PSCI 17
The Third World City Winter 2019

Cross-listed PSCI 17 / GBST 17
This is not the current course catalog

In 2007, the world became majority urban. But most of these urbanites live not in places like New York or Tokyo but rather in places like Lagos or Mumbai, dwelling in shantytowns and working in petty commerce. Their cities’ path of urbanization diverges from the “normal” one accompanying industrialization in the West and in East Asia. About this phenomenon, arguably the most important social fact in today’s world, observers have adopted wildly divergent normative and theoretical stances, from the romantically optimistic to the apocalyptic. We read a few of these, including Mike Davis, Rem Koolhaas, Hernando De Soto, and Robert Neuwirth, and watch some films and videos on the subject.