Studs Terkel, America's foremost Oral Historian and long time resident of Chicago, Illinois, has a significant archive of interviews curated by the Chicagao Historical Society. Cllick on his imarge to readh a series investigating issues regarding race.
I'd like to spend the class continuing to explore various kinds of URBS. I've done a little prowling around and discovered that many of the areas mentioned in Ezell's book have websites describing them and their glories. Some of these are also honest about their problems. I've prepared a page of links which you can access by clicking the button below.
I'd like to have each of you choose one or two to explore. Sorry, there aren't any blank slate urbs...I guess a website dedicated to nothing there was beyond the imagine of the urbanists who created the other websites for their communities. I tried to think of a way to assign these--some way which would both wide coverage avoid everyone chosing the same one, and at the same time not assign someone something he/she couldn't stand. I thought I'd tri an experiment. Choices will be first come, first served. So, view the entries by clicking below, and then choose an "urb" which has not yet been chosen.
Leave choice here
We'll prowl around these places, (you'll do the guiding) and see what we find of interest.
For Friday, May 2
On this, the next to last day we're together, I've decided there are two chapters in Ray Suarez' The Old Neighborhood, which we really need to read as a group. So, please read the following:
In Ray Suarez, The Old Neighborhood:
What We've Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966-1999
1. "What we lost" pp. 1 - 27
2. "The Persistence Significance of Race" pp. 122 - 157
I have many reasons why I think reading these chapters are crucial. I don't know if any of you were on this campus a few years ago when we showed Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. If you haven't seen it, make an effort to do so. It very much illustrates the theme of Suarez' book.
As I looked at the websites for the for the various URBS, I took a brief glance at the pictures designed to entice persons into reconsidering urban living. I'd like to have you do the same thing? Do you notice anything about the models featured in the pictures? What's your thesis about this?
Finally, I know there have been tensions on campus this semseter, and I've also I've been conscious of the way the current Presidential contests seem to have raised the "race issue" in new ways. For those who haven't caught up with them yet. I've placed Barack Obama's Speech "A More Perfect Union" on the website and a link to the speech of The Reverent Jeremiah Wright's speech as recorded for C-SpanHEREThe video may require downloading a free player.
