Of course, I have put together application essays, using them to sell myself to the schools. There are details in my life which led me to my route that I am on today, but I rarely included them in those formal essays, or tell them in interviews, because they don’t show my highest achievement and my fullest ability. Nonetheless, those details are super important.
I was just reading Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth by Dolores Hayden. The word “suburb” always has a negative connotation in my planning seminars. Suburbs, demonstrate the American dream, “where Americans situate ambitions for upward mobility and economic security, ideals about freedom and private property, and longings for social harmony and spiritual uplift (Hayden, 2003).” Suburbs also mean subdivisions that interrupt connectivity and natural lands. Living in a suburb means residents cannot go anywhere without an automobile vehicle. It means living in an uninterested residential block to be voluntarily secluded from the nearby vibrant city, while occasionally taking advantage of it.
This totally puts me into shame, as I had unintentionally designed a project like this. When I was in high school, in my economics class, the teacher assigned us to describe a future city. I was really into the project, and I drew a map of a, what you would call it, a suburb. People live in residential blocks and stay on a conveyor belt network to work in cubicles in the CBD every single day. The whole idea was futuristic and creative, but my design revealed my innocent and extremely unsophisticated view of the world.
Because of the abundance and the popularity of sci-fi movies, I am sure that a lot of people imagine future cities as “smart cities”. They are super high-tech and are supposed to make your life easy. These are ideas pitched by tech companies, and they have the same problem as the 18-year-old me – they only see how people like them live. Besides, they are profit-driven. I think the current pursue of smart cities is identical to the previous pursue of suburbia fantasy.
Completing that project got me thinking more about city planning. Later, I got inspired by a school trip to a historical neighborhood. Seeing how public policies both help and challenge residents there, I wrote my college application on that topic. However, when actually majoring in Urban Planning, I found it quite hard to explain what Urban Planning is to others. Sometimes it was because we study "everything", because everything is related to urban planning. My classmates all have their own interest and will pursue different career paths afterwards. Sometimes, I felt overwhelmed by daily tasks that I forgot why I study it.
Urban Planning could be anything and everything. It could be economics, statistics, politics, history, engineering and design. I wanted to study Urban Planning because I wanted to know how to plan the cities that meet everyone’s needs. In fact, I am learning tools to help planners understand people’s need and how to best distribute public resources.
Also, doesn’t urban planning sound super fancy as a major?
Reference
Dolores Hayden, “The Shapes of Suburbia” and “Picturesque Enclaves,” in Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 (New York: Pantheon, 2003), 3-18, 45-70.
我为什么学习城市规划？
当然，我写过申请文书，利用它们将自己”推销“给了学校。我一生中有很多细节使我走上今天的路，但我很少将这些细节包括在正式论文中，也很少在面试中提及，因为这些细节并没有表现出我的最高成就和我的能力。但是，这些细节非常重要。
我刚刚读过Dolores Hayden撰写的《郊区建筑：绿色的田野和城市的成长》。在我的规划研讨会中，“郊区”一词一般具有负面含义。郊区展现了美国人的梦想，“美国人将野心定位于向上流动和经济安全，自由与私有财产理想以及对社会和谐与精神提升的渴望（Hayden，2003）。“郊区还意味着分隔，中断连接性和自然土地。居住在郊区意味着居民没有汽车就无法前往任何地方。这意味着居住在一个无趣的住宅区，自愿与附近的充满活力的城市隔离开来，同时偶尔利用它。
这让我感到有点羞愧，因为我无意中设计过一个这样的项目。高中时，在经济学课上，老师留的作业是让我们描绘一个未来的城市。我当时很热衷于这个项目，还绘制了一个想象的地图。这个地图看起来就像文章所讲的市郊。人们每天会居住在住宅区内，并站在传送带上通勤，去中央商务区的小隔间工作。整个想法充满了未来感和创造力，但也揭示了我当时对世界的天真无邪的看法。
由于科幻电影的丰富和流行，我相信很多人都将“智慧城市”视为未来城市的样子。它们是超高科技的，可以使人们的生活变得轻松。但这些都是科技公司提出的想法，它们和18岁的我一样存在同样的问题-他们只看到与自己相同的人的生活，而且是利益驱使的。我认为目前对智慧城市目前的向往与19世纪美国人对完美郊区的追求相同。
完成该项目使我对城市规划有了更多的思考。后来，我参加了一次去历史社区的游学。看到公共政策帮助也改变当地居民的生活，我就此主题编写了我的大学申请书。但是，在实际攻读城市规划专业时，我有时很难向其他人解释什么是城市规划。有时是因为我们仿佛研究了一切学科，因为一切都与城市规划有关。我的同学们都有自己的兴趣，以后会追求不同的职业道路。有时，我被日常学习工作拘束，忘记了为什么要学习它。
城市规划可以是很多学科。可能是经济学，统计学，政治，历史，工程学和设计学。我想研究城市规划，因为我想知道如何规划满足每个人需求的城市。实际上，我正在学习很多方法，以帮助规划人员了解人们的需求以及如何最好地分配公共资源。
另外，城市规划听起来不是很高大上吗？
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