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FRAMEWORKS FOR THINKING ABOUT THE URBAN: A FIRST PASS
Tuesday, September 3
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, September 5
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, 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 Beauregard, "Urban Studies." In Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, edited by R. Hutchison (Sage, 2010), 931-936.
Robert Fishman, "The American Metropolis at Century's End: Past and Future Influences," Housing Policy Debate 11 (2000): 199-213.
Tuesday, September 10
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. What major demographic, social, and environmental changes marked the rise of modern industrial cities?
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.
Friedrich Engels, "The Great Towns." In The Condition of the Working Class in England (Penguin Books, 1987 [1845]), pp. 68-110.
Thursday, September 12
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 cities from London and Berlin to Kigali and San Bernardino highlight constitute different kinds of places in a planetary 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.
Leah Binkovitz, "How Foreign Investment Fuels Hyper-Gentrification," Kinder Institute for Urban Research (blog), Rice University, March 15, 2017.
Elizabeth Zerofsky, "The Causes and Consequences of Berlin's Rapid Gentrification," New Yorker, July 12, 2019.
John Vidal, "The 100 million city: is 21st century urbanisation out of control?" The Guardian, March 19, 2018.
Ian Johnson, "China's Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities," New York Times, June 15, 2013.
Joe Mozingo, "San Bernardino: Broken City," Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2015.
Neil Brenner, "Theses on Urbanization," Public Culture 25 (2013): 85-114.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES: CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Tuesday, September 17
What is climate crisis?
Lecturer: Pinar Batur.
Questions for today:
1. What is climate crisis?
2. Is it too late to ask what is climate crisis?
Assigned readings:
Ashley Dawson, "Climate Apartheid." In Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), pp. 188-231.
Select some case studies to read:
Rosanna Xia, "The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea," Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2019.
Andrew Rice, "This is New York in the not-so-distant future," New York, September 5, 2016.
Renee Cho, "How New York City is Preparing for Climate Change," State of the Planet (blog), Earth Institute, Columbia University, April 26, 2019.
Antonio Voce and Nick Van Mead, "Cities from scratch: Watch new cities rise from the desert, jungle and sea," The Guardian, February 15, 2019.
Erica Gies, "Seeking relief from dry spells, Peru’s capital looks to its ancient past," National Geographic, July 9, 2019.
Thursday, September 19
Risk, extreme weather, and extreme cities.
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, "World Risk Society and the Manufactured Uncertainties," Iris, October 2, 2009, pp. 291-299.
Ashley Dawson, "Capital Sinks" and "Environmental Blowback." In Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), pp. 16-115.
Tuesday, September 24
Hurricanes 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 does racism leave on urban space?
3. How devastating will "climate apartheid" and "climate refugees" be by the year 2030?
Assigned readings:
Excerpt from Robert Bullard, The Quest for Environmental Justice (Sierra Club, 2005). Pp. 19-42 are a must; the rest (regarding Chicano environmental justice struggles in the Southwest, and the article on Nigeria, Petroleum and Politics) is your call.
Klein, The Battle for Paradise.
Thursday, September 26
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Tuesday, October 1
1st set of essay questions due.
GEOGRAPHY: LATIN AMERICAN CITIES
Thursday, October 3
Post-colonial cities: Urban space and regime change in Latin America (Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Havana)
Lecturer: Brian Godfrey.
Questions for today:
1. Referring to the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán to Spanish conquistadores, how can we read alternative narratives of past and present Mexico City?
2. How did historic "globalization" affect social stratification, slavery, and race relations in imperial Rio de Janeiro?
3. 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.
Tuesday, October 8
Divided cities of the Global South: Informal settlements and urban political ecology (Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro)
Lecturer: Brian Godfrey.
Questions for today:
1. How is a city’s social geography related to the political ecologies and environmental hazards of informal settlements (favelas and colonias)?
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:
Mike Davis, "Slum Ecology." Chap. 6 in Planet of Slums (Verso, 2017).
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 10
Urban imaginaries: Placemaking, planning and memory (Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro)
Lecturer: Brian Godfrey.
Questions for today:
1. Why did fin-de-siecle Latin American cities aspire to become like Paris, and what were the social and spatial consequences?
2. How did urban planning arise 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, 2019), pp. 105-120.
Saturday, October 12
Poughkeepsie food security survey day.
Meet at 10:00am in the Family Partnership Center, Poughkeepsie.
SOCIOLOGY: A FUTURE FOR THE RUSTBELT?
Tuesday, October 15
Urban disinvestment in upstate New York.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How have economic restructuring and rustbelt decline affected North America's small cities?
2. What does it mean to include small towns and rural communities under the concept of urban disinvestment?
3. How does food insecurity result from urban disinvestment?
Assigned readings:
Eduardo Porter, "Why Big Cities Thrive, and Smaller Ones Are Being Left Behind," New York Times, October 10, 2017.
Daniel T. Lichter and David L. Brown, "Rural America in an Urban Society: Changing Spatial and Social Boundaries," Annual Review of Sociology 37 (2011): 565-592.
Leonard Nevarez, Susan Grove, KT Tobin and Joshua Simons, "Poughkeepsie Plenty: A Community Food Assessment," Discussion Brief #11, Benjamin Center, SUNY-New Paltz, 2014.
Thursday, October 17
The new immigrant geography.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Classroom guest: Caitlin Munchick, Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson.
Questions for today:
1. What does America's new immigrant geography give new importance to non-metropolitan places?
2. How has new immigration reshaped the cities of New York state?
Assigned readings:
Douglas S. Massey and Chiara Capoferro, "The Geographic Diversification of American Immigration." In New Faces in New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration, edited by D. Massey (Russell Sage, 2008), pp. 25-50.
Ben Axelson, "These 32 towns have the smallest English-speaking populations in Upstate NY," NYup.com, March 2018.
"'It's Not the Same": Why War Refugees Who Helped Revive St. Louis Are Leaving," New York Times, August 18, 2019.
Saturday, October 19
Poughkeepsie food security survey day.
Meet at 10:00am in the Family Partnership Center, Poughkeepsie.
FALL BREAK: OCTOBER 19-27
Saturday, October 26
Poughkeepsie food security survey day.
Meet at 10:00am in the Family Partnership Center, Poughkeepsie.
POLITICAL ECONOMY: URBAN INEQUALITIES
Tuesday, October 29
TK day one.
2nd set of essay questions due.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Thursday, October 31
Amenity development.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How do place-based amenities trigger urban investment?
2. What is the role of amenities in the field of "creative place-making"?
Assigned readings:
Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa, “Creative Placemaking,” white paper for the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, Washington, DC, 2010.
Tuesday, November 5
TK day two.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Assigned readings:
Selection from Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law.
Thursday, November 7
Population exodus and gentrification: the future of the Hudson Valley?
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How are immigration and amenity development related in the Hudson Valley?
2. How does the history of racial-ethnic segregation influence the new futures of immigrant revitalization and amenity development?
3. Is it still gentrification when existing population leaves prior to gentrifiers' arrival?
Assigned readings:
Leonard Nevarez and Joshua Simons, "Small-City Dualism in the Metro Hinterland: The Racialized 'Brooklynization' of New York's Hudson Valley," forthcoming in City and Community.
Richard Ocejo, "Consume This! The Meanings of $4 Croissants," ASA Section on Consumers & Consumption (blog), September 2, 2019.
Pete Saunders, "Is Chicago's legacy of segregation causing a reverse Great Migration?" Chicago Reader, January 24, 2019.
Tuesday, November 12
TK day three.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Assigned readings:
Selection from Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law.
Thursday, November 14
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
ARCHAEOLOGY: CLASSICAL CITIES
Tuesday, November 19
The Earliest Cities: The Neolithic Near East and Bronze Age Aegean.
Lecturer: Barbara Olsen.
Questions for today:
1. In what ways do ancient cities' physical landscape reflect their political and social organizations?
2. What features do the early cities of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages share in common with contemporary ones? What institutional structures are harder to identify (or are even invisible to us)?
3. Many of the earliest cities prioritize religious spaces. How should these be understood as reflecting elite (or non-elite) interests?
Assigned readings:
Charles Gates, "Neolithic Towns and Villages in the Near East." Chap. 1 in Ancient Cities, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2011), pp. 13-29.
Charles Gates, "Aegean Bronze Age Towns and Cities." Chap. 7 in Ancient Cities, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2011), pp. 118-137.
Thursday, November 21
The City as Democratic Space: 5th and 4th century BCE Athens.
Lecturer: Barbara Olsen.
Questions for today:
1. What were the priorities of the Athenians in their city’s physical layout in the 5th and 4th centuries (the period of Athenian democracy)? To what extent were these priorities in competition?
2. The Athenian democracy sought to establish political equality among its (male, free, Athenian-born) citizens. How did they engineer their city to reflect this ideal? How well did it succeed? Can we see the world of the non-citizens (women, foreign residents, slaves, and children) in the city’s physical or symbolic spaces?
3. How did the nascent democracy manage the inheritances from its aristocratic past? (Think about how sacred and economic space might be coopted or reused.)
Assigned readings:
Charles Gates, "Athens in the 5th Century BC." Chap. 16 in Ancient Cities, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2011), pp. 252-268.
Charles Gates, "Greek Cities and Sanctuaries in the Late Classical Period." Chap. 17 in Ancient Cities, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2011), pp. 269-285.
Tuesday, November 26
Outside the Capital in the Roman World: Pompeii (ca. 100 BCE-79 CE).
Lecturer: Barbara Olsen.
Questions for today:
1. How might a non-resident of Pompeii negotiate their way through the city? What features of urban life outside of Rome itself are recognizable in Pompeii?
2. How did Pompeii integrate its non-Roman past and Roman present into the city prior to its destruction in 79 CE?
3. How did the residents of Pompeii experience public and private life in their city? What aspects of Pompeii reveal its cosmopolitan status in the Rome world?
Assigned readings:
Charles Gates, "Rome from its Origins to the End of the Republic." Chap. 20 in Ancient Cities, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2011), pp. 328-347.
Charles Gates, "Italy Outside the Capital: Pompeii and Ostia." Chap. 22 in Ancient Cities, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2011), pp. 356-370.
Thursday, November 28: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
THE RIGHT TO THE CITY
Tuesday, December 3
Global centers of power: Amazon HQ2.
3rd set of essay questions due.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. What do tech headquarters need from a city?
2. For cities, what are the benefits and costs of attracting Amazon's HQ2?
3. 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.
"Amazon reveals the truth on why it nixed New York and chose Virginia for its HQ2," CNBC, July 10, 2019.
Selected headlines from The Onion.
Joseph Heathcott, "NYC’s Sunnyside Yards, and Our Urban Future," Public Seminar (blog), September 16, 2019.
David Harvey, "The Right to the City," New Left Review 53 (Sep-Oct 2008): 23-40
Thursday, December 5
The battle for Seattle.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. What does “greater democratic control over the production and utilization of the surplus” look like in Seattle?
Assigned readings:
Lynn Thompson and Amy Martinez, "Seattle City Council approves historic $15 minimum wage," Seattle Times, June 2, 2014.
Charles Mudede, "A New Poll Shows That Seattle Residents Have No Idea What Their City Is or Wants to Be," The Stranger, November 28, 2017.
Nick Wingfield, "Microsoft to Expand Campus, as Amazon Looks Elsewhere," New York Times, November 29, 2017.
Jared Goyette, "Is Amazon taking revenge on the Seattle socialist who took on the retail giant?" The Guardian, August 5, 2019.
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 10
Last day of class.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Sunday, December 15
Last day of study period: case-study city analysis due.
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