116 courses with the subject URBS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
URBS 0002The City in South Asia
This interdisciplinary social science course examines key topics, themes, and analytic methods in the study of South Asia by focusing on significant South Asian cities. With one-fifth of the worlds population,South Asia and its urban centers are playing an increasingly important role in recent global economic transformations, resulting in fundamental changes within both the subcontinent and the larger world. Drawing primarily on ethnographic studies of South Asia in the context of rapid historical change, the course also incorporates research drawn from urban studies, architecture, political science, and history, as well as fiction and film. Topics include globalization and new economic dynamics in South Asia; the formation of a new urban middle class; consumption and consumer culture; urban political formations, democratic institutions, and practices; criminality & the underworld; population growth, changes in the built environment, and demographic shifts; everyday life in South Asia and ethnic, cultural, and linguistic identities, differences, and violence in South Asia's urban environments. This is an introductory level course appropriate for students with no background in South Asia or for those seeking to better understand South Asia's urban environments in the context of recent globalization and rapid historical changes.
The UN estimates that 2.9 of the world's 6.1 billion people live in cities and that this percentage is rapidly increasing in many parts of the world. This course examines urban life and urban problems by providing anthropological perspectives on this distinctive form of human association and land use. First we will examine the "origin" of cities, focusing on several of the places where cities first developed, including Mesopotamia and the Valley of Mexico. We will then investigate the internal structure of non-industrial cities by looking at case studies from around the world and from connections between the cities of the past and the city in which we live and work today. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 0103, MELC 0003, NELC 0003 1 Course Unit
This first-year seminar examines the homelessness problem from a variety of scientific and policy perspectives. Contemporary homelessness differs significantly from related conditions of destitute poverty during other eras of our nation's history. Advocates, researchers and policymakers have all played key roles in defining the current problem, measuring its prevalence, and designing interventions to reduce it. The first section of this course examines the definitional and measurement issues, and how they affect our understanding of the scale and composition of the problem. Explanations for homelessness have also been varied, and the second part of the course focuses on examining the merits of some of those explanations, and in particular, the role of the affordable housing crisis. The third section of the course focuses on the dynamics of homelessness, combining evidence from ethnographic studies of how people become homeless and experience homelessness, with quantitative research on the patterns of entry and exit from the condition. The final section of the course turns to the approaches taken by policymakers and advocates to address the problem, and considers the efficacy and quandaries associated with various policy strategies. The course concludes by contemplating the future of homelessness research and public policy.
This first-year seminar relies on the interdisciplinary tools of cultural sociology and urban studies to examine everyday life in the contemporary American city. Our case studies will include storied U.S. cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and our own city of Philadelphia. We will draw on thought-provoking readings, in-class fieldtrips, and local observational exercises to explore both (1) entertainment and pop cultural attractions in the city (including its artistic and creative scenes retail and dining corridors, and tourism districts); and (2) the culture of urban living more generally. The latter includes the daily neighborhood rounds of urban dwellers and visitors, the everyday uses of the city’s architecture and built environment, the symbolic meanings of urban landscapes, and how face-to-face social encounters unfold among strangers interacting on downtown sidewalks and in urban parks and plazas, coffeehouses, outdoor markets, dog runs, libraries, and other public spaces. Also Offered As: SOCI 0011 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 2743
This course explores the archaeology (material culture) of early complex societies or civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean. According to the traditional paradigm, civilization first emerged during the fourth millennium BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the Mediterranean, state-level societies first appeared in Crete and mainland Greece in the early second millennium BCE. This course investigates how and why these civilizations developed, as well as their appearance and structure in the early historic (or literate) phases of their existence. A comparative perspective will illustrate what these early civilizations have in common and the ways in which they are unique. This course will consist largely of lectures which will outline classic archaeological and anthropological theories on state formation, before turning to examine the available archaeological (and textual) data on emerging complexity in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean. This course does not presuppose any knowledge of archaeology or ancient languages; the instructor will provide any background necessary. Because this is a course on material culture, some of the class periods will be spent at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. These will consist of a guided tour of a relevant gallery, as well as a hands-on object-based lab with archaeological materials selected by the instructor. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 0105, MELC 0050, NELC 0050 1 Course Unit , 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
This course explores the involvement of the Latinx environmental justice movement since the 1960s. It addresses theories and concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice, underscoring how Latinx have challenged, expanded, and contributed to the environmental justice discourse. In this course, students will explore national case studies of environmental and racial injustice as they bear on Latinx communities both in rural areas and in urban barrios throughout the United States. The course will analyze these case studies through the lens of Latinx artistic and literary texts (essays, paintings, short stories documentaries, and short films) as they provide a unique historic and multicultural perspective of the Latinx experience with environmental injustice and of how Latinxs imagine alternative transitions and responses to environmental marginalization. In addition, the works of Latinx artists and writers will serve as case studies to deconstruct racial stereotypes of Latinxs as unconcerned about environmental issues, shedding light on how they share a broad engagement with environmental ideas. The case studies analyzed in this course emphasize race and class differences between farmworkers and urban barrio residents and how they affect their respective struggles. The unit on farmworkers will focus on workplace health issues such as toxic chemicals and collective bargaining contracts. The unit on urban barrios will focus on gentrification, affordable housing, and toxic substances in the home. We will also review current and past programs that have been organized to address the aforementioned problems. This is an Academically Based Community Service Course (ABCS course) through which students will learn from and provide support to a Latinx-serving organization in the City of Philadelphia on preventing exposure to hazardous substances, thus bridging the information gap on environmental justice issues in the Latinx community in Philadelphia. Information dissemination and education efforts will be conducted by collaborating with Esperanza Academy Charter School in Philadelphia to implement lessons on preventing exposure to hazardous substances. Studying environmental justice and pairing it with community service will heighten students' awareness of the complexities of culture, race, gender, and class while providing them with an invaluable experience of cross- cultural understanding.
Who is Asian American and how and where do we recognize Asian America? This interdisciplinary course explores the multiple factors that define Asian American identity and community. In order to provide a sketch of the multifacted experience of this growing minority group, we will discuss a wide variety of texts from scholarly, artistic, and popular (film, cinematic) sources that mark key moments in the cultural history of Asia America. The course will address major themes of community life including migration history, Asian American as model minority, race, class, and transnational scope of Asian America. In combination with the readings, this class will foster and promote independent research based on site visits to various Asian American communities in Philadelphia and will host community leaders as guest lecturers.
This course will explore the ideology and politics of the socialist city in the Soviet Union, East Europe, and the Second World. We will focus on how design professionals, politicians, and residents realized utopian socialist values in the face of national design traditions, local politics, and limited resources. Beginning with the Soviet case, the course will consider how planners and architects addressed modernization, multi-family housing, and neighborhood units in new city plans. We will consider capitals, like Moscow, as well as less well-known regional centers that had strong local identities, such as Tashkent, Belgrade, and Prague. We will examine the state's use of public spaces for commemorations and preservationists' reinterpretation of existing historic sites. In addition, we will consider how everyday residents experienced the socialist city, such as multi-family housing, shopping centers, and subway systems. We will address how citizens circumvented official state channels to obtain state housing and illegally build homes for themselves, sometimes in a folk style. The course will center on Soviet and East European cities, but also address socialist cities in Cuba and Africa whose design was influenced by transnational exchanges. Most broadly, this course explores the question, what was the socialist city? How did its planners, architects, and politicians understand it, and what did they intend to construct? And, what resulted? In the past fifteen years, North American scholars have begun to take seriously the study of the socialist city, and this course draws on the emerging scholarship on this exciting, cross-disciplinary topic. How do scholars understand the socialist city today? We will examine the shared legacies that socialist cities across East Europe shared with their Western European counterparts, as well as the particularities of design that have sparked North American scholars' debates on what distinguished the socialist city from ones that emerged in a capitalist context. In our discussions, we will seek to understand how socialist design professionals understood their work and the emerging cities at the time, as well as how North American scholars view the socialist city today. Disciplinarily, the focus of the call will fall at the intersection of architectural history and politics. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: REES 0171 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 2745
Music in Urban Spaces is a year-long experience that explores the ways in which individuals use music in their everyday lives and how music is used to construct larger social and economic networks that we call culture. We will read the work of musicologists, cultural theorists, urban geographers, sociologists and educators who work to define urban space and the role of music and sound in urban environments, including through music education. While the readings make up our study of the sociology of urban space and the way we use music in everyday life to inform our conversations and the questions we ask, it is within the context of our personal experiences working with music programs in public neighborhood schools serving economically disadvantaged students, that we will begin to formulate our theories of the contested musical micro-cultures of West Philadelphia. This course is over two- semesters where students register for .5 cus each term (for a total of 1 cu over the entire academic year) and is tied to the Music and Social Change Residential Program in Fisher Hassenfeld College House which will sponsor field trips around the city and a final concert for youth to perform here at Penn, if possible. Students are expected to volunteer in music and drama programs in Philadelphia neighborhood public schools throughout the course experience. This is an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course. Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given after both terms are complete Also Offered As: MUSC 0180A 0.5 Course Units
Music in Urban Spaces is a year-long experience that explores the ways in which individuals use music in their everyday lives and how music is used to construct larger social and economic networks that we call culture. We will read the work of musicologists, cultural theorists, urban geographers, sociologists and educators who work to define urban space and the role of music and sound in urban environments, including through music education. While the readings make up our study of the sociology of urban space and the way we use music in everyday life to inform our conversations and the questions we ask, it is within the context of our personal experiences working with music programs in public neighborhood schools serving economically disadvantaged students, that we will begin to formulate our theories of the contested musical micro-cultures of West Philadelphia. This course is over two- semesters where students register for .5 cus each term (for a total of 1 cu over the entire academic year) and is tied to the Music and Social Change Residential Program in Fisher Hassenfeld College House which will sponsor field trips around the city and a final concert for youth to perform here at Penn, if possible. Students are expected to volunteer in music and drama programs in Philadelphia neighborhood public schools throughout the course experience. This is an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course. Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given after both terms are complete Also Offered As: MUSC 0180B 0.5 Course Units 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
This class explores the social, economic, ecological, and cultural dynamics of metropolitan and community food systems in U.S. cities. Field trips and assignments immerse students in various forms of experiential learning - including farming and gardening, cooking, eating, and more. After a broad introduction to global, regional, and urban food systems in our first three weeks, across most of the semester we follow the food chain (or cycle), from production to processing, distribution, cooking, consumption, and waste. Specific topics include urban agriculture, community kitchens, grocery, hunger and food assistance, restaurants, neighborhoods, food cultures, food justice, and community food security. Students will gain broad literacies in: metropolitan and neighborhood food environments; food production, processing, distribution, access, and preparation; and the relationships between food, culture, and society. Students taking this class should be open to trying new things, getting hands dirty, and working with others in various settings and activities.
URBS 0250Urban Apartheid: Policing, Segregation, and Justice
Course will focus on Baltimore using The Wire and its sequel, We Own This City, as core texts. Following the trajectory of The Wire, the course will explore the history and development of the city and its institutions with a thematic focus on the impacts of the War on Drugs and policing on Baltimore’s African American community, urban revitalization, violence and community trauma, and the role of the carceral state in American cities. 1 Course Unit
This course focuses on immigrant, migrant, and refugee communities in United States cities and suburbs. We survey migration and community experiences among a broad range of racial and ethnic groups in different city and suburban neighborhoods. Class readings, discussions, regular trips, and assignments explore topics including labor markets, commerce, housing, community organizations, social movements, race and ethnic relations, neighborhood change, refugee resettlement, and transnational communities. The class introduces students to a variety of social science approaches to studying cities and communities, including readings in sociology, geography, anthropology, social history, and political science.
The great scholar and civil rights leader, W.E.B. Du Bois, came to Philadelphia in 1896 to research the Black population of the Seventh Ward. The University of Pennsylvania published his study in 1899 as The Philadelphia Negro. We use this text as a starting point to consider how race, racism, class, and gender shaped, and continue to shape, the opportunities and experiences of Philadelphians. We also explore the concepts of abolition, reparations, affirmative action, and restorative justice. Taking inspiration from Du Bois’ mixture of research methods and data sources, the course will focus on a range of historical research and digital humanities methods, including oral history, geographic information systems mapping, podcasts, video, augmented reality, data visualization, and gaming. Students will develop skills in one or more of these methods and develop new materials for teaching high school and college students about Du Bois and Philadelphia.
This class introduces students to cities, suburbs, and the ways people study urban life. Intended for current and prospective Urban Studies majors and minors, the class surveys the history and contemporary experiences of cities around the world, comparing Philadelphia with other places. We explore urban growth and decline, colonization, migration, neighborhood change, policy and planning, race and ethnicity, gender, poverty, inequality, and social, economic, and environmental justice. Students are introduced to institutions and professions ranging from housing and urban development to public education and health – examining their research and practice across regions. Class meetings include lectures and discussion, but largely follow the structured, active, in-class learning (SAIL) format. This includes field trips, intensive group work and assignments using maps and census data, taking and curating photographs, observing and documenting neighborhoods, among other approaches to researching and analyzing cities.
Iraq: Ancient Cities and Empires is a chronological survey of the ancient civilization that existed in the drainage basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers from the early settled village farming communities of the 7th millennium BCE to the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar II ruled Babylon and much of the Middle East. Though organized period by period, NELC 241 explores various social, political, economic, and ideological topics, exposing students to various strands of evidence, including settlement survey data, excavated architectural remains, artifacts, and documentary sources, as well as an eclectic mix of theoretical perspectives. The course aims to provide students with a strong foundation for the further study of the ancient and pre-modern Middle East. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 1020, MELC 1000, NELC 1000 Mutually Exclusive: MELC 6020 1 Course Unit
An exploration of modern discourses on and of the city. Topics include: the city as site of avant-garde experimentation; technology and culture; the city as embodiment of social order and disorder; traffic and speed; ways of seeing the city; the crowd; city figures such as the detective, the criminal, the flaneur, the dandy; film as the new medium of the city. Special emphasis on Berlin. Readings by, among others, Dickens, Poe, Baudelaire, Rilke, Doeblin, Marx, Engels, Benjamin, Kracauer. Films include Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: CIMS 1050, GRMN 1050 1 Course Unit
This course focuses on the central place of the city through the history of cinema. The city in question may change depending on the term this course is being offered. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. Also Offered As: CIMS 1051, ENGL 1951 1 Course Unit
The course will focus on race and ethnicity in the United States. We begin with a brief history of racial categorization and immigration to the U.S. The course continues by examining a number of topics including racial and ethnic identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes. The course will include discussions of African Americans, Whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans and multiracials.
What do you know about Berlin's history, architecture, culture, and political life? The present course will offer a survey of the history of Prussia, beginning with the seventeenth century, and the unification of the small towns of Berlin and Koelln to establish a new capital for this country. It will tell the story of Berlin's rising political prominence in the eighteenth century, and its position as a center of the German and Jewish Enlightenment. It will follow Berlin's transformation into an industrial city in the nineteenth century, its rise to metropolis in the early twentieth century, its history during the Third Reich, and the post- war cold war period. The course will conclude its historical survey with a consideration of Berlin's position as a capital in reunified Germany. The historical survey will be supplemented by a study of Berlin's urban structure, its significant architecture from the eighteenth century (i.e. Schinkel) to the nineteenth (new worker's housing, garden suburbs) and twentieth centuries (Bauhaus, Speer designs, postwar rebuilding, GDR housing projects, post-unification building boom). In addition, we will read literary texts about the city, and consider the visual art and music created in and about Berlin, and focus on Berlin's Jewish history. The course will be interdisciplinary with the fields of German Studies, history, history of art, urban studies, and German-Jewish studies. It is also designed as a preparation for undergraduate students who are considering spending a junior semester with the Penn Abroad Program in Berlin. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ARTH 2370, COML 1040, GRMN 1040, HIST 0821 1 Course Unit
This course is a comprehensive introduction to the sociological study of urban areas. This includes more general topics as the rise of cities and theories urbanism, as well as more specific areas of inquiry, including American urbanism, segregation, urban poverty, suburbanization and sprawl, neighborhoods and crime, and immigrant ghettos. The course will also devote significant attention to globalization and the process of urbanization in less developed counties. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: AFRC 1090, LALS 1090, SOCI 1090 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 2747
URBS 1120Community, Freedom, Violence: Writing the South Asian City
The South Asian city—as space, symbol, and memory—is the subject of this course. Through a range of readings in English and in translation, we will gain a sense for the history of the city and the ways in which it is a setting for protest and nostalgia, social transformation and solitary wandering. We will see reflections of the city in the detective novels sold in its train stations, the stories scribbled in its cafes, and films produced in its backlots. Readings will attempt to address urban spaces across South Asia through a range of works, which we will examine in the context of secondary readings, including histories and ethnological works that take up life in the modern city. Students will finish this course prepared to pursue projects dealing with the urban from multiple disciplinary perspectives. This course is suitable for anyone interested in the culture, society, or literature of South Asia, and assumes no background in South Asian languages.
URBS 1151Comparative Cultures of Resilience and Sustainability in the
Netherlands and the United States Coastal and riverside cities worldwide are under increasing pressure from sea level rise and other effects of climate change. Resilience and sustainability are paradigmatic concepts for the ways in which cities address the effects associated with global warming: sea level rise, extreme weather, changing climate, and their impacts on water, food, energy, and housing. This course focuses on the cultural side of resilience and sustainability in four signature cities: Rotterdam (with areas 6 meters below sea level), Nijmegen (which has devised a new way to live with a major river), New York City (which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy), and New Orleans (one of the most vulnerable American cities). Of course, other cities (Amsterdam, Arnhem, Boston, The Hague, Houston, Miami, etc.) will also come into play. In deeply uncertain times, cities such as these confront an array of interconnected choices that involve not only infrastructural solutions, but priorities, values, and cultural predispositions. Ideally, the strategies that cities devise are generated through inclusive processes based on the understanding that resilience and sustainability should be grounded in the cultural life of their communities. When this is the case, resilience and sustainability can become unique and motivating narratives about how cities and their residents co-develop the kinds of hard, soft, and social infrastructure the climate emergency requires. With this in mind, we will analyze the cities’ climate action plans and resilience strategies; explore their cultural histories relative to flooding events; and consult with Dutch and American experts in climate adaptation, governance, community development, and design. The highlight of the course will be travel to the Netherlands during spring break for site visits and discussions with experts.
URBS 1153Transformations of Urban America: Making the Unequal
Metropolis, 1945 to Today The course traces the economic, social, and political history of American cities after World War II. It focuses on how the economic problems of the industrial city were compounded by the racial conflicts of the 1950s and 1960s and the fiscal crises of the 1970s. The last part of the course examines the forces that have led to the revitalization and stark inequality of cities in recent years.
This course relies on a variety of sociological perspectives to examine the role of media and popular culture in society, with a particular emphasis on the power of the mass media industry, the relationship between cultural consumption and status, and the social organization of leisure activities from sports to shopping.
With a focus on minority-owned small businesses in the City of Philadelphia, this class will introduce students to the work of anthropologists who have made their careers in the business world using the tools they acquired through training in anthropology. By bringing anthropological perspectives into the workplace, business anthropologists seek to promote well-being for employees and owners, as well as consumers and the communities in which businesses operate. The class will also introduce students to Philadelphia from the point of view of minority owned small businesses. One of the two class days each week will focus on business anthropology as a profession and include readings on organizational culture, design anthropology, and the role of anthropologists in marketing and advertising, as well as in globalization processes and entrepreneurship. The second of the two days each week will focus on the city of Philadelphia and the role of small businesses within it. We will study the spatial layout of the city, the kinds of small businesses that are operative within the city and where they are located, the relationship of business to ethnicity, gentrification and its impact on small business, and the role of government and community groups in relationship to small businesses and their owners and employees. As part of the class, students will engage in guided research on specific small businesses, with the aim of developing an ethnographic understanding of the experiences of owners and employees, the opportunities they have seized upon and the problems they have confronted. We hope in the course of the semester to provide an ethnographic profile of a sampling of small businesses from different industries, which can in turn contribute to understanding larger social and cultural patterns within Philadelphia. Through a class blog or other means, we hope as well to contribute to the ability of minority small business owners to voice their experiences, as well as their fears and hopes for the future, to members of the University community and beyond. Also Offered As: ANTH 1310 1 Course Unit
This course is an introduction to the laws which govern land use development and planning, and will explore timely issues of affordable housing, environmental controls, and historic preservation. Students will come away from the class with a deeper understanding of how the powers and limitations of different branches of government—legislative, judicial and executive— and of different levels of government – federal, state and local—can impact land use development within cities. This understanding will evolve primarily from the study of (a) the history and use of zoning as a tool for land regulation, (b) the evolving law of “takings” and eminent domain, and (c) the tools that communities use to shape development. Class format will include both lectures and problem- solving, and active participation in class discussions is required.
The built environment of a city is more than a mere backdrop; the design can actually affect people's experiences. Environmental design primarily focuses on the relationship between people and the built environment. It also looks at how the built environment interacts with the natural one (and the potential for greater sustainability). This course will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of how people create, perceive, and use the designed environment. We'll approach these concepts by analyzing design at a variety of scales, from products to interior design to architecture. Finally, using that knowledge, we'll conclude by analyzing urban spaces of the city.
Crime varies in time, space and populations as it reflects ecological structures and the routine social interactions that occur in daily life. Concentrations of crime can be found among locations, with antisocial activities like assaults and theft occurring at higher rates because of the demographic make-up of people (e.g. adolescents) or conflicts (e.g. competing gangs), for reasons examined by ecological criminology. Variation in socio-demographic structures (age, education ratios, and the concentration of poverty) and the physical environment (housing segregation, density of bars, street lighting) predicts variations between neighborhoods in the level of crime and disorder. Both ethnographic and quantitative research methods are used to explore the connections between the social and physical environment of areas and antisocial behavior.
Cities can be dense, noisy, gritty and dirty. They can also have oases of calm and beauty. They are places where the unexpected is expected to occur. One thing is certain–urban settings are full of the diversity of human expressivity. Through readings, videos, guest lectures, and field trips, this course addresses the symbolic meanings and social production of urban life. The urban landscape provides an intensification of cultural processes. How humans experience them are more easily studied and understood in an urban setting. This course is a seminar with readings from Philadelphia and other urban settings introducing students to the study of the city as a site of everyday practice, introducing themes across neighborhoods, urban institutions, policy processes, and cultural change. For the semester project, students get step-by-step training in conducting an ethnographic fieldwork project on a topic of choice. They will acquire an understanding of qualitative field methods that they can employ in the service of capstone, thesis, and dissertation projects. 1 Course Unit
URBS 2130Carceral Crisis: The Question of Abolition
The total number of incarcerated peoples in the United States is currently around 2.1 million people, held across various carceral sites – jails, immigration detention centers, and state and federal prisons. If we include all human beings under the direct control of the criminal justice system in the tally, not just the actively incarcerated but those on probation or parole as well, that number swells to approximately eight- million adults, or one person in thirty-seven (Wacquant, 2009). The United States, in both absolute terms and as a percent of its population, is the most aggressive incarcerator of its own citizens in the world. If those under supervision of the criminal justice system were counted as a city population, it would be the second most populous in the country just behind New York City. Currently, one of every six Black men in the United States has been or is currently locked up, and one in three is destined to be at some point in their life. One in six Latinx men will similarly find themselves locked down throughout their life-course. Forty- percent of Black males from the nation’s “hyperghettos” (Wacquant) between the ages of 18 and 35 years-old are under some form of carceral control, and police and prisons are often the primary contact between young Black men and the state. It was within this context that in the summer of 2020, the nation witnessed the extra-legal police executions of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Subsequent civil disobedience actions rocked the country from coast to coast with calls to “defund the police” and “end mass incarceration.” As a result, the notion of police/prison abolition has entered mainstream political discourse to a remarkable degree not witnessed in generations. And its appearance has spawned strident debate across the political spectrum about the viability of police and/or prison abolition, its potential societal effect(s) and/or abolition’s very necessity or even its desirability. The aims of this seminar are twofold. First, we will engage a set of interdisciplinary texts (Sociological, Philosophical, Black Studies, Geographical, Autobiographical, Ethnographic etc.) to develop a broad understanding of that complex set of forces that have transformed the United States into the most rapacious incarcerator of its own citizens of any nation in the global state system. Said straightforwardly, we want to explore the questions: why do we have such a large prison system in the United States and how did it come to be? What work does the prison do on behalf of civil society and why does it deleteriously impact communities of color most profoundly? Secondly, this seminar will work to develop a broad familiarity with abolitionist discourse not only with regards to the questions raised above, but also to develop an understanding of abolitionist perspectives/orientations on what we can, should or even must do about prisons, policing and carcerality – “mass” incarceration - more broadly. In order to realize these contextualizations, this seminar is organized across three larger themes each thinking about “mass” incarceration from a differing vantage - whether external and/or internal to the prison itself: 1. An examination of the political, social, economic and historical forces that have built contemporary carcerality in both ideology and in material fact, 2. A familiarization with abolitionist perspectives on “what must be done” to challenge racialized “mass” incarceration as well as abolitionists’ critique of mainstream political proposals on police and/or prison reform, and 3. An analysis of the carceral interior through the politicized writings of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated abolitionist thinkers as well as those scholars who take the culture/institutions internal to the prison as proper site for abolitionist intervention.
URBS 2445Civil Dialogue Seminar: Civic Engagement In A Divided Nation
The goal of this course is to help students develop concepts, tools, dispositions, and skills that will help them engage productively in the ongoing experiment of American democracy. This nation's founders created a governmental structure that sets up an ongoing and expansive conversation about how to manage the tensions and tradeoffs between competing values and notions of the public good. These tensions can never be fully resolved or eliminated; they are intrinsic to the American experiment. Every generation must struggle to find its own balance, in no small part because in every era people who previously had been unjustly excluded from the conversation find a way to be heard. That inevitably introduces new values and changes how enduring ones get interpreted. The challenge of each generation is to develop that capacity to its fullest. The goal of this course is to equip you to engage fully in your generation's renewal of the conversation. Class sessions will use a variety of modalities: lecture, discussion, case studies, opportunities to experiment with the tools and techniques of civil dialogue and writing. Each session will include some theory or historical context, a case study, exploration of a key concept of civic dialogue with a related tool or technique, and an interactive exercise. This course is part of a larger effort by the university (called the Paideia program) to help Penn students build these skills
This course is designed to introduce students to current literature on race/ethnic difference in health and mortality in the United States, covering such topics as explanations for why some race/ethnic groups fare better than others, how inner city poverty and residential segregation may contribute to racial/ethnic differences in health outcomes, and health of immigrants versus native-born populations. Current policy debated and recent policy developments related to health are also briefly discussed. The course is organized as a seminar with a combination of lectures and class discussions. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: SOCI 2450 1 Course Unit
URBS 2500Urban Public Policy: Philadelphia -- A Case Study
This course is designed to introduce students to a wide range of urban public policy challenges such as urban education, public safety, jobs and economic development, housing and land-use to gain an introductory understanding the basic policy frameworks associated with these challenges and the policy making process to affect these challenges, with a focus on Philadelphia and other older industrial American cities. The course relies mostly on non-academic readings to expose to examine how data, ideology, information and stakeholders influence the urban policy-making process. The course gives students practice writing effective policy memos and using data to make cogent arguments for policies. The course mid-term is a draft policy memo, and the final assignment is the final version of that memo. Students will attend one city council hearing, listen to key policy speeches of elected officials and half of the classes feature speakers with a track record of creating or implementing urban policy changes in Philadelphia.
This seminar will study the development of Chinese cities over the past two millennia with respect to their spatial structure, social constitution, economic system, political functions, and cultural representation (including cityscape paintings, maps, and films).As China transitioned from a collection of city-states to a united empire to nation state, Chinese urbanism underwent transformations as drastic as those of the country itself. Cities, which serve as a critical mechanism for the operation of a vast agrarian empire/nation like China , offer a unique vantage point for us to observe and analyze the continuities and discontinuities between dynastic empires as well as the radical transition from empire to modern nation state. Topics include: the city-state system in ancient China; the creation and evolution of imperial capitals; the medieval urban revolution and the subsequent collapse of classic city plans; the development of urban public sphere/public space in late imperial China; the rise of commercial power in urban politics; the negotiation of urban class and gender relations via cultural consumption; the role of cities in the building of a modern Chinese nation state; the anti-city experiment under the communist regime; urban citizenship in the reform era; as well as the expanding urbanization and shifting urbanism of Greater China as reflected in cinematic representations of Shanghai, Hongkong, and Taipei.
Powerful forces are rocking journalism. Newspapers and networks are battling financial woes along with blizzards of misinformation and mistrust. But it's an exciting time, too. Independent news outlets are blossoming. Newsrooms are heeding calls for diversity and inclusion. And one teenager's video not only broke news -- it changed history. This course will examine some of those forces and offer direct experience in urban journalism. Students will report and write stories about Philadelphians' lives. Involvement in The Daily Pennsylvanian or other news outlets is encouraged -- let's get you published!
This course will explore the political, economic, social, and demographic forces impacting development patterns in metropolitan areas, with a particular focus on Philadelphia. We will examine the government policies, economic forces, and social attitudes that affect the way a region grows, and the impact of these forces on poverty, equity and segregation. Specific topics to be discussed include the factors that make a region competitive, the city's changing role in the region, the impact place has on opportunity, and approaches to revitalizing and improving communities. Spring, even numbered years only Also Offered As: SOCI 2942 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
This course examines the demographic, social, and economic trends impacting the growth of global cities--providing the context for global urban education. Through the dual lens of globalization and local urban culture, we explore relationships between urban education and economic development, democratic citizenship, social movements, social inclusion, equity, and quality of urban life. We consider key historical legacies (e.g., Colonialism), informal settlements and "slums," the rise of the "knowledge economy", and the role of international aid. Additional topics include: early childhood; gender equity; youth culture; impacts of crisis and war; urban refugees; teacher training and identity; accountability & governance; information & computer technology; religion, indigenous cultures, and language identity; & the role of the private sector and school choice. We focus on cities like Sao Paolo, Mexico City, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, Jakarta, Mumbai, Lahore, Tehran, and Cairo, and draw comparisons to cities like New York, London, Paris and Tokyo. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: SOCI 2943 1 Course Unit
The course is an introduction to nutritional anthropology, an area of anthropology concerned with human nutrition and food systems in social, cultural and historical contexts. On the one hand, nutritional anthropologists study the significance of the food quest in terms of survival and health. On the other hand, they also know that people eat food for a variety of reasons that may have little, if anything, to do with nutrition, health, or survival. While the availability of food is dependent upon the physical environment, food production systems, and economic resources, food choice and the strategies human groups employ to gain access to and distribute food are deeply embedded in specific cultural patterns, social relationships, and political and economic systems. Thus, nutritional anthropology represents the interface between anthropology and the nutritional sciences, and as such, can provide powerful insights into the interactions of social and biological factors in the context of the nutritional health of individuals and populations. Because food and nutrition are quintessential biocultural issues, the course takes a biocultural approach drawing on perspectives from biological, socio- cultural and political-economic anthropology. Course content will include: a discussion of approaches to nutritional anthropology; basics of human nutrition; food systems, food behaviors and ideas; methods of dietary and nutritional assessment; and a series of case studies addressing causes and consequences to nutritional problems across the world. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 2590, LALS 2590 1 Course Unit
You are what you eat. Asian American Food explores the history, politics, and ethnic identity of food through a cultural lens. Growing food, eating, and sharing meals serve as intimate expressions of self and community. By examining the production and consumption of food, the course investigates the ways that Asian Americans navigate traditions, gender norms, religious dietary laws, food habits, and employment as they create lives in the United States. The course overviews the history of Asian American foodways, but has a particular focus on Philadelphia's Asian American communities.
Urban climate injustice is one of the world’s most environmentally pressing problems as 50% of the global population resides in cities and is growing. The risks of climate change are not equally distributed due to historical factors like colonization and racial capitalism that concentrate in centers of rapid urbanization. Urban climate policy becomes an integrated set of tools to think about systems-centered adaptation and resilience building in cities alongside the rectification of historic injustices. This course will bring together students interested in urban toxicity, water systems, public health, food systems, sustainability, design, and urban energy markets to understand how cities can weather a changing climate as they build capacity to mitigate carbon emissions and improve lives for their most vulnerable citizens. While the course will center Philadelphia as a case study as the instructors work locally on the energy transition, the content will span urban contexts globally to think through opportunities for policy transfer. 1 Course Unit
How have women’s and queer communities’ desires for rights and representation and access to basic resources and social services transformed urban space? What makes a space feminist, and how has feminism understood the city? This course offers an introduction to key concepts in gender and sexuality studies and how the field has understood urban space. Throughout the semester, we will examine how feminist, queer, and transgender theory has interpreted the city. We will analyze historical case studies on design and urban planning as they relate to issues like sex work, sexual health, birth control and abortion services, pregnancy, and family and community making. Each week, we will explore these topics through hands-on archival research in Penn’s rare book and manuscript collections. Working with the archives, we will trace how feminist/queer/trans movements have been shaped and been shaped by the city. We will also interrogate the role of archives, repositories, and museums for queer/feminist/trans memory. We will experiment with poetry, creative non-fiction, critical essays, visual essays, sound and film, and more throughout the semester. Students will design creative projects rooted in their theoretical, historical, and archival practice.
URBS 2810The US Criminal Justice System in Urban Context
With over two million Americans behind bars and over seven million under some form of state supervision, the United States leads the world in incarceration. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this course will examine the special attention given to how penal issues--including the recent prison boom and the privatization of prison, white supremacy and the racial disparity of the inmate population, juvenile criminal justice, alternative sentencing, prisoner health, and the punishment of military veterans, immigrants, and women in prisons--impact urban communities and contexts. Students will hear from guest speakers who were formerly incarcerated, and attend a field trip to a facility to see first-hand examples of the criminal justice system.
In order to understand the complex and often skewed relationship between the built and natural systems, we must think in processes and examine different scales simultaneously. The course explores urban sustainability and resilience. At its core, sustainability is a radical conc that integrates the economy, equity (social justice), and the environment. Co-opted by marketing slogans, stripped of meaning and context, it has become vague and pliable. Sustainability and resilience demand a holistic systems view of the world. The course focuses on communities such as New Orleans and Eastwick where urban development has focused on economic concerns at the expense of the environment and equity resulting in unintended, and sometimes, catastrophic consequences. Students will have the opportunity to interact with community residents who have organized to develop strategies to address these ongoing issues.
URBS 2940Global Cities: Urbanization in the Global South
This course examines the futures of urbanization in most of the world. With cities in "developing" countries set to absorb 95% of urban population growth in the next generation, the course explores the plans, spaces and social experiences of this dramatic urban century. How do proliferating urban populations sustain themselves in the cities of Latin America, Africa and Asia? What kinds of social and political claims do these populations make more just and sustainable cities? The course investigates the ongoing experiences in urban planning, infrastructure development and environmental governance in cities of the Global South. In so doing, it imagines new forms of citizenship, development and sustainability that are currently unfolding in these cities of the future. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 2940 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 2753
This seminar explores the history and contemporary experiences of the peoples of Palermo, Sicily, especially its migrant communities. Historically one of the most "conquered" cities in the world and today the fifth largest city in Italy, Palermo is an important site to consider critical questions about: race and ethnicity, diversity and intercultural relations, organized crime, power and exploitation, mobility and human rights, among other issues at the intersection of migration and cities. In the first half of the semester, we will survey Palermo’s long history, with a focus on its different rulers (including the mafia), migrations, and the relationships, experiences, identities, and impacts of different peoples on the city, its social life, built environment and cultures. The class trip over spring break will include visits to and assignments exploring: 1) historic sites, museums, and neighborhoods related to the historic peoples of Palermo; and 2) contemporary migrant neighborhoods, shops, and organizations with our hosts and cultural mediators from the communities we visit. Migrant leaders long involved in city government and civil society will be our partners in this trip, helping us engage with ept migrant communities. In the second half of the semester, our readings, discussions, and assignment will expand our focus on the contemporary politics of immigration, inclusion, and related topics in Italy and Europe. Students will identify specific topics they wish to explore and help lead our conversations about readings and other material we choose to explore. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ITAL 2952 Mutually Exclusive: URBS 2950 1 Course Unit
Water wars, deforestation, climate change. Amidst many uncertain crises, in this course we will explore the emergent relationship between people and the environment in different parts of the world. How do people access the resources they need to live? How, when and for whom does 'nature' come to matter? Why does it matter? And what analytical tools we might use to think, mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change? Drawing together classical anthropological texts and some of the emergent debates in the field of climate studies and environmental justice, in this class we focus on the social-ecological processes through which different groups of humans imagine, produce and inhabit anthropogenic environments.
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department. 1 Course Unit
Total Course Units 6 1 abroad course can count toward the elective if it fits an URBS themed course with approval from advisor. The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2026 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.
URBS 3050Housing, Race, and Community in the United States
One's home is the first site of self-identity, socialization, and notions of citizenship. In the United States, neighborhoods are the basic units of political organization, educational options, and familial wealth. This course explores the intersections between race and housing in the United States with a specific focus on the experiences of African-Americans in urban centers. The intersectional housing experiences of Asian, Latinx, first-generation immigrants, Arab, and indigenous communities will also be analyzed. This course represents both a timely and nuanced opportunity to address housing as a focal point of existing racial tensions and deepening socio-economic inequalities in the U.S. Increasingly, housing has become a contested subject, with heated debates concerning its status as a human, and potentially constitutional, right. Students will explore urban governance values, the commodification of urban landscapes, and the institutional dimensions of race in the United States. Students will develop a critical understanding of the underlying structural causation for the issues faced by minority populations seeking adequate, affordable, and safe housing in the U.S. Prior knowledge of urban planning, housing, or social policy is not necessary for this course. Students will finish the course equipped with a broad knowledge base of associated development topics including globalization, commodification, and social justice.
URBS 3140Participatory Cities (SNF Paideia Program Course)
What is a participatory city? What has that term meant in the past, what does it mean now, and what will it mean going forward? Against the backdrop of increasing inequality and inequity, and the rise in a search for solutions, what role can citizens play in co-creating more just cities and neighborhoods? How can citizens be engaged in the decision-making processes about the places where we live, work, and play? And most importantly, how can we work to make sure that all kinds of voices are meaningfully included, and that historically muted voices are elevated to help pave a better path forward? This course will connect theory with praxis as we explore together the history, challenges, methods, and approaches, and impact of bottom up and top down approaches to community participation and stakeholder involvement in cities. Multiple opportunities will be provided to be involved in community engagement work for live projects in Philadelphia. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: SOCI 2960 1 Course Unit
URBS 3200Who Gets Elected and Why? The Science of Politics
What does it take to get elected to office? What are the key elements of a successful political campaign? What are the crucial issues guiding campaigns and elections in the U.S. at the beginning of the 21st century? This class will address the process and results of electoral politics at the local, state, and federal levels. Course participants will study the stages and strategies of running for public office and will discuss the various influences on getting elected, including: Campaign finance and fundraising, demographics, polling, the media, staffing, economics, and party organization. Each week we will be joined by guest speakers who are nationally recognized professionals, with expertise in different areas of the campaign and election process. Students will also analyze campaign case studies and the career of the instructor himself. Edward G. Rendell is the former Mayor of Philadelphia, former Chair of the Democratic National Committee, and former Governor of Pennsylvania.
This course represents an opportunity for students to participate in academically-based community service involving tutoring in a West Phila. public school. This course will serve a need for those students who are already tutoring through the West Phila.Tutoring Project or other campus tutoring. It will also be available to individuals who are interested in tutoring for the first time.
Cities have been centres of aspiration for much of human history. They have provided a limited yet critical locus for social mobility, both in political and economic terms. As large agglomerations of political and economic power, urban residents have also consumed growing proportions of the earths mineral, food and water resources from the national (and international) body. The contradictory aspects of urban aspiration frame this course. Drawing on the frameworks of political ecology, in this course we think through the cities of the global south to understand how cities are made. To do this, we will first focus on the construction on the liberal city and how it has been occupied, both formally and informally, by urban subjects in most of the world. Next, we will learn about projects through which natural resources have been directed to and through the city. Finally we will conclude with a particular attention to how urban resources are claimed by marginalized migrants, and the particular sorts of governance institutions these practices engender. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 3424 Mutually Exclusive: ANTH 5424 1 Course Unit
So much of what we know about cities comes from the stories we tell about them. This course takes the-city-in-stories as both our subject and our muse. We will work across genres and disciplines, reading a mix of fiction and nonfiction in which cities figure prominently, from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities to Sarah Broom's Yellow House. We'll go from Mumbai, in Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, to Oakland, in Tommy Orange's There There. With each text, we'll examine how the city is represented, including what and who we see and don't see, and the role it plays in the narrative. We'll also explore the author's craft and write our own creative nonfiction about city streets and neighborhoods. The class will be part discussion-based seminar and part peer-review writing workshop. It is open to both creative writing and urban studies students excited to explore the intersections between our stories, our cities, and ourselves.
Jews have always been an extraordinarily urban people. This seminar explores various aspects of the Jewish encounter with the city, examining the ways that Jewish culture has been shaped by and has helped to shape urban culture. We will examine European and American cities as well as some in Palestine/Israel, covering an expansive view of urban culture. We will consider Jewish involvement in political and cultural life, the various neighborhoods in which Jews have lived, relations with other ethnic groups, as well as many other topics. We will read some classic works in the field along with contemporary scholarship. No prior background in Jewish history is required. *This course may be applied toward the US, European, or Middle East requirements for the History Major or Minor, depending upon the research paper topic. Students must consult with the instructor to determine which geographic requirement will be fulfilled.*
This course explores the involvement of the Latinx environmental justice movement since the 1960s. It addresses theories and concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice, underscoring how Latinx have challenged, expanded, and contributed to the environmental justice discourse. In this course, students will explore national case studies of environmental and racial injustice as they bear on Latinx communities both in rural areas and in urban barrios throughout the United States. The course will analyze these case studies through the lens of Latinx artistic and literary texts (essays, paintings, short stories documentaries, and short films) as they provide a unique historic and multicultural perspective of the Latinx experience with environmental injustice and of how Latinxs imagine alternative transitions and responses to environmental marginalization. In addition, the works of Latinx artists and writers will serve as case studies to deconstruct racial stereotypes of Latinxs as unconcerned about environmental issues, shedding light on how they share a broad engagement with environmental ideas. The case studies analyzed in this course emphasize race and class differences between farmworkers and urban barrio residents and how they affect their respective struggles. The unit on farmworkers will focus on workplace health issues such as toxic chemicals and collective bargaining contracts. The unit on urban barrios will focus on gentrification, affordable housing, and toxic substances in the home. We will also review current and past programs that have been organized to address the aforementioned problems. This is an Academically Based Community Service Course (ABCS course) through which students will learn from and provide support to a Latinx-serving organization in the City of Philadelphia on preventing exposure to hazardous substances, thus bridging the information gap on environmental justice issues in the Latinx community in Philadelphia. Information dissemination and education efforts will be conducted by collaborating with Esperanza Academy Charter School in Philadelphia to implement lessons on preventing exposure to hazardous substances. Studying environmental justice and pairing it with community service will heighten students' awareness of the complexities of culture, race, gender, and class while providing them with an invaluable experience of cross- cultural understanding.
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department. 1 Course Unit
Students in the fall Urban Studies Senior Seminar (URBS400) whose papers are exceptional and show promise for publication will be invited to participate in the spring honors seminar. If they choose to participate, honors seminar participants will revise and refine their research/ papers with the goal of their work for publication in an academic journal relevant to the topic. The seminar meets periodically during the semester, structured around a set of assignments geared to facilitate the process of revision. Students will be assigned to read each other's , work and meetings take the form of a workshop with students reporting on progress and providing feedback to improve and develop each other's papers. In addition to completing the revised paper for a grade, participants in the honors seminar are required to present their work to a wider Urban Studies audience in a special session at the end of the semester and to provide documentation that they have submitted their papers for publication. Students who successfully complete the honors seminar will graduate with distinction in the major, noted on their transcripts and in the graduation materials.
URBS 4050Religion, Social Justice & Urban Development
Urban development has been influenced by religious conceptions of social and economic justice. Progressive traditions within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Baha'i, Humanism and other religions and systems of moral thought have yielded powerful critiques of oppression and hierarchy as well as alternative economic frameworks for ownership, governance, production, labor, and community. Historical and contemporary case studies from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East will be considered, as we examine the ways in which religious responses to poverty, inequality, and ecological destruction have generated new forms of resistance and development.
This scholar-oriented seminar explores how academic researchers from different disciplines define researchable questions, craft research designs, and contribute to knowledge through an examination of important and/or recently published books and monographs with an urban focus. Through rigorous textual analysis, the seminar explores the economic and political philosophies that have come to shape 20th and 21st century urbanism. Ultimately, it is intended to offer a range of analytic approaches to understanding urban structures and processes that urban scholars, policy planners, and community activists seek to influence. We will focus primarily on postwar Midwestern and Northeastern U.S Cities, emphasizing the political economy tradition as well as the crisis of representation. We will evaluate competing analytic trends in the social sciences, critically analyzing urban research from the disciplines of sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and social welfare.
Cities evolve over time, comprised of various inputs of different sizes at different stages of urban evolution. However, as cities continue to densify and navigate real estate market cycles, opportunities to redefine the urban context, while promoting the individual brand, become ever more sensitive. Projects are increasingly complex, often involving multiple partnerships among private developers, public agencies, non-profits, and community groups. Today's development professionals need to be well- versed across a variety of disciplines and property types to effectively execute in an urban environment. As an introductory course in real estate development, this course will provide the underpinnings for critical decision-making in markets that change frequently and often unevenly - whether for financing, investing, development, public policy formulation, or asset management/disposition.
A good idea is not enough - developing innovative and sustainable projects in cities requires understanding "how to get things done." Developing projects to promote sustainability in major US cities requires sensitivity to the political and operational context within which cities implement innovative initiatives. Cities and Sustainability uses Philadelphia as a case study to explore the issues confronting modern American metropolises as they look to manage their resources and promote environmentally friendly policies. URBS 417 will introduce students to leading Philadelphia practitioners of sustainability and municipal projects. Students will be given the tools to politically, economically and critically analyze various sustainable policy initiatives across the United States.
Transportation systems and networks impact everything from the literal shape ofAmerican cities to their economic vitality and the well-being of their citizens. Urban Infrastructure in Flux provides students with an over view of the political, business, and policy concerns and processes that inform how Americans get around by foot, transit, and car. URBS 419 explores the use and reuse of legacy infrastructure, and roots innovations such as driverless cars, and scooters, in a historical conflict over the right-of-way (ROW). Students will have the opportunity to meet professionals in the field and engage in primary source research and data analysis.
This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to 20th century urban poverty, and 20th century urban poverty knowledge. In addition to providing an historical overview of American poverty, the course is primarily concerned with the ways in which historical, cultural, political, racial, social, spatial/geographical, and economic forces have either shaped or been left out of contemporary debates on urban poverty. Of great importance, the course will evaluate competing analytic trends in the social sciences and their respective implications in terms of the question of what can be known about urban poverty in the contexts of social policy and practice, academic research, and the broader social imaginary. We will critically analyze a wide body of literature that theorizes and explains urban poverty. Course readings span the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, urban studies, history, and social welfare. Primacy will be granted to critical analysis and deconstruction of course texts, particularly with regard to the ways in which poverty knowledge creates, sustains, and constricts meaningful channels of action in urban poverty policy and practice interventions.
URBS 4290Listening to the City: Soundscapes, Music, and Place
What can we learn about a place from the sound(s) that emanate from it? In this course, we will examine sound in a range of contexts, questioning everything from notions of “quietness” -- and its frequent association with wealth and whiteness -- to how we perceive race via musical genres. Throughout the course, students will engage in several experientially based learning activities, regularly conducting ethnographic fieldwork by using Philadelphia as a social laboratory. Students will read books and scholarly articles from a range of academic disciplines, including, but not limited to, City and Regional Planning, Sociology, Black Studies, Geography, Sound Studies, and Musicology. We will also watch films and listen to songs, endeavoring to learn about place via its aural architecture. 1 Course Unit
URBS 4300Quantitative Methods and Tools for Urban Research
This course is an in-depth exploration of quantitative methods and tools fundamental for urban social science research. This course discusses concepts such as significance levels, t-tests, and regression. Additionally, this course provides students, including those with no previous background in R or other programming language, with a basic fluency in R. Concepts will include tabulating data, creating a regression model, and working with spatial data. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
URBS 4400Introduction to City Planning: History, Theory and Practice
This course introduces students to the history, theories, and contemporary practice of city and regional planning. Readings, lectures, class discussion, and walking tours focus on: - The evolution of planning ideas, strategies, institutions, and powers, and of planning’s influence on cities and regions around the world; - The structure and dynamics of urban change; - The ways planners and social and environmental scientists have understood, theorized, and responded to social, economic, political, and environmental conditions and change over time; and - The development of the planning profession and its relationships with allied fields, examining various types of planning, urban development, and design.
URBS 4480Neighborhood Displacement and Community Power
This course uses the history of black displacement to examine community power and advocacy. It examines the methods of advocacy (e.g. case, class, and legislative) and political action through which community activists can influence social policy development and community and institutional change. The course also analyzes selected strategies and tactics of change and seeks to develop alternative roles in the group advocacy, lobbying, public education and public relations, electoral politics, coalition building, and legal and ethical dilemmas in political action. Case studies of neighborhood displacement serve as central means of examining course topics.
URBS 4490Planning Public Space (SNF Paideia Program Course)
Philadelphia's commitment to mending the damage wrought by 20th Century highway development has helped drive the planning and development of signature public spaces across the city from the park capping I-95 currently in construction to the Rail Park atop the Reading Viaduct. This work has required navigating complex political and bureaucratic terrain. Using the Rail Park, and its extensions as a lens, the course will help students explore the tensions endemic to urban change. Students will learn from local project managers, advocates, and thought leaders, about how advocates engaged funders, institutions, and bureaucracies to transform Philadelphia's waterfronts, and old industrial core. Participants in the course will work in partnership with the Friends of the Rail Park to develop a framework that fosters community and stakeholder dialogue in the long term development of "the Cut" (the subterranean extensions of the Rail Park, in Philadelphia's loft district, and adjacent to the Community College of Philadelphia and major institutions along the Parkway).
This course explores the politics and practice of urban development, examining and contrasting efforts led by government, community-based groups, and the private sector. Topics will include the historical context, dating to the early 20th century, of contemporary practice; how decisions that shape neighborhood change are made, and who makes them; Students will be required to apply readings and lecture topics to develop and present full project plans, implementation schedules, and related budgets. The class will be in seminar format, mixing lecture, discussion, and technical training. Students should have a basic working knowledge of Microsoft Excel and an understanding of budgets.
URBS 4510The Politics of Housing and Urban Development
This course offers an exploration of how legislative action, government policymaking, and citizen advocacy influence plans for the investment of public capital in distressed urban neighborhoods. Course topics will include City of Philadelphia development policies launched during the administration of Mayor James F. Kenney, who left office in January, 2024, as well as initial policy development plans being advanced by Kenney’s successor, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. The course will include a review and assessment of strategies for vacant property acquisition and development, downtown revitalization, housing preservation, and homelessness prevention. Currently relevant topics, such as homeless encampments, the University City Townhomes, and environmental hazards associated with Camden waterfront development will be examined in special discussion sessions.
URBS 4570Globalization & The City: Global Urbanization
In 2008, the UN estimated that the worlds population had become primarily urban, for the first time in history. According to the OECD, by the end of the century, close to 85% of the projected population will live in cities. The transition towards an urban planet is likely to have far-reaching economic, environmental, social, political, and cultural impacts on our species, many of which we cannot yet predict. But what is urbanization? Will it lead to more inequality, exploitation, conflict, resource consumption, and exposure to natural disasters and climate change, or is it an opportunity to move the world in a more sustainable and equitable direction? Taught by Chandan Deuskar and Patricio Zambrano Barragan, this course aims to explore these questions. In the first half of the semester, we will discuss various challenges associated with global urbanization and its impacts. In the second half, we will focus on responses to these challenges. The assignments will allow students to explore some of the most salient debates around global urbanization By the end of the semester, students will be better able to understand the context for any future academic research, professional work, or business activities in the cities of the 'developing world'. The course wil help provide a foundation for any students considering graduate studies or professional work in the fields of urban planning or international development. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: SOCI 2945 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 2759
URBS 4730The History & Theory of Community Organizing
"Power concedes nothing without a demand."--Frederick Douglass. "Workers of theworld, unite!"--Karl Marx. "Don't mourn. Organize."--Joe Hill. "Strong people do not need strong leaders."--Ella Baker. "Freedom is a constant struggle."--Angela Davis. We will review the history and theory of critique, resistance, and solidarity, as we consider old and new social movements and freedom struggles around the world (Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia)--from encampments for indigenous sovereignty of tribal lands to demonstrations by poor and working people seeking "the right to the city;" from sit-ins and strikes to occupations and takeovers, from uprisings and insurrections to revolutions and counterrevolutions, from anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-caste, and anti-racist insurgencies to mobilizations for racial and gender justice and solidarity economy; from civil rights, labor rights, student rights, human rights, animal rights, and environmental organizing to movements for peace, democracy, equality, and liberation--and more (based on student interests and commitments). Strategies and techniques will be reviewed. Successes and failures will be registered. Limitations and possibilities will be debated. Source material will be drawn from mainstream and radical traditions within popular praxis and numerous fields, including urban studies, philosophy and critical theory, religion, history, artand culture, anthropology, politics, development economics, social psychology, sociology, organizational development, and law. Note: Attendance at the first class is mandatory (for those already enrolled and for those considering enrollment in the course). Enrolled students who miss the first class must drop the course. Those who were not able to enroll but who attend the first class will be permitted to enroll. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: SOCI 2946 1 Course Unit
URBS 4760Urban Housing & Community Development Policy in America
The government intervenes in housing markets in different ways and for different reasons, and relies on a range of partners to do so. This course l explores why the federal and local governments in the U.S., along with non-profit and community-based partners, intervene in housing markets and what forms these interventions take. Specifically, students will learn about: the mechanisms that drive the supply and demand for housing; factors that affect the production, distribution, and location of housing; the social impact of housing on households and neighborhoods; civil rights and fair housing; the equity implications of housing policies and programs. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
A seminar run in conjunction with the Institute for Urban Research at Penn, students will learn about the range of cutting-edge topics in urbanism that Penn faculty are working on and work closely with a faculty member on current research. Students will learn about new topics and methods in interdisciplinary urban research, and get first hand experience collecting urban data under the close supervision of an experienced researcher. Students and faculty jointly will present their findings for discussion. This course is a good introduction for how to frame and conduct an urban research project.
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department.
URBS 5050Women and Urban Struggles in Latin America
In Latin America, 80% of the population lives in a city. As many of these cities enter the worldwide competition for attracting networks and capitals—and to join the select club of the so-called global cities—many city residents become progressively dispossessed and excluded to the peripheries, where urban services are rarely adequate. Power relations of class, race, and gender play an essential role in how dispossession is orchestrated in the city and experienced by its residents. This course focuses on how women, specifically, find ways to “endure” in the cities of Latin America, exploring different cases of urban struggles led by women. Across the region, many have been pointing out the extraordinary leadership of women in a wide variety of political struggles - from occupying public places, to denouncing the disappearance of loved ones, and to community organizing that helps build necessary infrastructure in their neighborhoods. Women are also at the forefront of environmental and ecological transformations, leading initiatives to green their city through urban agriculture, reforestation, recycling, and compost projects. Addressed through a holistic approach to caring, these initiatives are embedded in broader struggles for housing, security, and wellness, specifically in the urban peripheries. The contingency of these projects is, at their core, multifaceted: they are typically part of women’s implication in popular education, artivism, and human rights defense. During this course, we will explore and analyze how the specific urban contexts of Latin America affect women and their political subjectivities and how, through their struggles, they play an essential role in re-shaping their cities. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: GSWS 5050, LALS 5050 1 Course Unit
This course will introduce students to the principles behind Geographic Information Science and applications of (GIS) in the social sciences. Examples of GIS applications in social services, public health, criminology, real estate, environmental justice, education, history, and urban studies will be used to illustrate how GIS integrates, displays, and facilitates analysis of spatial data through maps and descriptive statistics. Students will learn to create data sets through primary and secondary data collection, map their own data, and create maps to answer research questions. The course will consist of a combination of lecture and lab.
URBS 5420Archiving Jazz: Visuality And Materiality In The Phila Jazz
Community 1945-2019 This seminar will be organized around three distinct pathways. First, it will serve as an introduction to Jazz Studies and thus be attentive to the ways that jazz music has sparked an interdisciplinary conversation that is wide-ranging and ongoing. Second, we will be partnering with the African American Museum of Philadelphia to consider jazz within the realm of visual art. In light of efforts to map the "black interior," how have visual artists (e.g. painters, sculptors, filmmakers, and photographers) sought to represent jazz? Third, we will endeavor to develop partnerships with the Philadelphia (and beyond) jazz community, especially as it pertains to creating and sustaining an archive that serves as way to understand jazz as an instrument of placemaking and also as a vehicle for jazz musicians to take ownership of their narratives. The seminar will meet at the African American Museum of Philadelphia and be team taught with members of the Museum staff. The course will culminate with a virtual exhibit of visual works and archival materials centering on Philadelphia's jazz community and (if funding is available) a free concert to be held at AAMP. Undergraduates are welcome to register for the course with permission of the instructor. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: AFRC 5420, ARTH 5190 1 Course Unit
By necessity, work in environmental humanities spans academic disciplines. By design, it can also address and engage publics beyond traditional academic settings. This seminar explores best practices in public environmental humanities. Students receive close mentoring and build collaborative community to develop and execute cross- disciplinary, public engagement projects on the environment. This spring, this broadly interdisciplinary course is designed in conjunction with the ongoing environmental humanities project, An Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene. In the framework of our seminar, students will have opportunities to work with tne project’s curators and educators as well as Toolmakers on project-based assignments that also engage wider publics around issues of climate and environmental justice. This lab- style seminar is suitable for advanced undergraduates (with permission) and fulfills the “Capstone” requirement for the Minor in Environmental Humanities. It is also open to graduate students in departments across Arts and Sciences as well as other schools at the university. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 5440, COML 5440, ENVS 5440, GRMN 5440 1 Course Unit
This course examines the possibilities and limitations of conceiving of and realizing citizenship on a global scale. Readings, guest lecturers, and discussions will focus on dilemmas associated with addressing issues that transcend national boundaries. In particular, the course compares global/local dynamics that emerge across different types of improvement efforts focusing on distinctive institutions and social domains, including: educational development; human rights; humanitarian aid; free trade; micro-finance initiatives; and the global environmental movement. The course has two objectives: to explore research and theoretical work related to global citizenship, social engagement, and international development; and to discuss ethical and practical issues that emerge in the local contexts where development initiatives are implemented.
An introduction to the intent, approach, and contribution of anthropology to the study of socialization and schooling in cross-cultural perspective. Education is examined in traditional, colonial, and complex industrial societies. Fall, Spring, and Summer Terms Also Offered As: ANTH 5470, EDUC 5495 1 Course Unit
This course will examine the urban structures and processes which characterize the social and cultural milieu of the contemporary American city. Specific course topics will include the social organization of local urban subcultures and neighborhood communities, the cultural consequences of gentrification and racial segregation, the reputation of cities in the public imagination, and the commodification of the urban landscape. Also Offered As: SOCI 5670 1 Course Unit
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department.
This scholar-oriented seminar explores how academic researchers from different disciplines define researchable questions, craft research designs, and contribute to knowledge through an examination of important and/or recently published books and monographs with an urban focus. Through rigorous textual analysis, the seminar explores the economic and political philosophies that have come to shape 20th and 21st century urbanism. Ultimately, it is intended to offer a range of analytic approaches to understanding urban structures and processes that urban scholars, policy planners, and community activists seek to influence. We will focus primarily on postwar Midwestern and Northeastern U.S Cities, emphasizing the political economy tradition as well as the crisis of representation. We will evaluate competing analytic trends in the social sciences, critically analyzing urban research from the disciplines of sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and socia welfare.
Over fifty percent of the worlds population now lives in cities. Neoliberlism-the ideology and accompanying policies and practices that champion the shifting of political decision making from the public sector to the private sector - has been widely recognized as having shown dramatic growth worldwide since the 1970s. It has also been widely regarded as a product of globalization. This course traces the history of neo-liberalism in global context with particular attention to neoliberalism's relationship to cities, and exam the role that urban growth has played in spurring neoliberal policies and practices. It asks how policy makers, voters, and private interest worldwide have responded to the growth of urban poverty and slums, challenges withing urban public education, unequal resource distribution, environmental pressures experienced within urban sanitation and waste disposal systems, and increased demands for municipal services like water, electricity, and transport infrastructers, and examined the rise of public-private partnerships, gated communities, initiatives to privatized education and municipal services, and efforts to relocate slum-dwellers and beautify cities as explicit strategies for attracting "global capital". The course also asks how the recent rise of neoliberal policies and practices differs from earlier market-driven and private sector led forms of political governance. The British and Dutch East India Companies are two famous examples of joint stock companies that assumed administrative and political roles over their colonies. How did the rise of these colonial relationships differ from current neoliberal shifts. Readings will draw heavily from ethnographic and urban studies, scholarship on South Asia, as well as Latin America, South Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, exploring what each of these specific contexts has to teach us more generally about the relationship between urbanization, global capitalism, public and private sectors, and political processes and decision making. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: SAST 6604 1 Course Unit l 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
We may be tethered to global networks, streaming content from around the planet, joining in conversation (or conspiracy) with folks from all corners of the earth, but we also live in places with local characters and concerns, among people with local needs and contributions. What happens when we lose the local media — the newspapers and broadcast outlets — that bind and inform our localized communities? In this course we’ll consider the important roles served by our place-based media, as well as what’s lost when our local modes of communication collapse. But we’ll also consider what might be gained if we think more generously about what constitutes local media — and if we imagine how they might be redesigned to better serve our communities, our broader society, and our planet. Through readings, listening and screening exercises, occasional in-class field trips and guest speakers, and low-barrier-to- entry in-class labs, we’ll study local news; local book cultures, including libraries and bookshops and independent printers; local music scenes, including performance venues and record shops and music reviewers; local infrastructures of connection and distribution, including post offices and community digital networks; local data creators and collectors; local signage and interactive public media; local emergency communication resources; local whisper networks and town gossip; and a selection of other case studies that reflect students’ interests. Students can tentatively expect to contribute brief dossiers to our class discussions; participate in a few small (and ideally enjoyable!) design workshops and group exercises; and, in lieu of a final exam, contribute a creative, research-based, illustrated entry to our collective class publication, a local media field guide that we’ll design and publish in collaboration with local makers. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ARTH 7782, CIMS 6782, ENGL 6782 1 Course Unit
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department.
This doctoral level course will introduce students to a conceptual language and theoretical tools for analyzing and explaining the complex intersection of racialized, ethnic, gendered, sexual, and classed differences and asymmetrical social relations. The students will examine critically the interrelationships between culture, power, and subjectivity through a close reading of classical and contemporary social theory. Emphasis will be given to assessing the power of various theories for conceptualizing and explaining mechanisms of social stratification as well as the basis of social order and processes of social change. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 7040, EDUC 8405 1 Course Unit
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department. Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department.
Specialized topics in Urban Studies. This course may be taken by permit only, once a faculty advisor has agreed to be the professor of record, and the scope of work has been approved in advance by the department.
URBS 9005Finding Voice: Perspectives on Race, Class and Gender
This writing workshop explores the influence of identity, primarily race, class, gender, and sexuality, on the ways we convey our personal truths to the world. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: AFRC 9005, ENGL 9005, GSWS 9005, MLA 5005 1 Course Unit
This class will examine the intellectual legacy that James Baldwin left to present-day writers such as Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, Ta- Nehisi Coates, Thulani Davis, Caryl Phillips, and others. We will spend time reading and discussing Baldwin's novels, short stories, plays and essays, and students will research subjects of their own choosing about Baldwin's life and art. Also Offered As: AFRC 9006, ENGL 9006, GSWS 9006, MLA 5006 1 Course Unit
This memoir workshop will shine light on the human experience as viewed through your personal lens. We’ll see how memoir can illuminate larger cultural themes - from the inhumanity of war, to racism, misogyny, and economic inequality - as viewed through lived experiences. Also Offered As: ENGL 9013, GSWS 9013, MLA 5013 1 Course Unit
URBS 9016Being Human: A Personal Approach to Race, Class & Gender
In this workshop, we will address the ways race, class, and gender impact our lives, our work, and our culture. As a class, we will create connection and community by practicing deep listening, daily writing, deep reading, and the sharing of ideas and observations. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: AFRC 9016, ENGL 9016, GSWS 9016, MLA 5016 1 Course Unit
