HSOC-305: Planetary Urban Systems

The future of the planet is urban. It is not just that half the world's population now lives in cities, but that the vast supply-chains and infrastructures of urbanization now operate at a planetary-scale: extending under oceans and across continents, into the atmosphere and through our networked devices. The planetary city is made possible by data centers, satellite telecommunications, intermodal container shipping, fiber optic infrastructure, and continental pipelines. However, it is also a world of unfolding ecological crisis, fueled by many of these same urban processes. How can we, as artists, designers, and citizens, begin to understand our dependence on these planetary urban systems while at the same time imagining and designing for radically new forms of urban habitation? This seminar will follow the lines and flows of urban infrastructure, investigating the design of cities and their world-making impact at a new scale. The first half of the class will involve readings, films, art and architecture from the planetary city, thinking through both the material histories and the cultural dreamscapes that have propelled urban growth in the last 250 years. The second half of the class will turn to the "local" context to ground our orbital view, looking to the Southern California megaregion as a site of planetary flows of information, manufactured goods, energy, and water. Lectures and discussions around the urban metabolism of Southern California will be supplemented by field research and guest speakers. Final projects will consist of maps, diagrams, and urban analysis developed by students in groups, focusing on particular urban systems located within or through our Southern California megaregion