Unit information: Ethnicity, Class and Housing in the City in 2018/19

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 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
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

Description including Unit Aims

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:

1. How do urban areas vary over time and space? How have they developed and changed over time?
2. How are social relations played out in the city? What processes impact residents the most, how and where?
3. How does the city shape those social relations? The regenerations of cities have stubbornly failed to reinvigorate many urban spaces and as a result they have reinforced inequalities in space.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the unit you should:

1. Be able to understand the complexities of the relationships between urban space and the individuals that inhabit it.
2. Be able to critically engage in theoretical and empirical debates surrounding the key concepts in urban Geography.
3. Appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the studies of urban environments. Whilst clearly rooted in the geographic tradition, acknowledgement of the contributions that sociology and economics in particular have made should be demonstrated.
4. Demonstrate an appreciation and understanding of the multiple modes of inquiry used in urban geography including but not limited to ethnography along with qualitative and quantitative analysis.
5. Acquired an interdisciplinary appreciation of the various forms of urban space, development and division which is firmly rooted in the geographical tradition
6. An appreciation of critical scholarship inquiry that transcends methods and provides a background to the context of the urban world which we inhabit.

The following transferable skills are developed in this Unit:

• Written and verbal communication
• Analytical skills
• Evidence-based argument
• Critical interpretative thinking

Teaching Information

Lectures: one 2-hour lecture and nine 1-hour lectures

Seminars: 9

Assessment Information

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:

1. Extended essay, 3000 words covering multiple sections of course content. (50%) (ILOs 1-6)
2. End of unit exam, 1.5 hour exam, one question chosen out of a total of 4 from across the unit. (50%) (ILOs 1-6)

Reading and References

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. (3^rd 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.