Theories of Urban Form & Design

3 credits · Graduate

This course explores major histories and theories of urban form and design in North America and globally, and their contexts. It examines competing forces shaping cities, culture, professional norms, technology, social organization, economic networks, and family life while tracing evolving forms, ideas, and the professionalization of urban design. Organized in six chronological parts: early modern urbanism and the grid; the industrial city, market forces, and critiques leading to planning; modernism and high modernism; postwar welfare-state transformations (New Towns, urban renewal); challenges to modernism and postmodern, everyday, DIY, and informal urbanisms; and contemporary debates on vertical, ecological, and logistics urbanisms.