The Internet, Microchips and What it Affords Us

The most important topic to community and regional planning would be the Theory of Affordances. This caught my attention because of it's incredible way of describing life and the world around us. It can describe intricate details of things such as social injustices or even what might live in a complex environment on our planet. It's almost like a theory for everything because it takes information, divulges that into complexity and determines that possible results that would occur. In order to describe what an environment affords. This is done by first taking in the terrestrial details of a site and with that, a list of different physical encounters, behaviors and reactions can be determined. Thus a certain group of distinct Niches will occur, creating patterns of life that finds sustenance within that phenomenal environment. This is present in our culture, as we grow more accustomed to certain symbologies or customs, otherwise known as you’re “sense of place”, an affordance is created. Designs of certain physical objects or patterns afford us insight into the uses of such items. Our teachers example in class was the push door, as a person you will automatically know what this object can afford you within a glance. I think another one would be the stop sign. It affords us the knowledge that there is a dangerous intersection along with the fact that we must stop and be cautious. That is because it is designed that way, red and with the big word STOP slapped across the front. All of which is possible through our environment and the way we’ve been living with our affordances.

Another affordance that we all live with and take for granted would be the Internet. As a species it is global communication and connection to one another. I think that the Internet affords us the means to intelligent group discussions, information sharing and opportunities. I've had many such interactions, I use learn to do our homework, watch youtube for entertainment, talk to my friends through discord, the list goes on. The Microprocessor brought about a new age of technology and a lot of new affordances. Whilst also being a major driving force of the decentralization of our economy and living spaces. Decentralization is basically the redistribution of people and technologies caused by a major driving force, this is when people move out of the cities because they can simply provide their services on a global scale instead of locally. By 2009 more than half the population of the united states lived in urban cities, all because of the microchip. It made the exchange of information cheaper, especially over long distances and it dramatically improved our computing capabilities. Thus creating the dawn of Amazon, a global marketplace with a delivery service and online shop that is making people not want to leave their homes in order to get groceries or common appliances. Jobs requiring human aide are slowly disappearing, this is another wicked problem but one that might be fixed by the shifting of white collar jobs since people can provide their services from anywhere in the world now. The internet was another thing that microprocessors afford us, the ability to communicate over vast distances.

Now, I am connected to the internet almost 24/7 every single year. Micro-chips affords our built environment the ability to massive improvements in our communication, information gathering and problem solving skills. This new privilege grants these affordances to all and anyone that can gain access to the world wide web. Especially the third and second world countries, they are finally gaining access to the internet causing massive amounts of people living in rural communities to come into urban cities to gain access to this privilege so they can spread their knowledge and expertise, which is another example of where the major decentralizations are occuring.

What is really remarkable is how our school is held together through these invisible servers that guide our attention towards a greater purpose, graduating. The learning opportunities and databases that anyone can access is another great affordance that helps improve the general wellbeing and ideologies of individuals that seek information and facts. Microchips, on a global scale, have us all connected but that is only if you can afford to pay for the internet. Especially if one needs to find peer-reviewed articles, the cost for such information is too high for anyone living in poverty or low income countries. If the price of that affordance was lowered or basically free it would allow more people throughout the world the ability connect and thrive off of the collective knowledge of the internet, thus creating this global economy that can support anybody who has access.

Works Cited

Levy, J. M. (2017). Contemporary urban planning. New York ; London: Routledge.

Gibson, J. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Mahwah N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.