Spring 2025 - GEOG 261 D100

Encountering the City (3)

Class Number: 4410

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 6 – Apr 9, 2025: Tue, 12:30–2:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    GEOG 100 or 102.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An introduction to key concepts and themes in contemporary geographical approaches to cities and urbanization. Breadth-Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

Course Details

Cities are complex places.  They are composed of visible and tangible elements, like buildings, sidewalks, and people.  But they are also made up of numerous invisible, intangible, or easily ignorable elements, like buried infrastructures, mundane spaces, plans and regulations, smells, and sounds.  What can we learn about cities and urban regions by encountering them while paying attention to their invisible, or partially visible features, as well as their visible and tangible aspects?  This course will answer that question.

              By paying attention to and thinking through the largely ‘invisible city,’ we will not only gain a better view of the city in all its complexity, but also gain knowledge of cities as social and spatial processes.  Why is it important to think of cities in this way?  By doing so, we get beyond the apparently obvious understandings of how cities operate, how they are lived and experienced, and how they shape and are shaped by the world more generally.  In this way, we get to think critically about the social, environmental, economic, and political forces that underlie and produce cities and the various interests involved in shaping cities through development, planning, political activism, and everyday life. 

The course includes an Experiential Learning component: a self-directed walking and transit tour of Metro Vancouver.

Note: There will be no tutorials the first week of class

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Students who complete this course will have an introductory-level understanding of key concepts and themes in contemporary urban studies; a clear sense of how geographical concepts, including space, place, and scale, enhance our understanding of cities and urban life; and an experiential understanding of how an urban region is shaped by social, political, economic, and environmental processes, both visible and invisible.

Grading

  • Participation in tutorials: 20%
  • Self-directed ‘U-Pass Fieldtrip’ & writing assignment: 25%
  • Virtual fieldtrip assignment (groups of 2 people): 20%
  • Mid-term exam: 15%
  • Final Exam: 20%

NOTES:

Grading Scale (Tentative)

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Mars, R. & Kohlstedt, K. 2020. The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design.  HMH Books.


REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION

Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.