Contemporary Spatial Dynamics

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Lectures combining theoretical explanations with conceptual and real-case discussions.

Learning Outcomes

Provide students with a deep knowledge and with advanced R&D skills and competences on the subject of spatial dynamics processes. Identify and describe the main concepts that constrains spatial dynamics. Develop criteria and capacity for analysis, interpretation and comparison of different dynamics and processes of spatial transformation.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Contemporary spatial dynamics: general framework.

State, society and territory: a changing relationship.

The main spatial impacts of current social and economic change. Globalization and urban change.

2. Spatial dynamics and urban transformation processes.

The state of the cities in the EU: convergence and divergence, the role of contextual factors.

Metropolisation and socio-spatial fragmentation. The visibility and intensity of new urban problems.

Urban transformation, problems and challenges: the imperatives of competitiveness and cohesion.

3. Spatial dynamics and institutions.

Territorial Governance: the main dimensions of recent institutional changes.

Diversification of decisionmaking, local governance and spatial change.

4. Synthesis. Implications for spatial planning.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Home assignment and written final exam: 100.0%

Bibliography

- Albrechts, L., Alden, J., & Rosa Pires, A. d. (2001). The changing institutional landscape of planning. Aldershot: Ashgate.

- Boddy, M., & Parkinson, M. (2004). City matters: Competitiveness, cohesion and urban governance: Bristol: Policy Press.

- Buck, N. H., Gordon, I., Harding, A., & Turok, I. (Eds.). (2005). Changing Cities : Rethinking Urban Competitiveness, Cohesion and governance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

- Kazepov, Y. (2005). Cities of Europe: changing contexts, local arrangements, and the challenge to urban cohesion (pp. 3-42). Oxford: Blackwell.

- Le Galès, P., & Zagrodzki, M. (2006). Cities are back in town: the US/Europe comparison. Paris: Centre d'Études Européennes de Sciences-Po.

- Marcuse, P. and Van Kempen, R. (2000), Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 249- 275.

- Turok, I., & Mykhnenko, V. (2008). Resurgent European cities? Urban Research & Practice, 1(1), 54 – 77.