Your paper will provide an overview of a city using the terms and concepts developed in class. Though you are free to select your muse from any number of major cities throughout the US, I urge you to pick a city with a significant historical record. Your paper should provide an overview of the ‘evolution’ of your city from its incipiency to its modern day incarnation and choose a sustainability related issue to analyze. As this is a descriptive and an analytic assignment, your paper must provide sufficient detail to provide the reader with a sense of how the various aspects of the city have come together to give it life and explore the issue you have chosen in sufficient detail.At a minimum, your paper must contain sections on demography, economy, politics and government, social structure and culture (including religion), and city design. Additionally, provide an overview of a topical sustainability / planning related issue confronting the city. There may be some overlap between each of the sections, however, please proof read the paper to eliminate major redundancies. The paper must also include introductory and concluding remarks. The introduction should, well, introduce the city, the reasons why it was chosen, provide some sense of its history, and discuss its place in the modern world. The conclusion should summarize the previous sections and speculate about the city’s future (e.g. is it a dying city or does it have a promising future, and why). Your final paper will be 2500 words. You will use 1” margins and 12 pt font, preferably Times New Roman or Calibri (you can use 1.5, or double space). You can include figures, charts, tables and other non-narrative elements to make your case, however, use them appropriately and sparingly (and not as a replacement for substantive narrative content). Also citations should be provided in the text with a reference list at the end of the paper (use APA or MLA format for citations; again, references will not count towards your page limit)..General Grading Scheme (90-100 points) Major descriptive indicators or characteristics are included. The summary of the sustainability / planning related issue provides the reader a good sense of the problem, its evolution (i.e. how it came to be) and possible approaches to addressing the problem. The description is both cross sectional and historical. Redundant information is at a minimum. Figures, charts, tables, etc are not used as filler devices but complement the narrative section (and vice-versa). The description does not contain any glaring holes or obvious omissions. After reading the section, one has a real sense of how the city came to be, a major challenge it faces in the context of sustainability and ways to address the issue you have highlighted.(80-89 points) Most of the major descriptive indicators or characteristics are included. The summary of the sustainability / planning related issue is mostly thorough though lacking important indicators and/or discussion of potential solutions. The description is mostly cross sectional and there is some evidence of the historical evolution of the section being described. Some redundant information is included. Charts, tables, figures, etc. are also included though sometimes in a disjointed manner (i.e. they do not flow with the text or are formatted poorly). (70-79 points) Only some of the important indicators and characteristics are included in the section. There is little discussion of a sustainability / planning related issue. The section appears somewhat hastily written. Little historical context is provided and the section is mostly cross sectional (i.e. describes only the modern city). The wrong terminology or concepts are sometimes used to describe a particular phenomenon. The section contains a number of redundancies. The section feels as if the author was trying to ‘fill up’ space and the formatting is generally poor(<70 points) Very little effort has been put into the paper. Important ideas are missing and the paper generally appears ‘cut and pasted’ together hastily from various online sources. Very little historical context, if any, is provided. The writing and formatting are generally poor and the paper lacks coherence.

Intangibles (the “Gestalt”) –It is also important to proofread the paper with fresh eyes to minimize errors in grammar, diction, syntax, spelling, etc as points will be given for the feel, flow, and cogency of each section and the overall paper. Also, please try to use an established reference convention (e.g. APA).

SUGGESTED OUTLINE (suggested page, single space, limits are noted though please organize the paper as you see fit):

1. Intro (1/2 page max)

2. City Background (History, Geography, and other important characteristics). (1/2 page)

3. Demography (1/2 page)

4. Economy (1/2 page)

5. Society and Culture including Religion (1/2 page)

6. City Design (1/2 page)

7. Planning /Sustainability related issue (2 pages)

8. Conclusion (1/2 page max)