Testing things out can also help developers chart the right course for their projects. Says Lydon, “A developer can really learn what?s working in the neighborhood from a marketplace perspective — it could really inform or change their plans. Hopefully they can ingratiate themselves with the neighborhood and build community. There is real potential if the developers are really looking to do that.”
And they are. Brooklyn?s De Kalb Market, for example, was supposed to be in place for just three years, but became a neighborhood center where there hadn?t been much of one before. “People gravitated towards it,” says Lydon. “People like going there. You run the risk of people lamenting the loss of that. The developer would be smart to integrate things like the community garden — [giving residents an] opportunity to keep growing food on the site. The radio station could get a permanent space. The beer garden could be kept.”
San Francisco?s PROXY project is similar. Retail, restaurants and cultural spaces housed within an artful configuration of shipping containers, designed by Envelope Architecture and Design, were given a five-year temporary home on government-owned vacant lots in the city?s Hayes Valley neighborhood while developers opted to sit tight during the recession. Affordable housing is promised for the site; the developers will
now be able to create it in a neighborhood that has become increasingly vibrant and pedestrian-friendly.
On an even larger scale, the major developer Forest City has been testing these ideas of trial and error in the 5M Project in downtown San Francisco. While waiting out the downturn, the folks behind 5M have been beta-testing tenants and uses at their 5th & Mission location, which was (and still is) home to the San Francisco Chronicle and now also to organizations like TechShop, the co-working space HubSoma, the art gallery Intersection for the Arts, the tech company Square and a smattering of food carts to feed those hungry, hardworking tenants. A few years earlier, Forest City would have been more likely to throw up an office tower with some luxury condos on top and call it a day: according to a company vice president, Alexa Arena, the recession allowed Forest City to spend time “re-imagining places for our emerging economy and what kind of environment helps facilitate that.”
In “The Interventionist?s Toolkit,” the critic Mimi Zeiger wrote that the real success for D.I.Y. urbanist interventions won?t be based on any one project but will “happen when we can evaluate the movement based on outreach, economic impact, community empowerment, entrepreneurship, sustainability and design. We?re not quite there yet.”
She?s right. And one doesn?t have to search for examples of temporary projects that not only failed but did so catastrophically (see: Hurricane Katrina trailers, for example). A huge reason for tactical urbanism?s appeal relates to politics. As one practitioner put it, “We?re doing these things to combat the slowness of government.”
But all of this is more than a response to bureaucracy; at its best it?s a bold expression of unfettered thinking and creativity … and there?s certainly not enough of that going around these days. An embrace of the temporary and tactical may not be perfect, but it could be one of the strongest tools in the arsenal of city-building we?ve got. 汉译英：
语言与社会身份
一个人的语言与其在社会中的身份其实密不可分。记得我在澳大利亚生活时，一位邻居要竞选议员，他便每天早上起来练习发音，以令自己的讲话让人听起来悦耳、有身份。
的确，语言是一个人社会身份的标志，特别是在多民族、多元文化的社会里。所谓“身份”，也是一种知识结构，表明你来自那个社会群体的文化背景、知识程度甚至地理位置等。
语言会影响对于相应文化的认知。例如，有人调查发现，对于讲双语的中国人，在用中文问到其关于文化观念等问题时，他们的回答显然比用英文问他们此类问题时显示出更多的中国人的做派。有意思的是，当讲广东话的港澳人被用普通话问到关于中国的文化、信仰等问题时，他们的回答往往比听到用广东话问到此类问题时的回答更接近西方人的表达方式。
其实，对于学习外语的华人来讲，大部分的还不是真正意义上的所谓“双语人”，而是“双语使用者”；后者是在语言与表达层次，而前者则是思维与生活习性。但是，这个过程并不是静止的，而是可以转换的。
所以，语言学习者所学习的实际上是一种社会关系，一种他所理解的跨越时空所形成的关系。因而，他所面对的不仅仅是语言学的，而更是多重、变换着的社会身份问题。
研究还表明，一个人的讲话风格并非是固定不变的，而是随着社会环境和讲话对象而变化的。一般来讲，个人讲话有一种趋同的倾向（即
随大流），但有时也会有趋异倾向（即显示自己的特征）。譬如，我回到北京时，我的“北京腔”自觉就浓了很多；而我的英国朋友在澳大利亚时，其“英国腔”保持得更为明显，不知是否有意显出其身份。
人们在适应异国文化的过程中，对于自己母语的态度，也会有积极或消极两种选择。有的人，在积极投入其他主流文化的同时，有意消弱自己的母语能力；有的人，反而更加强、突出了这方面，认为是一种优势。
一般来讲，若某一社会群体所讲、所用的语言是为社会所尊敬的那一种（如在英国，以女王为代表的贵族所讲的语言），会有更高的社会优越感，而其成员也会有意显示出与众不同，以保持其正面的群体特性。当然，也难免会有他人向这一群体的讲话方式靠拢。
一个人的语言，还可成为他人对其进行评判的对象。据研究，可以从中判断出其社会地位、教育程度、善良与否、智力、能力甚至财富等。
可见，语言对个人之意义。如果说服装是人的形体修饰，那么语言便是人的综合价值的外在体现。所以，语言就不应当被视为仅仅是一种工具，而应是一种素质。