Urban Studies

Urban economics is concerned with the spatial form of cities and the division of national economic activity into cities, both at a point in time and over time.  Three fundamental questions are: Why are economic activities within a country so unequally distributed across space? Why do cities (and agglomerations of firms and workers) emerge and in what locations? How and why are economic activities within cities unequally distributed in general and between the city center and the suburbs?

The course introduces basic concepts of energy and the understanding of its territorial deployment, along with a critical and innovative look at its implications (risks and opportunities) in terms of sustainability, as well as the role that energy plays in the development of various territories and their inhabitants. The course will combine expository classes, case studies and collaborative learning, along with group studies and presentations on contingent cases, which reveal a reflective approach from the students' various disciplines.

Why do cities exist? Why do firms cluster? Why is economic activity not equally distributed across space? This course addresses the central questions of why cities emerge, what roles cities will continue to play in the economy, and what determines the rise and fall of cities. Technically, the course provides an introduction to the field of urban economics. It focuses on stylized facts, basic microeconomic concepts, and empirical applications. Special
attention is paid to social problems in cities, including housing, public transit, crime, and the role of local governments. The course aims to make students familiar with economic tools and concepts useful for the analysis of urban issues. More generally, students learn to apply economic theory to real-world problems. A special focus is placed on evidence and examples from Berlin. With its long and vibrant history, Berlin provides an excellent environment to study and explore various features of the economics of cities. Field trips allow participants to learn more about the past and the future of cities, their functions, their internal spatial structure, and their dynamics.

This course begins by exploring the intellectual interventions and traditions that have emerged in the anthropology in and of Britain over the last 50 years, and then swiftly moves into exploring the ways in which interdisciplinary ethnographic research has been conducted across Britain. While reading ethnographies in cross cultural, global contexts, in this course students place a particular emphasis on the urban context of Greater Manchester. Students explore ethnographies that have been based on ethnographic research across Greater Manchester, and which raise and address urgent questions of social, political, and economic change in Manchester and beyond. The course tackles the concept of "the urban’" by exploring ethnographic examples from anthropology, sociology, human geography, and business studies that focus on social and cultural lives and relations. Students take two fieldtrips (Cheetham’s Library and Manchester Airport) and two walking tours (Fallowfield and Rusholme) to visit and reflect on the ethnographic locations of the materials and readings they engage with. 

This course focuses on the intersection of climate crisis, energy demand, buildings and the wellbeing of people. Students are introduced to key concepts and Open Access data and tools for modelling and analyzing building energy demand and occupant wellbeing at a large scale. Students learn to synthesize knowledge across disciplines to develop and evaluate strategies and comprehensive plans for sustainable urban living.

This course provides an introduction to the sub-discipline of urban geography. It explores the distinctive contribution that geographers have made to the analysis of cities and urban life. The course outlines the economic and social origins of urban life, exploring the relationship between population density, size, and diversity that characterise cities. The course systematically outlines how contemporary cities can be interpreted as economic spaces, social spaces, and political entities. It also explores the different ways that urban geographers and others have framed their research into cities and urban environments. Given that cities – for all their attractions and strengths – are frequently defined by their dysfunction and inequality, the course examines how such poor outcomes are generated. It also explores the kinds of policy programmes that might be capable of generating more liveable and equitable cities. The course takes a selfconsciously international perspective, encouraging participants to read widely about the diversity of cities that form the focus of urban geographical thinking today.

This course focuses on urban capitalism, understood as the link between a mode of production and a mode of relationship to space that are now dominant in the 21st century. On the one hand, space is a support for economic activities: contemporary restructurings of capitalism lead to socio-spatial dynamics (metropolization, gentrification, etc.). On the other hand, capitalism transforms cities through the production of real estate and infrastructure, now connected to the financial markets. Finally, the course questions the socio-spatial inequalities and crises associated with urban capitalism, as well as the resistance to it. At the crossroads of political economy, urban sociology and economic geography, the course familiarizes students with research on this topic through various media (scientific texts, documentaries, fieldwork). 

This course focuses on French cities in the modern era. It explores in greater depth how, in concrete terms, French towns revealed the workings of modern France. Themes such as demography, society, economy, and cultural life, are covered.

This course examines the emergence of cities from the urban revolution around 5,000 BC to 4,000 BC first in Western Asia, through the key milestones of our urban evolution, to the current era of megacities and megaregions. The issues covered in this course include the birth of cities as a part of urban lifecycles; the projection of power; order and governance; disruption and reconfiguration; humanistic cities; building cities for mass populations; conflict, community, and faith; trends and competitions; unprecedented societal changes and urban growth; contemporary urbanism and our planetary future. We will focus on the development of a particular urbanism with its constituent cities as we expound each of these issues, while seeking to bring comparative case studies to illustrate how these issues have been unravelled in similar and diverse ways in other urbanisms and historical periods.