CITIES AND GLOBALIZATION

The course offers a geographical perspective on globalization and provides an exploration of its spatial impacts. Particular emphasis will be given to the impacts of globalization on urban areas being the city the principal site through which globalization occurs. This is reflected in the various social, economic, and political changes that have not only added emphasis to the dynamics of cities, but have also multiplied the contradictions and tensions underlying urban development.

Specifically, the course aims at pursuing the following learning objectives:

• Acquiring knowledge: the students will acquire theoretical-methodological skills in the field of urban geography to interpret and deconstruct global forces occurring in urban contexts;
• Making judgments: the students will be able to critically evaluate the complex tangle of global/local forces occurring in cities;
• Developing Communication skills: the students will be able to transfer to others, with a full command of technical language, information and assessments about the relationship between cities and globalization;
• Learning skills: at the end of the course students will have gained the necessary knowledge to deepen and integrate theoretical concepts with practical skills for a critical analysis of globalization dynamics that influence and/or emerge from urban contexts.

Teaching methods:

Students are taught through lectures, seminars, class discussions, case study analysis (also based on multimedia material), fieldworks. Students are exposed to various modes of inter-personal communications and collaborative teamwork. All students are expected to engage in class discussion.

Assessment methods

Final oral exam

Introduction: Key Issues and Themes

What is a City? Globalization and the Urban Experience

Text 1, pp. 1- 21

2. Urban Development and the Politics of Representation. From Fordism to post-Fordism reinventing cities in a context of economic transition

Text 1 pp. 25-50

3.Making Culture Work: The Rise of The Creative City

Text n. 1 pp. 51-68

4.The rise of neoliberalism

Text 1, pp. 71-86

5.The practice of urban neoliberalism

Text n. 1, pp. 86-102

6. Gentrification, global processes and local impacts

Learning material provided through Studium

7. Urban geopolitics: violence, fear, urbicide

Text n. 1, pp. 103-131

8. Politics as contestation

Text 1, pp. 131-178

9. New technologies and cities in (post)pandemic times

Learning material provided through Studium

Fieldwork

Global forces and local dynamics in a Southern Mediterranean city: a fieldwork in the historical centre of Catania

Text n. 1 Rossi U., Vanolo A., Urban Political Geography. A Global Perspective. London: Sage.

Other learning material (scientific/newspaper articles) will be provided through Studium platform.