Race in U.S. Cities and Suburbs

This undergraduate seminar explores U.S. urban and suburban histories during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, through the concerns of race and ethnicity. We seek to understand how dilemmas over and struggles for belonging and equality in the United States have played out in and over urban and suburban spaces. We will pay particular attention to the histories of segregation, housing discrimination, urban unrest, suburban integration, the rise of “ethnoburbs,” and gentrification. Readings represent foundational texts and new directions in scholarship and provide in-depth examinations of particular urban and suburban communities. Topics include the simultaneous erasure and appropriation of Indigenous peoples in the development of Pacific Northwest cities; the Asian American “model minority” and integration of all-white suburbs; minority grassroots activism and resistance against redevelopment; racism and neoliberal urban governance in the 21st century. RPP