Urban Studies

This course investigates the institutional, legal, political, and economic aspects of the global city. It explores how a truly multinational but local-based political community could rise where, in a circular way, native roots, universalism, cultural diversity, and international links can coexist and support each other. It considers how cities have been the standpoint from which scholars investigate macro-phenomena and issues affecting society as a whole, and discusses how any change affecting the delicate urban ecosystem will therefore also have wider repercussions on how global governance itself is conceived.

This course complicates our understanding of North American cities.  It takes us through the histories and geographies of the emergence of the first North American cities.  Both Canada and the US are examples of settler colonialism – where European settlers evicted through violence those on whose land the two nation’s cities were built.  And the labor of slaves from inside and outside of Canada and the US was used to build these cities. The  course builds upon critical understandings of the two nations and their cities. It examines the changing ways in which North American cities have been governed and their changing position in American and Canadian societies, particularly with the emergence of suburbanization from the late 1940s and the gentrification-driven-renaissance of some of their downtown from the late 1980s. 

This course seeks to make students familiar with the main controversies that are present in urban sociology with particular attention to Brazilian cities. Topics covered include: origins of modern western cities; industrial cities, large cities and metropolises; the Chicago School; Marxism and cities; welfare cities and urban planning; cities and disorganized capitalism; urban dimensions; social movements; the concept of global city; rebellion and change.

This course trains students to use their experience abroad to reflect critically on the kind of city they would like to live in in the near future and what actions they would take to shape their ideal urban environment. To this purpose, the focus of the course is the nexus between cities, innovation, and sustainability, and the idea of smart city conceptualized and developed in the European Union as the main model for the city of the future. The concept of the smart city is approached by the six different angles and corresponding indicators commonly used to identify it: smart governance, smart economy, smart environment, smart mobility, smart living, and smart people. These six thematic areas are central to the course program, which comprehends three parts. The first part of the course sets the context by introducing concepts, tools, and policies of sustainable development and innovation in Europe and their strategic role in the development of cities and urban areas according to the indications from the United Nations 2030 Agenda. It also touches upon the historical evolution of cities as main hubs for socio-economic development. Secondly, the course concentrates on the study of the six different areas and indicators for the smart city in a European-United States comparative lens to give students different perspectives and tools to analyze an urban system and propose ideas for future developments. In the final part of the course, Florence and other case studies from Tuscany, Italy, and Europe serve as models of practical application of the previous theoretical considerations. European cities offer stimulating points of view concerning sustainability and innovative solutions. Florence in particular constitutes the main case study of the course, as the first smart city in Italy according to the ICity Rank 2022 and one of the nine Italian cities part of a European project for the development of Smart Cities. The course critically analyzes the approach towards the actual state of cities in Tuscany and their evolution towards the proposed model of a future city that the Tuscan region and its urban centers, Florence in particular, are undertaking. Key thematic issues and sustainability challenges are explored in the context of Tuscan urban environments, including mobility (electric mobility, shared mobility, AI systems), industrial development and clusters (green logistics, green buildings), innovative ecosystems (local ecosystems of innovation, startups incubators, and accelerators), and resource management (waste management, urban mining). The course includes outdoor activities (visit to local firms developing smart solutions; talking to local policy makers, public officials, or representatives of workers’ and firms’ organizations) and guest speakers that offer unique opportunities to engage with the local environment.

This course covers inequalities related to race, ethnicity, gender, and class in contemporary societies. Topics include social exclusion and spatial/urban segregation; diversity in the city; urban social and cultural movements; and social inclusion. It also looks at the specificity of the Brazilian case and how it compares to different national urban contexts.

This course considers how the global pandemic of 2020-2021 has challenged the modus operandi, urban development model, and financial viability of the world's great cities at a time when those also have to face the profound challenge of making themselves more resilient against the multi-faceted threat of climate change. It highlights both the danger and opportunity brought on by the pandemic, in terms of rethinking transport systems, commercial real estate, commuting and work arrangements, food distribution, energy, waste management and recycling, housing policy, education, and the provision of essential business as well as personal services. The course examines the shake up of “established wisdom” in urban economics which has led to new thinking and an opening for innovation that extends to new organizational formations within the context of the “circular economy,” as well as “social solidarity economy” such as urban commons and cooperatives.

This course explores urban policy issues through a focus on the intersections between population, housing, and neighborhood dynamics across the Global North. The course considers a number of intriguing policy relevant questions about residential geographies. These include but are not limited to: Why do people live where they do? How does the housing system shape how people move through, experience, and use urban space? What makes urban populations change over time, how can we measure and perhaps influence these dynamics, and how useful are terms such as segregation or gentrification for describing processes of neighborhood change? How is housing provided and regulated in different contexts, and what does this mean for cities and for people's lives?

This course explores the challenges we face and identifies collaborative processes for nature-based solutions in urban planning, design, implementation, adaptation, and care. Through a range of creative processes, with reference to exemplar projects and contributions from industry experts and academics, students learn the principles and application of an urban green infrastructure approach for resilience, health and wellbeing, and social and environmental justice.

In Western culture, the city is the epitome of political and cultural expression, which gives the urban question a complex, diachronic, and dialectical character; it mirrors major economic, social, and political tensions. This course deciphers the fundamental elements of this complexity in tension with the fields of geopolitical thought applied to territories, in the decisive context of the environmental transition. In a dynamic and interactive way, the course takes on a contemporary political culture of the urban condition, allowing a political approach to urban citizenship, more diasporic or mobile where the network prevails over the territorial continuity. Instruction alternates between the classroom and the city.

When car-use becomes restricted on streets, is that called opening or closing a street? The conflict around this question currently splits Berlin. As the automotive city planning paradigm of much of the twentieth century rolls out bumpily, many are ready to replace it with a paradigm that puts people instead of cars first. The claim is that the urban street of the future is not merely a transit space, but rather part of the urban commons, a space that is there for everyone to use. Climate mitigation, space justice, and mobility justice all play a role here as well. In this seminar, we will look at urban (street) space as urban commons, discuss the change of meaning that street space has undergone in the past and still undergoes and get a first-hand experience of the conflict described above by visiting reclaimed spaces and conducting interviews. We will also deal with specific examples of street reclamations worldwide.