Thesising

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That's right, semester I is almost over, and that means we're moving towards our thesis work. "A one year programme with a thesis?" As Omar Little says, "IN-DEED!" No one said it's going to be just some simple course work, so let's get to work. Our first assignment in preparation for formulating various thesis questions in order to narrow down our topic was the prompt assignment. I've included all the questions and included my answers. Although I considered tackling another topic, one I'm already considering implementing with Kalimat - that of media and design education and how these fields can empower communities to become collaborators and producers, but since I live and breathe Kalimat, I decided to focus on another topic I found interesting and the only questions I could compile were merely the same ones reworded, so I'm pretty set on my area of interest. Plus, I think it encompasses the definition of social design pretty well.

Formulate 3 different potential thesis questions.

• How can we rebuild neighbourhoods to make them safer, more liveable, cohesive, inclusive and open to everyone without displacing the residents?
• How do we avoid thinking that gentrification is beneficial to neighbourhoods and find new solutions to revive areas that have negative reputations of high unemployment, crime and other factors?
• What are the elements required to rebuild a neighbourhood in order to make them more inclusive and cohesive without displacing the residents?

Share 3 existing (socially focused) projects or initiatives that inspire your thesis.

• Face your world – Ohio, Slotervaart and Rotterdam:
• The idea behind Jeanne vanHeeswijk’s project “Face Your World” is to offer children a learning environment, in which they could learn how to investigate and adapt to their living environment. Children could engineer their surroundings, combing and re-using existing elements in order to devise new and innovative visions for their city. Children were given digital cameras to photograph various downtown neighbourhoods, they would then upload the photos into the Interactor, a 3D computer programme which allowed them to reconfigure their environment using the images and the 3D version of the city. They could then select from a library of images whatever they needed to change their environment.  
•  http://www.jeanneworks.net/
•  http://www.faceyourworld.nl

• SumCity by Interboro Partners: 
• Neighbourhood change is inevitable in a dense, desirable city like New York City. But does neighbourhood change have to be a zero-sum game? Does someone’s gain have to be someone else’s loss, or can neighbourhood change happen in a way that mutually benefits both parties? “SumCity” is a neighbourhood development plan for the Dutch Kills Neighbourhood of Long Island City. The neighbourhood was chosen for a few reasons: on the one hand, it already evidences the values of SumCity development, where one party’s gain is another party’s . . . gain. Dutch Kills—like most parts of Long Island City—is radically mixed-use, with a diversity of land uses, building types, and cultures that not only coexist, but actually mutually reinforce each other. On the other hand, Dutch Kills is going to change: development pressure—in the form of hotels, class A office buildings, and luxury residential towers—threaten to disrupt the neighbourhood’s fragile ecology. Intervention is needed if Dutch Kills is going to grow in a way enhances what’s great about it. 
•  http://www.interboropartners.net/2011/sumcity/

• Roundtable Lisbon - Reinventing centralities: Urban Regeneration and Mobility:
• The aim of the Roundtable was to illustrate how innovative planning and mobility can help policy makers to respond effectively to intensification and cohesion strategies, and to inspire the various urban stakeholders to strive for an imaginative, ambitious approach to future policy development, area frameworks and individual projects
•  http://www.inta-aivn.org/en/activities/exchange/roundtables/2011-lisbon/roundtable-lisbon-reinventing-centralities

• Baltimore Open City
• An open city is a place where everyone feels welcome, regardless of such things as wealth, race, age, or religion. In every neighbourhood of an open city, one feels like he or she belongs. However in Baltimore—as in most American metropolitan areas—issues like housing discrimination, bad public transportation, and the privatization of public space separate people, and create an uneven distribution of health, wealth, and education. The exhibition Baltimore: Open City, students of Maryland Institute College of Art’s Exhibition Development Seminar invited scholars, activists, community-based organizations, local artists, and visiting artist Damon Rich to create a series of installations, workshops, and other public programs that investigate the ways in which Baltimore is and is not an open city.
• http://baltimoreopencity.com

• Arsenal of Exclusion/Inclusion
• This yet to be released book explores the 101 “weapons” that architects, planners, policy-makers, developers, real estate brokers, community activists and other urban agents use to restrict or promote access to the space of the city.
• http://www.interboropartners.net/2011/arsenal-of-exclusion-inclusion-mural/
• http://arsenalofexclusion.blogspot.com/

Identify a reading that informs your thesis questions.

• Monocle's 2009 25 most liveable cities index - Issue 25, volume 3, July 2009

Post a written reaction of the reading.

• As a regular reader of Monocle, I look forward to their annual “Top 25 Cities” survey where they start off with a shortlist of 40 cities and send researchers to urban centres to compile data, and who make their decisions based on various indicators. I didn’t have a copy of the 2010 edition off hand and so I read through the 2009 edition. Even though Monocle’s idea of a great city isn’t the ideal example I want to base my research on due to its somewhat elitist nature, the indicators they provide for the survey are a great foundation. Here are the indicators, and I’ve included if they are relevant to my research or not:
• Safety/crime
• Relevant
• International connectivity
• This is more relevant to the city as a whole
• Tolerance
• Relevant
• Urban Design
• Relevant
• Public transportation
• Relevant
• Medical Care
• This is more relevant to the city as a whole, I would change this indicator to “access to medical care”
• Pro-active policy development
• Relevant
• Access to nature
• Relevant
• Climate/Sunshine
• Although sunshine is an important factor to happiness, I wouldn’t think it’s as relevant to what I am proposing
• Business conditions and ease of opening a business
• Relevant
• Environmental issues
• Relevant
• Chain store pollution (international vs. local)
• Relevant
• Infrastructure improvements
• Relevant

Most of the indicators are relevant due to their broadness and I feel I can definitely expand on these and make them more about neighbourhoods than whole cities.

Looking over the survey, it’s not surprise that the top 25 cities are mostly in Western Europe and four in Japan. The 2009 survey is heavy on small business start-ups due to the financial events that took place in 2008: where is the best place to start up a business and to get the most resources? They emphasise that city governments do more to encourage existing small businesses to flourish and expand and encourage entrepreneurs to launch new ventures, an element I feel is important to rebuilding neighbourhoods that retain the residents.

The survey also discusses how residents are getting more interactive and how access to open data can increase citizen engagement. Peter Tattersall, an architect in Helsinki, initiated workshops where residents can put together plans for new developments in their neighbourhoods which are subsequently submitted to the architects and city planners involved. City DIY type projects are another essential piece for rebuilding neighbourhoods.

What I really love about Monocle’s survey is the various initiatives and projects taking place in the top 25 cities they feature. You can tell it’s well researched and the short paragraphs discussing every indicator are extremely informative. I also enjoyed the chain store pollution indicator – it was fascinating to see the numbers amongst various cities and how many rely on local businesses vs. international ones. For example, Madrid has 43 Zara locations (no surprise, Zara is a Spanish company) and 40 Starbucks locations, Vancouver has 1 Zara and 120 Starbucks locations, Montreal has 3 Zaras and 16 Starbucks location and Copenhagen only has two Zara’s and two Starbucks location (both cafés are at the airport).