Philosophy and the City

Background:  I first began giving walking tours with my students enrolled in my course, “Philosophy and the City” (the course on which my book by the same name is based). 

            My aims were to:  a) introduce students to the city, since few wondered beyond campus and its immediate vicinity (off-campus student homes and bars); b) encourage them to think of themselves as citizens of the city, who have both rights and responsibilities in the community where they live and study; c) allow them to see the city with “new eyes,” informed by the philosophy they were reading; d) test what they were learning against real urban observations and experiences.  In short, the purpose of the walking tours is to help students apply philosophical theories of the city to their immediate urban environment, increasing their connection to place and their appreciation of citizenship.

      While I used to take the whole class on guided tours, walking with large groups presents both ethical and logistical challenges:  inevitably some students in a large class have difficulty hearing, while sometimes neighbors feel awkward when it seems a large group is observing them.  Class times and weather might also not be conducive to walking.  For that reason, I have now turned to the creation of podcasts, i.e., taped tours that I make in real time as I walk the city, which can be downloaded from the web onto an iPod or other MP-3 player, so that students can take the tours individually or in small groups on a day with good weather.  The podcasts allow students to download the tours and then take them when convenient for them.  I have handouts with structured questions to guide them on their tours; students must then either complete the handout or write a short essay as a reflective component of the tour.  Examples of two podcasts and their corresponding handouts are available; each of those tours contains more than one of these themes.  This year, I am making more tours and will delineate them by the ideas/questions/themes outlined below.

Ideas for Walking Tours:  You need to know your city relatively well so that you can highlight key features and tell some history during the tour.  Do some research and wander around before you take a group or make a recording.

But here are some tours that I do (there may be some overlap, here, depending on how you structure each tour; I usually give students a choice of tours):

• What is a City?  After reading several essays that address the definitions of cities (e.g., Plato, More, Simmel, Weber, Mumford, and Conlon), we wander through the center city and some neighborhoods, asking how we know this is a city?  What makes it a city?  Here I raise questions regarding the urbs vs. civitas debate—is it the built environment or the people that makes a city?  How does your city fit (or fail to fit) various philosophical definitions of cities?
  
• Neighborhood Boundaries:  in most cities, there are relatively wealthy neighborhoods that adjoin much poorer neighborhoods.  When walking the neighborhoods, there are usually no signs or markers, and yet “we know” when we are in one neighborhood or the other.  Create a walking tour in which students transverse the boundaries, asking them to observe how and when they know they are in which neighborhoods.  You also can encourage observations about your campus and its relationship (or lack of one) to its urban neighbors.  Is it possible to live, study, or work on the campus while ignoring poverty in its immediate vicinity?  Is it possible for wealthier urban residents to avoid seeing urban poverty?  Draw on Engels, Young, and Bickford for critical analysis of the social justice issues involved. 
  
• Surveillance and the City:  Many of the readings highlight the importance of public space for the city and democratic life (e.g., Conlon, Young, Bickford, and Habermas); others have argued that the loss of public space, especially through its privatization and increased surveillance (Foucault, Bickford) has been bad for cities and city life.  Create a walking tour where you can move with relative ease and then go into places where there is increased surveillance (e.g., shopping malls, new hotel lobbies, or even streets or public transportation hubs with cameras).  Also go to parks or other public spaces with signage or security that prohibits behaviors in the place.  You also might think about how your campus connects or disconnects from its city surroundings.  Ask students to note both how they feel, and also to observe how others around them behave.  Specifically:  how do we internalize the potential observation and judgments of others?  which spaces encourage public exchange with others, and which discourage it?
  
• Nature and the Built Environment:  Heideggerians such as Norberg-Schulz and Mugerauer argue that the built environment of the city must somehow engage the natural environment if a sense of place is going to be created.  Depending on your city, you may be able to create a walking tour that both highlights places where there is some sort of successful connection, and locations that have lost a sense of place.  How do cities make dwelling possible? Ask students to observe and test Heideggerian theory.  Similarly, you can create a tour in which you both observe the tall buildings in your city from a distance and close-up, and then discuss it in light of the Prince of Wales’ critique of tall buildings.
  
• Nearby Nature and Environmental Justice:  Andrew Light notes that a false dichotomy has been created by environmentalists and urbanists alike, in that both often assume that nature is somehow outside of cities.  But all cities have some nature.  Create a tour that walks through neighborhoods with differing degrees of nature and access to nature.  Have students critically analyze what they observe in terms of the work of Light, but also the readings by Kuo on nearby nature.  Also have students do readings on environmental justice—which neighborhoods are burdened with junk yards and environmental hazards, and which are not?  Why?  In this context, I also do a tour which takes students by off-campus student housing, forcing them to take a look at the garbage that they generate.  We also visit a University-owned community garden.
  

• Buy a high quality digital recorder and create the recordings in real time while you walk.  I recommend the Zoom H-4 Handy recorder, but there are others that are fine.  The Zoom H-4 came with sound editing software, but it’s difficult to use; I tend to use the raw recording as much as possible.
• Walk at a pace that is easy for most to follow.  Keep each tour to one hour.
• Be sure to mention when you cross streets (and note intersections and landmarks periodically, to be sure that your listeners can check and insure that they are still following your path).   Make sure that the starting point for each walking tour is clearly identified on the download site and at the start of each recording.
• Raise critical questions along the way, but be sure to leave plenty of room for students to make their own critical observations.  You can do this by either making other types of informative claims (about the history of the neighborhood, the architecture, etc.) or by editing in music where you’d like them to simply observe on their own. 
• Some recorders (like the Zoom H-4) allow you to record directly as a mp-3 file, which then allows you to upload them as such to a website and then allows students to download them.  Just how that works depends on the website and their mp-3 player.  Course software Angel has a mechanism for uploading and downloading podcasts. 
• To insure that all students will have access to the podcasts even if they do not own an iPod or mp3 player, I applied for (and received) a University technology grant for the purchase of 4 iPod nanos, which students can temporarily borrow for the purposes of the walks (and the walks are pre-loaded on them).  The students sign them out, making a promise to return them on-time and in good working order or risk paying for their replacement.  I purchased iPods because students are very familiar with their use, but other mp-3 players are more durable and can be more easily re-charged.
• Podcast creation how-to sites that I found useful: 
• http://www.easypodcast.com/
• http://radio.about.com/od/podcastin1/a/aa030805a_5.htm
• I have uploaded many sites that can serve as virtual walking tours at http://philosophyandthecity.org/coursematerials/walkingtours.html for use when walking is impractical and/or for disable students.