Online university classes and some thoughts on poverty
Just a few notes here. In the midst of an abundant amount of free time, in an effort to be productive and continue building on my acquisition of higher education, I signed up for a free, online university class through Coursera. There's a huge variety of classes available for those so inclined to expand their knowledge base and the first that really caught my eye was a class entitled "How to Change the World" being lead by the President of Wesleyan University, Michael Roth. The class is based on this awesome-looking event that was held last year called the Social Good Summit that joined a massive list of impressive, do-gooder speakers. Right up my alley. I signed up straight away.
The first week was less of an overview of the course, but giving a sort of context in which to think about the proceeding week's themes. It was based on the topic of "social goods", what social goods are, how they're governed, how they should be governed and why this is important. The main article in reference was written by Garrett Hardin back in the 1960's about the tragedy of the commons, and the commons equating back to the class's general term of "social good". Hardin brings up a particular topic that, ironically, wasn't uncommon in the household I grew up in (though probably not by my parents--more likely the smarty-pants siblings). Overpopulation. The fact that breeding, and overbreeding, more specifically, is a huge threat to the world's resources. The article, and the class, go on to talk about how our resources can be monitored so that we continue to have access to said resources well into the future. Hardin mentions that conscience, though a natural conclusion to jump to, is in fact self-defeating. Those individuals that have a conscience and listen to regulatory suggestions, at least in the population topic, will eventually eliminate themselves through their compliance, meaning that those who don't listen or have a conscience will dominate.
A bit defeating. but logical. The week's lectures end with the conclusion that communities have to agree to abide by mutual coercion, whereby a community agrees to limit themselves through some system of rules or laws (and of course the monitoring system must also have a monitor).
An interesting introduction to the topic. Week two jumps right in with one of humanity's most pressing topics--that of poverty. The first reading are a few chapters of Jeffrey Sachs's book "Common Wealth" published in 2008. The topic has brought up a few of my own observations about poverty that have been rattling around in my brain lately.
In transitioning from Sydney to Seattle, one of the differences that jumps out is the degree of visible poverty. Sydney is a huge city and, according to one statistic, there are somewhere around 16,000 homeless people living in Sydney. That's in a city of about 4.5 million people (or less than .4% of the population). Seattle's population, on the other hand, is around 635,000 and the homeless population is around 3,117 (or at least that's the number counted by the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness). That's nearly .5% of the population. And actually, looking deeper, that's not even a comparable statistic. That Seattle statistic is the number of people sleeping outside, counted one night per year in a massive volunteer effort to count the number of homeless people sleeping outside. And that's an extremely recent statistic--the count was done just three days ago on 24 January. If you were to use a comparable Sydney statistic (in their winter time) the number would be 726 (and that even counts people in hostel beds!). That's .01%, a tiny fraction!
The point I'm trying to make here is that homelessness in Seattle is rife. It can't be ignored. In addition to the homeless neighbor who calls the dumpster across the street home, there's another homeless person who regularly mans the closest intersection with his cardboard sign. Down the street, as I walk to the grocery store, I frequently pass homeless people. The Wallingford library shares its premises with a non-profit that provides food to the needy, so there's a constant collection of homeless people stationed in and around that area. That's not to mention the downtown area. It's impossible to go downtown in Seattle without witnessing a stream of people at the lowest poverty levels in the city. Mental disabilities are visibly rife.
The other day, in my usual walk to the grocery store where no doubt I would encounter at least a few homeless people, I noticed something different. Walking hand in hand with Marcus, I noticed a guy maybe younger than us, but certainly in the same age range, with a few dirty hoodies on and what appeared to be his collection of possessions (including a scuffed plush and a sleeping bag) coming off of his very used backpack. What struck me most about this picture? He was wearing skinny jeans. And what at some point would have been trendy shoes that were now, again, dirty. It was the skinny jeans that got me, though. It made this picture so...current. Modern. A homeless person of our age. I couldn't quite classify him as "street youth" and it struck a deeper cord than usual. It seems like a ridiculous observation, that someone living on the streets would wear skinny jeans--they're so prevalent these days, why would that seem strange? But for some reason it did and it still does.
Even more recently, this past weekend we went to Home Depot to collect a few things for my latest project (DIY nightstands--I'll post about them later, they're pretty fun). As we drove into the parking lot, we noticed about 20 Latino men standing outside apparently waiting for something. The bus? Then I remembered somebody had mentioned this to me previously, that migrant workers often hang around hardware stores hoping to exchange some of their hard work for some cash. When we passed by them again on the way out, I stared out with a mixed thoughts. First pity. Then, good on you for getting out and finding work. But it is not warm outside, they must be freezing, especially that guy in a t-shirt. Is this really a thing, are people actually doing this? Where are you from? What did you leave behind in order to come to Seattle? Did you realize this is how you would try to earn a living? Who hires these guys? There must have been a few in order to attract this many would-be workers.
I've never encountered this phenomenon and I find it baffling and sad. There's a serious homeless population in this city and migrants continue to come here looking for a better life. How many find that better life? And how many end up outside Home Depot? Seattle is a city with a widening gap between rich and poor, a very serious gap considering one of the richest people in the world is located here. As the tech giants expand their offices and pay their talent pool exorbitant amounts of money, Seattle's cost of living continues to go up. It wasn't long ago that Seattle was rated the US's most overpriced city. I still love this city and am determined to make it my home again. But it's a paradox. Some of the world's foremost work on poverty alleviation and international development is coming out of this corner of the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Vision, PATH, and a vast array of Gates grantee organizations that have set up shop here in the good old Pacific Northwest, there's no shortage of companies looking to solve that mysterious poverty problem. Are there answers to be found in their own backyard?
The Sachs book claims that when a migrant from a poorer country goes to work in a rich country, it's a win-win situation for all three. The worker undertakes "complementary" work to that performed by the highly skilled citizens of that rich country, thereby doing work that wouldn't otherwise get done. The migrant makes money to send back home to his family and voila! Win, win, win. In theory, on a large scale, that could largely be true. In fact, remittances from migrant workers vastly outweigh foreign aid to developing countries (which makes me wonder why remittances are almost not mentioned in the development arena). The World Bank estimated that in 2013, 3% of the world's population were migrant workers and would send home around $550 billion in remittances. The Overseas Development Agency estimates the amount of official foreign aid in 2012 at $127 billion. So in reality, even though donor governments claim a moral high ground and command huge political influence as a result of such aid, money sent home from migrant workers far outweighs foreign aid. In the big picture. On a country by country basis, that picture changes. Of course it is, such is the complexity of the development field. On a side note, The Guardian posted an interactive remittance map that shows remittances going to and from countries all over the world. It clearly shows that the largest sum of remittances from the US go to Mexico, that the British are the biggest source of remittances from Australia, and that China received over $60 billion in remittances. Je-sus. That's a lot of money. This is a really interesting tool to wile away some time...in an educational way.
Linking this all back to the men outside of Home Depot. Back to the case study, which isn't a case study at all since I know nothing about these men. In fact, I'm not even sure what point I'm trying to make here. I guess it's that poverty is complicated. That while we talk about poverty in some far off sense, relative to Africa and Asia, it exists here, too. It makes sense to tackle the issues in the countries from which these migrants are originating. But we need to acknowledge that it's also right in front of our face. And that the Jeffrey Sachs of the world can make broad sweeping statements that migration is a "win all around" situation, it's just that--a broad statement. That we need to think more critically about the issue and link what we're reading to what we're seeing. And I don't know if those men at Home Depot are winning.
The first week was less of an overview of the course, but giving a sort of context in which to think about the proceeding week's themes. It was based on the topic of "social goods", what social goods are, how they're governed, how they should be governed and why this is important. The main article in reference was written by Garrett Hardin back in the 1960's about the tragedy of the commons, and the commons equating back to the class's general term of "social good". Hardin brings up a particular topic that, ironically, wasn't uncommon in the household I grew up in (though probably not by my parents--more likely the smarty-pants siblings). Overpopulation. The fact that breeding, and overbreeding, more specifically, is a huge threat to the world's resources. The article, and the class, go on to talk about how our resources can be monitored so that we continue to have access to said resources well into the future. Hardin mentions that conscience, though a natural conclusion to jump to, is in fact self-defeating. Those individuals that have a conscience and listen to regulatory suggestions, at least in the population topic, will eventually eliminate themselves through their compliance, meaning that those who don't listen or have a conscience will dominate.
A bit defeating. but logical. The week's lectures end with the conclusion that communities have to agree to abide by mutual coercion, whereby a community agrees to limit themselves through some system of rules or laws (and of course the monitoring system must also have a monitor).
An interesting introduction to the topic. Week two jumps right in with one of humanity's most pressing topics--that of poverty. The first reading are a few chapters of Jeffrey Sachs's book "Common Wealth" published in 2008. The topic has brought up a few of my own observations about poverty that have been rattling around in my brain lately.
In transitioning from Sydney to Seattle, one of the differences that jumps out is the degree of visible poverty. Sydney is a huge city and, according to one statistic, there are somewhere around 16,000 homeless people living in Sydney. That's in a city of about 4.5 million people (or less than .4% of the population). Seattle's population, on the other hand, is around 635,000 and the homeless population is around 3,117 (or at least that's the number counted by the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness). That's nearly .5% of the population. And actually, looking deeper, that's not even a comparable statistic. That Seattle statistic is the number of people sleeping outside, counted one night per year in a massive volunteer effort to count the number of homeless people sleeping outside. And that's an extremely recent statistic--the count was done just three days ago on 24 January. If you were to use a comparable Sydney statistic (in their winter time) the number would be 726 (and that even counts people in hostel beds!). That's .01%, a tiny fraction!
The point I'm trying to make here is that homelessness in Seattle is rife. It can't be ignored. In addition to the homeless neighbor who calls the dumpster across the street home, there's another homeless person who regularly mans the closest intersection with his cardboard sign. Down the street, as I walk to the grocery store, I frequently pass homeless people. The Wallingford library shares its premises with a non-profit that provides food to the needy, so there's a constant collection of homeless people stationed in and around that area. That's not to mention the downtown area. It's impossible to go downtown in Seattle without witnessing a stream of people at the lowest poverty levels in the city. Mental disabilities are visibly rife.
The other day, in my usual walk to the grocery store where no doubt I would encounter at least a few homeless people, I noticed something different. Walking hand in hand with Marcus, I noticed a guy maybe younger than us, but certainly in the same age range, with a few dirty hoodies on and what appeared to be his collection of possessions (including a scuffed plush and a sleeping bag) coming off of his very used backpack. What struck me most about this picture? He was wearing skinny jeans. And what at some point would have been trendy shoes that were now, again, dirty. It was the skinny jeans that got me, though. It made this picture so...current. Modern. A homeless person of our age. I couldn't quite classify him as "street youth" and it struck a deeper cord than usual. It seems like a ridiculous observation, that someone living on the streets would wear skinny jeans--they're so prevalent these days, why would that seem strange? But for some reason it did and it still does.
Even more recently, this past weekend we went to Home Depot to collect a few things for my latest project (DIY nightstands--I'll post about them later, they're pretty fun). As we drove into the parking lot, we noticed about 20 Latino men standing outside apparently waiting for something. The bus? Then I remembered somebody had mentioned this to me previously, that migrant workers often hang around hardware stores hoping to exchange some of their hard work for some cash. When we passed by them again on the way out, I stared out with a mixed thoughts. First pity. Then, good on you for getting out and finding work. But it is not warm outside, they must be freezing, especially that guy in a t-shirt. Is this really a thing, are people actually doing this? Where are you from? What did you leave behind in order to come to Seattle? Did you realize this is how you would try to earn a living? Who hires these guys? There must have been a few in order to attract this many would-be workers.
I've never encountered this phenomenon and I find it baffling and sad. There's a serious homeless population in this city and migrants continue to come here looking for a better life. How many find that better life? And how many end up outside Home Depot? Seattle is a city with a widening gap between rich and poor, a very serious gap considering one of the richest people in the world is located here. As the tech giants expand their offices and pay their talent pool exorbitant amounts of money, Seattle's cost of living continues to go up. It wasn't long ago that Seattle was rated the US's most overpriced city. I still love this city and am determined to make it my home again. But it's a paradox. Some of the world's foremost work on poverty alleviation and international development is coming out of this corner of the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Vision, PATH, and a vast array of Gates grantee organizations that have set up shop here in the good old Pacific Northwest, there's no shortage of companies looking to solve that mysterious poverty problem. Are there answers to be found in their own backyard?
The Sachs book claims that when a migrant from a poorer country goes to work in a rich country, it's a win-win situation for all three. The worker undertakes "complementary" work to that performed by the highly skilled citizens of that rich country, thereby doing work that wouldn't otherwise get done. The migrant makes money to send back home to his family and voila! Win, win, win. In theory, on a large scale, that could largely be true. In fact, remittances from migrant workers vastly outweigh foreign aid to developing countries (which makes me wonder why remittances are almost not mentioned in the development arena). The World Bank estimated that in 2013, 3% of the world's population were migrant workers and would send home around $550 billion in remittances. The Overseas Development Agency estimates the amount of official foreign aid in 2012 at $127 billion. So in reality, even though donor governments claim a moral high ground and command huge political influence as a result of such aid, money sent home from migrant workers far outweighs foreign aid. In the big picture. On a country by country basis, that picture changes. Of course it is, such is the complexity of the development field. On a side note, The Guardian posted an interactive remittance map that shows remittances going to and from countries all over the world. It clearly shows that the largest sum of remittances from the US go to Mexico, that the British are the biggest source of remittances from Australia, and that China received over $60 billion in remittances. Je-sus. That's a lot of money. This is a really interesting tool to wile away some time...in an educational way.
Linking this all back to the men outside of Home Depot. Back to the case study, which isn't a case study at all since I know nothing about these men. In fact, I'm not even sure what point I'm trying to make here. I guess it's that poverty is complicated. That while we talk about poverty in some far off sense, relative to Africa and Asia, it exists here, too. It makes sense to tackle the issues in the countries from which these migrants are originating. But we need to acknowledge that it's also right in front of our face. And that the Jeffrey Sachs of the world can make broad sweeping statements that migration is a "win all around" situation, it's just that--a broad statement. That we need to think more critically about the issue and link what we're reading to what we're seeing. And I don't know if those men at Home Depot are winning.
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