Spring 2017: Planning the Future of New York
A Macaulay Honors seminar taught by Prof. Gaston Alonso at Brooklyn College
… and you can access all readings – articles and books – from a single Google Drive folder! The link to the folder is at the top of the Required Books page.
For Thursday’s class, please review the assigned readings on “The Corporate City” that focus on Robert Moses and which were assigned for last Thursday. Please also think about the following five questions:
On Feb. 23 we will discuss the readings on “The Urban Village” that were originally assigned for Feb. 16th. Groups A, B, and C will submit a 3-page critical review of the readings we will discuss this week and next week.
On March 2, we will discuss the readings on “The Neoliberal City” that were originally assigned for Feb. 23rd. Groups D and E will submit a 3-page critical review of the assigned readings.
This post discusses the image used for the eportfolio header and also serves as an intro to your reading for February 16, Jane Jacobs’ book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Parts of this post are modified excerpts of a paper that I wrote for a graduate seminar titled “Mid-Century Narratives,” and I’m super excited to get to share some of my research. This post first addresses the advertisement’s line, “The city planners are ravaging our cities” followed by a comparison between the ideas of Jane Jacobs and her former mentor, then-architectural critic for the New Yorker, Lewis Mumford.
Continue reading ““The city planners are ravaging our cities!”: An intro to Jane Jacobs”
I’d be happy to meet with students during office hours to review the tips and strategies on this page or, if you’re interested in similar types of resources, work with you to find the right resources and guides for you.
You can find the schedule with the critical review deadlines & download the syllabus from the menu bar item “Schedule & Readings.”
Everyone contributed some great insights to today’s seminar discussion about gentrification! Particularly interesting were the responses to the questions like who has the right to live in New York? Who has the right to shape New York? What kinds of trade-offs have to be negotiated when gentrification occurs to a community? To honor today’s seminar, here is an excerpt from the famous essay by E.B. White, “Here is New York” (1949):
There are three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts it size and its turbulence s natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter – the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the Person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last – the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.
You can read a full text version of White’s essay here.
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