Urbanization and Development: Practice, Theory, and Policy

Welcome to the Urbanization and Development: Practice, Theory, and Policy course! The 21st century is an urban century. The UN estimates show that more than half the global population lives in cities. More than two-thirds of the global population is expected to be in cities by 2050 and this will be concentrated in cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The UN projects that India and China, the two populous countries, will have nearly 700 million inhabitants in their cities. Yet, these Indian and Chinese cities have some high levels of inequality and competing interests over physical, economic, and political spaces. This course examines what makes cities contradictory spaces of work, residence, and play that enable the release of creative energies, aspirations, and economies yet simultaneously restrict, control, and confine. Since the mid-nineties, the Indian and the Chinese State have attempted to transform the city spaces to attract globally connected corporate economies. While government agencies attempt to shape city spaces through policies, mega urban development projects, new laws, and institutions, not all these efforts follow a designed trajectory. The attempt to transform urban spaces is often incomplete, and the resistance or subversion from court cases, as well as the contradictions within the government, shape the project’s unpredictable trajectory. Perhaps, a challenge confronting every policymaker is the dynamic nature of city territories and the difficulty in predicting or controlling the actions of diverse actors. The course will specifically examine the practices by which urban spaces are constituted and used, the role of actors and institutions, law in letter and practice, and the effects on social justice and inequality. Further, you will explore the fit between city practices and policies and theories undergirding policies. You will also learn about the actual practices on the ground and mobilizing case studies of existing practices to critically engage with diverse theoretical perspectives—ranging from the Chicago school of urbanism and Marxism to the new urban economics and the emerging southern theories on cities.