Making the American City: Form and Society

To understand today’s urgent social, environmental, and development issues, Making the American City: Form and Society explores the history of American urban growth, planning, and design. By examining specific plans and places, it traces the growth and elaboration of major North American cities from the early European settlement to the present, with an emphasis on the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Through the study of plans, physical projects, and material conditions, the course investigates specific topics, such as the downtown; homes and housing; public parks and landscapes; planned communities and civic spaces; transportation systems; environmental threats and disasters; the provision of infrastructure; racial and ethnic settlement patterns; slums and ghettos; bohemias and art districts; urban renewal and revitalization; gentrification; and suburbia in all its diversity.

The objective of the course is to use history to inform the thinking and practice of contemporary designers, planners, and policy makers. Through lectures, discussions, texts, and films, this course aims to impart a fundamental knowledge of the major events that have contributed to the form and character of modern American cities.

The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Monday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 3rd. It will meet regularly thereafter.