Urban Design Politics

 Photograph of protesters in Argentina.

Protesters in Argentina. Photo by illuminaut on Flickr (BY-NC).

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

11.302J / 4.253J

As Taught In

Spring 2010

Level

Graduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Description

This is a seminar about the ways that urban design contributes to the distribution of political power and resources in cities. "Design," in this view, is not some value-neutral aesthetic applied to efforts at urban development but is, instead, an integral part of the motives driving that development. The class investigates the nature of the relations between built form and political purposes through close examination of a wide variety of situations where public and private sector design commissions and planning processes have been clearly motivated by political pressures, as well as situations where the political assumptions have remained more tacit. We will explore cases from both developed and developing countries.

Other Versions

Other OCW Versions

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Related Content

Lawrence Vale. 11.302J Urban Design Politics. Spring 2010. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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