PSC 2016 - Urban Studies

• Examine the causes and contexts of local, national, and international public policies as related to urban centers
• Develop critical thinking skills regarding the way cities operate in the twenty-first century
• Explain the relationships between politics and culture in cities across the globe
• Compare and contrast the architectural and planning strategies of cities throughout the world
• Explain the evolution of urban economies in cities across the globe
• Examine the responses - political and cultural - to inequalities present in urban centers

• None

• The tension between urban/commercial and rural/yeoman farmer that informed the early history of the American Republic and its relationship to the rest of the world
• The rise of industrialism and capitalism in urban centers, creating new global connections between cities in a myriad of countries
• The rise of urbanization as way to manage both industrialism and capitalism, and the growing contested nature of such system
• Labor movements in urban centers
• Race and the city
• The growth of the American suburb, and the policy apparatus which supported such growth
• Architecture and urban planning in cities
• Globalization and the city
• Deindustrialization and urban disinvestment
• Policing, surveillance, and incarceration
• Cultural and political responses to the deindustrialized city
• The “back to the city” movement of the late twentieth century
• The “Global Cities” concept
• The continued significance of the rural/urban divide
• The city and climate change/environmental sustainability
• The future of the city (design, politics, economy, and culture)