I am offering a seminar in Urban Economic Geography (Geog 641) in Spring 2014. We meet once a week on Monday evening, starting 5:05 pm. Please see below a tentative description of the major topics I plan on covering in this class. Please consider enrolling in this class. It will be a discussion based class with a series of writing assignments discussed below. Feel free to drop by my office if you need to discuss more.

Please note: Undergraduates can enroll in this class with a special arrangement of a different course number. Please see me if this course interests you.

Geog 641: Spring 2014, Monday 5:05-7:45 pm

Brief description of topics/themes covered in the seminar

The seminar in Urban Economic Geography is designed to address the various theoretical and empirical issues that shape a variety of urban challenges for researchers, academicians, and practitioners. Combining book readings, journal articles, and class discussions, students will gain an appreciation of the complexity of the urban form, and the various economic and social dynamics of urban life, and the role of urban centers in the emerging local and global economy. Readings will be compiled from research on various themes within the urban context of USA as well as other parts of the world.

·         The course aims to provide a theoretically and empirically informed understanding by students on some of the key processes that are shaping the structure and experience of cities in the 21st century.

·         By the end of the course, students should have a sense of some of the social and economic influences shaping the development of urban systems; an understanding of the social and economic processes associated with creating order and disorder in the urban environment; and a knowledge of how people interact and make sense of the cities/urban areas in which they live.

·         This seminar will expose students to various aspects of social and economic dynamism that have changed through the 20^th century, and what the 21^st century might offer within the context of a globalized economic world. In each of these overlapping areas, students will be exposed to both theoretical and empirical examples within urban geography.

 

Major themes covered during the fifteen weeks include the following. There will be lesser emphasis on the first three topics and larger emphasis on the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sub-titles. There will be a variety of papers we will read in each of the sub-themes. More details will be available in few weeks when I finalize my syllabus.

·         Spatial Segregation: Theories and Measurement Issues.

·         Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Change: Conceptual Frameworks and Applications.

·         Reverse Suburbanization and Gentrification: Theories and Challenges

·         The American Dream and Housing Foreclosures –2007-2013 Empirical Analyses – Focus on Data and Methods

·         Homelessness and Urban Poverty – Focus on post 2007 scenario and Poorer/subsidized Housing in the US urban areas.

·         Immigrants and their Assimilation into the American Landscapes and Ethnic Identity – Literature focusing on 1.5 and 2^nd generation Latino and Asian immigrants

·         Poverty and Informalization of Economy: Urban vs. Rural poverty in USA; Poverty issues in South Asia and Africa (Broader views), Focus on Food (In)security and Scholarship on South Asia and Africa

 

Work load/expectations:

Graduates: (i) Weekly 1-2 page review and questions for discussion based on the readings, (ii) one book review, (iii) a final presentation of their research agenda/term paper, and (iv) a final term paper.

Undergraduates: Only i, ii and iii (No final term paper needed)

(Undergraduates/senior students – If you wish to enroll for this class, please see me so that we can discuss the course number and the procedure to enroll in this class)