Chima's Project Update

I have started my project by proposing that I would do research on the issue of bicycling and social justice, by analyzing and reading about issues of urban biking. This week was a rough week for me. I just took my Conservation Biology midterm a few hours ago, and it did not go well for me. I am going through a very rough time right now, which is due to a variety of factors.What I want to do is focus on cities in the Bay Area and the Central Coast and learn and analyze how bicycling relates to everybody based on socioeconomic and racial/ethnic factors. Before I started my research, I thought that one of the main reasons that inner cities are not suitable for bicycling is due to unsafe environments, urban decay, and lack of funding to fix broken infrastructure, roads, and sidewalks. This is obviously prior to any formal research, so I hope that in the next couple of days I would be able to dig deeper in in this subject to be able to understand more. I also think about the young individuals that live in inner-cities that are deprived from the opportunity of being able to enjoy bike rides in their respective neighborhoods due to the fact that they live in unsafe neighborhoods plagued with violence, crime, drugs, prostitution, etc, which there suburban and/or rural counterparts do not have to experience. I also plan on meeting with Tawn Kennedy in order to be able to meet him and learn more about the importance of youth empowerment and what it means. The first thing I must accomplish is to complete my independent research first, prior to meeting with Tawn Kennedy to discuss bicycles, social justice, and youth empowerment. I hope to get a lot done this quarter because I have to complete 20 hours of internship work. Next week, I plan on probably uploading a Youtube video which shows what I am doing regarding bicycling and social justice.