Master of Arts in Urban Studies

Transform Your World

Cities around the globe are facing complex issues in need of creative solutions. At Fordham, our solutions-oriented interdisciplinary program will prepare you to tackle the challenges confronting urban society in a range of areas:

Economic development
Inequality and social justice
Public health
Environment and sustainability
Urban arts and creative industries
Historic preservation and gentrification
Technology and the development of “smart” cities.

With New York City as our main laboratory, you’ll design a unique course of study tailored to your own interests. You’ll engage in fieldwork with real-world implications and emerge with a nuanced understanding of the powerful forces that are shaping our cities, as well as the problem-solving skills required to improve the quality of life for their citizens.

Program Highlights

Flexible, interdisciplinary program shaped by student interests and career objectives
Strong foundation in applied research methods and contemporary urban issues
Research and study abroad opportunities with our international partner universities
Opportunity for fieldwork with public agencies, community nonprofits, museums, architectural and engineering firms, economic development corporations, and more
Curricular Practical Training is available to F-1 students

Program Basics

Designed as a 16-month program (three to four semesters for full-time students)
Curriculum requirements include three core courses, seven elective courses, fieldwork, and the completion of a master’s thesis for a total of 36 units.
Master’s thesis topic is directly tied to research and fieldwork
Classes held in the evening to accommodate fieldwork

Careers

City and regional planning
Real estate
Historic preservation
Education
Public administration
Environmental regulation
Urban renewal and design
Housing development agencies
Business improvement districts
Economic development corporations
Museums
Nonprofit cultural and arts institutions

Learn more about how a master’s degree in urban studies can help you in your career.

New York Universities, It’s Time to Tear Down That Wall

By Brian Martindale, Fordham Urban Studies

from Gotham Gazette:

“New York universities are walling people out. Major private institutions across the city are surrounded by gates, but not because they are in the most dangerous neighborhoods. Rather, it appears that largely white student bodies are being walled off from their surrounding communities because of unfounded fear of racial others.

Columbia University, in a neighborhood adjacent to Central Harlem, is blockaded on every side with a security force keeping watch on all who enter its narrow gates. St. John’s University, in Queens’ Hillcrest neighborhood, is peppered with turnstiles, gated parking lots, and signs marking it as “Private Property.” Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus in the Bronx is similarly locked-down, separated from the surrounding community by wrought iron and chain link fences, at places with barbed wire and stone walls. The only way in, with few exceptions, is by scanning a school ID past a staffed security booth or full-height turnstiles.

Standing in contrast is New York University, located in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. NYU is a decidedly urban campus, built into the fabric of the city, with the public Washington Square Park serving as its primary quad.

What makes NYU different? Gut instinct might suggest NYU is in a safer neighborhood so it doesn’t need a gate. But it turns out the universities that believe they need to wall out crime are actually in safer communities.”

Read the full article by Brian Martindale at Gotham Gazette.

Annika Hinze Appointed as New IPSR Editor

from ipsa.org:

Annika Marlen Hinze, Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Urban Studies Program at Fordham University, has been appointed as co-editor of the International Political Science Review (IPSR).

Dr. Hinze's research and teaching focus on urban politics, immigration policy, democratic theory, and qualitative and mixed methods research. Hinze is also interested in housing, transportation, and sustainability policy in cities. Her first book, Turkish Berlin: Integration Policy and Urban Space (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), compares integration policy and lived integration of second-generation Turk-German women in two Berlin neighborhoods. She is also the co-author (with Dennis R. Judd) of the 10th edition of City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America (Routledge 2018), as well as the 11th edition, newly entitled City Politics: Cities and Suburbs in 21st Century America (Routledge 2022), and co-editor (with James M. Smith) of the forthcoming 8th edition of American Urban Politics in a Global Age (Routledge, forthcoming). Hinze has published articles in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, PS: Political Science & Politics, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, and co-edited a special issue on “North American Urban Politics” in the journal Urban Research and Practice (2013). Her current research focuses on gender equality in academia, the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cities in policy framing and practice, sustainability policy and planning in American cities, urban neighborhood change, and democratic institutions. Dr. Hinze has done field research in Canada, Germany, Turkey, and the United States and is an Associated Researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at TU Berlin.

Read the announcement at ipsa.org.

City Politics: Cities and Suburbs in 21st Century America

annika m. hinze | dennis r. judd
City Politics, Eleventh Edition

9781032006352
Routledge
July 12, 2022

from the publisher:

City Politics has received praise for the clarity of its writing, careful research, and distinctive theme – that urban politics in the United States has evolved as a dynamic interaction between governmental power, private actors, and a politics of identity.

The book’s enduring appeal lies in its persuasive explanation, careful attention to historical detail, and accessible and elegant way of teaching the complexity and breadth of urban and regional politics which unfold at the intersection of spatial, cultural, economic, and policy dynamics. This 11th edition has been thoroughly updated while retaining the popular structure of past editions.

Urban Studies Week Panel Discussion:

COVID-19 AND THE CITY

This event happened on April 27
Virtual / Room TBA
join

The Urban Studies Program at Fordham University cordially invites you to this year's Urban Studies Week Panel Discussion: COVID-19 and the City.

There is ample data to show the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, and the exacerbating effects it had on existing inequalities. But simultaneously, we also witnessed a highly politicized discussion, in which politicians and journalists were quick to proclaim The End of the City as we know it. Our panelists will examine all these different narratives, as well as the real effects of the pandemic, from their different perspectives.

panelists

Ruth Milkman Distinguished Professor of Sociology, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and CUNY Graduate Center
Lizzette Soria Policy Specialist at UN Women. Focus areas: Gender-Based Violence, urban development, and infrastructure
Anusha Dandapani Chief Data & Analytics Officer at United Nations International Computing Centre

discussion & insight

Challenges that major cities and their vulnerable communities faced during the pandemic
The politicized predictions of "the end of the city"
Issues cities still have to address as we continue to live with COVID-19

Please join us on April 27, from 1–2:30 p.m. for what promises to be an exciting and important conversation.

Four Dream Conversations in Urban History

from globalurbanhistory.org:

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed academic conversation, likely forever. This last June, several dozen GUHP members from across the world gathered to envision new ways to fulfill the Project's mission as we go forward. Instead of thinking about location or formats of new events, we decided that online some form of hybrid events were actually to GUHP's advantage, since they allowed relatively simple and chap ways to bring the membership together over long distances.

What are our "Dream Conversations"? Read more at globalurbanhistory.org.

Events

past events

10/09 Saturday – 10 a.m.
register
UHA Getting Published: Journal Edition
Join the Urban History Association for a workshop that will explore the basics of preparing an article-length manuscript for journals in urban history. The session panel includes editors from the major urban history journals, who will discuss article preparation, submission guidelines, the review process, and the particular types of articles their journals, respectively, publish. There will be ample time for questions and comments from the audience.

Speakers:

Sonia Hirt, Dean, College of Environment and Design, University of Georgia: Editor, Journal of Planning History
Rosemary Wakeman, Professor of History, Fordham University; North American Editor, Urban History
John Gold, Professor of Historical Geography, Oxford Brookes University (UK) and Maggie Gold, Senior Lecturer, London Metropolitan University; Editors, Planning Perspectives
David Goldfield, Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Charlotte; Editor, Journal of Urban History

View More Past Events . . .

10/19 Tuesday, 9–10 a.m. FREE!
register

The American Experiment: A Virtual Breakfast
Start your day with The Mark Twain House & Museum's first-ever virtual breakfast conversation! Perk some coffee, butter your toast, and dig into a dynamic conversation between David Rubenstein and Dr. Christina Greer discussing Rubenstein’s new book, The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream.

10/01 Friday – 3 p.m.
register
MCNY Curator Walking Tour - Radicals of the Lower East Side
The area of Manhattan known as the Lower East Side was one of the original geopolitical centers of working class politics and culture. Often considered home of the unwashed, unruly, and un-American, waves of immigrants who lived in the Lower East Side mobilized for labor rights and decent housing, forged vibrant cultural lives, and pursued visions of socialism, anarchism, and other forms of radicalism. This walking tour will examine some of those diverse histories—from anarchist Emma Goldman to punk anarchist destination ABC No Rio—and how they continue to impact the neighborhood today. Led by MCNY Curator and Lower East Side resident Sarah Seidman.

10/01 Friday – 11 a.m.
register
NYBG Plant-Based Foods: From Seed to Take-Out
Vegan, vegetarian, and other plant-based diets are championed by many as a powerful approach to health, environmental sustainability, and a more humane and ethical food system. Critics, on the other hand, are concerned with highly processed, popular plant-based products; the disconnect between plant-based diets and cultural food traditions; and the implications of removing animals from agricultural systems.

This webinar, moderated by Fordham University Associate Professor Garrett Broad, brings together nutrition scientists and experts from the growing plant-based food industry for a discussion that traces plant-based foods from fields to restaurants, bodegas, and take-out containers in the Bronx and beyond.

9/30 Thursday – 7 p.m.
register
MCNY Moonlight & Movies | Smithereens
Summer is not over! Join us for a final outdoor screening of Smithereens (1982, 89 mins), Susan Seidelman's classic homage to NYC's Downtown punk scene in the 1980s. With a soundtrack by The Feelies, Smithereens follows the (mis)adventures of New Jersey runaway and punk rocker Wren (Susan Berman), and features appearances from punk icons including Richard Hell. Featuring an in-person introduction by director Susan Seidelman.

Susan Seidelman is a director, producer and screenwriter who came to prominence in the 1980s with Smithereens, the first American independent film screened in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. She is the director of Desperately Seeking Susan (Madonna, Rosanna Arquette), She-Devil (Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr), Cookie (Peter Falk), amongst others. Her TV work includes directing the pilot and early episodes of Sex And The City. Seidelman received an Academy Award nomination for her short film The Dutch Master. Seidelman’s work continues to mix comedy with drama, blending genres and pop-cultural references with a focus on strong female protagonists, often set against the backdrop of NYC.

9/24 Friday – 3 p.m.
register
MCNY Curator Walking Tour – Public Art in Lower Manhattan
Join MCNY curator Lilly Tuttle on a walk through Lower Manhattan and hear the hidden history of how one of the oldest areas in New York underwent a radical transformation in the 1960s and 70s as the city shed its industrial, maritime past and remade both the east and west side waterfronts for a new era. Explore the architecture, urban planning, and public art that gave this district a modern look, and generated iconic spaces like the original World Trade Center and Tribeca.

9/23 Thursday – 5:30 p.m.
register
“Unearthing Buried Narratives: Reconstructing the Experiences of Enslaved People Through Jesuit Records”
Recalling the Catholic enslaved experience reveals new patterns about enslavement within the Catholic Church and the instrumental ways enslaved people formed community, resisted their enslavement, and shaped their faith. Prize-winning scholar Kelly L. Schmidt, Ph.D., invites the audience to engage with records about enslaved people in Jesuit archives, cross-referencing them and reading against the grain to discover the limitations resulting from enslaved people being prevented from keeping records about their own lives.

Organized by The Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies.

9/22 Wednesday – 6 p.m.
register
Columbia GSAPP Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style
A lecture by Charles L. Davis II with a response by Professor Reinhold Martin, Director of the History and Theory Sequence in the M.Arch program at Columbia GSAPP.

Charles L. Davis II is an assistant professor of architectural history and criticism the University at Buffalo. Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), traces the historical integrations of race and style theory in paradigms of “architectural organicism,” or movements that modeled design on the generative principles of nature.

9/21 Tuesday – 5 p.m.
register
Ground Zero: Master Plans
Two design competitions determined the direction of the master plan at Ground Zero and the concept and position of the 9/11 memorial and museum. Less clear in their functions, locations, and funding were other cultural institutions awarded a potential place on the site. Yet, as this program will discuss, the cultural component was a key idea to both the rebuilding at Ground Zero and the recovery of lower Manhattan.

Moderator for the panel is Gary Hack, an architect, planner, and academic who consulted for Studio Libeskind from the winning urban design competition through the preparation of the master plan and urban design guidelines.

The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence

from fordham news:

The concept of artificial intelligence has been with us since 1955, when a group of researchers first proposed a study of “the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines.” At the same time, it seems like not a day goes by without news about some development, making it feel very futuristic.

It’s also the purview of professors from a variety of fields at Fordham, such as Damian Lyons, Ph.D., a professor of computer science, R.P. Raghupathi Ph.D., a professor of information, technology and operations at Gabelli School of Business, and Lauri Goldkind, Ph.D., a professor at the Graduate School of Social Service.

Listen to the podcast by Fordham Urban Studies alumnus Patrick Verel:

Read the full transcript at Fordham News.

In Bronx and beyond, the pandemic revealed resilience

from the christian science monitor:

“When Bethany Fernandez first began to document oral histories in the Bronx during the pandemic, her own life was “chaotic,” she says – her familiar routines upended, her days confronted with fear and uncertainty.

But the past year and a half has become, almost in a strange way, a time of profound personal growth and self-discovery, says Ms. Fernandez, a lifelong resident of the Bronx, a borough of New York City.

The communities surrounding her were among the most afflicted in the country, and they were being documented relentlessly in the news. But when she decided to join a group of fellow students at Fordham University to launch the Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project, she found a reality not fully captured in the news, she says.”

“In moments like these, a cynical person might think, ‘Oh, people are going to be selfish’ – resources are scarce, survival of the fittest, or whatever,” says Ms. Fernandez. “But no, it was the complete opposite. People were willing to give, people willing to extend themselves, even if they may not have had that much to give or to extend.”

In two dozen interviews with Bronx teachers, families, artists, and community leaders, people described a similar sense of energy, positivity, and resilience, says Mark Naison, professor of history and African and African American studies at Fordham, who advised the students.

“You know, we found all these people who were doing amazing things to help keep the community alive during this time,” he says.

Read the full article by Harry Bruinius (@HarryBruinius) at The Christian Science Monitor.

STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY AND COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE

Fordham’s Urban Studies Program stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and all the protesters demanding racial justice and an end to police brutality towards minorities across the country. We firmly believe that in a society, in which all are not free from oppression and injustice, no one is truly free. Therefore, we must all recognize our responsibility to work towards pointing out systemic inequality and racism throughout our country, and our institutions, as a first step toward ending and overcoming it.

“Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest.” (Ella’s Song, Bernice Johnson Reagon)

We strongly believe in the importance of confronting the past (and the present) for building a better and more equitable future, and we are committed to confronting existing racial injustice in our teaching and research.

Commencement message from Dr. Annika M. Hinze, Director of Urban Studies

Dear Class of 2021,

What a year it has been! We started out the academic year after a summer of social conflict, political failures, and pandemic uncertainty. And we did this mostly online – though some of you and your professors braved in-person classes, masked and socially distanced. “Socially distanced” – that is quite the term for a social scientist. It sounds like an oxymoron: Is it even possible to be social from a distance when we, as human beings, are so dependent on physical touch and social interaction? Well, we – you – somehow made it possible!

I can honestly say that I did not enjoy teaching remotely. I like to pace around the classroom, I like to use my arms and hands when I speak, I like to try and read the room that I am in. I like to get in the right mental state for my class on my commute to campus – first on the train, then on the bus, while watching the people and buildings change as I go, sipping my morning coffee. I am an urbanist, after all! I enjoy being in the City, with the City, of the City, on my way to work. None of that was possible on a Zoom screen, in a virtual work environment. Sometimes, I would get up from my desk for a late lunchbreak for the first time since the early morning and realize that I had not moved much further than ten feet from where I slept the night before. That depressed me. Yet, I was moved so many times by how much you, my students, got into the zone: you got passionate about the discussion topics, the readings, the comments of your classmates. You engaged, questioned, reflected. You even produced some research. That is, given the circumstances, no small feat.

It was not just the pandemic, the remote classes, the ever-changing case numbers and guidance about what to do that made this past year so tough to survive. It was also the human cost. What we lost. We lost loved ones. We lost acquaintances. And if we were lucky enough not to lose anyone we knew and loved, we lost time with them. Time that will not come back. We lost time to do what we love, whether that would have been time spend traveling the world, socializing with friends, or simply hugging our parents – it is lost forever, and it is ok to grieve that.

And then, on top of all that, we witnessed, felt, processed, grieved so many other things that happened on a social and political scale. After a difficult and more divisive election season than perhaps ever before, we witnessed a domestic attack on the U.S. Capitol with the explicit goal to dismantle the democratic mechanisms of our political system. And we continue to witness and confront the societal fact that our democracy is still not as inclusive as it promises to be. Despite their social, cultural, economic, and political contributions, people of color are still not afforded the same privileges in our society. We continue to witness violence against black and brown bodies, and targeted attempts to exclude them from the democratic process. Many of these tensions and grievances boiled over in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately affected black and brown Americans who continue to live and work under less safe, healthy, and fair conditions than white Americans. We witnessed targeted hatred and violence against Asian Americans in connection with the pandemic. Many of you may have personally felt the effects of those events and injustices.

Just because the infamous year of 2020 and the oh-so-very-strange 2020/21 academic year are over does not mean we are out of the woods. As a society, we have much work to do. As individuals, we may have just received our COVID vaccines and started to emerge from our social isolation, breathing in the spring air and admiring nature’s reawakening all around us, taking stock of what we have lost, and how to move forward.

I have always loved the term Commencement. In many other languages, we just speak of Graduation, but Commencement is so much more powerful, because of what it implies: Finishing your degree is not the end – it is the beginning. The beginning of a new chapter. As we emerge from the pandemic into so much uncertainty, we also have the ability to start anew. To write a new chapter. All the grief and pain from last year should not be something we are merely leaving behind. Instead, maybe we can use it to inspire this new start. To do better. To rebuild.

You have all shown so much capacity for resilience, creativity, and love in getting through the pandemic, finishing your studies, and living gracefully through so much loss. You give me so much hope for what is possible, and you make me so proud of what you have accomplished. As the next generation, you are badly needed!

With all my heart – congratulations on an amazing achievement, Class of 2021!

Annika Marlen Hinze, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Director, Urban Studies Program
Fordham University

Urban Studies Week 2021

the fordham university urban studies program presents:

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same.

An Urban Studies Week Walking Tour exploring the history of the South Bronx, its built environment, geography and social history.

This event happened on Wednesday, April 28
The Heinrich Heine Memorial
in Joyce Kilmer Park
Grand Concourse & 161st St.

Starting at the lower end of the exquisitely urban boulevard known as the Grand Concourse, we walk through the Bronx’s metamorphosis into our present society and home. We witness its diverse population transforming over time. We take note of historical buildings still standing and observe their history led by two Bronx history buffs (both Fordham Urban Studies Alumni and NYC natives), Adam Stoler and Nestor Danyluk.

We see remnants of old and birth and rebirth of new: populations, institutions, businesses, restaurants. Peeling away the visible layers, revealing what underlies the vibrancy, and echoes the greatness and pain of the city. In preparation for the tour, we strongly recommend reading Constance Rosenblum’s Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.

Finally, what better way to experience “live” than taste? Stay with us, for the walking tour includes a treat from the Urban Studies Program—the joy of breaking bread together, tasting what the Bronx is made up of today.