URB 200: Social Justice in the City at School of Labor&Urban Studies

About this course

This course is premised on a simple observation -- that cities are as much sites of creativity and opportunity as they are sites of profound struggle. Over the course of the semester, students will examine a handful of those struggles -- from those that arise over the use of public space to those over redevelopment, transportation and affordable housing. In each case, students will be asked to place such struggles within a broader set of debates on justice, rights, and equity. What rights do people in cities have to public space? What rights should they have? What does equity in housing policy and transportation policy entail? What does a ?just city? look like? Alternatively, what does an unjust one look like? Over the course of the semester students will not only seek answers to such questions but they will be forced to think critically about how cities are produced, the work that goes into producing them, and how the benefits of urban life are distributed across different populations. Within urban studies, of course, questions of social justice have spawned a wide ranging literature. Where some of this literature is steeped in a commitment to distributive justice, there is also long tradition of literature committed to a broader critique of the urban political economy itself. Focusing on this latter critique, the goal of the course is to introduce students to the concept of ?the right to the city? and its application to debates on a wide array of urban topics. Students will leave the class with a broad understanding of these debates as well as what they mean for both how we study cities as well as how we go about securing justice in them.