Reports (Social Science Studio)

"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.

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  • Publication
    Philly, Delhi and Beyond: What is a Social Science Studio?
    (2015-05-01) Choudhury, Kushanava
    In 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
  • Publication
    A Digital Revitalization: Immigration and the Italian Market
    (2015-01-01) Lynch, Sean
    Existing theories of public spaces are outdated because they largely ignore the advent of digital socialization. The revitalization of public spaces such as parks, sidewalks in the new urbanist mold is premised on ideas of public space from the 1950s, before suburban sprawl. However, technology, such as smart phones and social media, have fundamentally changed the way in which all groups now interface with space. This is especially true of immigrants, who exist in multiple spaces, at home and in the new city, at once and maintain these myriad linkages through digital space. This project presents a critique of proposed revitalization plans of the Italian Market in Philadelphia in the context of existing physical and digital spaces. In 21st century Philadelphia, the demographic reality of immigrant-driven population growth and the technological fact of increased digital socialization, mean that we need to think of the city and urban 'space' as simultaneously local and global, digital and physical. This paper calls for a re-examination of the role of of traditional public spaces in revitalization in light of these changing modes of immigration and socialization.
  • Publication
    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.