All posts by Professor Jack Gieseking

Final Research Paper

Final Research Paper

Final Assignment: Final Research Paper

Due: December 17th, 2014 by 5 p.m. via email to P.JJG, post on the website, and posted to Blackboard

 

Your final paper will be a social science research paper. A social science research paper involves bringing together a review of already existing research in the literature alongside a rigorous, thoughtful analysis of new data and information (findings) in order to suggest further insights or recommendations. Overall, your paper and the datasets and map layers you create will be a contribution to the City of Portland and its citizens in helping them to consider “smart” futures not yet imagined. You are writing for an academic audience.

 

The final paper is a space for you to closely examine a social, economic, cultural, or political issue in Portland, Maine, in regards to your definition of the common good; offer a smart city solution to that issue by using technology to sustain or extend the common good in the city; and finally to briefly suggest a policy shift or reassertion of existing policy as a result. You will draw deeply upon academic and media literature on the issue and solution to demonstrate the current scholarly and popular perspective. You will provide a report of your methods of and the findings from your own research, the research of your peers, and already existing data. You will do this by producing maps (spatial analysis) and careful readings for themes in your ethnographies, mental mapping statements, transect walks, and other datasets (thematic analysis).

 

You will then reflect on your findings through the lens of the literature you collected and argue for your smart city recommendation for the City of Portland. In this reflection section, you are also encouraged to reflect on the limits of your data, the limits of data generally, and the limits of city governance, while also considering how what you have designed makes a difference. You will not code or fully design your recommendations, but you must carefully describe how your smart city recommendation works, with details about functionality, what groups would use the tech, and to what ends. As a culmination to the paper, you will also provide a brief policy recommendation for the city that reflects your technological intervention to show the larger shifts that need to occur to support the city; this policy recommendation may reassert existing policy, require new thinking, or refute an already existing policy. Finally, you must include a conclusion and works cited.

 

For more information on the other City of Portland datasets on the GISdata drive, see http://bit.ly/Bowdoin_Portland_metadata. Besides the libguide that Sue O’Dell created, you should also check out the Comprehensive Plan for the City of Portland that contains all of the major policy documents for city’s planning division, or peruse other relevant city documents here.

 

The paper should be:

  • Rigorous and well thought out, drawing on the writing and research you have done to date, as well as 2-6 maps (in QGIS or Mapbox) you have individually or collaboratively produced
  • Reference evidence from your or your colleagues’ ethnography, mental maps, and/or transect walk to support your arguments
  • 12-15 pages, double-spaced in Times New Roman font with 1” margins
  • Include citations for the resources from class

 

You will be required to cite and include the following:

  • at least 1 of the major policy documents of Portland,
  • at least 3 of the in-class readings,
  • at least 2 / maximum 6 individually or collaboratively created maps with legends, titles, etc.,
  • to find and draw upon at least 3 other academic sources, and
  • to find and draw upon at least at least 3 trusted media sources.

 

The paper culminates a range of skills learned in the class:

  • ability to basic conduct field research and data collection, organization, and analysis
  • ability to perform basic GIS analysis
  • ability to conduct academic and media literature reviews
  • an understanding of core readings, topics, and scholars in urban studies
  • an understanding of trends in smart urbanism and technological solutions for cities
  • an understanding of issues facing cities and our ability to intervene within them

 

The structure of a social science research paper mimics the description above and a sample outline is provided below. You can opt to have section headers if you like. The lengths of each section are merely recommended but should give you an idea of how to balance all of the required sections. Each of these sections is required in order to work through your argument, and the number of images or maps specified as well as the number of sources is also required. Each image (including maps, photos, etc.) can take up half a page maximum and must have a title and source for the data listed directly under it. For example: Title: Map of Possible Public Wifi Hotspots in Portland, Maine. Data Source: City of Portland 2014. You will be required to create and include at least 2 and as many as 6 maps using the data provided or other data that you can find. You may have up to 6 images total.

*

 

Sample Outline

Title

Research question: describe the issue you at hand, the smart city solutions you will offer, and the policy recommendation that accompanies this technological shift or extension of the city’s present way of serving its citizens; see the Comprehensive Plan and other city plans for Portland’s present approach (~.5 pages)

Approach to the common good for the city: give your definition of the common good as it relates to the city, whether it be economic, political, psychological, social, and/or cultural; reflect on how this fits the city’s policy approach to date (~.5 pages)

Approach to the smart city: present your definition by building upon smart city and urban studies readings from the course (minimum 2 sources) and that you have found (~1 page)

Literature review

  • Academic literature (minimum 3 sources): use academic journals and texts to find lit on your research issue as the technology you recommend for the city (~1.5 pages)
  • Media literature (minimum 3 sources): drawing on well regarded sources for cutting-edge reporting on technology, describe the state of the type of technological solutions that interest you and their uses (~1.5 pages)

Methods:

  • Methods used and why, how you collected and organized your data (~.5 pages)
  • What maps you created on what topics and why, and data used (~.5 pages)
  • What other datasets you turned to and why (optional, .5 pages)

Findings: What you found from your maps and other data and why this is important; do not analyze it yet but only describe the summary outcomes (.5 pages)

Reflections / Discussion:

  • Describe your proposed solution in detail with how the technology will work in terms of user experience, access, predicted impacts, and audience (~2-3 pages)
  • Reflecting back on the City’s policy approach and your solution, describe a policy recommendation may reassert existing policy, require new thinking, or refute an already existing policy (~.5 pages)

Conclusion: summarize your solution and why is it fitting (~.5 pages)

Works Cited

Assignments, Group Evaluations

Group Evaluations

Due online on December 11th.

In order to evaluate your group’s participation in the final group presentation individually, you will each get the opportunity to write a brief evaluation of each team member’s contribution. The form will be online and you can load it to Blackboard. You will critique and grade your peers as follows:

  • Their level of participation in the slideshow design and construction
  • Their level of participation in determining how your work fits together
  • Their level of participation in creating shared datasets
  • Their level of participation in presenting the slideshow
Announcements, Tech Tips, Writing Tips

Tech Websites for Your Media Lit Review

NYTimes Bits Blog http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/

NYTimes Tech News http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/‎

Wired http://wired.com/

Slashdot http://slashdot.org/

Simply Statistics http://simplystatistics.org/

Tech Meetups in Maine http://technology.meetup.com/cities/us/me/

EnGadget http://www.engadget.com/

Digg http://digg.com

Mashable http://mashable.com

The Verge http://theverge.com

Ars Tecnnica http://arstechnica.com/

CNet http://www.cnet.com/

ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/

Readwrite http://readwrite.com/

Digital Trends http://www.digitaltrends.com/

DtPlus http://www.dtplus.in/

Pando Daily http://pando.com/

Hacker News http://hackernews.org/

Machine Happy http://machinehappy.com/

The Next Web http://thenextweb.com/#!snAsG

Tapscape http://www.tapscape.com/

GigaOM http://gigaom.com/

Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/

LifeHacker http://lifehacker.com

 

Assignments, Group Presentations

Group Presentations

To be given in class on December 10th

As your group’s research and data will feed your own work in the final weeks, it will be important for you to present your own work as a group as well. This assignment will help you think about your work as it would fit with other recommendations from the city to gain a more complex understanding into the city’s future around housing, infrastructure, and public space. You will also be able to get and give feedback on other’s work.

Your presentation will take the highlights from your research and recommendations up to this point in the semester and present them with your research group. What would it mean for these recommendations to be implemented at once? Where does your work come together? How is it different, not only in topic but audience, approach, cost, use of technology, and impact? Overall, how will these recommendations support the growth of Portland as a smart city with an eye toward the common good? Be able to speak fluently and with detail and knowledge about your idea.

The group presentation requires:

  • A title slide with group names
  • An overall approach or framing slide
  • An individual slide (same background, font, layout throughout) for each student’s research with visuals and text (as needed on the latter)
  • One or two slides that discuss the overlap, distinctions, and overall
  • Convey your ideas in 15 minutes total, no more
  • Allows for five minutes of discussion time and questions

You will be graded on your presentation skills as a group in terms of:

  • Clearly conveying your idea
  • Showing a clear understanding of how your fit works together
  • Creating a well-designed (i.e. easy to read, not too much text, focused) series of slides

 

Assignments, Paper Topic Proposal

Paper Topic Proposal

Paper Topic Proposal: due November 12th

Describe one smart city policy recommendation that you as an individual along wish to examine and produce maps about that would be beneficial to the City of Portland and its residents in terms of sustaining or extending the common good. Be sure to address the following questions:

  • Given the present policies in Portland related to your topic, why is this solution of value?
  • What issues does your recommendation aim to confront?
  • How does this recommendation benefit the common good?
  • To what level does technology play a role in your recommendation for Portland as a “smart city”? Given our insights into the very broad definitions of a smart city, it is fair to use a definition that best fits you, but the role of technology must be considered.

Do reflect on the limited resources of the city and the varying interests of the city and its people, as you experienced them in your research. Mention at least two readings from class and the concepts within them that you will draw upon for your paper, as well as evidence from your research.

The topic proposal should be:

  • Rigorous and well thought out, drawing on the writing and research you have done to date
  • Reference evidence from your ethnography, mental maps, and/or transect walk to support your arguments
  • One to two pages, double-spaced in Times New Roman font with 1” margins.
  • Include citations for the resources from class
Announcements

Announcement! Build Maine: A tactical approach to growing Maine Towns and Cities

Build Maine: A tactical approach to growing Maine Towns and Cities

November 5 – 6, 2014
Bates Mill No. 1  |  Lewiston ME

How can we build economically stronger, more successful towns and cities in Maine through strategic, high impact investments?

What if all people involved in the work of building Maine — the builders, funders, elected officials, engineers, lawyers, planners, finance institutions, and rule-makers — converged to share aspirations and best practices for moving Maine forward within the reality of the new economy?

What if we added into the mix focused conversations with nationally renowned leaders in the fields of street design, real estate development, and public service to introduce ideas on how to do more with less?

Please join us on November 5 and 6 in Lewiston, Maine for Build Maine: a tactical approach to growing Maine towns and cities.

Build Maine is hosted by the Congress for the New Urbanism’s Maine Chapter (CNU Maine) with GrowSmart Maine, the Maine Municipal Association (MMA), and the Maine Real Estate & Development Association (MEREDA).

We hope you will join the conversation.

For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit: http://buildmaine.squarespace.com/

Announcements, Links of Interest

Handout: A History of the American Grid in 4 Minutes

A History of the American Grid in 4 Minutes

January 9, 2012 by Paul Knight

Reposted from: http://www.thegreatamericangrid.com/archives/777

The grid has been used continuously throughout the world as a development pattern since Hippodamus first used it at Piraeus, Greece in the 5th century BC. A lot happened over the next 2,000 years after that, but in 1682 William Penn used the grid as the physical foundation for Philadelphia. With that, the grid began its new life in the new America. Penn’s instructions for laying out his orthogonal plan were simple:

Be sure to settle the figure of the town so as that the streets hereafter may be uniform down to the water from the country bounds…This may be ordered when I come, only let the houses built be in a line, or upon a line, as much as may be…

Penn’s use of the grid may have been influenced by Richard Newcourt’s plan for London following the fire of 1666. However, Penn may have utilized the grid for its indexical qualities. The grid by its very nature has no built-in hierarchy. What better way to promote the Quaker value of equality than to build it into the very foundation of your new town. Philadelphia was the first city to use the indexical system of numbers for north-south streets and tree names for east-west streets. Because of this coordinate system, the intersection at 12th/Walnut has no more or less social or political meaning than that at 18th/Cherry. Every plot of land is essentially equal to every other.

Over 100 years after Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson executed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Following the acquisition of such a vast territory came the challenges of subdividing, selling, and occupying it. It was impossible to survey the entire area ahead of time so Jefferson devised a system that would make platting and selling achievable from a distance. Jefferson answered with the grid in the Land Ordinance of 1785. The Ordinance divided the entire western territory into townships, sections, quarter-sections, and so on. A system of Euclidean geometry made this possible. Having never stepped foot on their property, someone could point to a map, make a purchase, and start their wagon westward knowing precisely where they were going. Today, a cross-country flight will easily show the physical ramifications of Jefferson’s decision to subdivide our territory upon the grid. The vast majority of America’s western land is so arranged in logical lattice-work.

Following the precedent of Philadelphia, the grid has been used extensively in a number of American cities in every one of our now 50 states. Each of these cities, with their own purposes and reasonings, adopted the grid as their foundation with varying outcomes. In Chicago, the grid was used as a vehicle to maximize both the speed of development and financial speculation. In San Francisco, the grid flatly ignored topography and created a city of dramatic hills and valleys. In Paragonah, Utah, the grid was executed to promote the doctrine of Mormonism. But perhaps most famous of all American grids is that found in Manhattan. In 1811, the Commissioners adopted a master street plan that would come to define the city of New York centuries later. One of the greatest understatements of the 19th century was made by one of the commissioners at the time:

It is improbable that (for centuries to come) the grounds north of Harlem Flat will be covered with houses.

As we know now Manhattan did grow and it grew well beyond all expectations within only a single century. The grid was there to accommodate that growth.

In the 1920s, the roles of both the federal government and the States in the development of towns and cities were refined and codified. Amongst all of the legal changes, two documents stand out: the Standard City Planning Enabling Act (SCPEA) and the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (SSZEA). The SSZEA specifies the creation, adoption, and use of a zoning map. The SCPEA, on the other hand, specifies the components of a municipal master plan which is made up of a zoning map and a master street plan. Unfortunately, over the last 80 years judicial interpretation over what constitutes a “master plan” has allowed the zoning map to replace the master street plan. Without a master street plan the grid is essentially impossible to execute. Thus, our American grid’s recent history has been a stagnant one.

Finally today, we find ourselves in a situation where our cities develop piece-meal on a lot-by-lot basis. Because a zoning ordinance only regulates private property and does not–and legally cannot–provide for the public framework of cities, development is rendered essentially unplanned, unwalkable, and unsustainable. A reemergence of the American grid is warranted in order to restore much needed order to the places we call home.

Book References:
The Making of Urban America, John W. Reps
Measuring America, Andro Linklater
History of Urban Form, A.E.J. Morris
The Zoning of America, Michael Wolf