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Urbanization and Development: Practice, Theory, and Policy

O.P. Jindal Global University via Coursera

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

7 weeks, 4 hours a week
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

English

Found in

Overview

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Explore how cities grow, evolve, and shape economic, social, environmental, and policy outcomes. This course is designed for learners interested in urbanization, development, public policy, planning, governance, sustainability, and related fields who want to understand the forces transforming cities. Build a strong foundation in urbanization and city dynamics by examining urban growth, spatial patterns, city economies, cultural and social spaces, agglomeration economies, and sustainable urban development. Explore major theories of modern cities, including modernist planning, the Chicago School, urban production and consumption, and different approaches to understanding urban processes. Develop the ability to examine how cities are shaped by economic, social, cultural, and spatial forces. Understand urban informality, including informal economies, housing, land, infrastructure, finance, and work. Examine urban policy, master planning, local government, state-society relationships, and planning experiences across India, China, and South Africa. Discover how globalization transforms cities through world cities, global cities, transnational urbanism, public-private partnerships, and gentrification. Explore emerging approaches to urban governance, participatory governance, e-governance, data governance, accountability, transparency, and sustainability. Gain a practical and critical perspective on urban development and the complex challenges shaping the cities of today and tomorrow.

Syllabus

City Spaces: Nature and Dynamics
- The module will introduce you to different definitions of urbanization, the significant role of urban areas in driving economic development, and the shifting approaches to urbanization in the policy. You will also explore the geographical variations in the definition of urbanization and spatial patterns of urban growth. The module introduces you to the dynamics of city spaces, namely their cultural, social, and economic spaces. Further, it explores the concept of sustainable cities.
Modern City Theories
- This module focuses on modern city theories. The sustainability of our economies depends on ensuring the prosperity of all in a city, community, and nation. In this module, you will explore modernization theories on cities through a focus on three strands of theories, namely, the British Utopias, Chicago School of Urban Ecology Theories, and Marxist theories on cities.
Urbanization and Social and Ecological Urbanization
- This module introduces you to social and ecological urbanization. In this module, you will explore how the rise of identity and middle-class politics since the mid-seventies, together with the environmental and ecological crisis confronting humankind, generated new questions about urban social relations and shifted the theorization of nature and the city.
Informality and Sustainable Development
- Urban theories assume that all cities follow a similar development trajectory, and Western cities are considered archetypes. In this module, you will explore critically urban forms in post-colonial cities and in this light, their dual structure. Firstly, you will be introduced to the binary lens, namely, formal vs. informal and legal vs. illegal, in vogue to understand the cities of the Global South. Further, you will explore different conceptions of informal—as a sector, as a relationship, and as a process. You will understand the relationship between the formal and the informal. Lastly, you will explore how this duality (formal and informal) manifests in land, housing, and infrastructure.
Urban Policy
- This module introduces you to the history of urban governments in the European Context and its introduction in the Asian, Latin American, and African contexts until the decade of nineties, prior to the globalization era. You will explore the institutional arrangement and the differences between cities in the role and powers of urban local government with respect to the master plan. You will also learn about the State–society’s relationship and social housing.
Globalizing Cities
- In this module, you will explore the impact of globalization on city spaces. You will learn the theories on globalization, particularly those of World Cities, Global Cities, Transnational Urbanism, and Worlding Cities. You will explore how globalization impacted cities using the lens of accumulation by dispossession, speculative urbanism, and gentrification.
Governing the Global City
- In this module, you will explore urban governance issues and will engage with emerging issues such as deliberative democracy, e-governance, data governance, and new private actors (consultants and financial institutions, credit agencies) in shaping urban policy decisions and new laws to support the changes.