Geography 660: Urban Political Geography
Course focus:
Geography 660 (Urban Political Geography) looks at the relation between geography and urban politics: the geography of urban politics and the politics of urban geography. Urban politics cannot be separated from geography. Talking about urban politics means making references to neighborhood, to exclusion, to the displacement of residents, to annexing land, to locating new highways and industrial parks, to competing with other places whether they be cities or other neighborhoods, and so on. Urban politics is geographical and urban geography is political. This course examines these relationships.
This is pursued through an examination of five major topics, each of which provides a window on the political geography of the American city: i) the politics of local economic development; ii) the politics of neighborhood; iii) the politics of land development; iv) arenas of urban politics: or why urban politics isn't always played out in the city; and v) contexts of local politics or the role of period and place.
The approach adopted is what many will recognize as 'political economy'. 'Political economy' is subject to a wide range of interpretations but what is common to all is a prioritizing of the relation between politics and economics: the way in which economic issues are political issues and the way in which the economy is about power. As befits a geographical approach it is the way these relations intersect with questions of neighborhood, locality, place and territory that is significant.
The text is a book written specifically for the course by the instructor, Professor Cox, and entitled State, Society and Territory: Political Geographies of the American City.
Ten modules are used in this class and can be accessed below: