First off, I really appreciate Dr. Blalock stepping in to run Monday’s Table Talk. To be honest, I’ve never given city planning much thought, except perhaps when I complain about traffic bottlenecks and confusing roads when I’m driving. At the Table Talk, I learned that city planning is more than just deciding where the roads and intersections go. It’s a complicated process that has to deal with sanitation, environmental impact, education, health, and general quality of life. City planning often takes years and requires explicit objects and goals detailed in a sight plan before any construction can happen. And there are different ways to city plan; for example, a city can be split up into zones, such as residential and industrial, which have their own sets of guidelines and  restrictions to follow, or it can incorporate mixed use, where residences mesh with schools and commercial areas for convenience.

I also had a good time learning more about Ithaca’s past, from Ezra Cornell’s fortune coming from investing shares into telegraph companies which merged into what is now Western Union to how downtown Ithaca is situated on a flood plain to how Cayuga Lake connects us to the rest of the world via waterways. I did feel a little dumb for knowing next to nothing about Ithaca beforehand, but I’m glad that I’m a little more informed now. Originally, I had come to the Table Talk to learn more about how to better orient myself in a new place, which, as my freshman fall semester can attest to, I am extremely bad at. I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t end up discussing this, but, again, I did pick up new knowledge that I found intriguing, so I still found this Table Talk a positive experience.