Schedule

 

FRAMEWORKS FOR THINKING ABOUT THE URBAN 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 A brief history of urbanization through the industrial revolution 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 does the medieval town introduce features associated with urbanism?   Assigned readings: Lewis Mumford, "What is a City?" In The Lewis Mumford Reader, edited by Donald L. Miller (Pantheon, 1986 [1938]), pp. 104-107.   Tuesday, September 5 The growth of the industrial city Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez. Question for today: 1. What major demographic, social, and environmental changes marked the rise of modern industrial cities? 2. What factors led to the urban squalor associated with the "condition of the working class"? 3. How did disease prevention and sanitation reform change the nature of urban government and influence the formation of social classes?   Assigned readings: Friedrich Engels, "The Great Towns." In The Condition of the Working Class in England (Electric Book, 2001 [1845]), pp. 79-143. Anthony S. Wohl, "Fever! Fever!" In Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 117-141, 372-377.   Thursday, September 7 The urban crisis in America Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez. Questions for today: 1. What are the general features of the post-WWII "urban crisis"? 2. How has the historical context in which urban studies emerged shaped its agenda? 3. How do 'problems in the city' differ from 'problems of the city'?   Assigned readings: Ray Suarez. 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 Beauregard, "Urban Studies." In Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, edited by R. Hutchison (Sage, 2010), 931-936.   Tuesday, September 12 Global urbanizations in the 21st century Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez. Questions for today: 1. From London and Gulf Cities, through São Paulo and Johannesberg, to San Bernardino, how do the movements of people and capital trace new forms of global hierarchy? 2. How is urban space and urban life shaped by conflicts between the rich and poor, and between natives and foreigners?   Assigned readings: Alan Cowell, "The Rich are Fighting the Superrich Over Britain's Manicured Heart." New York Times, December 22, 2015. Rana AlMutawa, "Dubai." Excerpts from Oxford Handbook of Urban Sociology, edited by Leonard Nevarez and Ryan Centner (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). The Economist. 2022. "In Defense of Qatar." The Economist, November 19. Nick Van Mead and Niko Kommenda, "Living on the edge: São Paulo’s inequality mapped." The Guardian, November 27, 2017. Carter M. Koppelman, "São Paulo: Studying the City from the Periphery." Excerpts from Oxford Handbook of Urban Sociology, edited by Leonard Nevarez and Ryan Centner (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) Benjamin H. Bradlow, "African cities, with a view from Johannesberg." Excerpts from Oxford Handbook of Urban Sociology, edited by Leonard Nevarez and Ryan Centner. New York: Oxford University Press. John Eligon and Lynsey Chutel, "At Refuge for Desperate Families, Deadly Fire Was 'Waiting to Happen'." New York Times, August 31, 2013. Joe Mozingo, "San Bernardino: Broken City." Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2015.   Thursday, September 14 Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.   POLITICS OF URBAN-RURAL: MIGRATION, LAND, ENVIRONMENT Tuesday, September 19 First essay set due (through September 26). Managing urban-rural migration: Hukou system. Lecturer: Fubing Su. Questions for today: 1. What is a Hukou system? 2. How does the Hukou system affect migrants' lives in Chinese cities? 3. Are there positive aspects of the Hukou system?   Assigned readings and viewing: Ian Johnson, "China's Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities." New York Times, June 15, 2013. Keung Wong, Daniel Fu, Chang Ying Li and He Xue Song, "Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China: Living a Marginalised Life." International Journal of Social Welfare 16(2007): 32-40. "Last Train Home" (2010).   Thursday, September 21 Leaping forward: urbanization, Chinese-style. Lecturer: Fubing Su. Questions for today: 1. Why are local governments so eager to promote urbanization? 2. How has it undermined social stability in the cities and the rural communities? 3. Is this confrontation inevitable? What can be done to mitigate this conflict?   Assigned readings and viewing: Fubing Su and Ran Tao, "The China Model Withering? Institutional Roots of China's Local Developmentalism." Urban Studies 54(2017): 230-250. "The Chinese Mayor" (DVD library). Optional: "Wukan: China's Democracy Experiment" (6 episodes).   Tuesday, September 26 Environmental injustice and rural pollution havens. Lecturer: Fubing Su. Questions for today: 1. Why are rural societies in China vulnerable to environmental spatial injustice? 2. Are there ways to level the playing fields for urban and rural communities?   Assigned readings and viewing: Xiaoyi Sun and Ronggui Huang, "Spatial Meaning-Making and Urban Activism: Two Tales of Anti-PX Protests in Urban China." Journal of Urban Affairs 42(2020): 257-277. Anna Lora-Wainwright, chapter 3 in Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA, 2021). "Under the Dome: Investigating China's Smog" (2015).   Thursday, September 28 Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.   ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES: CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE Tuesday, October 3 What is climate crisis? Lecturer: Pinar Batur. Cities will define our possibilities in the age of climate change. The risks that we imagine, the policies that we debate, and the plans we make will affect our future. This section will argue that climate change is happening now, and the need to imagine the future is more important than ever. The intersection of two pressing issues defines our focus: the dominance of the urban on global economics, politics and society, and the impact of climate change, including intensified weather patterns and rapidly rising sea levels. By the middle of the century, it is estimated that 70% of the world's population will live in coastal urban metropolitan areas, and cities will struggle to adapt to, and mitigate, the impact of climate change, and to develop resilience and sustainability plans to survive in World Risk Society. And never forget the rule of inequality and racism: the people who contribute the least will suffer most from the effect of the climate change. Questions for today: Let's explore climate change. Think about your Climate Change Literacy, and evaluate your own knowledge. What do you know, why and why not? If you like, take one of NASA's quizzes. What would you like to do to educate yourself. What do you want to learn and why? Take a look at these newspaper articles to familiarize yourself with these topics: climate change, the climate crisis, climate tipping points.   Assigned readings: Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists. Ice loss with tipping point: LINK 'The water is coming': Florida Keys faces stark reality as seas rise. 'Heat dome' in Pacific north-west breaks records as Portland braces for 115ºF. Greenland's ice melting faster than at any time in past 12,000 years AND Greenland's melting ice raised global sea level by 2.2mm in two months. One in four cities cannot afford climate protection measures: study. What is the climate crisis? Check this out: What is Climate Literacy? Atlas of the Invisible: using data to map the climate crisis.   Thursday, October 5 Risk and extreme weather. Lecturer: Pinar Batur. Questions for today: 1. Risks elude our everyday physical perception. Is it possible for us to conceptualize them? How? 2. Risks are experienced both individually and collectively. Is it possible for them to be condensed into collective shared patterns of perception, creating a base for collective action? 3. What is the role of power relationships of defining risks: who decides? How can we "we, the people" do it?   Assigned readings: Ulrich Beck, "How Climate Change Might Save the World." The Metamorphosis of the World How Climate Change is Transforming Our Concept of the World (Polity, 2016), 35-47. Ulrich Beck, "World Risk Society and the Manufactured Uncertainties," Iris, October 2, 2009, pp. 291-299. Investigate what happened to this section of NY after the floods to talk about risks: Could New York's 'black mayonnaise' problem sink a new 82-block development? A First Dog on the Moon live action cartoon! Will the coronavirus save us from climate change? If you think Covid is bad, wait until you hear about the climate crisis.   Tuesday, October 10 Climate change and environmental racism. Lecturer: Pinar Batur. Questions for today: 1. Is it possible to "urban" as long as there is racism? 2. What kind of scars do climate crisis and racism leave on urban space? What kind of urban future is possible? 3. How devastating will "climate apartheid" and "climate refugees" be by the year 2030? 4. Is it possible to exist within and benefit from racist system, and not be racist?   Assigned readings: Racism Quiz Paul Mohai, David Pellow and J. Timmons Roberts, "Environmental Justice," Annual Review of Environmental Resources 34 (2009), pp. 405-30. Activist Catherine Flowers: the poor living amid sewage is 'the final monument of the Confederacy.' 'If white people were still here, this wouldn't happen': the majority-Black town flooded with sewage. Naomi Klein, "How power profits from disaster." ;Naomi Klein, "We are seeing the beginnings of the era of climate barbarism." "The Media isn't ready to cover Climate Apartheid." Jeff Goodell, a section from "The Water will Come" AND Lagos in Nigeria   CAMPUS LECTURE: Tuesday, October 10, 5pm in Taylor Hall 203 David Banks: "The City Authentic: Why Cities Act like Influencers and Reality TV Stars"   Thursday, October 12 Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.   Fall break: October 14-21 Second essay set due on the 17th (through October 24).   CINEMA STUDIES: IMAGING THE CITY Tuesday, October 24 Lecturer: Erica Stein. Question for today: What kinds of media help us navigate the city today? What characterizes those media and the kind of experience they create for their users?   Assigned readings: Tom Gunning, "From the Kaleidoscope to the X-Ray: Urban Spectatorship, Poe, Benjamin, and Traffic in Souls (1913)," Wide Angle 19.4 (October 1997), 25-61.   Thursday, October 26 Lecturer: Erica Stein. Question for today: What are some types/genres of popular media that you especially associate with the city? Do any of them make use of the kaleidoscope or x-ray?   Assigned readings: Scott MacDonald, "The City as the Country: The New York City Symphony from Rudy Burckhardt to Spike Lee," Film Quarterly 51.2 (1997): 2-20.   Tuesday, October 31 Lecturer: Erica Stein. Questions for today: What's a smart city? What are some of its historical precursors? How would you feel about living in one, and do we already?   Assigned readings: "The City" (1939, dir. Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke).   John Grierson, pp. 76-79 in Grierson on Documentary, edited by Forsyth Hardy (University of California Press, 1966). Shannon Mattern, "A City Is Not A Computer," Places Journal, February 2017.   Tuesday, November 2 Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.   POLITICAL ECONOMY: URBAN INEQUALITIES Tuesday, November 7 Interdependent inequalities. Lecturer: Tim Koechlin. Questions for today: 1. What is (are) the “danger(s)” of a "single story"? In what ways might "single stories" be dangerous or otherwise problematic as we seek to understand cities, and make them "better"? 2. How are income and wealth inequality linked to other forms of inequality (access to housing, health care, education; political inequality, etc.)? 3. While inequality has been rising in the U.S. since 1980 or so, middle class Americans remain, by global and historical standards, very well off. And further, impoverished people in the U.S. have — by historical and global standards — a lot of stuff. And further still, while the "1%" have gotten very rich since 1980, the incomes of the middle class and the poor have fallen relatively little. So... why should inequality in the U.S. concern us? Is this merely about resenting the soaring success of the very rich? Why should inequality concern, esp., urbanists?   Assigned readings: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story” (2009 TED Talk). Titus Kaphar, “Can Art Amend History?” (2007 TED Talk). Tim Koechlin, "The Rich Get Richer, and Richer Still: Soaring Inequality in the US and Why It Matters," Common Dreams, July 4, 2019.  Adele Simmons et al, "Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Current Evidence and Policy Approaches." Check out Figures 1 and 2. Richard Wilkinson, "How Inequality Harms Societies" (2011 TED Talk).   Thursday, November 9 Inequality in the U.S. and its cities. Lecturer: Tim Koechlin. Questions for today: 1. In what ways is inequality an urban problem? What do we mean by "urban inequality"? 2. In what ways is neoliberalism a dangerous (or promising) model for urban policy? 3. Matthew Desmond demonstrates that evictions are associated with (a cause of) a variety of troubling social (and individual) problems. Like what? What is the connection between evictions and these "social problems."? 4. How, during the post WWII period, has government policy encouraged suburbanization? What effect did these policies have on U.S. cities? 5. Why (and for whom) is sprawl a problem?   Assigned readings: Tim Koechlin, "Urban Inequality, Neoliberalism, and the Case for a Multidisciplinary Economics," Review of Radical Political Economy 46 (2014): 451-460. Interview with Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted (36-minute podcast), "First-Ever Evictions Database Shows: 'We're In the Middle Of A Housing Crisis'," NPR Fresh Air, April 12, 2018. Tim Koechlin, "Some Thoughts on Neoliberalism," class hand-out. Robert Fishman, "The American Metropolis at Century's End: Past and Future Influences," Housing Policy Debate 11 (2000): 199-213. READ ONLY THROUGH PG. 207.   Tuesday, November 14 Race, segregation, housing and inequality. Lecturer: Tim Koechlin. Questions for today: 1. In what ways, according to Richard Rothstein, was the government — local, state and federal — a major cause of housing segregation in the US over the course of the 20th Century? Rothstein and Coates argue that racism in housing markets in previous generations has profound economic consequences today. In particular, it helps to explain the soaring racial wealth gap in the US. How? 2. How are these inequalities created and reinforced by urban infrastructure? 3. Coates argues that, from slavery, to Jim Crow and beyond, African Americans have been victimized by what he calls plunder: "When we think of white supremacy, we picture Colored Only signs, but we should picture pirate flags." He argues that, in the post-Jim Crow north, much of this plunder happened through housing policies which severely limited the ability of African American families to accumulate wealth. And I have written that "understanding the economic dimensions of white supremacy — including centuries of plunder — is essential to understanding the US economy." Explain.   Assigned readings: How Housing Redlining Contributed to the Racial Wealth Gap and Segregation (3 minute video). The Segregation Myth: Richard Rothstein Debunks an American Lie (7 minute video). Daniel Kolitz and Aymann Ismail, "The Lingering Effects of NYC's Racist City Planning," Hopes and Dreams (blog), 2015. Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations,"  The Atlantic, June 2014. [SECTIONS I & II ONLY]   Thursday, November 16 Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.   Tuesday, November 21 Third essay set due (through November 28). The right to the city.  Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez. Questions for today:  1. How does urbanization promote the formation of distinct class identities?  2. How does 'the right to the city' provide a framework for evaluating and intervening in urban life and urban environments?    Assigned reading: David Harvey, "The Right to the City." New Left Review 53(Sep-Oct 2008): 23-40.     Thursday, November 23: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY   URBAN DESIGN: THE ARSENAL OF EXCLUSION Tuesday, November 28 Lecturer: Tobias Armborst. Agenda for the day: Looking at the built environment around us, we can find countless subtle or not-so-subtle ways in which people have demarcated territories in order to limit spatial access by others. Employing the framework of the Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion, we will identify a couple of tools of demarcation that have been deployed on and around. These tools can be artifacts (such as buildings, pieces of infrastructure, and other stuff), but they can also be rules and regulations such as zoning codes and parking rules, or they can be political or legal boundaries such as those between school districts or municipalities. Some of these tools are immediately visible (gates, barriers, bouncers…), others (such as zoning codes, municipal boundaries, parking rules,…) can only be gleaned from indirectly related evidence.   Assigned reading: Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca, Georgeen Theodore, and Riley Gold, The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion (Barcelona: Actar, 2017). Read the Introduction, then scan the keywords and choose five keyword entries to read.   Thursday, November 30 No class meeting today. Instead, use our time to travel into Poughkeepsie and write about two "tools of exclusion."   Tuesday, December 5 Last day of class. Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.   Sunday, December 10 Last day of study period: case-study city analysis due.