Weather permitting, students in the Bates College seminar "Introduction to the Study of the City" will make a field trip into local neighborhoods at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, departing from 161-163 Wood St. The 90-minute trip is part of this course in the basics of urban planning and design.

The students will be accompanied by seminar leader Theo Holtwijk, Brunswick's town planner, and Camilo José Vergara, a photographer and sociologist who for more than 20 years has documented changes in low-income communities in major U.S. cities.

An environmental-studies seminar, "Introduction to the Study of the City" will involve among other things a visit to Boston's "Big Dig" highway project, professional conferences and extensive field work in Lewiston -- including the creation of a "neighborhood portrait," comprising maps, interviews and photography.

Holtwijk was town planner for Sanford before going to Brunswick in 1997. He has won various honors for his work including two awards for the book "Bold Vision: The Development of the Parks of Portland, Maine," co-edited with Maine historic preservation director Earle Shettleworth (Phoenix Publishing, 1999).

An ethnographer as well as a photographer, Vergara's books include "The New American Ghetto" (Rutgers University Press, 1997) and "Twin Towers Remembered" (Princeton Architectural Press, 2001). At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, he offers the lecture "Documenting the City: The New American Ghetto Revisited" in the Muskie Archives, Campus Avenue. The lecture is open to the public. For more information about that event, the public can call 207-786-6464.