Seminar: Political Economy of Urban Development

This seminar develops the conceptual basis for understanding and addressing urban problems within a political economy framework. Drawing from an interdisciplinary literature on cities, the course introduces a range of analytical approaches to the economic and political forces that shape urban development, including the capitalist economy, governmental institutions, city/suburban divisions, machine/reform dynamics, urban land markets, regime politics, economic globalization, and social movements. Particular attention will be given to the relationship between politics and markets in generating urban growth, employment, real-estate development, housing, and neighborhood revitalization, as well as poverty, urban decline, racial exclusion, educational inequality, and residential displacement. The course examines a number of strategies to address problems at multiple levels of the urban system, including federal urban policies, decentralized planning and localism, electoral mobilization, political advocacy, public-private partnerships, social entrepreneurialism, arts/cultural/entertainment strategies, and regionalism.