Urban Studies

Artifacts, Layers, Traces, and Trends

Now the objective is to find traces of these changes present in the current environment and to interpret their significance. Many of you were attracted to your site because of some anomalous features that puzzled you and made you wonder why they were there and what had caused them to be. This is an opportunity to explore some answers to such puzzles.

Your Site through Time

This is the third part of a four-part, semester-long project. The first part consisted of finding a site; the second, to find evidence of its environmental history and ongoing natural processes. Now the task is to trace changes on your site over time by comparing its character at several points in time, using maps. You may find different kinds of changes: Land use, density of settlement, additions to buildings, ownership, transportation. The types of sources you will find helpful are historical maps, especially nineteenth and twentieth-century atlases, and may also include plans, prints, and photographs. 

Your Site and Natural Processes

This is the second part of a four-part, semester-long project. The first part consisted of finding a site. Now the task is to find evidence on your site of its environmental history and ongoing natural processes. The objective, through the examination of your site and its context, is to explore how natural processes shape cities.

 

Select a Site

In 2016, MIT will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its move from Boston's Back Bay to the current location in Cambridge. To honor that occasion, this year the class will focus on MIT's former and current neighborhoods, so you should select a site within the designated boundaries in Cambridge or the Back Bay. The site should be between four and eight blocks. Ideally, it should include more than one type of land use. And it should be a place that intrigues you. Reflect on why it interests you, why you are drawn to it. What questions does the place raise, for which you hope to find answers this semester?

 

Journals

In many fields, the journal (or sketchbook, field notebook, or lab book) is an important aid both to the process of research and discovery, and to the documentation of that process and its product, the findings, in more formal papers or books.

Your journal is a place to begin puzzling out some of the ideas that you will explore further in each of four assignments: Select A Site; Natural Processes; Change Over Time; and Traces and Trends. The first step in preparing to write the journal is to read the guide for that assignment: to familiarize yourself with what the assignment is asking you to do; to figure out what kind of background information and evidence you will need to accomplish that task. You will gather that information and evidence in class discussion, in the required readings, and on field trips.

Final Exam

You will need to write three short essays for the final:

  • Choose any three questions from the options below.
  • Your responses should be approximately 500 words. Do not exceed 800 words for any answer. Include your word count below each response.
  • Please include your name at the top of the document and the question number next to each response.

 

Scenario Presentations

Each student must make three oral presentations focused on three of the 14 scenarios available in this section. Two students will sign up at the start of the semester for each scenario. The third presenter will be selected at the beginning of the class to speak about that day's scenario. Students will be graded on both their answers to the assigned questions and the clarity of their presentation. Short descriptions are provided below. These presentations account for up to 30 points of your final grade.

 

Public Participation and Group Decision-Making

There is an ongoing debate between political philosophers and dispute resolution professionals regarding the most appropriate means of conceptualizing the public interest (with regards to the use of natural resources or patterns of urban development). The philosophers believe "deliberative polling" that provides a snapshot of what the "average citizen" prefers should be sufficient for elected officials to determine what actions to take in the public interest. Dispute resolution professionals argue the public interest can best be understood as the product of a consensus building dialogue among contending interests (not individuals) and that public officials armed with polling data can never know or produce on their own the public interest.

Environmental Assessment

Most environmental planners presume that policy decisions regarding the use of natural resources and patterns of development can be enhanced through the application of various analytical tools.

  1. Explain why and how you agree or disagree with this, with reference to each of the tools discussed in Unit 3.
  2. What do you think are the relative strengths and limitations of each of the analytical tools we discussed in Unit 3?

Environmental Ethics

Traditionally economists have argued that humans are utility maximizers, although some behavioral economists and social psychologists have recently raised questions about this. With this in mind, please write a paper addressing the following questions.

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