Boston's West End: Moving Forward/Looking Back

[datadyne007]

Below please find a link to the abstract and speaker bios for next week's opening talk and reception for Boston's West End: Moving Forward/Looking Back, taking place on Wednesday, November 7 at 6:00PM in the Alumni Library.

The Executive Director and Founder of the West End Museum will be talking about the history of the West End, and the exhibit (up through Monday, November 26) will include numerous artifacts, models and posters showcasing the past, present and future of this significant part of Boston.

http://myweb.wit.edu/provost/westendabstractbios.pdf

We look forward to seeing many of you there!
Lois Ascher, Humanities and Social Sciences
Karen Britton, Academic Relations/Office of the Provost x4472
Marianne Thibodeau, Alumni Library

From the abstract:

...The loss of the West End to the questionable objective of “progress” provokes us to examine the methodology of urban renewal, from one focused solely on bricks and mortar to one which includes those urban populations most affected by government programs. If the public urban realm is, as James Howard Kunstler says it is, “the physical manifestation of the common good” (2004), then government initiatives carried out as was the urban renewal of the West End, harm all who wish to live lives cocooned within community.

Accordingly, the exhibit and surrounding discussion seek to engage participants in the question of how to move our urban areas into the future without destroying the roots which bind us to one another and to the environments which support us...