1. As an individual studying urban planning, what factors (at least five factors) will motivate you to move to a particular city or township?

Answer) As an individual studying urban planning, the best city to move in is Rotterdam, The Netherlands and the primary motivations are:

·         In the face of ever fuller rivers, sinking land, and rising sea levels, water in the city has to be respected rather than resisted. The canals and lakes in the city and the city’s surround are connected and managed as well as monitored; water engineering in not less than an art (Independent, 2018).

·         In Rotterdam, there is lots of space for people, and most of the people prefer to live in small homes or flats, so there are tree-lined waterside walks, playgrounds for children, city center parks, and playgrounds for children that looks like a home. People in Rotterdam seems to be particularly proud of their houses’ front and trust their neighbors leaving bicycles and flowerpots out on their streets (Independent, 2018).

·         At night, a city center in Rotterdam is aglow. The Erasmus Bridge’s lights and blocks of the new tower along a Maas connect the city’s southern part to the center that looks so alluring. The pavement, by crossing the bridge, sparkles like a milky way. Around the city edge, there are allotments, to escape to at the weekend or on a summer evening (IHS, 2018).

·         Nature in Rotterdam seems managed and ordered, grass and trees are neatly kept trimmed, and water appears to be held in the straight courses. The ducks in the city seem friendly, and the landscape is predictable as well as significant, stretching to the endless horizon (Independent, 2018).

·         In Rotterdam, by looking hard, traditional tulips and windmills can be found. But one is more likely to find vast wind farms or ecological prairie planting rotating in unison that powers the city into a future. Furthermore, this city reminds an urban planner what urban design, planning, and landscape can achieve (IHS, 2018).

2.      What can public policymakers do about bridging the inequality gap related to (a) race and ethnicity, (b) gender and sexual orientations and (c) rich and poor, in American cities?

Answer) Urban  policymakers make efforts to bridge the inequality gap in the following ways:

(a)   Race and ethnicity: Urban planners seek to address and solve the connection between design, race and ethnicity, and social inequality in the neighborhood that is poor. In 2015, 25 years old black man was killed in the custody of police in America, and various urban developers along with students, architects, designers, and community advocates gathered for soul searching’s three-hour session over the role of social and equity and urban design. Co-sponsored by African American Student Union of Graduate School of Design of Harvard University, where the event happened, the brainstorming and panel discussion revealed anguish, and the professionals seem to be worried more about the actual structure of the building rather than people living in those buildings and this has to be changed. This is how inequality gap is being bridged (Thomas, 2015).

(b)   Gender and sexual orientations: Gender and sexual orientations used to be ignored in urban planning then public policymakers decided that analysis on the effects of planning on different interests of community and groups must be taken into consideration so that multitude of the everyday life of every gender is taken into account in planning. Traditional urban planning is based on the cities’ view and the experiences and lives few, society’s small sub-section which eventually shaped the preparation and participation of cities that ultimately bridge the inequality gap (Nasser, 2015).

(c)   Rich and poor: The public policymakers can bridge the inequality gap between rich and poor and by controlling spatial and social injustice. The inclusionary planning instruments need to be enforced vigorously in American cities. The access to essential services and especially housing for poor people of the towns can be enhanced to the level of rich. Houses for poor people can be made as spacious as for rich people with good quality (Thomas, 2015).

3.      If public health experts conclude that large (16 ounces or more) bottled sodas and fountain drinks contribute to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, would a city government be justified in banning their sale in public schools and restaurants?

Answer) If the public health experts conclude that ) bottled sodas and fountain drinks contribute to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, then the city government would be justified in banning their sale in public schools but not in the restaurants. Because the city governments own public schools, governments have the authority to prohibit or legalize any product that is not good for health. Secondly, the health of kids should be a significant concern of the city governments and one out of three children are either obese or overweight in the United States, and the nation is spending an estimated amount of $190 billion on the treatment of obesity that is related to their health issues. An increasing amount of consumption of bottled sodas and fountain drinks has been a significant contributor to the different obesity epidemic. This situation seems to be very alarming for public schools, so city governments are liable to ban these the sale of bottled sodas and fountains drinks in public schools (HSPH Harvard, 2019).

On the other hand, the restaurants in the cities are mostly owned by private entities and most mature, and adults people visit the restaurants so the city governments should not wholly ban the consumption of the bottled sodas and fountain drinks. However, the city governments can limit the sale of these products in restaurants because the health of their people should be a significant concern of the city governments. As the health of the public is being threatened by consumption of bottled sodas and fountain drinks, so limiting the sale of these products in restaurants is entirely justified. However, this restriction should not be misguided, and an active policy should be taken into account. Awareness campaigns can be helpful in this regard by letting people know that what they are doing what their health by intake of sugary drinks (Pereira, 2013).

4.      What impact does suburbanization have on central cities today?

Answer) Suburbanization variously impacts the central cities today; the growth of s suburbanization not only effects the businesses corporations and people living in the central cities but it also severely produces the environment of the central cities. People who live in the suburbanization are not given many choices, and they have to make long commute through vehicles to get to their workplaces or for other purposes, and this is one of the contribution to the air pollution in central cities. Furthermore, as the price of land is lower in suburbanization than central cities, so the malls and offices have started to purchase properties in suburbanization and get farther from the central cities that cause trouble for people living in central cities. Although businesses can reduce their cost moving to suburbanization but traveling cost of people living in central cities have increased. Many residents of central cities, with this location change, now have to make long commutes through car or busses to reach their destination; this is also one of the contributing factors to air pollution (Venngage, 2019).

Besides, the suburbanization impacts the central cities today in terms of socioeconomic as well. Although beneficial changes have taken place by suburbanization in terms of social and economic progress, it has negatively impacted the agriculture that ultimately effects the central cities. Farmers living in central cities and working in areas farther from central cities face negative impacts like vandalism and destruction of their equipment or crops by residents of the suburbanization; it increases unemployment in central cities among people who are associated with the field of agriculture. As farmers have to spend more money and resources to protect their crops and equipment to fix their damages, agriculture products in central cities have become expensive. However, the highway system has become convenient after suburbanization (The Council for Community and Economic Research, 2011).

5.      What is the logic of a downtown-centric economic development policy?

Answer) A downtown-centric economic development policy is related to the capacities’ expansion that is one of the major contributing factors to the society’s advancement through the realization of the potential of firms and individuals as well as communities. A downtown-centric economic development policy tends to increase in quality of life and prosperity that is realized through lowered transaction costs, innovation, and efficient utilization of resources towards the diffusion and responsible production of goods and services. Effective institutions are required for economic development that is grounded in norms of tolerance for risk, openness, and appreciation for diversity in the realization of shared and mutual advantages for the private sector and for the public (Feldman & Kemeny, 2016).

It is quite common for policymakers of downtown-centric economic development policy to talk about ROI (return on investment), yet a fact becomes contradicted by this that investment by the governments is made in those activities that are not found lucrative enough by the private sector to warrant their investment and gain enough profit in the short term (Feldman & Kemeny, 2016).

The downtown-centric economic development policy’s ultimate goal is to create a high quality of life and economic prosperity. Intermediate goals, such as, to reduce barriers to the private sector and entrepreneurship investment or to increase innovation, are the sources to an ultimate end of developing this prosperity. Ascertaining progress toward a goal of economic development is one of the investment challenges in complex environments. The investment for economic growth by the government, however, aims to build capacity extending beyond individual firms so that larger ecosystem could be benefited. Public interests can be advanced by finding and then maintaining a balance that scaffolds the transaction of the economy while avoiding overregulation, provided incentives along with support without discouraging initiatives, and ultimately makes economic actors able to realize and use their potential (Bardo, n.d.).

6.      The civil rights movement is often depicted in history textbooks as being more successful than the Black Power movement. Why do many African Americans more enthusiastically embrace the latter?

Answer) The civil rights movement is often depicted in as being more successful than the Black Power movement. Many African Americans embraced the civil rights movement more enthusiastically embraced due to multiple reasons. African Americans in the United States and especially in the South of the state, even after 100 years of the Emancipation Act of 1863, we're still at the gross racial injustice’s receiving end. A doctrine is known as "separate but equal" was enforced from 1896 to 97, when it was ruled by the Supreme Court of the US that segregation was not discrimination. Some of the Southern states in the US followed up by passing legislation by which most African Americans were prohibited from voting. These people were oppressed not in terms of economically and politically only, but African American were also subject to race-induced violence, and black power movement seemed not to be much useful (SA History, 2017).

Most of the population of African American, in the era of 1950s and 1960s, was concentrated in the South of the state; thus racial inequality seemed to be most blatant in these states. Since any time limit was not stipulated by 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, the existence of educational segregation was there in the era of 1960s. Since Emancipation, African Americans had struggled for their civil rights much more than the black power movement, but it was not until the decision of Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education, that the African Americans’ plight was brought into the eye of general public in the rest of the countries as well as in the United States of America. This is how many African Americans embraced the Civil Rights Movement and the movement emerged as an organized fight that succeeded in securing privileges and fundamental rights for all citizens in the U.S (Swiderski, 2013).

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