Revised Annotated Bib. #5

Celeste, Eric. "Solving Downtown's Homeless Problem Begins with Taking the Red Pill | Cover Story." Creative Loafing Atlanta. Creative Loafing Atlanta, 3 Nov. 2011. Web. Apr. 2016.

Celeste, Eric. “Solving Downtown’s Homeless Problem Begins with Taking the Red Pill | Cover Story.” Creative Loafing Atlanta. Creative Loafing Atlanta, 3 Nov. 2011. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

Celeste, Eric. “Solving Downtown’s Homeless Problem Begins with Taking the Red Pill | Cover Story.” Creative Loafing Atlanta. Creative Loafing Atlanta, 3 Nov. 2011. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

In this article written by Eric Celeste, he discusses how homelessness is a major problem in downtown Atlanta and that it needs to be solved. Celeste explains how he viewed Atlanta when he first stayed in downtown for a week and how no matter where you went downtown you’ll see homeless people near hotel entrances, in the streets, or on street corners camped out. The reason why he believes the homeless population is so big downtown is due to the shelter and route up Peachtree to Pine where you see various types of homeless people: aggressive, cracked up, and angry. This is what he believes is the issue, the dichotomy of homeless people located in downtown. He then goes on to talk about how he and a friend visited different homeless organizations to observe them passing out food and blankets. According to A.J. Robinson, the homeless issue is a blessing and a curse due to downtown’s response of showing they care and the overabundance of homelessness downtown due to no one else doing it regularly. Also, the Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs) want the problem of homelessness to go away. However, this issue will not be solved until Peachtree-Pine shelter is gone.

 

Annotated Bib. #9

"Study: Atlanta Traffic 7th Worst in Nation." Writ. Jay Black. News 95.5 AM750 WSB. Atlanta. 13 Feb. 2013.

“Study: Atlanta Traffic 7th Worst in Nation.” Writ. Jay Black. News 95.5 AM750 WSB. Atlanta. 13 Feb. 2013.

In this blog entry, Darin Givins expresses his thoughts about Atlanta’s built environment. In the opening, Givins examines an interview with Jim Durrett of the Buckhead Community Improvement by the website Curbed Atlanta, who expressed his thoughts on how there needs to be an improvement on transportation. In this entry Givins insists that unless the built environment is accommodated into an alternative that is more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, then people will continue to rely on cars for transportation, creating traffic. He then goes on to make an amusing point about public transportation and the trouble Atlantans often seem to have an understanding of traffic flow and city form. He believes the reason Atlantans view the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) as a transit system that doesn’t go anywhere is because the design of the city is sprawling, encouraging the use of cars more while discouraging walking, bicycling, and public transportation. Lastly, Givins discusses how telecommuting is an answer and how it isn’t a reasonable solution because it doesn’t promote smart growth and alternative transportation. It’s viewed more as an anti-smart and transit system that isn’t showing much progress. I found this blog entry knowledgeable by I never thought about the built environment centered around transportation for metropolitan cities as mentioned in this blog entry.

 

Givens, Darin. “Atlurbanist.” Web log post. Reducing Car Trips in Atlanta The Quote in This… ATL Urbanist, May 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2016

Druid Hills

 

Leslie, Katie, and Mark Niesse. Residents in the Druid Hills neighborhood, one of the oldest and wealthiest communities in the Atlanta area, will soon consider a key question about their future: Should they stay or go?. Photograph. http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/druid-hills-considers-becoming-part-of-atlanta/ngrzT/. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 31 July 2014. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.

Leslie, Katie, and Mark Niesse. Residents in the Druid Hills neighborhood, one of the oldest and wealthiest communities in the Atlanta area, will soon consider a key question about their future: Should they stay or go?. Photograph. http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/druid-hills-considers-becoming-part-of-atlanta/ngrzT/. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 31 July 2014. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.

This is a picture of one of the oldest and wealthiest communities in Atlanta, Georgia.

ARCHITECTURAL EXCLUSION: DISCRIMINATION AND SEGREGATION THROUGH PHYSICAL DESIGN OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

In this article named Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment by Sarah Schindler she discusses how infrastructures such as public transit systems and highways are being used to keep certain segments of the population the – often the poor and the people of color – separate from the others, particularly the wealthy whites and suburban communities. This article stresses how the lawmakers, courts, judges, legislators, and elected officials treat the architectural exclusion. Throughout this article Schindler examines how the built environment controls and regulates our behavior and how architectural exclusion manipulates their residents, local elected officials, and police forces through their actions of creating and designing infrastructures and built environs to restrict passage through and access to certain areas of communities.

The first section of this article speaks briefly of how most citizens are blind to how architecture is coined as regulation through the systemic social inequality that is apart of these monumental structures of concrete and steel. A quotation that will help you understand and summarizes this first section well, is Nicholas Blomley’s term “traffic logic”: “the idea that planners and civil engineers prioritize the flow of pedestrians and traffic through a physical space, with a focus on civil engineering, rather than prioritizing equal access to a physical space for all, with a focus on civil rights” (Schindler, 1945). Blomley’s quotation summarizes how many cities facilitate planning decisions that include exclusions and how various legal scholars have confronted these concepts in context to class and race.

The second section discusses how various states and municipalities create and design different infrastructures to exclude localities from having access to physical barriers, such as buildings walls and barriers so the poor and African-Americans cannot have access to them. Some other things that revolve around architectural exclusions are transit systems that include these exclusionary transportation designs: placement of transit stops, highway routes, bridge exits, and road infrastructure, wayfinding: one-way streets, dead- end streets, and confusing signage, and residential parking permits. Throughout all of these sections, they explain how race has been a contributing factor for limiting the geography of transit to eliminate low-income and minority neighborhoods. A great example that describes this from the text would be the scenario about Cynthia Wiggins, “a seventeen-year-old woman who was hit and killed by a dump truck while she was attempting to cross a seven lane highway to get to the mall where she worked” (Schindler, 1964). Another example that shows that these white residents are still succeeding in keeping black residents out of their neighborhoods is the wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs who have opposed efforts of MARTA expanding into their neighborhoods because they don’t want people of color to have way access to suburban communities. Also, the lack of public transit in these communities make it difficult for those who rely on transit to access job opportunities located in those suburbs

This article sums up the perfect example of architectural exclusion of malls, businesses, and residential areas using the highways, roads, and bridges as a way to exclude some city residents from those areas.