Race, Poverty and Place

Catalog description

In recent years, long-disinvested cities have become the site of renewed investment, population growth, and economic development in a phenomenon often described as gentrification. Nonetheless, socioeconomic inequality between races, ethnicities, genders, and places within the larger metropolitan area continue to persist, suggesting that a rising tide does not raise all boats. Planners must grapple with these issues of inequality and inequity, particularly the implementation of plans and policies that may in theory provide benefits to all, but in practice continue to accumulate benefits for a select few. This class will examine the formation of race, place, and gender in various cities across North America from the years 1910 to the present. In taking this geographical, case-driven approach to the course, the course functions as a comparative study of how race and gender are shaped by unique places, and how different places shape race and gender constructions. To supplement the non-fiction examinations of race, place, and gender in the city, we will also read fiction and/or autobiographies written by Black women from this time period. Planners should be able to engage with a wide variety of sources to conceptualize and understand how marginalized groups engage and navigate the city. Black women’s experiences are often lost in the archives and erased from planning minutes, and fiction allows us to engage with their viewpoints in ways that formal testimony and oral histories do not.