Intro to Sustainable Urbanism

Catalog description

The aim of this course is to build students’ multi-disciplinary understanding of the urban environment and its relationships within the political, economic, ecological and cultural context. In this abbreviated course, the focus will be on introduction to terms, tools and systems, survey of historical and contemporary examples, and finally, broad perspective analysis of urban development theories. Working from the particular to the general, the class will begin with a survey of the components that make up a city — the parts and pieces, structures and systems that combine to make urban space. An introduction of the regulatory and administrative organizational regimes that control development will follow. In this section, New Orleans will be used as the principal object of study. The second part will be a cursory survey of contemporary urban place making theories and other conceptual underpinnings that will introduce other metropolitan centers national and international. The concluding part will require the class to make a close reading of chosen sections of New Orleans, providing analysis, insight and speculation on development scenarios, necessitating a synthesis of all knowledge gained throughout the course of the summer semester in your combined coursework.