Course Description

Cities are regarded as our greatest inventions. As political, socio-economic, and cultural centres, they exemplify human ingenuity, power, and capacity to manipulate resources and the environment. They have also fundamentally shaped human settlement and development patterns and hence civilisations. Since the 1800s, the unprecedented process of urbanisation and urban development has turned our Planet Earth into an Earthopolis. The future of humanity and our planet are fatefully linked with how our cities are made and run. To understand how our species have become the ways we are; what fundamentally defines the ways we live and how we relate to each other and the wider world, and how we may achieve sustainable development, it is imperative to trace our urban trajectory; learn from our urban heritage and experiences; reassess the nature, purposes, and functions of cities; and conjure up new imaginaries from the millennium-long urban adaptation process for our urban and planetary futures.

This course guides students in exploring the emergence of cities from the urban revolution first in Western Asia, through the key milestones of our urban evolution, to the current era of megacities and megaregions. In tracing this trajectory, it trains students in examining a series of key issues involved in city-making, in terms of urban form, social structure, functions, and historical circumstances and forces. It equips students with individual and group research, policy analysis and recommendation, and spatial development skills through short weekly assignments, a final group project, and an individual research essay. Students are guided systematically to deliver the expected outcomes important for their academic, professional, and personal growth related to cities.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a city-scale perspective of society and an integrative and historical understanding of city-making in terms of urban form, governance, and culture and society.
2. Navigate through traditions and innovations, and similarities and differences among diverse urban societies in the historical periods covered in the course.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of city-making on international, regional, and local levels.
4. Demonstrate skills related to creativity, communication, and teamwork in order to improve the quality of urban living for themselves and others.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

Second semester (Wed)