Current Issues in Cities and Suburbs Course Descriptor

Course Summary

This course introduces students to pressing urban issues worldwide – such as housing crises and urban sprawl; gentrification, residential segregation and urban poverty; economic development and financialization; austerity and pressures on local government and public services, such as education and transportation; urban social movements and community organising in response to sources of unrest; environmental degradation and the impacts of climate change; and visions for sustainable urban futures – through an intensive analysis of a metropolitan area, such as London.

Course Aims

The course aims to:

• Provide an introduction to urban sociology and urban politics.
• Introduce key issues facing metropolitan areas and the ways that different actors seek to respond to them.
• Develop capacity to analyse issues facing cities and suburbs today, and to identify and evaluate policies and political interventions that might address them.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include: 

Indicative contact hours: 36 hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, and in-class presentations and exams. 

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course. 

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion. 

Feedback is provided on written assignments and made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books 

Gottdiener, M., Hohie, R. and King, C., The New Urban Sociology, 6th edition. New York: Routledge, 2019.

Gottdiener, M., Budd, L. and Lehtovuori, P., Key Concepts in Urban Studies, 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications, 2016.

Sassen, S., The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 2nd edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Graeber, D. and Wengrow, D. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. London: Penguin Books, 2021.

Indicative Topics

• Processes of urbanisation and suburbanisation
• Globalisation, deindustrialisation, financialization and urbanisation
• Urban poverty, residential segregation and the global housing crisis
• Urban and suburban development patterns and policies
• Government and public services in urban and suburban contexts 
• Urban social movements and urban politics
• Cities, the environment and sustainability
• The future of cities