Course Catalog

Course Catalog for URBAN STUDIES

URST 101

Introduction to Urban Studies

This course provides a general introduction to the interdisciplinary field of urban studies. Using a variety of Western and non-Western cities as illustrative examples, the course aims to give a broad survey and understanding of the distinctive characteristics of urban places. Students will learn definitions, concepts, and theories that are fundamental to the field. Topics covered include the role of planning in shaping cities, the economic structure and function of cities, the evolution of urban culture, community organization and development, gentrification and urban renewal, and urban governance policy. (SOC)
This course is not open to seniors.

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 107

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

This lecture/lab course introduces students to mapping and spatial analysis through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS are tools that allow us to organize, analyze, and display information that has both spatial and descriptive characteristics. This course will focus on the theory and application of GIS in current day urban studies and planning. In urban studies, GIS can be used to better understand population demographics, land uses and values, transportation, and environmental patterns, among other urban characteristics and trends. Through lectures and lab sessions, students will learn how to use the ESRI ArcGIS software package, online mapping tools, and digital databases. Increasingly, local government data are being made public, and students will also learn how to locate, manage, map, and analyze data from these open sources. (SOC)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 117

Tokyo Story: From Fishing Village to Cosmopolitan Metropolis

This course explores the historical development of Tokyo, from its obscure, medieval origins to its present status as one of the world's most populous and cosmopolitan cities. In spite of being destroyed on average once every 30 years by fires, natural disasters, and war—or perhaps because of this—Tokyo has sprung eternal, constantly transforming itself within shifting political, economic, and cultural contexts. This course examines the constantly transforming urban landscape and its impact on the structure of the city and the lives of its inhabitants. Topics of particular interest include: the rise of capitalism and its impact on early-modern urbanization, the impact of Western-style modernization on the organization of urban life in the 19th and 20th centuries, labor migration and its impact on urban slums, the impact of the economic "high growth" years on Japanese urban lifestyles, and the rise of Tokyo as a symbol of post-modern urban culture. (GLB2)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 200

Hartford: Past and Present

Focusing on both Hartford and its region since the 1630s, this course explores key themes in American urban, social, economic, cultural, and political history, paying close attention to issues of race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, class relations, religion, and urbanism. We first examine interactions between Native groups, English settlers, African slaves, and their descendants, from the Colonial Era to the Early Republic (1630s-1830s). We then explore urban cultures, abolitionism, European and African American migration, and Hartford's as a global financial and manufacturing center (1830s-1940s). Finally, from the 1940s to the present, topics include suburbanization, deindustrialization, racial segregation, Civil Rights movements, West Indian and Puerto Ricans migration, neoliberalism, globalization, and relations between Hartford and its suburbs. We also track Trinity College's history since 1823. (HUM)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 201

From Hartford to World Cities: Comparative Urban Dynamics

The 21st century is truly a global urban age characterized by the simultaneous decline and revival of post-industrial cities in the United States and the co-existence of boom and poverty in the rapidly industrializing cities in developing countries, as well as by how globalization is exerting a growing impact on urban places and processes everywhere. This course adopts an integrated and comparative approach to studying the local and global characteristics, conditions, and consequences of the growth and transformation of cities and communities. Using Hartford—Trinity's hometown—as a point or place of departure, the course takes students to a set of world or global cities outside the United States, especially a few dynamic mega-cities in developing countries to explore the differences and surprising similarities among them. (GLB5)
PR: URST101 or CTYP101 or SOCL 101

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 203

Urban Nightlife since 1964

Dance music scenes and their urban spaces are social arenas in which discriminatory norms of sexism, homophobia, racism, class elitism and ethnocentrism can be subverted and transformed. Using studies of New York City, Chicago, Berlin, London, Philadelphia, and Rio de Janeiro, we examine urban nightlife's music scenes from the mid-1960s to the present, highlighting the roles played by the evolution of social liberation movements, capitalism and international migrations. We explore innovative research in Critical Race Studies, Queer Studies, Feminist Studies, and Urban Studies that has recast nightlife as far more than banal entertainment and debauchery, viewing it instead as a force propelling broader dynamics of cultural, political, and social change. (GLB2)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 206

Organizing by Neighborhood: An Internship/Seminar Experience

Have you ever wondered why some neighborhoods thrive and others appear to fail? Are you mystified about what can be done to stem deterioration and provide decent, affordable housing and clean and safe neighborhoods? One way to explore answers to these questions is to intern with a community-based organization dedicated to working with a community as it defines and responds to its problems. In this seminar each student will do a community learning project/ internship at such an organization in Hartford. Equally important is a way to understand and interpret your experiences at the organization. The rich theoretical literature that you will read in this seminar on how neighborhoods are organized and function and on models of community responses to neighborhood conditions provides a lens through which to evaluate your experiences with your organization and community. (SOC)
This course is not open to first-year students.

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 207

Learning from Hartford: Post-Industrial Urban Futures

What happens after urban crisis? The American city continues to be a laboratory for responses to austerity, government decentralization and market-based solutions to pressing urban public problems that are also associated with intense racial, ethnic and economic inequalities. Such dynamics stem from deindustrialization and post-industrial transitions across distressed Rust Belt cities, from Detroit, MI to Hartford, CT. From land banks to urban agriculture and participatory budgeting, the overall purpose of this course is to have students examine the possibilities and limitations of different strategies that have been employed to reimagine distressed American cities. Overall, this course seeks to identify how the social use-value of post-industrial cities can be understood in an era of sustainable urban development. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 208

Digital Urban Investigation

This course teaches students basic data collection techniques, emphasizes good research practices, and develops students abilities to apply appropriate methods of data collection and analysis to research questions while focusing solely on digital research methods. Students will learn to use social explorer and other census-based data sources, how to analyze social media and link it to spatial data, explore cities and analyze neighborhood change through google street view's time machine function, participatory mapping, and other online sources. These methods will be used to complete interactive assignments testing major paradigms in urban studies and build familiarity with data sources and research skills. (SOC)
Prerequisite: C- or better in Urban Studies 101 or CTYP 101 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 209

Soundfuturism: the aesthetics and politics of urban sounds

This course is a hands-on workshop that will use sound as a conduit for exploring class, gender, and racial inequalities in the context of a post-industrial city in the US. Sound, in its different forms such as noise, music, and "silence," reveals aspects of the unequal divisions of the urban landscapes we inhabit. This course invites students to consider how these landscapes-and their respective soundscapes-may shift in the future. Students will create 3-to-5-minute individual sound essays based on recordings collected in fieldwork sessions that respond to the prompt question: how will Hartford sound in the future? The collection of essays will be uploaded onto a webpage linked to Trinity's Liberal Arts Action Lab and available for public access. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 210

Sustainable Urban Development

With the era in which city dwellers comprise a majority of the world's population has come a new urgency for understanding the balance between urban development and the environment. This course introduces students to the sub-field of urban studies which deals with sustainable development, including exploration of the debates on the meanings of sustainability and development in cities. Taking a comparative approach and a global perspective, topics to be examined may include the ecological footprint of cities, urban programs for sustainable urban planning, urban transportation and service delivery, energy issues, and the critical geopolitics of urban sustainability around the world. May be counted toward INTS major requirements. (GLB)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 212

Landscape Planning and Environmental Education for Brain Health

This Perspectives course will translate emerging research on brain health into landscape planning that supports the health of the planet and everyone in Connecticut's rural, suburban and urban communities. The focus will be nature-based solutions to support biodiversity and protect the climate, green infrastructure to clean our air and water and prevent flooding and heat islands, and public areas that offer refuge and quiet as well as education and recreation. Guest speakers will share their expertise in public policy, environmental law, local ecology, urban planning and environmental justice. There will be a field component and a semester-long project planning interpretive ecology stations and citizen science databases. Grading will be based on a final project, short reflective essays and research papers, and an oral exam. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 214

Greek and Roman Architecture

An examination of building materials and methods used in the construction of domestic, civic, and religious buildings of the Greek and Roman worlds. Topics of discussion include ways in which functions of buildings influenced their forms; comparative studies of the works of individual architects; architectural adaptations to local topography; propaganda purposes of architecture; and ancient opinions and accounts of architecture, including selections from the works of Plautus, Vitruvius, and Pliny the Elder; and Latin inscriptions. We will then compare written accounts to archaeological evidence. Students in LATN 314 will read some of the material in Latin, whereas all of the reading for CLCV 214 will be in English. (ART)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 215

Latin American Cities

Topics include: urbanism, religion and power in the ancient civilizations of Mexico, Central America and the Andes; colonial-era urbanism, religion, slavery and politics (1520s-1810s); post-colonial nation-building, modernization, Europeanization and early radical politics (1820s-1920s); populist-era industrialization, urban growth, class conflicts, revolutionary politics, and authoritarianism (1930s-1970s); democratization, social movements, and exclusionary and progressive urbanism in the era of neoliberalism and globalization (1980s-present). Throughout the course, we pay particular attention to gender, sexual, racial and ethnic identities, as well as to both popular culture and the fine arts, using examples from Bahia, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Brasilia, Caracas, Cusco, Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, San Juan de Puerto Rico, São Paulo, and Santiago de Chile. (GLB2)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 218

Chinese Global Cities

This course exposes students to a broad treatment of China's large number and diverse type of cities with established or emerging global city status and influence. China not only has the most, fastest growing, and regionally most varied cities in the world but also steers them to be global in connectivity and capacity through top-down and decentralized policy and planning. In sequential sections, the course examines a set of general and China-specific conditions that favor or hamper global city building: scale and location, path dependency, state power vs. market dynamics, in-migration and incorporation, culture, and regional linkages and integration. The course guides students to investigate the global attributes, connections, and functions of such diverse cities as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Xian, Yiwu, Ruili, and Horgos. Students who have taken FYSM 196 Chinese Global Cities may not enroll in this course. (GLB5)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 219

Comparative Planning Perspectives

The aim of this course is to provide a comprehensive exploration of comparative urban planning from a local and global perspective. By utilizing a thematic approach to comparative case-studies, students will explore planning and urban policy through a critical lens and learn about the challenges and opportunities that arise from urbanization. This comparative approach will consider the uniqueness of city size, site, and situation through a global hierarchy perspective of cities. Doing so will allow students to think carefully and critically about 'why' and 'how' planning practices and policies, while considering the implications and outcomes of urban planning. The planning themes will include design, infrastructure, mobility, economics, equality, environment, and sustainability. (GLB5)
Prerequisite: C- or better in Urban Studies 101 or CTYP 101 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 222

Ancient Cities of the Near East, Egypt, and the Mediterranean World

This course traces ancient urbanism from the development of Neolithic sedentism to the massive cities of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire. We will examine both primary and secondary texts, together with evidence from art and archaeology, to assemble a composite view of urban life and the environmental, topographical, political, cultural, and economic factors that shaped some of the most impressive cities ever built, many of which remain major metropolitan centers today. (HUM)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 223

Race and Urban Inequality in the Americas

Given that racial capitalism and racial liberalism as co-dependent global ordering systems structure who matters within nations, scholars have taken interest in how these systems map onto space and are reproduced by space. Drawing on this research, we will turn to segregated urban spaces in the Americas-in the form of ghettos/slums/garrisons/barrios/favelas-to understand the divisions and material conditions produced by social abandonment. Using scholarly texts, fiction, and popular media we will look at 1) how histories of colonialism and imperialism have shaped contemporary political-economic processes which produce these marginal spaces 2) how entangled supra-state violence, state violence, and intra-community violence affect people's everyday lives and 3) the various methods communities use to cope with/ contest spatial domination and exclusion to make life despite hardship. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 248

Northern Apartheid: Fashioning Jim Crow Across the American Rust Belt

It is a common misconception that racial apartheid in the United States was geographically confined to the American South. This premise often leads people to believe that Northern racism did not exist in America, that the North was a promise land built upon the ideals of abolition. This course will challenge those assumptions. It will explore the ways in which racial apartheid was reimagined through both policy and practice, and mapped on to the United States geographically, as a result of the Great Migration. This course will situate the Northern United States in its true history of bigotry and apartheid through the exploration of the more covert mechanisms that were used to build separate and unequal lived experiences across this nation. (SOC)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 249

Multi-cultural Cities of the Mediterranean

In today's Europe, states generally seek to engender the highest possible degree of cultural and linguistic uniformity within their borders. Many people thus presume that these societies have always been organized upon this principle. However, the history of the Mediterranean basin tells a very different story. There, until quite recently, the cultures of important cities like Trieste, Barcelona, Istanbul, Alexandria, Tunis, Thessaloniki, Gibraltar and Livorno were characterized by a profoundly multicultural and multilingual ethos. In this class, we will study the histories of these “polyglot cities” and retrace the ethnic and commercial networks that often bound them together. We will also explore the forces that eventually undermined their long-standing diversity and webs of interconnectedness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (GLB2)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 253

Barcelona and its Communities of Culture

If there is one thing upon which virtually all analysts of both Barcelona and Catalonia agree it is that they have an unusually active and fertile "associative" culture. People there spend inordinate amounts of time in voluntary civic organizations whose general purpose is the making of one form or another of culture. There are also some of a more official standing, such as the Barcelona Football Club that, owing to the historically precarious nature of political sovereignty in the region, have been imbued by the citizenry with an unusually high degree of civic importance. In this class, which is built around numerous field visits, we will explore the unique and fascinating contemporary history of Catalonia's many, and much beloved, communities of culture. (GLB2)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 254

Ellison’s Invisible Man and the Black Modern Experience

This class interrogates the text and contexts of Ralph Ellison’s iconic novel Invisible Man. Specifically, bringing historical and cultural analysis to bear on a single work of fiction, this course surveys key themes in the Black modern experience from 1899 to 1950 including migration, urbanization, the black modern aesthetic, black radicalism, and black nationalism. Ultimately, Ellison crafted a text of profound social commentary through experimentation with archival evidence and literary form. This class reconstructs the intellectual, aesthetic, and historical production of an American classic. (HUM)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 257

Global Crime Fiction

This course explores works of Francophone, Sinophone, American, and Japanese crime literature and films in relation to the spatial dissemination of global capitalism since late twentieth century. Students will develop skills of close reading and discourse analysis, and reach a deeper understanding of how people narrate reality in three different kinds of space: the urban, the postcolonial, and the bodily. Focused issues include migrant workers, sex slaves, drug trade, financial fraud, and environmental hazards. All instructional materials in English. (GLB1)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 260

The City in African Studies: Past, Present, and Potential

Africa is a rapidly urbanizing region of the world; the most rapidly urbanizing by World Bank standards. Contemporary urbanization in Africa has stimulated new scholarship on the history of African cities, African urban economies, urban politics and urban identities, among other topics. African urban studies has produced some of the most thoughtful and engaged work on Africa to date. In this course we will be exploring major themes in the field of African urban studies to gain deeper appreciation of the history of African cities, their contemporary iterations, and their future possibilities. (GLB)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 280

American Cities and Local Governments: The Legal Perspectives

This course exposes students to the legal frameworks within which American cities and local governments operate. Through reading leading cases from various federal and state courts and writings of important urban thinkers, it explores the division of power between local, state, and federal government and evaluates the desirability of the current system in the broader context of democracy and good government. The course also examines how city decision-making is shaped by the relevant legal frameworks and in turn shapes important aspects of American life, including how racial and ethnic divisions fracture American metropolitan areas. Discussion topics include urban zoning and planning, exclusionary zonings and racial segregation, urban renewal and property rights, public schools and charter schools, and sanctuary cities and immigration. (SOC)
Prerequisite: PBPL 123 or permission of instructor

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 301

Community Oriented Development Strategies to Address Urban Decline in the United States

In this course we will explore the causes of neighborhood decline, examine the history, current practice and guiding policies of community development, and see firsthand selected community development strategies at work in the local communities surrounding Trinity College. We will pay close attention to the influence of ideas in good currency in the field of urban development such as smart growth, transit oriented development, land-banking and place-making. The course is organized around four questions: What are the underlying forces behind neighborhood decline? How and why did community development emerge? How has community development practice reconciled itself with current concepts that guide urban development such as new urbanism, smart growth, place-making and land-banking. What does the future hold for disinvested communities and for community development practice?
Prerequisite: Urban Studies 101 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 302

Global Cities

This seminar examines the contemporary map of interactions between cities in the world. There is now a considerable array of research analyzing what are variously termed global or world cities in the hierarchy of the world economy, and a counter-critique has emerged which seeks to analyze all cities as ordinary, moving beyond old binaries of 'developed' and 'developing' worlds of cities. We will interrogate this debate in both its theoretical and its empirical dimensions, with case studies from Africa and assessment of cultural, political, economic and environmental globalization. (GLB)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 305

Italian Capitals. Late Modernity, Globalization, and Tertiarization in Urban Space

Italy allows us to sift in extreme depth both the historical dimension (with the three thousand years of documentation for some urban sites such as Rome) and the social dimension of urban space, with the aggressive impact that first modernization and then globalization have played in the urban fabric of a nation constantly in tension between social and cultural innovation and the enhancement of the artistic-cultural tradition as a function of tourism. The recent climate crises that have been affecting the Mediterranean basin for some years now see Italy affected by extreme environmental phenomena (prolonged droughts alternating with increasingly frequent floods) that imply a rethinking of the relationship between city and ecological context. This theme will also be addressed in the course of the lectures. (GLB)
Any previous course in URST or ITAL earning a C- or better.

0.50 units, Lecture

URST 306

From Troy to Zhujiajiao (“Shanghai’s Venice”): Ancient Cities of Mainland Asia

This course traces ancient urbanism from the development of Neolithic sedentism to the massive cities of ancient China, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. We will examine evidence from art, archaeology, and written texts to assemble a composite view of urban life and the environmental, topographical, political, cultural, and economic factors that shaped some of the most impressive cities ever built, many of which remain major metropolitan centers today. (GLB2)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 307

Silk, Pearls, and Glass: Ancient Trade and Trade Routes between the East and the West

Roman glass and coins have been found in China, and accounts of Chinese silk in the Roman world are numerous. How were commodities and currencies transported over land and by sea? Where were the trade routes? What archaeological sites, cities, and shipwrecks have been explored along these routes? Who controlled the trade routes? How? In this course we will examine evidence from art, archaeology, and written texts to explore evidence for trade and trade routes between East Asia and Europe in antiquity (GLB2)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 307

Architecture and Urban Planning on the Swahili Coast

This course uses the city and polity of Zanzibar as a model and laboratory for understanding the architectural history, geography and planning of Swahili Coast urbanism in East Africa. For more than a thousand years, cities along the East African coastal strip have been major entrepôts linking the African interior with trade networks across the Indian Ocean and beyond. Zanzibar was at the center of this urban region economically and politically especially in the 18thand 19th centuries. After gaining independence in 1963, Zanzibar experienced a socialist revolution and union with Tanganyika during a brief stretch in early 1964, after which it became a partner state in the United Republic of Tanzania. After a period of stasis and even decline, the city's population exploded after 1964. From a town of less than 50,000 people, it has grown to a metropolitan area of more than a half million in just over 55 years. Zanzibar's society and culture are heavily cosmopolitan. Over 90% of the population is Muslim and African-Swahili in ethnic terms, yet the influences (and minority cultures) of Christians, Hindus, Arabs, South Asians, and others abound. This is especially the case in the city's architecture and built environment. All of this makes Zanzibar a spectacular context in which to explore the challenges of balancing historic preservation and urban development in architecture and urban planning. This online course will enable students to investigate Zanzibar's historic importance, architectural significance, and contemporary urban planning and urban environmental challenges. Students will have readings, lectures and virtual visits and case analyses to/for specific important sites and urban planning projects. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 308

Olmsted's Evolving Legacy

Identifying the characteristics of past, present, and future parks, the legacy of Hartford native, Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed the Trinity College campus, will reveal the fundamental value of nature in cities. Historic benefits of Olmsted's design influence will be studied as students prepare proposals that can strengthen local community resilience. This course will combine exploration of landscapes near students who are participating remotely with seminar readings of Olmsted's letters/design proposals. Students will develop proposals for conservation of nature as new parks or expanded park systems. Interdisciplinary research will be encouraged. Individual analysis of distinct features, such as recreational trail networks, educational programs, picturesque pathways, riparian connectivity, historic narratives, conservation finance, or ecosystem vitality, will layer our understanding of how landscapes function within urban design. (SOCW)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 314

Cities and Migration

Within the next few decades, nearly 2 billion people will be added to the world's cities, with almost a third of this population growth due to migration, particularly in the global South. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of urban migration, covering domestic (US) and international themes and cases. Through writing and class discussion, students will explore the history of urban migration, its diversity, causes, challenges, as well as cultural, political, economic, and spatial implications for urban planning and social organization in cities and regions. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 315

Urban South Asia

This seminar introduces students to South Asia and the Indian ocean as vast urbanizing world regions, encompassing more than a third of the global population. Students will study contemporary urban challenges through histories of colonialism and economic expansion. They will learn about important concepts in the development of urban planning as a form of colonial experimentation, and the role of cities such as Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, and Lahore in 20th century nation-building. Themes will include how South Asia challenges the conceptual divide between urban and rural, the role of small cities, diaspora labor and capital in shaping urban development beyond the Indian subcontinent, gender, ethnic conflict, and climate change. (GLB5)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 316

Global Policing: (In) Security, Criminality, and Justice Around the World

In this course, we will take a critical look at policing around the globe with an emphasis on the Global South. Together we will build our understanding of the philosophical and material underpinnings of the police as an institution as well as explore the multiple ways policing happens beyond the official work of "the police." Using theory, and ethnographic data we will ask how do past and present geopolitics shape how policing is enacted? How are "criminals" produced? How does policing structure people's lived experiences? How does policing shape urban space? We will conclude by examining the multiple ways people resist surveillance and punishment and reimagine what security and justice look like beyond the current dominant systems for maintaining social order. (GLB5)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 318

Reshaping Global Urbanization

This course aims to provide an extensive and in-depth understanding of China's prominent and powerful role in shaping a new and significant era of global urbanization. Having urbanized at the fastest pace, on the largest scale, and in the shortest time period in human history, China has been "building out" by constructing transport infrastructure, industrial zones, and municipal facilities in many countries. The course first assesses the Chinese mode of urban development focused on its beneficial and problematic social and spatial consequences. In the following segments, the course examines China's varied approach to and experience in city-building and infrastructure construction in Southeast Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe. The course concludes on the theoretical and policy implications of "China-fueled" global urbanization, especially for developing countries. (GLB5)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 319

Affordable Housing Policies

This course will provide an in-depth treatment of affordable housing policy and programs in the United States starting with the New Deal and how they have shaped and reshaped the City of Hartford. The course will focus on the legacy of affordable housing programs and current federal, state, and local policies aimed to desegregated and promote economic opportunities for low-income households. Students will gain an advanced knowledge on a variety of affordable housing programs and policies aimed at increasing affordability and de-concentrating poverty. Students will have the opportunity to witness changes at a particular housing project in Hartford in the City's effort to meet new housing policy objectives while providing affordable housing to residents. (HUM)
Prerequisite: C- or better in Urban Studies 101 or CTYP 101 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 320

Urban Research Practicum

This research seminar is designed to prepare students for conducting urban research, in Hartford or in any city. The course will include an in-depth survey of methods and approaches in the field. Students will develop research proposals and conduct research projects for term papers. The seminar is geared both for seniors working to produce honors theses and urban studies majors and minors planning on conducting independent study projects. The aim is to foster skill development and enhance training in research methodologies and techniques, including projects with applied components, community learning connections, and/or pure research endeavors. (SOC)
Prerequisite: A grade of C- or better in URST 101 and URST201

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 321

Geographies of Transport: Being on the Move in the 21st Global Urban Century

Mobility is a permanent aspect of life. Transport infrastructures are a determinant of the spatial, economic, and social structures of cities. This course will introduce students to the spatial and social aspects of transportation and mobility across the globe. This course will act as a forum for research into transport and mobility, including debates on the planning and formation of transport policymaking. (SOC)
Prerequisite: Urban Studies 101 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 322

Urban Crisis: Racial Apartheid, Rust-Belt Decline and Suburban Revanchism

Using the Flint Water Crisis and the Detroit Bankruptcy as a case for how "crisis" is exploited to greenlight colonial revanchist projects, students will examine the ways in which state and regional actors use the seemingly colorblind processes of gentrification and regionalization, to "reclaim" the city from Black and brown people in order to insure the continuation of racial apartheid across this nation. Additionally, this course tasks students with rooting both Hartford, CT and their own communities in both the historical pretexts and contemporary mechanisms used to uphold racial apartheid in this country, with the hopes of developing solutions to address issues of inequity in urban spaces. (SOC)
Prerequisite: C- or better in Sociology 101

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 355

Urban Politics

This course will use the issues, institutions, and personalities of the metropolitan area of Hartford to study political power, who has it, and who wants it. Particular attention will be given to the forms of local government, types of communities, and the policies of urban institutions. Guest speakers will be used to assist each student in preparing a monograph on a local political system. (SOC)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 357

Race and Urban Space

Scholars and now even the larger public have conceded that race is a social construct. However, many are just beginning to fully explore how the specific dimensions and use of space is mediated by the politics of racial difference and racial identification. Therefore, this course seeks to explore how racism and race relations shape urban spatial relations, city politics, and the built environment and how the historical development of cities has shaped racial identity as lived experience. Covering the 20th century, the course examines three critical junctures: Ghettoization (1890s-1940s); Metropolitan Formation (1940s-1990s); and Neo-Liberal Gentrification (present). (HUM)

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 359

Latinx Urban Activism since 1900

We will examine the emergence and evolution of urban political activism by Latinas and Latinos in the United States from the early 1900s to the present. We will begin with the impact of U.S imperial expansion and colonialism (1848-present), and then track the emergence of Pan-Latinx identities and political coalitions between Latinx, African Americans, and other ethnic groups. Topics include urban political manifestations of the following: civil rights movements, labor and student movements, struggles for gender and sexual liberation, immigration policies, citizenship, voting rights, electoral representation, cultural citizenship, urban renewal, gentrification, and "the right to the city." This course explores various cities that had interaction of political activism with urban policy and planning to consider equitable alternatives in the past and present. (HUM)
Prerequisite: Urban Studies 101 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 360

Public Management

This course will survey the core principles and practices of management in the public sector. Many modern commentators have argued that public institutions must be "run like a business" to achieve its mission in an efficient and accountable way. Is this argument valid? If not, how must the management of public institutions adapt or depart from basic business principles? Course readings will focus on key elements of successful management in the public sphere, including financial and budgetary oversight, capital planning, public transparency and inclusion, and workforce management. Students will engage with course material through a series of short essays or policy memoranda, an independent research project analyzing the management of an individual public institution or agency, and making recommendations for enhancements to its management structure and practices. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 369

Leadership in the Policy Arena

What is "Leadership?" To what extent can it be defined and practiced according to fundamental general principles? How must the application of such principles be adapted to differing institutional, organizational, and community settings, and to varying situations? Can anyone lead effectively with sufficient opportunity and, if so, to what degree must leadership be "personalized" by each individual? This course will explore leadership principles through readings from a broad spectrum of fields and historical periods and seek to identify the key lessons to be applied to leadership in the current public policy sphere. Students will engage with the course material through a series of short essays and one independent research project focused on a leadership analysis of a contemporary public institution or not-for-profit organization. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 380

Caribbean Sovereignty

The Caribbean, "a complex product of a long and continuous exercise in colonialism and Neo-colonialism" to quote Michael-Rolph Trouillot, is a region in which countries remain tied to imperial centers through varying forms of non-sovereignty ranging from predatory trade and military agreements to incorporated territory status. How has Caribbean political freedom been imagined, fought for, and thwarted at different historical moments? We take up this question in this seminar through case studies from the Anglophone, Francophone, Spanish-speaking, and Dutch Caribbean. As we look at the precarious social, political, economic, and physical environments that have developed over time in these territories we will explore how people imagine and forge alternative liberated futures. (GLB5)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 395

Academic Internship

Students enroll by submitting a contract through Career Development. (SOC)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 399

Independent Study

Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar's Office, and the approval of the instructor and director are required for enrollment. (SOC)
Prerequisite: Urban Studies 101 or permission of instructor.

0.50 units min / 1.00 units max, Independent Study

URST 401

Senior Seminar

This course serves as a capstone seminar with two purposes. First, it provides a comparative and integrated treatment of the urban scholarship through an intensive and interdisciplinary reading of advanced books and articles, rigorous discussions, and in-depth writing. This course allows students to widen and deepen the cumulative content and experience they have gained from previous urban courses, study abroad programs, and urban engagement and internship projects. Secondly, by connecting and even tailoring some of the seminar’s content to individual students, the course prepares and guides students to undertake and successfully complete a senior thesis for the Urban Studies major. (WEB)
Prerequisite: Urban Studies 201, Sociology 227 or permission of instructor.

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 403

Urban Planning Global Studio

In this studio, readings and discussions concentrate on the key issues confronting contemporary urban planning practice. Students will develop a broad, international and comparative perspective on issues such as planning theory, infrastructure, smart cities, zoning and equity, the politics of real estate, or urban policy and law generally. The goal of the studio is hands-on, practical exposure to professional practice in urban planning and development in Connecticut, the US, and around the world. Approximately one hour per week is a remote/virtual weekly discussion with practicing planners and urban developers. (GLB5)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 433

Introduction to Urban Planning

This course provides an overview of urban planning. Students will be introduced to key theories and concepts as well as methods and empirical case studies in this multidimensional field. Lectures and seminar discussions concentrate on applications of urban planning theories and concepts as practiced by urban planners. Topics discussed in the course may include regional, environmental, metropolitan, transportation, spatial, and land-use planning issues. Empirical emphasis is expected to be on Hartford and other Connecticut cities, but the course may discuss other American or international urban areas. The course is an elective geared toward public policy graduate students with an interest in urban policy, regardless of their track. This course may be of interest to American studies graduate students as well (permission of adviser required). (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 466

Teaching Assistantship

Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment. Guidelines are available in the College Bulletin. (0.5 - 1 course credit)

0.50 units min / 1.00 units max, Independent Study

URST 490

Research Assistantship

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to undertake substantial research work with a faculty member. Students need to complete a special registration form, available online, and have it signed by the supervising instructor.

0.50 units min / 1.00 units max, Independent Study

URST 497

Single Semester Thesis

Submission of special registration form and the approval of the director are required for enrollment in this single-semester thesis. (WEB)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 498

Senior Thesis, Part 1

Submission of the special registration form and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for each semester of this year-long thesis. (2 course credits to be completed in two semesters.) (WEB)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 499

Senior Thesis, Part 2

Written report and formal presentation of a research project. Required of all students who wish to earn honors in Urban Studies. Submission of the special registration form and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for each semester of this year-long thesis. (2 course credits to be completed in two semesters.) (WEB)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 801

Community Oriented Development Strategies to Address Urban Decline in the United States

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 802

Global Cities

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 803

Urban Planning Global Studio

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 805

Meds, Eds, Slot Machines, and Stadiums: Culture Industries and the New Urban Economy

Colleges, universities, and their medical centers have become the dominant employers, real estate holders, policing agents, and educational and health care providers in major cities across the country. Meanwhile struggling areas have looked to sports stadiums and casinos as their salvation from poverty. What happened? "Meds, Eds, Slots, and Stadiums" examines a world without factories, as higher education, healthcare, and tourism have become the face of today's urban economy. Located at the center of what has been called the "Knowledge Corridor" along I-91, the course draws special attention to Trinity College's past and present role in shaping greater Hartford. This course counts towards the spatial requirement. (HUM)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 815

Urban South Asia

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 819

Affordable Housing Policies

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 820

Urban Research Practicum

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 821

Geographies of Transport: Being on the Move in the 21st Global Urban Century

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 833

Introduction to Urban Planning

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 859

Latinx Urban Activism since 1900

1.00 units, Lecture

URST 860

Public Management

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 869

Leadership in the Policy Arena

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 874

Public Policy Practicum

The Practicum is a semester-long opportunity for students to apply and expand their knowledge and technical skills by performing an actual consulting engagement for a public sector client organization. Practicum students will work in small teams to analyze and make recommendations with respect to issues of real significance faced by their clients. Each engagement will combine research, project planning, and problem-solving challenges, as well as substantial client contact. Client organizations are selected from across the policy spectrum to better enable students to pursue subject matters of particular relevance to their studies and career interests. Each engagement will culminate in a final report and formal presentation to the client organization. The Practicum instructor will provide careful guidance and participants will have opportunities to share ideas, experiences, and best practices. (SOC)

1.00 units, Seminar

URST 940

Independent Study

Selected topics in special areas are available by arrangement with the instructor and written approval of the graduate adviser and program director. Contact the Office of Graduate Studies for the special approval form. (SOC)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 954

Thesis Part I

Thesis Part I (SOC)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 955

Thesis Part II

Thesis Part II (SOC)

1.00 units, Independent Study

URST 956

Thesis

Thesis (SOC)

2.00 units, Independent Study