Sociology has always had an intimate relationship with cities. Urbanization - the increase of the share of the population living in cities - was one of the developments that early sociologists sought to study and explain. Since then, the global urban population has only continued to increase. Today, over half of humanity lives in cities and towns, making urban society as essential to understand now as it was in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Urban sociology has many sides, but in this course, students will learn about four main topics: 1) Early theories and classic statements on urban life, 2) the distinctive social character of the "urban experience," 3) understanding urban space through the political economy approach, and 4) examining urban spatial processes within and beyond Hong Kong, including affordable housing, gentrification, the creative class, and minorities in the city.
4 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
Sociology has always had an intimate relationship with cities. Urbanization - the increase of the share of the population living in cities - was one of the developments that early sociologists sought to study and explain. Since then, the global urban population has only continued to increase. Today, over half of humanity lives in cities and towns, making urban society as essential to understand now as it was in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Urban sociology has many sides, but in this course, students will learn about four main topics: 1) Early theories and classic statements on urban life, 2) the distinctive social character of the "urban experience," 3) understanding urban space through the political economy approach, and 4) examining urban spatial processes within and beyond Hong Kong, including affordable housing, gentrification, the creative class, and minorities in the city.
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.