Prof: David Wilson
Meets: Wednesdays 1:00-3:50 pm
This seminar explores the complexity of cities and urbanization across the globe as evolving and turbulent landscapes. We will engage a multiplicity of cities in our readings and discussion, e.g., Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Cape Town, Mumbai, St. Louis, Detroit, Berlin, Mexico City, and Jakarta. We examine the swath of current economic, political, cultural, and social forces that are constituting and reverberating across cities in current global and neoliberal times. Topical issues addressed include the city as a globalizing entity, rights to the city, the racialized urban economy, the new local state, settler colonialist realities, contemporary urban governance, nature in the city, and the new gentrification. Readings for the course reflect a mix of classic pieces, theoretical-conceptual expositions, and contemporary empirical applications of ideas and theories.