on Little Five Points
Thursday, February 11, 2016. @ 6:00 PM
See: A lot of Graffiti. Many people walking around, all ages. Restaurants. Clothing shops. Smoke shop. Record store.
Hear: Rap music. Cars. People talking. People laughing. Someone playing a drum.
Smell: Pizza. Car exhaust. Perfume.
Touch: Cold seat of outside seating.
on 
In one of the alley ways in Little Five Points, I found this masterpiece. What probably started out as graffiti is now a beautiful piece of art on the sides of two buildings. I came across this in an entrance of the main parking area in Little Five. Each wall has its own theme. The wall on the left is more realistically done where the one on the right is very cartoon-like. (Click on image to see detail)
Thursday, February 11th, 2016. @ 6:00 PM.
on 
“Making Bathrooms More ‘Accommodating'” by Emily Bazelon explains some of the troubles of transgender people. She also questions why our society has separated males and females in the ways that we have. Emily does this by using the simple main example of specific gendered bathrooms by pointing out the unease people have or would have if they had to share restrooms with the opposite sex. She mentions how many people do not agree with the idea of mixing both genders in restrooms. Some people have gone as far as campaigning against men being allowed in women’s restrooms and vice versa. Bazelon also adds how schools handle the issue when it comes to transgender students. Majority of schools call transgender students by the names they ask to be called by, and they allow transgender students to be on whichever gender of a sports team they identify with. Even with both of those accommodations, there are remaining issues on if transgender students should be allowed to use the same dressing rooms and bathrooms as the gender they identify with. Emily Bazelon gives an example of an issue that came up in Illinois where a transgender girl was not allowed to change with the girls because of lack of privacy for the girls. The solution that came about was a curtain being put up to give more privacy. This way transgender students can be accommodated and the mixing of genders becomes less problematic.
Emily Bazelon then goes into talking about accommodations or rather the lack there of. She speaks on how accommodations have been made for the people who have disabilities and even for peoples’ religions. Yet accommodations for transgenders have not been made. Bazelon points out how it seems that people who are transgenders are the ones who have been making changes to accommodate others instead of others trying to help accommodate them. Not only do people who are transgenders fall short when it comes to being accommodated, women are slightly looked over also. Bazelon makes note of women having to wait in lines for the bathroom, which is not a rare occurrence, while men move quickly in and out of the bathrooms because urinals help them to do so. Accommodations for men are more frequent compared to accommodations for women and especially transgenders.
Brazelon continues making her point by stating how the separation between men and women as far as using the restroom is something that was created by society a long time ago. It began when women stopped being housewives as much and began joining the working community. Women were looked at as more fragile so they needed their own restroom that they could retreat to at work. Since the bathrooms have been separated for so long, women also see their restroom as somewhere they can go and chat or freshen up away from men. Many women are uncomfortable with the idea of a transgenders being in their restrooms because then the restroom will not be specifically for them. This view on the women’s restroom discourages any movements toward limiting the separation of sexes and accommodating transgenders. Brazelon states that adjustments are necessary for coexistence. Everyone needs to feel like they belong.
on 
Chernoff, Michael. “Social Displacement in a Renovating Neighborhood’s Commercial District: Atlanta.” The Gentrification debates: A Reader. Japonica Brown-Saracino. New York: Routledge, 2010. 295-303. Print.
This source is about social and physical displacement, specifically in Little Five Points, caused by built environments. Disagreements began between the residential area and the business owners when talk began about altering roads and such in order to let more traffic through. The residential area wanted no part of this, but the business owners were all for it because they saw opportunity to make more money. In this way, the built environment drove these two groups of people apart. Even later on, old merchants and new merchants began having disagreements due to the same change in the built environment that was only desired by some. The dispute on altering the built environment in Little Five points is creating social displacement between the old and the new. This shows how important the built environment is to the people who live in or around it.
I chose this source because it showed how changing the built environment can have such a large impact on people, and it is specific to Little Five Points which is my exterior built environment. The information is somewhat outdated, but even with it being outdated it shows the effect of the built environment on its people. My source one and two are directly related because they are both about the desired alteration to the built environment in Little Five Points.
on Gutman, Robert. “The Social Function of the Built Environment.” The Mutual Interaction of People and their Built Environment. Ed. Amos Rapoport. Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1976. 37-50. Print.
This article is about the built environment’s impact on a person’s behavior and social organization. It shows how built environments are created in a way to produce the behavior of a person that is desired. Architects design buildings and such to create specific reactions to the environment. Gutman also explains how architects design buildings in a way to improve social communication.This article has shown me that every built environment in Atlanta, or any other place for that matter, is built the way it is to create a certain reaction from the people using the environment.
This source gave a lot of explanation behind the relationship between the built environment and a person’s behavior. It explained why things are built and set up the way that they are. Gutman gives perfect examples to show how the architectural designs of built environments can produce the behaviors that they are supposed to. For instance, he used the example of how a lecture hall is set up the way it is to have students focused on the speaker. I found no flaws within this source. This article reinforces what I have read in my other two sources about how the built environment can have a large impact on the people who use it.
on 
“Little Five Points: Atlanta’s Alternative Neighborhood.” City-Data.com. Some parts © 2016 Advameg, Inc. N.d. Web. 4 February 2016.
This source describes Little Five Points in Atlanta. Due to the location of Little Five Points, it has almost always been a place of interest in the East Atlanta area. Up until the 1960’s, Little Five was a well-known area for shopping. Then a freeway was placed right through the middle of it, and the area became segregated. This freeway created such separation that the whole area changed. The 1970’s was when Little Five started to come back as something new. The division that was created by the freeway made Little Five evolve. Now Little Five Points is a very mellow, hip place where people with piercings, colored hair, and tattoos can be seen. It has become a very artsy and unique place.
I chose this source because it is about my exterior built environment and it specifically tells how something that was built changed the whole area. The only problem with this article was that it did not contain quite enough information on the separation caused by the freeway, but it included more information on what the area has to offer now. This source’s information was only a step in the right direction compared to my other sources, but all three of my sources are somewhat interlinked.
on How do you sign up for the group meeting thing?