Urban political economy

The course is divided up in 8 lectures

1. Introduction – the city as social product
2. The production of urban space under capitalism
3. The urbanization of neoliberalism
4. The neoliberalization of urbanism
5. Culture as urban regenerator?
6. (Resistance to) gentrification
7. Ordinary urbanizations
8. On urban alternatives

The course consists of a political-economy approach to contemporary urban change, using Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualization of the production of space as main theoretical foundation.

It is composed of a series of lectures exploring in turn the role of the spatial practices of capital, state-territorial regulations, and grassroots-led urbanizations in contemporary urban change at various scales. To do so, the course combines insights from different theoretical frameworks, most notably critical urban theory and neo-institutional approaches to urban governance, as well as a dose of post-colonial urban theory.

The overarching aim of this course is to help developing a critical perspective on now widely held representations that tend to naturalize urban change or reduce urban issues to mere techno-management problems, therefore obscuring their deeply political character. Cities are rather considered here as social constructs shaped by negotiations and struggles between uneven social forces in various territorial contexts and under evolving historical circumstances.

ex cathedra lectures, with room for interactions

Références, bibliographie et lectures recommandées

see suggested readings list + pdf available on the UV

Support(s) de cours

• Université virtuelle

Informations complémentaires

see UV course page

Contacts

mathieu.van.criekingen@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Méthode(s) d'évaluation

• Travail personnel
• Examen écrit

Travail personnel

Examen écrit

Construction de la note (en ce compris, la pondération des notes partielles)

written exam 50%, photo essay 50%

Langue(s) d'évaluation

• anglais