American Metropolis: Place, Policy, & Power in the US City, 1945–Present

Catalog description

Interdisciplinary investigation of the dramatic, wrenching, yet occasionally heartening ways that American urban and suburban areas have been reconfigured from WWII to today. Participants examine urban changes in realms such as culture, politics, planning, demographics, and geography. They consider approaches developed by policymakers, social activists, and ordinary residents to address urban challenges, as well as how Americans make sense of changing urban landscapes through art, literature, popular culture, and social criticism. Throughout, the class emphasizes how processes of marginalization along lines of race and class, as well as resistance to those processes, shape the nation’s urban past and present.