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Are you interested in cities, in how they work, and how they change? Consider a major in Urban Worlds, a new degree at SFU, with courses offered at all three campuses. You'll have the opportunity to look at cities from multiple perspectives. You'll explore cities as sites of culture, politics, economy, and human creativity. You'll learn how societies change cities, and how cities transform society. Become an urban problem solver. Be trained to take part in shaping your city for the better.
Why study Urban Worlds?
With over half of the world’s population living in urban spaces, cities matter. They produce, reflect, and amplify most of the dynamics, potential, and problems of global society. With planetary pressures like population growth and climate change, urban spaces need to be more resilient and sustainable for society to thrive in a turbulent world.
Students in SFU’s new Bachelor of Arts (BA), Major in Urban Worlds program gain the knowledge and skills to shape cities and urban life for better.
Program Stucture
Urban Worlds is a collaboration between the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and the Faculty of Environment (FENV). This allows students two stream options to curate their studies:
- Foundation Year: students take courses together
- Years 2 & 3: students choose a stream focused on their areas of interest - Urban Studies (FASS) or Urban Change (FENV)
- Year 4: students reconnect for capstone projects
Students graduate together with a degree that will create opportunities for graduate studies as well as jobs and career pathways.
Learn more about the streams, program and course requirements →
Stream 1: Urban Studies
This stream explores the richness and diversity of human settlement in cities, focusing on historical, cultural, economic and political dimensions. Students learn about the common factors of urban life that appeal to people and highlights the culture, creativity and communication that emerges when communities form and gain the tools to interpret these complex aspects.
This stream develops students' capacity to appreciate and improve human agency in city making outcomes.
- Historical, cultural, economic, political
- Develop students’ skills in discovering the richness and diversity of human settlement in cities.
- Understand common factors that draw people to live and work in cities through the appreciation of the culture, creativity and communication that occur when people share and shape a community
- Students will be equipped to perceive and interpret the cultural, economic, historical, and political dimensions of urban society.
Stream 2: Urban Change
This stream explores the geographic dimensions of urban change. Urban environments are constantly changing and their dynamism is essential to our world as we become a global urban society. In the Urban Change stream, students will acquire a deep knowledge of how cities have come to be what they are, how urban change continues to shape social change, and how to shape cities and urban life for the better in the future. While Urban Change is interdisciplinary, it is strongly based in Geography, drawing from many Geography courses, and managed by Geography.
- Focuses on the geography of urban change
- Place-based (spatial relationships that constitute cities, urban regions and global interurban relationships)
- Foregrounds the dynamics of urban spaces by exploring the geographies of place, politics, gentrification, crisis, food, community, migration and other fundamental place-based processes
- Ground understanding in constructive and critical professional and civic engagement with the world through urban practice courses
Topics of study
- Gentrification
- Housing and homelessness
- Governance and politics
- Climate change
- Sustainability and resilience
- Culture and place
- Migration
- Inequality and justice
- Age-friendly cities and communities
- Race and gender
- Community-engaged place-making
- Transportation
- City's role as a node of extraction in the global economy
Career Opportunities
Urban Worlds students can pursue various career paths with the skills and knowledge they acquire. Here are just some of those careers:
- Senior government managers and officials
- City construction
- Production utilities
- Transportation
- Urban and land-use planning
- Senior government managers and officials
- Economic development
- Sustainability
- Business development officers
- Market researchers and analysts
- Emergency management
Video Introductions: Urban Worlds Courses
URB 201: Urban Inquiry and Practice (Spring 2025)
Taught by Professor Andy Yan
Description: Effective inquiries in urban studies require the application of approaches to find, analyze, and communicate data about the city, its residents, and its functions. From these applications, they can become the keys to professional urban practices in careers that focus on examining cities.
GEOG 161: Urban Change: An Introduction to Dynamic Places (Spring 2025)
Taught by Professor Eugene McCann
Description: An introduction to geographical perspectives on urbanized and urbanizing places, spaces, landscapes and environments. The course focuses on the dynamism that characterizes cities and urban regions. Using a geographical social science approach, it provides an overview of how cities are shaped by humans and how we are shaped by cities.
Current Urban Worlds Students
Check out our Urban Worlds Library Resource Page. It is reviewed regularly and kept updated, useful and current.
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