AP Human Geography Reading and Writing Workshop

Reading & Writing Workshop: Urbanization, Urban Models, and City Challenges
Overview
This workshop explores how cities form, evolve, and shape human experiences. Students will analyze foundational theories of urban growth, compare urban models, and evaluate the social and environmental challenges of modern cities. Using public-domain sources, historical documents, and group-based inquiry, the workshop emphasizes collaboration, discussion, and geographic reasoning.
Core Concepts:
Urbanization • City models • Suburbanization • Gentrification • Infrastructure • Housing • Sustainability
Workshop Goals:
  1. Analyze the historical and spatial processes that shape cities.
  2. Compare classical and modern urban models and evaluate their global applicability.
  3. Investigate real-world issues of housing, inequality, and infrastructure.
  4. Collaboratively propose solutions for sustainable urban development.
SESSION 1: Introduction to Urbanization and Early City Life
Readings (Public Domain):
  1. Friedrich Engels – The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17306
    Excerpt:
“The great towns have changed the face of the land, and the factory system has turned men into mere appendages of machines.”
  1. Jacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives (1890)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45502
    Excerpt:
“In the tenements all that is dark and foul of the city’s life and crime is left to fester.”
  1. Charles Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/98
    Excerpt:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness.”
Group Activity: “Urban Exposés: City Life Then and Now”
Objective: Compare 19th-century accounts of urbanization with modern global patterns.
Instructions:
  • Groups analyze how Engels, Riis, and Dickens each portray the city.
  • Create a visual “urban exposé” comparing one 19th-century industrial city with a modern megacity (e.g., London vs. Mumbai).
  • Present a gallery walk featuring quotations, maps, and modern photos.
Writing Extension:
Write a journalistic narrative describing life in an industrializing city using evidence from the readings.
SESSION 2: Urban Models and Theories
Readings (Public Domain):
  1. Ernest Burgess – “The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project” (1925)
    Full text: https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Burgess/Burgess_1925.html
    Excerpt:
“The city is a spatial pattern of concentric zones expanding from the central business district outward.”
  1. Georg Simmel – “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903)
    Full text: https://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Simmel_1903.pdf
    Excerpt:
“The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve autonomy against the overwhelming forces of the metropolis.”
  1. Jane Addams – Democracy and Social Ethics (1902)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/198
    Excerpt:
“The settlement must stand ready to interpret industrial tendencies to the community and vice versa.”
Group Activity: “Urban Model Builders”
Objective: Apply early 20th-century urban theories to real geographic contexts.
Instructions:
  • Assign groups a major world city (Chicago, São Paulo, Lagos, Tokyo).
  • Using Burgess’s Concentric Zone Model, sketch the city’s spatial structure.
  • Layer social and economic data to determine whether Simmel’s or Addams’s views better explain daily life.
  • Conclude with a mini-presentation connecting model theory to local realities.
Writing Extension:
Compose a comparative essay evaluating how two models (Burgess, Hoyt, Harris–Ullman, etc.) apply to a selected modern city.
SESSION 3: Urban Sprawl, Suburbanization, and Gentrification
Readings (Public Domain or Fair Use):
  1. Lewis Mumford – “Suburbia and the City” (1958)
    Full text: https://archive.org/details/cityinhistory0000m umf
    Excerpt:
“Suburbia has become the collective dream—and nightmare—of the modern age.”
  1. James Thomson – “The City of Dreadful Night” (1890)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18871
    Excerpt:
“The street-lamps burn amid the fog like evil glances,
The faces that one meets are ghostly white.”
  1. Jane Jacobs – The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) (fair use discussion)
    Summary Reference: https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/jacobsdeathandlife.html
    Excerpt (Fair Use):
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
Group Activity: “Neighborhood Narratives”
Objective: Investigate urban change and its effects on communities.
Instructions:
  • Groups research a historical neighborhood (e.g., Harlem, Brixton, Kreuzberg, La Boca).
  • Create a “before and after” timeline illustrating sprawl, renewal, and gentrification.
  • Use Mumford, Thomson, and Jacobs to frame questions of planning, displacement, and identity.
Writing Extension:
Write a persuasive letter to a city planner advocating for (or against) gentrification in a selected neighborhood.
SESSION 4: Housing, Infrastructure, and Urban Inequality
Readings (Public Domain):
  1. Lawrence Veiller – Tenement House Reform (1894)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14742
    Excerpt:
“The tenement house is not merely a building; it is a problem in social and sanitary reform.”
  1. Upton Sinclair – The Jungle (1906)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/140
    Excerpt:
“They had made up their minds that they were going to America to live in a free country, where they could earn a decent living.”
  1. Jacob Riis – The Battle with the Slum (1902)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45510
    Excerpt:
“The slum is the measure of civilization. It tells the story of the city’s neglect.”
Group Activity: “City Problem Solvers”
Objective: Design solutions to urban housing and infrastructure problems.
Instructions:
  • Groups use maps of 19th- and 21st-century cities to identify recurring issues (crowding, sanitation, transportation).
  • Create a poster illustrating one persistent challenge and one historical solution.
  • Evaluate how reform efforts like Veiller’s or Riis’s continue to influence modern urban planning.
Writing Extension:
Develop a case study report connecting one modern city’s housing or transportation issue to the historical readings.
SESSION 5: Sustainable Cities and Urban Futures
Readings (Public Domain):
  1. Ebenezer Howard – Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1902)
    Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48232
    Excerpt:
“Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together; the town and the country must be married.”
  1. Patrick Geddes – Cities in Evolution (1915)
    Full text: https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft
    Excerpt:
“The city is more than a place in space; it is a drama in time.”
  1. Le Corbusier – The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning (1929)
    Full text: https://archive.org/details/cityoftomorrowit00leco
    Excerpt:
“A city made for speed is made for success. A city made for success is made for man.”
Group Activity: “Sustainable Futures Symposium”
Objective: Reimagine cities through geographic and ethical lenses.
Instructions:
  • Groups represent planners, activists, or residents redesigning a city for 2050.
  • Use Howard, Geddes, and Le Corbusier to debate density, green space, and equity.
  • Present a collaborative urban vision plan through posters or digital story maps.
Writing Extension:
Compose a reflective essay: How can cities balance growth, sustainability, and human well-being?
Final Group Project: Urban Futures Portfolio
Project Title: “Mapping the Modern Metropolis”
Each group curates a portfolio connecting past, present, and future urban dynamics.
Components:
  1. Annotated excerpts from at least three workshop readings.
  2. A thematic essay linking historical urban theory to a modern challenge.
  3. A geographic map or model visualizing proposed improvements.
Assessment Criteria:
  • Integration of textual and geographic evidence
  • Collaboration and creativity
  • Written clarity and analysis
  • Relevance to sustainability and equity
Complete Reading URLs
  1. Engels – The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17306
  2. Riis – How the Other Half Lives (1890): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45502
  3. Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities (1859): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/98
  4. Burgess – “The Growth of the City” (1925): https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Burgess/Burgess_1925.html
  5. Simmel – “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903): https://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Simmel_1903.pdf
  6. Addams – Democracy and Social Ethics (1902): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/198
  7. Mumford – The City in History (1958): https://archive.org/details/cityinhistory0000m umf
  8. Thomson – The City of Dreadful Night (1890): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18871
  9. Veiller – Tenement House Reform (1894): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14742
  10. Sinclair – The Jungle (1906): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/140
  11. Riis – The Battle with the Slum (1902): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45510
  12. Howard – Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1902): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48232
  13. Geddes – Cities in Evolution (1915): https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft
  14. Le Corbusier – The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning (1929): https://archive.org/details/cityoftomorrowit00leco​
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