In this first year writing and communication course you will consider how your work at Tech and after Tech may interact with and affect urban communities and the people who live in them. We will begin by examining our own backgrounds--whether you're a life long city dweller or whether you grew up in a rural or suburban area--and how they have shaped our attitudes toward Atlanta and toward cities generally. These backgrounds, we will see, may condition our attitudes toward the development of urban space. We will spend time watching film, television, and other media objects in order to critique and deconstruct common stereotypes and tropes about cities and their development. Finally, the course will culminate in a video project were you will imagine your own development project somewhere in the city of Atlanta, and consider questions of sustainability, economic inequality, gentrification, and civic dialogue in presenting it to the public. In carrying out these projects, students will learn how to identify relationships between economic, social, and ecological systems by developing a critical stance through the analysis of issues around urban space and its representation in media.