Politics, Race, and American Cities

Undergraduate / Graduate

This seminar will explore the politics of American cities by bringing together the vantage points of urban political economy, history, sociology, and political science. Readings and discussions will cross those literatures, folding in considerations of race, ethnicity, and gender in American city life, with a focus on the changes in urban political economy over time. We will reconstruct the history of the different tracks of urban studies in the U.S. while also trying to understand these various intellectual trajectories in relation to dynamics contemporaneously shaping urban politics and policy.