ENVS 29903 - Urban Environments in Comparative Contex

Course Credit: 1
Maximum Credit: 0

(PSCI)
URBAN ENVIRONMENTS IN COMPARATIVE CONTEX Most of the world’s poor live in cities, yet much of what we know about the politics of developing countries comes from villages and towns. Coincidentally, most of what we know about urban politics comes from American sociology. Is there - and should there be - a politics of the global urban south? This course is developed as an elective for junior and senior undergraduates across disciplines in the social sciences. It draws on theoretical texts from American urban politics and sociology, focusing on the creation of an urban “class” and the challenges of state services, public goods and policing in American cities. This outline provides four broad thematic areas: (1) How is infrastructure considered “ontologically prior” to politics?; (2) How are cities linked to and separated from rural areas?; (3) How does the female, black and queer experience in urban space inform urban politics?; (4) Urban and electoral politics - using cases from North America, Pakistan and India, one of the major modules of this course will examine the role of cities in setting the agenda for national politics. This course is being offered with the support of the Political Science department as a Comparative Politics offering. [HSS]