Sustainable Urban Systems

Sustainable Urban Systems aims to provide an in-depth understanding of urbanization and sustainable urban systems to students without a systemic previous exposure to the topic. Urbanization is one of the major social transformations of our time that has profound impacts on people and the planet. Cities play an increasingly critical role in local, regional and global sustainability, presenting enormous challenges but also a window of opportunity to “get it right”. The course will explore key topics such as the trend and impacts of global urbanization, the role of cities in sustainability, theoretical and conceptual understanding of cities as systems, analytical tools in measuring sustainability performance of cities, managing urban environment, and urban sustainability experiments and transition towards sustainability. A systems perspective is a common thread throughout the course. The course is strongly interdisciplinary, drawing on both classic and most recent literature in urban geography, urban ecology, urban environmental management, urban sustainability, systems innovation and transition. The course builds on Human Ecology, where the evolutionary history of human-nature relationships as well as a systems approach towards understanding such relationship is explored. Honours Pathway Option Subject to the approval of the course convenor; students taking this option will be expected to complete advanced weekly readings and to be prepared to discuss this advanced material in tutorials. In addition, students will be expected to make a seminar presentation on one week's reading and to lead the subsequent discussion. A concise paper must accompany the presentation. The paper, quality of presentation and quality of subsequent facilitation will all form part of the student's mark (a minimum of 15% of overall assessment). All other assessment and requirements remain the same.