Essay Instructions: ----
THEME OF ESSAY: In this essay you are to examine some aspect of retail or entertainment in
the metropolitan region. Choose a case study city for your analysis. Consider explanations for the retail or entertainment that we covered in the readings and our class
discussion. You cannot cover all the explanations that have been proposed. The precise one(s) you may choose to work with should fit the particular city you have chosen to
analyze. In critically assessing the evidence about your case study city, be careful to separate out the possible boosterism in local articles from what you suspect may be the reality. State a thesis about the retail or entertainment. That thesis is what you will
demonstrate in your analysis of the evidence (see below). Your essay may support the theory or you may find evidence refuting it. Approaches that provide sharp ways to
organize essays include raising a paradox, puzzle, or a seeming contradiction. Focus on explaining and interpreting your evidence through the window of the theory.
-For example, in terms of entertainment, I thought of Mardi Gras. When writing the essay, you need to begin by having a thesis/argument about it. You will do better if you raise a paradox, a puzzle or a contradiction in your paper, then use the concepts and theoretical explanations learned in class and in the readings to explains/refute/interpret your thesis about Mardi Gras. Narrow it down, don't try to explain all about Mardi Gras but build your paper around an argument or conundrum.
The way to approach is to narrow it down to New Orleans, or you can choose some other city which is copying the Mardi Gras concept for the February fun time. Then for the city, let's say New Orleans, you need to find an angle. You do not want to describe Mardi Gras. That is well known. You want to critically assess some aspect of Mardi Gras as entertainment. Find some puzzle, paradox, or contradiction in the Mardi Gras event. This might include several years as a comparison. Or, you might look at New Orleans attempt to revive Mardi Gras after the hurricane Katrina and critically assess some aspect of that.
-Or if you decide to write about retail, you can pick a mall in a city and use it to also illustrate changes in the configuration of the city space, where in one carefully planned space you find housing, retail, and offices. This place also features attempts to create a sense of community as an alternative to (classic) suburban living (farmers’ mkt, cultural events, spaces for leisure). You could see this as a new approach to retail, in opposition to the more classic configurations described in the readings (i.e. suburban malls).Cases like this give us the opportunity to understand the changes in the functions of urban space and the reasons that motivate them. The readings that I will post can also help you come up with an idea, or a case where you have seen similar transformations or changes. For example, in the Boston/New Haven reading department stores are used as the center for urban renewal strategies, with very different results. Can you think of a city that tried a similar approach? Providence Place Mall, for instance, was conceived as part of the strategy for downtown's renaissance, along with Waterplace Park and other initiatives.
--Just to be clear, you have to choose only one subject. retail or entertainment.
--The paper should get right to the point in the first paragraph. so please use a topic sentence.
SOURCES: The sources referenced (and used) in your essay must include at least one academic
journal article. You may use one of the readings, or you may find some other academic
journal article. For your evidence you will find the newspapers and other electronic
sources available in Lexis-Nexis to be the most useful. You must use a minimum of six
(6) different sources [only one of these can be from our readings] and must reference
your sources at the appropriate points in the essay. Do not summarize the sources;
instead, integrate them around your theme, that builds on your thesis.
REFERENCE STYLE: Use numbered footnotes in the text at appropriate points and either place
numbered footnotes at the bottom of pages or collect at the end. The footnote style should
be: Mickey Mouse, “Why I love Times Square,” New York Times (December 14, 2006),
p. 2.
There are faxes for this order.