This course is required for BA Environmental Design majors and Environmental Design minors and is an approved social science general education course.

This course is designed to introduce you to the phenomenon of ‘the city’, and to explore our urban environment. Today, an ever-increasing percentage of the world population lives in urban areas, like Buffalo and Beijing, New York and New Delhi, Toronto and Tokyo, London and Lagos, Rome and Rio de Janeiro. How did these urban areas and city systems get shaped over time, and what makes them work (or not)? Through lectures, audio-visual materials, fieldtrips, assigned course readings, and discussions, the course aims to provide you with both a global perspective on processes of urbanization and an understanding of the kinds of physical, economic, social, and cultural forces that shape cities, their growth, and urban life within them.