Brown University

Source: https://bulletin.brown.edu/the-college/concentrations/urbn/ Parent: https://bulletin.brown.edu/the-college/concentrations/

The Urban Studies Program equips students to analyze the city and urban life in the United States and around the planet through a variety of disciplinary lenses drawn from the humanities and social sciences, applying both qualitative and quantitative methods for scholarly research and community engagement. Cities are sites of problems and promise, inequality and solidarity, conflict and community. Processes of urbanization shape the challenges and possibilities of the 21st century. Urban Studies students explore the history of cities, urban and suburban growth and transformation, the organization and design of built, social, and natural environments, urban politics and policy, and the role of cities and urbanization in art, culture, and public life. The undergraduate program emphasizes global and local perspectives to understand how diverse communities have shaped cities through time, investigates the spatial dimensions of social relations and cultural meaning, and challenges students to work towards inclusive, equitable, and sustainable places.

Through experiences both inside and outside the classroom, Urban Studies concentrators learn to analyze urban life and the built environment through a variety of disciplinary lenses, to think creatively and critically about both the problems and potential of cities, and to use evidence-based approaches to address real-world issues. Above all, our students are dedicated to understanding, envisioning and creating cities that are inclusive and sustainable. An Urban Studies degree prepares students for a wide range of careers, with our graduates going on to work in government, the non-profit sector, business, law, education, planning and design, public health and medicine, academia, media and technology, and the arts.

For a concentration, the program requires ten courses selected from four course groups:


Introduction (choose one):		1
URBN 0210	The City: An Introduction to Urban Studies
URBN 0230	Urban Life in Providence: An Introduction
Research Methods (choose one):		1
ANTH 1940	Ethnographic Research Methods
APMA 0650	Introduction to Probability and Statistics
APMA 1650	Introduction to Probability and Statistics with Calculus
APMA 1655	Introduction to Probability and Statistics with Theory
APMA 1660	Statistical Inference II
CPSY 0900	Statistical Methods
ECON 1620	Introduction to Econometrics
EDUC 1230	Applied Statistics for Ed Research and Policy Analysis
PHP 1501	Essentials of Data Analysis
POLS 1600	Political Research Methods
SOC 1020	Methods of Social Research
SOC 1100	Introductory Statistics for Social Research 1
URBN 1100	Investigating the City: Hands-on Research Methods for Urban Analysis
Core Courses (3 courses required, in at least 3 disciplines, such as American studies, anthropology, economics, education, English, history, history of art and architecture, political science, and sociology, as well as urban planning when staffing allows)		3
ANTH 1201	Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis
ANTH 1236	Urban Life: Anthropology in and of the City
ANTH 1255	Anthropology of Disasters
ECON 1410	Urban Economics
EEPS 1320	Introduction to Geographic Information Systems for Environmental Applications
ENGL 0100N	City Novels
ENGL 0700R	Modernist Cities
ENGL 1711D	Reading New York
ENVS 1107	Cartography and Geovisualization
ENVS 1247	Clearing the Air: Environmental Studies of Pollution
ENVS 1400	Sustainable Design in the Built Environment
ENVS 1580	Environmental Stewardship and Resilience in Urban Systems
HIAA 0074	Nineteenth-Century Architecture
HIAA 0081	Architecture of the House Through Space and Time
HIAA 0100	Introduction to Architectural Design Studio
HIAA 0710	The Other History of Modern Architecture
HIAA 0770	Architecture and Urbanism of Africa
HIAA 0850	Modern Architecture
HIAA 0860	Contemporary Architecture
HIAA 0861	City and Cinema
HIAA 1171	Cities, Landscapes, and Design in the Age of Pandemics
HIST 1533	Cities and Inequality Since 1920: The United States
POLS 0220	City Politics
POLS 1310	African American Politics
SOC 1340	Principles and Methods of Geographic Information Systems
URBN 0074	Nineteenth-Century Architecture
URBN 0214	The U.S. Metropolis: Cities and Suburbs in American History
URBN 0215	Urban Life in the Global South
URBN 1000	Fieldwork in the Urban Community
URBN 1140	Urban Theory and Practice
URBN 1200	The United States Metropolis, 1945-2000
URBN 1250	The Political Foundations of the City
URBN 1260	Housing in America
URBN 1270	Urban Politics and Urban Public Policy
URBN 1290	Race, Racism, and the Urban Environment
Seminar courses (choose three) 2		3
EDUC 1250	Policy Implementation in Education
EDUC 1620	Urban Schools in Historical Perspective
ETHN 1751F	Race in U.S. Cities and Suburbs
ENVS 1875	The Nature of Cities
ENVS 1926	Wasted: Rethinking Chemical Environments
HIAA 1850H	Berlin: Architecture, Politics and Memory
HIAA 1910A	Providence Architecture
IAPA 1701F	Wealth and Poverty in the New Metropolis
POLS 1821V	Democracy and Inequality in American Cities
POLS 1822S	The Politics of Urban Transformation
SOC 0310	Theory and Practice of Engaged Scholarship
SOC 1871W	Geographical Analysis of Society
SOC 1871X	Comparative Urban Political Economy
SOC 1873G	The Geography of Urban Inequality
URBN 0820A	Urban Ecologies: Forms, Flows and Futures
URBN 1870A	American Culture and the City
URBN 1870D	Downtown Development
URBN 1870G	Ancient Cities: From the Origins Through Late Antiquity
URBN 1870J	The Politics of Community Organizing
URBN 1870K	Jerusalem Divided: Politics and Cultural Heritage
URBN 1870M	Urban Regimes in the American Republic
URBN 1870N	The Cultural and Social Life of the Built Environment
URBN 1870Q	Cities in Mind: Modern Urban Thought and Theory
URBN 1870T	Transportation: An Urban Planning Perspective
URBN 1870X	The Political Economy of Cities: American and Comparative Perspectives
URBN 1870Z	Housing Justice
URBN 1871A	Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past
URBN 1871B	Berlin: Global Metropolis (1945-2020)
URBN 1871E	Urban Development and Governance in the Global South
URBN 1871F	Urban Ecologies: Forms, Flows and Futures
URBN 1871G	Urban Asia: Beyond Tradition, Modernity, and Crisis
URBN 1872	The Right to the City: Focus on Indonesia
URBN 1932	The Just City: Installment I, Comparative Perspectives on Juvenile Justice Reform
URBN 1943	The Real Estate Development Process: An Entrepreneurial Lens
Complementary Curriculum (Total of 2 courses required):		2
1. Any course from the Introductory or Core Curriculum options above not used to fulfill another requirement
2. OR Any of the following:
AFRI 0600	Race, Gender, and Urban Politics
AFRI 1075	Providence Housing Ecosystem, Development, Displacement and Gentrification
AMST 1611A	Making America: Twentieth-Century U.S. Immigrant/Ethnic Literature
ARCH 1900	The Archaeology of College Hill
ECON 1370	Race and Inequality in the United States
EDUC 1240	Qualitative Methods
EDUC 1330	Social Psychology of Race, Class, and Gender
ENGL 1050S	Writing the City	1
ENGL 1710I	Harlem Renaissance: The Politics of Culture
ENVS 0705	Equity and the Environment: Movements, Scholarship, Solutions
ENVS 1555	Local Food Systems and Urban Agriculture
HIAA 1307	Politics and Spectacle in the Arts of Ancient Rome
HIST 1961D	Heaven Above, Suzhou and Hangzhou Below: Urban Culture in Early Modern China
POLS 1821V	Democracy and Inequality in American Cities
POLS 1824D	Power and Prosperity in Urban America
POLS 1826A	Space, Time and Society
RUSS 1440	Imagining Moscow: Utopia and Urban Spaces in 20th-Century Russian Culture
SOC 1270	Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the Modern World
3. RISD courses approved by the Urban Studies Program each semester as applicable to the Urban Studies concentration. 3
4. Any course taken at another university in the US or abroad and approved by the Urban Studies Program each semester (2 maximum)
Total Credits		11

1 : There are also other statistics courses offered by other departments (e.g., Applied Mathematics, Cognitive Sciences, and Psychology). On occasion, an alternative research skills course may be approved for a specific concentration.

2 : The courses provide opportunities to undertake research or fieldwork projects and all qualify as "capstone" experiences.

3 : No more than two may be used to satisfy the requirements of this concentration. The RISD course is identified in the student's record at Brown by a RISD course code.

\ Off-Campus Courses: Some courses taken outside Brown (e.g., in study abroad programs) may be used for credit towards the concentration if the material covered directly corresponds to that taught in Brown courses, or is relevant to the complementary curriculum. Such courses will be approved each semester by the concentration advisor.

Honors

Candidates for Honors shall apply for this distinction in writing to the Director of the Program by the middle of the second semester of their junior year. They shall include a cover letter with a brief statement of the intended research proposal as well as the name of the member of the Urban Studies faculty who would serve as their advisor and with whom they must work closely. Twelve courses are required for Honors concentrator, two in addition to the ten courses required for a standard program. During the Fall and Spring of the senior year, honors candidates must complete two additional courses beyond the ten courses required by the regular concentration: URBN 1981 Senior Honors Thesis I in Urban Studies(S/NC) and URBN 1972 Senior Honors Thesis II in Urban Studies (grade). The candidate's final thesis must be of outstanding quality in order to qualify for honors.