https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154721/1/Campbell_LetterfromFaculty.pd

Campbell, Scott

English

Deep Blue Documents at the University of Michigan

Agora continues its tradition of excellence moving into its 13th year. A team of graduate students are pushing forward Agora’s tradition of creating an open forum for discussion of pressing issues and future possibilities posed by the built environment. After winning The Center for Architecture’s Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals in 2018, we are excited to continue this tradition of excellence in student publication. As with last year, Agora continues to seek varied perspectives of the city. We once again welcomed submissions from colleges throughout the school with multi-disciplinary backgrounds. Within Taubman College, the Agora 13 staff has worked hard to create an inclusive environment where students gain new skills and refine their abilities in critical thinking, writing, editing, and design.The title of this year’s journal is Transformations. Built environments are in a constant state of change. The articles explore a variety of ways in which urban areas are transforming. Nadia Karizat in her article “The Story of Public Space” explores the transformations that have occurred in Beirut after the Lebanese Civil War. Ester Lo in her design piece entitled “Wearable Society” imagines a not-so-distant future where individual wearable technologies connect people with the urban fabric, allowing real-time transformations of the built environment. We are challenged by Emily Richards in “Seems like the Ghetto,” which exposes how language and perception combine to transform physical space in insidious ways. We would like to thank the staff of Agora 13, whose tireless efforts produced this exceptional work; its authors and photographers for sharing their visions; our supporters who make this journal possible; and our faculty advisors and peer reviewers for their expertise and guidance. It is through your collective efforts that Agora continues its mission of cultivating transformational thought to inspire current and future community leaders.We hope you enjoy this work as much as we enjoyed creating it!Emily Smith & Michael FrieseEditors-in-ChiefLetter From The EditorsIn 2006, an ambitious and stalwart group of Michigan planning students first optimistically floated the idea of creating a new, student-run journal. Yes, there were skeptics: wasn’t the era of print media ostensibly over, and did students with their busy schedules even have time to run a journal (and solicit articles, collaborators, funding and supporters)? But they persisted, and the first issue appeared the following spring. In subsequent years, this journal has become an integral tradition within the planning program, shepherded by successive teams of tireless and creative editors and staff. Agora has become an essential activity of planning student life here at Michigan, along with the annual Martin Luther King Jr. event, the Urban Planning Student Association (UPSA) the Expanding Horizon trips, and the capstone projects in Detroit.  At the end of each academic year, the current Agora staff passes the baton to the next cohort, attracting (and cajoling) a remarkable and committed cadre of new staff. Agora challenges students to find precious time outside their studies and other commitments to make this journal happen. They also are that rare journal that makes a substantive commitment to contributing writers to edit and re-edit over a tight, intense schedule. Importantly, they explore the power of writing as a tool beyond the classroom.Reading these pages, one is vicariously shuttled not only through the high streets and alleyways of cities around the globe, but also through the imaginations of emerging planners, designers, builders, activists, scholars. One vividly senses their critical engagement with the city, their mix of fascination and worry about our urban futures. One also observes the tangible and rich fluidity between disciplines: the mix of urban planning, architecture, public health, policy and urban design. There is also a fluidity of cultures and places, as authors cross borders and oceans, from Nashville to Ahmedabad, Beirut to Detroit, Cleveland to Beijing. Here is an emerging new global imagination about urbanism. Yes, here one can see the barriers and inequalities that divide the cities of the world. But one also sees the shared urban challenges (housing unaffordability, climate change, traffic congestion, pollution, etc.) and the shared values (sustainability, social justice, community, healthy cities) that create solidarity between urban planners from around the world. And these pages are richly illustrated with evocative photographs, highlighting the internationalization both of planning and of our students, which is a cherished attribute of our college and the larger University of Michigan.Congratulations to the Michigan planning students for a great issue and for all the activities of Agora over the school year (including the annual salon evening event). May the journal long thrive, evolve and capture the rich voices and experiences of the next generation of urbanists.Scott CampbellCo-Faculty AdvisorLetter From Faculty

Letter from Faculty

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154838/1/Campbell_LetterfromFaculty.pd

The editors of Agora 14 are sending this text to the printers at an exceptional pandemic time, as students, faculty, and the Ann Arbor community shelter in place. In the months since Agora hosted its annual autumn Salon and issued its call for papers, shuttered classrooms, empty campus sidewalks, and remote video conferencing have displaced the usual collective bustle of campus life. We are all improvising in the moment, attempting to sustain and recreate the tight-knit community of our urban planning program and beyond. Amidst this anxious, uncertain, and surreal spring season, Agora staffers nevertheless persist, stalwartly editing, refining, moving forward.  Some might say that in such crisis moments – faced with the immediate demands of securing groceries, staying safe, and maintaining some semblance of a normal daily routine amidst the isolation – it’s simply too hard to maintain focus on the long-term agenda of planning. Yet this is a moment when we need planning most of all: not just the specific professional knowledge to help rebuild collapsed local economies, distressed housing markets, unused public transit lines, and depleted community organizations, but also planning’s broader vision of community, of the importance of the public good, of calm rational problem solving, of taking care of immediate needs, and also of playing the long game. At a time of “social distancing,” we sorely need the faith and courage of planners to remind us of the power of social connections, and of both the vulnerability and the strength of urban communities.  As you read these baker’s dozen articles of Agora 14, you will see this engagement with the promise, vitality, challenges, and injustices of urban life. The themes are richly varied and internationally comparative: land conflicts, food insecurity, the intertwining of urban resilience and resistance, the shortcomings of planning academia’s cautious political stance, innovations in community GIS work, the unintended consequences of zoning and regulating smut, the promise of urban national parks, diseases of urban poverty, and the troubling urban design consequences of the booming tech sector. Several leitmotifs emerge. Authors repeatedly return to the theme of inequality, from Detroit to China (two locations that are frequent touchstones in our program). And the deepening housing crisis (worsened by growing inequality, winner-take-all urban economies and short-term rentals) reminds us of this most basic need for shelter, and the state’s abject failure to accept responsibility and sufficiently fund and support affordable, dignified housing. Overall, we see, in these pages, planning’s pragmatic mix of both professionally attending to short-term urban needs and also critically confronting the larger, enduring issues of social justice, fairness, sustainability.  Heartfelt congratulations to the authors and editors for a job well done in trying times. Getting Agora 14 out the door, on time, is a testament to your hard work, persistence, and commitment to scholarship, each other and the larger community.  Scott Campbell Faculty Co-Adviser (with Julie Steiff)letter from faculty

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154721/1/Campbell_LetterfromFaculty.pdf

Letter from Faculty

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Deep Blue Documents at the University of Michigan

Deep Blue Documents at the University of Michigan