Course Resources Archive

The module looks at the city in the twenty first century and considers a range of social, economic and cultural issues, their manifestations, consequences and approaches to their resolution. These include economies; inequalities; communities; contestation; order and disorder. It critically evaluates the ways in which these issues have been theorised by a range of social sciences drawing on both classic texts and more recent literatures from Geography and cognate disciplines.  The module examines these by exploring a range of examples and case studies from the developed and the developing world.  There will be an emphasis on topicality and the specific module contents will be drawn from a range of topics including:

• Capital and class
• Global and local
• Innovation and creativity
• Pleasure and leisure
• Migration and settlement
• Segregation and division
• Housing and homelessness
• Politics and policy
• Speed and slowness
• Planning and conflict
• Law and order
• Terror and surveillance

i. Knowledge and understanding
On completion of the module students should be able to demonstrate that they:
a)  have successfully understood and demonstrated the social, economic and cultural dimensions of a range of contemporary urban issues;
b)  have successfully understood and evaluated the contributions of the social sciences to understanding a range of contemporary urban issues;
c)  be able to understand the causes and consequences of a range of urban issues in both developed and the developing world contexts;
d) understand changing approaches to the study of the urban from a range of social science disciplines.

ii. Skills
On completion of the module students should be able to demonstrate that they can;
a)  read and comprehend complex theoretical arguments and relate them to detailed empirical examples;
b)  effectively communicate their own theoretical arguments and original research using oral, visual and written communication;
c)  conduct original research employing a range of library research skills and Internet searches and relate the findings to theoretical literature.

Staff / student contact: 16% (24 hrs; lectures, tutorials, seminars)
Student directed learning: 84%

The Library Catalogue contains full details of the current reading list for this module. Further details may also be found in the Module Guide.