After reading “Urban Walking isn’t just Good for the Soul” and thinking about my daily walks to the train station, I then realize I don’t even pay attention to my neighborhood anymore. I’ve walked that same route for many years to the point where it’s a norm. In the article John Elledge states “I’ve since done that route so often that I’ve grown bored with it,” which relates with exactly how I feel about my walks to and from the train station every day. I did notice they added a new traffic light to a block that never had one. The only reason why I saw was that it affects me when it comes to crossing the street, some cars still don’t realize that the traffic light is there and they were both at the crosswalk looking at each other like are you going to cross or not.

City changes according to the change of society and culture. In my opinion, I believe that people are the major source of that change because people are expressing their culture and their traditional that they learned from their parents in the city that they are living in now. They change the atmosphere of the place that they are living in according to their culture. You can see that very clearly in the cities that have many different people from different countries. Brooklyn is a great example of that, it shows how city changes according to the people culture because it has the most emigrants from everywhere around the world. As you can see in the film “My Brooklyn”, it shows how society change very fast in past few years in Brooklyn because the traditional that people express from all around the world on one city. They are not controlling that change because they are doing that without feeling that they are impacting on the other people around them. Of course, people have the right to manage change in the city and I see this in a good way because you can learn a lot of new things and information from the people around you. In Brooklyn, you can meet hundreds of different cultures which is a great experience for anyone. I totally believe that PEOPLE are the CITY.

How is change managed in a city? Who manages that changes? Do people have a right to the city?

As the population of New York City is actively increasing the city itself seems to be improving overall. There are new changes that benefit New Yorkers as a place to live. Mayor Bloomberg, who agree to the ideas of “improve this city”. The mayor is allowing the plans of tall buildings to be built in Brooklyn. However, there are cons to those plans. In a film called “My Brooklyn”, they explain how Brooklyn’s markets and stores are being overpriced and kicking people from their location to replacing with new modern office buildings. We as New Yorkers should have a right to our city. This means that our voice should be heard.  However, now they are trying to clear out Fulton Mall… A place where you can hear jazz playing and people promoting their sales. People who work at the mall are trying to protest to keep it open. However, the city isn’t listening to them and giving everyone a deadline to leave the building. These people are being mistreated. Their voices are not truly being heard. So, do we have a right in our city? When it really matters… the people who “own” the city (government) make it harder for the true creators of New York to promote change. The true creators are the people working in that mall pushing their limits to create business and earn money for their families.

The city as we know it has gone through a lot of changes from industrialization to Modernization. Change is inevitable and it happens everyday in ways we might not even realize sometimes. However even though short the history of the city has shown that change in cities is unstoppable and sometimes not at the hands of the people. Change is a scary thing we might not all deal with or want to deal with but are forced into it, like the people from the “My brooklyn” movie. Even though they did not want to and wanted to save the fulton mall, most store owners had to move and leave their business because the area was going through process of gentrification.  I believe people do get a say in the change of the city , however they aren’t always as strong to make the changes happen. As an example in such a big and modern city New York, it is mainly managed by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, whose main interest is money or to protect the privileged ones forgetting about the low/working class. It seems quite unfair because as the people who live in the city and help grow the city we should have a say or right in it, and even though the democratic system claims to be one of the people we can all agree that’s not always the case. My brooklyn is an example on how the people can get put down easily and lose all their properties and culture because of  gentrification. However in the film “Citizen Jane:Battle for the city” we can see how when people get together and fight for what the think is right they can make change happen or in this case stop it from happening in a way that the people were the only ones to lose. It should be remembered that a city wouldn’t grow without the people living in it, so as the creators and residents they should be taken more into consideration when change happens, because most of the time they just end up being the collateral damage and seen as a minority.