Our Main Questions:

  1. What is urban government and urban politics? Are they the same? Or are they different?
  2. How, in fact, are governmental and political decisions made in New York City?
  3. How should governmental and political decisions be made in New York City?
  4. What role can we play in the conduct of urban government and urban politics?

During and after this semester, you will:

  1. Identify and describe relationship of distinct levels of federalism: city, county, state, national government;
  2. Distinguish notion of urban from suburban, ex-urban, and rural community formations;
  3. Describe notions of urban within different theoretical frameworks: urban politics, urban governance, New
    Urbanism, neo-liberal city, municipal socialism, new municipalism, urban regime, urban growth machine,
    progressive community planning, Right to the City, Rebel Cities, sanctuary cities;
  4. Identify and differentiate concepts of the urban governance, urban administration, urban politics, urban policy
    across two theoretical frameworks;
  5. Identify a policy issue in New York City and apply two theoretical frameworks to describe the different
    conceptualizations of the sources of the policy issue, the evolution of the policy issue, and its possible solutions;
  6. Create a solution for your policy issue in New York City based on your argument for the theoretical framework
    best situated to solve or mitigate the policy issue under question.

Readings for the Semester

Thanks to the faculty librarians at the Brooklyn College Library and through the Open Educational Resource (OER) program, our texts will be free and readily accessible. The OER course website address is https://pols3140.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ Please see the reading schedule to see what to read.