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4/25/12: The review for the final exam is here.

4/15/12: Not all countries are seeing declining fertility rates like we were discussing in class last time. Nigeria is facing tremendous demographic challenges in the face of continued high fertility rates.

4/9/12: Concerning the cultural meaning of watches, see this news story about a kerfuffle over the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church wearing a $30,000 Breguet.

3/30/12: Regarding the idea that mechanical watches are "poetry cut from gears," check out this 10 minute documentary about Swiss watchmakers today. And here's an interesting op-ed about gated communities and what we think they do for us.

3/27/12: The city of Linkoping Sweden is planning to build a 17 story vertical greenhouse.
 
3/26/12: Here's an interesting op-ed from an urban planning perspective about the look and feel and sheer cultural centrality of parking lots.

3/21/12: NPR's Frank DeFord says he sees evidence that America's love affair with the automobile is finally on the wane.

3/20/12: Here is the review for the second exam! If you missed our screening of "Taken for a Ride," you can view it here.

3/18/12: Crossrail is a huge transit project in London: giant earth nibbling machines are digging new train tunnels all the way across the city.

3/8/12: Here are some of Richard Florida's maps.

3/7/12: Slum dwellers are defying Brazil's grand design for the Olympics.

3/6/12: Arcade Fire's Grammy winning latest album, "The Suburbs," speaks to several of the themes we're discussing in class this week. Check out "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)."  There's a line in that song about "dead shopping malls rising like mountains beyond mountains." Here's an article in The Economist about the rise and fall of the mall. Next up: we'll watch this brief 1958 "March of Time" program about Levittown in class today. Here's a 1957 documentary about the first black family to move to Levittown, PA. Today, the suburbs have changed dramatically.  See this short, interesting piece in the Statesman: "The Truth about Suburbia."

3/3/12: More subversive urban underground explorers, this time in London.

3/2/12: This is interesting: Derelict London. And then heck out this Marketplace story and slideshow about abandoned houses in Detroit.

2/23/12: Here's the map we were discussing in class today showing the world's most remote places.

2/22/12: Here's a story about the failure of Twitter to obliterate geography.

2/8/12: Here are the questions that are fair game for the first exam.

2/6/12: Note that I have made some changes to the reading assignments on our calendar! And just for your general edification, check out this seven minute NPR story about the history of a single block in Manhattan as it went from farmland to the home of a super trendy Apple Store.

1/31/12: We're talking about renaissance city states and the rise of monetized economies this morning, and NPR has obliged us with a story about such things this very morning!

1/25/12: Here's a story on NPR about "Slab City" in the California desert. Is it closer to gemeinschaft or Mad Max?

1/24/12: Watch a minute or two of each of these clips set Italian cities over the centuries and pay attention to the technology available to residents: ancient Rome, Renaissance Florence, industrial Turin. 

 1/22/12: This is fun: how big would a city be if every single person in the world lived there?

1/17/12: Here is your first small assignment, worth eight points and due 1/26: read Leinberger's "Death of the Fringe Suburb" and write a one or two page (typed, double spaced) response. Does Leinberger have it right? Where do you want to live after school?

1/17/12: Here's the chase scene from District B13. Here's a giant ant hill filled with concrete.

1/3/12: Welcome! Here is the book you'll need right away: Macionis, John J. and Vincent Parillo. 2010. Cities and Urban Life, 5th Edition. Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-20-564533-6. You also need to buy the September 2011 issue of Scientific American magazine. But it online here.