Analytical 3: Current Event Analysis

The issue that has developed more currently is the developing problem of urban sprawl. The term "urban sprawl" is used to describe cities where the people in a general urban area tend to move farther away from the cities over a long stretch of time. The reason why this could be bad is because of the risk of detroying natural habitats for many wild animals, as well as stretching out the amount of time to get from point A to point B. While some people like being more spread out, it can take a very long time to get to someone’s house if they live very far away to the cities, such as on a farm-like land. Living in a more rural area is not nescessarily a bad thing, considering the fact that people need farmer to help the production of milk and other food produce, but some people see it more beneficial if suburbs are more compact and closer together, while being very close to the city that they surround. The solution to this "problem" is what is called smart growth, which would, in the end, keep suburbs very compact and closer to the cities. This push to bring a city closer together has recently been seen as beneficial, because it would help reduce the exaggeration of people moving away from cities. More compact cities could improve the amount of time for alternate transportation, such as trains, which would make many people's lives easier, rather than driving to work. Others see the the potential solution as a way to cause more pollution, because of heavier traffic from more people and more car, even if it kept the highway system more compact. This isssue depends on the city, because some cities may have more spread-out suburb, making the trip from someon’s far-suburban home to the city a drag, especially when there is heavy traffic. Again, this heavier traffic would be a result of people refusing to take public transportation because of more crowded trains and/or buses. A city like Chicago doesn’t really have much of an issue, because there are suburbs like Skokie that are right next to Chicago, but extend farther out to separate themeselves, so that a person can choose whether he or she wants to live closer to Chicago, or closer to the neighboring suburb. A balance should be brought up as a potential solution, so that people stop fighting about this issue.

Analytical 2: Short Story Analysis

"To Da-Duh, in Memoriam" was a short story told in first person about a girl who started to get her grandmother interested in the technological advancements that places like New York City were starting to adopt. The grandmother did not like any kind of technology at all, and the narrator subtlely put in the grandmother’s tension when they walked on the streets of the 1930s New York City. Although this doesn’t directly relate to the growth of cities (population wise), it shows that there were still many people who were afraid of walking on the streets full of cars and crowds of people. The grandmother loved her granddaughter (the narrator), but still felt uneasy about setting foot in New York City any more than she did, and the narrator said, “As soon as we left Bridgetown behind though, she relaxed...." This was a very subtle way of implying that not everyone enjoyed any parts of a larger city, and she could be a reason that people could use to move out into the suburbs. The thing about more rural areas, though, is that settlers in the 1800s who developed a lot of these suburbs, including Deerfield, had to destroy acres of prarie, forest, and other places that were once the habitats of wildlife. Da-Duh didn’t really come from a suburb, though, but she didn’t understand why a city like NYC would have such hype to the point where she can make false and negative assumptions about what the people were like and how stupid technology was. The narrator spent a lot of time with her grandmother, and started telling stories about how the light switch was invented, and how people enjoyed the snow. The grandmother seemed to be somewhat-impressed by many of these descriptions, although she never admitted it. Near the end of the story, the narrator describes how tall the Empire State Building was, and the grandmother was in awe just based on her granddaughter’s description. By the time the grandmother would have gotten a photo of the Empire State Building, the grandmother died, from a tragic airplane attack on the island that she lived. The reason why this story was written was because the author wanted to show that while there is a lot of beauty in the cities, many people can still enjoy a more rural life, without the technology and big buildings, and it is important to experience both places.

Analytical 1: Background Analysis

One large part of Urbanization can be desrcibed as the number of people move in and out of the cities (A.K.A. urban growth), as well as why they might have moved between more rural areas and larger cities. A big issue with this specific part of urbanization is the excessive amount of people moving into the cities, which causes the cities to become either overpopulated or “large and in charge.” The 1700s and 1800s proved to be a time of more beneficial growth, because America was evolving constantly to get to where it is today. A place like New York City started off as a small town somewhere around time just before the American Revolution, then became a larger city because many Americans wanted to live in this growing city. This kind of situation is beneficial for both the city and maybe even the country, because it allowed people to gain more jobs and make money off of more people. These cities would later get much attention around the world if they became very successful in having attractions to give Americans a reason to move there. Towns are able to grow out because of the population growth. In fact Chicago was considered a town when it was first built sometime during the early/mid-1800s, but as it grew (dispite the Great Chicago Fire), it has become America's 3rd largest city. Frederick Law Olmsted, was a writer and an architech in New York City around the late 1800s, and wrote about the time between the 1860s and 1910 in his book/essay called "The Unplanned Growth of Cities." He stated, "Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings. Picturesqueness you can get. Let your buildings be as picturesque as your artists can make them. This is the beauty of a town. Consequently, the beauty of the park should be the other." He was saying that the beauty of the architecture in many residential buildings was starting to be taken away because of more people moving into New York City at the time, and the only way to keep the artisitic architecture alive was by creating parks. The significance of this book was that it discussed how the growth of cities can become very unstable. He was right, in quite a few ways, because there were larger scale fires that broke out because houses may have needed to be closer together to fit more people into the cities, and a number of epidemics broke out by the neighborhoods in places like New York City. Urban overpopulation can indeed become a large issue, but most people in America wouldn't notice an issue like this unless it was thrown in their faces. If overpopulation became a crisis, there would be far more homeless people than any American (or human for that matter) can imagine. A city that is too overpopulated can become a problem, and so suburbs and more rural areas are developed to spread out the population. However, when people general build suburbs farther away from these cities, there can be problems even with that, such as more money being spent on a highway system that can smoothly link those far-away suburbs to the bigger, overpopulated cities.

The Problems with Smart Growth

While smart growth could be a potential solution to reducing timing of traffic, and helping prevent issues with the environment, there are still many flaws with this idea. To start with, traffic could actually become heavier, which means that more fuel in cars would be reduced. One could argue that a public transportation system could help reduce the amount of fuel used by people who try to get to their offices, but the amount of money put into a public transportation system may not entirly be inexpensive, even with more people surrounding the cities. The article that I read said, "Smart Growth threatens the American Dream." I found this very interesting because the American Dream is a very large concept, but to make a claim that it smart growth threatens it is a huge statement, whether I or anyone else agrees with it or not.

Wendell Cox. "Smart Growth Is a Threat to the American Dream." Current Controversies: Urban Sprawl. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 11 Feb. 2010
source=gale&srcprod=OVRC&userGroupName=deer63488&version=1.0>.

What is Smart Growth

Smart growth is a potential solution to help reduce the outward sprawl from the cities to the suburbs. It helps create a new type of suburban environment, by staying closer to the cities. This would also reduce the amount of land that is used as highways between the cities and their suburbs, and as a result, more land could be saved for wildlife of forest preserves. There would be more compact neiborhoods, but the amount of polution would rise significantly from more compact and concise cities.


Cooper, M. H. (2004, May 28). Smart growth. CQ Researcher, 14, 469-492. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from CQ Researcher Online, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2004052800

Benefits of smart growth

Potentially, smart growth could be a good idea to base a solution on for urban sprawl. Urban sprawl itself has a lot of issues, and I think that smart growth could be a potential solution to this problem. The aritcle that I used addresses the beneifts of smart growth by saying, "Of course, suburban sprawl has been around for decades. But its environmental and cultural impact is becoming increasingly apparent as development expands farther from urban centers. Besides devouring open space and wildlife habitat, new suburbs degrade the quality of life in other ways, environmentalists say: By spending more time commuting, residents exacerbate both traffic congestion and air pollution. As runoff-absorbing trees and fields are paved over, stormwater that normally would have been absorbed into the ground ends up in streams, rivers and low-lying areas, often causing flooding or polluting waterways with salt, chemicals and microbes picked up on the way."

I see this as a benefit to reduce the amount of time and gasoline it takes to go from point A to point B. Since there is a global warming controversy, I think that this could help America become even more fuel efficient. Whether someone belives global warming exists or not, we can all agree that dependency for oil in the Middle East is and has never really been a good idea, because of all of the conflict and war that has gone on at least within the past decade. This concept is a good solution to at least consider, to reduce the amount of space that destroys forests and the homes of many animals.

Cooper, M. H. (2004, May 28). Smart growth. CQ Researcher, 14, 469-492. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from CQ Researcher Online, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2004052800

Defining an Urban Sprawl

An urban sprawl can be defined as the spreading of people between the suburbs and the city of a rural area. This means that people from a city spread out over a rural area and develop the suburban towns. The problem that I see with that is the fact that people have been in the past 150 years and are continuing to take down the forests, which inhabit many species of animals. The article that I read that discussed some of the disadvantages to urban sprawl by saying, "There are the obvious environmental costs of sprawl—lost open space and natural habitats, increased air pollution from more traffic, depleted water quality caused by urban runoff." Obviously urban sprawl is not the greatest thing for cities, and for the environment, but there could be things that are a lot worse. I think it is important for a highway system between the suburbs and the city, but the problems come in when it costs a state millions of dollars to build an effecient highway system. Since the highways are not as effecient as possible, it is important to keep in mind that the gasoline that cars use is wasted when there is a lot of traffic because of rush hour or an accident. I believe (and I know I'm starting to drift away from the topic that was focused upon in the article) that we need to have more fuel effecient cars to be able to withstand bad traffic, even beyond just highways. Most states in America can't afford an effecient highway system because it would cost millions of dollars just to start it.

Fregonese, John, and Lynn Peterson. "Smart-Growth Policies Will Improve Urban Areas." Opposing Viewpoints: Urban America. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 5 Feb. 2010 .

Response to "To Da-Duh, in Memoriam"

This short story reflected upon the opinions of people who were not accustomed to urban life. In this case, the grandmother of the narrator, named Da-Duh, did not like New York City, and it was implied not so subtly that Da-Duh was very uncomfortable with the cacophony coming from the streets. This was shown when the narrator described her grandmother after they left the city. She said, "As soon as we left Bridgetown behind though, she relaxed...." I think that this was a sign that she was very uneasy in even the slightest part of a city like NYC. I found it very interesting that Da-Duh had a stronger interest in different types of sugar canes to the point where she showed her granddaughter, the narrator, all of the different types of canes that were in her orchard. Da-Duh's orchard was outside of her house, and she lived in more rural environment that I don't think was in the US. Throughout the story, though, Da-Duh slowly starts to develop and interest in New York City after the narrator starts describing snow. I was really pleased when I read this part. When the narrator tried to send her a postcard of the Empire State Building, however, Da-Duh ended up dying before she could recieve it. Apparently the English sent low flying planes over her Island, and she was the only one who didn't really seem too worried. Of course I knew she was going to die, because the story was dedicated to her. I think that Da-Duh  represented one of many people who were afraid of the city, because of the major advancements in technology that occured during the 1930's when this story took place. Her granddaughter, the narrator told her everything she knew about all the cool new inventions that were made to make people's lives easier. Urban life was obviously very different from where Da-Duh enjoyed living and lived most of her life at. She enjoyed simple things such as sugar canes, and she was very opinionated on what people do to sugar to turn it into candy. Of course, candy started to become very popular during that time because people were starting to figure out how to make candy out of the canes that Da-Duh loved to view. I think urban life back then was a time when younger people were constantly evolving with the technology that was being made. Da-Duh's family obviously moved to the city, while she stayed in her rural town. Though she was impressed by how tall the narrator was describing the buildings in New York City, she still belived that she was safer away from urban life. The 1930's didn't really threaten the citizens of NYC, because people didn't really master flying airplanes; maybe for a small town, but not like a growing city as large as NYC.

Little Girl Get's Kicked Off Her School Bus 1 Mile Away From Her House

I was watching the news this morning as I was eating breakfast, and I was listening to a report about a little girl getting kicked off of her school bus a mile away from her house. Apparently, she called her mom right away and said "I don't know where I am and what to do!" The bus driver was a subsitute driver, which think is one of the most important and significant details to this case. The reason why this detail struck me was because my grade school in Chicago, Hawthorne Scholastic Academy, used a bus company called "Atlantic Express," and there were quite a few times where a substitute driver would go through my bus's route, but in a reckless and eratic way. She would make a sharp turn right out of the school, and many of the students on my bus would literally fall out of their seats! I'm not trying to imply that this substitute driver that I had 6 years ago is the same driver who kicked this girl off of the bus, but I wouldn't be surprised if the sub that I had a couple times was still subbing and was the one that kicked this little girl off. It would be even more coincedential if the girl actually attended my grade school! I imagine that being a school bus driver is a tough job and doesn't get a lot of pay, but being a substitute driver can be even harder if that person doesn't know what the route stops are. The sub that I had was absolutely psychotic, and I would hope she would never put childrens' lives in danger ever again.

DHS Bomb Threat

So 2 years ago there was a bomb threat at DHS, and I wondered if the threat was true or not. I can't say that I'm totally concerned because of what happened a couple of years ago. The problem is if they close the halls the way they did for the last threat, people wouldn't really get full enjoyment out of their free periods. I am planning on going to school, as much as I don't like it, unless my parents say otherwise. It would  be very nice to have a day off.  I imagine that if someone really wanted to bomb the school, they would do it without warning. The worst that this person would have done was put a stink bomb in the school somewhere, like a lunchroom. Obviously this person has psycological issues, and was willing to take such a risk to potentially get in this much trouble. I also heard they spelled "bomb" as "bom," which shows how quickly this person was trying to write it wherever it was.

A Different View upon Urban Growth

Even though increasing populations of cities only made the cities larger and the factories closer, there were issues that were created with this dramatic increase in population. Frederick Law Olmsted was one person who discussed the issues of dramatic population growth between 1860 and 1910 in "The Unplanned Growth of Cities." Olmsted wasn't describing this population growth in a negative way, but more in a way that was backed up by statistics that he knew of. The reason why his interpretation could have been trusted was because he was an architect in New York City between the late 1800s and early 1900s, and he designed parks for many cities. He was famous for created Central Park, though, so he understood what was happening with the population that went on around him. He also understood very well the problems with transportation and buildings that were occupied, and one of things he said in "The Unplanned Growth" was this:
"Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings. Picturesqueness you can get. Let your buildings be as picturesque as your artists can make them. This is the beauty of a town. Consequently, the beauty of the park should be the other." His point with this statement was that people in New York City were just beginning to become crammed in residential buildings because of the growth in population.

Frederick Law Olmsted " The Unplanned Growth of Cities," Annals of American History.

[Accessed February 1, 2010].

City Migration and Urban Growth

The migration to the cities did not necsessarily overpopulate the cities and towns, but increased the population in such a way so that the area of the cities expanded, and became larger. Henry J. Fletcher had described annlyized the growth of cities and the loss in population of small towns by saying, "It may be declared to be the general rule that, wherever the land is fully occupied, all the people not actually needed to cultivate the soil are being drawn into the towns, while the productive industries of the towns, together with those identified with them, are being transferred to the largest cities. For a certain number of years the country steadily grew more and more densely populated; this process came to a standstill, and now the tide is running swiftly in the opposite direction." He emphisized the idea in "Migration to the Cities" of the suburbs being developed because of the factories that exisited in the outer reggions of cities were able to become closer to the cities because of the increasingly dense population. Fletcher's anlyization mostly described the esrtablishment of the suburbs, but he discussed how the population grew in many American cities.

Henry J. Fletcher " Migration to the Cities," Annals of American History.

[Accessed February 1, 2010].