GEOS2122/2922: Urban Geography

GEOS 2122 Urban Geography
GEOS 2922 Urban Geography (Advanced)
Dr Kurt Iveson, Prof John Connell

Session: July
Classes: 2 lec, 2 prac/wk
Prerequisites: 24 credit points of Junior units of study, including GEOG 1001 or GEOG 1002 or GEOS 1001 or GEOS 1002 or GEOS 1003 or ECOP 1001 or ECOP 1002.
Prohibitions: GEOG 2521
Assessment: One 2hr exam, 2000w essay, tutorial papers, prac reports

By their very nature, cities are full of different people doing all sorts of different things. These activities all have their own geographies – people make the most of urban spaces available to them, and they shape and produce new kinds of cities through their actions. These urban geographies are unstable and contested. In fact, efforts to shape urban spaces in particular ways are fundamentally dynamic and political.

This Unit of Study will examine the politics of a range of different practices which use and shape urban space – such as shopping, eating, crime, religion, language, protest, sport, music, sex, mobility, and hanging out. In considering these various practices, we will investigate how different people perceive space and construct space, primarily in western contexts. The Unit as a whole seeks to understand the cultural and political dimensions of everyday life in cities, and to develop new perspectives on metropolitan change.