Urban Studies: URB

Lower-Division Courses

URB X01. Introduction to Urban Studies.

A multidisciplinary study of cities and complex urban environments; historical and contemporary issues from both national and international perspectives.

URB X04M. Ancient Cities.

Introduction to the urban centers of the ancient Mediterranean world.

URB X05. Introductory Topics in Urban Studies.

An introduction to urban studies within the framework of different disciplines. Topics include urban history, urban education, politics and governance, economics, design and planning, and society and culture.

URB X15. Urban Studies Research Methods.

An introduction to urban studies research methodologies. Includes sources of urban data, the use of the library in urban research, formulating research questions, research design, methods commonly used in urban research, the use of computers to store and manipulate quantitative urban data, and an introduction to data analysis and theoretical and practical applications of urban research.

URB X19S. Topics in Urban Studies.

This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in the Department of Geography and the Environment. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program.

Upper-Division Courses

URB X20E. Sensing: Elemental Media.

Explore a sensory ethnographic investigation of urban ecology, organized around air, water, earth, and fire as themes for engaging with the city through media and the senses.

URB X20F. Latinx Austin.

Explore the city of Austin, the city's importance for Latino communities, and the importance of Latinos for the city.

URB X20M. Modernism in American Design and Architecture.

A historical survey of artifacts, buildings, and urban environments, focusing on responses to machine-age civilization.

URB X20T. The Culture of Cities.

Examines the social, geographical, and cultural evolution of the United States from a rural and small-town society to an urban and suburban nation. Subjects may include the segregation of public and private space; the formation of urban subcultures organized by gender, work, race, religion, and sexuality; social and spatial divisions between rich and poor and native-born and immigrant; and the increasing importance of cultural capital" in reshaping urban politics and in conflicts over revitalization and gentrification.

URB X21D. Development Economics.

Introduction to theories of economic development. Economic analysis of leading issues.

URB X21G. African Cities Since 1500.

Explore Africa's past through the story of urbanization beginning with an overview of African cities around 1500--a time of increasing human migration and global trade. Assess African cities in the modern period, focusing on the advent of European colonialism in the 1800s and its aftermath.

URB X21M. Urban Imaginaries.

Use science fiction literature, film, and other cultural artifacts as a platform to launch an examination into the central concept of urban imaginaries. Discuss the politics (and potential) of urban representation as well as understand how urban imaginaries influence everyday urban life and the ongoing production of urban space and place.

URB X21R. Introduction to Risk Management.

Principles of risk management for individuals and organizations, financial aspects of insurance companies and markets, industry structure, managerial aspects of underwriting and pricing, and public policy issues.

URB X21U. Urban Sociology.

Introduction to the study of the city and the suburbs. Specific focus on inequality in urban space, with emphasis on three major United States cities (New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles) and on several third world cities.

URB X22C. Vienna: Memory and the City.

Examines the ways in which cultural memory has shaped, and continues to shape, urban life in Vienna, Austria.

URB X22E. Urban Economics.

Economic analysis of urban areas, emphasizing current problems, such as spatial concentration of poverty, lack of access to jobs and financial services, and transportation systems. Examines the role of policy in addressing these problems.

URB X22P. Anthropology of Infrastructure.

Explore how infrastructure creates relationships between resources, energy, built form, information, and people.

URB X22R. Race, Social Justice, and the City.

Examine the way that race and inequality are built into the structures and ideas surrounding urban life through the spatial and racial structures of capitalist development, racialized migration, and redevelopment and gentrification campaigns. Analyze how United States cities are racial geographies.

URB X22T. Texas, 1900 to the Present.

Examine the steady dissociation of Texas from its Old South status to a transitional state and a power in national politics.

URB X22U. Negotiating Urbanization: Case Studies in Turkey.

Examines local and transnational forces that have driven and continue to drive contemporary urbanization in Turkey. Focuses on key issues that emerge in rapidly growing cities of the developing world, such as growing income inequality and socioeconomic exclusion, environmental challenges, and rising violence.

URB X23S. Building the Sustainable City.

URB X24C. Urban Publics.

The concept of the public in the city and how it has shifted over time along the lines of gender, ethnicity, race, and class. Examines contemporary struggles over defining the urban public and how those struggles are linked to social, cultural, political, and economic forces. Subjects include uses of public space, the public sphere, eminent domain, urban politics, civic engagement, and political participation.

URB X24G. Global Cities in the United States.

Engage with the history of the global city at various levels, using text from disciplines including history, geography, anthropology, and sociology, as well as primary sources, images, readings, and films. Define the global city in the past and present and explore questions of race, class, gender, the politics of space, the culture of empire, and the changing shape of U.S. capitalism.

URB X25. Special Topics in Urban Studies.

URB X25E. The Healthy, Livable City.

Explore the design of the built environment and its potential for addressing and preventing many childhood and adult health concerns in the United States. Examine how to create healthy, walkable, vital communities for all.

URB X25L. Sociology of Criminal Justice.

Examination of the police, courts, and prisons: how they work, their impact on those who pass through them. Introduction to the American criminal justice system, its policies and procedures. The primary focus will be on the roles and functions of the police, the courts, and corrections, with a special emphasis on how well or not so well the system operates.

URB X25R. Introduction to Real Estate and Urban Land Development.

An examination of the principles of real estate and urban land economics. Subjects include investment, valuation, financing, and public policy in real estate and mortgage markets.

URB X26F. Berlin.

URB X27D. African American History since 1860.

Survey of the history of African Americans in the United States from 1860 to the present: Emancipation, Reconstruction politics, migration and urbanization, and the evolution of African American culture; kinds of sources and methods valuable for analyzing African American life and culture.

URB X27U. Urban Unrest.

Analysis of the roots of urban unrest, exploring a range of origins: joblessness, state violence, white flight, backlash against civil rights gains, new immigration, and interracial strife. Beyond race and class, subjects include exploring unrest as a mode of pushing the normative boundaries of gender and sexuality in public space. Course material will draw from film, literature, history, geography, and anthropology.

URB X28C. Principles of Physical Planning.

Introductory course in the physical dimension of urban planning.

URB X28E. Environmental History of North America.

The history of humanity's influence on the plants, animals, microlife, soils, water, and air of North America, and vice versa, from the arrival of the proto-Indians to the contemporary environmental crisis.

URB X28L. Latino Urbanism in the United States City.

URB X29S. Topics in Urban Studies.

This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in the Department of Geography and the Environment. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program.

URB X30F. Urban Experiences In East Asia.

Explores the process of urbanization in East and Southeast Asia focusing on the politics of capital accumulation and distribution.

URB X30G. The Global City.

URB X32D. Human Health and the Environment.

Introduction to environmental health concepts. Examine current events to explore the relationship between environment and health and whether an environmental condition is or is not an important threat to health. Discuss the complexity of determining "proof" in this field.

URB X35F. City Architecture.

Introduction to city architecture, urban design, and planning.

URB X37. The Modern American City.

Issues facing residents of United States cities, such as transportation and housing, poverty and crime, metropolitan finance, environmental and architectural design; historical/comparative urban evolution.

URB X40. Contemporary Cultural Geography.

Recent theoretical developments in cultural geography, with a focus on landscapes and the everyday practices that imbue them with meaning; the ways those meanings are contested and are the foci of struggle; and how the relationship between culture and space plays a central role in the social construction of identity.

URB X42C. Water and the Roman City.

Examine Roman urban development, design, and adaption from the perspective of hydrology, hydraulics, and cult and culture.

URB X52C. American Dilemmas.

Examination of critical American social problems, including problems in the economic, political, and health care systems, as well as inequities based on income, gender, and race. Exploration of how these problems are a natural outgrowth of the existing social structure.

URB X55U. Urban Politics.

Examine politics in American cities.

URB X60. Internship and Service Learning.

Internship experience in an urban studies-related public or nonprofit agency. The opportunity to apply the knowledge, theory, and understanding gained from courses in areas of specialization to urban issues in a professional setting. Includes an academic service-learning component.

URB X70. Senior Project.

Students identify an urban issue, develop a position paper, and work closely with a faculty adviser on a project. Students may use text or other media (such as video or portfolio) to present their arguments.

URB X79. Conference Course.

Supervised individual study of selected problems in urban studies.

URB X79H. Honors Tutorial Course.

Directed reading and research or creation of an honors project, followed by the writing of a thesis.

Graduate Courses

Professional Courses