The Place Audit

One place, held against the evidence rather than against the eight rules. 2500 words, with your own observation as the primary material.

Due: 30 April 2027 · Weight: 30%

Pick one place and argue about it for 2500 words.

It can be a place you have already visited for a Round, and if it is, you will need a third visit at minimum — three occasions is the floor, not the target.

What this is not#

It is not a scorecard against Oldenburg’s eight characteristics. Week 9 is the last time that exercise is worth doing, and doing it here would be a summary of the course rather than a use of it.

It is also not an appreciation. If your conclusion is that the place is lovely and should be protected, you have probably skipped the part of the evidence that makes this interesting.

What it is#

An argument about what this specific place does, for whom, at what cost, held against what the literature would predict. The observation is the primary material and the papers are in support — that is why observation and literature carry equal weight and are marked separately. An audit made of citations with a place attached will lose the first thirty and a description with no reading behind it will lose the second.

Disagree with something. At least one of the readings should be wrong about your place, or right for a reason its authors did not give. You have twelve set papers and a room you have sat in three times; on that intersection you are the world expert.

Report what does not fit. Every audit turns up an observation that spoils the story. The Tuesday that contradicted the pattern, the regular who does not behave like a regular, the hour when the room was somebody else’s entirely. Put it in and deal with it. Suppressing it is the single most common way this piece goes wrong, and 25% of the mark is attached to handling it, because it is the difference between fieldwork and advocacy.

Say who it excludes. Not as a paragraph of throat-clearing at the end. Week 3 onwards has been arguing that the boundary and the belonging are the same mechanism, and an audit that cannot find the boundary has not looked.

Ethics. The week 7 rules apply — no photographs of people, no identifying individuals, no observation of the excluded sites. If your place requires you to be a customer, be one.

Format. PDF, 2500 words excluding references, any citation style used consistently.