emphasizes something deeper than what meets the eye.
The authors finish by stating that the point of incorporating nature into the campus is not to create a pretty landscape that appeals to potential students but to create an environment solely focused on furthering academics. How does one differentiate between a landscape developed to aesthetically appeal and an landscape developed to aid students?
Height of buildings Complexity and ornamentation of façade Sense of enclosure (no blocked views)
The GSU courtyard is a good example of a enclosed space surrounded by tall buildings. The courtyard is a space where many students hangout and travel from one part of campus to another.
Physical access to trails
These types of affordances are not available to many universities such as Georgia State which are located in the heart of cities. Does the lack of access to nature affect the GSU student body in terms of academics? How would we quantitatively prove that more access to nature equals better results? How is nature quantified?
Interaction with natural environments (especially green nature) employs faculties of concentration not normally used – involuntary ones – thus allowing the neural mechanisms underlying directed attention a chance to rest and replenish.
The authors have spent the last four paragraphs using academic jargon to say "plant green stuff". I'm sure there is more nuance to their position but most of their conclusions are not proven through data. They are inferring a relationship through a small sample size of data.
Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi
I searched Gulwadi's background through this link: http://www.uni.edu/csbs/sahs/interior-design/faculty-directory/gowri-betrabet-gulwadi
She is credible in regards to the topic of this article because she has a Doctorate degree in Environment-Behavior studies.
Kathleen G Scholl
I searched Scholl's background: on the following link:
" teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Outdoor Recreation Management, Outdoor Education, Research and Evaluation, Philosophical Foundations, and Social Psychology of Leisure. Dr. Scholl integrates practical experiences for her students to apply current best practices to outdoor recreation planning and programming. "
She appears to be credible since she teaches graduate courses on the subject of "Outdoor Recreation Management" and "Outdoor Education".
closely clustered buildings previously designed to protect students from the lures of the outside world
Isn't Georgia State a set of "closely clustered buildings"? I think the author meant to say closed compound. Although Georgia State fits the description, its location in the middle of downtown Atlanta actually thrusts the students right into the face of the real world. Rather it could be argued that spread out campuses like UGA seclude the student from the outside world.
Furthermore, increased technology use within today’s multitasking society is likely to hijack a student’s attentional resource placing her/him at risk of underachieving academic learning goals and undermining success at a university
I'm sure most of us can agree that the available technology hinders our ability to pay attention. One minute I might be typing notes and the next minute I might drift off into Reddit. At this point we have to ask ourselves; is the good derived from the available technology outweighing the negative effects?
must be perceived as a holistic learning space that provides a holistic learning experience
Holistic is define as:"characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole."
So holistic learning spaces refer to the cohesiveness of the learning experience provided by all areas of the campus (in my understanding).
we propose that the natural landscape of a university campus is an attentional learning resource for its students.
The idea that college campuses should be "attentional learning" resources, appears to be the main idea of the article. What does the author mean by "attentional learning"?
type of people they want to come to the mall.
Why would the mall want to exclude customers?
Municipalities also often use the most straightforward physical structures to exclude—walls and barriers.
I'm quite shocked to see that these practices are still being upheld as late as 2012. I would have thought that a forward thinking society would have resolved these glaring physical issues by now.
that sort of evidence is often not available.
That's why lawmakers have a hard time trying to prevent exclusionary tactics. Often there is no reliable source that accurately shows the intent of the developer. This creates legal issues when trying to accuse someone of social-bias
places have racial identities based on their history of or reputation for exclusion,
Georgia may be a prime example of this given the States history concerning slavery and the Confederacy.
libertarian paternalism.
An institution has the power to influence people and at the same time allow people to use their own judgement and make their own decisions
As one planning scholar acknowledged, “[r]ace is a ubiquitous reality that must be acknowledged . . . if [planners] do not want simply to be the facilitators of social exclusion and economic isolation.”42
Economic isolation in terms of living spaces is much more complex than just being a by product of architectural design. Historical suppression of certain races and basic economic principles in a capitalist system create this situation.
As one planning scholar acknowledged, “[r]ace is a ubiquitous reality that must be acknowledged . . . if [planners] do not want simply to be the facilitators of social exclusion and economic isolation.”42
Sometimes architectural planning does create social division BUT from my observations it seems that people choose to be racially divided.
exclusionary urban design tactics.
This seems to be the focus of the paper. How does the law make it possible for these urban design issues to become exclusionary?
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities.7
I don't know how credible this claim is. In this sentence the author seems to be trying interpret the white peoples opinions in a negative light. I'm not supporting racial discrimination. Rather I am suggesting that there are probably real concerns that the white citizens have (e.i a quite neighborhood, traffic, etc.) that shape their opinions.
Even though America is seen as the beacon of human progress the country still suffers from the socio-economic and racial issues originating from its past.
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is defined as: a legal system.