Alysia Bennett

Biography

Graduate architect living in Tasmania, Australia. Interested in sustainable development, design communication and interdisciplinary collaboration which I enjoy exploring on drawnblog.com.

My Urban Times Story

My story is similar to that of the UT founders - a recent architecture graduate working part time to stay in the profession that has shaped my positive outlook on the world, and that I love, but am increasingly frustrated with the ingrained negative attitudes and personal agendas of the 'real world' I had just started to work in.

At the same time, the longer I was in the working world, the more I began to realise the way that the media distorted the facts in local issues to make interesting headlines and stories to sell newspapers and spark contentious debates on its online website. This issue was particularly bad for reports related to the built environment where so much of our energy goes into creating and driving positive change only to be undermined by the medias own agendas and the subsequent public backlash created by the accessibility of our work, the weight given to personal opinion and the miscommunication of our intent. I was attracted to UT because of its refreshing perspective firstly related to the built environment and subsequently on the world -which I trusted because of it's young authorship and online free format.

When there was a call-out for new writers I was at a point in my part time career where I needed to both write and be part of a positive environment and was overjoyed when I was accepted. What I would like to see Urban Times become is a replacement for mainstream media. Instead of picking up the local newspaper or tuning into the evening news, I would like to see my fellow citizens subscribing to an optimistic, thought provoking, informative and useful source of news.

In order for UT to become this it will need to expand to include local, national and international news all across the globe within a format that allows users location and information preferences to direct their interface and will require a mass adoption of like minded writers to do so. World domination? I know what you're thinking- that hardly sounds like a gen y thing to do! Is it possible? It wouldn't be the Urban Times if we didn't believe it was.