Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

This paper explores issues addressed in a graduate course in Advanced Urban Issues. While the course has traditionally addressed a variety of complex issues through its utilization of texts of urban theory and their role in shaping urban culture and their meanings in cities, it has not always included a variety of world cities and the wide range of critical issues they face. From randomly assigned select cities, students identified urban issues with a critical eye. For example, while in New Orleans, racial issues and natural disaster were at the forefront; in Cairo, the issues surrounded water shortages; in Beirut, critical urban problems surrounded post-war economics; Lima was a city ‘on the edge’. Bombay was suffering problems related to overly dense population, while Detroit was an empty city. Through sharing these explorations in a series of exercises, both the similarities and differences in the cities of the world were investigated. Student presentations of the city at various times throughout the semester enabled a possibility for indepth discussion and a comparative approach. The paper discusses both the ideas developed in the framing and teaching of the course, but also aims to solicit and explore ideas for further deepening the investigations. The paper promises a methodology that will provide a new vision and extrapolates from specific formal architectural and urban contexts to consider the importance of these contexts to cultural knowledge.