Urban Politics (1) Urban Politics (1) Urban Politics (1)

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PSCI 3434: Urban Politics

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Fall 2016 TR: 11:00 – 12:15 AM

MCB 332

Instructor: Teaching Assistant:

Rohan Kalyan, PhD Mohamed Mwinyi (MA candidate)

Email: rohan22@vt.edu, Email: moham83@vt.edu

Office: Major Williams Hall 503 Office:

Office Hours: TR: 1-3pm Office Hourse: TR: 1-2pm

“For sociological purposes a city is a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals.”

- Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938)

Course Description:

Humans and cities go way back. There is something deep and profound about their connection. It seems to speak to the fundamental contradiction of being human, and human beings in general. On the one hand, cities are spaces of intense socio-economic interdependence, including our complex dependence on modified natural environments (i.e. the planet earth). This is the social and ecological aspect of the city. The city is a space of relations that vary from simple to complex, direct to indirect, near to far. On the other hand, modern cities, for all their complex interdependence, are also places where people experience an intense sense of individualism, sometimes veering towards isolation and alienation. This latter aspect really only came into full force in the twentieth century, with the birth of mass consumer culture. This development was nearly simultaneous with the very death of the social city. In wealthier parts of the world this death was signified by “capital

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_{Syllabus may be subject to minor changes throughout the semester. These changes will be communicated}

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flight” from downtown areas and dense residential neighborhoods and the retreat to the spacious yet sprawling suburbs. In the poorer regions this meant that the rich and wealthy increasingly cocooned themselves behind secured gates and privatized infrastructure, thus undermining in practice the social interdependence and collective well-being cities made possible.

This contradiction is not easily resolved. In fact, it is one of the major driving forces of urban politics: how to reconcile individualistic and egotistical modes of behavior in an era marked by unprecedented inequalities in wealth and life chances both between cities and within them, as well as the challenges of potentially catastrophic climate change. If cities and urban regions can solve these problems, humanity might yet have a chance.

This course will take a purposively inter-disciplinary approach to cities, bringing political analysis of different scales of government and state into conversation with ideas from political economy, sociology, legal history, and ethnography. Cities themselves are trans-disciplinary creatures, defying any single point of view or scale of analysis. As such, our perspective will shift throughout the course of this semester, moving from a focus on American cities to world cities in different continents, from urban processes in the historical past to racial-spatial and class-based divisions in the urban present, and finally, from normative to non-normative processes, that is, from the politics of “proper cities” to the expansions of slums, shanty-towns and informal settlements in the so-called “developing” world.

Course Structure:

This course is designed as an open-discussion space for students to think about contemporary politics in cities after carefully considering the ideas of scholars and experts in the field of urban politics and those of your classmates. There will at times be contending voices articulating different opinions, both in the texts we read and the classroom discussions we hold. Disagreement is certainly acceptable in any classroom discussion, so long as it is conducted in a cordial and respectful manner.

The reason why I value discussion as a course structure is not so much that our conversations will immediately solve the world’s pressing problems in urban politics. In fact, these problems have been talked about, debated and experimented with by policy makers and researchers for decades, if not longer. Our approach is instead to try to learn something new about the political world at large by looking at it through a specifically “urban” lens. What are the specifically “urban” aspects of social inequality, public policy, climate change, racial injustice, political culture and humor, art and aesthetics? Why do these “urban”

attributes matter? This “urban” lens may differ according to who exactly is defining the term

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Your final and largest assessment in this course, which you will begin working on in the second half of this semester (including your selection of a city of your choice by October 20), will be a research project that you pursue in consultation with your professor. More on this below.

Learning Goals (by the end of the course you should be able to conceptualize the following set of relationships):

1. Cities, politics and the practice of democracy

2. Cities, economics and the process of capitalism

3. Cities, society and the challenges of racial, class and gender inequality

4. Cities, psychology, and problems of existence and co-existence

5. Cities, the world and the shadows of history

Required Books (must be purchased)

1. Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Crown: 2016).

2. Benjamin Barber, If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities (Yale: 2013).

3. David Harvey, Paris: Capital of Modernity (Routledge: 2013).

4. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press:

2012)

5. Richard Sennett, The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life (Norton: 1970).

6. Gyan Prakash, Mumbai Fables: A History of an Enchanted City (Princeton: 2010).

NOTE: The readings for this course will be lengthy and challenging. I expect you to keep up with them and to read as much as possible before coming to class. Spread out your reading time throughout the week so that you do not get stuck having to read everything an hour before class. Your productive contribution to class discussion is only possible if you spend quality time with the texts and do as close of a reading as you can.

Course Requirements:

Attendance:(15%) Come to each class and show up on time. Continued unexcused absences/lateness will result in a reduced grade.

Participation in Class Discussion: (15%) This course will be discussion-oriented. You will be expected to participate actively in each class. Since credit will be given to those that contribute to class discussion, please clearly state your name each time you speak, so that the TA can mark your participation. This of course includes being kind and considerate to the views of your classmates. There will be disagreements from time to time and that is fine, as long as we are respectful towards the opinions of others. Also included in this grade are pop-quizzes which may be given from time to time.

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be responsible for summarizing a few of the author’s key arguments and also bringing to class additional material in the form of articles, videos, maps, images or other digital media that helps us understand the arguments in the text. You will have access to the projector system.

Book Review (15%): You must choose one book from the six we are reading and write a two-page (double-spaced) review of the book, presenting and critiquing its key points and arguments. These must be turned in on the following dates:

Evicted: September 1st

If Mayors Ruled the World: September 22nd

Paris: October 13th

New Jim Crow: November 3rd

Uses of Disorder: November 17th

Mumbai Fables: December 1st

Final City Project (40%): The final project is a research-based assignment on a city and topic of your choosing in consultation with your professor. You will choose a city that you are interested in learning more about and develop a research question in conversation with me (either over email or in person). You will also need to engage with at least ONE key idea/argument presented in TWO or more of the books we read during the course of the semester. These final projects will be due on the last day of the semester. (More details to come soon!)

Key Dates for Final City Project: (submit each item via email to me by 5pm)

• Choose a project city: October 20th

• Design a research question: October 27th

• Outline for paper: November 17th

• Final Project due: December 12th

Honor System:

Students are obliged to abide by the Virginia Tech Honor System, meaning that all work submitted is presumed to be yours and yours alone. Violations will not be taken lightly. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism, cheating, or unauthorized

assistance, ask the professor and/or visit www.honorsystem.vt.edu

Principles of Community:

The readings and discussions in this class may well touch on deeply felt issues about the human condition. I will do everything in my power to maintain a class environment in which you will be comfortable speaking your minds, and I expect you each to do that for each other as well. The class should maintain a climate of civility, sensitivity, and mutual respect,

as expressed in the Virginia Tech Principles of Community (

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Accommodations:

If you need adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, ifyou have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arraignments in case the building must be evacuated, please come see me so we can arrange whatever needs to be arranged.

T 9/6 Chapters 1-2 in If Mayors Ruled the World

R 9/8 Chapters 3-4 in If Mayors Ruled the World

T 9/27 Introduction and Chapter 3 in Paris

R 9/29 Chapters 4-6 in Paris

T 11/8 Introduction and Chapters 1-2 in Uses of Disorder

R 11/10 Chapters 3-4 in Uses of Disorder

T 11/15 Chapters 5-6 in Uses of Disorder

R 11/17 Chapters 7-8 in Uses of Disorder / Outline for Final Paper due by 5pm

T 11/22 THANKSGIVING

R 11/24 BREAK

T 11/29 Chapters 1-3 in Mumbai Fables

R 12/1 Chapters 4-6 in Mumbai Fables

T 12/6 Chapters 7-9 in Mumbai Fables