How Cities Can Save the World

Catalog description

In our cities, we find the greatest concentrations of the world's great problems - poverty, homelessness, violent crime, and GHG emissions, to name a few. So too, cities present many of the most innovative, impactful solutions to these challenges. In this seminar, we'll look at three great challenges that confront Americans - the dearth of affordable housing, the growing impacts of climate change, and violent crime - in the urban context. We'll explore the legal, fiscal, and political limitations that constrain the terrain of local policymaking, and we will assess best practices among cities for enacting meaningful change within that landscape. Readings and discussion will overwhelmingly focus on U.S. cities, but we will consider a few examples from abroad as well. We will seek to move beyond familiar ideological battles to emphasize outcomes, evidence-based solutions, and analytical rigor. From contemporary academic studies and journals, news articles, case law, and guest speakers, students will gain an appreciation for cities as policy laboratories for pragmatic solutions that often elude binary labelling as "progressive" or "conservative." Students will be better prepared to understand and engage in cities as civic leaders, legal advisors or adversaries, participants in economic transactions, and constituents. This class is limited to 25 students, with an effort made to have students from SLS (15 by lottery) and 10 non-law students by consent of the instructor. Admitted non-law students should forward instructor consent to Public Policy Student Services for a permission number to enroll in PUBLPOL 165 or Sonia Chan [email protected] to enroll in URBANST 166. Elements used in grading: Class Participation, Written Assignments, and Final Paper. Cross-listed with Law School (LAW 7119) and Urban Studies (URBANST 166).