Economic risk assessment

I was just about to post about how lost and alone I felt in the world. And then I opened up my email and someone just dropped me a note to say hi. And now I feel...a little less lost I suppose.

I'm a bit down about school at the moment. Not because I'm performing badly or anything - but because...my school is less revolutionary than I would have hoped. I'm in a class that's about the history of planning, (which I probably shouldn't be taking, because I've already learned most of it in classes at Calvin.) But, when I learned about it at Calvin I learned about the specific ways that institutionalized racism influenced the current state of cities. Race divisions, in my opinion, are among the biggest problems facing planners today. At Penn we haven't even talked about race. My professor described redlining as "economic risk-assessment". (Back in the day banks decided to whom to give mortgages according to maps denoting neighborhoods with different color outlines. Red lines meant don't loan to those neighborhoods, so those people ended up stuck in the cities without loans to upgrade homes, while other people were given loans and moved out of cities.) Redlining, yes in a way, was economic risk assessment, but it was entirely based on race! Black people didn't get loans, white people did. That was redlining. You can find the maps online. It was all about race. Those practices live on today. That is why cities are so segregated. This is HUGELY IMPORTANT!

This class just talks about all these grand plans throughout history without even a concession to their negative externalities - who was displaced? who benefitted and who was hurt? what happened to the poor people and their neighborhoods? When Baron von Haussman bulldozed boulevards through Paris, millions of poor people's homes and neighborhoods were destroyed. A real history of planning class would explore that. I was not expecting to come to one of the best planning schools in the country to listen to regressive, pro-planning cheer leading bullshit. In order to be planners we need to know the whole picture of planning in the past. We need to acknowledge the histories of cities both good and bad - both the prettiness of Paris, and the segregation and grittiness of Detroit.

Anyway...sorry for the brief rant. So...I've gotta pick classes for next semester. I feel like being at school has just confused whatever my previous planning goals were. I'm pretty sure I want to keep concentrating in Urban Design, but should I pursue transportation as a supplement? or should I take a little bit of everything? I don't know. What do I want my career to be? What will be my "great work"? I don't remember. My head is too muddled with planning theory and bullshit planning history. Ugh.

So this weekend should be fun. A Halloween party is happening. I don't have a costume yet and I have a ton of work to do. I'm tempted to recluse this weekend but I know I'll end up going out.

Despite slight sadness and frustration, I'm doing alright. It's good to know someone is thinking of me :) I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving like crazy, although I'm trying to enjoy the present. I keep telling myself there's no point in not enjoying where I'm at right now. In the past I've spent too much time looking to the future. If I always look to the future I'll never live because I'm never enjoying the now.

Sorry for the inarticulateness. I'm in the library. I have much left to do tonight. It's rainy here. Werner Herzog gave a talk today that I didn't get to go to cuz the auditorium was too packed :( Richard Serra is speaking tomorrow. I'm going to get there an hour early.

If you've made it this far, I definitely love you for reading this.

<3
Kristin