Urban Studies

Modern day Israel and Palestine, the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, covers an area that is six times smaller than the state of Pennsylvania, but has about the same population size (about 12.7 million people). In addition to the high density of population, this land is the heart of a religious, ethnic, national, and political conflict. This context makes spatial planning an immense challenge and is often used as a tool for achieving various political agendas. After presenting some brief background on the geography and the history of the land, this course focuses on topics including national and regional planning; the New Towns scheme; water planning issues; transportation planning; Jerusalem's geopolitical question; tourism development in historic cities such as Nazareth, Acre, and Bethlehem; the fence of separation, and affordable housing plans.

Students learn about the comparative dimensions of urbanization from the 18th to the early 20th century. Students explore the relationships between urbanization and the broader currents of economic, social, and cultural change. Students learn to compare and contrast urbanization at different places and times in both quantitative and qualitative terms; explain the relationships between social, cultural, and political processes; and explain the production of urban spaces and urban forms.

This course provides an introduction to the basic ideas and context of both urban and regional planning. Key planning systems, policy agendas and perspectives are critically assessed. Examples are drawn mainly from rapidly changing regions in Asia. Challenges addressed include infrastructure, land policy, housing, poverty, governance dilemmas and environmental problems. Planning in regions and cities is viewed in light of wider social, political and economic trends as well as the geographical context. Planning is placed into perspective relative to other forces that influence development patterns.

This course discusses the dynamics of cities and urban planning and the basic regulatory and instrumental framework for urban space planning. 

This interdisciplinary course examines historical and current social movements in Paris against social and economic disenfranchisement and discrimination based on citizenship, migratory status, racialization, gender, and sexuality. It introduces a wide range of activist tools and historical and current struggles for the access to health, education, and labor rights and against police violence, detention, and incarceration. The course introduces and reflects on a variety of ways of documenting social justice and injustice in France, ranging from documentary film and photography; reports and investigations led by state agencies and non-profit organizations and networks; and museography and artistic expressions. Through urban walks, the course explores spaces of disenfranchisement and gentrification and pays attention to official and non-official memory work, such as monuments, graffiti, and street art in the Parisian city-scape that contribute to commemorate of render invisible specific struggles for social justice.

The course has two sections, with the first section focusing on urbanization, urban form and structure, urban biodiversity and conservation, and the second section focusing on urban hydrology, urban rivers, urban river restoration and both terrestrial and aquatic pollution.  The lecture series ends with a field trip to an urban river site in London.

This course discusses a number of economic, social and environmental challenges that exert massive demands on the urban environment. The critical urban issues, focused on the built environment, include public housing, urban transportation, sustainable development, building conservation and resource management. The course is oriented towards public policies and urban management based on an interdisciplinary approach which includes urban planning, laws and regulations, land management, stakeholder engagement, technology and governance. 

The course deals with themes of Lyon's urban history (by urbanization, space, public squares, housing, architecture, places of worship, trade and commerce, the ways of life of the inhabitants and their relationship with the Rhône and Saône rivers). Comparisons are made with other cities. Finally, the course covers the city’s cultural institutions in charge of transmitting memory and urban heritage (museums, archives, etc.) and includes field study sessions. Through the approach of social history, the course presents the two-thousand-year history of the city, from its origins to the present day, with emphasis on certain particularly decisive moments in the construction of space, the transformations of urban activities, and ways of life.