Your final assignment for the semester is to write a film critique of 1200 words (double spaced, 12 point times new roman font plus references in APA format) about an urban-focused
Documentary using the course readings. We will provide you with a list of four possible
Documentaries that are available for viewing through the Internet for this assignment. The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate the portrayal of an urban issue in the film using concepts and theories from class.
Examples of documentary critiques are available to you on the course site. Do not merely summarize the documentary, but rather analyze the film and its message. Do you agree with what it is portraying? Why or why not?
– Provide brief context about the documentary (1 paragraph)
– What are the issues that this film brings to the forefront?
– Whose perspectives do we hear and whose are missing?
– Which urban theories that we studied in class does the film engage with implicitly or
Explicitly?
– Present an argument/thesis about the documentary using course readings
– What was done well in the film?
– What could be improved? How so?
– Cite at least 4 scholarly courses of which 2 must be course reading
FILMS
• Farewell Regent (2019) https://cpp.kanopy.com/video/farewell-regent
Readings
Fainstein, Susan. 2010. The Just City. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press. (Introduction)
Kim, A. J., Levin, J. M., & Botchwey, N. D. (2018).
Planning with Unauthorized Immigrant Communities:What Can Cities Do? Journal of Planning Literature, 33(1), 3–16.
Su, X. (2022). Building new cities in the Global South: Neoliberal planning and its adverse consequences. Urban Governance. https://www-sciencedirect-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/science/article/pii/S266432862 2000717
Roberts, D. J., & Catungal, J. P. (2017). Neoliberalizing Social Justice in Infrastructure Revitalization Planning: Analyzing Toronto’s More Moss Park Project in Its
Early Stages. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1-9.
Van den Hurk, M., & Siemiatycki, M. (2018). Public– private partnerships and the design process: Consequences for architects and city building. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(4), 704-722. Sampson, R. J. (1999). What “community” supplies. Chapter 19 in the Community Development Reader ed by James DeFilippis and Susan Saegert
Jha, S. R. (2017). The Power of Empowering
Community. Chapter 6 in Transforming Communities: How People Like You are Healing Their Neighborhoods. Chalice Press
Zuberi, D. 2010. “Urban Inequality and Urban
Social Movements” in Urban Canada, 2nd Edition, H. Hiller (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press,pages 111-130.
De Souza, M. L. (2006). Social movements as
‘critical urban planning’ agents. City, 10(3), 327-342
Arnstein, S. 1969. A Ladder of Citizen Participation, JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, 216-224. http://lithgow-schmidt.dk/sherry-arnstein/ladder-of-citizen-participation.html
Bratt, R. G., & Reardon, K. M. (2013). Beyond the ladder: new ideas about resident roles in
Contemporary community development. Carmon, N. & Fainstein, S. (Eds.) “Policy, planning, and
People: Promoting justice in urban development”, 356-386
Corburn, J. (2007). Reconnecting with our roots:
American urban planning and public health in the
Twenty-first century. Urban affairs review, 42(5), 688-713.
Karachi Urban Lab. “Why the Covid-19 crisis is an urban crisis.” Prism. 14 April 2020.
Valentino-DeVries, Jennifer, Denise Lu and Gabriel J.X. Dance. “Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury.” The New York Times. 3 April 2020.
Keil, Roger, Creighton Connolly, and S. Harris Ali. “Outbreaks Like Coronavirus Start in and Spread from the Edges of Cities.” The Conversation. 17 February 2020.
Community Development Approaches to the Covid-19 Crisis: https://www.iacdglobal.org/wp-
Content/uploads/2020/12/IACD_033_PI_Issue-17_V1_High-Res.pdf
Mendieta, E. (2010). The City to Come: Critical Urban Theory as Utopian Mapping. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action. 14(4): 442-447.
Chatterton, P. (2010) The Urban Impossible: A Eulogy for the Unfinished City. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action. 14(3): 234-244.
Schäfer, C. (2004). The City is Unwritten. Park Fiction. 39-51 http://www.opa-
A2a.org/dissensus/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/schafer_christoph_the_city_is_unwritten.pdf
Solnit, Rebecca. 2016. Hope is an Embrace of the Unknown. The Guardian, July 15, 2016.
