URB STD 150-001
Multicultural America
Instructor: Tanima Howlader (tanima@uwm.edu)
An interdisciplinary course that explores the intersection of multiculturalism and urban development. This course is a required course for the major in urban studies and counts toward the urban studies certificate. In this course we will examine how race and ethnicity have shaped, and continue to influence, patterns of segregation and economic division across the American urban landscape. Specifically, we will focus on racial justice movements, historical and contemporary explanations for residential segregation, housing insecurity and the eviction crisis, neighborhood redevelopment and gentrification pressures, and sustainability and environmental justice movements. The course will also focus on the role of immigration and ethnic enclaves and economies in transforming urban spaces in the 20th and 21st centuries. We’ll also look at the ways different groups have used urban space to construct distinct community identities and to foster movements for social change, as well as how gender and sexual difference have been defined and represented in urban space. This course fulfills 3 credits of Civics and Perspectives GER requirement for degree.
URB STD 250-001
Exploring the Urban Environment
Instructor: Sana Avar (sanaavar@uwm.edu)
This course examines the various dimensions of urban environments, exploring their physical, social, economic, and environmental aspects, and provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the urban environment, focusing on the principles and dynamics that shape cities. Through a multidisciplinary approach, students will gain insights into the planning and design considerations necessary for creating sustainable and livable urban spaces and explore the physical, social, economic, and environmental aspects of urban spaces. The course will spark curiosity about the spaces and places present within the urban, as we look to understand their morphology and how they impact our way of life, including daily routine, behavior, spending, and relationships. We will consider why individuals and families are drawn to a range of urbanenvironments, tied to relational networks, employment, mobility, and affordability. By the end of the course, students should be able to analyze and critically assess urban environments. The course incorporates perspectives and knowledge from various disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, urban design, history, and others to expose students to a range of contexts, societies, landscapes, perspectives, and variables that impact urban environments and life. This coure fulfills 3 credits of Social and Behavioral Science GER requirement for degree.
URB STD 360-001
Perspectives on the Urban Scene: Green Cities: UrbanAgri, Sustain. & Envir Justice
Instructor: Jamie Harris (jmh@uwm.edu)
In a general sense we can say this course is about the relationship between cities and urban areas and the environment. This is, of course, a very broad statement and so we will need to break things down a bit. For example, we’ll look at the increasing importance of sustainability as a concept and focus of urban planning and city branding and citizen activism, what we might call the development of “Green Cities” or a “green urbanism.” As part of this focus we will need to understand the complex intersections between urban development and governance and a whole host of environmental factors, concerns, movements and infrastructures, such as climate change impacts and adaptation, brownfield mitigation, environmental justice, urban agriculture, etc., which taken together can be described as different forms of environmental governance across multiple scales (cities, states, neighborhoods, etc).
This course is not a course specifically about environmental pollution or problems or a course about particular “green cities” (though of course we will examine many cities as we review different topics and case studies); rather, the course’s focus is on how cities and urban areas (governments, neighborhoods, organizations, residents) interact and develop policy and programs related to the environment, and how environmental policy and practices, in turn, shape different urban and environmental outcomes.
One course learning goal is for each of you to critically assess how policies, practices, and grassroots movements interact within diverse urban settings to either exacerbate or alleviate issues of inequality, environmental degradation and different forms of precarity and exclusion. To take one example, the development of “green” amenities (trails, green infrastructure, etc.) have fueled what is often referred to as green or carbon gentrification, which can lead to displacement of low-income residents. This reflects one of the impacts faced by urban communities from green initiatives and reveals a critical tension between environmental justice goals that work to address inequality on the one hand, and certain “greening” or sustainability initiatives on the other. Conversely, we can look to urban farms and community gardens as an example of not just a sustainability initiative or form of green infrastructure, but as an example of an environmental justice practice which actively creates green space (in areas often underserved by such amenities) while building community and addressing food deserts and food insecurity in certain neighborhoods.
URB STD 377-001
Urbanism and Urbanization
Instructor: Jamie Harris (jmh@uwm.edu)
The primary focus of this course is to introduce you to the process of urbanization and the nature of urban society [urbanism(s)] as they have been described, understood and theorized about in the field of urban studies (and more broadly social theory across many disciplines) over the last century. During the semester you will be exposed to a number of theoretical perspectives that relate to the study of urban society, and we will examine a number of substantive urban topics and case studies to account for the changing social and spatial patterns of cities and metropolitan regions, focusing primarily on North American contexts. The point of these case studies is for each of you to be able to examine, apply and challenge competing theories and frameworks for the different urban processes and development patterns we will be examining over the semester, as well as understanding those descriptive features and elements of modern urban society and change.
The first two-thirds of the course will address key topics in the field of urban studies; the last third of the course will focus on four major urban policy areas (housing/economic development, transportation/transit, regionalism/metropolitan governance, and environmental/sustainable design). This course will emphasize a close readings of texts considerable discussion, and student contributions in the way of class presentations andexercises and independent research. While many of the course readings and topics examined in this class are drawn from the subfield of urban sociology, some are also taken from the fields and disciplines of urban studies, urban geography, urban history, urban politics, and urban planning. During class time we will cover a variety of activities to keep things interesting and engaging: short lectures with whole class discussions; small group work, a few case study reviews, and the viewing of video and documentaries.
URB STD 450-001
Urban Growth and Development: A Global View
Instructor: Jamie Harris (jmh@uwm.edu)
Urbanization is advancing at an unprecedented rate around the world, with most of that growth occurring in the “developing” Global South, often in informal settlements. More than 1 billion people now reside in informal settlements, and many megacities will be approaching populations of 30 million over the next decade. Rapid urbanization, and the shadow cities that accompany this kind of development can have broad implications for urban poverty and inequality, migration, and the impacts of climate change. Along with this explosion of urbanization, the last two decades have witnessed much new theorizing and empirical research focused on cities and urbanized regions of the Global South. Many of these scholars have challenged conventional urban theory and critiqued the field of urban studies that emerged in the 20th century for its decidedly European and North American orientation. Unable to fully account for the complexity and diverse historical, political and cultural basis of different urbanisms that were emerging, these scholars, many from outside the West, began to formulate new approaches and concepts to more fully understand urban change and development. This interdisciplinary, hybrid course will examine some of these debates and explore some of this new empirical work as we delve into an array of urban contexts across several regions and countries outside the U.S. Particular attention will be given to urban informality and territories of exclusion in Brazil, Ghana, and India; state-led urbanization in China; Global City formations in a number of cities; greening cities and climate disaster and resilience in Europe, Asia, and Canada; urban citizenship, tactical urbanism and 'right to the city' campaigns, and the role of urban space in shaping and fostering political mobilization for gender equality, poor people, and climate justice, across a number of cities and countries.
URB STD 600-001
Capstone Seminar in Urban Studies
Instructor: Jamie Harris (jmh@uwm.edu)
This course is designed for urban studies majors in their senior year or accelerated BA-MUP students in their
Junior year.
This course has one primary objective. As a capstone course, the class will draw upon and build on your past
work in the major, supplemented by exposure to the research process and methodologies in this class, to
develop the skills necessary for you to plan, conduct, evaluate, and present original research. Capstone research
projects will focus on urban studies-related subject areas within the Milwaukee region. Near the end of the
course, the focus of the class will shift to some post-degree life topics. This course fulfills the L&S research
requirement for degree-bearing students in the College.