Now Lets Make ChicaGLOW

I'm ending my junior year, which means I'm ending Urban Planning with our last unit: "Flow". In this class, we discussed the designs of neighborhoods locally as well as globally. I saw some neighborhood designs from all over the spectrum, like cities from hundreds of years ago, in different countries and even locally. My favorite cities that we researched was Curitiba and the Pullman district, they’re both different designs and turned out different but I enjoyed learning about those different communities, it was inspiring and eye opening to learn how urban planning really affects citizens in different ways. While researching during our internal investigation, we viewed and listened to James Kunstler’s, Majora Carter’s, and Ellen Dunham-Jones' Ted Talks. They all presented 3 different subjects on communities and cities. These subjects talked about the architecture of cities and how it’s gotten lazy, the inequality of communities, and how we can fix these issues with concepts such as retrofitting. There were also other terms my classmates and I dissected like white flight, R.C.I. (Residential Commercial Industrial) communities, and N.I.M.B.Y. (Not In My Back Yard). For our External Investigation, we visited the pedway system downtown that connects all of the train lines, including the Metra.

MW, The Rede, 2019

I used all of this new information to redesign my very own neighborhood! I planned out a design at an intersection that has a lot of empty and unused spaces.

 I didn’t want to do my neighborhood because there’s nothing really here except houses and a few stores here and there. I then told myself how this was a good opportunity to apply my urban planning skills and make this intersection with nothing to do around it into the center pf this neighborhood. To find out what I wanted to do, I had to reflect on why do I have to leave my neighborhood to do things? After answering that, I thought about how there are kids my age in my neighborhood and there are even younger kids and how we should have more community centers so there can be more interaction throughout my block. For the new design, I used Minecraft to best represent what I wanted. This design relates to 2 different SDG's

SDG 11.7- by 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, particularly for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities. All of the spaces that I added were public and while designing them, I thought of how everyone could be involved no matter your age, race and capabilities. 

SDG 11.6- by 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality, municipal and other waste management. I added recycling and garbage on the streets. If you look at my design, the blue boxes represent public waste management because I know Chicago isn't the best at waste management.

MW, Bike Lanes, 2019

Peter Calthorpe has 7 different principles to build a better city. While designing this, I thought about those. One of them is to raise the bike rate, I believe that with bike lanes, people wouldn't be as hesitant to bike, Another one is walk, with these spaces so close to a residential area, it would be so easy to walk and go to the library or go to the park instead of having to drive. He also talks about spreading out the density of cities and bringing more community spaces to neighborhoods like mine is a step in the direction of spreading density around in a city instead of having everything downtown or having to travel. 

Overall, this was a challenging action project and it was completely worth it, I enjoyed doing everything. I'm glad that I got to use Minecraft as well because I personally enjoy playing Minecraft so it was cool to have a crossover with what I'm doing in school. This course, Urban Planning was a great class to take and I plan on sharing what I learned with my peers outside of school because it's all useful information. 

Sources:

“Chicago Cultural Center | Choose Chicago.” English, www.choosechicago.com/things-to-do/museums-and-arts/chicago-cultural-center/.

“Sustainable Development Goal 11.” Sustainable Development.org. United Nations. Web. 3, Jun 2019. 

TED. “7 principles for building better cities | Peter Calthorpe.” Youtube.com. Lesson by Peter Calthorpe. August 31, 2017. Web.