SOCI 5537: Urban Problems
CRCL 5332: Diversity in Urban America
Spring 2015
Urban Sociology Project Guidelines
Students must prepare an approximate 12-15 page project report (including any charts, graphs, and bibliography, but not including title page), on some issue in urban sociology, urban planning, or urban demography that is due April 21 at the beginning of class. Topics must posted to BlackBoard to be approved by the instructor by March 24 (I urge you to develop a topic early, so as to not be rushed at the end). Plagiarized work will receive a zero for the assignment.
The project must be typed, double-spaced, with standard one-inch margins. You should use APA, Chicago or ASA style, and you need to provide a bibliography for all cited material. I expect that you will need to go beyond class material as part of the project/paper (although use of class material is appropriate), and therefore must include at least 7 academic sources (use of the internet is fine, but should be academic sites, not personal web sites). These 7 academic sources can include:
• Books
• Journal articles
• Newspaper Articles (but NOT USA Today)
• US government data on urban regions, or data from other public sources (like HISD)
• Census information (either from CD ROM in the library on through their web-site), or other data base information such as FBI Crime statistics or Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
• Interviews with officials or clients in an urban social service or urban planning agency
• In addition to the academic resources, you can relate observations made by you in an urban setting (ie., homeless shelter, city council meeting, school board meeting, etc.)
Possible topics include: problems associated with Clear Lake City annexation; the history of Habitat for Humanity in Houston (maybe visit one of their worksites and talk to somebody); the history of the 3rd or 5th Ward in Houston; homelessness in Houston; community and economic development in Houston (maybe interview a city planner or community developer); history of Hispanic migration in Houston; gang activity in Houston (maybe interview someone in HPD who is part of their gang task force); housing issues in Houston or the US); a analysis using the data found from Rice University’s Dr. Stephen Kleinberg’s “Houston Survey;” Houston’s “General Store” and background behind issue of providing social services in urban environment; AND ANY OTHER TOPIC WHICH INTERESTS YOU.
