Our American Cities: Problems, Politics, and Possibilities
Alison Gash is a political science professor and a Thomas F. Herman teaching award recipient at University of Oregon. She is the author of Below the Radar: How Silence Can Save Civil Rights and co-author of Democracy’s Child. You can find her work in media outlets such as Washington Post, Newsweek, Slate, Politico, and Washington Monthly, and on radio programs including Think Out Loud and The Takeaway.
Overview
One of the most enduring political divides in American politics is that which exists between urban and rural areas. Cities have been a constant location of political contestation and innovation. They have provided the most awe-inspiring visible testaments to American prosperity through art and architecture, through the promise of political mobility and the miracle of economic revival. They are also the sites of the most devastating inequalities.
In this course, Professor Gash will introduce you to the American city: its promise, pageantry and politics. From the founding to the present day, students will learn about early and ongoing conflicts over the value of cities. Those who view cities as islands of progress–as the very best of American ingenuity–and others who view them as dens of ill-repute. We will understand how current national fights over cities–and their most vulnerable inhabitants–are an extension of these early conflicts. Most importantly, we will look at the lessons that American cities teach us–about the heartbreak and hope of community collaboration, the inspirations and aspirations of urban life and the unbridled humanity of their “huddled masses.”