Why Urban Planning?
I wrote this essay in late 2023 as part of an application to a prestigious university’s urban planning undergraduate program. The prompt was major-specific: to justify my interest in the field of urban planning.
I have edited out the parts that were specific to that university. This essay led to an acceptance, but I could not attend that university in order to afford the expensive master’s degree that the urban planning career requires. Go Bearcats!
Regardless, I think I made a pretty good effort at encapsulating what draws me to urban planning and motivates me to pursue it professionally. The sharp 650 word limit forced me to spend hours and hours cutting down my ideas.
Last July [2023], my father and I set out to walk the entire length of Broadway in Manhattan in one day. Over its thirteen grid-slicing miles, Broadway traverses a huge variety of urban spaces, from the I-shaped brick apartment buildings of Washington Heights to the oppressive bustle of Times Square. Through my years of exploring the city, only thirty minutes away by train, I have come to know these locales well; while most kids find freedom when they turn sixteen and obtain a driver’s license, at fourteen, I could already explore a twenty million-strong region with nothing but a MetroCard. Through these escapades, I have acquired several related interests, including trains, topography, and urban demographics.
The catalyst for my hobby of urban exploration was a longstanding childlike enchantment with trains. Years ago, I discovered a list of every metro system on the planet. I wore out my scroll wheel researching the history, features, and quirks of each system, focusing most intensely on the New York City Subway. I studied countless routes, cars, and stations. As the lockdowns came to a close and New York City once again burst with life, I would take the train to see new stations and neighborhoods. Whether in the PATH stop in Hoboken or the LIRR complex in Jamaica, Queens, I would race into the station two steps at a time for a chance to calmly gaze out the window to the train’s electric hum. Drawstring backpack in hand, I watched as the commuters, students, and hobbyists like myself boarded the train at each stop.
Along my train adventures, I also grew interested in the impact of land formations on urban infrastructure. When I take the 1 train south from Marble Hill to skirt Grand Central’s expensive fares, I glide over the ancient five-story high 125th Street Viaduct, always trying to sneak a view of the Hudson River through the canyons between the buildings. Curiously, the viaduct stays flat as it rises far above street level in order to maintain a shallow grade over a deep natural valley. I directly experienced the effect of topography on urban design in my Science Research project, where I considered the effect of one street’s steep grade on a hypothetical roundabout’s capacity in my hometown. Whether in New York City, or my small village, I continuously consider how infrastructure morphs to adapt to challenging topography.
Topography may influence infrastructure, but I also marvel at how infrastructure in turn plays into urban demographics and neighborhoods. When the 7 train first meandered through Queens in the 1920s, its surroundings were empty lots; now, it abuts dense residential land. A few years ago, I took the 7 train to its terminus in Flushing, Queens, a bustling ethnic enclave much larger than the more well-known Chinatown. Flushing profoundly reminds me of my Eastern European forebears living in tenements not a century ago, not in outer Queens but instead in Manhattan’s Lower East Side or Philadelphia’s Queen Village. The visits also inspire me to widen my perspective of the multiethnic metropolis I call home.
Traversing Broadway was both a culmination and new beginning of my years exploring New York City. Each footstep crossed an accumulation of hundreds of years of competing interests. Exhausted and only halfway to the Battery, I passed Lincoln Center, itself a product of destructive urban renewal policy, and came to a profound realization: through studying urban planning, I could not only expand my knowledge of the history of cities, but also contemplate and even decide their future.