Investing Time

This is the first action project for Economics: Risking Value course. On our first unit we had learned the basics of how economics can help you make decisions, in order to understand the substance of the question we had analyzed the balance between supply and demand, human behavior in react to personal beneficial incentives and tested out the math behind simple and compound interest. As we dipped our toes deeper into this unit the next question we had to ask ourselves is what does the decision making looks like and play out in real-world scenarios. By doing so we learned how markets in different goods affect each other on an economic scale and how does that affects the decision making the process. Now that we grasped the logic between decision making we then transitioned into answering our action project guiding question: What will you do after high school? as much as this question had built a lot of scared faces and mid-life crisis thoughts our collected analyzations had prepared us to take action in calculating decision making.

Preaching the Chicago Streets

For our very first Action Project as seniors in our Humanities journalism class we explored the news values. News values is what dictates any news source whether it be an impact, proximity, immediacy, or conflict. As we looked at several newspapers from different times we were able to get a wide range of perspectives on how much of an impact it has. In order for us to understand what it takes to write story like so we had to learn how to spot fake news and certain vocabulary words that intel if the newspaper is  biased based or opinion based. For this action project we were given the freedom to choose a story of our choice and write about it. I chose to write a news article using impact as my news values. I had researched and interviewed one of Chicago's icons to let Chicagoans and myself no more about the man we see preaching on State Street. I hope you enjoy!

THE NEW WORLD

On our last unit "Flow" we are wrapping up our course Urban Planning and our junior year! in our internal investigation, we discussed the make-up of a neighborhood as we look at industrial, commercial, and residential neighborhoods. As we dove in deeper as to how Chicago fits into the equation of Urban planning we had brought up issues like white flight, N.I.M.B.Y, redlining, and blighted communities. This had been a conversation that brought a lot of curiosity as to what policies and historical events had occurred to get where we are now. We then listened to individuals who had strong opinions on what our cities had become, some saying our cities are lazy, un-resourceful and non-eco-friendly followed by statements and ideas that can improve these issues such as public places, local living, and the ban of cars. We seamlessly dove into the external portion of this unit where we start to visualize these cities and take a look at urban planning worldwide. We had gathered a lot of inspiration from people all around the world and what they are doing to better the sense of community. This made me realize how urban planning is a talk everyone should be engaging in as it affects everyone and can be changed by anyone. At a time crunch of 3 days, we buckled our seat belts to dive into our action project where we pick a neighborhood of our choice to look deeper into and place improvements where we see fit.

Location: Pulaski Road and 51st Street on the Southwest Side of Chicago, Illinois

GA, "3D Area", 2019

GA, "Pulaski train station", 2019

BENEFICIAL HELP

Shared Bike Lanes: My neighborhood is ran by two main streets  Pulaski and Archer. With no divvy stations located near the train station and the numerous amounts of bikes parked by the side of the street I felt as it was needed to accommodate a space where they can feel secured to progressively push forth more people on bikes and less people in vehicles. what I found surprising from my personal inductive analyses is there are more people riding bikes that are around the age of 30 to 50 years old than young adults who go to school right around the corner. This to me felt as a even bigger reason as to why we need to build our streets by the way our constituents use them.

Smart Street Lights: Getting off the train stop late at night is already a burden and a risk to most. As a student who goes to school in downtown there are several times I had came home around sundown and had felt unsafe from not having the ability to look at my surroundings. Smart Street lights would be beneficial in our overall safety as a passenger and a pedestrian. Light is a overall basic need that shouldn't be taken from lower income neighborhoods.

Public Space: The empty lot highlighted by the green dot has been in the same conditions since I was born. After years of walking past a gated dry land I had thought this would be a great location ti implement a public space as it benefits the commercial area headed down south of Pulaski and the High school that is right across the street from the train.

Public Art: Archer heights used to be a industrial neighborhood that carried a lot of the main railroads yards and warehouse facilities . Now that we have generations of families building a life in this community our neighborhood should equally represent that.  By doing so public art has the ability to uplift the representation of the culture by creating a space that allows you to enjoy yourself in the same space you work.

Garden Fence: At a certain point dead weaves and uncared for grass stops being in the category of plant life. My neighborhood can benefit positively from encouraging more plant life near the south Pulaski commercial area. This will create a natural system of healthy nutrients.

INSPIRATION

My idea for the new infrastructure came from the base camps that are placed in Tijuana for the current Caravan. The people in these camps started having a connection one a another and its been continuously flourishing by the connection of art they share as they fix holes with broken glass by turning them into beautiful Mosaics. This was one of my biggest influences because many people put money as the reason why certain things don't change, this goes to prove how change can be made a drastic way without the involvement of loans. I was also inspired by an article that talked about light pollution and how Chicago is the worlds most light polluted city. This made me think of how we need to look forward into efficient options rather than faster on demand options.

GA, "Great Migration" 2019

GA, "Tijuana Camps", 2019

Ga, "Beautification", 2019

GA, "Public Art", 2019

THINK GLOBALLY

This local design can further impact globally by hitting these specific SDG targets.

11.2: By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons

- My segment purposely benefits the aspects of taking transportation. By adding streetlights towards the platform we can assure ourselves from our surroundings.

11.7: By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities 

- A portion of the space will include a public space that is meant for people to relax and enjoy the greenery. The infrastructure is currently chaotic in a sense that its surrounded by busy streets and factories not allowing pedestrians to enjoy a walk.

Building Principles

2: Create mixed-use and mixed income neighborhood

-  The fluidity of a commercial based space is a great way to welcome diversity and that's exactly what's being implemented.


4: Prioritize bicycle networks and auto-free streets

- Placing divvy stations next to the CTA will decrease the use of vehicles and allow people from work and school to resort to biking. As more and more people start to use bikes we can then change the roads to include bike lanes.

7: Match density and mix to transit capacity

-  With the reliability of transportation it'll be possible to obtain a higher rate of people suing these options knowing safety will be less of a problem.

 UP TO SCALE

GA, "Calculate", 2019

Neighborly Help
In order to form ideas that will benefit the space as a whole I wanted to get a primary source from a person who is an constituent of the neighborhood.

GA, "Jesus", 2019

Q: What can be placed to lower the crime rate?

A: By implementing cameras around the streets at night would be an idea, I don't really see cameras in high crime rate neighborhoods.

3-D Design

National Socialist Party v. Skokie

To what seems to be the end will soon be the beginning of utilizing what we learned into the real world. On our last course Policy we had defined the judicial branch power. As we looked at the historical context we discovered the shift in the established power the branch had carried. John Marshall played an impactful role in paving the way we as the United States sees the Judicial power. This transitioned into investigating cases that changed policy in America specifically supreme court cases. Dred v. Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Texas v. Madison to name a few were cases we had look into as a class to help us find the connection in which our policies tend to take. I had seen how the supreme court or the "popular policy" is based on prior cases and what I mean by this is without the help of cases like the Dred v. Scott where the importance came from the technically of even having a stand later changed into the Plessy v. Ferguson where separate but equal was to be the constitutional resolution later then turned into a question of  Brown v Board of Education where we they then as the judicial branch had to be challenged in diluting the new argument. As a class we had experimented to play the role of the Marshall Court hearing Boumediene v. Bush this was an awesome way to get engaged in the conversation so many of us feel unethical to have. Our questions, concerns, and curiosity smoothly transitioned into action as we individually take a look at a supreme court case of our choice to dissect and ask ourselves was it constitutional. I chose a supreme court case that happened just around Chicago's northern border. As you watch my video place yourself in the conversation, thank you. :)

" Maine! To hell with the Spain! "

On our second unit called "Executive" our class internally and externally learned about the power that the Executive branch holds within the historical aspect of war. During our several class discussions we had learned how the president manages the armed forces and can declare for war whether it be unconstitutional/constitutional. By doing further research on the origin of cabinet positions and the signed positions determined by the president we were able to connect more on how historical events get applied by policies and acts. For our FE this term, we had actually took a step forward into our third unit where we discuss the Judicial branch. We had wet to a murder case where we had the opportunity to ask questions to the judge and take part in the hearing. Being able to take part in a actual hearing had sparked a lot of energy and questions to later the used for our action project.  For our action project, we had chosen a war of our choice and ask ourselves was it justified? I chose to to talk about the Spanish American war, now if you would like to know where the question stands feel free to watch!

Opposites Attract

On our second unit called Power, we internally and externally dived into our guiding question "What it takes to power a city". During the internal investigation we discussed heavily on the Chicago World's Fair where we analyzed the architectural and social aspect of the event. We then dove deeper into one of the main attractions of that time an place between Edison and Tesla on the "Current War". We learned the two main electrical source which is a/c & d/c. Tesla had been the one who discovered AC and Edison had discovered DC where it was then shown at the Worlds Fair to compete which one was capable of lighting up the fair efficiently. For an FE, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry to see for ourselves Jackson Park where the World's Fair took place. Most importantly we had went to MSI to dive deeper into electricity aspect by looking at the famous Tesla coil and interesting enough we had took part in a workshop where we made our own circuits. This smoothly transitioned us to our Action Project where we had partnered up to create a circuit that embodies Eco-friendly home appliances. If you are curious as to see how this plays a role in Urban Planing slide on!

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!