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.

 

I. Reading the City

Required Reading: Grady Clay, Close-Up: How to Read the American City (Chicago, 1980)

February 7

How Can Cities Be Read and Why

February 12 The Once and Future City: Processes That Shape
February 14 Reading and Writing the City

February 20
[ Tuesday ]

Perspectives on Boston Sites
February 20 Project Assignment #1 Due: Select a Site
February 21 Workshop: Designing Your Website
February 26 Guides to Reading and Writing Boston
March 2 Assignment #1 Due Online

 

II. City and Nature: Natural Processes as Agents of Change

Required Reading: Anne Whiston Spirn, The Granite Garden (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."

February 28

The Granite Garden: Boston, A Natural Environment Transformed

March 5 Earth and Water
March 7 Air and Life
March 9 Project Assignment #2 Due: Your Site and Natural Processes
March 12 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.

March 14 Looking at Maps
March 19 Technology, Innovation, and Change
March 21 Economics, Politics, and Change
March 26-30 SPRING VACATION
April 2 Culture, Fashion, and Change
April 4 Boston in Historical Context
April 6 Project Assignment #3 Due: Your Site Through Time
April 9 Boston Sites: What Patterns Emerged?

 

IV. Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Envisioning and Shaping Future Cities

Required Reading: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; Spirn, "The Yellowwood and the Forgotten Creek"; The West Philadelphia Landscape Project website.

April 11

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

April 16

PATRIOTS DAY HOLIDAY

April 18

Shaping Future Cities

April 23

Shaping Future Cities

April 25

Shaping Future Cities

April 20

Project Assignment #4 Due: Artifacts, Layers, Traces, and Trends

April 30 Top-Down/Bottom-Up: Frameworks for Action
May 2 Workshop: Writing, Editing, Revising

 

V. Boston Sites: Where Have They Been, Where Are They Headed

Required Reading: 2006 Boston Sites

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 11

Revised Paper Due