URBST 101: Urban Poverty and Affluence
Spring 2023
Instructor: Idil Onen
Email: ionen@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Office hours: Thursdays 2:00 pm-3:00 pm or by appointment. Email me if you have any questions or would like to discuss the course materials or assignments. I’m also happy to meet with you over Zoom.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will introduce you to the field of Urban Studies. We will investigate why cities are places of economic and political opportunity for some and places of deprivation, discrimination, violence and impoverishment for others. We will explore how urban restructuring since the 1970s has increased the income gap in major metropolitan areas such as New York. We will also discuss different theories of urban poverty and inequality and examine the impact of immigration, racial segregation, suburbanization, public policies, and social movements on U.S. cities and their inhabitants. Paying particular attention to inequalities based on race, class, gender, and sexuality, we will analyze proposals to reduce these inequalities.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The students will:
- Learn the history of US urban restructuring from the latter half of the 20th century to the present. 2. Gain familiarity with contemporary approaches to the study of poverty and inequality from a variety of social scientific perspectives and disciplines.
- Gain familiarity with basic urban research methods such as fieldwork, survey research, statistical research, and historical analysis.
- Understand the difference between different disciplinary approaches to the study of urban areas. 5. Learn to read and critically analyze urban policy proposals.
COURSE STRUCTURE
The course material is divided into weekly modules (on the Blackboard course page under “Weekly Modules”). Each week we will cover several readings, and a homework assignment based on that week’s readings. Both the reading and homework should be completed BEFORE our regular weekly lectures on Mondays at 10:45. Since the homework assignments are time-released to correspond with the lectures, you cannot “skip ahead.” However, the weekly readings are already available, so you can read ahead.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Discussion Sections:
You are required to attend weekly discussion sections. Participation in your discussion sections is a required part of your final grade. Participation in discussion sections will be taken through short written in-class assignments and exercises each week. There will be 12 in-class written assignments over the course of the semester. You must complete 10 out of the 12 for full credit for participation in the discussion sections. These assignments cannot be made up out of class or turned in late.
Homework Assignments:
You must complete EIGHT (out of a total of ELEVEN) short homework assignments over the course of the semester. Assignments will be available on Blackboard within the corresponding week’s folder. You are free to choose any eight assignments (and therefore can choose which three to miss).
Homework guidelines:
Homework assignments are made available on Blackboard on the Tuesday before their corresponding lecture, and they are due by 10:00am on the following Monday. For instance, Homework #5 will be made available on Tuesday, March 7th and due by 10am on March 13th. Blackboard will not allow you to submit after that time.
Because we allow you to miss three homework assignments for any reason, it follows that no late assignments will be accepted. It also follows that we cannot accept excuses after you have already missed three assignments. We know that some of you will try anyway, but we really mean this. You read it here first: No exceptions!
Homework assignments will be graded as follows:
Each homework assignment is worth a total of FOUR POINTS. Therefore, if the assignment has two questions, each question will be worth two points, totaling four points. For the short answer assignments, grading will be based on the quality of your answers, so it is important that you answer each question fully so that you can earn full credit for the homework assignment.
Midterm Exam
This exam covers the first half of the course. The exam will consist of multiple choice questions. We will distribute a study sheet about a week before the exam.
Final Exam
This exam covers the second half of the course primarily; however, you may be asked conceptual questions from the first half of the semester. We will distribute a study sheet about a week before the exam.
Grading Breakdown
Discussion Section In-Class Assignments (10 out of 12) = 10%
Syllabus Quiz = 5%
Homework (8 of 10) = 25%
Midterm Exam = 30%
Final Exam = 30%
REQUIRED READINGS
All course materials will be made available on the main course Blackboard page. There are no additional required texts for the class.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY & PLAGIARISM
Queens College takes cheating and plagiarism very seriously; if caught you may fail the course and/or be suspended from the college. Don’t copy other people’s work. This means that you should not take the words or ideas of another person and submit them without acknowledging the original author. Examples of plagiarism include copying from another student’s homework assignment or taking phrases, paragraphs or papers from course readings, the internet or other students and representing them as your own. You must always indicate when you have used an idea from someone else’s work; anything else constitutes stealing from others and violates both the ethics of this class and established academic standards. There are now sophisticated search engines that prove beyond a reasonable doubt when students have downloaded web-based material and submitted it as their own (CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity, adapted June 28, 2004). See http://web.cuny.edu/academics/info-central/policies/academic-integrity.pdf)
COURSE SCHEDULE
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Monday Lecture and Wednesday Discussion Sections |
Weekly readings and Homework |
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1/30/23 |
Introduction: What is Urban Studies?
Discussion sections meet 2/1/23 |
Syllabus quiz due 2/10 by 11:59pm |
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2/6 |
Rich and Poor in the 21st Century Discussion sections meet 2/8 |
Deaton, A. “Republic of Unequals.” Prospect Magazine ● Marx, P. “Jeff Bezos, Your Legacy is Exploitation” ● Littler, J. “Meritocracy: The Great Illusion That Ingrains Inequality” HW #1 Due 2/6 by 10am |
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2/13 |
No Classes Scheduled |
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2/21 (Classes follow a Monday Schedule on Tuesday 2/21) |
Understanding Poverty Discussion sections meet 2/23 |
● Iceland, J. “Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Poverty and Affluence, 1959-2015” ● Ros and Bateman, “Low-wage jobs are more pervasive than you think”, Brookings Institute HW #2 due 2/21 by 10am |
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2/27 |
The Historical Development of U.S. Cities Discussion sections meet 3/1 |
● Serbulo, L. Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 in Urban Literacy: Learning to Read the City Around You ● Ross and Levine. Chapter 2 in Cities and Suburbs in a Global Age ● Documentary: “The House We Live In. (segment from “Race: The Power of an Illusion)
HW #3 due 2/27 by 10am |
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3/6 |
“The Urban Crisis”: Considering The 1975 NYC Fiscal Crisis
Discussion sections meet 3/8 |
● Phillips-Fein, K. “Fear City”, Intro and chapter 1. ● Documentary: “Decade of Fire” 2018.
HW #4 due 3/6 by 10am |
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3/13 |
Urban Economic Restructuring and the Transformation of Work Discussion sections meet 3/15 |
Lester Spence, “Knocking the Hustle” Foreward and Chapters 1&2 HW #5 due 3/13 by 10am |
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3/20 |
Urban Planning I: Urban Residential Segregation to Gentrification
Discussion sections meet 3/22 |
● Serbulo, L. Chapter 1 and Chapter 6 in Urban Literacy: Learning to Read the City Around You ● Lindner, C., & Sandoval, G. F. Chapter 1 in Aesthetics of gentrification: Seductive spaces and exclusive communities in the neoliberal city. ● Mullenite,J. “Every house a sanctuary: Fighting displacement on all fronts in Sunset Park, Brooklyn” in Radical Housing Journal HW #6 due 3/20 by 10am |
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3/27 |
Midterm review with Professor Dickinson Midterm exam: 3/29 |
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4/3 |
Urban Planning II: The Militarization and Privatization of Public Space No discussion section: Spring Break starts 4/5 |
● Davis, M. “Fortress Los Angeles” ● Baker, M. “Free Food, Free Speech and Free of Police: Inside Seattle’s ‘Autonomous Zone’” June 11, 2020 ● Kerrigan, S. “15 Examples of ‘Anti-Homeless’ Hostile Architecture That You Probably Never Noticed Before.” 2018
HW #7 due 4/3 by 10am |
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4/17 |
Poverty Governance: Welfare Reform and Labor Discipline Discussion sections meet 4/19 |
Johnnie Tillmon, “Welfare is a Woman’s Issue” Briggs, Laura. Welfare Reform, chapter 2 in “How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics” HW #8 due 4/17 by 10am |
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4/24 |
Criminal Injustice: Spotlight on Abolition Discussion sections meet 4/26 |
● Stein, D. “What Abolitionists Do” ● Vitale, A. “Police and the Liberal Fantasy” ● Kushner, R. “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind” ● Schenwar & Law, “Communities as Open-Air Prisons”
HW #9 due 4/24 by 10am |
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5/1 |
Race, Labor, and Migration: A Nation of Immigrants? Discussion sections meet 5/3 |
● Dunbar-Ortiz. “Stop Saying this is a Nation of Immigrants” ● Kwong, P. “What’s Wrong With the US Immigration Debate” ● Wu, Frank. “Beyond the Model Minority Myth” ● Denvir, D. “The Roots of Trump’s Immigration Barbarity” Jacobin (June 2018)
HW #10 due 5/1 by 10am |
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5/8 |
Environmental Justice and Climate Change Discussion sections meet 5/10 |
● Meyer. W. “Q&A with Todd Miller.” ● Cho, R. “How New York City is Preparing For Climate Change”
HW #11 due 5/8 by 10am |
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5/15 |
Urban Health Inequality No discussion sections. Classes end 5/15 |
● Otero Peña, J. E.,et al. “The Role of the Physical and Social Environment in Observed and Self-Reported Park Use in Low-Income Neighborhoods in New York City”
No homework. Study for your final! |
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Final Exam |
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