Urban Sites and City Life
This course explores historical, cultural, and socio-economic geographies of cities, city life, and the organization of metropolitan political power. It is primarily focused on the U.S., but will draw on select examples from abroad. We will investigate urbanization as a general process and the resulting physical, social, cultural, and political economic forms of cities and examine the ways that cities have addressed tensions emerging from segregation and urban renewal. We will also look at both the ways in which social inequality is reinforced through the politics, policies, and design of the built environment as well as strategies for fostering and nurturing inclusive and equitable urban spaces through city design and policy.
Topics
- • Be familiar with important trends and forces behind the reshaping of geographies of race, class, and gender in the city today; • Engage thoughtfully, respectfully, and honestly with community residents and other students around issues of race, urban inequality, and cultural difference; • Demonstrate self-reflexivity with regard to the ways in which issues of race and inequality affect their own ideas about and experiences of urban space; • Develop and eye for “looking at cities” and being able to ask questions about the processes that produce urban form; • Understand historical and contemporary patterns of social inclusion and exclusion in cities and be able to identify their underlying causes and effects; • Understand how local experiences and conditions of urban life are affected by broader social, economic, and political processes including industrialization, globalization, and economic restructuring of cities.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027