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 writings over the last 100 years 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, contrasting models of urbanization in the developed and developing world, the problems of sustaining urban vitality and community, economic and social relations embodied in the 'ghetto,' cities' roles in economic restructuring and political conflict, and the new functions of culture and representations in contemporary cities.

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, community life, political and economic activities, and other local phenomena affect the macro-phenomena of cities and capitalist accumulation in space?

3. Should cities across the world be understood in terms of their commonalities or their differences? And how can theory be used to understand cities that are arguably too diverse and few to make scientific generalizations from?

4. 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, non-urban dynamics? If the latter is true, then why focus on the urban at all?

Pedagogically, our goals are to learn and evaluate urban theory through critical discussion, original research and urban fieldwork.