Jan. 10, - Defining Urbanization

 

Student Objectives

·         Students will learn the specifics that define urban areas and how urbanization works.

·         Students will be engaged in discussion of these two key concepts.

·         Students will have the appropriate mindset for the remainder of the course. They will learn the professor’s teaching style and the overall class format.

·         Students will have read the introduction to Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities and discuss Jacobs’ arguments for changes in current urban planning trends.

 

Materials

Copy of Jacobs’ The Life and Death of Great American Cities

Class roll

Extra copies of syllabus for student not in class on Jan. 8

Folder to collect signed student conduct forms

PowerPoint presentation of today’s lecture

 

Call roll – 2 mins.

 

Distribute Syllabi to new students – 10 mins.

Discussion – Briefly review the main points of the class syllabus, aiming discussion at: contacting the professor/office hours, required readings, course Web site, attendance policy, grading and assignments. Stress the importance of stay on schedule with readings and projects.

 

Distribute and collect Student Conduct Forms - 8 mins.

This form will serve as a contract between the students and professor. Emphasize that this tells them what they can expect from me as the professor and details what I expect from them as students. Should also stress the university’s student honor code and remind the students that they are required to follow it.

 

Lecture: Defining Urban Areas and Urbanization – 25 mins.

Goal: to explain and define basic U.S. Census Bureau terms regarding urban areas and urbanization, and to think about the role journalists play in the process.  

  • Begin by defining what an urban area is by using Census Bureau data,

o       “core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile and surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile,”

o       According to the Census Bureau, urbanized areas are those with 50,000 or more people, while urban clusters are those with less than 50,000 people.

  • Metropolitan Statistical Areas will also be covered during this lecture.
  • Then list examples of these urban areas in Florida, then some other examples nationwide. Currently,

o       There are more than 250 urban areas in the United States.

  • Urbanization, at the most basic level, is the change in population of an area over time,
  • this process has huge impacts on the local ecology, landscape, standing population and culture,
  • Ask students to discuss the reading in this context.

 

Jacobs argues that urbanization has done little good to help solve the problems in poorer areas of cities and actually perpetuates slums and other poor areas.

 

Students will be asked how we, as journalists, shape this process.

  • Typically, reporters provide coverage of the changing city landscape by covering development and new construction.
  • Newspapers and TV news also writer and air profiles about local residents influenced by this change.
  • These types of stories often evoke emotion from their audience, which then may feel compelled into action to change those areas negatively affected by urbanization.

 

Does news coverage serve as a call to action to local residents or does it merely shed light onto an unstoppable problem?

  • Students will have various opinions on this question.
  • Most newspaper and television stations will have a goal, or target reaction, they hope to evoke from the audience.

 

Preview for Next Class - 5 mins.

Give the class a short preview of what we will be discussing during the next class period.

 

What is urban journalism and why is it important?

  • Urban journalism differs greatly from rural or community journalism. This class period will explain why.
  • Highlight what types of issues urban reporters cover and report about.

 

What’s Ahead? Urban journalism, what is it and why is it important?

 

* * * *

Heads Up

 

Next Class – Students should have read the first 75 pages of Muckraking! The Journalism that Changed America. Remind students to think about their ideas of urban journalism and compare them to rural/community journalism.

 

Readings – Students should be reminded that they are to have completed each reading before the scheduled class period.

 

Jan. 15 – No class in honor of Martin Luther King Day.

 

Feb. 16 – First story/assignment due.