International Honors Program: Cities Program Sites

Cities in the 21st Century

For additional IHP program itineraries, click here.

Fall 2010

Spring 2011

United States: Detroit, MI (2 weeks)

Brazil: Sao Paulo, Curitiba (4 weeks)

South Africa: Cape Town (5 weeks)

Vietnam: Hanoi (5 weeks)

United States: Detroit, MI

(2 weeks)

Coordinated by Dan Pitera and Virginia Stanard

For the first time, the Cities program will start the semester in Detroit, Michigan. Meet classmates and faculty and be introduced to a city that is rebuilding itself from the ground up. Is Detroit symptomatic of the challenges facing mid-size industrial cities across the nation and around the world? Amidst scars of disinvestment and tension around race and class, see the seeds of positive growth and change.

Brazil: Sao Paulo, Curitiba

(4 weeks)

Coordinated by Glenda de la Fuente and Clovis Ultramari

Brazil provides an excellent opportunity to see how participation, democracy and a mobilized citizenry effect change. In multi-ethnic Sao Paulo, the largest urban area in South America, public infrastructure takes aggressive steps forward, but never seems to catch up to the expanding city’s growing needs. Land and water are plentiful, but how much is available to the secluded rich, the hard-working middle class or the tenuous poor remains a question. Curitiba provides a laboratory to study exemplary urban planning, especially in transportation and land use, but also in the creative re-use of most everything from buildings to buses to garbage.

South Africa: Cape Town

(5 weeks)

Coordinated by Sally Frankental

In Cape Town, see how a society that was grossly unequal by design is attempting to transform itself into one that provides equal economic opportunity for all. Contrast the awe-inspiring beauty of Table Mountain of Cape Point, where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean currents meet, and the charming cobblestone streets of the bustling Green Market Square with the apartheid-legacy townships such as Langa, Khayelitsha, Joe Slovo Park, Guguletu, Nyanga, and the Cape Flats. Observe effective community radio stations, food cooperatives, informal traders, taxi companies, and a variety of small businesses, art, crafts, music, and vibrant personalities that make township culture thrive. Meet with government leaders, social activists, and academics from local universities, all involved with transforming Cape Town in the wake of apartheid. There will be a one-week vacation in Cape Town.

Vietnam: Hanoi

(5 weeks)

Coordinated by Hoai Anh Tran

Rising from poverty and isolation, Hanoi offers examples of rapid human adaptation and resilience. With decades of war all but vanished, a new paradigm of local identity and international connectivity is being tested. Tension grows between the use of public resources for community and environmental benefit or commercial development and private profit. Meanwhile, the basic form of the traditional city – dense, narrow and vertical – invites examination of the use, purpose and expectations of public space.

United States: New York City, NY (2 weeks)

India: Delhi, Chandigarh (4 weeks)

South Africa: Cape Town (5 weeks)

Argentina: Buenos Aires (5 weeks)

United States: New York City, NY

(2 weeks)

Coordinated By Sarah Uziel

Starting in the most prominent “world” city in the United States, meet classmates and faculty and be introduced to the field experiences of IHP by exploring neighborhoods, visiting NGOs and hearing from public officials. The world journey commences with a discussion at the United Nations, and an acknowledgement that every city is local, yet also a piece of the global puzzle.

India: Delhi, Chandigarh

(4 weeks)

Coordinated by Kalyani Menon-Sen and Siddartha Wig

Our first international cities will be in India, where we will study in the national capital, Delhi, and in the provincial capital of Chandigarh. The old city of Delhi retains much of its traditional city structure, while New Delhi, planned by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1911, was an integral part of British colonialist strategy for India. Contemporary metropolitan Delhi is an amalgam of the past, blended with post-independence nationalist fervor and recent pressure toward globalization. India's cultural, political, economic, gender and ecological issues will be confronted as we learn first-hand from the city itself and from scholars, government officials, cultural leaders, scientists and educators. The challenges of colonial interventions and post-colonial development, as exhibited in Deli-New Delhi, will be complemented by a study of the potentials and limitations of urban planning in the post-colonial city of Chandigarh. In these cities, students will experience the living reality of very different efforts to plan the growth and development of cities.

South Africa: Cape Town

(5 weeks)

Coordinated by Christopher J. Colvin and Loredana Monte

In Cape Town, we study the transformation of a cityscape that was once meticulously planned to divide South Africans of different colors into separate and brutally unequal spaces. You will witness the reorganization—of places, of movements, of symbols and of relationships—that has been fitful, hopeful, painful, creative, sometimes eruptive, and always surprising. Experience the natural beauty of Table Mountain and Cape Point where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean currents meet, the charming cobblestone streets of the bustling Green Market Square and the intense activity in apartheid-legacy townships. Meet with government leaders, social activists, and academics from local universities as they try to understand how communities, civil society, and the state might work together to transform the city. Confront the politics of race, migration, and xenophobia in the South through the lives of Cape Town residents who have been forced into refugee camps in their own city. There will be a one-week vacation in Cape Town.

Argentina: Buenos Aires

(5 weeks)

Coordinated by Claudia Oxman and Carolina Rovetta

The cosmopolitan capital city’s history has an enduring legacy: European-influenced architecture, an extraction economy, large landowners, an influential Catholic church, charismatic political leadership and military dictatorships, a tradition of public protest and a cultural heritage embedded in the tango. But underlying it all are complex lives of a diverse society where once-owners now work to survive and once-workers now manage retaken factories.