Cities are human artifacts. Cities are built slowly over time. Cities are shaped by nature, technology, and culture. This class is an introduction to Urban Geography with an emphasis on American Cities. We will study the interaction between nature, technology, culture and urbanization. This class is founded on the idea that in order to understand cities one needs both a “long running start in history” and a keen eye. The best way to understand how cities grow, change, and affect us, both individually and as a society, is to look backward at history and at the urban world around us.
This course has two major components: a lecture based review of the history and development of American cities and field based group work.
The lecture part of the course will be organized by series of seven questions about cities. The questions will function as 1-2 week modules:
1. What is a city?
2. Why here? What factors shape the location of cities?
3. What makes cities grow (and shrink)?
4. Urban Utopias? Progressive visions of urban life and their consequences.
5. Who is in charge here? Planning, governance, and the regulation land use.
6. American Apartheid? Mobility, segregation, and the internal structure of cities.
7. What makes a good city?
For the field portion of the course with your group you will be asked to find real instances of abstract urban geographic concepts in Boulder, CO. How have the concepts we discussed in class shaped the development of Boulder? Your group will be assigned a particular concept or idea- using photos, video, and/or web technologies your group will be responsible for putting together a presentation on the assigned topic. Presentations will be given in class and will be graded, in part, by your peers.
