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Understanding Urban Issues through the Case Study
Professor: Melina Patterson
Office: Monroe 324
Office Hours: T/TH 10:45-11:45 and W 10:00-1:00
Class: GEOG 410 CC/IDIS 400 F
Room: Monroe 112
Time: T/TH, 12:30-1:45
Books, pick one
Tom Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis
A classic in urban history, this book focuses on Detroit during the post war period. Focuses on race and racism, industrial and spatial restructuring. Well written in an academic kind of way
This 1990s treatment of Los Angeles focuses on the decline of public space and the increase in policing and surveillance.
Antero Pietila, Not in My Neighborhood
A more recent book about Baltimore that focuses on race and racism and state actions in shaping the city
Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
This book looks at white collective response to the civil rights movement and argues that the political and spatial strategies established the foundations of a new kind of conservative politics in the US.
You can choose which book you want by any number of criteria. What region is the city you are focusing on and which study is closest? Are you looking at a deindustrialized city? Perhaps look at the Sugrue book. A sprawling city? Maybe Davis or Kruse. Are you interested in policy or politics? Look at Pietila or Kruse.
You will have to read other sources on the city you choose and ideally you will find a good book (not just articles). Once you find it you can buy it or check it out of the library (though inter-library loan if we don’t have it).
Course Description
A common approach to scholarship in urban studies is the case study: books and articles about a single city. Some urban case studies are interested in the myriad of details that make up a specific, unique place; these are like biographies. Urban biographies can claim relevance by showing how a city played a unique and significant role history; like biographies of Great Lives, the city is the star because the city matters. (Some urban biographies are like family ancestry, interesting to locals, but not really to anyone else). Other urban case studies make arguments about widespread social trends and use a single city as a backdrop to explore changes that were happening more broadly. Even if the specific city is claimed as a significant site of these changes, the city isn’t necessarily the center of the changes.
This class will explore urban case studies in order to understand how a specific city (whatever city you choose) fits into a broader set of narratives about society. Each of you will study case studies but also will construct a study of your own through a series of digital projects, most of which will be JS Knightlab tools, which are very user friendly, although we will be using other tools as well, some of which are not that friendly.
This class has its origins in an independent study I once did with a student who wanted to study Detroit, in part because she was interested in contemporary music coming out of it. We read very different work on Detroit, including a classic in urban studies by Thomas Sugrue, and watched documentaries and the different sources offered an interesting perspective on the cultural and economic and political contexts of the city.
The class was sparked by this Jamila Woods video, which got me thinking about how deeply place and music are connected, how good writing (for songs and fiction, for poetry and non-fiction) often is rooted in a deep understanding or evocation of place, how artists who share the same place often produce a tightly woven conversation with each other through their art.
The main assignments come from these two points of origin: I want you to develop an analysis of the academic work on a particular city and to think about creative work produced in or about a city.