Democracy and Urban Life
1
2019-2020
02020673
Sociology/Economics/Geography/Political Sciences/Earth Sciences/Mechanical Engineering
English
Face-to-face
SEMESTRIAL
7.5
Elective
2nd Cycle Studies - Mestrado
Recommended Prerequisites
Not applicable.
Teaching Methods
Students are expected to attend classes regularly (minimum of 75% of class attendance). Besides students are supposed to take part in groupdiscussions and to complete an individual essay (3,000 to 5,000 words). Along the way students, individually or collectively (two persons maximum), are asked to help lead two course discussions, and to make a couple of short oral presentation of readings assigned. Written short syntheses (400800 words) of these presentations are to be handed over in time to accompany the presentations.
Learning Outcomes
Overall objectives
The study unit helps educate students on issues, problems and public policy questions related to unban life.
There are 5 major study purposes:
(i) to introduce students to major historical, political, economic and social dimensions of the urban phenomenon
(ii) to offer a broad view on the impact of democratic policies and processes in the quality of city governance
(iii) to provide methodological tools to analyze urban policies and their social impacts
(iv) to bring a broad understanding of current concepts of urban studies
(v) to lead students to the major critical issues relating democratic city life Specific objectives
The unit aims at:
(i) bringing global and “other” nonWestern cities to the fore
(ii) looking at urban spaces as arenas of participatory democracy
(iii) discussing cityscapes in relation to multicultural urban rights
(iv) reading the city in the light of global competition and megaevents
(v) looking at special opportunities to enhance community
Work Placement(s)
NoSyllabus
The urbanization of the world: Accelerating the pace of change;
Concepts and theories of the modern city: Cityness and city making;
The Western urban canon and its critics: From Simmel to the Chicago School; from H. Lefebvre to S. Zukin; from D. Harvey to S. Sassen;
Global cities and Invisible cities: Democracy in “other” cities;
The city and the senses: Living the city, recapturing the sensible;
Urban policies: The remaking of urban democracy or the rebirth of “the right to the city”;
Urban spaces/Rebel cities: The sociopolitical meaning of streets and the plazas. From Ground Zero to Tarhir.
Urban warfare and the multicultural urban world: Learning from Syria
The triumph of the city versus the ghostly city: Detroitism and the decay of city centers
The open city: Democracy, cosmopolis and the future urban world
Assessment Methods
Assessment
Periodic or by final exam as given in the course information: 100.0%
Bibliography
BLOOM, Clive Riot city. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
CAUTER, Lieven de The capsular civilization. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2004.
DEGEN, Mónica Sensing cities. London: Routledge, 2008.
ENDLESS (The) city. Ed. Ricky Burdett, Deyan Sudjic. London: Phaidon Press, 2007.
FORTUNA, Carlos In praise of other views. Berlin: Instituto IberoAmericano, 2012.
GRAHAM, Stephen Cities under siege. London: Verso, 2011.
HARVEY, David Rebel cities. London: Verso, 2012.
LANDRY, Charles The art of citymaking. London, Earthscan, 2007.
SASSEN, Saskia Territory, authority, rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
SEABROOK, Jeremy Cities. London, Pluto Press, 2007.
SHORT, John R. Urban theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
SPACES of Neoliberalism. Ed. Neil Brenner, Nik Theodore. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
TONKISS, Fran Space, the city and social theory.Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
ZUKIN, Sharon Naked city. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.