Course Description

 

This course introduces you to the foundational social theory behind the diverse topics and practical applications of contemporary Urban Studies. Our inquiry into urban theory encompasses 20th century writings by urban scholars, planners, architects, and activists, as well as others whose intellectual work was not originally "urban" but has since informed the field. Topics range from the early identification of the urban with modernity, the city's capacity to accommodate residential and spatial growth, the problems of sustaining urban vitality and community, the city's roles in capitalist accumulation and social conflict, the new functions of culture and representations in modern cities, and a selective investigation of the archetypical urban developments of today.

Intellectually, our goals are to gain insight on the following questions regarding cities:

1. Does the built environment influence community and other forms of social organization?

2. How do public interactions, human agency, community life, and other local phenomena affect the macro-phenomena of cities and capitalist accumulation in space?

3. Do the city, its forms, and its processes comprise entities that are sui generis (i.e., in a class by themselves), or can they be attributed to other social properties? If the latter is true, then why focus on the urban at all?

4. How can theory, an explanatory account conventionally based on large numbers of observations, be used to understand cities that are arguably too diverse and few to make scientific generalizations from?

Pedagogically, our goals are to learn and evaluate urban theory through critical discussion and methodological practice.