I’ve started writing! But one problem I’ve been running into, especially toward the top of my hourglass, is that I know what to say, but not who to cite. I’ve been drawing a lot on class lectures and general knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years— sources that don’t lend themselves particularly well to formal citations. While I am 99% sure that I’m not just making all of it up, I also don’t expect “trust me, I’m an undergrad” to really cut it. So…I’ve been spending the week revisiting foundational sources on planning history and theory, trying to make sure I stay grounded in the works of Experts and Professionals. The reading list has included Cities of Tomorrow, by Peter Hall; Spaces of Hope, by David Harvey; and Urban Planning in a Changing World, by Robert Freestone. I’ve done a bit of theoretical work as well, reading City as Landscape: A Post-Postmodern View of Design and Planning, by Tom Turner. Clearly “post-postmodernism” is a bit of a clunky phrase, but I think its a conceptual framework that I think fits in well with the stuff I’ve been reading on the importance of utopianism and the depoliticization of sustainability.
My second problem (which is actually a pretty good problem to have) is that I have so much to say that I’m going to have to be quite choosy about what to include and what to leave out. For example, I could probably write 5 pages on the emergence of public-private partnerships as a financing mechanism for municipal projects, and the increasing importance of bond-rating firms like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. While those things are not unrelated to my thesis, they are definitely not the critical details I need to drive home to make my point. So… from here on out, focused, crisp and concise is the goal; I definitely do not want to end up with 65 pages of tangential, rambling details.
Other than that, I’m feeling good about where I’m headed—shooting to have 15 pages by the end of the week!