This blog post was written by Brook during his 3rd year in the Urban and Regional Environments stream.

 

 

 

As I began finishing up my second year at York, the time came when all Environmental Studies students had to decide on the Area of Concentration they would be pursuing for the remainder of their studies. Looking back at this time, I remember being very unsure about what my final decision would be. I knew that I had always been interested in Urban and Regional Environments, but I had taken the foundations course for this stream in my second year and it proved to be more challenging than I thought, causing me to reconsider choosing this stream. After hours of flipping through the course guides and reading up on the different courses for each concentration, I decided to take a break and walk around campus to clear my head.

During my walk, I came across the York University subway station and begun remembering how in my first year, when it had not opened yet, there would be long lines around campus for TTC buses. The subway had made commuting much easier for many students and this reminded me of a high school project I carried out studying the impact of a new bus transportation system called DART (Dar Area Rapid Transit) that was implemented in the city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

This project had me going around the city using this new bus and interviewing different people from all walks of life, asking them how the bus had changed their transit experience. I had really enjoyed this experience and observing how an efficient transit system has transformed the lives of people, from students being able to commute from further distances to parents being able to return home quicker from work and care for their children. This experience showed me the direct impact that improved transit can have on the lives of people and this ignited my passion for understanding cities and how the systems can work to enhance people's lives. After this walk and moment of reflection, I came back and decided on Urban and Regional Environments as my Area of Concentration.

Urban and Regional Environments focuses on studying urban areas of all types and figuring out ways to make them more sustainable, resilient, and environmentally conscious. I am now in my third year and many of the classes I take are focused on this topic.

One example is my course ENVS 3227: Urban Planning and Politics in a Global Context, where we study the fundamentals of planning in cities all over the world. Key planning issues such as effective transit, proper land use and development are also discussed in this class which makes it more interesting for me to explore.

Another course that I'm taking is ENVS 3740: Urban Ecology. This course explores nature in cities and the role that different natural processes play in shaping the urban landscape. One of the ways nature is present in cities is through urban parks, and an assignment for this course was to write a site analysis on a park talking about the different features such as wildlife and green spaces and how these features work to enhance the lives of the surrounding communities. I got to explore Downsview Park, one of the most popular urban parks in Toronto, and gain an understanding of why it is so important that we preserve nature in our urban spaces.

Overall, I am enjoying my third year as the courses have become much more specific to my interests. The classes have also changed from a lecture and tutorial style to a seminar style which is smaller in size and has more room for conversations and discussions with the class. This has allowed me to gain a variety of perspectives on the different discussion topics like never before. As I progress through my third year and eventually into my fourth, I hope to continue this level of engagement in my courses and I am sure that the topics will be more interesting and eye opening.