Local Emissaries United Looking Back

This is me taking some time to think back about out trip and think out loud of plans for the future, as related to a troy resident and supporter.

The Troy Ambassador program as some may call it (Local Emissaries United) went pretty well! It was a pretty serious undertaking and I started planning too late. There were three of us traveling - we managed to visit 12 cities in 3 weeks, and talk directly to around 200 people about their cities and ours. We spoke a whole bunch about where we are from, but it also turned into a big focus group on where people live the places they do, and why they value that. Pretty cool. We took a lot of video footage, but upon returning, all us got involved in jobs, our education, and other serious things that have kept us from editing it down to a documentary record of our journey. We will do this at some point. Overall, we found it quite economical to travel and spread the word. Perhaps the greatest enabler of our journey was couchsurfing.com, which allowed up to connect with people who gave us free places to sleep, and gave us a venue to talk about our project. For the future, it would be nice to endow/put together a program (just a few thousand, or even just a couple hundred dollars per year), to sponsor people to learn how to benefit our area. Intrepid local people could put together travel plans, submit a proposal, and bring back word of the successes and failures of other cities, or we could enable people to come here to experience this area themselves. After this trip, it is my strong opinion that our area needs a more intimate relationship with the "outside world."

Detroit City Fest 2007

IMG_3810.jpg - Canon ixus 700
Originally uploaded by Bert van den Bosch

Cullen and I have begun watching the footage from the first summer Local Emissary Tour. We've finally gotten to the task of narrowing down what we'd like to say with available footage.

1. This is footage that documents a project that began as an idea to promote the unique and positive qualities of the Capital District of Upstate New York, to becoming a project that invited many to discuss the status of American cities.

2. This footage often tells the tale of economic class. In different locations, different races occupy the urban middle class. And the social practices of the middle class are often similar. And without fail, it is the poor that are considered the persona non grata.

Reading the Ghetto-tech

Stylus Magazine reports on Detroit:

Ass. Titties. Ass and titties. Ass, ass, ass, ass, ass and titties.” -- DJ Assault, “Ass N Titties” (1996).


Everyone loves “Ass-N-Titties,” And by everyone, I mean me, everyone I know, and a legion of YouTubers. DJ Assault’s magnum opus, easily the biggest novelty hit Detroit’s ghettotech scene ever produced, and probably ever will, pushes all the right pop buttons: the silly sex-talk over a bouncy electro throb anticipates (and bests) Fergie’s entire career by almost ten years.

Where did this irresistibly dumb sonic oddity come from? Detroit, of course: a city whose musical legacy continually strives to rehabilitate its image as a crime-ridden post-industrial wasteland. But ghettotech (a term of some contention) was not merely a sound from the Motor City; it was the sound of urban Detroit, a ubiquitous presence in clubs, cars, and local radio before it infected DJ playlists worldwide. The full story of ghettotech can’t be summed up in a simple place name, however. Especially for a locale as complicated as Detroit. Because while the music’s lyrics mostly stick to sex-talk, ghettotech’s story tells us much about the state of local music scenes, and their subsequent effects on the current delightful proliferation of mongrel hip-hop/dance genres.


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It's like a state of music that is honest about how bored it is with itself and that's OK.

Returned to the Capital Region

On Sunday July 29th, I made my return to the Capital Region after some separate activites. So far our fellow wilkinism has been accounted for, coming along with his own interesting stories of the return trip, and the days since. Our other fellow Brandon C-K, with whom I parted company in Richmond, VA (our last stop), has not been accounted for since our return. For all we know, he may still be out on the road, continuing the misson, or maybe just having a good time.

Life is different now that we're back. It's a slow process getting back in the old ways (and forming new good habits too!!) while catching up with everything that has happened in the meantime.

We will continue to post blog entries here for some time based on the notes that we had been taking as we traveled. A final count of all the people we spoke with will be forthcoming too. Our hours of video footage will be reviewed as we prepare to put it all together in a narrative of what we've seen, where we've been, how we've felt, who we've spoken to, What impressions people have of our area, what we've learned about each city, and cities as a whole, what can be applied to our own localities, and why this all matters to us, and to the world at large. A wholesale written account will be turned out. Our remaining photos will be made public. Our "artifacts" and material references will be brought to light. The work of the emissaries will yet continue on.

The Many Localities of Chapel Hill

Well we've been here in Chapel Hill for two nights at the luxurious accomidations of Brandon's college friend Ryan. The area has a nice college town feel, and the land is beautiful - tall trees, hills, windy roads - it reminds me of our beautiful upstate NY home.

The cities here seem to blend into each other geographically, yet they each seem to retain a distinct identity. There is no zone that I could distinguish as an interim between Carrboro and Chapel Hill, but speaking to the residents of each, they have different things to say about the character of each.

Chapel Hill: liberal, somewhat "preppy", college influence
Carrboro: More liberal, somewhat more "hippy"

this being based on center's of the towns being 10 minutes or less WALKING distance from each other. Also Durham, which apparently has more of an urban feel is about a 10 minute drive away. It feels more like different neighborhoods than separate towns or cities. Very often I feel that way about Albany, Troy, and all the cities in between. I wonder what parallels can be drawn or lessons learned...

perhaps that it's helpful for separate cities to maintain their own identities as places, but also useful for them to be closely and comfortably connected. Hmm...

Hey Brandon...

Austin is not ostentatious! but I like the play on words. Maybe Austintacious is just a great word to describe the city though it doesn't mean the same thing as the more established word that shares it's sound, it just describes everything that's great about that city!

citysuburbscountry

From a discussion between Brandon and I during our last ride up into the hills of central North Carolina...

We both agree that there are many things we find attractive and comfortable about the city and the country, but the suburbs always seem to be lacking in the things we find sustaining, enjoyable, and pleasant.

to cite an extreme quote of an experience from a person is is also a guest of our current host: (DC suburban area Bethesda, Maryland...) "the streets are clogged at noon with trophy wives dressed to the nines, in SUVs and luxury sedans, shuttling around designer boutiques - it took 45 minutes to get 1.5 mile down the road just to get to a simple thai restaurant"

...Not that I really disagree with what it says about these strange inter-areas known as suburbs.

What does each have as an advantage?

City - critical mass of people for sharing culture and intelligence, efficient means of sustaining many people.
Suburbs - um I'm not sure, A great place to watch TV?
County - wide, open, beautiful landscapes, close to nature, starry nights, free from the consensus of other people so you can live your own way.

This conception of suburbs doesn't count the small town feel where life is sweet and you can walk to the supermarket, school, or bar - we're talking about places with tract housing, 6 bedroom houses on 1 acre lots, no sidewalks, plenty of auto-strip developments, franchise architecture, and the could-be-anywhere USA feel. The small town seems to have some sense of a community, while the suburban as we are thinking of them here just seem to me to be cold. Big difference.

We were trying to think of a snappy, glib bumper sticker etc to capture this feeling (that seems to be pretty widespread) we have about these areas The closest we've been able to get is:
plow the suburbs...

What can we do about these places? Is there any option besides the current form to moderate between the extremes of urban community and rural freedom?

Maybe we're giving the suburbs a bad rap or defining them too narrowly... what do you all think?