week 9

Jacobs thinks it is important to have a focal point and punctuations because a focal point is what brings attention to the city. This attracts people’s attention and they would want to see it in real life, so they do this by walking to its location. Punctuation is needed for the focal point to stand out amongst everything surrounding it. In the video, it talked about the six fundamental things needed to make a city attractive. Something that seemed like a trend to me was life, people want to see variation and color. People want to see that the city is being lived in and that there is more to it. I think that is what Jacob is trying to emphasize with the focal points and punctuations. It is to attract attention and make the city stand out. It seems that with modern trends, sometimes life is sucked out of the city because everything seems plain and simple. (158)

I think I confused myself when I was reviewing the final project. I am a little confused on what is being asked. From my understanding, we are creating a field journal about our neighborhood and telling a story about it. I think with that I want to tell the story of an outsider. I am fairly new to this neighborhood and sometimes it feels like we (my family and I) do not belong. I think I would like to showcare how hard it was to assimilate into the neighborhood. I think the map that I will draw will be the route I took when I moved into the neighborhood. It had been an emotional time for me, since the last place I lived had not been great. But I also want to showcare how slowly this is becoming home even if it has been hard. I think I will take pictures of the bus stop near my house because the first time I took it home, I missed the stop and had to ride it a couple more blocks. (179)