Urban Studies

This course introduces urban studies in the Middle East, drawing on textual, visual, and collaborative resources to critically explore contemporary urban life in the region. It situates the region within broader discussions on the global “urban age,” an era where purportedly half of the world’s growing population lives and works in cities. The course explores the structural and everyday forces and actors—states, people, culture, nature, wars, and disasters—that shape and connect cities across the region. It draws on debates and methodologies in urban sociology, political economy, and anthropology. The course blends theory and practice through collaborative, experiential methods such as urban diary writing, visual ethnography, and field visits.

This course 1) provides an introduction to how to understand and analyze urban process and urban change; 2) introduces issues confronted by citizens, planners, policymakers and citizens in both urbanized and rapidly urbanizing areas. Throughout the course, we will take a comparative approach to the topics, not only drawing case studies drawn from different regions in the world but also paying particular attention to the ongoing urban transformation in China.

This course examines the rapid transformation of cities by information technology and socio-economic innovation; growth in citizen-generated data and the internet of things; and emerging theory, methods, and frameworks for understanding Smart Cities.

This course aims to develop a basic level of spatial planning literacy among urban studies students. It's divided into three modules: contemporary issues in spatial planning, the history and evolution of spatial planning and spatial planning as a process; and contemporary issues in spatial planning. Through various case studies, the course sensitizes students to various pertinent spatial planning issues in the specific institutional and legal context of Hong Kong.

Students will embark on an exploration of riverbanks, lake environments, coastal regions, and island communities, seeking to capture the myriad ways they access and inhabit these areas in the 21st century. In the growing wave of island and coastal studies, students will also consider how coastal societies offer important examples of behavioral and cultural evolution, with religious icons, cultural ideas, linguistic patterns, and stories told and retold, featuring connections to water. Students will learn how these regions serve as natural conduits for migration, fostering cultural exchanges, and the flourishing of innovation and social networks. These include the fishing First Nations and Inuit communities in northern Canada and Greenland, the societies living in the depths of the jungle along the Congo River, and even Hong Kong’s coasts and communities such as those in Mui Wo, Tai O, Lei Yue Mun, Aberdeen, and Sai Kung.

This course introduces key concepts and major issues of urban and regional economics for students with a knowledge of economic and econometric analysis at the undergraduate level. It emphasizes the role of market forces in the development of cities. Recent advances and empirical evidence are used to cover the following topics: market forces in the development of cities (spatial equilibrium, agglomeration and congestion forces, and transportation costs); land rents and land-use patterns (urban land rents, land-use patterns, neighborhood choice, zoning, and growth controls); urban transportation; housing; urban distress; and cities and public policy.

This course takes London, a global, multicultural city as our lab for exploring social science theories and methods. It engages with current social issues in the city, situating them historically and within wider national and global contexts. The course considers what a focus on a particular city, in this case London, can contribute to the social sciences, and conversely considers how social science concepts and theories can contribute to a richer understanding of cities and city life.

This course introduces the components and structure of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and discusses how national guidelines and requirements for EIAs influence the outcome. Current EIAs include an evaluation of environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts of development projects, hence the course is interdisciplinary by nature and is relevant for a range of academic disciplines. The course provides a comprehensive overview and thorough knowledge of EIA procedures and methodologies, introduces basic concepts and generic methodologies, and focuses on EIA within the fields of agriculture and forestry, natural resource management, infrastructure and water resource management projects. The problems and pitfalls of EIA are also discussed. The course mainly focuses on EIA in developing countries, but examples from Denmark and other countries are also used.

This course aims to engage students in understanding and analyzing complex housing issues and to prepare them in identifying and formulating integrated policy options for the recognized problems. Students will explore issues and policy realms related to different forms and categories of housing provided by the public and private sectors in specific socio-economic contexts. They will be encouraged to explore sustainable policy options and design to meet the housing needs of different socio-economic groups.

This course examines the role of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies in the environmental decision-making process and as a means for better environmental management. The major components, processes and attributes to EIA systems will be discussed. It will also introduce different methodologies in planning and managing of an EIA study. Applications of EIA system in the local context will be discussed in detail and illustrated by real-life examples mainly from Hong Kong.