The component of your assessment is an essay of 2,500 words.
Choosing one topic, write an academic essay in a formal written style. Your work is expected to include an introduction, body, and conclusion: your structure and argument should be clear, and your essay should critically analyse ideas relevant to the topic, rather than restating them. You are expected to draw upon a large number of diverse and high-quality academic sources, with a minimum of ten references. Harvard, APA and Chicago styles is acceptable for citation: seek the permission of your tutor if you wish to use an alternative.
Students are not to extrapolate upon ideas or topics utilised in prior assessment.
Essay writing resources will be available through the LMS. In addition to this, workshops will run during tutorials. Further assistance will be available through individual tutors or the subject co-ordinators during consultation hours.
This assessment is due at 5 pm, on November 6 to the LMS.
Learning objectives and generic skills
The key activities in this assignment are:
•Identifying and defining the focus and theme of your essay.
•Developing a response to your chosen essay question.
•Presenting a coherent, succinct, well-structured and rigorous essay argument.
Assessment task
You are required to submit a final essay answering one essay question (from a range of questions to be released in Week 7 of Semester 2). If you wish to create your own essay question, please contact the course co-ordinators for their approval.
1. The early twentieth century saw the emergence of modernist, futuristic dwellings and urban areas. What influenced this movement, and what did relevant key figures aim to represent in their work? Was this vision epitomized and actualized within urban landscapes and built form?
2. Having selected one strategic document applicable to a city, identify and define a strategic area of interest. You should critique the feasibility, application, limitations, and outcomes (where applicable), of this strategic directive. You should also detail any potential implications relating to the vision(s) presented within the strategic document, utilizing external academic discourse.
Attach a copy of the relevant parts of the plan as an appendix to your essay.
3. Colonialist attitudes and institutions have provided a ‘one-way street' of cultural and social development, based primarily on the colonizing power. Using examples discussed in readings and in class, in addition to your own research, how can cities of the future remedy colonial injustices?
4. Suburbia, and suburban life, has often been associated with the utopian notion of ‘the Australian (/American) Dream'. Has the ideal vision of suburbia been achieved? What are the realities of suburbanization? Discuss with reference to at least one city, and its metropolitan area.
5. What historical precedents exist for ‘green cities' in non-democratic countries? Discuss one vision or plan applicable to a chosen location, noting the influence of external factors (e.g. bureaucracy, government cycles, etc.).
6. Harvey describes neoliberalism as a utopia of social process that has to negotiate spatial relations. Choose one city to exemplify how the ideal of free-market is shaping urban form, and how that ideal is realized or compromised in the process of its materialization.
7. Visions of a future city generally propose a spatial and/or social order, but anarchist utopias aim for disorder. Provide three examples of urban spaces shaped by anarchist desires, and discuss their intersection with State powers and social norms.
8. What is the ‘right to the city'? What key challenges exist in creating more socially-inclusive cities for the twenty-first century? Discuss this with reference to one selected demographic or social issue, within a defined spatial context.
9. Selecting a single form of technology how has this historically shaped, and reformed, city around the world? What capacity exists for this technology to further transform urban environments? To what extent are these technologies liberating, or constraining, on individual residents of cities?
10. You may develop your own essay topic. Any proposed topic must be approved by the subject coordinators.