From Lot to Spot

Here is the latest map from From Lot to Spot’s Spaces of Blight Fall 2009 class!
This semester students have been learning about the urban form, the built environment, local government, community economic development, land use and how all these factors affect their everyday lives. As part of the Spaces of Blight project, students were assigned to identify a space of blight , or SOB, in their community, take a picture and describe why it is a space of blight. The students defined a space of blight as a visually unpleasing, economically depressed space.

The following map documents the students SOBs in their communities. Students documented SOB's from the neighborhoods in South LA to Gardena to Compton.
Click on “placemarks” to see pictures and descriptions of SOBs in their communities. (Note: you may need to zoom out to view all placemarks)

Needless to say, they were not hard to find and some students went beyond the minimum requirements.
Students living in urban areas often traverse these types of spaces while on their way to school, home, friend’s houses, etc. These types of environments are not conducive to learning, to growing or creating a healthy quality of life. We teach students that in order to change this reality, their reality, they must be part of the solution.
It is interesting to see what they identify as blight and their perspective about the built environment; I invite you to read their comments on what makes their identified SOB, a space of blight.

This spring 2010 students will be working on greening a portion of the Dominguez Channel - stay tuned!

View FLTS Spaces of Blight - Fall 2009 in a larger map