Description
This is a research seminar focused on urban typology. Students will learn techniques for gathering and formatting urban data in a manner that reveals new intelligence. The results of the seminar will be formatted into a book that describes the nature of ?micropolitans?, an emerging urban form. The research will focus on the careful reading of eight specific micropolitan communities and will use those specific case studies as means of hypothesizing the general micropolitan condition. In addition, students will engage real-world scenarios by participating in a conference of mayors to be held at SCI-Arc this November.
In 2003 the US Office of Management and Budget created the Micropolitan Statistical Area as a geographic designation to be tracked through census data. As the term implies, a micropolitan is a ?small city? with a population between 10,000 and 50,000. Most micropolitan areas are economic centers for their statistical population as well as for their surrounding rural communit