Divided Cities

Place: Dept. Sociology and Social Research - Room n.8 -  2nd floor
Time: 11.00 – 13.00

Supervisor:

• prof. Tom Slater (University of Edinburgh)

Teacher proponent: prof. Giuseppe Sciortino

This seminar scans and explores the salient features of social division, inequality, and troubling transformation in a range of metropolitan contexts. We first map out an intellectual history of urban division, before examining in seriatim a range of divisive phenomena - the specificity of the ghetto as mechanism of sociospatial exclusion and the transformation of the African-American ghetto in the wake of the Civil Rights era; the demolition of public housing in the context of panic over ‘concentrated poverty’; the phenomenon and concept of territorial stigmatisation; the causes and consequences of the pivotal urban process of gentrification.  We conclude with a consideration of the nascent ‘Right to the City’ movement, which has emerged to fight urban inequality on multiple fronts.  

Each session is anchored by a major reading, supported by an assortment of books and articles which are dissected and discussed with a view towards identifying the strengths and weaknesses of contending perspectives on urban division. As we proceed, we probe the parameters, weigh the concepts, and scope the concerns of contemporary urban sociology, asking what is distinctive about it as a form of inquiry and consciousness, and what it contributes to our understanding of the urban condition and our present historical predicament. 

This unit has two broad aims:

• To provide a critical understanding of urban inequality
• To provide a set of analytical lenses to understand key concepts relating to urban problems.

The learning outcomes:  
By the end of the course you will have acquired. 
A geographically-rooted yet interdisciplinary understanding of various forms of urban division.
•    An appreciation of critical/normative scholarly inquiry in the context of social injustice in the city.

Assessment will be in the form of a test containing 5 questions on each topic we cover (so 30 questions in total). These questions will be designed to assess your understanding of the literature on those topics (no right or wrong answers, only depth of knowledge!).  There will be no grade awarded, simply a pass/fail.

The Department of Sociology and Social Research allocates of 2 credits for participation and successful conduction of the work assigned. Students of other departments of the University, will receive a certificate of attendance with profit.

Application on-line from 11/08 to 1/09/2014.