I’m sorry it’s been a while since I blogged!! I’m going to try much harder to blog more frequently in the future, even if it means shorter but more frequent blog posts!!
Quite a bit has happened since I’ve last blogged--im glad im back in my blogging world!
So, this past week was the UN-Habitat World Urban forum in Rio. It is held every other year in a different city of the world. This year, I had the random luck of being in Rio, where it was held, and here at the time when it took place. So, it was actually free to register and attend the conference. They had a bunch of discussions, round tables, panel discussions, debates and an “exhibition”. I went to a bunch of discussions including: comparing Rio to other latin American cities, violence reduction globally, and most interesting to me, mapping inequality/poverty and the urban divide. While some parts of the conference were not that well organized, and while some of the lecture topics were sometimes too broad, in general I thought it was a great forum and definitely helped inspire/guide my research quite a bit! It was overall a great experience and I’m glad I was able to participate in it!
Here are some pictures from the forum:
This is one of the smaller panel discussion rooms.
One of the smaller panel discussions. I think it was about violence alleviation in big cities. One lady was from Baltimore--I really really wanted to ask if The Wire was accurate. I held back.
The “womens car” on the metro.
Rio has a small and not very wide spread metro system. However, there’s now a metro station 3 minutes from my apartment, which is super fab. Rio has this thing which I’ve never seen before (feel free to let me know if you’ve seen this elsewhere). It’s called the “Women’s Car” and it’s “active” I think from 6am to 9am and 5pm to 8pm. So, it’s an interesting idea, that during rush hour, there are metro cars that are meant to be for women only. And they always start out as women only, because at the first 2-3 stops, there are guards at the doors both preventing men from coming in, and making them get out of they snuck in. But the funny thing is, after the first few stations, there are often no guards at the doors, so the car often becomes an 80% women’s car, with 20% men who are ballsy enough to enter the “pink” car with mostly women. It’s a funny situation. As one friend said when talking about the women’s car at rush hour vs going in the regular car, “When you go in the women’s car at rush hour, you’re just going to inadvertently be smooshed against an old woman’s boob, instead of smooshed or accidently touching a gross sweaty guy. Pick your poison”.
Also, be on the lookout for a post on women’s gym clothes (and craziness) soon!
It was held in a really neat, old building on the dock in Centro. (picture to come, cant get it to work at the moment)
4 comments:
I love that you went and were inspired by the UN-Habitat World Urban forum! And yikes, I hope Baltimore is not really like The Wire.
"The women's car" sounds funny. Those things are never as good as they sound -- like going to a nude beach and then just seeing a bunch of people you definitely wouldn't want to see naked. Doesn't sound like the guys are missing much. I've heard of women only taxis -- or was that from you also?
How goes the research?
What does your researching these days entail, love?
Rachel lives in Baltimore these days. I haven't heard many "wire-esque" stories, but I think she runs in different crowds than characters in the Wire. You know... art history... crime.
Mexico City totally does the Women's Car too - I was surprised too, but then come rush hour it made SO much sense. People can be total asses on the subway, and women deserve to ride without being inappropriately touched! haha - my $0.02.
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