Bridge the Gap

This is the first unit of the final Junior year! in Urban Planning. In this unit, we looked at aspects of urban planning by asking ourselves the question of what goes into creating a city and by what means does it make it a "good" city. By doing so we had looked at several historical statues, and the changes Chicago's infrastructure has gone through due to natural or human manipulations. This leads us to investigate the material and fundings that go into building a structure and how safe can we be when it comes to knowing when a structure no longer supports. As we dove into the external investigation portion we started to visualize our questions into the real world, we looked at bridges and the similarities they hold when it comes to the shape of the bridge. By determining the shape of the bridge we were able to mathematically dive in deeper with the concept of force and how that gets calculated and shown on a bridge For an FE, we went to downtown Chicago and met Gabriel and Shehana from Metropolitan Planning Council where we then walked around the river and looked at the various bridges and how change gets made in Chicago in an Urban Planning mindset. For this action project, we partnered up with our classmates to make a bridge from popsicle sticks and glue. With the materials given we had to create a truss bridge that could hold at least 10 pounds without breaking. To see if our bridge had passed the test keep on scrolling!

Rep to your Representative!

In our third unit of Policy we entered our first Action Project Where we had taken a internal/external investigation on what it means to Legislate. In order to understand how a bill becomes a law we had taken a look at the similiraties and differences that both hold. Once we had understood the construsct of a policy in terms of a bill and a law we then analyzed policies that are placed by the people in “power”. This had helped us look further into how positions, branches, and jobs create a system of checks and balances. Checks and balances was a important term to understand when it came to looking at the history on how war is declared to how an aldermanic power in Chicago shapes our neighborhoods. For our FE we went to the Chicago City Council and met with officials and we also met with Alderman Elect Andre Vasquez in his office in Andersonville. Both of these Field Experiences helped us understand the structure of how a bill gets discussed , which we had then seen that it all comes to a group of people gathered on a table. This smoothly brought us where we are now. For our action project we wrote a letter to a representative of our choice wether it be your alderman, state representative, or the president we all had to search up a legislation that the person of your choice can sign off to. Our letter will then be composed to talk forth on the bill to your rep in an argumentative form we had learned in our last unit Argument

Dear Mr. Lipinski:

   

I am writing today to urge you to sign off to technical changes regarding the Higher Education Student Assistance Act concerning the Act’s purpose.This bill was rushed to attention by state representative Bob Morgan who advocates for the protection of education in Illinois.                

This bill protects the following: the value of higher education for all Illinois residents. This bill also points out the increase of qualified persons who desire higher education and the main detrant being the financial cripple. And his most eager importance, to provide physical support in the areas of desert sand opportunities and resources.

I am under the category of a low income brown kid from the southside of Chicago. And I can affirm people like me have fallen victim to the malpractice of middle class or higher income families taking my educational resources. I am at the moment in the position of aiming for higher education and have been crippled by this for my journey to finding financial support. Middle class or higher hispanics are thrown in with the experiences of that of lower income hispanics. This has made riffs in our own communities but mainly the one that is of great concern for the future of low income hispanic, is the opportunist in those middle class or higher communities. With this bill it can create separate funding and appropriate measures for all types of backgrounds. My main personal issue is the problem of opportunists of that creates a survival ofthe fittest mentality. An average higher education University in Chicago grants around 70,000 to a the income family of 0-30k, there has to be a lower alternative. That is a huge gap of people and experiences that need to be breached. Higher education institutions give no guarantee that the cost will diminish so the need based programs need to increase. 5 percent of scholarships are race based, only 5 percent. This is not enough room for representation, for growth within the minorities communities with such a low number. Being a 5% it is very unlikely that there are many programs that specify even though something as basic and possible distinctions of a 1st and 2nd generation hispanic. With this bill we will make a plausible for that 5% to increase and grow fruitful.

It's not about making the rift between these communities bigger but the adequate resources for the all the different backgrounds. With this bill being signed there would an influx of resources thus creating the ripple of all different kinds of programs. There is always the obvious set back to this specifically within my community, the notion that “,all hispanics should stick together and we are all the same!” To that I say yes I agree, we should all stand together but to further progress as a community we must understand each others struggles and differences within our own communities, that being the huge difference of being a low income hispanic and a middle class\ or higher hispanic. In conclusion this bill will have huge positive ripple effects for all communities. With the starting support of the technical changes regarding the Higher Education Student Assistance Act concerning the Act’s purpose. I am Genesis Andrade allow me to introduce myself.