The course aims to provide students with interpretative and methodological tools useful for analyzing the most recent socio-territorial transformations in their economic, political, symbolic-cultural, and physical-environmental dimensions, through a sociologically oriented approach, problematizing the thinking of some classical and contemporary authors with reference to the city.

With reference to the Dublin Descriptors, upon completion of the course, female and male students must achieve the following results:

1. Knowledge and comprehension skills. Understanding the specificities of the sociological approach with reference to socio-territorial and environmental change.

2. Applied knowledge and comprehension skills. Ability to analyze and understand: a) the main themes of urban sociology, with reference to the history of sociological thought on the city and contemporary scientific debate; b) the role of theories on the city in research activity.

3. Autonomy of judgment. The acquisition of skills in identifying and analyzing quantitative-qualitative data; the ability to critically analyze scientific research; and the predisposition to reflect on the ethical as well as social responsibilities associated with the application of certain knowledge to territorial and environmental issues.

4. Communication skills. Knowledge of a sociologically oriented language with a socio-territorial key.

5. Ability to learn. Knowing how to apply the main interpretative and methodological paradigms for the understanding and study of emerging issues in contemporary urban contexts.

The course content is inspired by Goal 11 – Sustainable cities and communities: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, durable and sustainable” of the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.

Teaching is focused on the following two macro-themes.

SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CITY. Through the main theoretical approaches to the study of urban dynamics and the focus on the characteristics assumed by the evolution of the city in the history of the development of societies, the course will aim to stimulate students' reflection and ability to criticize the theories and above all the practices of modern urban transformations, trying to encourage the indispensable sensitivity to identify the problems that characterize today's societies and to hypothesize useful projects to address them.

URBAN SOCIETIES, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. This part of the teaching will also direct attention to the new social morphology of the city, highlighting the urbanization methods typical of the current phase, among which the processes of urban diffusion have taken on particular importance in the last few decades. It will be highlighted how these centrifugal tendencies, however, are manifested in conjunction with the unfolding of processes of the opposite sign, which - as happens in some important metropolises - are producing the revitalization of the central areas of the large metropolitan areas.

- C. COLLOCA, “Urbanesimo”, in G. BETTIN LATTES e L. RAFFINI (a cura di), Manuale di sociologia, Cedam, Padova, Vol. II, 2011, pp. 867-905.

- G. NUVOLATI (a cura di), Lezioni di sociologia urbana, il Mulino, Bologna, 2011.

- A. MELA, Sociologia delle città, Carocci, Roma, 2006, soltanto i seguenti capitoli: 3. Economia e società urbana; 4. La città, i conflitti, il governo; 5. Le politiche della città; 6. La città, fenomeno culturale.

A) Rational action and lifestyles in the western city.

B) The characteristics of the Fordist city.

C) Max Weber's thought on the eastern city.