Overview:
Cities both reflect and shape their societies. As such, the examination of the social geography of cities that we will undertake this semester is an important step in reaching a richer understanding of our society as a whole. This examination will be a critical examination. It will proceed from the assumption that cities are created by human activity, not given, and that they could have been created differently than they have been. As a result, we will consider the processes involved in the creation of cities and the implications of the ways cities have been built for various social groups. Questions of social justice, then, are at the heart of our inquiry into life in the city.
Social justice is not easily evaluated. It requires that we consider issues from different perspectives and standpoints. This semester, we will attempt this through a consideration of city life and social justice from the perspective of immigrants. In some ways, immigrants are not a coherent social group, differentiated as they are by national origin, class, age, reason for migration, race, skill level, and so forth. But immigrants must directly confront and negotiate the social structures that organize cities and our society. As such, the experience of immigrants throws into relief the taken for granted practices and spaces that shape social life. It is unlikely that we, as a collection of individuals in this class, will ever come to make definitive evaluations of whether the city is “just” or “unjust.” Rather, the outcome of the course should be a new way of viewing the city and an enhanced ability to think critically about questions of social justice.
Geography 4622 is a critical thinking course in the core curriculum. It is based on the readings, discussion and writing that you will do on a number of theoretical and practical issues that address the social (and societal) processes at work in American cities. The course is divided into two parts. First, we examine the economic, political and social processes that structure cities. In the second portion of the course, we examine the implications of these processes for specific social issues in cities. Here we will examine issues such as residential segregation and social isolation, political debates about immigrants and organizing, public space, and so forth. You may find some of the issues and readings controversial. That is by design. The goals of the course are to challenge the ways in which you think about life in cities and to help you frame your analyses of them.