Course description

Half of the world's population lives in cities and around 75 percent of Australia's population. How we use space in cities has a profound effect on the ways in which we live and relate to each other. Our use of space, our patterns and modes of human settlement are not just reflections of our economic, social and political relations, they have a fundamental effect on how those relations are practised and embodied. Social norms, practises and traditions are shaped by place and space, from the quiet and familiar suburbs, to the brash and sometimes brutal social norms of the big city. The way we interact and support each other and our life chances are strongly influenced by the nature of the place we call home, whether it is a suburb, the inner city or a squatter settlement. In this course, we will take both an Australian and a global view of the city. We will take a historical perspective of human interaction with space, closely linking the city with the great temporal transitions from traditional society to modernity and to post modernity; from agrarian to industrial to post-industrial modes of production and consumption; and the ways in which the spatial logic of human settlement influences advantage and disadvantage, taste, culture and social practises.

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