Choudhury, Kushanava
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Publication Presentation at Penn Urban Studies Colloquium: Delhi, the Invisible City(2013-10-01) Choudhury, Kushanava; Chattaraj, Durba; Joshi, MoulshriNew Delhi is the capital of India, and a master-planned metropolis. Its unplanned spaces such as Urban Villages, Unauthorized Colonies and Jhuggi Jhopri Clusters tend to be seen as the margins of the planned city. Yet a majority of citizens live and work in these unplanned areas of the city. For millions of Delhi-ites, the non-planned areas are sources of affordable rental housing as well as employment, as locations for thousands of small businesses and workshops. These spaces and the economies and communities they contain, are connected to the planned city through complex political and economic arrangements. These spaces and forms -- unplanned and planned, informal and formal -- are overlapping and constitutive of a larger system and set of arrangements which we call “The Invisible City.” We use the term "the Invisible City" because architects, planners and social scientists rarely find out how these spaces function as a whole. Through interviews, surveys and mapping of specific neighborhoods in the city, this interdisciplinary project seeks to utilize expertise from urban planning, architecture and the social sciences to look at Economic, Politics and Space together in the making of a place. Our work is intended to open up questions in order to generate new concepts about urban space in a globalizing nation-state.Publication Philly, Delhi and Beyond: What is a Social Science Studio?(2015-05-01) Choudhury, KushanavaIn Spring 2014, six students and one professor took part in a course offered by Urban Studies at U Penn, titled "Social Science Studio: Immigrants Make the City". By focusing on the Italian Market neighborhood, in South Philadelphia, students explored how immigration transforms urban spaces in large American cities. They researched how immigrants are remaking the city economically, politically, socially, and culturally. We approached the field with multiple sets of disciplinary tools to describe what exists on the ground, in order to accommodate multiple ways of seeing. The "Social Science Studio" concept is simple: Use the design studio format to ask social science questions.Publication Event Invitation (5/1/15): Immigrants Make the City(2015-06-04) Choudhury, KushanavaPublication Visit the Italian Market(2015-08-01) Choudhury, KushanavaPublication Social Science Studio: Immigrants Make the City(2014-05-01) Choudhury, Kushanava"Social Science Studio: Immigrants Make the City" Dr. Kushanava Choudhury How do American cities grow? Studies of urban transformation have focused on anchor institutions, the growth model of big business-generated employment, and "creative class" gentrification. After decades of decline, many major cities like Philadelphia are seeing gains in population again, as well as new commercial activity and street life, spurred by the influx of new immigrant communities. Yet few scholars have asked: What role do immigrants play in the current revival of the American metropolis? In Spring 2015, six students at the University of Pennsylvania joined Prof. Kushanava Choudhury's "Social Science Studio" course to investigate how immigrants are remaking the American cities economically, politically and culturally. They focused closely on one neighborhood in one city: The Italian Market in South Philadelphia. South Philadelphia in the last decade has witnessed a transformation, with new businesses, rising property values, improving schools, and a very diverse population. This revitalization is most apparent in the Italian market area, where the arrival of immigrant communities and immigrant-owned businesses had transformed and revived the neighborhood. A focal point of this phenomenon in Philadelphia is the Italian Market area. Now a mix of Mexican, Vietnamese, Chinese and Cambodian populations alongside the traditional Italian community, the market and surrounding areas have been revitalized in the last decade by an influx of immigrants. Many new businesses have opened, the real-estate values have increased, as has enrollment in struggling public schools. This course will track the process by which immigration has transformed this urban space. By focusing on one city and one neighborhood, this course explored how immigrants are remaking the American city economically, politically and culturally. The course, titled "Social Science Studio: Immigrants Make the City" used the design studio format to ask social science questions. Students used multiple methods drawn from architecture, planning, anthropology and political science, including mapping, sketching, photography, interviews, field notes and socio-economic surveys to develop independent projects over the course of the semester, that engage multiple methods and fields to produce new types of knowledge. Their research draws on a tradition of doing detailed neighborhood studies with a group of students to seek insights into large theoretical questions that goes back to WEB Du Bois' Ward-level study of African Americans in the 7th Ward in Philadelphia, which became the classic sociological study, The Philadelphia Negro. The Social Science Studio format enabled students to collectively generate a large amount of new knowledge as well as new research questions in an emerging field. Their findings are available on this website.Publication Italian Market Tour Map(2015-08-01) Choudhury, KushanavaThe Italian Market area is increasingly becoming a tourist attraction and -- especially as a fresh fruit and vegetable market -- a food destination. There is no better way to experience the unique flavors of the neighborhood and its cosmopolitan identity than through its food. Attached is a food map of the Italian Market. Enjoy the range of unique delicacies available in just a few short city blocks. There is no other neighborhood in Philadelphia quite like it. Penntracks, Walking Tours of Philadelphia, New Students Orientation Program University of Pennsylvania https://secure.www.upenn.edu/nso/images/stories/Penntracks/maps/italian-market-tour-map.pdf https://secure.www.upenn.edu/nso/penntracks.html