The track Urban Geographies focuses on the challenges cities and urban regions face in an era of intensified globalisation. These may be ‘positive and exciting' but they can also be ‘negative and problematic', generating winners and losers. We see that cities are centres of cultural and economic exchange and so become sources of technological, social and cultural innovation. Places where multiple interactions happen and new types of relationships are formed. Some cities and urban regions may attract new activities and entrepreneurs able to benefit from the transformation. This opens up avenues of increasing returns often resulting in social change and a renewal of the built environment.
However, there are cities and groups within them who are not able to adapt to the new situation. These developments create fault lines and, often, conflicts. This places debates on issues of quality of place, safety, and segregation & integration ‘centre stage'.
The course discusses background, consequences, and policy responses. Combining social, cultural and economic perspectives makes this programme especially suited for those who are interested in urban studies and urban geographies in the widest sense.
