Double Juxtaposition in Atlantic City.

As a non-resident to the mid-Atlantic region, "Atlantic City" are two words I may have overheard my grandmother use once when I was a little boy. I knew absolutely nothing of the place except that gambling was legal. When I first arrived at Temple University one thing that struck me about my mid-Atlantic peers was their unanimous disdain for Atlantic City. Almost every person I came into contact with would either snicker about the place or relay some kind of shocking horror story about their experiences there. To my peers Atlantic City was not a place where people lived and worked but rather "The Armpit of the East", "a good place to lose money" and "a shithole". Apparently Atlantic City had no redeeming qualities and was only worthy of jokes and insults.

Middle class Temple University students are not the only ones who think of Atlantic City in this way. In my research I came across texts which conveyed the same sort of notions as my University peers (though perhaps a bit more eloquently). Ovid Demaris’ The Boardwalk Jungle not only aligns with the "Armpit of the East" mentality it also identifies the characteristics of the city which contributed to this prestigious title. Demaris states,

"After forty years of corrosive decay, this blighted slum of a city is now
called South Bronx by the Sea. Only one block from the Boardwalk, and
just about anywhere one chooses to look, there are burned-out and boarded-up
shops and homes, rubbish-littered parking lots, and beyond them more vacant
lots equally strewn with weeds and garbage. It is one vast, crumbling, burned
out ghetto populated by impoverished minorities." (Demaris 1986)

This account explains the negative attitudes towards the city but it lacks the critical depth to explain exactly which forces made the conditions in Atlantic City a reality. This blog entry will attempt to identify these forces.

My first short day trip to Atlantic City did not allow me to investigate the city as I had hoped. For the most part my day was characterized by loud smoky windowless rooms, watered down coke and Grandma slipping me dimes for the Frank Sinatra slot machine. We did walk on the Boardwalk and it was this place that piqued my interest even more. On the Atlantic City Boardwalk, rows of Disney World-esque mega-structures push up against the beach. While there were quite a few people on the Boardwalk, for a warm mid-May day the beach was pretty desolate. It quickly became obvious that not many people go to Atlantic City for the beaches. I wondered if the beach and the environment as a whole were in the same condition as the surrounding city.

There is a strong link between the gambling casinos of Atlantic City and the poor state of the surrounding city and the potential poor state of its environment. The casinos of Atlantic City cater to 30 million yearly visitors and bring in about $5 billion dollars annually (Simon 2004). With that kind of revenue casinos have a tremendous amount of power not only in Atlantic City but also in New Jersey. The tax revenues alone could easily start many initiatives to rebuild Atlantic City and protect the environment. Yet evidence of a trickle down from casinos to the community and environment is almost non-existent. Is it possible that casinos benefit from the "Armpit of the East" reputation the city has achieved?

Atlantic City has a double juxtaposition. First, the New Jersey Coast pushes right up against a long strip of high rise resort casinos. Then these casinos push up against miles of urban blight. The accounts of my Temple peers, my accounts and the authors cited above are all reflections on this unique double juxtaposition. Both the ocean and Atlantic City seem to clash against the daunting high rise casinos. I believe that the casinos are having an adverse affect on the coastline as well as are partially to blame for the complete deterioration of Atlantic City.

R.W. Butler states in his widely recognized paper The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution,

"[The] evolution [of a resort] is brought about by a variety of factors
including changes in the preferences and needs of visitors, the gradual deterioration and possible replacement of physical plant and facilities,
and the change (or even disappearance) of the original natural and
cultural attractions which were responsible for the popularity of the area." (Butler 1980)

This "evolution" also known as The Resort Cycle took place in Atlantic City. In mid-1950s and 1960s America many societal changes were taking place and that would have a profound affect on "the preferences and needs of visitors' to Atlantic City. As Butler's theory predicts, these changes led to the deterioration of "the original natural and cultural attractions" of the old Atlantic City.

One of the changes taking place in America around this time was the accessibility of air travel to the middle class. With this new development mid-Atlantic and New England residents that once filled the Boardwalk could now go to resorts all around the country. Arguably the resort that benefited most from the emergence of cheap air travel was Disneyland in Anaheim, California (Simon 2004). Disney revolutionized the tourism industry and around its opening in 1955 tourists had not seen or experienced anything like it. The Disneyland experience was the new preference of the middle class. The businessmen of Atlantic City were left scrambling on the Jersey shore to find ways to salvage the waning flow of customers (Simon 2004). Despite many creative attempts at updating, Atlantic City descended into what Butler labels as the "decline stage" of the Resort Cycle. Butler states a characteristic of the "decline stage" as, "More tourist facilities disappear as the area becomes less attractive to tourists and the viability of other tourist facilities becomes more questionable" (Butler 1980). As the decline stage began to gradually eat away at Atlantic City from the mid-1950s to well into the 1960s, a uniquely American process would guarantee the city's destruction.

The Civil Rights movement forever changed the face of American Society. The movement ended with the adoption of various national legislations which made institutional segregation illegal. For the first time in American history, African Americans would be able to enjoy full equality under the law. One of the unintentional consequences of the Civil Rights Movement was "white flight". "White flight" is considered to be the mass exodus of affluent and middle class white people from the city to the suburbs. This mass movement was fuelled by racist anxieties over the new freedoms now guaranteed to all African Americans.

It could be inferred that by the time Civil Rights legislation took into affect many middle class residents and businessmen were already leaving Atlantic City due to problems resulting from the "decline stage". Bryant Simon talks about in great detail the history of exclusion and segregation in Atlantic City. The following passage reflects the racist sentiments of many affluent and middle class whites around the late 60s early 70s in America.

"The message was clear. Blacks were to blame for much of what
was wrong with the country, for the muggings, murders, riots, lootings,
and fires that plagued the nation's cities. On a day-to-day basis, the
stereotypes turned just about every working-class African American male
into a threat to social order. The message was prescriptive as well.
At home and on vacation, places marked as black were places to be
avoided at all costs. Once Atlantic City got on that list of black places,
it got taken off the map of white middle-class America." (Simon 2004)

The middle class "white flight" mentality crippled much of what was still surviving from the "decline stage" in Atlantic City. According to Simon, those who could leave did both white and black. Those that stayed could do nothing but watch their city decay.
After about a decade in the "decline stage", Demaris described parts of Atlantic City as looking like "Dresden" (Demaris 1986). Those that remained lived in dire poverty and many even had to resort to crime to survive. There is no denying that at this point, Atlantic City was in need of solutions to the many problems that had incurred during the "decline stage" and "white flight". What the city and residents received were even bigger problems with almost no hope for solutions.

Gambling was presented to the residents of Atlantic City as a "panacea", meaning no matter what the problem (unemployment, urban decay or race relations) casinos would fix it (Simon 2004). In 1980, four years after the referendum to legalize gambling in Atlantic City passed R.W. Butler in his famous article on the "Resort Cycle" credited Atlantic City with being "a successful redevelopment" project which "renewed growth and expansion" (Butler 1980). While it may be true that there was "growth" and "expansion" as a result of the legalization of gambling in Atlantic City the initiative was the furthest thing from a "panacea."
Many of the remaining restaurateurs and businesspeople in Atlantic City were eagerly awaiting this answer to their prayers. Most of these people wedded the idea of millions returning to Atlantic City with overflow to their establishments and the return of profits. These people must have been unfamiliar with the industry they had invited to their city. Bryant Simon states, "Bally's architects and their followers deliberately manufactured [a] sense of placelessness, laying out their buildings to make sure no one accidentally stumbled across the ocean, a local Italian restaurant, or a city street" (Simon 2004). It seems that it is against the very nature of casinos to allow the kind of spill over the businesspeople of Atlantic City had expected. After all contained in the casinos is everything one could possibly want on the outside (food, souvenirs etc) plus the added bonus of gambling which has the potential of making one rich.

Ovid Demaris recalls, "Junket bus conductors instruct their passengers not to leave the casinos." "It's dangerous," they say. "It's a rip-off city, it's a jungle out there" "Just getting there can also be hazardous. Buses and cars traveling the Atlantic City Expressway are often ambushed by rock and bottle throwing vandals who live in slum housing near the Expressway" (Demaris 1986). The return of the white middle class to Atlantic City did not mean that they shed the racial anxieties (maintained in the homogenous suburbs) that had originally helped repel them for this “black place”. The above passage proves that casinos must make efforts to tame their customers' fear of "the jungle". Above Bryant Simon comments on how casino architecture is designed to keep people inside of casinos. If this idea is put into dialogue with Mike Davis' discussion of the "Fortress City", it could be argued that it is in the interest of the casinos to keep certain people inside and certain people outside of their establishments. Mike Davis states,

"The 'Second Civil War' that began in the long hot summers of the 1960s has
been institutionalized into the very structure of urban space. In cities on the bad
edge of post- modernity one sees an unprecedented tendency to merge urban design
architecture and the police apparatus into a single comprehensive security effort."
(Davis 1990)

The picture is an example of a "Fortress" Casino in Atlantic City. Notice how every structure is connected so that patrons do not have to step foot on the surface of the Atlantic City "jungle". Also notice that there is no main entrance. In order to enter the Showboat complex (from street side) you must park your car in the far right parking garage and walk to the hotel/casino from there. One can enter the Showboat from the Boardwalk but it is quite a long walk from the street. At the Boardwalk entrance one is greeted by cameras and a security guard (just in case anyone gets any ideas). Also it can be inferred that the sight of security guards at the door and excessive amounts of cameras both inside and outside of the casino may give some the impression that there is something to be feared.

It seems that the nature of "fortress" casinos coupled with the devastating effects of white flight has led to the complete disparity between the multi-million-dollar casinos of the Atlantic City boardwalk and the "Dresden"- like surrounding neighborhoods. It is against nature of the casino industry to let customers roam out and support local businesses. The only element of Atlantic City that may lure customers away from the assumed "safety" of the casinos is the ocean. The casinos of Atlantic City are now starting to expand their businesses to the beach. This expansion does have environmental consequences.

During the summer, one could argue, it would be hard for casinos to keep patrons off the beach. Casinos are aware of this and have extended their operations to the beach in the form of "beach bars". An AP article states, "The seasonal bars, which operate between May 1 and Sept. 30, offer seaside drinking, snacks and live music on the sand. Since their debut in 1999, they have become increasingly bigger and more varied in their offerings" (AP 2005). As a result of this latest trend almost every casino along the Boardwalk has hastily put up beach bars. Coincidentally almost every casino has received serious fines for environmental code violations. Perhaps the most environmentally hazardous was Caesar's who paid $17,500 for not dismantling its entire "Sand Box" bar after last season (AP 2005).
Casinos were wrong for Atlantic City. Communities must learn from the city's mistakes.

All pictures taken by Jordan Catalano under the tutelage of Ryan Petersen. Please feel free to take these pictures. All were taken in early November 2005 for a paper prepared for Dr. James Abbott.

Picture 1. This tile artwork is very deceiving, it depicts African Americans beinheydayve in the leisure activities of Atlantic City during its "Golden Age." Atlantic City during its hayday was a heavily segregated place. African Americans were segregated to one section of the city and along the Boardwalk their only place was serving white people.

Picture 2. This pictures shows the juxtaposition between the Jersey shoreline and the Atlantic City skyline.

Picture 3. This picture shows the juxtaposition between a crumbling vacant Atlantic City school arestaurantridge Hotel & Resort Casino.

Picture 4. This is a picture of a dilapidated hotel and restuarant just off the Boardwalk.

Picture 5. This is a picture of the "Showboat" "fortress" casino. The Showboat is at the end of the Boardwalk. This is also where the development stops. Notice how bare the area that surrounds the casino is.

Picture 6. This is an advertisement for the "Sand Box" beach bar.

Picture 7. This is a picture of sad dead plant foregrounding the large footprint between the Atlantic City convention center and the Tropicana Resort Casino.

Works Cited.

Butler, R.w. "The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution: Implications for Management of Resources." The Canadian Geographer (1980): 5-12.

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. London: Verso, 1990. 221-265.

Demaris, Ovid. The Boardwalk Jungle. New York: Bantam, 1986.

"DEP fines two more Atlantic City casinos over beach bars." Associated Press 13 July 2005.

Simon, Bryant. Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America. New York: Oxford UP, 2004.

An Environmental Ethical Dilemma That Costs a Dollar.

In the communities that surround Temple’s campus there are very few healthy food choice options. The healthiest option for most of the working class people that live in this part of North Philadelphia probably would be contained in Cousin’s Market at 233 W. Lehigh. Ideally the best foods to buy would be a wide array of fresh produce, lean meat, and whole-grain products. Considering the soaring prices of produce around the country it can by implied that fresh vegetables and fruits are out of reach to many North Philadelphians on a budget. Also lean cuts of beef and pork as well as chicken breast are the healthiest as well as the most expensive meats available. I know as a college student I usually can not afford to eat as healthy as I would like to. I imagine the struggle to buy healthy foods is even harder for those trying to shop with a very limited budget and maybe harder for those with more than one mouth to feed. While shopping healthy at Cousin’s market (a store that in many cases is very far away for a person without a car) would probably be tough for most working class people and families in North Philadelphia, finding cheap food at fast food restaurants is not. Along North Broad Street there seems to be a fast food restaurant every 3 or 4 blocks. From McDonald’s to Checkers to Popeye’s to Wendy’s to KFC almost every major fast food chain has property on North Broad Street. McDonald’s has two restaurants only a few miles apart from each other; one near Temple and one closer to Girard. Doctors Debra Franko and Hortensia Amaro have made connections between limited access to healthy options in working class urban areas, fast food and obesity.

Franko and Amaro state,

“Historically, poor people used to be the leanest, by virtue of malnutrition. The modern rise in obesity in poor and ethnic minority groups is due primary to changes in the social landscape. Obesity results from an imbalance between caloric intake and energy expenditure, both of which disproportionately affect urban poor. Quality fruits, vegetables and whole-grain products are more expensive and less accessible than cheap high-fat foods. Advertising dollars also have an impact. McDonald’s alone spent $1.1 billion on advertising in 2001; the government’s budget for a pro-fruit and vegetable campaign was $1.1 million. A recent study found that people in the poorest urban areas have 2 ½ times more exposure to fast-food outlets than people in the wealthiest category.”1

Franko and Amaro make perfectly clear that there are not many healthy options for working class people living in Urban America. I believe one point that Franko and Amaro do not emphasize enough is the lure of cheap food. A Recent New York Times article discussed the significance of McDonald’s “Dollar Menu,”

“The enormous success of the Dollar Menu, where all items cost a dollar, has helped stimulate 36 consecutive months of sales growth at stores open at least a year. In three years, revenue has increased 33 percent and its shares have rocketed 170 percent, a remarkable turnaround for a company that only seemed to be going nowhere 4 years ago.”2

A photograph of McDonald’s dollar menu can be seen to the right. The two token healthy options on the dollar menu are “Apple Dippers” (pictured) and a bottle of Dasani Water. Certainly no one would be satisfied with this as their meal. Despite the obvious health concerns that arise from over consumption of fast food, there is also an environmental ethical dilemma attached to eating at McDonald’s. In order to make food cheaper McDonalds had to make a spending cut somewhere. One of these spending cuts, which could be related to the low prices of the Dollar Menu, came from the Amazon rain forests of Brazil and Argentina in the form of cheap soy chicken feed.

A December 11, 2004 front page article from the Lexington Herald News states,

“A soybean boom is sweeping South America like a gold rush. Farmers with soy fever are plowing by moonlight, speculating in jungles and dreaming of digging new canals to carry their soybeans from the continent’s vast and fertile interior to Atlantic and Pacific ports.”3

In 2001, Cargill the world’s largest private company, announced plans to build two grain silos, a $20 m terminal and its own port on heavily forested land near Santarem, Brazil. This event was the precipitant for the “gold rush” described above. 4 A recent article in London’s The Guardian reports on a Greenpeace study that links Cargill’s initial activities in the Amazon to McDonald’s restaurants in Europe.

During the present “soybean boom” ambitious potential farmers seize public and indigenous lands, then using bulldozers and even slave labor these people plowed “virgin forests” for the purpose of planting soybeans. 5 Cargill provides farmers with seeds and agrochemicals to grow hundreds of thousands of tons of soybeans a year. 6 Much of this soy is trucked to Cargill’s silos in Santarem where it is transformed into chicken feed. This feed is then shipped to Sun Valley (a Cargill subsidiary) which provides chickens to all Mcdonald’s franchises throughout Europe.

The effects of Cargill’s and McDonald’s actions are having disastrous effects on the fragile environment of the Amazon rainforest. Greenpeace states, “The scale of deforestation due to soya expansion driven in part by demand from UK and other European firms is unprecedented… About 14,000 hectares in the Santarem/Belterra areas now produces 34,000 tons of soya a year.”7 Large scale deforestation in a rich ecosystem such as the “virgin forests” of the Amazon Rainforest could spell disaster for the millions of plants and animals. Trees also play an important role in the hydrologic cycle. Such mass deforestation of trees that have existed for thousands of years could lead to all sorts of meteorological and environmental disasters. Many scientists believe deforestation is one of the leading causes of desertification and global warming. Some believe global warming to be one of the factors behind Hurricane Katrina. There are many environmental consequences to a dollar McChicken sandwich.

At the beginning of this essay Franko and Amaro stated that only $1.1 million dollars was allotted to the national “Pro-fruit and vegetable campaign.” The Cargill soybean boom could have prevented money from going to this cause and other non-profit causes which fight to keep kids off fast food by getting more healthy options into schools and working class neighborhoods. The following Lexington Herald-Leader quote reports the effect of the South American soybean boom on American farmers, “Because soybeans have fallen below [the US federal farm support program price], this year [2004] U.S. soy farmers will receive an estimated $1.6 billion in subsidized income support. That could rise to $2.5 billion or more next year [2005] if expected record South American crops drive prices still lower.” 8 America’s soybean farmers will be paid $1.6 billion dollars for doing nothing. Working class people in America’s cities will be forced to eat off the Dollar Menu because there is not enough federal funding to get affordable healthy food to their neighborhoods. In order to keep items on the Dollar menu at a dollar in America, McDonald’s Europe will have to continue to buy cheap chicken from Cargill’s Sun Valley who feed all their chickens with soy feed that is destroying the Amazon rainforest. What are the ways that working class Americans can resist this vicious cycle of multi national corporate globalization?

1. Franko, D., and H. Amaro. "OP-ED- AS YOU WERE SAYING...Obesity's Shadow Looms Large Over Poverty-Stricken Youths." Boston Herald 11 Jan. 2004. NewsBank. Newsbank. Temple University, Philadelphia. 16 Apr. 2006.
2. Warner, Melanie. "Salads or No, Cheap Burgers Revive McDonald's." New York Times 19 Apr. 2006. 21 Apr. 2006 .
Hill, Kevin. "Soy Moves South --- Brazil Overtakes U.S. Production." Lexington Herald-Leader 11 Dec. 2004. NewsBank. NewsBank. Temple University, Philadelphia. 16 Apr. 2006.
3. Vidal, John. "Globalisation: the 7,000 Km Journey That Links Amazon Destruction to Fast Food." The Guardian 6 Apr. 2006. NewsBank. NewsBank. Temple University, Philadelphia. 15 Apr. 2006.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid
8. Soy Moves South: 3.

Picture Credits:

Top Picture of Giant Ronald Balloon: netmeme.org/.../ronald-mcdonald-thanksgiving.jpg

Dollar Menu: Mike Mergen nytimes.com

Deforesation in the Amazon as a Result of Soybean Farming: www.greenpeace.org

Community of the Future or Community of a Snob?

The origins of my present-day community begin in high school. Michel Foucault described secondary school as a “normalizing institution” 1. David M. Cheshier clarifies this idea,

“In part Foucault means that, if only because it is organized around the task of educating vast numbers of children, the secondary school setting is institutional and regimented. Students are segmented into precisely timed classes. The arrangement of many classrooms remains rigidly hierarchical: students face forward, arrayed before an authority figure who stands at the front… [Ultimately] the subtle lessons students internalize after spending so many years in regimented classrooms [are]: obedience to authority, a preference for jumping hurdles rather than actually learning material, and an overly respectful sense of boundaries for appropriate behavior”2.

I am in agreement with Foucault, that it is impossible to “end” or “obliterate” the power structure that keeps these “normalizing institutions” going “since power is a certain and unending feature of human interaction”3. However, there are mechanisms for dissent and passive resistance within the American public school system. After only a few months of high school I met Anthony. Anthony and I, through our dress, speech and interests; tried to separate ourselves from norms of our peers. While we never staged a revolution, we pushed right up against the “boundaries [of] appropriate behavior.” The intimate subculture we developed did not alter secondary school’s raison d’être, however it did make the oppressive, mundane and at times bleak aspects of high school more tolerable. Anthony graduated high school 2 years before I did but we remained close friends. While Anthony and my family were the primary tangible members of my community throughout high school, this all changed when I left for college.

My parents granted me the freedom to choose my own path of study and as a result what I learned in college was only limited by what the university offered. I also was granted new social freedoms upon going to college however these were not as easy to manage. Since Anthony and I passively resisted the mainstream culture of high school, making friends with students who had perhaps not taken such a hostile approach towards high school was a bit tough. Many of the people I tried talk to did not seem to appreciate the humor, interests or slang Anthony and I had developed. Many of my peers seemed to form relationships based on college rituals such as drinking or sports. However, I was really not interested in these types of activities. In high school, I was able to communicate and relate to my peers because we were forced to take the same classes with the same teachers. Also in high school all of your classmates are from the same town and many of them have followed you from primary school. In college this common reference point does not exist to out of state students. I believe my situation, in a way, mirrors Emile Durkheim’s theory of “Anomie.” Professor Frank Elwell states,

“Durkheim characterized the modern individual as suffering from social norms that are weak or often contradictory. Durkheim defines anomie as a condition of relative normlessness in a whole society or in one of its component groups. When these social regulations break down the controlling influence on individual desires and interests is ineffective; individuals are left to their own devices” 4.

I do not believe that Durkheim’s theory is applicable to most people. In fact, in the majority of cases I believe his theory is wrong. I believe that most people follow a rigid set of social norms that is instilled in them from birth, K through college and finally into the job market. Yet, in my case I believe Durkheim’s theory works. By isolating myself from most of my peers, rejecting as much of high school institutionalization as possible and by spending most of my time with Anthony in our intimate sub-culture I had unknowingly developed an alternative set of social norms. When I came to college I was “left to my own devices.” In the years before the internet, I feel as though I would have had to bite the bullet and find a way to make new friends or go back home to Rhode Island. Presently, I am doing fine in school and I do not feel as lonely as many would in my position just 9 years ago.

Most of my days are spend alone. My parent’s upper-middle class social class status has allowed me to have my own apartment without any roommates. I live in a large apartment building and there are at least a dozen people who live on my floor. I do not know any of their names and I do not think I would recognize one on the street. Yet, I still feel as though I am part of a small community. Geographically, most of my community with the exception of myself remains in my home state of Rhode Island. How is this possible?

The current state of cell phone and Internet technology has allowed me to maintain strong social bonds to my old community despite the fact that I am physically in a different location. With my cell phone plan I can have long conversations with Anthony as long as it’s after 10 o’clock. Thanks, to the web community MySpace I can now keep close contact with Anthony and other friends without actually meeting them face to face. They can look at pictures of me and we can keep in constant dialogue. My experiences with MySpace are similar to Diana Saco’s discussion of Multi-User Domains (MUDs).

“…all MUDs are basically interactive, multi-user, programmed environments arrayed as a set of ‘rooms’ that a user’s character (virtual persona) can explore and within which one’s character can interact with other users’ characters… The experiences become so rich the ‘real life’ can begin to lose its pride and place, its privilege, in relation to alternate realities MUDs make possible. Put another way, mudding can have ontological and epistemological consequences, helping to foreground the variety of ways in which real life, too, is a construct: ‘[Real life] is just one more window, and it’s not usually [the] best one’ (quote from a mudder) 5.”

Saco’s book was published in 2002 it can be inferred that the technology and literature available to her while writing her book was from the mid to late 90s. It seems that current web communities like MySpace, Friendster and Facebook partially borrowed their format from MUDs (which have been around since the late 80s). Everyone who uses these websites creates a “virtual persona” or character of themselves. On these websites users can present themselves or characterize themselves in any number of ways. Having the ability to control what others see about your personality, is what I like best about MySpace. For my friends there is a certain style to my MySpace page that will allow my friends to recognize it as mine immediately. To someone not from my community the page may seem incoherent. My community map reflects how I am connected to my community through technology as well as my connection to the people who surround me who are not part of my community.

At the center of my map is me living in Philadelphia. Surrounding me are blue circles with blank faces inside of them. These blank faces represent the people that live near and that surround my physical environment. I do not know them personally, I do not know their names nor would I be able to pick them out in a crowd. The red connecting circles represent both the internet and cell phone technology described above. This technology is what holds my community together. The connection in the bottom left hand corner of my map is to my friend, Steve. Steve and I became friends when we studied at Temple University Japan together. Steve and I come from similar backgrounds, enjoy the same kinds of movies and are both social science nerds. Steve is the only member of my community who I actually have face to face contact with on a fairly regular basis since he lives in Havertown. I talk to him on my cell-phone almost every day whether I am at home or walking around campus. We also frequently share MySpace dialogue. In the top right hand corner is a picture of my best friend Anthony. Thanks to this modern technology our relationship is almost as strong as it would be if I were home. In the top left hand corner is a picture of the June Lockheart, Hugh Riley and of course Lassie from 1950s TV show Lassie. This represents my family. While my family is not a part of my MySpace community I do rely on them heavily. With my cell-phone I can call my dad from anywhere in the city. While my community may seem rather sparse, these are the only people I have kindred feelings for.

1. Cheshier, David M. "Foucault and Education Reform." Foucault.Info. 9 Nov. 2002. 14 Mar. 2006 .
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Elwell, Frank W. "The Sociology of Emile Durkheim." Durkheim's Sociology. 2003. Rutgers University. 1 Apr. 2006 .
5. Saco, Diana. Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2002.