Cities, Nature and the Planet

Undergraduate / Graduate

Cities face major challenges in addressing environmental risk and vulnerability, but also great opportunity to reconsider the design, planning and economic systems upon which they have traditionally relied. This course takes a contemporary look into how urbanization affects planetary health, focusing on cities as sites of global resource extraction, waste generation, biodiversity loss, and increasing social inequality and climate vulnerability; but also as centers of population, innovation and social organization, which can facilitate climate solutions. Using a range of social science approaches and methods, students will consider critiques of historical urban planning and linear city resource economies, and analyze contemporary approaches related to climate action, green space planning, and nature-based solutions, with specific attention on environmental goals and equity outcomes. Through critical exploration of both historical urban planning, and contemporary frameworks for sustainable city agenda setting, students will consider the environmental past, present and future of global cities. In Autumn 2024, this course will be part of the Paris Urbanism Study Abroad program. Students will focus on Paris but take a comparative look at cities across the Global North and Global South.