Thursday, 4 December 2008

Assignment 4
The fourth and last written assignment is due on the same day as the final exam for the course December 11th. It is a brief response essay on Peter Newman's 2006 article "The environmental impact of cities" from Environment and Urbanization (v.18, n.2, pp. 275-295). The essay is worth 50 points (or 5% of the final grade) and should be three pages in length, double-spaced with one inch margins all around, typed in Times New Roman 12 point font. Click here for the article.

You are expected to read the article carefully, take some time to think about all that it has to say abour environment and urbanization, and then just respond with your own thoughts on the matter of the environmental impact of cities. That's all! This is not a "trick" assignment, just one that hopes to engage your critical thinking and to allow you to go over all the stuff that you have learned in this course this semester.

CMAP Meeting
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), is conducting a community planning event at NEIU to discuss the Comprehensive 2040 Plan that is being developed and to get community input. Numerous such events are being held all over the region, and community input that is gathered will help shape the future plan. This is a great opportunity to learn about the process and provide your input that will help shape the future of our region. Topics to be discussed include urban sprawl, open space/ farmland preservation, jobs and transportation.

The event is being sponsored by the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies and is open to all community members. No registration is necessary. Please refer to the details below and in the attached flyer. Please feel free to distribute/post/forward the announcement and flyer to other community members as appropriate.

What: CMAP Community Planning Event

Where: Golden Eagles, NEIU

When: Tuesday, November 25 – 1:30-3:30 pm

Refreshments will be served.

Reading Assignment
For December 4th, students should carefully study the following:

Boone and Modarres, City and Environment, pp. 160-189

Peter Newman. "The environmental impact of cities" Environment and Urbanization, v.18, n.2, pp. 275-295)

Current Literature Presentation
On December 4th there will be five presentations. Calvin A. will present

Satterthwaite, David. "The urban challenge revisited" Environment, Nov 2007, v.49, n.9, pp. 6-16

In the years just preceding the publication of Our Common Future, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), several catastrophes had shown the vulnerabilities of urban areas to disasters. Some, such as the earthquake that hit Mexico City or the eruption that destroyed the city of Armero in Colombia, both in 1985, were considered natural disasters. Others, such as the toxic gas leak from an industrial plant in Bhopal in 1984 and the accident in the nuclear power station in Chernobyl in 1986, were caused by human error. Today, the distinction between natural disasters and those caused by human error would be questioned because so many of the deaths, injuries, and damage to property from natural events are preventable. It is the failure of city governments to support the needed investments in disaster protection, including "disaster-proofing" buildings and infrastructure, and preparedness that turns a storm, flood, or earthquake into a disaster. The impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 illustrated this so clearly. The need for more competent, accountable urban governments to address urban problems, including reducing the vulnerability of urban populations to environmental hazards, is at the core of Our Common Future's ninth chapter, "The Urban Challenge."

Nahid B. will present:

Tugal, Cihan. "The Greening of Istanbul" New Left Review, May 2008, v.51, pp. 64-80

Its population swollen by six million new arrivals in thirty years, Istanbul has sprawled outwards from the Bosphorus with dramatic speed. Cihan Tu?al analyses the contradictions of an urban Islamism, wedded both to vote-winning populism and to financial markets.

Eduardo T. will present:

Veron, Rene. "Remaking urban environments: The political ecology of air pollution in Delhi" Environment and Planning A, 2006, v.38, pp.2093-2109

In the growing field of urban political ecology, so far not much attention has been paid to air-quality and related policies. In this paper I examine the recent far-reaching air-pollution policies in India's capital, as well as the role of environmental nongovernmental organizations and judicial activism, in view of their implications for different groups of the urban population. I analyze these policies in the wider context of Delhi's ongoing strive for 'city beautification' and for changing (environmental) governmentalities, and reveal a marked middle-class bias in the environmental and judicial activisms practised, which also contributes to the refining of the boundary between public and private environments. Furthermore, it is argued that air quality with its complex sociospatial patterns plays a significant part in the coproduction of urban 'socioenvironments' that needs to be addressed in political-ecological studies.

Mary J. will present:

Heynen, Nik, Harold A. Perkins, and Parama Roy. "The Political Ecology of Uneven Urban Green Space: The Impact of Political Economy on Race and Ethnicity in Producing Environmental Inequality in Milwaukee" Urban Affairs Review, Sep 2006, v.42, n.1, pp. 3-25

This article investigates the role of urban political economy, private-public property relations, and race and ethnicity in the social production of Milwaukee's urban forest. By integrating urban-forest canopy-cover data from aerial photography, United States Census data, and qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews, this analysis suggests that there is an inequitable distribution of urban canopy cover within Milwaukee. Since urban trees positively affect quality of life, the spatially inequitable distribution of urban trees in relation to race and ethnicity is yet another instance of urban environmental inequality that deserves greater consideration in light of contemporary and dynamic property relations within capitalist societies.

And, finally, Brefni A. will present:

Hovorka, Alice. "Transspecies urban theory: Chickens in an African city", Cultural Geographies, Jan 2008, v.15, n.1, pp. 95-117.

New cultural animal geography offers conceptual tools for a reinterpretation of urbanization in Africa. This article applies transspecies urban theory to the existing literature on urban livestock in the developing world, as well as a case study of chickens in Botswana to demonstrate how cities are inextricably wrapped up in human-animal relations. A focus on animals as influential actors, and interspecies mingling encourages one to acknowledge that animals are shaped by, and are themselves central actors in the constitution of, urban form, function, and dynamics. Recognition of subaltern 'animal towns' challenges the perceived centrality of human existence.