GEOG 161

Main Course

Cities and Social Difference

Description

Lecture, two hours; discussion, one hour. Consideration of how a city comes to look and feel the way it does, who gets to claim space, and the role of race and movements for social justice in this process. Examination of the way that race and inequality are built into the structures of, and ideas about, urban life through the spatial and racial structures of property and urban development, racialized migration, and redevelopment and movements for social justice. Through understanding the development of cities in the U.S. through structures of race and racism, students gain better understanding of why and how patterns of urban neglect, gentrification, and displacement occur. Examination of the way that concepts and imaginaries of urban space can exaggerate or conceal the role of race in producing city spaces. Study considers the development of race and urbanism nationally, but often refer to Los Angeles, and California more broadly, and its underlying structure as a racial geography. P/NP or letter grading.