---
title: Theories of the Urban
page_type: course
track: Reflection
course_type: Elective
feature_img: /assets/images/2023-24/year-2/modules/theories-of-the-urban.png
img_caption: Credits | Unsplash 
faculty:
    - mariano-gomez-luque
    - ana-gallego
---

{{ insert_banner() }}

## Syllabus

*“Within urban space, elsewhere is everywhere and nowhere.”*

— HENRI LEFEBVRE

In the early 1970s, urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre anticipated a situation of "generalized  urbanization" in which an "urban fabric" would spread to encompass the whole planet, artificializing  the entire 'natural' surface of the world. While the changing, fast-growing morphology and scale of  urbanized regions have attracted considerable attention among urban scholars, the sociospatial,  political-economic and technological dimensions of the global “urban fabric” originally postulated by  Lefebvre still awaits further systematization and theoretical development — even more so in an age  defined and systemically traversed by the ubiquity of climate crisis, with fast technological  development and socioenvironmental catastrophe operating as two sides of the same coin. Building  on the conceptual framework developed by radical geographers Neil Brenner and Ananya Roy, this  research seminar will mobilize the theory of planetary urbanization as a basis upon which to  construct a critical agenda for the design disciplines (architecture, landscape, urbanism, planning) in  the age of the Anthropocene.

## Learning Objectives

At course completion the student will:

- Have an understanding of the relationship between cities, nature, and design as seen through the  lens of recent discourses within the field of urban and environmental studies.
- Have the ability to develop original and substantiated positions on the issues/problematiques  discussed in the course.
- Have the capacity to deploy 'close-reading' techniques through which to decode the multiplicity of  (spatial, political-economic, technological) dimensions that define the complex and multi-scalar  character of the urban process.

## Hardware / Software requirements

- Adobe Suite (Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign). The 30-day  trial version of Adobe Products can be downloaded from the website  
www.adobe.com/downloads.html. 
- Chat GPT4

## Additional Resources

- Neil Brenner, "What is Critical Urban Theory?", City 13:2-3, p. 198-207 
- Ananya Roy, "What is Urban about Critical Urban Theory?", Urban Geography 37:6, p. 810-823 > David Harvey, "Cities or Urbanization?", City 1:1-2, p. 38-61 
- N. Brenner, C. Schmid, "Planetary Urbanization", in Implosions/Explosions (Jovis, 2014) > Maria Kaika, "Urbanizing Degrowth", Urban Studies 60:7, p. 1191-1211  
- Nancy Fraser, "Climates of Capital", New Left Review 127, p. 94-127

## Faculty

{{ insert_faculty() }}