Urban Studies

Designed as an interdisciplinary program, Urban Studies offers a broad introduction to the city and the urban environment.

Students combine course work and urban issues with hands-on experience in New York City. A dedicated faculty offer courses ranging from urban politics and community, architecture and the built environment, urban history, immigration and class relations, to literary representations of urban space.

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Announcing a 5-week summer course at Fordham University in Manhattan

Urban Psychology

PSYC3340 / URST3340

May 30 — June 29, 2017
3 Days/Week: Tues/Wed/Thurs
4 field excursions in NYC

How does living in a large city impact us — our inner personality, outer behavior, values and relationships? What makes the New York City experience unique?

This interdisciplinary urban studies course focuses on these two question, including the methods and findings of behavioral research on: the origins and growth of cities, crowding, prosocial and antisocial behavior, primary and secondary relationships, ethnicity, happiness, deviance, pace of life, urban personality, the future of cities.

Harold Takooshian is Professor of Psychology, Urban Studies, and Organizational Leadership at Fordham University in New York since 1975. A student of Stanley Milgram, he applies scientific methods to study city life. The field experiences will be led with noted Gothamist Lee Michael Klein.

Urban Studies Week Series 2017

A Panel Discussion on Green Cities, Sustainable Development, and Infrastructure

This event happened on:
Wednesday, April 5

The Fordham Urban Studies Program announces Urban Studies Week Series 2017: A Panel Discussion on Green Cities, Sustainable Development, and Infrastructure, featuring an eclectic group of planners, consultants, and analysts from the public and private sectors, who are experts in urban resilience, sustainability, and environmental protection to discuss the state of New York City's "green infrastructure," what it can learn from abroad, and its path for the future.

View Program

4 – 5 p.m. informal coffee hour for students and panelists
LL708

5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Discussion
South Lounge

Panelists:

Alan Cohn, Climate Program Director at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection
Melissa Enoch, Senior Policy Analyst at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection
Rosanna Collars, Planning Consultant in Urban and Transportation Planning and Resilience at ARUP
Melinda Hanson, Sustainable Transport Consultant at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

Moderators:

Sarah Kaufman, Assistant Director for Technology Planning at New York University
Aaron Passell, Assistant Professor in Urban Studies at Barnard College

Refreshments will be provided.

This event was made possible with the generous support of Podell, Schwartz, Schechter & Banfield LLP.

What Makes a Great City Tick?

Director of Urban Studies, and Professor of Political Science, Annika Hinze, is researching the best practices for making cities just, fair, and equitable for all.

“If you go into communities and interview people who live in what we call gentrifying communities, a lot of them welcome the changes in the neighborhood. Everybody wants to live in a nice neighborhood, with good infrastructure, and good schools that come with gentrification. It’s just that the residents want to stay in the neighborhood once it turns.”

Because cities are growing in importance around the globe, Hinze said she’s eager to continue partnerships with institutions in Pretoria, Berlin, and Amsterdam, and recruit more international students to study in New York. Closer to home, courses like The Urban Lab, which is being co-taught this semester by former urban studies director Rosemary Wakeman, Ph.D., professor of history, and Fordham Law’s Sheila Foster, exemplify the way the urban studies degree is truly interdisciplinary.

Read the full story at Fordham News

UrbanTOPIAS Conference | Berlin

Fordham Professors Annika Hinze, Director of Urban Studies, and Rosemary Wakeman,Coordinator of University Urban Initiatives, discussed the future of Urban Studies at the UrbanTOPIAS conference held at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technical University Berlin.

The 5th Annual Conference of the International Graduate Research Program / IGK Berlin-New York-Toronto: “The World in the City: Metropolitanism and Globalization from the 19th Century to the Present” included urban scholars and activists discussing the challenges of changing cities.

The 2016 conference explored the multiple forces of threats and anxieties that shape urban reality, the practices of resistance and adaptations to urban transformations, and investigated different perspectives on the urban future.

Mark Street Defends the Art of Street Photography in Filmmaker Magazine

Mark Street, writer, filmmaker, and Assistant Professor of Film in the Visual Arts Program at Fordham, defends his craft in a new article for Filmmaker Magazine: "In Defense of Street Photography in an iPhone Age."

Oddly, as filming in one medium (the cellphone) has become ubiquitous, people seem to fear the semi-professional more and more. A professional film shoot ascribes to standards — releases are signed, tacit agreements are made, those filmed understand the scope of the project. As someone who works alone (without a crew that creates a kind of picture a passerby might be able to understand) I often find myself at pains to explain myself.

Read the full article at filmmakermagazine.com

Mark Street Films – Lima Limpia (2014)

Vertical Landscape

Congratulations and bravo to Urban Studies major Zhiyi Zhou for her outstanding photography! Zhiyi's exhibit "Vertical Landscape" is now on display at the Ildiko Butler Gallery at Lincoln Center, 113 W. 60th St., New York, NY.

From the artist:

The exhibition, "Vertical Landscape," consists of ten black-and-white photographs taken with a 4*5 large-format camera. Over the past two years, I have photographed in Rockaway, New York and during trips to China and Cuba. Inspired by an interest in people's living space, the photos capture vernacular architectures both dwelled by humans and inhabited by nature.

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The opening reception is Friday, April 22, 6 - 8 p.m. Please stop by to see Zhiyi's images from New York, China, and Cuba.