Gentrification and the Urban Landscape

Catalog description

Gentrification is reshaping cities globally in the early twenty-first century. This course focuses on the contribution of urban topography—the built landscape—to social injustice, systemic racism and communal violence. It does so by documenting and assessing urban spaces (private and public structures, monuments, parks, graveyards, apartment buildings) that collude in gentrification. By investigating the physical interventions being made in the city, as well as the financial instruments and political tactics deployed in their production, we seek to identify strategies by which gentrification can be recognized, assessed and resisted. Durham is our laboratory.