Urban Schools as Neighborhood Infrastructure

Catalog description

The relationship between urban schools and real estate has been shaped historically by changes in housing and education policy and the shrinkage and expansion of urban economies. Schools reflect the state of places – places impacted by segregation, changes to the built environment, and urban austerity measures. This course considers how schools are both educational institutions and also social, political and physical infrastructure, indexing feedback loops between urban real estate shifts and educational policymaking. We will learn about how schools influence and are influenced by forces outside of school districts by looking at public and parochial school closures, the expansion of school choice markets, toxic school buildings, gentrification, adaptive reuse of school buildings, and how communities within schools, neighborhoods, and cities can help guide the new lives of these spaces. In light of the Green New Deal for K-12 Public schools and large environmental shifts due to climate change and aging infrastructure, this course merges interests across urban studies, education, planning, and real estate to think through a future of healthy schools, community development, and urban real estate markets.