Your assignment is to analyze a city of Cairo in order to develop an understanding of the urban structure, context, and the conditions underlying its character. This will be a multi-part assignment that will conclude with a short and concise presentation of your findings.
The city should be significant and have a population of at least 600,000. It will also be more interesting if the city has had a colorful history. You are going to analyze the city in order to understand its composition, its demographics and generally the urban structure and conditions of the city.
Your findings and conclusions will be used to develop a proposal to improve the city in some way. For example, this could be in the form of new parks, improvements to the transit system, or some significant change to address climate change, etc. But with whatever you propose, you need to describe how the city will grow or change as a result of this action.
These assignments will culminate in a presentation to the class of your findings and your proposal or idea for the city – what can be done to improve urban conditions in the context you have chosen.
Part 1: Data collection –
You will need to gather basic data about the city and document this in a map form. Some of this data may require a bit of detective work as it’s not always readily available. Basic data should include:
• demographics (any obvious contrasts – either ethnic, class, or religious differences),
• topography – what is the general land form? – hilly, flat, flood areas, rivers, etc.
• land use – what is the general land use pattern (not each specific use)
• transportation – is there a public transit network, trains, buses, or all highways?
How does all of this affect the urban form? How do each of the above topic areas influence one other?
Part 2: Urban structure –
Determine what are the key elements of the city plan. This can be a more focused look at the central area, but should include major destinations or landmarks, primary paths and roads, districts and any other significant features of the city – much like the diagrams you did earlier, but for a broader area.
Part 3: Proposal –
What can be done for the city you’ve studied. This should build upon the analysis you just completed and address your particular area of interest with regard to cities and the city of the future. Think of this as a type of grant application, or a sales pitch in which you need to simply describe an idea, your rationale and what you think this will accomplish for the city.
Many cities looked at exactly this sort of thing in preparing bids to attract Amazon’s second headquarters to their city. These submissions often addressed questions about how the city would grow, how would it become more sustainable, or how could it offer the quality of life that would attract skilled workers, etc.
Part 4: Summary presentation – presentations –
This should be in the form of a ‘pitch’ of your idea – why it’s important and why it’s needed. This is a multi-part assignment, so each piece will build on the preceding parts. Please draw at least 4 digrams.
Please keep the written portion of each assignment brief – one page typed – (400 words maximum)
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