American Urban History

Catalog description

This course examines American city-building and the diverse populations that inhabited American cities. It compares the preindustrial city of the colonial period and early 19th century with the modern, industrial city in the 19th and 20th centuries. It considers such contributing factors to urbanization as industrialization, the transportation revolution, population growth/immigration, and new types of architecture/city planning. The course investigates such 20th-century developments as the emergence of the metropolis, the modern suburb, urban sprawl, and the modern urban planning movement.