, heading up to the street level of downtown. As that day was a Sunday home Pirates game the Clemente bridge was closed off to through traffic, so it was an excellent opportunity to ride across the bridge. I’m really glad I got the chance to do this, as the bridge will soon be undergoing renovations that will make it inaccessible for two baseball seasons.

There were several points along this journey where I relished the ability to ride to this area of downtown and take in the view of PNC Park. It should make for a fulfilling outing during the hot stove season.

First pitch for the Sunday game was scheduled for 1:05 PM, so even at mid-morning the area was abuzz with pre-game activity along Federal Street, baseball fans milling about, and stadium staff arriving for work. I circumnavigated the stadium and paused for photographs with some of the surrounding statues.

I rode a little further along the North Shore river trail, though at this point the path was growing congested, so I made my way back up to the Clemente bridge and backtracked home. It was an invigorating semi-spontaneous outing (seeing as I traveled significantly further than originally imagined). It was a beautiful morning and I got to encounter some of my favorite Pittsburgh landmarks and vistas from an entirely new perspective. At several points along my journey I said to myself (often out loud): “This is awesome, this is so cool.” I am sure that for experienced Pittsburgh cyclists (or cyclists in any city for that matter) this is nothing surprising, merely confirmation of what they know to be true. But cut me some slack, this is a big deal for where I am right now, literally and figuratively.

OpenStreetsPGH 2021 Hazelwood

Since 2015 OpenStreetsPGH has closed selected Pittsburgh streets off to vehicle traffic several times each summer. Organized by Bike Pittsburgh, the events are sort of outdoor festivals that open up a few miles of city streets for walking, cycling, and other forms of non-motorized transit. I’ve always wanted to attend, but during each of the previous events I have been out of town or otherwise engaged. As previously noted, I’ve just moved back to the city and have been regularly patronizing the South Side stretch of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail. On one of these regular recent visits I spotted a sign advertising the next OpenStreets event, occurring in Hazelwood on July 25th. So here was my chance to finally attend an OpenStreets, and since Hazelwood is just a quick jaunt across the river from my apartment, I would be able to cycle to the event.

Last year the usual schedule of OpenStreets events during the summer was interrupted due to COVID. This year the Hazelwood event is the first and only OpenStreets of 2021. Scott Bricker, executive director of Bike Pittsburgh, described the renewed urgency of the event thusly:

“OpenStreetsPGH invites the community to reimagine public spaces, something we saw the incredible necessity of during the pandemic. As the world starts to get back to normal, we are excited to present OpenStreetsPGH as a mini-event where people of all ages can get outside for some socially distanced recreation, enjoy a day of car-free fun on city streets, and check out some awesome bike infrastructure along the way.”

So this past Sunday I embarked by bicycle around 10 AM, the designated event start time. I’m still a novice urban cyclist, and when I had planned my prospective route the day before my greatest concern was how to get from the Hot Metal Bridge to the OpenStreets route on Blair St. Thankfully I found that Bike Pittsburgh representatives and public safety officials were managing the intersection between the bridge and the start of the trail (and enforcing a mandatory dismount zone at the crossing).

This was my first time back in Hazelwood since 2017 when I was researching what was then called the Almono development. As part of my broader research into the impact of Uber’s autonomous vehicle research in the city, I attended community meetings and interviewed developers about the plans to transform an urban brownfield into a cutting edge technology park. So it seemed fitting that my first experience with OpenStreets would be in the neighborhood that had featured so prominently in Pittsburgh mobility initiatives and in my own research.

The OpenStreets excursion therefore provided me with my first up-close look at the progress that has taken place at the Mill 19 site. The massive superstructure of a disused steelworks has been repurposed as a skeletal shell surrounding technology research offices, a visual-material confluence of Pittsburgh’s industrial past and the contemporary economy.

The redevelopment is an impressive blend of adaptive reuse and postmodern architectural flourishes. This sign gives a look at the site’s forward-looking innovative tenantry with names like “Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing” and “Manufacturing Futures Initiative.”

Expansion of the Mill 19 site is ongoing. Here you can see a banner promoting the next phase, and a look into the yet-to-be-redeveloped shell.

There were also sandwich boards drawing attention to some of the cycling-friendly transit infrastructure that has been built in Hazelwood Green. This sign highlights a floating bus stop configuration:

I completed a couple of circuits of the OpenStreets route then departed Hazelwood as the streets became more congested and the skies threatened to rain. Excepting the transition to Hot Metal Bridge, I managed to cycle all the way back to my apartment without dismounting. In my previous excursions I’ve lacked the confidence to ride along E Carson St, opting instead to walk my bike until getting to dedicated bike paths. My return ride today was not strictly regulation, but I felt accomplished and more confident in general. When I first moved to Pittsburgh several years ago, the bicycle I’d arrived with sat idle for a year before I finally sold it. The irregular topography of East End neighborhoods intimidated me, and I witnessed a cyclist’s death in traffic in Oakland. My current bike was a pandemic purchase, and I’m glad I brought it with me to the city. South Side Flats has a more welcoming topography and a robust network of cycling routes and other transit infrastructure.

Pokemon Go & post-pandemic mobility expectations

I haven’t played Pokemon Go since the early days of its release. It was nearly impossible to avoid the buzz surrounding the game’s launch. And as I wrote back in July 2016, the hype around the game was infectious and the game itself offered an exciting new way of interacting with public spaces in your local environment.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year immediately and drastically altered attitudes toward congregating in public space. I had assigned my Communication Process students an assignment to complete during their spring break: spend time in a populated public space and take field notes on the interactions that they observed. When the scope of the pandemic became clear and our university canceled in-person classes during the spring recess I frantically emailed my students to stress that they were no longer required to complete the assignment and to affirm that it was in their best interests to avoid populated public places.

Many aspects of public life had to adapt to the new social-distancing realities of life under coronavirus, and Pokemon Go was no different. Pokemon Go developer Niantic announced in March 2020 that it was instituting changes in its games in light of the emergent public health imperatives:

“We have always believed that our games can include elements of indoor play that complement the outdoor, exercise and explore DNA of what we build. Now is the time for us to prioritize this work, with the key challenge of making playing indoors as exciting and innovative as our outdoor gameplay. We are adding to our product roadmap so we can enable more ways to play inside and around the home in the coming days and weeks, when the world needs it most.”

One of the changes implemented to Pokemon Go was an increase in the interaction distances for players to engage with location-specific game activities. These changes effectively doubled the distance from which players could interact with GPS-fixed game locations. In November 2020 Niantic provided updates on the changes and stated they would remain in place “at minimum through June 2021.”

Well, Niantic held to this prospective timeline, and last month the developer announced that it would be rolling back the increased interaction distances:

“Previously, PokéStop and Gym interaction distances were increased, to enable people to engage from further away. After this change the distance will revert back to the standard distance, when it makes sense in different places, though may be increased during future events and as part of certain features.”

Many players responded negatively to the reversion. On one of the most prominent Pokemon Go subreddits, The Silph Road, users explicated the immense quality of life improvement that the increased interaction distances provided. As redditor pogo_enthusiast explained:

“Increased interaction distances should stay, if only for reasons of safety and accessibility. Like many others, I was dismayed to see today's announcement concerning the reversion of pokestop and gym interaction distances. Beyond being a (much needed) quality of life feature, increased interaction distances made playing PoGo much safer and enabled disabled individuals in my community to more fully engage in the game.”

pogo_enthusiast outlined several specific ways in which the increased interaction distances improved accessibility:

1. Crossing the street less to engage with stops/gyms

2. Being able to interact with stops/gyms from safer (or more permissible) locations.

3. Being able to raid more discreetly from further away and avoid harassment from other players

4. Being able to keep walking at a normal place while playing, rather than abruptly stopping, slowing down, or moving off pathways to let others by

5. Being able to mitigate the issues of drift and not move around erratically to get in range of a stop/gym

The entire reddit thread regarding the revised interaction differences is fascinating to read. The comments astutely highlight myriad ways in which the gameplay experience was made safer and more accessible by the pandemic-era updates. So far the gamemakers have remained firm in their decision in spite of the outcry from the player base. A Niantic spokesperson justified the decision thusly:

“Last year, we increased the interaction distance to nearly the length of a football field. It’s tough to discover new places at this distance. We’re going to revert the expanded interaction distance in countries and regions where it makes sense to help restore the focus of the game on exploration and discovery. Going outside and spinning PokéStops and Gyms is important to our mission because it encourages exploration of the world.” [emphasis added]

This official explanation raises a question regarding the imperatives of Pokemon Go. How is the promotion of outdoor exploration weighed against the imperatives of profit accumulation inherent to a commercial product? How are these imperatives to be differentiated or disentangled? Around the start of this year redditor jdunham_ritxniantic posted to the Pokemon Go subreddit asking “How has the pandemic affected how you play?” User TheDeviless responded that:

“I stopped giving Niantic money because of their lack of concern for those during a pandemic.”

I think this response changes the inflection of the earlier question. Commercial profit motives aside, how would any initiative formed around the goal of promoting outdoor exercise and exploration responsibly respond to the public health imperative of social distancing? Despite the prevalence of post-pandemic and reopening discourse in our present moment I suspect that this question will remain relevant.

Thoughts on Nomadland and the 2021 Oscars

I finally got around to watching Nomadland this weekend, just ahead of the film’s anticipated Oscars triumph. My viewing was belated for a number of reasons. For one, the fact that the film was only available to stream on Hulu, necessitating that I create a Hulu account, made it easy to avoid. Secondly, I am generally ambivalent toward any films generating concerted Oscar buzz (this year I watched Mank and Minari despite my usual reservations...Mank was bad, Minari was just OK, and both films had baffling endings). My reluctance to see such films is heightened when the picture in question is reputed to carry social significance or is otherwise considered a “message movie.” The Oscars has a notoriously iffy track record when it comes to awarding Best Picture out of allegiance to some cause célèbre or to course-correct for the Academy’s diversity deficit through performative virtue signalling.

So I didn’t expect much of Nomadland, and what little I knew about the film only served to bolster my skepticism. I recently read a review that suggested the film’s warm reception was mostly carried by Frances McDormand’s acting prowess and abundant images of beautiful sunsets. Based on this appraisal and my own reckoning I anticipated that Nomadland would offer a shallow engagement with contemporary labor precarity dressed in the trappings of prestige filmmaking and wrapped in compelling cinematography.

Having seen the film, I can say that my expectations were subverted in some sense. For one thing, the cinematography is not compelling or even notable. Yes, the film does feature many “beautiful sunsets,” but their beauty lies in the intrinsic grandeur of natural spectacle, not in how they are presented or photographed. The film is often visually captivating because the desert and American West are inherently visually captivating, and Nomadland employs an abundance of on-location shooting to capture these landscapes. There is not much in the way of artful or creative approaches to the cinematography itself. I can’t help but compare the photography in Nomadland to Paris, Texas, another film that I wrote about recently. Paris, Texas features similar landscapes and traveling scenes as Nomadland, but Robby Müller’s evocative cinematography presents dynamic and engaging uses of lighting, staging, and composition in nearly every shot of that film.

To be fair, Nomadland takes a decidedly documentary-style approach to its mise-en-scène that I found very effective. Throughout the film I was often unsure whether the characters in a scene were unknown and amateur actors reciting naturalistic dialogue, or if the filmmakers had candidly captured casual conversations. Ultimately this distinction was a trivial curiosity: the various monologues that provide background on the characters’ lives seemed undeniably authentic and true to someone’s lived experience; whether these accounts had been lived first-hand by the person on screen or were merely informed by someone else’s narrative didn’t really matter, because the veracity resonated regardless.

The documentary-style presentation and obvious real-life inspiration is effective, but the film’s navigation of real world issues also introduces some ambiguous messaging that muddles the ideological overtones. Early on in the film the main character Fern goes to work at an Amazon distribution center. I was rapt throughout this entire sequence. The establishing image of the Amazon-branded warehouse looming over arriving workers felt portentous and vital. From my seat on the sofa it seemed like a glimpse of the Real underlying our current social arrangement; a sudden confrontation with one particular manifestation of the vast infrastructural assemblage that has helped to sustain supply lines and maintain a sense of societal continuity during the pandemic, as well as the ominous economic behemoth with which we seem so inextricably implicated.

I cannot help but consider the PR optics of Amazon’s participation in Nomadland, especially in light of the company’s recent high-profile social media campaigns (and widely-publicized social media gaffes) in opposition to employee unionization efforts. It appears that the company allowed the filmmakers to stage scenes inside an actual distribution center, and ostensibly include actual employees. And why not: the image of the company as conveyed by the film is one of cleanliness, safety, and friendliness. Fern sums up her experience of working for Amazon in two words: “Good money.” If anything Amazon’s participation in Nomadland seems like free publicity for its seasonal employment programs.

And the seasonal aspect of Amazon’s representation is a key component in the film’s murky messaging. Amazon is portrayed as regular and dependable: at one point Fern reassures her concerned sister by stating that she will be going back to work at Amazon in a few months. The Amazon warehouse reappears near the end of the film; its recurrence is presented as part of the rhythm of the nomad lifestyle, an indicator of the migratory cycles and seasonal hirings that shape the nomad’s cartographic course throughout the calendar year. In this way Amazon comes across like an essential component of America’s social infrastructure, a reliable source of employment that is ready to provide for those in need. Amazon comes to represent what passes for a social safety net in contemporary America.

This is where the film’s stance toward Fern’s nomad status becomes ambivalent, particularly in regard to its treatment of structural forces versus individual agency. The film offers some glancing engagements with capitalism early on: introductory text briefly establishes context for Fern’s sojourn by referencing how the closing of a factory had effectively eliminated the ad hoc town that grew up around it, and nomad figurehead Bob Wells is introduced giving a speech about the travails of worshipping the almighty dollar and a corporate culture that exploits laborers unto their death. Yet immediately following Wells’ speech we hear stories from assorted nomads present at the gathering describing the personal circumstances that led to their lives on the road. The common thread across these accounts is that the nomad or vandwelling lifestyle was a personal choice rather than a situation they felt forced into.

I recognize that the dialectic between structural factors and individual agency is complicated; that acknowledging the powerful effects of structural and systemic forces should not preclude consideration of personal autonomy and accountability; that even when our options and actions are determined or constrained by impersonal or impenetrable machinations, we may rationalize or narrativize our experiences through a lens of personal choice. Yet Nomadland frequently casts vandwelling as a personal predilection or act of empowerment in a way that not only elides meaningful engagement with class consciousness and precarious labor under neoliberal capitalism, but also underserves Fern’s characterization.

At several points in the film Fern rebuffs various characters’ offers of assistance. Family and friends offer her accommodation or point her toward charitable organizations. In each case Fern turns down the offer in a way that suggests resentment that her resolve and tenacity would be underestimated (she also pushes back against being labeled “homeless.”). I’ve never been unhoused, and my exploration of vandwelling has never progressed beyond conceptual contingency planning. However, in the past several years my life has been uncertain and austere. I have been profoundly moved by generous offers from friends and colleagues: to sleep on someone’s couch; to live in someone’s basement; or simply being welcomed into a friend’s social contact circle so that I wouldn’t have to endure pandemic lockdown in isolation. Regardless of my intention to accept any of these invitations, the offers deeply affected me because I knew the generosity was genuine, and I recognized how desperately I craved compassion. Fern’s responses to similar offers in the film lacks a sense of vulnerability or gratitude in a way that seems to bolster an implicit conservative critique of welfare in general.

There is a notable exception in the film’s treatment of vandwelling as lifestyle choice. Later in the film Fern attends a backyard cookout at her sister’s house. Her sister’s husband explicitly casts Fern’s nomadic existence as a personal choice and even privilege, saying that “not everyone can just chuck everything and hit the road.” Fern bristles as the assessment: “Is that what you think I’ve done?” The point is not elaborated on further, but Fern’s sister interjects, romanticizing Fern’s nomad existence as carrying on the proud tradition of America’s frontier pioneers.

The film ultimately seems overly long in light of its modest ambitions. In what was perhaps intended as a metareflexive approximation of the restless and perpetual movement of road life, the film drives past three suitable ending points and just keeps going. The first potential ending point comes just after Fern has left Dave’s family’s home, spurning his offer to live in the guest house. Fern stops her van along the side of the road, on what looks like a stretch of coastal highway in Oregon. She dances on a cliffside overlooking a stormy sea. I expected the film to conclude with this visualization of Fern’s commitment to unfettered freedom and life on the edge of a precipice. But the film keeps rolling and Fern keeps driving, back to the desert gathering of vandwellers. The assembled nomads sit around a campfire, tossing stones into the flames in remembrance of a recently departed comrade. Bob Wells casts a rock into the fire and intones: “See you down the road.” The camera pans up, tracing the rising red embers against the black night sky. This is a second ostensible ending but the film continues. 

Fern travels to Empire, the now deserted factory town from which she had earlier been displaced by the caprices of capitalism. Glimpses of a road sign with the town’s designation of “Empire” recalls Ozymandias’ ominous admonition. Instead of trunkless legs of stone sunk into the sand we see abandoned playgrounds and empty lots dusted with snow. Fern returns to her former house and walks into the backyard. The camera stands fixed to capture the backyard view from the house that Fern had described earlier in the film: the small yard is enclosed with a low chain link fence, but beyond it a vast and uninterrupted expanse stretches out to a horizon of mountains. This shot would offer another suitable conclusion for the film, and I think it would’ve been particularly poignant: the impressive landscape more than lives up to the images conjured up by Fern’s earlier description of her backyard view, and the vista compellingly conveys how the meaning of home or the specialness attributed to any particular place can often be attributed to the frame it offers us on the wider world.

The film gives us one more shot after the backyard view: Fern’s van back on the road, driving on the points unknown. I liked Nomadland more than I expected to, and it does offer a lot to appreciate. Ultimately the film never matched or recaptured the visceral fascination I experienced watching those early scenes at the Amazon warehouse. As the credits rolled I couldn’t help but think of Kelly Reichardt’s film Wendy and Lucy. That 2008 film has a lot of thematic similarities with Nomadland: the eponymous Wendy lives in her car with her dog Lucy; on her way to Alaska to seek work in a cannery the car breaks down in Oregon. The film presents the often harrowing and heartrending challenges that Wendy faces as she figures out how to continue her journey while being unable to afford the necessary vehicle repairs. In my estimation Wendy and Lucy offers a much more compelling dramatization of precarity through one woman’s navigation of life on the road. Reichardt’s film manages a nuanced characterization of Wendy that honors her spirit while avoiding an outright romanticization of her plight. It was also released right in the midst of the Great Recession, an era that Nomadland briefly name-checks but seems otherwise disconnected from; Nomadland is set in 2011 and 2012 (the timeline sometimes seems inconsistent) which makes it feel further distanced from contemporary issues and current events.
Ultimately I think Wendy and Lucy is a superior film to Nomadland that covers similar thematic (and geographic) territory. The comparison of the two films exacerbates my disappointment that Reichardt’s First Cow was completely overlooked at this year’s Oscars. That film received ample coverage a year ago because its March 2020 theatrical release made it one of the few Oscar hopefuls to be screened in theaters prior to the pandemic. It seems a shame that it didn’t garner a single nomination. I have to wonder how Nomadland’s fortunes would have fared without a renowned actor in the leading role.