Class Schedule and Readings
All required readings are on reserve at the Rotch Library and are available at the MIT Coop. The cities of Boston, Cambridge, and others in the region are also primary texts.
Readings are also available on Stellar for those registered in the class.
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I. Reading the City Required Reading: Grady Clay, Close-Up: How to Read the American City, pp. 11-16 snd 38-65 (Chicago, 1980). |
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| February 8 |
How Can Cities Be Read and Why |
| February 13 | The Once and Future City: Processes That Shape |
| February 15 | Reading and Writing the City: The Case of Philadelphia |
| February 21 | Project Assignment #1 Due in Class: Select a Site |
| February 21[Tuesday] | Perspectives on Boston Sites |
| February 22 | Workshop: Designing Your Website |
| February 24 | Assignment #1 Due Online |
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II. City and Nature: Natural Processes as Agents of Change Required Reading: Anne Whiston Spirn, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (Basic Books, 1984); James Elkins, How to Use Your Eyes (Routledge, 2000): "Preface," "How to Look at a Culvert," "How to Look at Pavement," "How to Look at a Twig"; Alex Krieger, ed., Mapping Boston. |
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| February 27 |
Boston, A Natural Environment Transformed |
| February 29 | Workshop: Introduction to Fieldwork and Guides to Online Maps |
| March 5 | Earth and Water |
| March 7 | Air and Life |
| March 12 | Designing and Managing the Urban Ecosystem |
| March 12 | Project Assignment #2 Due: Your Site and Natural Processes |
| March 14 | Boston Sites: What Patterns Emerged? |
III. City and Society: Social Processes as Agents of Change Required Reading: Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Oxford, 1985); Sam Bass Warner, in Mapping Boston, edited by Alex Krieger. |
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| March 19 | Workshop: Looking at Maps |
| March 21 | Workshop: Writing, Editing, Revising |
| March 24-April 1 | SPRING VACATION |
| April 2 | Technology, Innovation, and Change |
| April 4 | Economics, Politics, and Change |
| April 9 | Culture, Fashion, and Change |
| April 11 | Boston in Historical Context |
| April 13 | Project Assignment #3 Due: Your Site Through Time |
| April 16 | PATRIOTS DAY HOLIDAY |
| April 18 | Boston Sites: What Patterns Emerged? |
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IV. Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Envisioning and Shaping Future Cities Required Reading: Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (MIT Press, 1995) pp. 14-43 and 226-238; Spirn, "The Yellowwood and the Forgotten Creek"; The West Philadelphia Landscape Project website. |
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| April 23 |
Workshop: On Finding and Photographing Traces and Trends |
| April 25 | Looking Back, Looking Ahead |
| April 30 |
Top-Down/Bottom-Up: Frameworks for Action |
| April 30 | Project Assignment #4 Due: Artifacts, Layers, Traces, and Trends |
| May 2 | Boston Sites: What Patterns Emerged? |
| V. Boston Sites: How Have They Evolved, Where Are They Headed Required Reading: 2011 Boston Sites; Jane Jacobs, "The Kind of Problem a City Is," in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, pp. 428-448. |
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| May 7 | Presentation and Discussion of Sites |
| May 9 | Presentation and Discussion of Sites |
| May 14 | Presentation and Discussion of Sites |
| May 16 | Presentation and Discussion of Sites |
| May 16 | |