Democratization of architectural debate via YouTube

Article on this by Blair Kamen in the Chicago Tribune

The start of the article (see link for rest, which I found interesting) -

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AMATEUR HOURS: ARCHITECTURE
Preservation activists discover a home on YouTube

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published May 20, 2007

Theater and other fields may have been amateurized by the likes of YouTube and other Web sites, but architecture is different -- or so it would seem. Architects still have to be licensed, after all. Not just anybody can put up a skyscraper or even a shopping mall.

What really has been amateurized, though I prefer to use the term "democratized," is the public discussion of architecture. That trend is especially evident on YouTube, where urban activists are posting un-slick, even homemade, videos that put a new spin on the old custom of picketing a threatened landmark.

Two examples leap to mind: The devastatingly wry YouTube attack ad against the development policies of 32nd Ward Ald. Ted Matlak, who narrowly lost his re-election bid last month, and the more earnest new YouTube video slamming the rebuilding of the crumbling stone walls, or revetments, along Chicago's lakefront.
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