A Graphic Novel to Transform Teens Into City Planners
Chicago , 2211. The towers are taller. The apartments are smaller. The El has become the tube. Pho is the breakfast of choice. Communication happens mainly through screens, albeit floating holographic screens . Five teen-agers have been assigned to the City Planning Council for a year of public service . Their first assignment is to decide on the future of the Uptown Theatre, a white terra- cotta movie palace that seats four thousand and, in 2211 as in 2017, needs to be adapted into something new. ( Regina Spektor filmed her “Black and White” video there.) After a tense meeting, three of them decide to go to see the theatre, and the Uptown neighborhood, for themselves. “We really want a space to facemeet, instead of screening all the time,” one teen says. “I was wrong to think I could make a planning council decision from up in my apartment,” another says. Will Uptown get the server farm/performance venue it wants, or just more condos? Such is the cliffhanger ending of “No Small Pl...