Week of February 5

Read, in Rybczynski,

2. “The Measure of a Town”

pp. 35 - 50

We’ll pick up our reading speed a little the week after this, but I want to makes sure we get some basic definitions straight in our minds, and I also want to give us time to practice with some of the tools we have available. I think of these early sections as “driver’s training” (which is odd because I don’t drive) and I hope you see how my thinking works here.

1.Rybczynski uses two different frameworks to help us conceptualize how cities are organized or laid out. The first of these is borrowed from Kevin Lynch, with an addition to accommodate the “automobile city”. Know the four types of cities used in this scheme. The second was created by Fernand Braudel. It sees three types of cities. The two are not mutually exclusive, and perhaps some cities are best described as incorporating parts of both.

2.Note that we begin to transfer more of our attention to New World/North American Cities. We’ll do even more of this in the next chapter. Rybczynski, like Jacobs, doesn’t provide us with illustrations. That’s no big deal. We’ll find scores if not hundreds of useful illustrations on the internet. I want to get you started with this now, using the Internet Exercise(s) described below.

Internet Exercises

Using the “Clog” tool on Bridges, I’d like to have you illustrate ONE of Rybczninski’s points featuring a city he mentions, using both a picture and a streetview. Pictures can be located either at http://www.panoramio.com or http://flikr.com. Or if you’re feeling really brave, find something about one of the cities in the Urban Webliography. Streetview is part of http://maps.google.com.

I’ve e-mailed everyone a list of the cities you all “discovered” in the classroom exercise the first day. The list took the form of a chart, with your name to the left and five cities to the right. For your five cities, I want you to First, Locate the city on City Data, and then find this information. A. The current Population, B, the number of identified Neighborhoods. Second, Locate the city on Google maps. Find out approximately what proportion of the city has streetview available. Third. Using Google, type in the name of the city with a period and gov. For example, Paducah.gov This will let us know whether or not the city has an official website. Finally, again using google type in the name of a city with the word archives. i.e Akron Archives This will let us know if the city has an official archive site. If you’re feeling really ambitious try the same thing, but with the words historical society. The idea is to locate how easy it will be to find information about those specific cities. When you’ve finished, send me a copy of the section of the chart for which you’re responsible to my e-mail address.