Assignments for "Briefs" for GEO367, Urban Social Geography

Spring 2006

Dr. Meghan Cope

Questions? E-mail Dr. Cope at mcope@buffalo.edu

Brief 1 -- Due Monday, Jan. 30, 2006 by class time (1:00pm)

The assignment for Brief #1 is to write an "abstract" for each of the readings (Ch. 1 of Knox & Pinch, Ch. 8 Kaplan). An abstract is a summary of the most important points from an article, and typically does not exceed about 250 words. Please note that you should write an approximately 250-word abstract for each article. Writing abstracts (or 'summaries') of longer reports and articles is an excellent skill for both academia and the big bad world out there, so here is a chance to practice.

Abstracts must cover the most important points, but they do not merely use the language word-for-word of the longer article (that would be plagiarism!!) - rather, they are interpretations of the article and may use simpler language to increase the ease of understanding.

Therefore, in writing an abstract for each of the two articles, you will need to make sure you understand the main themes and can explain them well in (mostly) your own words. A good technique is to pretend you have to tell your roommate or your mom what the article is about.

 

Brief 2 -- Due Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006 by class time

We have read and talked about many ways that the shift to a post-industrial economy and globalization have impacted cities. Review and discuss three impacts of post-industrialism and globalization on US cities including at least one impact on the built environment and one impact on the social landscape (i.e. how people live their everyday lives). Remember to use your own words to summarize others' information and quote appropriately with correct bibliographic references (see examples below). You do not need to use outside materials in your brief, but you do need to cite the assigned readings properly. Approximately 2-3 pages plus bibliography.

You will be graded both on the content of this brief and how well you summarize and reference the materials, proper spelling and grammar, etc., so please pay attention to format issues too.

Example of how to summarize, quote, and reference other people's ideas (borrowed from my student, LaDona Knigge's, Ph.D. proposal):

The earliest origins of the urban community gardening tradition date back to the Industrial Revolution in England when community areas were divided into allotments for the growing of food for low-income people. In cities like Buffalo, Chicago, and Boston, similar relief programs for the poor were implemented (Kurtz, 2001). As Williamson (2002, p. 259) states, "Community gardens provide a way to simultaneously counter visible scars of urban decay, such as vacant lots, while also rebuilding community connections.".

Note that the first sentence is LaDona's own summary of information. The second sentence summarizes someone else's work (Kurtz's) and references that work by last name and year of publication -- the rest of the citation will appear in the bibliography at the end of the paper. The final sentence is a quote from Williamson -- note that the page number is included for direct quotes.

She then has the following information in her bibliography (use this style for your papers too!):

Kurtz, Hilda. 2001. Differentiating multiple meanings of garden and community. Urban Geography, 22(7): 656-670. (This is one acceptable style for a journal article: Last name, First name. Year. Title of article. Name of Journal, Volume#(Issue#): pages.)

Williamson, Thad. 2002. Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era. New York: Routledge. (This is one acceptable style for a book: Last name, First name. Year. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher.) If you were just using a chapter from a book, you would include the title of the book and the page range.

And here is the proper format for referencing a website:

Children's Urban Geographies Project. 2005. http://www.geog.buffalo.edu/research/geokids/ As retrieved Jan. 18, 2006.

Brief 3 -- Due Friday, March 31, 2006 by class time

We have talked all semester about the 'socio-spatial dialectic', the idea that people construct social and built environments but are also constrained to live within their bounds (physically and socially). This process may be especially apparent at the neighborhood scale because of the fine-grained, everyday character of people's social interactions and relationship with the built environment. Consider the following questions and write approximately 2 pages in answer. The film shown in class on Wed., March 8th, Dreams of a City: Creating East Palo Alto, will be especially helpful for examples.

• What everyday-level social practices make neighborhoods and communities? (Think about both the positive elements of feeling connected to a place and its people, and the negative elements of how some people are excluded or made to feel unwelcome as a process of defining the us/them boundary and writing it into space.)

• How do ideas of inclusion and exclusion (along race and class lines) affect the development of neighborhoods and the definition of communities?

Brief 4 -- Due Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by class time

Two current issues are raising new questions about the standing, status, and conditions for minority groups in the US. First is the deeply racialized poverty revealed in the hurricane crisis of August/September 2005. Through media, the attention of the US turned to the isolation, poverty, and living conditions for poor blacks in New Orleans and the Gulf Region in a way that was unprecedented and some advocates are attempting to sustain the interest in order to make sure the same (or worse) conditions do not fall back into place with rebuilding. Second, the immigration bill (HR 4437) currently under consideration by the US Congress, which would tighten the borders against illegal immigrants and make it a felony to either be in the US without legal standing or to aid anyone who is here illegally, has sparked some of the largest popular demonstrations in major cities that this country has seen for quite some time.

The assignment is to think about these two current issues with respect to questions of segregation in US cities. Pick either New Orleans or the Immigration Bill issue and do some research on the web about it. In your writing answer the following questions:

• What are the implications of this issue for US cities, particularly with respect to poverty and race?
• What are some creative policies that cities could attempt to minimize the worst effects of segregation?

Your brief should be 2-3 pages, double-spaced and proofread. Make sure you cite your sources properly (see brief 2, above, for an example of citing a website).

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