URBAN REVOLUTION: THE CITY IN POLITICS

Contemporary politics are fundamentally urban. The concentration of people, experiences, and resources in space creates a potentially explosive friction between competing aims and interests. At times, these tensions are expressed through consensual deliberation, at others through radical confrontation. As the conventional politics of representative democracy encounter new crises of legitimacy worldwide, the embodied politics of the city become even more important. This course explores the crucial role that cities play in challenging the uneven distribution of power and making claims on the redistribution of resources.

The course is organized into three units: spaces, practices, and institutions. Using urban theory and historical examples, each week critically examines a distinct way in which the city matters to politics. Each unit ends by asking students to deploy this material in analyzing a contemporary case study. At the end of the semester, students synthesize what they have learned into a manifesto that outlines a sustainable, responsible, and realistic program of urban social change.