report #1

Yikan Wang 
HSTAA 208 

My block has nothing besides residence as the purpose. There are four apartments and a motel separated by six townhouses. Other than that, in the middle of the block, there is an infrastructure that I did not usually notice. There were several electric line poles between the back of the buildings with electrical lines on the top. What we can tell about those poles were that they has lasted for a long time. Also, the water sewage seems aged as well. Even though we cannot tell it from the front of the buildings, the alley between them was almost flooded during a rainy day. Furthermore, I noticed that the gate of the parking of each building was in this area. The reason that I had not noticed those was that I probably did not walk through this area often, and did not considering it is part of the area.

After those realizations, I suddenly found something strange. The air is too quiet in this block. Only few cars parked on the street and few people walked by. I found the reason behind it after a peek of the other blocks: there isn't any business on this block. Then, questions arose: why the buildings are all residential? Where is the business, such as 7-11 and barber shops, which are in the nearby blocks?
What is the plan for this area in the future? Are those building supposed to be houses in the future? And how did the block look like before the apartment and houses built? Did any business besides residence business exist in my block before? 


Apparently, I expected there are more business in this area because there were  a lot of residence already. Comparing with other blocks close by with business, including Cafe as ShareTea, health support as Massage, and supermarket as Trader Joe's, this block is way too silence. The people who live in this area must need services like barber, and daily supplies like foods and drinks. There are a lot of needs that the residents will seek in this area, but why there was not any of them in this block. Everyone can see the gap between consumption and supplement. To figure this out, I think that I need to search for the data about the existed building in the area: was there any business shop? If there were, how did they operate? Was it because the business shops had not gone well, and then they extincted? When were they gone?