Justice and Cities

Cities have most often been where struggles for social justice happen, where injustice is most glaring and where new or renewed visions of just communities are developed and tested. What makes a city just or unjust? How have people tried to make cities more just? Why have these efforts succeeded or failed? Each of our sessions will focus on questions like these and include a case study of a particular city, largely with a focus on the United States, including very local cases like San Francisco, Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. The central goal of this class is for you to gain an understanding of the roles of urban design and urban policies in making cities just or unjust places. You will critically engage with some of the debates on cities and justice and gain experience connecting theoretical debates about justice and democracy to empirical data and contemporary work on city design, planning, and policies through readings, our class discussions, and a sustained research project looking a particular city in depth.