COURSE DESCRIPTION

Contemporary cities are sites of struggle and possibility for postgrowth politics: while rent extraction, real estate speculation and privatisation of public space intensifies and makes the life of working class urban residents continuously harder to afford and enjoy, cities are also sites of resistance and experimentation with alternative modes of social provisioning and spatial organization.

This Deep Dive explores the history tying urban development to economic growth, alternative projects that challenge this hegemonic model, and goes on to introduce latest developments in the postgrowth agenda for cities, always placing it in a multiscalar context.

Critically, the Deep Dive will have a focus on situating cities and urban politics within a wider strategy for postgrowth transformation, and questions of building power, mobilizing and coalition-building within and outside existing institutions will run throughout the course.

It will be of interest for students and researchers of (urban) geography, planning, political science and sustainability science, as well as those working in municipal institutions or planning bodies, activists and campaigners.