Ateneo - UPO

Il corso di sociologia delle città si dividerà in due parti.
La prima sarà dedicata allo studio e all’analisi delle diverse prospettive teoriche riguardanti la sociologia urbana, attraverso lo studio del contributo che autori classici hanno apportato alla materia.
La seconda parte sarà dedicata all’approfondimento di tre temi specifici tra loro correlati: il diritto alla città da Henri Lefebvre a David Harvey, la cittadinanza urbana e le Smart cities.

Nuvolati, G. (2011) Lezioni di sociologia urbana, il Mulino, Bologna
Harvey, D. (2016) Il capitalismo contro il diritto alla città, Ombre Corte, Verona
Chiodelli, F. (2010) La cittadinanza secondo Henri Lefebvre: Urbana, attiva, a matrice spaziale, in Territorio, fascicolo 2009/51:103-109, FrancoAngeli
Holland Robert G.(2008) Will the real smart city please stand up?,City,12:3,303-320
Marciano, C. Idone Cassone V., Onnis, E. (2020) Città in gioco. La smart city tra neoliberalismo municipale e e riduzione della complessità, in Rivista trimestrale di Scienze dell’amministrazione, 3/2020

N.B.the program can be partially modified in relation to the project work

Non-attending students will have to supplement the program with the following texts
Harvey D.(2013) Città ribelli, Il saggiatore,Milano
Agustoni A., 2023, Città e sistemi mondo. Sociologia storica ed ecologia evolutiva, Carocci, Roma.

Students will have to demonstrate to have acquired a sufficient understanding of the theoretical perspectives of urban sociology and to be able to adequately orient themselves within these, also through their historical contextualization. They will have acquired the critical tools for the analysis and understanding of urban phenomena and they will be able to propose insights on specific topics that concern these phenomena. Students will also acquire specific knowledge about the topic of urban citizenship and smart cities, placing these issues within the ecological studies on sustainability.

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The lectures of the first part of the course will be held mainly in frontal mode, but the interaction will still be required and encouraged.
In the second part of the course the lectures will alternate with classroom work during which students will be required to elaborate a project work, individually or in small groups, in which they can propose and deepen the analysis of an urban phenomenon of their choice and present it at the end of the course

The examination for students attending the course will take place in three distinct moments:
a mid-course written test where the student will have to answer three open questions about three of the authors studied in the first part of the course (40% of the total grade)
The development and presentation in class of the project work at the end of the course (30% of the total grade)
Final oral exam (30% of the total grade)

Criteria for attributing grades:
Sufficient evaluation: basic knowledge of the texts and a project work that presents consistent results but not original, with a sufficient argumentative basis. Sufficient project work exposure.
Intermediate evaluation: Thorough knowledge of the texts and coherent and argumentative project work, which proposes concrete results, supported by a bibliographical analysis carried out independently. Good project work exposure.
Praise/excellence: In-depth knowledge of the texts, coherent, argumentative and original project work that is supported by the autonomous deepening of different scientific sources, and that proposes original results. Excellent presentation of the project work with the expression of critical skills and transversal connection between different fields and theories.

N.B. For non attending students the exam is oral on the whole programme (including the additional texts)

The first part of the course will aim to define the outline of the discipline, emphasizing the complexity and at the same time the importance of the study on a local and urban scale of social phenomena, also and above all in relation to the global challenges of modernity fully deployed. We will therefore start from the study of the contributions to the subject of the main classical authors who approached the study of urban phenomena. Through the study of authors such as Lefebvre and Harvey the course will be linked to the second part that will address the study of urban phenomena through the lens of the concepts of right to the city and urban citizenship. In this part a critical perspective will be proposed regarding the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and social justice on an urban scale, which will highlight the limits and potential of the latest approaches to city government and the emerging forms of governmentality that define them. These dynamics, in fact, will also be read in the light of the multiform and nebulous concept of smart city, which, always through a critical perspective, will be examined in its latest applications and related speculations

Students must be able to orient themselves in the literature concerning the sociological study of the cities by referring to the various theoretical perspectives of classical urban sociology. They will acquire the theoretical and empirical tools to approach the analysis of urban realities in a critical way. Students will acquire basic and advanced knowledge about the topics of urban citizenship, the right to the city and smart cities, and they will be able to propose critical and consistent reasoning that link the different topics covered in the course.