SE How Cities grow
Global Perspectives on the Histories of Urban Development

Avi Sharma

Modul 5: Ressourcen und Dynamik der Stadtentwicklung

Fr 10-12 Uhr • ONLINE • Beginn: 06.11.2020

The logics of urban development are a common theme in a wide range of fields, from urban planning and history, to sociology and development studies. One common narrative focuses on demography, industrialization and deindustrialization. This is an important perspective, and one that clearly corresponds to Western experiences of urbanization. There are, of course, other ways that cities grow. Cities on every continent have expanded dramatically due to exceptional migration events. Cities are built ex nihilo to showcase financial power. The discovery or exploitation of natural resources has transformed towns into cities overnight. Cities were born as capitals to new nations. Land invasion and urban sprawl are competing logics of urbanization that are typical in different parts of the world. This is a course about how cities grow, and as such, it attempts to highlight core themes. It will then introduce variations, raising core questions about the urban.

Relevant Works::

• Max Weber (1904) Die „Objektivität“ sozialwissenschaftlicher u. sozialpolitischer Erkenntis
• Jennifer Robinson (2013); “Global and World Cities: A View From off the Map”
• Ananya Roy & Nezar Alsayaad (2004), Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia