Urban trends and strategies

Science of cities:

• City fundamentals
• Evolution of cities
• Cities, states and global networks
• Economic geography of cities
• Regional housing and labor markets
• Political science (governance) of cities
• Cities as complex adaptive systems

Urban trends:

• Socio-political trends: inequality, gentrification, precariat, city ownership, multi-level governance, urban health
• Economic trends: housing market dynamics, data-economy, overtourism, hyper connectivity
• Demographic trends: ageing, diversification and expulsion
• Technological trends: digital participation, AI, mobility, energy, pollution
• Environmental trends: overuse of resources, biodiversity and habitat decline, climate change and extreme weather
• Societal transitions: energy, food/agriculture, mobility, circular/regenerative economy, nature-based, health, social/governance

Diagnosis

• Framework for city diagnostics
• Problem definition and root cause analysis

Strategy making

• What is a strategy?
• History of urban strategy making
• Framework for city strategy
• Identifying a city’s values
• Foresight, visioning, futuring
• Goal setting and scoping the challenge

Transition science

• Multi-level perspective
• X-curve
• Transition/niche experiment, strategic niche management
• Identifying transition and critical paths and leverages
• Designing spatial and policy proposals

Presenting convincingly

• Pyramid Principle
• Golden Circle: why, how, what
• Turning information into a narrative
• Kill your darlings

After completing this course, students are able to:
Analyze major urban trends and societal transitions in relation to global socio-cultural, socio-technological, political-economic, geopolitical and ecological developments.

Holistically analyze (diagnose) a city at the level of the daily urban system, identifying key urban issues and their root causes, and contextualizing these within the city’s wider geographical and political economical context.

Formulate a sustainable long-term vision that challenges incumbent systems and practices and articulates a radically new future.

Methodically design transition pathways and strategies that guide urban systems toward desired long-term, systemic change.

Convincingly communicate their city diagnosis and proposed long-term strategy to decision makers.

• Lecture ppts, selected books (recommended chapters) and articles, links to videos and websites