Cities in the so-called “Global South” – from Jakarta to Johannesburg, Lima to Lahore, Dakar to Delhi – are vibrant, complex, and key to the future of our rapidly urbanizing world. While undoubtedly places of challenge and conflict, these cities are also hotbeds of creativity and activism, where alternative ways of building, governing, and sustaining urban communities take shape. This course first traces the historical forces of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization that have shaped cities across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, before delving into a range of social, political, and environmental issues that local city-dwellers and their leaders grapple with today.

Taught by Vivek Mishra:

Vivek is an interdisciplinary scholar with interests in post-colonial cities, urban political economy, housing, land, governance, inequality, queer urbanism, urban social movements, and justice. Vivek completed his PhD in Urban and Regional Development from Northeastern University, Boston, MA. Drawing on historical, ethnographic, case study, and spatial methods, with a particular focus on elite informal settlements, his research contributes to existing scholarly discussions on our understanding of how cities are developed and governed outside formal urbanization processes. His research challenges the conflation of housing informality with poverty and calls for a broader analysis of power, privilege, and governance within the context of urban informality.

Class meets T/Th 2:30pm-3:50pm in Smith-Buonanno Hall G13