Overview
The Urban Studies minor is offered through the Schools of Public Engagement.
The Urban Studies minor provides a foundational interdisciplinary understanding of urbanism and the social, spatial, material, ecological, political, and institutional conditions that shape cities and metropolitan regions. With experiential learning
as a key component, the minor provides a strong foundation for students' engagement with the city, whether as citizens, scholars, artists, designers, architects, bloggers, activists, journalists, educators, curators, or other actors with a stake in
the urban.
By successfully completing this minor, a student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a theoretical understanding of cities as generators of economic, social, and cultural vitality as well as landscapes transformed by human planning and design
- Distinguish between varied urban concepts, practices, and research methods that emerge from different disciplines, interests, ideologies, and traditions
- Employ spatial thinking and conceptualize the metropolis at a variety of scales — from street-level exchanges to regional systems to global networks and flows
- Apply critical analysis to primary sources such as maps, planning documents, agency reports, interviews, observations, literary texts, photographs, films, data sets, architectural plans, and buildings
- Recognize cities as sites of contestation and engagement over governance, rights, citizenship, and social justice
Curriculum
Course availability may vary from semester to semester. Some courses may be in development and offered at a later time. Students seeking to pursue alternative coursework to fulfill the minor should consult with their advisors.
| Subject Area | Sample Courses | Credits |
|---|
| 1 Fundamentals Course |
UURB 2100 Urban Worlds
ULEC 2620 Urban Worlds
| 3 |
| 1 NYC Experiential Learning Elective | COURSES*
UURB 3010 Sensing the City
UURB 3601 Urban Journalism
UURB 2056 Immigrant New York
UURB 3505 Urban Community Lab
UURB 3506 Urban Photography
UURB 2510 Urban Homelessness | 3-4 |
| 3 UURB Electives** | COURSES*
UURB 2100 Urban Worlds
UURB 2410 Urban Ecology
UURB 2800 Interpreting Space and Cities
UURB 3001 Planning Sustainable Cities
UURB 3100 Education, Race, and Place
UURB 3620 Photojournalism & Urban Calamities
UURB 3423 Anthropology of Home
UURB 3664 Latin American Cities
UURB 4078 Urban Poverty and Inequality
UURB 4223 Maps as Media
UURB 4510 The Design of Cities
UURB 4521 Political Economy of the City
UURB 4524 African Cities
UENV 3200: Spatial Thinking with GIS
UENV 3400 Urban Resilience
UENV 4520 Urban Food Systems
ULEC 2280 Liquid Cities
LLST 3061 Baudelaire: City Blues
LMUS 3115 Urban Soundscapes
LSOC 2850 Urban Sociology
LSCI 2300 Introduction to Urban Environmental Health
LVIS 3022 Art, Space, and the Global City
NARH 3872 History of Urban Planning
NARH 3874 Housing the Modern Dweller
NCST 3300 Queer New York
PLSD 2100 History of Architecture
PLSD 3002 Architecture, the City, and Cinema
PSAM 3705 X-Studio: Walking as a Practice
PSCE 3020 Design Build: Urban Public Space
PSCE 4021 Designing Sustainable Foodscapes
PSDS 2510 Visualizing Urban Change
PSDS 3510 Designing Urban Agriculture
UURB 4001 Cities and Migration
UURB 4005 Root Shock
UURB 3015 Urban Choreography: Bodies and Cities in Motion
UURB 2510 Urban Homelessness
UURB 3505 Urban Community Lab
UURB 2056 Immigrant New York
UURB 2411 Urban Planning, Design, and Social Justice
UURB 3506 Urban Photography
UURB 3110 Black Geographies
UURB 3610 Gentrification Through Media
UURB 3040 Culture City
UURB 3112 Ethnographic Writing Workshop
UURB 3629 Suburbs: Divided We Sprawl
LLSL 3013 Literature of the Postcolonial City
| 9-12 |
| TOTAL | | 15-19 |
*This is just a partial listing, as elective course offerings vary from semester to semester and may include courses with other prefixes. Please consult Urban Studies Course Bulletin for a complete course listing.
**At least two elective courses must be at the 3000 level or higher.
Eligibility
Students must earn a grade of C or higher in all courses taken to fulfill the minor.
The Urban Studies minor is available to undergraduate students across The New School, with the exception of students enrolled in the BA in Urban Studies.
Please meet with your Student Success advisor to discuss how a minor will fit in with your overall degree requirements. If you have additional questions about requirements for the Urban Studies minor that cannot be answered by your Student Success advisor,
please consult:
Departmental Faculty Advisors for Urban Studies
Jürgen von Mahs
Associate Professor, Urban Studies
[email protected]
Academic Advisor for Global, Environmental, and Urban Studies
Chris McElderry
64 West 11th Street, room 120
[email protected]
How to Declare or Change a Minor
General guidelines for declaring a minor are available here. Current students can declare or change a minor by logging in to my.newschool.edu, clicking on the Academics tab,
and then clicking on the link to Major/Minor Declarations.