1 – February 3: Introductions, overview of syllabus and class blog.
Discuss neighborhood research project (start looking for a public meeting to attend!)
2 – February 10: Ways of seeing urban change and urban life.
Tutorial: Neighborhood observation data collection
Film: Uneven Growth NYC (24 min)
Readings:
Kleniewski, Nancy and Alexander R. Thomas. 2011. Cities, Change & Conflict: A Political Economy of Urban Life. Chapter 2, “Theoretical Perspectives on the City.” p.21-45.
Gregory, Steven. 1998. Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community. Chapter 1, “Introduction”. p.1-19.
3 – February 17: Field Trip to MoMA exhibit: Uneven Growth NYC
Make sure to bring both your Macaulay and Brooklyn College IDs to the MoMA. Show your student ID at the information desk for a free admission ticket. Meet just inside the 54th Street doors, with your tickets, at 3:45pm (museum closes at 5:30)
Readings:
Kleniewski, Nancy and Alexander R. Thomas. 2011. Cities, Change & Conflict. “Criminalizing Homelessness” (p.13-18 only) and “The Homeless” (p.232-234 only)
Picture the Homeless. 2012. Banking on Vacancy: Homelessness and Real Estate Speculation.
Frazier, Ian. 2013. “Hidden City.” The New Yorker, October 28, 2013.
4 – February 24: Housing, the state, and the market.
Neighborhood observation oral presentations.
Film: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (83 min)
Readings:
Hackworth, Jason. 2007. The Neoliberal City. Chapter 1 (p.1-11 only) and Chapter 3 (p.40-51 only).
Stein, Samuel. 2014. “Di Blasio’s Doomed Housing Plan.” Jacobin.
Torres, Ritchie and David R. Jones. 2014. “With federal funding at ‘starvation levels,’ the New York City Housing Authority needs the city and state to step in to stem the agency’s recent decline.” NYDN August 25, 2014.
Kusisto, Laura. 2014. “New York City to Sell Public Housing Stake.” WSJ, December 7, 2014.
5 – March 3: Defining gentrification.
Neighborhood research team meetings: Meet with the other members of your group to discuss which challenge/problem/crisis your group will examine and address. By next week’s class, submit a 150-200 word justification for why the issue is relevant in the neighborhood you are studying (see assignment page).
Readings:
Lees, Lorretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly. 2008. Gentrification. Chapter 1, “The Birth of Gentrification”. p.3-36.
Smith, Neil. 1996. “Mapping the Gentrification Frontier.” The New Urban Frontier.
6 – March 10: Gentrification flash points.
Neighborhood public meeting oral presentations.
Submit your proposal for the challenge/problem/crisis your group will research and address. Post it to the class blog by 1pm, using the category “Research proposal”.
Film: My Brooklyn.
Readings:
Smith, Neil. 1996. “Class Struggle on Avenue B: The Lower East Side as Wild Wild West.” The New Urban Frontier.
Marsh, Ian. 2014. “Brooklyn Tenants Battle Gentrification on Many Fronts.” City Limits, April 29, 2014.
7 – March 17: Climate Crisis
Film: Land of Opportunity with Lydia
Readings:
PlaNYC’s official statement on climate change.
Graham, Stephen. 2006. “Cities Under Siege: Katrina and the Politics of Metropolitan America.” Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences.
Foderaro, Lisa W. 2014. “Taking a Call for Climate Change to the Streets.” NYT, September 21, 2014.
Spend 30 minutes on the Land of Opportunity interactive website
8 – March 24 Climate Crisis
Presentation on presentations, with Lydia.
Readings:
Sze, Julie. 2006. “Toxic Soup Redux: Why Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Matter after Katrina.” Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences.
INCITE! “Law Enforcement Violence and Disaster.”
Kavner, Lucas. 2012. “For Public Housing Residents After Sandy, ‘A Slow-Motion Katrina’”. Huffington Post, November 9, 2012.
Feuer, Alan. 2012. “Occupy Sandy: A Movement Moves to Relief.” NYT, November 9, 2012.
9 – March 31: Community planning.
Neighborhood research group presentations: Explain the issue
Readings:
Angotti, Tom. 2008. New York For Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate. Chapter 1, “Community Planning without Displacement: Strategies for Progressive Planning.”
April 7 – NO CLASS (SPRING BREAK)
10 – April 14: Income inequality. Field trip to Interference Archive exhibit, “We Won’t Move: Tenants Organize in New York City”.
Readings:
Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel Cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolution. Verso. Chapter 7, “#OWS: The Party of Wall Street Meets its Nemesis.” p.159-164.
Katz, Cindi. 2006. “Power, Space, and Terror: Social Reproduction and the Public Environment.” In The Politics of Public Space (Low and Smith, eds.). p.105-122.
Cohen, Patricia. 2015. “Richest 1% Likely to Control Half of Global Wealth by 2016, Study Finds.” NYT, January 19, 2015.
Callahan, David. 2014. “The Billionaires’ Park.” NYT, November 30, 2014
11 – April 21 Policing the Crisis
Film: Giuliani Time
Readings:
Erzen, Tanya. 2001. “Turnstile Jumpers and Broken Windows: Policing Disorder in New York City.” In Zero Tolerance: Quality of Life and the New Police Brutality in New York City, McArdle, Andrea and Tanya Erzen (eds). New York: NYU Press.
Smith, Neil. 1998. “Giuliani Time: The revanchist 1990s.” Social Text, No.57 (Winter, 1998).
INCITE! “”Quality of Life” Policing.”
12 – April 28 Neighborhood research group presentations: Explanation of the issue (condensed) and your proposal to address the challenge/problem/crisis.
Readings:
Hanhardt, Christina B. 2013. Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence. Ch.5, “”Canaries of the Creative Age”: Queer critiques of risk and real estate in the twenty-first century.” p.185-220.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY MAY 2-3:
MACAULAY-WIDE SEMINAR 4 COMMON EVENT
13 – May 5: Field trip – Bushwick gentrification and anti-displacement walking tour.
Readings:
Davis, Mike. 1990. City of Quartz. New York: Vintage Books. Chapter 4, “Fortress L.A.” p.221-264.
14 – May 12 Policing the crisis
Complete peer assessment forms.
Readings:
Crenshaw, Kimberle´ and Gary Peller. 1993. “Reel Time / Real Justice.” Reading Urban Uprising, edited by Robert Gooding-Williams, chapter five, p.56-69. New York: Routledge.
Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapter 3, “The Prison Fix.” p.87-97; 107-120; 125-127.
15 – May 19 – TBA (Final Exam Week)
