The majority of the world's population now lives in cities and this presents both problems and opportunities.  This course offers a survey of classic theories of urban culture - drawing widely from modern literary, anthropological, and cinematic explorations of the city - in the context of present-day challenges.  We will examine the key questions of a long legacy of urban though, such as:

• What sets cities apart from other patterns of dwelling and social life?
• What political forms and practices are distinctive to cities?
• How are individual freedoms and collective well being experienced, understood, and shaped in urban environments?

We will investigate these questions as they have been asked in regard to the modern industrial city and in the political life of American cities, and explore their relevance to the contemporary conditions of urbanism, from suburban sprawl in the United States to the rise of megacities from Mexico City to Mumbai.

Through readings of theoretical ethnographic, and historical accounts of urbanism, we will seek to understand how contemporary urbanization contributes to global problems of sustainability, citizenship, and belonging, and how it may also hold surprising solutions.  The course will offer an overview of contemporary city lives in diverse locations, the meaning people find in urban dwelling, their desire for and hatred of the city, and the prospects for a globe increasingly going urban.

Also listed as Comparative Studies 4661.