Assignment

Take a walk in the North End, and look carefully at the neighbourhood around you, especially the smaller streets on either side of Hanover Street (Prince St.; Salem St. etc.). Think about this part of the city and Jane Jacobs' ideas about urban history and density. Then take a walk around the Prudential Centre in the Back Bay, including the parking garages and elevated plazas around the apartment buildings. Think about this area in the context of modernist urban planning ideas. Write about your impressions of the two urban spaces, examining the ways in which the layout of the streets, green spaces, lighting, density, building uses, mixture of domestic, public, and retail spaces, and scale (among other things) contribute to the experience of pedestrians, drivers, tourists, and city dwellers.