Changing cities

Urban processes are increasingly held to be responsible for causing a variety of problems environmental destruction, social injustice, global financial instability. They are also identified as harbouring the potential to meet these challenges through urban experiments in sustainable living, creative culture and alternative economies. This free course, Changing cities, explores how contemporary processes of urbanisation challenge how we think about political agency, providing a framework for the analysis of the causes, implications and responses to issues of common concern.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 Making use of critical spatial theory
• 1 Making use of critical spatial theory
• 1.1 What do we mean by ‘theory’?
• 2 Acting locally in a world of connections
• 2 Acting locally in a world of connections
• 2.1 Places shaping and responding to global change
• 3 Three ways of thinking about urban agency
• 3 Three ways of thinking about urban agency
• 3.1 From urban theory to the problematisation of urban living
• 3.2 Problematising urban processes
• 3.3 Three types of questions about agency
• 4 Explaining urban issues
• 4 Explaining urban issues
• 4.1 Urban theory and case studies
• 4.2 The globalisation of urbanisation
• 4.3 Living on the knife-edge
• 4.4 The right to the city
• 4.5 Limits to explanation
• 5 Understanding urban issues
• 5 Understanding urban issues
• 5.1 Urbanism as a way of life
• Living with others
• 5.2 Urban space and the public sphere
• Two types of solidarity
• 5.3 Cities as communicative spaces
• 5.4 Urban spaces of public address
• 6 Acting on urban issues
• 6 Acting on urban issues
• 6.1 The politics of urbanisation processes
• 6.2 The limits of localism I: the limits of inclusion
• 6.3 The limits of localism II: the limits of efficacy
• 6.4 Making use of the critical spatial thinking framework
• Conclusion
• References
• Further reading
• Acknowledgements