Inside the City of Diversity (GEOG20008)

This subject examines how the spaces inside cities, the qualities and resources of their built environments, and the features of their neighbourhoods and communities, enhance or limit the opportunities of different groups of city dwellers. Starting from conceptual positions that foreground inequality, difference and encounter, we ask who benefits and who loses from particular socio-spatial arrangements. Issues investigated will include: the growth of gated communities for the wealthy; homelessness; the privatisation of urban public services; cities as the spaces of identified social groups (women, youth, those of particular ethnicities) and the urban activisms associated with such 'differences'; interactions in public space and in the micro-public places of the multicultural city. Cases and examples will be drawn from cities around the world, primarily from developed countries. Students will explore the socio-spaces of Melbourne in research for their major essay.