About the course

This course is framed around the "urban question", with an emphasis on urbanisation and poverty in the global south. Through engaging both scholarly debates and policy frameworks, this course examines the patterns, processes and implications of urbanisation in developing societies, with reference to the survival and well-being of low-income groups, and the variability of urban life and poverty across space. We will consider the new challenges to the urban, people and poverty that COVID will bring out in the global south. The course will also include on-line guest lectures by leading practitioners and activists to discuss with students their work in this field.

We will consider: the scholarly debates within urban geography on uneven geographical development, and the relationship between the urban and neo-liberalism; new international policy frameworks to address urban poverty, including the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); the specific challenges of urban violence, conflict and displacement.   

Dr. Laura Antona

Image on the Left: Julie Mehretu, Mogmma (A painting in four parts), 2012, Part 4, Ink and Acrylic on Canvas, 180x144 inches. Photographed by Ben Westoby, Courtesy of the artist and the Marian Goodman Gallery.