What is it?
In their critical thinking exercise that concludes the reading "Suburbs of the Future", Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 87-88) invite us to discuss two questions that test our understanding of ideas in the reading by applying to another context and by extending them beyond what the reading tells us.
We will discuss only question 1; you might, however, find local development issues to be useful support.
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1.
- Which of the predictions made in the text do you think are least likely to happen? Why?
You have 16:00 minutes to plan and write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 5:00 minutes
- choose your topic(s) - whose predictions?
- make notes - why do you think them unlikely to happen?
- related ideas in the article?
- your own examples?
- own experience?
- own knowledge?
- organize - which first? Connections between them?
- writing = 8:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
- editing = 3:00 minutes.
- publish = 0:01 minutes (It's an important part in the writing process, but often the quickest.)
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A useful strategy - as usual
Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it.
This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
In the article "Suburbs of the Future", Sarah Kalensky predicts a different future regarding diversity in suburbs to those of Yoichi Katayama and Matt Crawford. Both present supporting reasons, but I agree with Katayama and Crawford that in future the suburbs are more likely to have a greater diversity among their residents. As Katayama points out, there is already considerable diversity in suburban areas, with people from different ethnic groups and income levels living together. This also fits with my own experience in Australia, where suburbs in Sydney that were traditionally mainly white middle class or immigrants on lower incomes have become increasingly mixed. In the Sydney suburb of Newtown for example, which was largely poorer Italian and Greek immigrants when I began studying at Sydney University some decades ago, began changing as more affluent people wanted to live near the city and near the university. The result was that they moved in, but many of the older residents became more affluent with them, so that the area today is a very mixed community or poeple from many different nationalities living in a mix of expensive houses and less expensive apartments. I think that Kalensky is likely wrong in her prediction.
ReplyDeletePeople who live in everywhere will have their own good and flaws, in suburbia also, these day people are tending to have a consideration for their own living, that the company and government have to found, suburbian are living far away from the city, they have to live with nature within their province, when the migration of the citizen are continually expanding over the suburbs, the managerial people will have to figure out what they want, which will not the house or living residence that place everywhere as Matt Crawford explain his Bungalow Theory, I have a thoughts that there will be a better choice.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the reading: suburbs of the the future, I think the prediction that people will be travelling less in the future than today because of the future density policy is least likely to happen because travelling is the essential activity for human beings.
ReplyDeleteMany experts put their hopes high and expect that the future of suburbs will be greater and greener. Yoichi Katayama, author of 'The Eco Futurist' mentioned in an article - Suburbs of the Future - that "Energy-saving features will cost less financial too". In my opinion, this prediction is least likely to happen.
ReplyDeleteEnergy-saving features, of course, will help us save the world, but they come with high cost in the beginning. Take a solar cell board as an example. One solar cell board will cost you at least THB 100,000. The board itself cannot work alone, you will also need a saving unit to keep the power you are producing each day and you will also need a converter to change this power to electricity. The whole system will cost you at least THB 500,000. This cost may greater than your 5 years electricity bills.
I think Katayama's prediction are least likely to happen. In my opinion, I agree with some parts of it, but disagree with most parts of it compared to other futurists. Firstly, Katayama mentioned that mixed-use developments required parking facilities, so it logically encourages people to use cars. In my point of view, if the populations have good public transportation, they will not use cars or motorbikes. Moreover, with parking facilities the customers can use bicycles which is a greener alternative instead of cars. In addition, Katayama said that the suburb provides facilities more easily to reach. As a consequence, there is no reason people will use cars to get into restaurants within a small distance. As a result, emissions could not increase in particular areas.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with this prediction, 'Energy-saving features will cost less financially. This is significant as new developments must be within budget for not only older generations., from Katayama. In my opinions, Eco-friendly accommodations are not likely to be affordable for everyone and people from different background could not live in the same area. An energy-saving feature might cost less in the long term but equipment and installing cost can be expensive, resulting in a high-price home. Moreover, base on my experience, most people prefer living with similar background people especially when they have to share a mixed-used building.
ReplyDelete