I CAN SEE IT BUT I CAN"T GET TO IT

How do I get there???

From the Golden Age of SoCal Suburbia: "Skater Dater" (1965)

Here it is.

Walkable Cities

A Brookings Institute report finds Washington, D.C., as the most walkable city, per capita. Beacon Hill in Boston earns mention in this report as well.

Land presavation

here

My Movie Map

here

James Howard Kunstler: The Tragedy of Suburbia

Here is a video of Kunstler's presentation.

Slate and the L.A. Times on Mike Judge's film Idiocracy

Slate: The Movie Hollywood Doesn't Want You to See

L.A. Times: The Funniest Movie You Can't See



From Patt Morrison's L.A. Times piece:

Why has Fox deep-sixed this film? A Fox spokesman tells me that "Idiocracy" was "a limited release, that's it, nothing to really talk about."

But the cine-blog world is roiling with questions. Did Judge's film, by sheer happenstance, mirror Rupert Murdoch's blueprint for a Fox-fed nation of fat, dumb and happy? Is the problem a threatened lawsuit over the way "Idiocracy" treats corporate America? Starbucks in 2505 serves speedy sex acts with the coffee, and Carl's Jr. and H&R Block get the same rough handling. But that's why studios have lawyers, and that's why we have the 1st Amendment.

Paper Three: Jacobs, Kunstler, and _______ (fill in the blank)

In this essay, you will compare the analysis of Jane Jacobs and James Howard Kunstler to a third writer on the subject of American cities and suburbs in the post-WWII era. Your paper should address, but need not be limited to, the following questions:

1. How does each author address the role of government (local, state, and federal) in the development and re-development of U.S. cities?

2. How does each author address the role of the automobile and the growth of large highway projects in the transformation of American urban and suburban life after WWII?

3. What specific crisis does each author highlight, and what solutions does each author argue or imply would be most effective for the problems facing U.S. cities and suburbs?

7-10 pgs. DUE IN CLASS ON DEC. 11th

mapping the city on film pt 2; demo

Good Will Hunting:

Harvard Sq.

Southie

MIT

Chinatown

L.A.'s Chinatown

The Valley

New Use for a Classic Building in Harlem

Ron sent in this NY Times article this morning.

Veterans Day 2007

Memorial Wall
Weymouth, MA




Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.

A. E. Houseman

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

A. Lincoln

Mike Davis on Katrina

Here it is.

Urban Bibliography

New York

Morningside Heights

Boston

All Souls

Los Angeles

City of Quartz

Chicago

Our America


Atlanta

Makes Me Wanna Holler (this book also involves life in Washington, D.C. and its suburbs)

Walt Disney's plans for a city

video here

Kuntsler's Eyesore of the Month

Despite winning numerous awards for its design, Simmons Hall at MIT is hated by students, full of design flaws and merited an Eyesore of the Month award from James Howard Kunstler.

New Urbanism

Here is a CBS News profile of New Urbanist communities, including the Seaside development depicted in Peter Weir's film The Truman Show. And here is the website for Duany Plater-Zyberk, the firm responsible for Seaside and hundreds of other New Urbanist developments.

Jane Jacobs

HERE SHE IS!!!

Paper 2: Mapping the City on Film. Due in Class 11/20

Your goal in this paper (5-7 pgs + map) is to analyze and compare the depictions of a major U.S. city in three Hollywood films and to anchor your analysis in the actual geography of that city. Using a map of the city in question, locate the settings that are pivitol in your three films and assess the meaning that each film ascribes to that location. It will be up to you to choose which city and which films to analyze, but here are some sample questions concerning films about New York, Los Angeles, and Boston that you might conisider as a starting point for your research and analysis: In the film Chinatown, what specific meanings do writer Robert Towne and director Roman Polanski ascribe to L.A.'s original Chinese-American neighborhood? In Gangs of New York, what meaning does Martin Scorcese ascribe to the once infamous Five Points neighborhood (see Google Earth image above) in lower Manhattan? In Good Will Hunting, how does director Gus Van Sant use neighborhoods such as Southie, Bunker Hill, and Harvard Square to depict class differences in Boston and Cambridge?

urban planning in MA today

Ron has submitted this article on urban planning issues MA today.

Opening scenes from The Departed

Scenes from Scorcese's Boston police drama.

Tomorrowland, 1967

Here is a short video of Disney's Tomorrowland from 1967. Compare this vision to the planning ideas of we've discussed so far, e.g. Le Corbusier, Robert Moses, and the 1939 World's Fair.

Urban Planning

Video here

The World of Robert Moses

The film of 1941 presents the world of Robert Moses and stresses the importance of transportation "arteries" between NYC and its suburbs. Although Jane Jacobs was a major critic of Moses, recent scholars have been more inclined to point to his successes. Here is a CSPAN talk concerning more recent views of Moses.

hi

link

The Internet Archive

Hey everyone, check out this.

A Place to Live

A film depicting the need for urban planning, the state of slums and the building of publicly managed housing in North Philadelphia in the late 1940's.

GM's Futurama Exhibit, 1939 (part 1)

Here it is.

The Changing City

This film was produced at roughly the same time that Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Does the analysis presented here resemble Jacobs' thesis as expressed in her introduction?

Postcard Project

1. Visit any site in Boston that you a) have never been to, or b) have not been to in a while.

2. Observe that place as if you were a tourist, and not a resident of Boston. Take note of its sights, sounds, and people, and consider its historical evolution and significance.

3. Record your experience as clearly as you can in a postcard, and mail it by Sept. 28th to:

Sam Deese
Dept of History, Boston University
226 Bay State Rd.
Boston, MA 02215

Note: the postcards will be copied and distributed for class discussion, and may also be posted here at hi376.blogspot.com

Book/Film Review 1 Due in Class Oct. 9th

Your three-to-five page review of a book or film will be due in class on October 9th. Critique your subject, describe your personal response to it, and relate it to the broader trends in urban history as described in class discussions and readings.

Course Readings

Readings:

Week One: Boston, 1630 John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630)

Week Two: Sprawl, Peak Oil, James Howard Kunstler essay; Boston, 1770; web-log discussion Boston Gazette, March 1770 Samuel P. Hays, Textbook, pgs. 2-12

Week Three: City Planning in Colonial Philadelphia and beyond 9/20: Tench Coxe and the birth U.S. industry William Morley, Textbook, pg. 39

Week Four: Race, Class, and Gender in Antebellum American Cities; New York Draft Riots Karin Wulf, Textbook, pgs 56-63 Nayan Shah, Textbook, pgs 162-170

Week Five: “Exotic but immoral”: New Orleans 10/4: “I have never seen a busier place” Estwick Evans, Textbook, pg. 81 Harriet Martineau, Evans, Textbook, pg. 109

Week Six: A Place to Get Rich BOOK/FILM REVIEW 1 DUE IN CLASS 10/11: Boosterism and the rise Western cities Bayar Taylor, Textbook, pg. 117 William Cronin, Textbook, pgs. 121-127

Week Seven: Immigration in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 10/18: Internal Migration in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Great Migrations, Textbook, pgs. 225-242

Week Eight: Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Introduction; Chs. 1&2

Week Nine: Jacobs, Chs. 7, 8, 9

Week Ten: Jacobs, Chs. 11 & 12

Week Eleven: Jacobs, Chs. 21 & 22

Week Twelve: Kunstler, Geography of Nowhere. Chs. 1, 2 &3

PAPER 2 DUE IN CLASS ON 11/20 (LAST TUESDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING)

Week Thirteen: FINISH Kunstler

Week Fourteen: Student Presentations

Week Fifteen: Student Presentations, FINAL PAPER DUE IN CLASS ON THURSDAY, 12/13

The Once and Future City

Here is a great article from the University of Virginia about the growth and infrastructure of eighteenth century Philadelphia.

urban sprawl

urban sprawl

http://www.goldcanyon.com/us/urbansprawl.html

pdooley

http://http://www.urban.org/publications/901114.html

Milwaukee Urbanization

Newspaper story in which former mayor Norquist discusses Milwaukee's future through urbanization.

Boston in 1770: Newspaper Account of Boston Massacre

Here is an account of the Boston Massacre.

Sprawl

City Sprawl

TAX RATE

City of Boston tax rates.

James Howard Kunstler

Here is JHK's website. It's a place where he discusses urban sprawl, peak oil, and other issues.

Welcome to the HI 376 blog

HI 376: American Urban History

University of Massachusetts Boston

Fall, 2007

R. S. Deese

Office M-4-219; Hours: Tu&Th 5:30-6:30

rsdeese@gmail.com

This course will survey American Urban History from the Colonial Era to the present, with a special emphasis on the effects of economic, social, and technological transformations on urban life in the United States. As issues in urban history often reflect evolving ideas about the relationship between humanity and nature, this course will also consider a number of issues relating to environmental history, such as land use, energy, and climate change. The reading assignments for each week, including handouts, should be completed by every Thursday in order to assure an informed discussion. Attendance and participation will account for 20 per cent of each student’s final course grade.

Grade Breakdown:

20%: Class Participation

20%: Book Review 1 (due in class on 9/27)

15% Class Presentation (TBA)

20%: Book Review 2 (due in class on 10/25)

25%: Research Paper (due in class on 12/6)

REQUIRED TEXTS:

1. Chudacoff, Howard P., et al, Major Problems in American Urban History: Documents & Essays, 3^rd ed., Trade Paper, 1994. Publisher: Houghton-Mifflin College Division. ISBN: 0-679-74195-X. ISBN-13: 978-0-669-24376-5.

2. Jacobs, Jane, The Death & Life of Great American Cities, Trade Paper, 1992. Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group. ISBN: 0-679-74195-X. ISBN-13:978-0-679-74195-4.

3. Kunstler, James Howard, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise & Decline of America’s Man Made Landscape, Trade Paper, 1994. Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc. ISBN: 0-671-88825-0. ISBN-13: 978-0-671-88825-1.

Basic Ground Rules:

1. Turn off all cell phones, beepers, etc. before all class meetings begin.

2. Always come on time to all class meetings, and participate in all discussions. Please don’t be shy about speaking up in class discussions, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Virtually all original scholarship begins by posing questions that others have overlooked or dismissed as simply not worth asking; therefore, the very question you might be afraid to ask because it seems naïve or unorthodox could well be the most interesting and groundbreaking question that anyone could raise. Don’t hesitate to ask it. Also, please remember that I am more than happy to field your questions and address your concerns via email, telephone, and during my regular office hours.

3. Always come to class prepared to discuss all readings for that week. When you do the assigned reading each week, be sure to underline passages that you see as important, and write down questions that you would like to raise in our section meetings and in my office hours.

Term Paper: For this course you will be required to write a 10-12 page research paper that explores the technological, cultural, and political dimensions of a single urban history issue within a specific historical context. Your Student Presentation will be based on your research paper.

Regulations Against Plagiarism: Needless to say, the work you present must be entirely your own and all sources must be diligently credited in your footnotes and bibliography. Any attempt at plagiarism, representing the work of another person as your own, will be result in failure in this course and severe disciplinary action by Boston University. If you should need more information on this subject, consult the website of the History Department.

Readings:

Week One
9/4: Introduction

9/6: Boston, 1630
John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630)
Week Two

9/11: Sprawl, Peak Oil, James Howard Kunstler

9/13: Boston, 1770; web-log discussion

Boston Gazette, March 1770

Samuel P. Hays, Textbook, pgs. 2-12

Week Three

9/18: City Planning in Colonial Philadelphia and beyond

9/20: Tench Coxe and the birth U.S. industry

William Morley, Textbook, pg. 39

Week Four
9/25: Race, Class, and Gender in Antebellum American Cities

9/27: New York Draft Riots

Karin Wulf, Textbook, pgs 56-63
Nayan Shah, Textbook, pgs 162-170
Week Five

10/2: “Exotic but immoral”: New Orleans

10/4: “I have never seen a busier place”
Estwick Evans, Textbook, pg. 81

Harriet Martineau, Evans, Textbook, pg. 109

Week Six
10/9: A Place to Get Rich BOOK/FILM REVIEW 1 DUE IN CLASS
10/11: Boosterism and the rise Western cities
Bayar Taylor, Textbook, pg. 117
William Cronin, Textbook, pgs. 121-127Week Seven
10/16: Immigration in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

10/18: Internal Migration in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Great Migrations, Textbook, pgs. 225-242

Week Eight
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Introduction; Chs. 1&2

Week Nine
Jacobs, Chs. 7, 8, 9

Week Ten
Jacobs, Chs. 11 & 12

Week Eleven
Jacobs, Chs. 21 & 22

Week Twelve

Kunstler, Geography of Nowhere. Chs. 1, 2 &3

Week Thirteen

FINISH Kunstler