Urban studies and planning

In the readings by Schorske and Berman, the motifs behind the concept of the modern city and the rise of industrialization are focalized/elaborated upon. In particularly, Schorske presents his explication by revolving around three central themes: the city as a means of virtue in the Enlightenment, the city as a means of vice as industrialization rose, and the city as a means of the good and the bad, developed through the likes of an expanding intellectual attitude. Berman, on the other hand,…

Response Paper 1: A Comparison between The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel de Certeau and The Spaces of the Modern City by Gyan Prakash and Kevin Kruse. The Spaces of the Modern City and The Practice of Everyday Life are two works dedicated to understanding the modern city. Though both de Certeau and Prakash engage with same ideas, contrasting the ‘imagined’ or constructed vision of the modern city, with the ‘real’ or experienced city (exemplified by the everyday life of its inhabitants),…

Urban renewal transformed urban landscapes across America during the mid-twentieth century. New York City did not depart from this trend, and the impacts are prevalent today. The practice of slum clearance displaced entire communities, and perpetuated the very idea it sought to resolve. From this, the anti-urban movement sprang forward. This grassroots effort made progress through white middle-class residents as it concentrated on a community’s culture rather than redevelopment. This approach…

Staring at the sidewalk Pulled from the highly informational novel The Death and the Life of American Cities written by Jane Jacobs, lies an augment about the roles citizens as well as strangers play in the safety of their city streets. This argument is placed in chapter two of the book with the heading of “The uses of sidewalk: safety.” Jane writes clearly and explicitly of her research as well as her opinion on the topic. To analyze the text further I did my own observations of LOVE Park,…

American’s today are the definition of consumers. Each day billions of dollars are spent across the country at shopping malls, department stores, specialty stores, and restaurants located within these consumerist havens. Are shopping centers today however, the civic centers that they should have been? Or are there clear elements of market segmentation and class differentiation present in the malls that American’s have grown so affectionate towards? Using Lizabeth Cohen’s article “Commerce:…

Joseph Bloggs seeks a land use control consent to develop a retirement village at 12 Smith Street, Palmerston North. The proposal is to construct 20 units (10 single storey double attached dwellings) on a single site legally described as Lot 1021 DP 50032, that has a net area of 2300m2. The site is currently vacant and has frontage to Smith Street and Jones Place. Retirement villages are provided for in the provisions contained within Section 10 (Residential Zone) of the Palmerston North City…

photographs and drawings illustrate its key concepts, with exercises and case studies, to help to learn relevant scientific terms and suggest topics for further study (introduction of the book). Using recent findings in neuroscience and evolutionary biology, the authors pointed out the key to human nature. This book discusses the relation and importance of using cognitive science data in architecture and urban planning. Humans are evolved from mammals with their perceptual system as a product of…

used by extended families (Genemo, 2012). Over the years, urban sprawl has directly contributed to the degradation and decline of natural environment resources. It also reduces farm land and productivity in city leading to social loss and open spaces (Haregewin, 2005). In addition, urban sprawl leads to regional imbalance, such as pulling jobs and people further away from poor communities, increasing in equality. Recently, the problem of urban sprawl was restricted to the developed world but;…

neighbourhoods, public facilities (schools, recreation areas and health facilities etc.) are shared by the members of different groups (Hartman & Squires, 2010). Many studies (Balbo & Navez-Bouchanine, 1995; Deffner & Hoerning, 2011; Kempen, 2007; Madrazo & Van Kempen, 2012) have upheld that residential fragmentation is a threat to urban integration and social cohesion. Fragmentation underscore disconnections rather than connections since it is related with barriers that obstruct choices and…

Jennifer Light’s From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America traces the transfer of military techniques, technologies, and experts to city management and organization during the early Cold War. Defense intellectuals approached urban problems using techniques developed during the Second World War; systems analysis, aerial surveillance, and computer simulation Coincidentally enough, From Warfare to Welfare itself originated in the defense establishment.…