Comparative Urban and Distributive Politics

Catalog description

As of 2007, more than half of the world's population resides in cities. Cities and metropolitan regions are much more unequal than the countries that host them. For example, income inequality in the New York Metropolitan Area parallels that of Rwanda at around 15 Gini points higher than the U.S. as a whole. This course provides an introduction to the observable patterns and challenges confronting cities and metropolitan areas and the policy remedies and options available to government, NGOs, and the private sector. First, the course will explore the political, sociocultural, and economic explanations for the origins and evolution of urban environments. We will trace the historical development of local government institutions, analyze how urban coalitions form, and investigate the distribution of power in the city. In the second half of the course, we will examine urban welfare policies and programs in the areas of growth, housing, the distribution of public goods/services (e.g., education, public security, sanitation), identity politics and culture wars, and poverty. The course begins with a focus on U.S. cities, yet the second half of the course will explore, instead, city cases in the Global South. The topics covered in this course include: race, identity and distributive politics in cities, housing policy and its role on inequality, race- and class-based urban segregation, urban machines and clientelistic politics, poverty and urban slums, informal housing, public goods and distributive justice, urban crime and law and order, land rights and other ``rights to the city'' (RTC), climate change adaptation in cities, environmental risk and precarious settlements, gentrification and evictions, among other topics.