[Plura-list] The political possibility of cities; Donziger correction

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* The political possibility of cities: Find yourself a city to live in.

* Donziger correction: Not the only person in US pre-trial detention for
a misdemeanor.

* This day in history: 2006, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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🌨 The political possibility of cities

The coming year feels like an important one. Democrats have the chance
to pass the For the People Act, which will reverse decades of right-wing
voter suppression, steering the US away from the baked-in
antimajoritarian characteristics of its politics

At the same time, a successful vaccine rollout (assuming variants can be
controlled) will mean widespread "re-openings," most notably in cities,
where we find the highest concentrations of virus-incompatible stuff:
mass transit, elevators, theaters and "cozy" cafes.

Cities are of huge political significance. The rise and rise of
inequality has been attended by skyrocketing rents in cities, largely
driven by money-launderers and speculators who turned housing stock into
empty safe deposit boxes in the sky.

Cities were also key to delivering the 2020 election: Biden took major
cities by 13m votes, inner suburbs by 4m votes, and midsized cities by
1.5m votes. 80% of Biden's votes came from these three categories.

As Ronald Brownstein writes in The Atlantic, "If you draw an imaginary
beltway around almost any major metropolitan area, Democrats are growing
stronger inside that circle, while Republicans are consolidating their
position outside of it."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/03/how-biden-could-partner-big-cities-and-suburbs/618294/

Last summer's BLM uprising was a mostly urban affair, but even before
then, the GOP was waging war on cities, with Mitch McConnell cutting
maintenance and relief funds for cities, and Trump demanding quarter for
ICE snatch-squads.

America's urbanization is an unbroken trend, and cities are
semi-autonomous, wildly imperfect, young, diverse and economically
powerful. They are also politically important, and many of the reddest
states would be blue or very purple if cities were given due representation.

Brownstein's account of cities during the Trump years makes the case
that a Biden focus on mayors, rather than the deadlocked Congress and
Senate, or the fringe ideologues who were crammed onto the Supreme
Court, is the key to making real political change.

The deadlocked legislature is not a new phenomenon. Several presidential
administrations have focused on executive orders and regulations from
the administrative branch to effect change, but these are flimsy
political wins. What one exec order can create, another can undo.

Net Neutrality is here, then gone, then (maybe) here again. Without
legislation, these policies aren't worth the Federal Register pages
they're printed on. But there are methods to durably inscribe policy,
and these are primarily urban.

Mostly, we remember the negative ways that this occurs: redlining,
driving freeways through Black neighborhoods or skipping over parts of
the city when it comes to subway access. Infrastructure is policy - and
it's among the most permanent forms of policy we have.

As recent years have demonstrated, the future is a chaotic place, but as
Charlie Stross has noted, the elements of the future that are indeed up
for grabs are actually pretty narrow: 90% of the future is here today.

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2019/12/artificial-intelligence-threat.html

Most of the homes people will be living in in 10 years are on the road
today. Most of the people who'll be alive then are living today. most of
the cars that will be on the road are already in service today.

Even sharp discontinuities like the pandemic don't change those facts
much (Stross and I did a conference presentation last week where he said
that maybe all the chaos of the past five years has reduced the
present's share of the future to 80%, still a commanding majority).

Cities are places where administrative policies can inscribe themselves
indelibly upon the future. As LA Sustainability Czar Lauren Faber
O'Connor told Brownstein, "Every building in the country is basically a
shovel-ready project."

A fed solarize/winterize subsidy for buildings makes a difference for
decades to come: not just the carbon footprint of the built environment,
but also the baseline expectations for decent buildings. It permanently
alters the balance between energy companies and the nation.

Every local government could take the feds up on this, but self-owning
culture war foolishness predicts that the benefit will accrue
predominantly to the large/mid-sized cities and inner burbs that
delivered the election to Biden.

Vehicles don't last as long as buildings, but they are remarkably
durable. Biden wants to replace the fed fleet with EVs - he could
subsidize cities to do the same, creating huge efficiencies of scale for
EV production and demand for permanent EV charging infrastructure.

Of course, the future is transit-based, not private-vehicle-based. Just
do the math: multiply the number of people who need to go places by the
amount of highway a private vehicle operates, and you'll find an
inescapable Red Queen's Race.

The more road we need for those private vehicles, the further apart
everything gets. The further apart everything gets, the more cars we
need. The more cars we need, the more road we need. The more road we
need, the further apart everything gets.

If building mass transit is "socialism" then geometry is a socialist
plot (and no, you can't fix this by moving cars into tunnels; do the
math). Transit permanently alters where people live and work, and what
they expect from their cities. A transit subsidy is a no-brainer.

Biden can't force the states to switch to carbon neutral energy sources,
but he can subsidize municipal energy facilities' voluntary switchover,
again, permanently altering the economics of fossil-fuel power generation.

Red states aren't red: they are gerrymandered purple states that punish
and starve their economic and population centers in the name of culture
war nonsense and white supremacy. There are opportunities to permanently
alter this situation.

For example, the Biden FCC could resinstate the rule banning states from
limiting municipal fiber, and then subsidize 100GB/s muni networks, with
emphasis on the urban broadband deserts in the majority-minority
neighborhoods created by redlining.

Once cities are operating profitable muni networks that connect
*everyone* to service that is 1,000-10,000x faster than the aging copper
lines that cable monopolists refuse to upgrade, those networks will
become permanent facts.

(as with many anti-monopoly interventions, these will do double-duty:
the cable companies' lobbying ammo comes from the monopoly rents that
they extract from poor people; deprive them of those rents and you cut
the supply lines in the war they wage on the public interest)

There's reforms coming to the Affordable Care Act: if one of these is a
change to the rule that cities can only get federal health-care
subsidies if their states permit it, then cities could opt-in to health
care even when their gerrymandered GOP statehouses block it.

America has 50 governors, 435 Congressional districts, 100 senators and
9 Supreme Court justices.

America has 19,000 cities and towns and 3,100 counties. These local
governments are far more accountable to the people than the larger
political entities.

Officials in cities, towns and counties who deliver tangible
improvements to their residents' quality of life will be rewarded with
high approval ratings and re-election. The Trump years left the largest
of these starved for friendly federal coordination and partnership.

Biden's cabinet already includes three prominent former mayors -
Buttigieg, Walsh and Fudge - and the historically intractable task of
directly coordinating with thousands of local governments is made far
more reasonable thanks to digital technology.

History teaches that presidents can defeat America's antimajoritarian
institutions by simply bypassing them.

When the pro-slavery Supreme Court struck down Lincoln's anti-slavery
laws, he passed them again...and again...and again: "Let's see whose
legitimacy tanks first."

Biden could write humane, sustainable equitable future on the country in
indelible ink. He could also make permanent changes in the lives and
expectations of people: increasing subsidies to local schools and wiping
out student debt is a change that lasts for a generation.

As exciting as this is, it's not enough. The circumstances of rural life
are range from bad to terrible, and they're only worsening. Saving the
cities will save the vast majority of Americans, but it will still leave
nearly 60,000,000 people in desperate circumstances.

This is unacceptable. Good governments look after all people, not just
the ones it expects to win re-election from.

Working with local governments is a tactic, not a strategy - a way to
erode corporate power and present alternatives.

It's the beginning, not the end.


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🌨 Donziger correction

On Fri, I published an article about Steven Donziger, an environmental
lawyer who won a historic victory over Chevron, only to find himself
disbarred and held under house arrest through a conspiracy between
Chevron and two corporate-friendly NY judges.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#contempt-of-corporation

I wrote, "Donziger is the only person in the entire USA who is in
pre-trial detention for a misdemeanor." I was quoting Jack Holmes's
Esquire interview with Donziger: "I'm the only person in the entire
country held on a misdemeanor pre-trial."

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a35812573/steven-donziger-chevron-house-arrest/

This is incorrect. Many, many people in America are in pre-trial
detention over a misdemeanor. I don't know if Donziger misspoke (perhaps
he meant he's had the longest pre-trial misdemeanor detention, at ~600
days, or maybe he was misquoted).

I regret the error and am grateful to the readers who brought it to my
attention.

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🌨 This day in history

#15yrsago Right-wing think-tank hates DRM
https://web.archive.org/web/20060321065829/https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6025

#15yrsago Canadian music industry pollsters slime Michael Geist
https://web.archive.org/web/20060330205430/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1173/Itemid,85/nsub,/

#15yrsago Sun ships free and open microprocessor
https://web.archive.org/web/20060406074122/opensparc.sunsource.net/nonav/index.html

#1yrago Don't Look for the Helpers
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/21/most-dangerous-ghost/#elite-panic

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🌨 Colophon

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

* My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and
reconciliation. Friday's progress: 511 words (118232 total).

* A short story, "Jeffty is Five," for The Last Dangerous Visions.
Friday's progress: 388 words (9273 total).

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues." Yesterday's
progress: 1054 words (35252 total).

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and
Interoperability (Part 3)
https://craphound.com/news/2021/02/28/privacy-without-monopoly-data-protection-and-interoperability-part-3/

Upcoming appearances:

*  Balancing Worldbuilding and Narrative (with Karen Osborne and Kali
Wallace), Mar 24,
https://ucsd.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YSvD5IjGS7Su2z-xhQN1ZA

* Launch for Brian David Johnson's Future You (Powell's Books), Mar 30,
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/5716148038801/WN_psgDGchIRfaUQOJyvLnvzw

* All the Teachable Things I Know About Writing, Apr 13,
https://www.changinghands.com/event/april2021/virtual-writing-workshop-cory-doctorow-all-teachable-things-i-know-about-writing

* Interop: Self-Determination vs Dystopia (FITC), Apr 19-21,
https://fitc.ca/presentation/interop/

Recent appearances:

* The surveillance state, digital monopolies, and why we should be
worried (Podsongs)
https://anchor.fm/podsongs/episodes/Cory-Doctorow-on-the-Surveillance-State--digital-monopolies--and-why-we-should-be-worried-eso43k

* Conspiracy Theories (Utopian Horizons):
https://soundcloud.com/utopianhorizons/conspiracy-theory-w-cory-doctorow

* Canadian Speculative Fiction (Unknown Worlds):
https://unknownworlds.podbean.com/e/canadian/

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

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