Comments on: Housing is the linchpin of cities http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2007/12/housing-is-the-linchpin-of-cities.html Affordable Housing Institue Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:10:03 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Jonathan Powers http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2007/12/housing-is-the-linchpin-of-cities.html/comment-page-1#comment-5333 Jonathan Powers Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:19:43 +0000 http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2007/12/housing-is-the-linchpin-of-cities.html#comment-5333 "Society emerges when people are rooted to a place." A profound thought, with an excellent pedigree, echoing Giambattista Vico's idea that human history properly begins when humans create a clearing the forest in order to cultivate the land there. In other words, human history begins when humans make a _place_ out of the undifferentiated wilderness of the earth. I suppose one could object that place-making isn't quite the same as housing, but I think I'm with you, since the first and most important place is the one where you _dwell_ (as Heidegger would have it). To be placed without being home is to be either a refugee or a tourist. “Society emerges when people are rooted to a place.”

A profound thought, with an excellent pedigree, echoing Giambattista Vico’s idea that human history properly begins when humans create a clearing the forest in order to cultivate the land there. In other words, human history begins when humans make a _place_ out of the undifferentiated wilderness of the earth.

I suppose one could object that place-making isn’t quite the same as housing, but I think I’m with you, since the first and most important place is the one where you _dwell_ (as Heidegger would have it). To be placed without being home is to be either a refugee or a tourist.

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