CITC09H3
Introduction to Planning History: Toronto and Its Region
Fall 2020
Mid-term Essay Assignment
Write an essay of about 1500 words answering ONE of the four questions listed below. This assignment is not calling for a full-on research essay. It simply offers an opportunity to show, in properly written form, how much you have learned from the course materials about these four founding concepts in planning history. The lectures and assigned readings which are not listed here should be sufficient to answer any of these questions adequately. For those who wish to go a little deeper and gain a better understanding, additional readings are suggested. But there is certainly no need to go beyond these one or two additional readings.
Essays are to be in conventional academic form: double-spaced, standard font, ample margins, and a title page with the student’s name and the essay title. There is no need for a bibliography since the readings are prescribed, but specific points or direct quotations taken from the source material should be cited by in-text references with page numbers.
Essays are to be uploaded to Quercus by midnight Friday October 9. Late papers will be accepted but penalized 3% (out of 100) per day late, including weekend days.
This course does not use ‘turnitin’.
Be sure to:
Above all, answer your question, all parts of it.
Use as much course material (lectures and readings) pertaining to your question as you can
Remember that details matter and almost always make an essay stronger.
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Why are the antecedents covered in Stephen Wards chapter not considered true planning? Why, in particular, is the work of Camillo Sitte only an antecedent? Considering Sittes own writing, does this seem right?
Jon Petersons book, assigned for Week Four, offers a slightly different list of planning antecedents, and his presentation might deepen ones understanding of the concept [e-book accessible through UTL catalogue]
Information about Sitte, and digitized versions of his complete book, are readily available on the internet [see Week Two Reading Note]
What, in some detail, did Ebenezer Howard envision for his Garden City? What were his overall objectives with this undertaking?
The assigned reading is just two chapters of Howards book, but a digitized version of the entire book is available through the UTL catalogue
Peter Halls book Cities of Tomorrow, excerpted for Week Nine, has an excellent chapter on the Garden City; the UTL has no e-book but has numerous hard copies, in various libraries; past editions are fine
To what extent is the Toronto Guild of Civic Arts 1909 Report on a Comprehensive Plan … a City Beautiful plan?
William H. Wilson, The Ideology, Aesthetics, and Politics of the City Beautiful Movement is a dense but seminal article on the intellectual foundations of City Beautiful [PDF will be posted in Week Four Module]
The chapters in Petersons book after, and to some extent before, the assigned chapter (8) present a more complete picture of CBs foundational principles [e-book accessible through UTL catalogue]
What precisely was/is the Athens Charter? To what extent does John Gold believe it accurately reflects the thinking of European modernist urbanists in the 1930s?
The entire Athens Charter is on-line, and the subject of all sorts of commentary (not all of it very well informed, so be cautious)
Gold published an article in Town Planning Review (Vol. 69, No. 3, July 1998) specifically on the Charter, expanding on what he writes in this book chapter [the journal TPR is available on-line through UTL catalogue]
Above is the instruction of our midterm, I will upload all the articles posted by the professor. Some of the articles or books can be found at UTL Catalogue (U of T online library resources), I can help you to find if you need, just tell me the title.
October 4th, 2020 
Business Law – Federal Agency Rule Comment
We are learning about Federal regulatory agencies, and how they make new rules. The first step in that is that the agency publishes a notice about a rule in the federal register, and the parties, you, me, or anyone, can comment on the new rule. This assignment will have me look at those rules, and comment on one of the rules.
The steps would be:
1. Go to the website federalregister.gov.
2. Look for the outstanding proposed rules. Use the search features to look around and then find 3 proposed rules that may interest you or that may provide you enough interest as a way to garner up to 5 points for this exercise and 2.5 extra credit points. Don’t just look at today’s proposed rules, but look at least three from the last 6 months or so. List the 3 proposed rules, and the objective of the rules.
3. Then, find a proposed rule in your field of interest, and read through it. If you can’t understand it, find a different proposed rule. Don’t pick long Irish potatoes or nuclear powered spin generators unless you really know about them.
4. Prepare a comment using the information in the Federal Register. The Rule will usually give you an address or email of where to send your comment. So, if you don’t want to comment on the new rule to the agency, just send me a copy of what you would send. If you do want the extra credit, you have to send it to the applicable agency. Address it as required in Federal Register, and then make a comment. Address a specific part of the proposed rule (Paragraph 7(b), for example), and then tell the agency why you like or don’t like the rule.
5. Tell me if you think businesses take advantage of the opportunity to make comments on proposed rules, and why they might do that.
Tell me what 3 rules you reviewed, and why one interested you and send me the comment you make. For 2.5 extra points, send the comment to the agency, and send me a copy of the letter or email by 2/28. For one more extra credit point, pdf me a response you receive from the government. It might be an auto email, or it may be a written response.
Note: If you send a one sentence comment, expect 1 point. A good comment may be 2 paragraphs long or more.