Sociology 271 - The Global City

One of every ten people in the world lives in a megacity (>10 million people). Understanding urbanization and the culture of city life is essential, as is understanding the global connections of people, products, cultural values, and capital as they flow through these nodes. This course explores the history of urbanization and how places become centers of production and consumption. We will look closely at the relationship between physical space and human meaning, how places become distinct, flows of migration, the relationship between global and local, low culture and high culture, and how ideas and institutions travel from one place to others. Through a combination of readings, lectures, discussions, films, analysis of photographs and maps, and writing exercises and research projects, we will build a working knowledge about The Global City and develop a useful approach to studying urban life.