Cities in the 21st Century
People, Planning, and Politics
Main Cities Page        Curriculum

ITINERARIES*
Fall 2008 : USA, India, South Africa, Argentina
Spring 2009: USA, Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam
Fall 2009: USA, China, India, Argentina
Spring 2010: USA, Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam

FALL 2008 ITINERARY
United States     India    South Africa    Argentina

USA: New York
(1 1/2 weeks)
Get started in the most prominent U.S. world city. Meet classmates and faculty, engage in orientation and first assignments. Build the academic foundations of urban studies with the traveling faculty. Explore New York’s diverse neighborhoods, markets, and forms of shelter, and speak with local leaders and activists to help the group begin to learn how to “read” a city.


India: Bangalore
(5 weeks)
Originally known as the “garden city” and “pensioner’s paradise,” Bangalore is now identified as the “silicon valley of India.” In this cosmopolitan city, boundaries between traditional Indian culture and development frontiers create a challenging dynamic. Under the leadership of Leo Saldanha and the non-governmental organization Environment Support Group (ESG), study the tensions between traditional economic forces and the emerging information technology (IT) centers. Experience the local cultures, traditions, food, and lifestyles. Meet with a variety of local leaders, activists, academics, and urban planners, and interact with them on present issues of concern and future challenges. Develop a deeper understanding of the workings of the city by a variety of field visits to factories, neighborhoods, parks, exhibitions, and cultural events. Appreciate diversity of urban issues and problems by way of case studies in villages and towns across the state of Karnataka.


South Africa: Cape Town
(5 weeks)
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. Explore the many promises and upheavals of urban development by engaging with informal traders, taxi and tour operators, and entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of the new opportunities after apartheid. 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. Or simply observe some of the myriad ways that residents of this beautiful city of over 3 million people wrestle everyday with the global challenges of living and working together with fewer resources, greater uncertainties, and enduring differences. There will be a one-week vacation in Cape Town. The Cape Town program is coordinated by Christopher J. Colvin.


Argentina: Buenos Aires
(5 weeks)
Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentine Republic, is the cosmopolitan doorway to South America and well known as an impressive cultural arena: the cradle for tango, a city that presents hundreds of plays on stage, and the location for highly renowned academics. Study the complex transportation network of a city that hosts 1/3 of the country’s overall population. Discover how history and politics shape everyday life of porteños by visiting the Plazas that are the center of political confrontation. Learn about the contrasting ways of Argentine living by visiting private urbanizations and slums; a mosaic of first and third world living situations in a single space. Analyze the effects on the environment due to the rapid growth and urbanization of the city.  Enrich your knowledge of how popular urban settlements face daily issues by meeting their inhabitants and representatives, and quickly become fascinated and captivated by the individuality of each of Buenos Aires’ neighborhoods, the cordiality of its people, and its wide selection of cultural and commercial opportunities. Claudia Oxman coordinates the program in Buenos Aires. The semester concludes in Buenos Aires with final synthesis and comparative semester-end presentations during the last week.

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SPRING 2009 ITINERARY
United States     Brazil     South Africa     Vietnam


USA: New York
(1 1/2 weeks)
Get started in the most prominent U.S. world city. Meet classmates and faculty, engage in orientation and first assignments. Build the academic foundations of urban studies with the traveling faculty. Explore New York’s diverse neighborhoods, markets, and forms of shelter and speak with local leaders and activists to help the group begin to learn how to “read” a city.


Brazil: Sao Paulo and Curitiba
(5 weeks)
Brazil provides an excellent opportunity to see how participation, democracy, and a mobilized citizenry effect change. Sao Paulo is the city where things are happening in Brazil. As the largest urban area in South America, multi-ethnic Sao Paulo draws young college grads for its business opportunities, and young families from rural Brazil with the hope of a better life. The fashion industry flourishes and bold contemporary architecture shocks and delights. Public infrastructure takes aggressive steps forward but never seems to catch up to the expanding needs of the expanding city. Our coordinator, Glenda de la Fuente, along with Mackenzie University and the Federal University of Sao Paulo provide a base for learning from government officials, NGOs, professionals and citizen activists. The Brazil program concludes in Curitiba, known as the “ecological capital” of Brazil. Curitiba provides a laboratory for the study of exemplary urban planning, especially in transportation and land use, but also in the creative re-use of just about everything from buildings to buses to garbage. Under the leadership of Clovis Ultramari, we meet with government leaders and staff of the Planning (IPPUC) and Transportation (URBS) agencies, explore neighborhoods of old and new immigrants, and discover the work of the Free University of the Environment (Unilivre).


South Africa: Cape Town
(5 weeks)
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. The Cape Town program is coordinated by Sally Frankental.


Vietnam: Hanoi
(5 weeks)
Hanoi offers an intriguing opportunity for IHP Cities students to grapple with the influence of politics and culture upon the growth and change in world cities. The many wars over foreign domination are, for now, over, and a new paradigm of local identity and international connectivity is being tested. Transportation, dominated by the ubiquitous motorbike, is under new pressures as long established taxation-based land use patterns give way to large-scale development. As it has for centuries, the old quarter still functions as a marketplace even as the villages that supply it and urban lifestyles that use it are radically changing. The changes implicit in doi moi privatization have visible and rapid positive and negative impacts on every level of society, foreign investment and tourism. In Vietnam, the tension grows between the use of public resources for community and environmental benefit or commercial development and private profit. The roles of government and citizen are challenged and changing in Hanoi in ways that provide a useful understanding of city dynamics and world-wide insight into human habitation and environmental preservation.

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FALL 2009 ITINERARY
United States     China     India     Argentina


USA: Detroit
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.


China: Beijing
Conventional evaluation often starts with the premise of “China the threat” or “China the economic miracle.” Bypass these simplified explanations and look at the satisfaction that has come with security and prosperity. Experience the changes in individual lives by staying with families that remain in traditional neighborhoods and others that have been moved into “modern” housing compounds. What is the measure of acceptable and unacceptable dissent? Does the legacy of rural or urban birth create a societal divide that cannot be overcome?


India: Bangalore
In Bangalore the pressure for growth and development challenges environmental sustainability, individual rights and legal protections. How does a democracy with a multicultural history, colonial legacy, a booming economy and entrenched poverty conduct its affairs to reach equitable solutions in an environment overridden and manipulated to maximize economic growth? Learn about local activism in the face of inexorable change.


Argentina: Buenos Aires
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.”

*NOTE: More detailed country program descriptions will be added to the website this fall. Check back periodically.

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SPRING 2010 ITINERARY
United States     Brazil     South Africa     Vietnam


USA: New York
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.


Brazil: Sao Paulo and Curitiba
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
The legacy of apartheid pervades, but what does it actually mean for how people conduct their lives? Experience the divides by living in different communities and observing the underlying uncertainty and suspicion among different races. Meanwhile, examine attempts to create a new, equitable social and political model.


Vietnam: Hanoi
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.

*NOTE: More detailed country program descriptions will be added to the website this fall. Check back periodically.

*Important Note: Please be advised that many logistical considerations must be taken into account when planning these itineraries. Both the fall and spring Cities in the 21st Century itineraries are subject to change.

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