SOC 538 Metropolitan Regions
This course provides an overview of the theoretical models espoused by Louis Wirth and Georg Simmel, and explores the methodological approaches that sociologists use to examine the city in the American, domestic context. We define the metropolitan region, study the origins of urban life, and examine suburbanization, globalization, metropolitan planning issues and social policy. We will focus much of our analyses on metropolitan social problems such as: residential and neighborhood preferences, segregation, discrimination, mobility, and integration, gentrification, and home-ownership patterns, and graduate students will embark on qualitative fieldwork and write a term paper on their findings.