People Or Property

Over the last quarter-century hip-hop has grown from an esoteric form of African-American expression to become the dominant form of American popular culture. Today, Snoop Dogg shills for Chrysler and white kids wear Fubu, the black-owned label whose name stands for "For Us, By Us." This is not the first time that black music has been appreciated, adopted, and adapted by white audiences-think jazz, blues, and rock-but Jason Tanz, a white boy who grew up in the suburban Northwest, says that hip-hop's journey through white America provides a unique window to examine the racial dissonance that has become a fact of our national life. In such culture-sharing Tanz sees white Americans struggling with their identity, and wrestling (often unsuccessfully) with the legacy of race. To support his anecdotally driven history of hip-hop's cross-over to white America, Tanz conducts dozens of interviews with fans, artists, producers, and promoters, including some of hip-hop's most legendary figures-such as Public Enemy's Chuck D; white rapper MC Serch; and former Yo! MTV Raps host Fab 5 Freddy. He travels across the country, visiting "nerdcore" rappers in Seattle, who rhyme about Star Wars conventions; a group of would-be gangstas in a suburb so insulated it's called "the bubble"; a break-dancing class at the upper-crusty New Canaan Tap Academy; and many more. Drawing on the author's personal experience as a white fan as well as his in-depth knowledge of hip-hop's history, Other People's Property provides a hard-edged, thought-provoking, and humorous snapshot of the particularly American intersection of race, commerce, culture, and identity.

Publisher Description

The People’s Property? is the first book-length scholarly examination of how negotiations over the ownership, control, and peopling of public space are central to the development of publicity, citizenship, and democracy in urban areas. The book asks the questions: Why does it matter who owns public property? Who controls it? Who is in it? Donald Mitchell and Lynn A. Staeheli answer the questions by focusing on the interplay between property (in its geographical sense, as a parcel of owned space) and people. Property rights are often defined as the "right to exclude." It is important, therefore, to understand who (what individual and corporate entities, governed by what kinds of regulations and restrictions) owns publicly accessible property. It is likewise important to understand the changing bases for excluding some people and classes of people from otherwise publicly accessible property. That is to say, it is important to understand how modes of access and possibilities for association in publicly accessible space vary for different individuals and different classes of people, if we are to understand the role public spaces play in shaping democratic possibilities. In what ways are urban public spaces "the people’s property" – and in what ways are they not? What does this mean for citizenship and the constitution of an inclusive, democratic polity? The book develops its argument through five case studies: protest in Washington DC; struggles over the Plaza of Santa Fe, NM; homelessness and property redevelopment in San Diego, CA; the enclosure of public space in a mall in Syracuse, NY; and community gardens in New York City. Though empirically focused on the US, the book is of broader interests as publics in all liberal democracies are under-going rapid reconsideration and transformation.

The issue of private property and the rights it confers remain almost undiscussed in critiques of globalization and free market economics. Yet property lies at the heart of an economic system geared to profit maximization. The authors describe the historically specific and self-consciously explicit manner in which it emerged. They trace this history from earliest historical times and show how, in the hands of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in particular, the notion of private property took on its absolutist nature and most extreme form - a form which neoliberal economics is now imposing on humanity worldwide through the pressures of globalization. They argue that avoiding the destruction of people‘s ways of living and of Nature requires reshaping our notions of private property. They look at practical ways for social and ecumenical movements to press for alternatives.

The word lightning conjures up many different thoughts, depending on who you are. For instance, an engineer might wonder, "How can I protect this building?" A computer manager might ask, "What protection is available to save my equip ment?" A golf course manager wants to warn golfers about life-saving measures to take during a lightning storm. And on and on the needs go. In fact, the variety of backgrounds of people who need to understand lightning, its effects, and pro tection techniques ranges from the highly technical to the illiterate, creating a very difficult educational problem for the lightning protection industry. In this book, Marvin Frydenlund presents a refreshingly new melding of the many pieces of the lightningjigsaw puzzle that are scattered throughout numerous libraries, magazine and newspaper articles, codes, standards, statistics, research, and the enormous body of information called "old wives' tales, myths, opinions, and snake oil sales literature." He has created a broad-spectrum review of the en tire field oflightning that is easy to read and understand, and it will benefit anyone who wants to study and comprehend the subject.

The People’s Property? is the first book-length scholarly examination of how negotiations over the ownership, control, and peopling of public space are central to the development of publicity, citizenship, and democracy in urban areas. The book asks the questions: Why does it matter who owns public property? Who controls it? Who is in it? Donald Mitchell and Lynn A. Staeheli answer the questions by focusing on the interplay between property (in its geographical sense, as a parcel of owned space) and people. Property rights are often defined as the "right to exclude." It is important, therefore, to understand who (what individual and corporate entities, governed by what kinds of regulations and restrictions) owns publicly accessible property. It is likewise important to understand the changing bases for excluding some people and classes of people from otherwise publicly accessible property. That is to say, it is important to understand how modes of access and possibilities for association in publicly accessible space vary for different individuals and different classes of people, if we are to understand the role public spaces play in shaping democratic possibilities. In what ways are urban public spaces "the people’s property" – and in what ways are they not? What does this mean for citizenship and the constitution of an inclusive, democratic polity? The book develops its argument through five case studies: protest in Washington DC; struggles over the Plaza of Santa Fe, NM; homelessness and property redevelopment in San Diego, CA; the enclosure of public space in a mall in Syracuse, NY; and community gardens in New York City. Though empirically focused on the US, the book is of broader interests as publics in all liberal democracies are under-going rapid reconsideration and transformation.

The first edition of this pamphlet was issued under the titel of "Sacrifice of property and th~ people's property" ("Ver mogensopfer und Volksvermogen"), and the diseussion was confined to these two subjects ooly. After the publication of the first edition, the question of war indemnity came into the sphere of the treatise, and this caused the addition of a large 'appendix' and the corresponding change of the title. Charlottenburg-Berlin, February 1919. Nussbaum-Allee 24. The Authol'. Contents. (lag" 1 ntrod uctiOD: ObjectiQDs to the sacrifice of property, particularly on account of the calculation of revenue :) 1. Estimate of t.he German people's property before the war. Materials used up, and wear and tear. The arable soil . . - -. 7 2. R~djU8tments on account of the war. Concerns put out of work. New readjustments after the war. Transfer of location 14 3. Losses to German political economy in men. Reaction upon the value of plants. The hUDger blockade and its effects upon the hody. The German name discredited. Moral conditions . 16 4. The meaning of 'people's property'. Difficulties of t1e, finition and valuation. True meaning of numerical estimates . 22 5. The plan for the sacrifice of property is no longer based upon the calculation of revenue; the plan itself, however, is to be maintained unaltered. The financial bill to be presented to the National Assembly. . 32 Appendix: The people's property and war indemnity 35 Introdnction. Objections to the sacrifice of property, particularly on account of the calculation of revenue

This work offers an analysis of the Western formal system of private property and its moral justification and explains the relevance of the institution to particular current issues that face aboriginal peoples and the developing world. The subjects under study include broadly: aboriginal land claims; third world development; intellectual property rights and the relatively recent TRIPs agreement (Trade related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). Within these broad areas we highlight the following concerns: the maintenance of cultural integrity; group autonomy; economic benefit; access to health care; biodiversity; biopiracy and even the independence of the recently emerged third world nation states. Despite certain apparent advantages from embracing the Western institution of private ownership, the text explains that the Western institution of private property is undergoing a fundamental redefinition through the expansion.