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FRAMEWORKS FOR THINKING ABOUT THE URBAN: A FIRST PASS
Tuesday, August 29
What is a city?
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How does a city differ from a metropolis and an urban area?
2. How does urbanization differ from urbanism?
Thursday, August 31
The urban crisis in America.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. What are the general features of the post-WWII "urban crisis"?
1. How has the historical context in which urban studies emerged shaped its agenda?
2. How do 'problems in the city' differ from 'problems of the city'?
Assigned readings:
Ray Suarez, Ray. 1999. "What We Lost." In The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration, 1966-1999 (Free Press, 1999), pp. 1-25.
Robert Fishman, "The American Metropolis at Century's End: Past and Future Influences," Housing Policy Debate 11 (2000): 199-213.
Robert Beauregard, "Urban Studies." In Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, edited by R. Hutchison (Sage, 2010), 931-936.
Tuesday, September 5
Urban restructuring across the world.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How have economic shifts redistributed wealth across the world's population?
2. How do London, Berlin, Punta del Este, Mumbai, and San Bernardino illustrate the new urban hierarchy?
3. What economic conditions and material infrastructure drive planetary urbanization?
Assigned readings:
Patrick Lin, "Six Trends to Understanding a Rapidly Urbanizing World," 100 Resilient Cities [blog], January 11, 2016.
Alan Cowell, "The Rich are Fighting the Superrich Over Britain's Manicured Heart," New York Times, December 22, 2015.
Kate Connolly, "Berlin: Poor But Sexy, and Oozing Creative Wealth," The Guardian, January 22, 2010.
Oliver Balch, "Punta del Este: Is Uruguay's Uber-Rich 'Gated City' a Glimpse of Our Urban Future?" The Guardian, October 16, 2016.
Katharine Boo, "Annawadi." In Behind the Beautiful Forevers (Random House, 2012), pp. 3-16.
Joe Mozingo, "San Bernardino: Broken City." Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2015.
Neil Brenner, "Theses on Urbanization," Public Culture 25 (2013): 85-114.
Thursday, September 7
The ancient city.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How have cities historically organized the conditions for human civilization?
2. How does the accumulation of surplus drive urbanization and urbanism?
3. How do the world's ancient cities compare and contrast with the contemporary cities we read about for the last class?
Assigned readings:
Lewis Mumford,"What is a City?" Pp. 104-107 In The Lewis Mumford Reader, edited by Donald L. Miller (Pantheon, 1986 [1938]), pp. 104-107.
Ian Douglas, "Trading Village to Global Megalopolis: The Origins and Expansion of Cities." In Cities: An Environmental History (I.B. Tauris, 2013), pp. 7-22.
CULTURAL HISTORY: VICTORIAN CITIES
Tuesday, September 12
The Growth of the Industrial City.
Lecturer: Lydia Murdoch.
Question for today:
What major demographic, social, and environmental changes marked the rise of modern industrial cities?
Assigned readings:
Friedrich Engels, "The Great Towns." In The Condition of the Working Class in England (Penguin Books 1987 [1845]), pp. 68-110.
Thursday, September 14
State Power and Early Urban Reform Movements.
Lecturer: Lydia Murdoch.
Questions for today:
1. How did the nineteenth and early-twentieth-century growth of state-directed urban sanitary reform movements influence the formation of social classes and class conflict?
2. How did urban reform movements contribute to racial hierarchies and power relations in imperial contexts?
Assigned readings:
Anthony S. Wohl, "Fever! Fever!" In Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 117-141, 372-377.
Ranjana Sengupta, "Enshrining an Imperial Tradition," India International Centre Quarterly 33.2 (Autumn 2006): 13-26.
Tuesday, September 19
Gender and the Late-Victorian City
Lecturer: Lydia Murdoch.
Questions for today:
1. What gender expectations were associated with specific urban spaces within late-Victorian London?
2. How did accounts of female "slummers" both reinforce and challenge these expectations?
Assigned readings:
Lydia Murdoch, "Urban Life" (ch. 7), in Daily Life of Victorian Women (Greenwood Press, 2014), 205-229.
Select one of the following primary sources: "A Lady Resident" (1889); Annie Besant, "White Slavery in London" (1888); Margaret Harkness, "Barmaids" (1889); or Olive Christian Malvery, "Gilding the Gutter" (1905), in Ellen Ross, ed., Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
Recommended, Ellen Ross, "Introduction: Adventures Among the Poor," Slum Travelers.
Thursday, September 21
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
GEOGRAPHY: LATIN AMERICAN CITIES
Tuesday, September 26
Post-colonial cities: Urban space and regime change in Latin America (Havana, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro)
Lecturer: Brian Godfrey.
Questions for today:
1. Focus on the legacies of colonialism, post-colonial dependencies, and impacts of reformist and revolutionary regimes in Latin America. How has urban space reflected yet also affected imperialism, social hierarchy, and political processes?
2. Explain the tensions between republican, socialist, and global spaces in Havana.
Assigned readings:
Doreen Massey, "Setting the Scene." In For Space (Sage, 2005), pp. 1-8.
Luciana L. Martins and Mauricio A. Abreu, "Paradoxes of Modernity: Imperial Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1821)," Geoforum 32 (2001): 533-550.
K. Edge, J. Scarpaci and H. Woofter, "Mapping and Designing Havana: Republican, Socialist and Global Spaces," Cities 23 (2006), 85-98.
Thursday, September 28
Essay questions due.
In-class film: Favela Rising (2006, dir. Jeff Zimbalist & Matt Mochary).
Tuesday, October 3
Divided cities of the Global South: Informal settlements and urban political ecology (Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro)
Lecturer: Brian Godfrey.
Questions for today:
1. Focus on contemporary socio-spatial divisions, emergence of informal settlements (favelas and colonias), and urban political ecology. How is the social geography of group status related to environmental problems?
2. What strategies do residents of informal settlements employ to survive and resist displacement?
3. What role does the state play in creating and/or remediating problems of environmental injustice?
Assigned readings:
Adrian Guillermo Aguilar, "Peri-urbanization, Illegal Settlements and Environmental Impact in Mexico City," Cities 25 (2008) 133–145.
Brian Godfrey, "Urban Renewal, Favelas, and Guanabara Bay: Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Rio De Janeiro." In Urban Sustainability: A Global Perspective, edited by Igor Vojnovic (Michigan State University Press, 2013), pp. 259-286.
Thursday, October 5
Post-colonial imaginaries: Urban memory, planning, and placemaking (Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro)
Lecturer: Brian Godfrey.
Questions for today:
1. Focus on the role of post-colonial imaginaries, narratives of memory and identity, and urban planning in shaping modern cities of Latin America. Why did fin-de-siecle Latin American cities aspire to become like Paris, and what were the social and spatial consequences?
2. How has urban planning attempted to “discipline” cities according to preferred narratives of modernity?
3. How does historic placemaking and heritage tourism use memory to promote contemporary urban development?
Assigned readings:
Jeffrey D. Needell, "Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires: Public Space and Public Consciousness in Fin-de-Siecle Latin America," Comparative Studies in Society and History 37 (1995): 519-540.
Joel Outtes, "Disciplining Society through the City: The Genesis of City Planning in Brazil and Argentina, 1894-1945," Bulletin of Latin American Research 22 (2003), 137-164.
Brian Godfrey, "Remembering Rio: From the Imperial Palace to the African Burial Ground." In Urban Space, Place, and National Identity (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming).
FALL BREAK: OCTOBER 8-14
Read Evicted over the break.
SOCIOLOGY: MAKING ENDS MEET IN URBAN AMERICA
Tuesday, October 17
Risks facing the urban poor.
Classroom guest: Emma Foley ('15), the Policy & Research Group.
Assigned readings:
Matthew Desmond, Evicted.
Thursday, October 19
Essay questions due.
Fighting back against urban poverty.
Classroom guest: Caitlin Munchick ('17), Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson.
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC ISSUES IN URBAN EDUCATION
Tuesday, October 24
Disability, Normality and Power.
Lecturer: Erin McCloskey.
Questions for today:
1. How do we see the historical underpinnings of 'normality' in today's educational system(s)?
2. What makes this an urban concern?
3. In what ways does the discussion of disability mandate an intersectional approach?
Assigned reading:
Douglas C. Baynton, "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History," in L. J. Davis (ed.), The Disability Studies Reader (Routledge, 2013), 17-33.
Thursday, October 26
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Tuesday, October 31
Smartness and tracking.
Lecturer: Erin McCloskey.
Questions for today:
1. How has special education helped to (re)segregate education?
2. How does 'smartness' lead to the overrepresentation of students of color in certain special education categories?
3. Are there ways to decenter 'normality' so that schools are more equitable?
Assigned reading:
Zeus Leonardo and Alicia A. Broderick, "Smartness as Property: A Critical Exploration of Intersections between Whiteness and Disability Studies," Teachers College Record 113(2011): 2206-2232.
Thursday, November 2
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Tuesday, November 7
Surveillance, discipline, and 'choice.'
Lecturer: Erin McCloskey.
Questions for today:
1. What are charter schools and how has corporate America become involved in education, particularly in urban areas?
2. How has the notion of 'choice' come to be seen as a panacea for 'curing' the achievement gap?
3. How do charter schools play a role in the incarceration of youth?
Assigned readings:
Mahsa Jafarian and Vidhya Ananthakrishnan, "Just kids: When misbehaving is a crime," Vera Institute, September 15, 2017.
George Joseph, "Where Charter-School Suspensions are Concentrated," The Atlantic, September 16, 2016.
Kathryn A. McDermott and Kysa Nygreen, "Educational New Paternalism: Human Capital, Cultural Capital, and the Politics of Equal Opportunity," Peabody Journal of Education 88(2013): 84-97.
Thursday, November 9
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY
Tuesday, November 14
Inequality in the U.S. and its cities.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Questions for today:
1. How is income and wealth inequality linked to other forms of inequality (access to housing, health care, education; political inequality, etc.)?
2. While inequality has been rising in the US since 1980 or so, middle class Americans remain, by global and historical standards, very well off. And further impoverished people in the US have — by historical and global standards — a lot of stuff. And further still, while the "1%" have gotten very rich since 1980, the incomes middle class and the poor have fallen relatively little. So... why should inequality in the US concern us? Is this merely about resenting the soaring success of the very rich? Why should inequality concern urbanists?
3. In what ways is inequality an urban problem? What do we mean by "urban inequality"?
Assigned readings:
Tim Koechlin, "Urban Inequality, Neoliberalism, and the Case for a Multidisciplinary Economics," Review of Radical Political Economy 46.4 (2015): 1-10.
Richard Wilkinson,"How Economic Inequality Harms Societies." TEDGlobal Talk, July 2010.
Paul Krugman, "Despair, American Style," New York Times, September 9, 2015.
New York Times Editorial Board, "How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth." New York Times, September 15, 2015.
David Leonhardt, "In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters," New York Times, July 22, 2013.
Thursday, November 16
Interdependent inequalities (cities and suburbs).
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Questions for today:
1. Dreier et al., in Place Matters, argue that the policies that promoted suburbanization were racist — often quite explicitly so — and that the consequences of these policies — sprawl, American style — have promoted segregation and inequality across space, and economic immobility. Explain.
2. How, during the post WWII period, has government policy encouraged suburbanization? What effect did these policies have on US cities?
3. Why (and for whom) is sprawl a problem?
Assigned readings:
Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf and Todd Swanstrom. Place Matters (University of Kansas Press, 2004), 1-4, 14-26, and 103-123.
Colleen Casey, Peter Dreier, Robert Flack and Todd Swanstrom, "Pulling Apart: Economic Segregation among Suburbs and Central Cities in Major Metropolitan Areas," Brookings Institution Research Report, October 2004.
Tuesday, November 21
Essay questions due.
Race, housing, and inequality.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Questions for today:
1. What are the connections between and among segregation, inequality, and social (im)mobility?
2. How/why is segregation in housing — within cities, and between cities and suburbs — the result of government policies (at the local and federal levels)?
Assigned readings:
Ta-Nahesi Coates, "The Case for Reparations," The Atlantic, June 2014. [Read Sections I &II ONLY]
Richard Rothstein, " From Ferguson to Baltimore: The Fruits of Government-Sponsored Segregation," Economic Policy Institute, Working Economics [blog], April 29, 2015.
Richard Rothstein, "The Making of Ferguson: Public Policies at the Root of its Troubles," Economic Policy Institute, October 15, 2015. [Read first section ONLY: "Executive Summary"]
Thursday, November 23: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
Tuesday, November 28
The right to the city.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for this week: 1. What are the benefits and costs of attracting Amazon's HQ2? 2. What
might “greater democratic control over the production and utilization of the
surplus” represented and managed by Amazon HQ2 look like?
Assigned readings:
"Amazon Plans Second Headquarters, Opening a Bidding War Among Cities," New York Times, September 7, 2017.
David Harvey, "The Right to the City," New Left Review 53 (Sep-Oct 2008): 23-40 Selected headlines from The Onion.
Thursday, November 30
The right to the city (redux).
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Assigned readings:
"Microsoft to Expand Campus, as Amazon Looks Elsewhere" (New York Times, November 29, 2017).
"A New Poll Shows That Seattle Residents Have No Idea What Their City Is or Wants to Be" (The Stranger, November 28, 2017).
Henri Lefebvre, "The Right to the City." In Writings on Cities, translated and edited by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Blackwell, 1996), 147-159.
Tuesday, December 5
Last day of class.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Sunday, December 11
Last day of study period: take-home exam due.
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