Description

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Program

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Architectural Engineering And Environmental Design

Objectives

• Urban sociology studies the way that cities shape social life, considering spatial context as fundamental to understanding the social world. Over the semester, this course will explore three essential components of the city: 1) its formation, 2) its geographical and physical structure and composition, and 3) social organization among its residents. The course will pivot between an examination of macro-level processes of the shape and character of the city, and the micro-level processes though which the urban context shapes the lives and social interactions of those who reside within it. The course will start by thinking about urban life as a sociological construct and examining contrasting paradigms for understanding what it means to reside in a city. This course addresses a selective review of urban sociology, it deprives a key explanatory tool for understanding the socio-spatial ‘context of contexts’ in which urban spaces and locally embedded social forces are positioned. It highlights a conceptually innovative explanation of the socialist cities, urban population growth under socialism. It addresses urbanism as a way of life. It highlights some urban sociology issues concerning the spread of poverty, slums, and the description of women in the sociological literature of the city, globalization and loss of authenticity and urban development strategies in the socialist era, ethnic segregation, and inequality in the socialist city