Urban studies course descriptions
FALL 2009
URBS-010.401
Homelessness and Urban Inequality
(Culhane)
This Freshman seminar in Urban Studies introduces students to many of the major social issues confronting our nation’s cities by focusing specifically on the problem of urban homelessness. The course examines the treatment of homelessness and extreme impoverishment as social problems historically, as well as through contemporary debates. Several areas of intensive study will include the prevalence and dynamics of homelessness, the affordable housing crisis, urban labor market trends, welfare reform, health and mental health policies, and urban/suburban development disparities. Particular attention is also paid to the structure of emergency services for people who have housing emergencies. The course concludes by examining current policies and advocacy strategies.
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URBS-103.401
The Industrial Metropolis
(Vitiello)
Syllabus
Although most U.S. cities are no longer thought of as "industrial cities," metropolitan areas today are all products of industrial economies, technologies, and social systems. This course explores the ways in which industrialization and deindustrialization have shaped North American cities over the past two centuries. Major themes include economic geography, ecology, labor and production, suburbanization, outsourcing, and the history and future of energy. The class will take regular walking tours of Philadelphia neighborhoods.
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URBS-121.401
The Origins and Cultures of Cities
(Thornton)
Syllabus
The UN estimates that 2.9 of the world's 6.1 billion people live in cities and that this percentage is rapidly increasing in many parts of the world. This course examines urban life and urban problems by providing anthropological perspectives on this distinctive form of human association and land use. First we will examine the "origin" of cities, focusing on several of the places where cities first developed, including Mesopotamia and the Valley of Mexico. We will then investigate the internal structure of non-industrial cities by looking at case studies from around the world and from connections between the cities of the past and the city in which we live and work today.
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URBS-160.401
Race & Ethnic Relations
(Nopper)
Syllabus
The course will examine how social networks, neighborhood context, culture, and notions of race affect inequality and ethnic relations. The course reviews the studies of ethnic entrepreneurship, urban segregation, labor force participation, and assimilation processes. The course emphasizes how inequality affects ethnic relations as well as the economic and social integration of different groups in society.
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URBS-178.401
Faculty-Student Collaborative Action Seminar: Urban-University Community Relations
(Harkavy)
One of the seminar's aims is to help students develop their capacity to solve strategic, real-world problems by working collaboratively in the classroom and in the West Philadelphia community. Students work as members of research teams to help solve universal problems (e.g., poverty, poor schooling, inadequate health care, etc.) as they are manifested in Penn's local geographic community of West Philadelphia. The seminar currently focuses on improving education, specifically college and career readiness and pathways. Specifically, students focus their problem-solving research at Sayre High School in West Philadelphia, which functions as the real-world site for the seminar's activities. Students typically are engaged in academically based service-learning at the Sayre School, with the primaryactivities occurring on Mondays from 3-5. Otherarrangements can be made at the school if needed. Another goal of the seminar is to help students develop proposals as to how a Penn undergraduate education might better empower students to produce, not simply "consume," societally-useful knowledge, as well as function as life-long societally-useful citizens.
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URBS-200.301
Introduction to Urban Research
(Goldstein)
This course will examine different ways of undertaking urban research. The goal will be to link substantive research questions to appropriate research methods. Micro-computer based quantitative methods, demographic techniques, and ethnographic approaches will be the primary foci of the course. In addition to classroom assignments, students will have the opportunity to undertake their own research involving micro-based statistical analysis of data files which address relevant and timely public policy issues.
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URBS-202.401
Urban Education
(Throop)
This course is an introduction to many of the key issues confronting urban public schools in America. In this course, we will examine some of the historical, social, and cultural contexts of urban education, as well as look at issues and events directly affecting the Philadelphia public schools. This class will enable students to gain a multifaceted understanding of urban education through the integration of direct observation and participation in Philadelphia public schools with class readings and discussions. We will also examine and critique recent reforms and policies, which have been designed to remedy the urban public school "crisis". This course will enable students to gain a critical framework for perceiving urban education as they develop a sensitive understanding of the complex issues confronting urban schools.
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URBS-204.001
Urban Law
( Keene)
Syllabus
This course will focus on selected aspects of urban law that are particularly relevant to areas of high population density. After an introduction to the American judicial system it will examine the governance of urban areas (state and local government law) and the management of urban growth (land use controls and other techniques for regulating new development).
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URBS 212.601
Theatre, History, Culture I: Classical Athens to Elizabethan London
(Schlatter)
This course will explore the forms of public performance, most specifically theatre, as they emerge from and give dramatic shape to the dynamic life of communal, civic and social bodies, from their anthropological origins in ritual and religious ceremonies, to the rise of great urban centers, to the
closing of the theaters in London in 1642. This course will focus on the development of theatre practice in both Western and non-Western cultures intersects with the history of cities, the rise of market economies, and the emerging forces of national identity. In addition to examining the history of performance practices, theatre architecture, scenic conventions and acting methods, this course will investigate, where appropriate, social and political history, the arts, civic ceremonies and the dramaturgic structures of urban living.
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URBS-220.401
Jews and the City
(Wenger)
Jews have always been an extraordinarily urban people. This seminar explores various aspects of the Jewish encounter with the city, examining the ways that Jewish culture has been shaped by and has helped to shape urban culture. We will focus on both European and American cities and consider Jewish involvement in political, social and cultural life, the various neighborhoods in which Jews have lived, relations with other ethnic groups, as well as many other topics. We will read some classic works in the field along with contemporary scholarship.
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URBS-240.401
Education in American Culture
(McLoyd)
This course examines the principle relationships between social structure, meritocratic ideology, credentialing processes, inequality, political culture and education in America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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URBS-260.401
Cities in Chinese History
(Fei)
This seminar will study the development of Chinese cities over the past two millennia with respect to their spatial structure, social constitution, economic system, political functions, and cultural representation (including cityscape paintings, maps and films). As China transitioned from a collection of city-states to a united empire to nation state, Chinese urbanism underwent transformations as drastic as those of the country itself. Cities, which serve as a critical mechanism for the operation of a vast agrarian empire/nation like China, offer a unique vantage point for us to observe and analyze the continuities and discontinuities between dynastic empires as well as the radical transition from empire to modern nation state.
Topics include: the city-state system in ancient China; the creation and evolution of imperial capitals; the medieval urban revolution and the subsequent collapse of classic city plans; the development of urban public sphere/public space in late imperial China; the rise of commercial power in urban politics; the negotiation of urban class and gender relations via cultural consumption; the role of cities in the building of a modern Chinese nation state; the anti-city experiment under the communist regime; urban citizenship in the reform era; as well as the expanding urbanization and shifting urbanism of Greater China as reflected in cinematic representations of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei.
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URBS-272.301
Architecture, Location, and Class
(Thomas)
This course studies the architecture of Philadelphia from the perspectives of aesthetic and social history. Relationships between architectural patronage, design and location, and community values will be examined and their implications for understanding the built environment will be analyzed.
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URBS-290.301
Metropolitan Nature
(Nairn)
Syllabus
Metropolitan nature explores the relationship between the natural and the built world through the production of urban landscapes. We will critically examine their evolution and the dichotomy between the natural processes on which our cities depend and the urban spaces we have constructed. Through readings, discussions and field trips, the course will explore urban ecology and the political, social, and cultural forces behind the development of our watersheds and water supplies, the metropolitan forest and ideas of constructed nature such as Central Park, our food supply and urban agriculture, and environmental justice and democracy.
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URBS-291.401
Multiculturalism: Theory & Practice
(Sanday)
"The challenge in renewing the ethnographic and anthropological voice in the 21st century is not the disappearance of difference, of different cultures, or of ways of organizing society any more than it is not the disappearance of class, capital, unequal exchange, power, or gender relations. On the contrary, the challenge is that the interactions of various kinds of cultures are becoming more complex and differentiated at the same time as new forms of globalization and modernization are bringing all parts of the earth into greater, uneven, polycentric interaction." - Michael Fischer, Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice, 2003
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URBS-320.401
Who Gets Elected and Why
(Rendell)
Course participants will study the stages and strategies in running for public office and discuss the role of various influences on getting elected, including campaign finance and fundraising, demographics, polling, the media, staffing, economics, party organization, etc. The course will also examine how electoral politics varies by level--city, state, national. Students will analyze campaign case studies and the career of the instructor, himself. The instructor will also bring in speakers who can provide other perspectives on electoral politics. The instructor is the former Mayor of Philadelphia, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, and is currently the Governor of Pennsylvania.
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URBS-322.401
Big Pictures: Mural Art
(Golden/Walinsky)
This class will be taught by Jane Golden, Director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. The class will explore the history of murals around the world, as well as the role that murals play today in Philadelphia neighborhoods. The capstone of the class will be a group mural project. Students will have the opportunity to see the mural process all the way through—from the wall selection—to community outreach—to design approval—to painting—to the dedication.
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URBS-323.401
Tutoring in Urban Public Schools: Theory and Practice
(Rogers)
Syllabus
This course represents an opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in academically based community service involving tutoring in a West Philadelphia public school. This course will serve a need for those students who are already tutoring through the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project or other campus tutoring programs, and it will also be available to individuals who are interested in tutoring for the first time.
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URBS-327.401
Research as Public Work: A Real-World Project to Help Create a New West Phila. High School
(Puckett/Simon)
This course involves Penn undergraduate students in action research and the co-development of innovative curricular resources for the creation of several new theme-based high schools in West Philadelphia, currently envisioned as separate units of a new West Philadelphia High School campus, which is projected to open in the fall of 2009. This new academically based community service course will be organized as a “think-tank” seminar and co-taught by John Puckett, associate professor at the Graduate School of Education; Richard Redding, director of community planning at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission; Elaine Simon, co-director of the Urban Studies Program and co-founder of Research for Action; and Eric Braxton, former director of the Philadelphia Student Union and community planner with the West Philadelphia High School Sustainability Circle. More specifically, as the starting point of a multiyear project, the seminar will engage Penn and West Philadelphia High School students simultaneously in identifying and mapping Penn academic resources and City Planning Commission resources that would be available to the new campus for high school studies of the American city and University-assisted public-work projects in West Philadelphia; to develop a plan for coordinating the flow of resources from the institutions to West Philadelphia High School; and to create curricular plans that would be used for teacher professional development in planning the new campus.
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URBS-330.401
GIS Applications in Social Science
(Hillier)
Syllabus
This course will introduce students to the principles behind Geographic Information Science and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the social sciences. Examples of GIS applications in social services, public health, criminology, real estate, environmental justice, education, history, and urban studies will be used to illustrate how GIS integrates, displays, and facilitates analysis of spatial data through maps and descriptive statistics. Students will learn to create data sets, through primary and secondary data collection, map their own data, and generate and test research hypotheses. The course will consist of a weekly lecture and a weekly lab session.
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URBS-367.401/HIST367
Philadelphia 1700-2000
(Sugrue)
Using Philadelphia as a lens, this course will examine the transformation of American cities from the Colonial period to the present. Through readings, lectures, and tours, we will consider urbanization and suburbanization, race, class, and ethnicity, economic development, poverty and inequality, housing and neighborhood change, urban institutions, and politics and public policy.
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URBS-400.301/302/303/304
Senior Seminar
(Simon/Schneider/Glickman)
Senior research project. In this seminar, each student will present a paper based on research into an urban-related topic.
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URBS-404.601
Philanthropy and the City
(Goldman/Bauer)
Syllabus
This course will focus on how cities are shaped by the nonprofit sector and the philanthropic dollars that fuel their work. By bridging theory and practice, the class explores what dynamics are at play to deliver vital services or programs in healthcare, education, the arts, community development and other issues. The course will also focus on two important questions: (1) Whose responsibility is the public good? and (2) Given that responsibility for the public good in which individuals and groups make the decisions about how to serve the public good, how are these decisions made, and who benefits from these decisions? Students will consider these questions in an interdisciplinary context that will bring a historical and philosophical perspective to the examination of the values and institutions that characterize the contemporary nonprofit sector.
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URBS-420.401
Perspectives on Urban Poverty
(Funke)
Syllabus
This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to various perspectives and philosophies that have dominated the discourse on urban poverty throughout history. The course is primarily concerned with the ways in which historical, cultural, political, racial, social, geographical, and economic forces have either shaped or been left out of contemporary debates on urban poverty. Of great importance, the course will evaluate competing knowledge systems and their respective implications in terms of the questions of "what can be known" about urban poverty in the contexts of policy circles, academic literature, and the broader social imaginary. We will critically analyze a wide body of literature seeking to theorize urban poverty, ranging from sociological; anthropological/ethnographic; geographical; Marxist; historical; social welfare; and cultural analyses. Primacy will be granted to critical analysis of course readings, particularly with regard to the ways in which various knowledge systems - or "regimes of truth" - create, sustain, and constrict meaning in reference to urban poverty.
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URBS-440.401
Introduction to City Planning: Past, Present, Future
(Birch)
This course offers an orientation to the profession, tracing the evolution of city and regional planning from its late nineteenth century roots to its twentieth century expression. Field trips included.
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URBS-451.401
The Politics of Housing & Community Development
(Kromer)
Syllabus
This course offers an exploration of how legislative action, government policymaking, and citizen advocacy influence plans for the investment of public capital in distressed urban downtowns and neighborhoods. A special emphasis this year will be the Obama Administration’s response to the foreclosure crisis and the implementation of neighborhood reinvestment strategies by state and local governments.
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URBS-452.301
Community Economic Development
(Lamas)
Community economic development concerns the revitalization of impoverished communities. As with all things economic, poor and working people may be the subjects or the objects of development. We will utilize case studies from Philadelphia and around the world in an exploration of various models of economic justice and sustainable development.
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URBS-456. 601
Economics & Urban Affairs
(Angelides)
Syllabus
This course discusses contemporary urban issues from an economics perspective, with the dual goal of illuminating the economic foundations of civic affairs and enhancing a student's economic literacy through the use of everyday examples.
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URBS-457.401
Globalization and the City
(Hill)
Syllabus
This course aims to introduce students to basic concepts in the study of transnational urbanism, examining how the new geographies of marginality and centrality that characterize global cities cut across former north-south divides. The course begins with the assumption that transnational movements or ‘flows’ of trade, finance, migration and culture operate in and through a network of linked ‘global’ cities, and that the changes produced by these flows disconnects these cities from the nation-states in which they are embedded. The course then seeks to analyze the changes in technology, communication, and business activities since the early 1970s that have contributed to this accelerated process of circulation, while also exploring its social, cultural, and political implications for urban life. Some dimensions of global cities that are explored in particular include the notion that cities are strategic spaces for the production of the global economy; the emergence of new forms of class and spatial polarization through the linked development of high-income gentrification and low-wage/informal labor; the cultural forms of urban-image making (heritage, museums, film, entertainment) that shape the way in which “the global” is imagined and lived on a daily basis; and the growth of social movements on the part of the urban poor. Theoretical readings will be combined with case studies that compare and contrast North American and European cities such as New York, London, Tokyo with cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
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URBS-460.401
School Reform Public Policy
(Hershberg)
Syllabus
This course will examine how changes in the global economy require America’s schools to educate all students to new and demanding standards, and review the arguments why the current school system, designed for a different economy and a different century, must be fundamentally reorganized if the nation is to succeed in meeting its human capital development challenge. Topics covered will include school funding and governance, the precedent breaking federal legislation, No Child Left Behind, and charter schools and the voucher movement. Students can effect real-world change through research designed to elaborate the comprehensive school reform model developed at Penn’s Operation Public Education that is now being piloted in some of the nation’s schools.
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URBS-480.601
Liberation & Ownership
(Lamas/Farr)
Who is going to own what we all have a part in creating? The history of the Americas, and of all peoples everywhere, is an evolving answer to the question of ownership. Ownership is about: the ties that bind and those that separate; the creation of community and the imposition of hierarchies; the dream of home ownership and ecological despoliation; dependency and the slave yearning to breathe free. Of all the issues relevant to democracy, oppression, and economic injustice, ownership is arguably the most important and least understood. Utilizing a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and by focusing on particular global sites, students will assess and refine their views regarding ownership in light of their own social, political, religious, and/or ethical commitments.
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URBS-516.401
Public Interest Workshop
(Sanday)
This is an interdisciplinary workshop sponsored by Peggy Reeves Sanday (Dept of Anthropology), Michael Delli Carpini (Dean of Annenberg), and Ira Harkavy(Director, Center for Community Partnerships). Open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the workshop is a response to Amy Gutmann's call for interdisciplinary cooperation across the University and to the Dept. of Anthropology's commitment to developing public interest research and practice as a disciplinary theme. The workshop will be run as an open interdisciplinary forum on framing a public interest social science that ties theory and action. Students are encouraged to apply the framing model to a public interest reasearch and action topic of their choice. Examples of public interest topics to be discussed in class and through outside speakers include how education and the media reify public interests, the conflation of race and racism in the public sphere, the role of diversity, community action and service learning in higher education, and the contradictory relationship.
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URBS-619-401
Critical Perspectives in Contemporary Urban Education
(Schultz)
The focus of this course is the conditions for teaching and learning in urban public schools, current theories of pedagogy in urban education, and perspectives on urban reform efforts.
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