Rough Draft for Final Argument

Underground Atlanta, built and opened in 1969, was a retail and entertainments district. The site was mostly built on the idea to bring a public night life scene to the heart of the city. However in 1980, the district closed due to the construction of the MARTA transit station and later reopened at the end of the decade. During this time, the area was revamped and then placed on the National Register of Historic Places by civic and business leaders. However, due to its location and design, the historic site has begun to fail among attraction and business in recent years.

Underground Atlanta is located at the heart of Atlanta right before Woodruff Park, connected to the Atlanta Five Points MARTA Stations. Its location connected to the station could be one of the factors as to why it’s set for failure. One would believe that because the site is connected to a stopping point of transit stations that people who take these would think to go through the underground shopping area. However, most would probably avoid it nowadays due to some speculation. Because those that are assumed to take and rely on public transportation (i.e., the middle and lowers working class), the subject and fear of violence and crime is speculated to occur. Although the area itself is not meant to bring this and is set to be a family-friendly daytime facility and then a nightlife hangout, the latter seems to be one of the reasons for its failure.

Because the late night club came into effect among the 1970s, Underground Atlanta contributed to this by attempting to attract the goers of these nightlife events to its venues. Because over the half of Atlanta’s population is of African Americans, this tactic was used to attract that main particular audience. And since the black community was mainly targeted as the general audience for Underground Atlanta, white counterparts would feel unsafe to step into the district due to the rise of crime and violence that would most likely occur. Even though the area is set to be a lively attraction despite its dark location, excessive crime rates have caused attraction to stir away and business to close down. According to Galen Frysinger, on the wake of the Rodney King trial in 1992, the area was looted and destructed by rioters causing a 40% decline in sales. Because of this, marketing campaigns were used to restore a positive public image but still barely made it even during the time of the 1996 Olympics.

Violence and crime wasn’t the only thing driving tourists and potential business away, but the businesses themselves would set to leave the district. From my own visits to the districts, most of them are minority-owned merchants consisting of small businesses in an urban area. The amount of potential customers and consumers vary from time to time but to my own speculation, an average amount of visitors wander around the area in the daytime. I’ve yet to see what the area is like in the night time but however, due to my own safety and paranoia, even if I were to be with somebody, the desertedness of the area, especially at night is something I would avoid. It would seemed to me that because these are small minority-owned businesses that they’re usually have multiple sales and promotions going on with their items at reasonable prices to attempt to persuade potential customers to purchase their products. I would recommend to somebody to even consider shopping at Underground Atlanta because of the “cute” and inexpensive princes they have down there. However, because it only takes so much for small businesses to thrive, half of the merchant stores in Underground is set to be leased and is closed down. According to Michael Epps’ (2016) blog posts, he discussed with merchants about the decline of business in the area and they responded by explaining that the stores would relocate to other areas such as Midtown Atlanta or mall outlet facilities. I can tell you that the only major businesses I’ve seen in Underground Atlanta is Journeys and Foot Locker (including Kid Foot Locker), both of which are major show stores that carry major shoe brands. And even when I visited Journeys once my visit there, there were barely any potential consumers in the store comparing the the smaller businesses. Not only had the major businesses relocated out the district, one is particular, The World of Coca-Cola closed their Underground Atlanta location and relocated near Centennial Olympic Park in 2007. the reason as to the relocation might have been if brought into a more open and public area that the business wouldn’t be near where the crime was as well as to protect its own positive public image by no longer being among associations of such crimes.

Afar from its crimes, its businesses leaving and declining, many efforts have been made to keep the district from closing a second time. In 2004, bars within the facility were allowed to have a 4 AM closing time which is 90 minutes later than the rest of the city. Also, due to its locations, once again, although the area is blocks away from other major sites, its  surroundings have also stirred people away from visiting. Surrounded by abandoned buildings and struggling and homeless individuals have caused the area to appear as a dead zone. The only time when the area would be highly populated is on the turn of the new year of the annual Peach Drop that has been effective since its reopening in 1989. Although recent news that covered the drop may not occur due to the district dying out and the decline of business, other new sources have stated that the area is being brought by real estate for $8.8 million. According to Katie Lelsie (2014) of WSB 95.5 FM Radio, the major of Atlanta, Kasim Reed, would have sold the district to a developer from South Carolina for $25.75 millions to convert the area into a mixed-use environment with grocery stores and above-ground apartments to strike business in. Although this concept seems like a grand idea to bring back businesses and potential and even then, residential, consumers to the district, it would still be surrounded by the abandonment of other buildings casting a shadow of potential violence and crime to occur.

But because half of the area is closed down, that doesn’t mean violence and crime have circulated recently. Among my very few visits within the area, there would be security guards looking about the closed areas stopping any potential trespassers. I’ve personally have face two separate times where I hadn’t realized there areas we weren’t allowed to be in let alone sit in. The first one occurred in late September where I as with my friend taking photographs of her for a personal photography project. We were among the same level where the food court was, only along the bridges and terraces outside where some of the nightclubs would be located at. While walking down some stairs, a security guard warned us that we couldn’t go down there nor take pictures down there because the area was closed. The second incident happened where me and two of my friends went to Underground because one of them was the photographer taking pictures for a photoshoot while me and other were the subjects. While we were in the food court, we were in a further area that was still connected to the main food court but was being watched over by two security guards. While the food court was open and although no one but there three of us including the two guards were in that back area, they came up to us and informed us that we would have to speak to management to take pictures in that one are because it was closed down.

Now among these two incidents, the first one did not upset me or my friend because I was just going with whatever areas I could find to take pictures in. However, the second one upset all of us. The reason the latter upset us all because we found it unfair that they wouldn’t even let us use that area to take pictures in. We weren’t being whining or complaining about it because we also discussed how if we were to take pictures at Underground Atlanta and post them among social media and if people inquired about where the pictures were taken that when we told them that it’d be a promotion for the area bringing exposure and advising others to go check out the area themselves not only to take pictures but to go as tourists and eventually as regular visitors.

Because of that incident, violence or crime, or the dead zone ghosttown-like abandonment of the area wouldn’t be the main things that have driven people away from visiting the attraction, but the closed down locations and of being stirred away from certain areas has ceased the tourist attraction experience from expanding the areas, documenting them and recommending and sharing to others to follow suit. While Underground Atlanta still has that golden vintage-like interior, design and experience to become lively again from time to time, whether if it’s during the nightlife or towards the end of the year for the Peach Drop, it’s still a worn out, dark and dreary but nostalgic area that wants to bring people in but also sometimes force them to enter and stay out.

RESTROOMS FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY

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These are two different pictures of two different restaurants that are among the same street.

The first one on the left is Landmark Diner located right next to the Aderhold Learning Center on campus, and the second one is Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken located at Peachtree Center. These two different facilities are carrying the same messages implying that the facilities’ restrooms are for customers only.

This implies that unless an individual is planning on purchasing a meal that they are only allowed to use the restrooms of the restaurants. This tactic is used as in a way to stir away homeless individuals in particular that “if you cannot afford to eat here, you cannot use the toilet here”. I believe that this gimmick has been installed among many other food chain establishments in the city to prevent those that are not wanted because not only they cannot afford the meal ticket but would potentially drive business away if they were to be present among individuals that actually purchased the meal and are sitting down in the restaurant to eat or in other words, wealthier individuals. This can also be seen as if their consumers were to see that if they allowed strangers whether homeless or not to take advantage of their public service such as restrooms without returning the favor of purchasing something from the establishment that there would be complaints involved from these consumers.

It’s almost in a way as to where it’s okay to use the restrooms in the gas station if one is not planning on purchasing anything and is using it as a pit stop because most gas station facilities don’t mind at all who comes in or uses the restrooms because it’s publicly installed for the use of the public. However, when it comes to a restaurant that is set to cater whomever decides to dine in the establishment, it’s not built for public use. Meaning that “if you need to use the potty, you need to purchase something”.

In a way, I can see from both perspectives as to why restaurants only cater to those who buy from it and are stirring away any unwanted and unwarranted public attention that don’t plan on purchasing mainly because of the control of the business and environment itself. However, I do feel sympathy to those that seek the public use of restrooms because there’s only so many around that the nearest one could be a restaurant that wouldn’t allow you to “do your business” because you don’t have the funds for their business or really because all you want to use is the restroom.

A Long Walk to the Campus Recreation Center

The length of time it takes to walk to the recreation center: 15 minutes.

The length of time it takes to walk to Piedmont Central’s fit room: 5 minutes.

According to my own personal vendetta at least.

In my time of being enrolled in two different institutions including visiting another, while the campuses I visited or lived in have a certain beauty to them whether big or small, open and exposed or closed off and close together, the one building that seems to struck me out is the campuses’ recreation centers. The reason being I feel so impaled about these particular buildings is because they’ve always been to the farthest building to access on campus, especially if one is a resident living on campus.

From my experience of attending and living in Valdosta, the walk from my dorm, Langdale Hall, to the student recreation center was about twenty minutes. According to Google Maps, the walk is twelve minutes. However, if you were lucky enough to catch the shuttle, the ride would be about maybe ten minutes because the shuttle still had to go around the campus and had multiple stops if you were being picked up on North Patterson Street from main campus whereas coming from the recreation center heading back to the main campus dorms only took five minutes.

Even though I did not attend University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, I remember when I visited there that their recreation was nearly a mile from the dorms. They, too, had a campus shuttle system where one could take it instead of walking to there. I feel as though had I lived in or attended the school that it would be nearly a twenty minute walk. According to Google Maps, from the main campus to the facility would only be a nine minute walk.

At Georgia State University, according to my Google Maps app on my phone, the amount of time it would take to walk to the recreation center would be approximately thirteen minutes which isn’t really a far walk. However, as my personal vendetta stated, it only takes five minutes to get from the Piedmont North dorms to the new Piedmont Central dorms. The reason I included the dorms was because Piedmont Central, a new freshmen dorm that just opened this fall semester of 2016, has a fit room with smooth wooden floor, one wall covered with mirrors and a rack full of exercise equipment such as resistance bands, yoga mats and balls. Usually, when I decide to occupy the fit room, there’s either a few other people already there or coming in and out the room to use it as well. For the past few weeks, I have encountered a number of people, including residents of the dorm, that have used the fit room and have save themselves from a trip walking to recreation center.

 

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Even though campus shuttles are available to students, depending on the time of day or day of the week, the walking trips to and from the recreation centers have always stirred students away from making it to the building. Although some would look at the walk as a pre-workout prior to their actual workouts, others would most likely beg to differ. However, I believe that the structure as to why the campus recreation centers are farther than the other buildings on campus is used as a way to promote students healthier habits and lifestyle. That, if one were to attend the rec center and if the shuttle buses weren’t running on a certain day or say the weekend that it challenges the individual to take that “long” to the center pushing them to a better health than relying on a bus to carry them to and from the facility.

However, the installment of such fit rooms will encourage students, especially residents of that building, to occupy the space themselves and save them trips to and from the recreation. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the installments of said fit rooms are most likely to keep residential students away from the campus recreation centers; however, this does encourage the students to be able to “workout at home” if you will so they would still choose the option of maintaining a healthy lifestyle within their own dormitory facility. This also includes other residential students who do not live in the dorm where the fit room is held at but takes advantage of even the slightest of recreation area that is a closer access to them than the recreation center itself. Residential students like myself for example.

I Need My Space, Georgia State.

For the past few days, what feels like weeks, I’ve been avoiding people. And it’s not because they have done something to me as to where I cannot stand to be in the site or presence of them, it’s because I just do not want to be around them.

I’m an introvert, but this post is more about me being an introvert.

Going to an exposed and open campus like Georgia State University is great because everything I need is practically right outside my dorm, the classroom halls, right down the street, and a couple of blocks down in the city.

However, lately I felt as though I can’t sit anywhere without feeling like I have to pay for something, such as a restaurant, even if I’m there just to study and request for a free cup of water. But walking around looking for a quiet place to sit ALONE is nearly impossible because there’s not that many closed out places in which students, such as myself, can sit alone.

Take the library for instance. Yes, there are mini cubicles on the the upper floor levels, but even those cubicles are connected with another meaning that even if you don’t interact with another student that’s sitting right across from you, you’re not alone even in your own space. In the second floor of the library near the computers, there’s loveseats arranged in groups of four with a table in between two that are facing the other two. Now, I have sat in these seats from time to time, however, it’s kind of awkward trying to chill in your own little space whenever

1) you can hear everything a group of students is discussing sitting right behind in the other set of chairs

-and-

2) when another student or even a group of students sit in the same organized roundabout where you are.

Also, the student center plays a part on the structure as well. When you walk around the first floor of the student center, even though it is more larger and open than the library, there’s still that structure of chairs in groups of four with a table in the center. Now, many students take advantage of these chairs by scooting them away from the others and into their own little spaces, but still there’s that notion where even if you’re still not interacting with one another, you’re still together. Head to the second floor, there’s no four chairs and one table but more so benches and tables. However, all the way to the third floor, there is a row against one wall where it’s just chairs with attachable desks aligned. Usually, this is where most students would sit by themselves and spread out from one another, but it’s still in a sense of togetherness despite the lack of interaction.

Sometimes, I don’t feel like sitting in the chairs being surrounded by other people, and I’m sure some students feel the same way. When I go to the library, I (and a couple of other students I have seen) will sit in between the bookshelves to develop my own sacred breathing space from other people. When I go into the student center, it’s really hard to find an area to just sit alone so usually I’ve stir away from it. In my dorm, if my one of my roommate is in the room, I’ll sit in the lobby depending on how crowded it is or isn’t. And usually when students come in to find space to sit in the lobby, even if it was just one person like me in a booth, in a table with three other chairs, or on one of the small couches on the very back, they would stir away and look for another area to sit.

So, it’s not the students that’s bothering me. It’s not necessarily the structure of the chairs used for “chillin'” that bothering me either. It’s the demand I have for wanting to be in my own sacred and little space.

So it’s not you, GSU. It’s me.

Quotes from “What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?” by Dolores Hayden

“An implicit rather than explicit principle for the conservative and male-dominated design professions, it will not be found stated in large type in textbooks on land use.” (Hayden S170)

“Dwellings, neighborhoods, and cities designed for homebound women constrain women physically, socially, and economically.” (Hayden S171)

“White, male skilled workers are far more likely to be homeowners than members of minority groups and women, long denied equal credit or equal access to housing.” (Hayden S171)

“Men were to receive “family wages,” and become home “owners” responsible for regular mortgage payments, while their wives became home “managers” taking care of spouse and children.” (Hayden S172)

“In a brilliant discussion of the “patriarch as wage slave,” Stuart Ewen has shown how capitalism and antifeminism fused in campaigns for homeownership and mass consumption: the patriarch whose home was his “castle” was to work year in and year out to provide the wages to support this private environment.” (Hayden S172)

“Women who stayed at home experienced what Betty Friedan called the “feminine mystique” and Peter Filene renamed the “domestic mystique.”” (Hayden S173)

“According to Colleen McGrath, every thirty seconds a woman is being battered somewhere in the United States.” (Hayden S175)

“She finds that matching her complex family requirements with the various available offerings by landlords, employers, and social services is impossible.” (Hayden S175)

“The problem is paradoxical: women cannot improve their status in the home unless their overall economic position in society is altered; women cannot improve their status in the paid labor force unless their domestic responsibilities are altered.” (Hayden S176)

“In general, feminists of that era failed to recognize the problem of exploiting other women workers when providing services for those who could afford them. They also often failed to see men as responsible parents and workers in their attempts to socialize “women’s” work. But feminist leaders had a very strong sense of the possibilities of neighborly cooperation among families and of the economic importance of “women’s” work.” (Hayden S179)

“Suppose forty households in a U.S. metropolitan area formed a HOMES group and that those households, in their composition, represented the social structure of the American population as a whole. Those forty households would include: seven single parents and their fourteen children (15 percent); sixteen two-worker couples and their twenty-four children (40 percent); thirteen one-worker couples and their twenty-six children (35 percent); and four single residents, some of them “displaced homemakers” (10 percent).” (Hayden S181)

“In creating and filling these jobs it will be important to avoid traditional sex stereotyping that would result from hiring only men as drivers, for example, or only women as food-service workers.” (Hayden S182)

“Women must transform the sexual division of domestic labor, the privatized economic basis of domestic work, and the spatial separation of homes and workplaces in the built environment if they are to be equal members of society.” (Hayden S187)

“When all homemakers recognize that they are struggling against both gender stereotypes and wage discrimination, when they see that social, economic, and environmental changes are necessary to overcome these conditions, they will no longer tolerate housing and cities, designed around the principles of another era, that proclaim that “a woman’s place is in the home.”” (Hayden S187)

Quotes from Possible Worlds: Henri Lefebvre and The Right to the City by Mark Purcell

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be. If there is one, it is which is already here, the inferno that we inhabit every day, that we create by being together.” (Calvino 1972, Purcell 141)

I think this is implying that we as human citizens are living in hell with one another.

“The law also establishes that the development of urban land (whether in the formal sector or in the favelas) should be determined not only by its exchange value, but also by the “social use value” of the land and its surrounding area (Fernandes, 2006).” (Purcell 142)

This is implying if building new land will be a use of the social construct within the Brazilian city.

“Equal access for women to the power and resources of government will result in important material gains for people who are currently discriminated against.” (Purcell 143)

“Any citizen who believes that he or she has been wronged . . . may file a complaint with the ombudsman. This Charter is not intended to serve as the basis for a legal action nor to be used in a judicial or quasi-judicial form. (City of Montreal, 2006)” (Purcell 143)

“Member of Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) work on issues such as gentrification, environmental justice, homelessness, cultural preservation, juvenile justice, and the well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) youth.” (Purcell 144)

“Henri Lefebvre was a French intellectual whose career spanned most of the twentieth century. His work ranges widely, from radical philosophy to rural sociology to urban studies to state theory. His thought is held together, however, by an unwavering commitment to the project of imagining and achieving revolutionary change in human society.” (Purcell 144)

“As that understanding of socialism might suggest, although Lefebvre was very much a Marxist, he was by no means an orthodox one.” (Purcell 145)

“As a result, the default agenda of Marxism, which is an inadequate one, has become for a worker’s party to seize the state and abolish classes and the property relation. “Revolution,” Lefebvre says, “was long defined either in terms of the political change at the level of the state or else in terms of the collective or state ownership of the means of production ….Today such limited definitions of revolution will no longer suffice” (1991/1974, p. 422).” (Purcell 145)

“He hoped that an analysis of space, and specifically of the “lived spaces” that people actually experience, would be able to apprehend human life as a complex whole and avoid reducing our understanding of experience to small fractions of life, such as class status, gender, race, income, consumer habits, marital status, and so on.” (Purcell 145)

He was about the intersectionality spectrum of all these things, not just one thing from another.

“He argues that such a project requires what he calls a new “contract of citizenship.” This seems odd, given that Marxists have tended to ignore questions of citizenship and rights. Lefebvre acknowledges this, admitting that rights are generally agreed to be liberal-democratic, or what he would call a bourgeois, project. But as usual he works against the grain to argue that it is possible to recapture a revolutionary potential from the project of rights.” (Purcell 146)

“Rather rights are always the outcome of political struggle. They are the manifestation, the end result of collective claims made by mobilized citizens. Because they result from struggle, they are always subject to further struggle, to renewed political agitation.” (Purcell 146)

“As autogestion develops, as it becomes generalized throughout society, people increasingly realize their own power. They come to see themselves as perfectly capable of managing their affairs on their own.” (Purcell 148)

“For him the city is not only the context in which industrial capitalism developed most fully, but it also contains the seeds of the destruction of capitalism. Moreover, the city is already producing, here and there, the beginnings of an alternative society beyond capitalism.” (Purcell 148)

“Appropriation is thus closely linked to both de-alienation and autogestion, to inhabitants making the space of the city their own again.” (Purcell 149)

“The right to the city is not users claiming more access to and control over the existing capitalist city, a bigger slice of the existing pie. Instead it is a movement to go beyond the existing city, to cultivate the urban so that it can grow and spread.” (Purcell 150)

“The urban does not yet exist in its mature form; rather it is still partial, an occluded image of what it can become.” (Purcell 151)

“The right to the city is similarly a beginning, an opening, a starting out down the path toward a possible urban world. That possible world is a long way off, and it is also, at the same time, right in front of us.” (Purcell 152)

How Does the Traffic Design of Georgia State’s Campus Compare to the Traffic Design of Other Campuses

Partnered with Blake.

searched at library.gsu.edu using advanced search with terms: “georgia state university”, “campus”, and “traffic”.

Part I: Library Databases

  • Scholarly article: Parking and Traffic at a Local University by Georgia N. L. J. Polacek and Camille Shawntey Graham from James Madison University.

It is a scholarly source because it is published by students from another university. This article presents information regarding with surveys and statistics from the other students within the campus about the issues about driving and parking to campus. I would add to it mainly because it features statistics that have been recorded and researched from other students that participated in them.

  • Popular Culture: Go With the Flow: Campus Traffic and Parking Solutions by Ann McClure and KeriLee Horan.

This article is seen as a popular article because it presents a number of “tips” that is given to college and university students who are most likely to read this in order to exercise these tips in their search for parking spaces and avoiding traffic to/from campuses. I would use this because it does mention other schools in Georgia such as The University of Georgia that are having issues with campus traffic.

  • My experience from attending (and visiting) another college campus(es) such as Valdosta State University, Clemson University, and University of Alabama.

My personal experience from attending and visiting other college campuses prior to attending Georgia State University is a personal site because it is coming from a personal perspective. I would use this, not only because it is my own, but because I have seen and experienced different traffic designs from these other campuses.

When enrolled in Valdosta State, the campus is the center of a rural suburban town. So being a suburban area, there was not that much traffic going on. And because the campus was all in one area, there was no barely any traffic that circulated within it. The main parking deck would be located in one area far from most of the dormitories and near the campus recreation center. Comparing Georgia State’s campus to Valdosta’s, GSU is centered near the heart of Downtown Atlanta and the buildings of the campus are all spreaded out. Because of this, there are a number of parking decks that label by alphabets spreaded near these buildings throughout the scattered campus. Already being set in an urban environment, commuters, students and faculty members that drive to and from campus are already affected and a part of the traffic that happens within the city streets. Although most students are willingly to walk to class or take the shuttle services provided for us, others either search for parking spots near buildings or park at Turner Field.

Even though I never enrolled in these institutions, Clemson and Alabama campuses face nearly the same amount of traffic that Valdosta has. Except, I presume because these are larger campuses than both Valdosta State and Georgia State that during weekends, especially of football games, that the campus traffic is almost the same as Atlanta’s but more organization because the campuses are set in one area not spread out.

 

Part II: Pull a Useful Quotation.

“Adding parking lots or constructing parking garages only encourages increased traffic to campus and will not have a positive effect on the air quality of the community.” (Polacek and Graham 68)

Graham, Camille Shawntey. Polacek, Georgia N. L. J., (2011) Parking and Traffic at a Local University. James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

 

Part III: Paraphrase the Quotation.

The quotation is from the conclusion of the article which states that adding more parking lots and garages for students and faculty who drive and commute to campus will cause more traffic within the area and also cause more pollution. This I believe to be true. As a student that lives on campus, I hear stories from other peers that commute to and from campus who are always looking for parking spots and how some have even said that it has taken about an hour to find one. If that statement was exaggerated or not, still, despite attending a school with nearly 20 different parking decks located around campus, it is still difficult for students and faculty and staff to find appropriate and beneficial spaces. Also, the fact the excessive traffic causes more gas to burn, that causes a problem for the ecosystem regarding the area being polluted.

 

Underground Atlanta Thesis

How does the design of Underground Atlanta affect people’s’ behavior in the space?

T: The area is connected and right next to the Five Points transit station in which mostly a majority of middle or lower class people are using the public transportation systems.

T: Underground Atlanta is also located along a street where some stores are run down and is surrounded by groups of homeless or struggling individuals requesting for change or making out calls.

T: Half of the mall/clubbing area of Underground Atlanta is is closed down which sometimes can bring in potential trespassers or struggling/homeless citizens looking to stay in an inside area.

T: According to mepps2’s personal site response about the area, when they visited Underground Atlanta five years ago it was busy and lively. They have spoke to merchants about the change and how business have relocated in the recent years causing less people, including tourists, to come to the attraction.

Encountering the Foreign and Reading that Slays

“Their (Alliance) mission statement acknowledges Lefebvre as an influence as well as the tradition of human rights. They emphasize the importance of community members mobilizing and taking direct control of their own neighborhoods (e.g., through food cooperatives or community gardens), but they also work for more inclusion in the state apparatus, through policy initiatives (e.g., participatory budgeting) and voter registration efforts.” (144)

 

The citizens are regulating their own communities forming their own democracy because they are choosing how the government should be ran. However, they are also involved with government affairs such as budgeting and efforts for voter registration.

 

General Outlines for Unit 1 FBED & PSR, and Unit 2 FBED.

Unit 1 FBED

Thesis: The environment of the High Museum of Art conveys a family-friendly environment for all people to enjoy.

I. Families, especially ones with younger children, are at the museum exposing the children at such an early age about the art that is there.

II. Students and young artists would go to the High in groups or by themselves writing about or sketching out the art pieces on notebooks. There was also a group with an instructor that evaluated the concept of such art pieces.

III. The High Museum has activities for younger people such as children to do such as learning how to draw and create art themselves.

Conclusion: The High Museum signifies the value of its visitors by allowing them to come into groups whether in relation or for academic or even for fun. It promotes the study of art to the people when they are sketching them, taking pictures of them as well even teaching them to younger ones.

Unit 1 PSR

Thesis: It was my first time at the High Museum, and I was wandering around it taking it all in prior to my friend arriving.

I. I took playful pictures of myself and the art.

II. I elaborated on being able to experience the peacefulness yet joyfulness of the High as I would see peers on social media do.

Conclusion: I plan to visit the museum again sometime soon and take more pictures as well.

Unit 2 FBED

Thesis: The sounds of Centennial Olympic Park are very ambient meaning that you can hear the sounds of city surroundings within the park.

I. The rustling of cars passing through can be heard as their engines are running. This also includes the bell-like sound of the Streetcar passing through as well.

II. The sound of the rushing of wind is heard to signify that it is a breezy day.

III. You can hear these sounds as well as see where they are coming from when watching the video.

Conclusion: The city surrounds the park making it noticeable to hear when sitting in one spot in the park.