Unit name | Ethnicity, Class and Housing in the City |
---|---|
Unit code | GEOG30020 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Professor. David Manley |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | School of Geographical Sciences |
Faculty | Faculty of Science |
The United Nations recently reported that over half the world’s population lives in urban areas. Within Europe and the United States of America this proportion is much higher (82% and 73% respectively). Thus, understanding how the urban environment operates is crucial for the wider social, economic and developmental transformations that modern society is undergoing. The unit will introduce key concepts through scholarly debates relating to the theoretical basis, empirical investigation and substantive investigation of urban sites focusing on the European and American experiences as illustrations. The course tackles three major aspects of the urban environment:
Course Outline:
Week | Lecture | Seminar |
1 | How Geographers Approach the City: an Intellectual History (& course overview) | Introduction discussion: Urbanisms |
2 | The Ghetto as Historical Reality and Political Myth | Student group presentations |
3 | Concentrated Poverty and Neighbourhood Effects | Film: Boyz in da hood |
4 | Segregating Urban Spaces | Student group debate: Segregation good or evil? |
5 | Neighbourhood Change | Film: Flag Wars |
6 | Skills and Enhancement | |
7 | Gentrification and Urban Renewal | Student debate: Gentrification as a necessity of urban change |
8 | Race, Housing, and the Urban “Underclass.”. | Group Presentations |
9 | Homelessness and the right to the city | Film: Metropolis |
10 | Social Area Analysis, I: Classical Models and the Quantitative Revolution | Urban Analytics |
11 | Social Area Analysis, II: Geodemographic Marketing, Big Data, and the Transformation of Urban Social Space | Revision Seminar Session |
12 | Reading and Skills |
By the end of the unit you should:
The following transferable skills are developed in this Unit:
Lectures: 10
Seminars: 10
The unit will include both formative and summative assessment. The formative assessment requires students to participate in seminar discussions and presentations throughout the course. Participation is compulsory, and credit for the unit will be withheld if students do not attend.
Summative assessment will comprise two elements:
The majority of the reading will be provided on a weekly basis consisting of journal articles. These are supplemented with the following key texts:
Pacione, M. (2009). Urban geography: A global perspective. Routledge. (3rd Edition)
Finney, N., & Simpson, L. (2009). Sleepwalking to segregation'?: challenging myths about race and migration. Policy Press.
Lees, L., Slater, T. and Wyly, E. (2008) Gentrification (Routledge).
Wacquant, L. (2011). Urban Outcasts. Polity Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1987) The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. University of Chicago Press.