Observing and interpreting urban landscapes

Field Trip Assignment for Remote Students
GEOS 2123 Geography of Cities and Regions, Semester 1 2022


Due Date
Reports to be submitted via Canvas by 5pm Monday 27 May

Word Length
1500 words (+- 10% permitted) excluding references and illustrations.

Purpose
In a ‘normal’ year, when all students are enrolled on campus, we would be taking you on a
field trip, and asking you to write about something that you saw on that trip. The purpose of
this exercise is to focus on the dimension of place – both to hone your observational skills,
and to reflect on how the places you observe can be interpreted through analysis of the
processes that produce them.

With will not be able to do this with remote students this year. But we still want you to do
an assignment that explores cities through the dimension of place.

So, instead of asking you to make observations about places in Sydney that you visit on a
field trip, we are asking you to describe and interpret an urban landscape feature that you
know well already – a landscape feature that is special to you in some way. By asking you to
both describe and analyse a landscape feature, we hope that you will still learn about the
relationship between observation and interpretation – and you might even start to think
about places that you know well in a new way, through some urban geographical analysis!

Instructions
For this report, we want you to:
• describe ONE urban landscape feature that is important to you within a city, and tell us
why it is important to you;
• analyse how that landscape feature came to be the way it is, and what that tells us
about the urban process in the city where it is located.

Further information

What do you mean by ‘urban landscape feature’?

In asking you to choose an urban landscape feature, we are asking you to choose something
very specific and small-scale. In other words, we do not want you to write something
general about a place like ‘Sydney’ or ‘Shanghai’. Rather, we want you to ‘zoom in’ on a
specific feature or object in an urban landscape. The largest scale you should write about
would be a street or a precinct. But we imagine many of you might write about a something
relatively small scale that is important or special to you in some way. This could be
something like:
• a house or building that is special to you for some reason;
• a favourite shop or restaurant;
• a sporting venue or park;
• a place of worship that’s meaningful to you;
• a piece of urban street art that you love, or a laneway that you visit frequently
because it’s street art is always changing;
• etc.

What makes for a good ‘description’ of an urban landscape feature?

Your description should be more than one line. For instance, if you are writing about the
house where you grew up, tell us about that house. Where is it located? What kind of house
is it? How old is it, how many rooms, what style is it? Etc. Your description could be
illustrated by pictures if you have them. Given that we are asking for a description, this does
not necessarily need to be accompanied by any academic references – although you might
draw on some academic and academic sources in your description.

How should you write about why that landscape feature is important to you?

In writing about why this place is important to you, we are asking you to write something a
little bit personal. You do not have to write your whole life history to answer this question!
We are just asking you to tell us why you have selected this particular landscape feature,
and why it is significant to you. Here, you should absolutely be writing in the ‘first person’,
about your connections and attachments to the landscape feature you have chosen.

How should you analyse the landscape feature you have chosen?

The best reports will include interesting descriptions, AND offer insightful and interesting
analyses by relating those observations to concepts covered in lectures, tutorials, and your
own further reading. The analysis should take up the majority of your report.

So, for example, if you chose a place of worship as your landscape feature, your analysis
should ‘zoom out’ and consider that place of worship in its wider urban context. To guide
your analysis, you might consider how that particular place relates to other dimensions of
the city, eg:
• what broader urbanisation processes shaped the feature you have chosen?
• which people were involved in its making, and/or its use?
• what kinds of practices have shaped that feature, and/or ‘take place’ there
• etc.
Your analysis does not have to consider all of those questions, or all of the other dimensions
of the urban – that will depend on the landscape feature you have chosen, and which is
most appropriate and interesting to you.



For further reading on the idea of ‘reading the landscape’, consult the following:
• Mitchell, D. (2008) New axioms for reading the landscape: Paying attention to
political economy and social justice, pp. 29-50, in Wescoat, J.L. Jr; & Johnston, D.M.
(eds) Political Economies of Landscape Change, Springer.
While you don’t need to follow or use all of Mitchell’s ‘axioms’ in your analysis of the
landscape feature that you write about, this reading should be helpful to better understand
what it means to analyse a landscape.

Kurt will also provide an example piece of writing, examining a landscape feature that’s
important to him, and analysing that landscape.

Marking criteria

Fail does not display written expression skills that are expected for an
Intermediate undergraduate student, including ability to correctly cite
research materials and refer to field observations.
Pass displays ability to present written material which shows an
understanding of ideas, a capacity to develop arguments and to cite
these appropriately. Approximately 60%-65% of students may be
expected to fall into this grade.
Credit meets ‘Pass’ expectations and displays elevated abilities to interpret
ideas and present arguments. Approximately 30%-35% of students may
be expected to fall into this grade.
Distinction meets ‘Credit’ expectations but builds on these with high-level
interpretive abilities, superior written expression and wider referencing
(appropriate to the task). Approximately 10%-15% of students may be
expected to fall into this grade.
High Distinction meets and surpasses ‘Distinction’ expectations, and which ‘shine out’
because of their innovative, high quality analytical abilities. It would
usually be expected that less than 5% of assessments fall into this
grade.