Graduate Seminar II: Issues of Global Urbanization
This seminar investigates the future of cities by focusing on three existential challenges: the escalating environmental crisis, growing social inequity, and technological dislocation. In the face of these wicked problems, we address the role and agency of designers and planners, decision makers and citizens in tackling what Jeremy Rifkin describes as the Third Industrial Revolution and how to lay the foundational infrastructure for an emerging collaborative age.
By 2050, the number of urban dwellers across the world will double. This seminar investigates the future of cities by focusing on three existential challenges: the escalating environmental crisis, growing social inequity, and technological dislocation. In the face of these wicked problems, we address the role and agency of designers and planners, decision makers and citizens in tackling what Jeremy Rifkin describes as the Third Industrial Revolution and how to lay the foundational infrastructure for an emerging collaborative age. These issues are explored through contemporary writings and case studies that situate urban transformations in the U.S. within a broader global context, with a specific focus on the political as articulated through the negotiation of the top-down planning and bottom-up behavior of cities. This seminar revolves around reading reflections, in-class presentations and student moderated discussions on theories and case studies of global urbanization.
Key topics include global urbanization, uneven growth, political economy, ecological urbanism, resilience, cosmopolitan localism, smart cities and commons. The course fosters an understanding of theories and practice of urbanism in global developments and provides an understanding of the social, political, economic and environmental forces at play in shaping our built environment. The course reflects on the role and agency that designers and planners can have in building more resilient and sustainable cities.
This course requires attendance of one 1.5-hour class per week. Students pursuing the 6 unit option will complete a more extensive final paper. Students from diverse disciplines are welcome.