This course explores urban sustainable development from the global to the local. In the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we evaluate socio-spatial issues, challenges in defining and achieving sustainability, and explore mega-events like the Olympics and the Men’s Football World Cup.
Learning objective
This course explores the problems and potential of urban sustainable development, thinking through multiple scales from the local to the global. In a rapidly urbanizing world, the pursuit of sustainability – always a vital issue – has gained new relevance to wider publics. At the same time, global policymaking has not kept pace with the complexities of urban-led dynamics, despite the multiple overlapping crises facing cities around the world. This course begins from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, unpacking the aspirations and commitments promised therein. It contrasts these principles with lived realities on-the-ground and, in so doing, introduces students to leading theories on urban sustainable development. Through discussions of key texts and research in geography, planning, and urban studies, the course offers new ways to think sustainability through the urban.
The course will focus particularly on critical approaches to the notion of sustainability, highlighting the socio-spatial inequalities resultant from purportedly sustainable development initiatives. Focusing on the need to build a just world within planetary boundaries, the course takes into account the overlaps between sustainability and mega-events like the Olympics and the Men’s Football World Cup. These watershed events are held up as transformative for host cities, with the potential to move entire nations towards more sustainable futures. The course critically analyzes several cases of “green” mega-events, while students are encouraged to diagnose what went wrong between noble aspirations and deleterious results on the ground.
Finally, the course challenges students to ask fundamental questions about building just societies within planetary boundaries. What does sustainability actually mean, particularly in the context of urban development? How does this differ among different political and economic contexts? What are the implications for cities and societies of hosting mega-events, and can anything “mega” actually be sustainable?
Competencies
Subject-specific Competencies
Concepts and Theories
fostered
Method-specific Competencies
Analytical Competencies
fostered
Decision-making
fostered
Problem-solving
fostered
Social Competencies
Communication
fostered
Cooperation and Teamwork
fostered
Sensitivity to Diversity
fostered
Negotiation
fostered
Personal Competencies
Adaptability and Flexibility
fostered
Creative Thinking
fostered
Critical Thinking
fostered
Integrity and Work Ethics
assessed
Self-awareness and Self-reflection
assessed
Self-direction and Self-management
assessed
Performance assessment
Performance assessment information (valid until the course unit is held again)
Performance assessment as a semester course