Spring 2026 Urbanism and Global Cities Course Offerings

Across the university, faculty are pushing conversations on global urbanization through their curriculum. Their courses cover an expansive range of topics, from health to transport to urban representations, using diverse angles to dissect cities and unpack their futures. As you register for Spring 2026 courses, consider joining these conversations and bringing urbanism into your schedule. 

 

Below are a sample of courses. Find the complete course list here. 

 

Global Urbanization

MPUP - 6710 with Professor Judy Baker

This seminar introduces the diverse drivers of international urban development which make global urbanization one of the most important global trends in the 21st Century. Coursework includes surveys of global demographic change, global urban markets, urban investment trends and the socio-environmental challenges that accompany them. The course introduces students to international non-governmental organizations (NGO), multi-lateral development banks and international institutions of government who are collectively embracing localized urbanization as a global policy agenda.

 

Urbanization, Health, & Environment

GLOH - 4440 with Professor Jessica Kritz

According to UN projections, 68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas by 2050, with 90% of this growth taking place in Asia and Africa. This course considers the implications of rapid urbanization for the health and well-being of city residents around the world, with a particular emphasis on the urban poor. The course will introduce urban demographic changes and epidemiological transitions, alongside the physical, social, natural and built environments associated with rapid urban growth that impact health. Discussions and readings will emphasize the complex public health problems and health disparities encountered by various populations within urban settings. Students will learn to identify common legal frameworks for local governance that affect work at the program level, as well as multiple methodologies for designing, implementing and evaluating health and social policy. The goal of this course is to expose students to the complexities of urban growth and development for population health and health equity, and the need for evidence based, locally designed solutions.

 

Capitalism & the American Metropolis

HIST - 3817 with Professor Mike Amezcua

Readings in this upper level seminar will be oriented around the concept of political economy of cities. We will focus on U.S. capitalism in its spatial and material form in so far as it helped create and shape U.S. cities, their prosperity and inequality. Readings, mostly focused on the 19th and 20th centuries, will enable us to look at how economic development, the state, labor, and markets gave rise to cities and their regional industries. City-making has been a product of uneven relations between the state, corporations, elites, reformers, activists, and others at different moments in time. How has the workings of American capitalism shifted in the lives of the city residents over time? What social movements have risen to address the inequities built by capitalist imperatives? How has urbanism reflected not only market power but people power? Students will write a major research paper or historiographical paper on one aspect of capitalism and the American metropolis, drawing on archival, primary, and secondary sources.

 

Race, Place, and Representation

ENGL - 6290 with Professor Amani Morrison

Atlanta. DC. New Orleans. Flint. The South. The inner city. MLK Boulevard. The Black Belt. In the U.S., there is an abundance of case studies on the racialization of place. In this course, we will interrogate processes and histories of racialization, investigate how Black artists construct narratives of fictional and actual places, and analyze the work of representation in the staying power of racial narratives associated with place and space. Course material will draw from literature, geography, housing policy, Black feminism, film, and cultural studies.

 

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

STIA - 4700

Whether it's how we commute to work each day or how goods move through global supply chains, transportation has a profound impact on the environment. This course has two main goals: first, to explore the complex ways transportation systems contribute to environmental issues such as climate change, noise pollution, and the degradation of air and water quality; and second, to understand why solving these problems is so challenging. We’ll survey the science, engineering, economics, and public policy behind sustainable transportation, while also taking a deep dive into case studies that highlight policy successes and offer lessons for the future. After taking this course, students will be able to: 1) Recognize the role and policy context of various transportation modes including aviation, shipping, rail, personal and commercial internal combustion engine vehicles, electric vehicles, and public transit; 2) Understand the wide range of environmental domains affected by transportation, such as climate change, local air pollution, noise, persistent pollutants, water quality, and land degradation; 3) Link environmental issues to human health and well-being using frameworks like cost-benefit analysis, environmental justice, and the precautionary principle; 4) Explore solutions to transportation-related environmental challenges at the local, national, and international levels. While this course will explore some technical topics in economics, atmospheric chemistry, epidemiology, and quantitative policy analysis, there are no prerequisites beyond an interest and willingness to engage. For students who already have a background or experience in these areas, this course will be able to build upon and expand that knowledge through a cross-disciplinary lens.

 

Literary Representations: The City

ENGL - 2420 with Professor Sherry Linkon

By 2009, according to a United Nations report, more people around the world lived in cities than in rural areas. Nearly 80% of Americans live in cities. The city is where we live, but it is also the subject of creative, theoretical, and political engagement. In this course, we will consider how representations of the city reflect but also help to shape these engagements. What stories do people tell, what images do they create, about the experience and meaning of cities? And why do those representations matter? While we will draw on some sources and theories with European roots, most of our texts come from the US. We’ll read fiction and poetry from the 19th century to the 21st century; view documentary films and parts of contemporary television series, including The Wire; and look at visual and digital representations, as well. Along with informal writing in response to course readings, students will create multimedia projects about specific cities of their choice, combining their own writing with existing written, visual, and digital sources.