What We Started is an interesting documentary about the birth and history of electronic dance music (EDM), starting with house music in Chicago and techno music in Detroit.

Personally, I view EDM as being distinct from house & techno, and it's generally not my favorite kind of electronic music. But that's besides the point. EDM is now wildly popular. It has crossed over into the mainstream and bled into many other genres.

What's fascinating about the story of electronic music is that it's a reminder that new ideas and new movements tend to start out on the fringe. Electronic music came from hobbyists experimenting in their garages, basements, and in warehouses. It was people tinkering with something that they were passionate about.

And let's face it, that's the only way this genre of music could have gotten started because no record label would have signed an electronic DJ back in the 1980s. It was weird and underground, and in the early years, the US mainstream media was openly hostile toward it.

It reminds me of a blog post that Chris Dixon wrote back in 2013 called, "what the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years." New ideas start on the margin.

The other fascinating thing about this story is that the emergence of new ideas are often tied to a particular time and place. Think tech and Silicon Valley. In the case of techno, which is often described as being sharper, faster, and more precise than house music, it feels right that it originated in a city like Detroit.

Detroit was extremely musical, but it was also high-tech. It was machines and assembly lines and that clearly created fertile ground for a new genre of music that relied on, well, machines.

Italian techno DJ Deborah De Luca recently released this live set with Mixmag. Naturally she was playing by herself on a rooftop. Even if you don't like techno, you may find this set interesting because of its setting. It was filmed in Vele di Scampia, which is a housing complex in northern Naples and the suburb where she grew up. But Vele is also one of the most notorious public housing projects in Italy and the world -- known for its decaying brutalist architecture, its drugs and crime, and its role in housing the Camorra crime syndicate.

Built between 1962 and 1975, the "Sails of Scampia" were designed by Italian architect Franz Di Salvo and inspired by the work and thinking of architect Le Corbusier. Obviously this is a recipe that has been tried out all over the world and the results here are not entirely unique (see also Pruitt-Igoe). The complex was based on two building types: towers and tents. The towers are what you might imagine and the tents are what create the "sails" that today define the complex.

The apartments were designed to be simple. But the idea was to connect them with elaborate exterior common spaces that simulate, in a way, the many alleys and courtyards of Naples. (Does this sound like a co-living project?) There are many possible explanations for what went wrong. Perhaps the best place to look for answers is the book Gomorrah written by Robert Saviano.

But what I always wonder is to what extent was the architecture and the approach to urban design responsible for these outcomes? In other words, how much of this is a result of built form and how much of this is a result of socioeconomic factors, such as poor management, high unemployment, and a lack of policing in the area? According to Wikipedia, Scampia had an unemployment rate of about 50% as of 2004.

Le Vele initially consisted of seven buildings, but four of them have already been demolished. In the next few years two more will come down, leaving only one. Supposedly the plan is to keep this last building and refurbish it so that the history of Le Vele isn't lost entirely. Some, including Robert Saviano, are questioning why the state would ever want to commemorate such a horrible place. But if it is repositioned and if it proves to be successful, it may actually help to answer some of my questions.

In the meantime, we'll just have to enjoy Deborah's set.

What We Started is an interesting documentary about the birth and history of electronic dance music (EDM), starting with house music in Chicago and techno music in Detroit.

Personally, I view EDM as being distinct from house & techno, and it's generally not my favorite kind of electronic music. But that's besides the point. EDM is now wildly popular. It has crossed over into the mainstream and bled into many other genres.

What's fascinating about the story of electronic music is that it's a reminder that new ideas and new movements tend to start out on the fringe. Electronic music came from hobbyists experimenting in their garages, basements, and in warehouses. It was people tinkering with something that they were passionate about.

And let's face it, that's the only way this genre of music could have gotten started because no record label would have signed an electronic DJ back in the 1980s. It was weird and underground, and in the early years, the US mainstream media was openly hostile toward it.

It reminds me of a blog post that Chris Dixon wrote back in 2013 called, "what the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years." New ideas start on the margin.

The other fascinating thing about this story is that the emergence of new ideas are often tied to a particular time and place. Think tech and Silicon Valley. In the case of techno, which is often described as being sharper, faster, and more precise than house music, it feels right that it originated in a city like Detroit.

Detroit was extremely musical, but it was also high-tech. It was machines and assembly lines and that clearly created fertile ground for a new genre of music that relied on, well, machines.

Italian techno DJ Deborah De Luca recently released this live set with Mixmag. Naturally she was playing by herself on a rooftop. Even if you don't like techno, you may find this set interesting because of its setting. It was filmed in Vele di Scampia, which is a housing complex in northern Naples and the suburb where she grew up. But Vele is also one of the most notorious public housing projects in Italy and the world -- known for its decaying brutalist architecture, its drugs and crime, and its role in housing the Camorra crime syndicate.

Built between 1962 and 1975, the "Sails of Scampia" were designed by Italian architect Franz Di Salvo and inspired by the work and thinking of architect Le Corbusier. Obviously this is a recipe that has been tried out all over the world and the results here are not entirely unique (see also Pruitt-Igoe). The complex was based on two building types: towers and tents. The towers are what you might imagine and the tents are what create the "sails" that today define the complex.

The apartments were designed to be simple. But the idea was to connect them with elaborate exterior common spaces that simulate, in a way, the many alleys and courtyards of Naples. (Does this sound like a co-living project?) There are many possible explanations for what went wrong. Perhaps the best place to look for answers is the book Gomorrah written by Robert Saviano.

But what I always wonder is to what extent was the architecture and the approach to urban design responsible for these outcomes? In other words, how much of this is a result of built form and how much of this is a result of socioeconomic factors, such as poor management, high unemployment, and a lack of policing in the area? According to Wikipedia, Scampia had an unemployment rate of about 50% as of 2004.

Le Vele initially consisted of seven buildings, but four of them have already been demolished. In the next few years two more will come down, leaving only one. Supposedly the plan is to keep this last building and refurbish it so that the history of Le Vele isn't lost entirely. Some, including Robert Saviano, are questioning why the state would ever want to commemorate such a horrible place. But if it is repositioned and if it proves to be successful, it may actually help to answer some of my questions.

In the meantime, we'll just have to enjoy Deborah's set.