Today, we're going to explore two interesting urban studies questions: what are "suburbs"? What do they mean at this point in history, when we now live in a majority urban world but an increasingly suburban world?
If you peek below, you'll see four questions that you should read and think about. They start out very simple, and then they get a bit more complicated and interesting. Take a few minutes to read these questions. Then start up a conversation with the talented and hardworking colleagues you're sitting next to! Move around if you'd like. You can read the textbook if you have it with you, or you can ready my lecture notes. But you can also call or text someone, or you can facebook with friends or family. You can tweet with your followers. Do anything you'd like to explore, learn, and brainstorm. Start with the first question and just see how it goes.
Now, here are the four questions:
1. What is a "suburb"?
2. Is suburbanism a distinctive way of life?
3. If so, is it better or worse than other ways of life that are not suburbia -- all those small towns and rural areas, all those places where people see themselves as urbanites, as city-zens?
4. If so, for whom is it better, and for whom is it worse?
Discuss! Start a conversation! If, at any time, you want me to stand up and give a lecture -- to a small group, or to the entire class -- then come up and ask. Or you can look over my shoulder while I revise the notes I've been taking on suburbia in recent years.
Or, why don't I give the document to you, and you can do whatever you want with it?
Right now it has my name on it, but you should free to "open source" the authorship with as many people as you'd like.
What does it mean to open-source the authorship?
Revise and rewrite this document as you see fit. Change as much as you'd like. You can select the entire text and press 'delete' and start from scratch. Or you can start working through my paragraphs bit by bit, reading my words, reading some of the stuff I cite if that interests you, and you can change the paragraphs and sentences. If you keep working on things, you might find one day that you have started from scratch -- simply by rewriting everything to get your voice in.
And it's important to get your voice in.
Because if you want to, you can use this as your independent written project idea for this class. Come up and ask me, in person, if you want further details on this option. So: revise the document, and then change the authorship line to this form:
EKWGG: [anagram of Elvin Wyly and YOUR NAME]
What's an Anagram?
An anagram is "a word or phrase made by changing the order of letters in another word or phrase (in the best anagrams there is a connecting idea between the original word and the anagram, e.g., 'best in prayer' is an anagram of 'presbyterian') [fr Mod. L. anagramma fr. Gk]) (Cayne, 1990, p. 32). J.K. Gibson-Graham (GG) are two of the most brilliant and famous geographers of our era (see their famous article, Gibson-Graham [1993]), and they inspire me (EKW) to follow their example. So in recent years I've been playing around with anagrams with friends and students. When I wrote something with Jason Hackworth joked around about calling ourselves Elworth Wyhack, but we never actually did it. Likewise, James Defilippis and I also had some ideas for an anagramed author -- the one I remember is Jam-Del Wyflipps or something like that, but I can't remember where the "D" went. Not long ago, George Rahi sent me a photograph he took of a performance artist and social critic who goes by the Name of "Reverend Billy." (See the photograph, and then scroll up to see another and read about Holly Foxcroft, when you follow this link. I found, after spending more time than I care to admit pressing buttons on a dot com website, that one of the anagrams of "Elvin Wyly" and "George Rahi" was "Every Original Rev Elegy" So that's the authorship of that photo and photo caption!
So feel free to rewrite my notes, and come up your favorite anagram!
References
Cayne, Bernard S., ed. (1990). The New Lexicon Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary. New York: Lexicon Publications, Inc.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1993). "Waiting for the Revolution, or, How to Smash Capitalism While Working at Home in your Spare Time." Rethinking Marxism 6(2), 10-24.
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