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This course examines metropolitan development in an international and comparative perspective, focusing on the relationships between economic restructuring and patterns of urban inequality. Cities are fundamentally shaped by inequality and conflict, as different social groups mobilize political and economic resources in an effort to improve their socio-economic circumstances. Rapid globalization and the rise of an information economy, however, are resulting in rapidly changing patterns of employment, economic opportunity and political power in metropolitan regions. Understanding these changes, how they differ in different places, and how they are affecting patterns of inequality and economic opportunity, is both critical for understanding patterns of urbanization, and essential for promoting more equitable, livable, and sustainable cities. This course explores these issues in an international, comparative and applied policy perspective, through detailed comparison of the industrial history and contemporary socio-economic dynamics of different cities around the world. Through this process, the course aims to help us understand the ways that race and class are socially constructed, and that seemingly universal processes of globalization and economic restructuring are fundamentally shaped by local political dynamics. The course is a writing intensive course.
Professor: Dr. Susan Friedman