Course Resources Archive

The module offers a critical reflection and engagement with the contemporary urban world at a point in history when the majority of the world’s population reside in urban areas. It considers the problem of defining and delimiting the urban world, patterns of global urban diversity and the implications of this for ways of approaching and understanding the city. The module both looks inside cities, exploring their internal worlds, and situates specific patterns of urbanisation within their regional and global contexts. Crucially the module argues that we live in a series of interconnected urban worlds and examines various networks of cities, ways of measuring urban interconnection and its effects. In addition it identifies a series of pressing issues facing the urban world, highlighting of poverty and inequality, sustainability and living with cultural diversity as key challenges facing cities in the future.

The module builds on the Urban theme introduced in NS4303 Living in a Globalised World and provides useful preparation for NS6304 Cities: Space & Culture.

Defining the urban

Global urban diversity

The internal worlds of cities

Cities and urban networks

Postmodern urbanisation

Contemporary urban issues (poverty and inequality; living with difference and diversity; sustainability)

A student passing this module should be able to:

1. Demonstrate critical understanding of the nature of contemporary global urbanisation and its impacts across a variety of scales
2. Demonstrate critical understanding of the causes and consequences of a range of urban issues in both developed and developing world contexts
3. Demonstrate critical understanding of the study of the urban within a range of social science disciplines
4. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of complex theoretical arguments and relate them to detailed empirical examples
5. Effectively communicate their own theoretical arguments and original research using oral, visual and written communication

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