Course Description: Over the course of the 20th century, cities have become the dominant form of human social organization. Not only does close to half of the world's population live in and around cities, but politically and ideologically cities and the needs of urban-based populations and economies have come to dominate non-urban peoples, places, and habitats. Effectively, the Earth has become urbanized. This course in urban political ecology is concerned with the intersection of urban political economy and ecology, i.e., with the ways in which different forms of urban governance produce qualitatively different relations between different cities, humans and their city environments, human and non-human inhabitants of a city, and cities and non-urban environments. Critical areas of inquiry within these broader themes include: connections between patterns of urban growth and the nature of human social relations; the ideological and practical purposes of urban planning; the role of cities in mediating relations between human and non-human nature; uneven development between and within cities and between cities and non-urban habitats; and alternative forms of urban governance and design that enable humans to create cities that are ecologically rational and supportive of human social relations that are equalitarian, non- domineering, and co-operative in character.

Course Goals: Substantively, the purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the concept of political ecology and the notion of cities as unique social and ecological environments. The implications that both ideas have for the normative evaluation of human social relations, relations with the rest of nature, and the design of urban habitats will also be considered. On a broader plane, this course is intended to encourage non-authoritarian and dialogical forms of learning and communication and independent thought that are consistent with the critical perspective of the course. This goal is explained further below.

Teaching Method: Class meetings will be organized around collective dialogues about the meaning and implications of the readings. The instructor's job is to facilitate class dialogue by eliciting responses from students regarding each week's readings and guiding the discussion accordingly. A confused reaction may require a guided tour of the readings, a more animated reaction may necessitate a free flowing discussion of the ideas contained in the readings, and so forth. Eventually, students will be expected to assume the facilitator's role. Students should be allowed to struggle through the material themselves with minimal intervention from the instructor. This will make the course content more meaningful, introduce the teacher (as well the students) to new perspectives on the readings, and further the purpose of creating an environment amenable to non-authoritarian learning and independent thinking.

Participation in this course requires a commitment to intensive reading. In this context, "intensive" does not necessarily mean that there is a lot of reading, but rather that for the course to work students need to come to class having given the material a "close" reading. Because class dialogue will be guided by student needs and reactions, it is critical that students come prepared with specific comments, questions, concerns and references to and from the readings. The instructor should not be expected to take the initiative in defining the parameters of course dialogues. This is a task for the class as a whole.

Evaluation: In keeping with the goal of fostering self-direction and independent learning and thinking, students are given two grading "tracks" to choose from:

Option One: Three take-home essay exams. These exams will be based on lists of questions. Students will answer a prescribed number of questions from each list. Exams will be due one week after they are distributed.

Option Two: Three papers on three different course sections. Students will choose which section or thematic division they will address. The third essay can be synthetic in character, taking in the whole of the course, rather than being tied to a single theme. Essays are due two weeks following the end of discussion on a thematic area.

Both the essays and exams should incorporate course readings and class discussions and demonstrate an ability to synthesize and think critically about course material. Readings and references from outside the course syllabus are not required, but can certainly be used to supplement the syllabus when writing exams and essays.

Readings: Peter Berg, Beryl Magilvay, and Seth Zuckerman, A Green City Program for the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond (San Francisco: Planet Drum/Wingbow, 1990); Murray Bookchin, The Limits of the City, 2d. rev. ed. (Montral: Black Rose Books, 1986); Lester R. Brown and Jodi L. Jacobson, The Future of Urbanization: Facing the Ecological and Economic Constraints (World Watch Paper 77, May 1987); David Engwicht, Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns: Better Living with Less Traffic (Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1993); Marcia D. Lowe, Shaping Cities: The Environmental and Human Dimensions (World Watch Paper, 105, October 1991); Richard Register, Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1987). The remainder of the course readings will be collected in a reader. All readings will be available on reserve at the library.1

WEEK 1: Introduction to Political Ecology

These readings provide a general overview of the concept of political ecology understood as the study of the connections between forms of human governance, human social relations, and relations with non-human nature.

Wall, "Introduction," Green History, pp. 1-13

Merchant, "Introduction," Ecology, pp. 1-25

Blaikie and Brookfield, "Defining and Debating the Problem," chap. 1, Land Degradation and Society, pp. 1-26

Bookchin, "Toward an Ecological Society," Toward an Ecological Society, pp. 57-71

WEEK 2: Cities as Human Habitats

The readings in this section present the idea that cities are natural human habitats. The authors argue, in different ways, that the naturalness of cities stems from the way in which urban areas concentrate human populations and bring people together for common social purposes. Cities thus provide environments where humans can exercise and expand (apparently) unique human capacities for reflection on and reasoning about their activity and the world (self-consciousness) and shaping their own environments and paths of development (subjectivity). The alternative perspective, that cities are "unnatural" formations, is considered in the final selection.

Mumford, "Introduction," The Culture of Cities, pp. 3-12

Bookchin, "Introduction," "Urbanization Against Cities," chap. 1, Urbanization Without Cities, pp. xiii-xxvi, pp. 1-14

Bookchin, "Theses on Libertarian Municipalism," chap. 5, The Limits of the City, pp. 164-184

Engwicht, "The Nature of the Eco-City," chap. 1, Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns, pp. 15-40

Sessions, "Ecocentrism and the Anthropocentric Detour," chap. 13, C. Merchant, ed., Ecology, pp. 140-151

WEEKS 3, 4, and 5: Ecological History of Cities

These readings survey the history of cities from an ecological perspective. The authors consider how different forms of urban development have supported qualitatively different relationships between city residents, different species and environments within cities, and cities and larger regional and global contexts.

Katznelson, "Marxism and the City?" chap. 1, Marxism and the City, pp. 1-42

Wall, "Ecology and Early Urban Civilization," chap. 2, Green History, pp. 32-41

Engels, "The Great Cities," from chap. 3, Wall, Green History, pp. 48- 49

Bookchin, The Limits of the City, pp. vii-xi, pp. 1-117

Bookchin, "From Tribe to City," chap. 2, Urbanization Without Cities, pp. 15-30

Mumford, "Sanctuary, Village, and Stronghold," chap. 1, The City in History, pp. 3-28

Mumford, "Rise and Fall of Megalopolis," chap. 4, $ 15 'Cycle of Growth and Decay,' The Culture of Cities, pp. 283-292

Mumford, "Suburbia Q and Beyond," chap. 16, The City in History, pp. 482-524

Leff, "The Global Context of the Greening of Cities," D. Gordon, ed., Green Cities, pp. 55-66

Platt, "The Ecological City: Introduction and Overview," R. Platt et al., eds., The Ecological City, pp. 1-17

WEEK 6: Cities, People, and Resources

This section is focused on urban resource problems. Specifically, the readings address how unmanaged growth in urban populations and areas drains stocks of non-renewable resources and threatens to make renewable resources such as clean air and water non- renewable.

Brown and Jacobson, "The Future of Urbanization: Facing the Ecological and Economic Constraints," World Watch Paper 77, pp. 5-44

Spirn, "Dirt and Discomfort," chap. 2, The Granite Garden, pp. 41- 61

Engwicht, "How Traffic Destroys the Eco-City," chap. 2, Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns, pp. 41-66

WEEKS 7 and 8: Urban Ecology and Social Justice

The readings in this section draw connections between urban ecological problems such as sprawl and over-reliance on automobiles and social problems such as crime, physical safety, and unequal access to goods and services between races and classes.

Engwicht, "Eco-Rights," chap. 4, Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns, pp. 87-114

Holmes, "Transportation, Social Justice, and Sustainability," The Urban Ecologist, pp. 6+

Mumford, "Rise and Fall of Megalopolis," chap. 4, The Culture of Cities, pp. 223-299

Bullard, "Environmental Racism and the Environmental Justice Movement," chap. 22, C. Merchant, ed., Ecology, pp. 254-265

WEEKS 9, 10, and 11: Planning: General Frameworks

These readings outline both critiques of "mainstream" planning efforts and alternatives to such efforts. Important themes include the use of planning to maintain inequitable and anti-ecological social orders (orders which are not only marked by disparities in material and cultural wealth, but also by disruptions of natural processes and destruction of biological life) and the need for urban planning which is egalitarian in content and process and which works with, rather than against, natural processes such as the hydrologic cycle and local climates.

Bookchin, "The Myth of City Planning," Toward an Ecological Society, pp. 135-170

Bookchin, Community and City Planning, chap. 4, The Limits of the City, pp. 118-163

Mumford, "The Social Basis of the New Urban Order," chap. 7, The Culture of Cities, pp. 402-493

Spirn, "The City as Infernal Machine," chap. 12, "Designing the Urban Ecosystem," chap. 13, The Granite Garden, pp. 229-262

Hough, "Making Connections," chap. 7, City Form and Natural Process, pp. 239-273

WEEKS 12, 13, and 14: Planning: Specific Plans

These readings are examples of plans which propose specific steps for creating ecological or "green" cities. Each represents a different perspective on the question of whether urban ecological planning and design can work effectively within the constraints of underlying social structures such as capitalist and growth-oriented political economies or whether those structures need to be changed along with planning and design practice.

Lowe, "Shaping Cities: The Environmental and Human Dimensions," World Watch Paper 105 (October 1991)

Berg et. al., A Green City Program for the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond

Register, "Ecocity..." part 1, "Mapping out an Ecocity Strategy for Berkeley," from part 2, Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future, pp. 3-53, pp. 119-130.

Week 15: Course Summary

This week is intended to bring some closure to the course Q an opportunity for everyone in the class to gather together their thoughts about the previous 14 weeks and draw connections between the different sections of the course. There will also be a discussion about the way in which the course was taught and how effective or ineffective the use of student directed dialogues were as a means of dealing with the material. If necessary, this week can also be used to take up some "overflow" from previous weeks.

ERRATUM Q In our Teaching Political Ecology feature (CNS, 7, 3, September, 1996), we inadvertently printed the introduction but not the syllabus of Steve Breyman's course, "Bioregional Education on the Hudson." The complete syllabus of Breyman's course appears on our webpage at http://members.cruzio.com/~cns

*Acknowledgments: This syllabus was developed with the assistance of Anke Wessels under the auspices of the Future Professoriate Project at Syracuse University. I thank Anke for guiding the research that went into constructing the syllabus and for comments that helped me to expand and refine the document. I also thank Anne-Marie Deitering for her insightful critiques of various drafts of the syllabus.

A comment on level and size. I believe that this course should be listed at the 200 level (or equivalent) or higher. There are three reasons for this. First, though the course is introductory and cursory in character (authors such as Mumford and Bookchin and topics such as ecological history and planning could be the subject of entire semesters), the material is relatively specialized. Secondly, some of the reading is difficult in that it deals with complex and abstract ideas. Thirdly, the course, as described here, demands a willingness to accept self-direction and responsibility for one's own learning. All three of these reasons mean that the course is most appropriate for students who have had at least a year of college work or are especially motivated to learn and have a sense of purpose about their education. Ideally, the course should be capped at 15-20 students to make dialogue and discussion easier, but it could be manageable with 30-50 students if small groups are used and lectures are occasionally employed when deemed necessary by student response to the readings. The use of small groups would necessitate relying on student facilitators earlier in the course.

1Reader selections are drawn from the following sources: Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield et. al., Land Degradation and Society (New York: Routledge, 1987); Murray Bookchin, Toward an Ecological Society (Montral: Black Rose Books, 1980) and Urbanization Without Cities: The Rise and Decline of Citizenship (Montral: Black Rose Books, 1992); David Gordon, ed., Green Cities: Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban Space (Montral: Black Rose Books, 1990); Henry Holmes, "Transportation, Social Justice, and Sustainability," The Urban Ecologist, Summer 1993 (North)/Winter 1993 (South): 6+; Michael Hough, City Form and Natural Process: Towards a New Urban Vernacular (New York: Routledge, 1989); Ira Katznelson, Marxism and the City, Steven Lukes, ed., Marxist Introductions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Carolyn Merchant, ed., Ecology, Key Concepts in Critical Theory, ed., Roger Gottlieb (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1994); Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938) and The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1961); Rutherford Platt, Rowan Rowntree, and Pamela Muick, eds., The Ecological City: Preserving and Restoring Urban Biodiversity (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1994); Anne Spirn, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (New York: Basic Books, 1984); and Derek Wall, Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy and Politics (New York: Routledge, 1994).