Section outline

  • General

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  • Pre-Reading/Thinking for Class 1 August

    While we will not start until September 1, I want to get you thinking about the core issues of the course already: how we imagine ideal cities, where we build them in "reality" outside of but near cities and where these processes go wrong --that is, utopia, suburbia and dystopia. Through the term we will discuss these ideas in dialogue with global thinkers and builders and with each other as builders of better cities.  To start, one task and three short readings that may orient you.

    The Task: Come up with FIVE principles you think are intrinsic to the "good community."  These may refer to design, function, citizenship or change. We will of course go beyond five but with five from everyone we can construct a first list to work with and against through the term.

    Second, readings, if you can:

    First, an article by the distinguished urbanist John Friedmann that argued for the value of Utopian thinking in a world that seemed difficult (and that was 2000!) that should underscore our quest during the term.

    Second, the intro for a book we. will use during the term (there are even copies in the bookstore) that is also available on line through Tripod, Amanda Hurley's (2019) Radical Suburbs.  You can find the intro (and entire book) at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2021&version=NIV or go in through Tripod.

    Finally, a shor image of the New Jerusalem from the Christian New Testament. While we will examine many cultures and urban ideals, use these passeaget to think about the images of faith and salvation that also underpin the human quest for the good city -- how is some form of belief part of vision and citizenship

    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2021&version=NIV

    Looking forward to lively discussion, interesting debates, and even some drawings.....Best, G

    • Friedmann File PDF
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  • Week 1 (September 1) Building the New Jerusalem --and Plopping it in the 'Burbs

    Discussion of varied cases of Utopian community.

    First Principles 

    Site Choice

    Basic Structures

    Relation to Cities --scale, services, connections, exclusions

    Assignment: POST YOUR FIRST PRINCIPLES after discussion.

    Supplementary Reading: Michel Foucault (1967) "Of Other Spaces"  Architecture/Movement/Continuite https://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en/

  • Week 2 (September 8) Western Hegemonic Models and Counterpoints

    Readings:

             READ: Slodczyck (2018) "In Search of an Ideal City" 145-156

    AND ANY TWO OF THE FOLLOWING --One Mainstream and One Counterpoint

             More, Thomas (1518) Utopia.  Sections: "Of their Cities, Of their Traffic, Of their slaves" https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2130/pg2130-images.html#chap03

             Howard, Ebenezer (1902) Garden Cities of Tomorrow, 16-28, 143-152.

    Counterpoints:

            Leeson (nd) "Living in a Dystopian Reality" https://changingourlives.org/living-in-a-dystopian-reality/

            Hurley (2019) Chapter 1 "Celibacy and Co-Housing on the Suburban Frontier (Amrbidge PA)" 31-51 or "When the Bauhaus met the Subdivision" 91-113

             Johns, Alessa (2009) "Feminism and Utopias" Cambridge Handbook on Utopias

    ASSIGNMENT: POST AN ANNOTATED MAP OF YOUR COMMUNITY.  And one building that is important.

      

  • Week 3 (September 15) Reading American Utopias

    Hayden, Dolores (1976) Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism 1790-1975. MIT Press.  Two copies on reserve.

    We will all read the Shaker case.  Each group of three students will choose another case for a 15 minute presentation to the class that should encompass

    Origins and Scale

    Leadership and Economic Function

    Form

    Characteristics of Citizenship/Civil Society

    Fate

  • Week 4 (September 22) From Utopia to Hellscape: The Parisian Banlieue

    Read: Angélil, M., & Siress, C. (2012). THE PARIS BANLIEUE: PERIPHERIES OF INEQUITY. Journal of International Affairs, 65(2), 57-XVII.

    Castells, M (1983) The City and the Grassroots

    AND ONE OF THE FOLLOWING: Stanisław Knapowski (2025) The Social Palace as a Medium for the Transfer and Transformation of Ideas in Early Socialism, Global  Intellectual History, 10:7, 577-594,

    Shrier (2014) " Utopia Deconstructed: Le Corbusier and Le banlieue" ISIS  https://isismagazine.org.uk/2014/04/utopia-unconstructed-le-corbusier-and-the-banlieu/

    Harper, S. (2020). Redefining failure: The value of refusal in participatory arts in the paris banlieue. Conjunctions, 7(2), 1-15.

    Kipfer, S. (2016) Neocolonial Urbanism? La Rénovation Urbaine in Paris. Antipode, 48: 603–625. doi: 10.1111/anti.12193.

    Cohen (2025) "A City Reinvented: Paris is Now Greater Paris" New York Timesnohttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/world/europe/a-city-reinvented-paris-is-now-greater-paris.html?eafs_enabled=false

  • Week 5 (September 29) The View from DC

    READ:  Hurley, A.  (2019) "The Rise and Fall of the New Deal's Garden City" (Greenbelt)(69-90)  

    Holley (1971) "The Negro in the New Deal Resettlement Program" Agricultural History , Jul., 1971, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Jul., 1971), pp. 179-193

    LOOK AT ONE OF THESE OTHER CASES:

    COLUMBIA MD

                     Morton Hoppenfeld (1967) A Sketch of The Planning-Building Process for Columbia, Maryland, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 33:6, 398-409

                     Supplementarry: Columbia, Maryland: Residential Perspectives on the Community’s 50th Birthday Jane Baden, Emily Dooley, Richard Griner, Charles Howell, Noah Maghsadi, Kara McClure, Benjamin Mitrani, Lauren Muraca, Mary Skora, Nicolas Taylor, and Monique Watson Under the supervision of Professor L. Jen Shaffer Course #: ANTH 468O/689O The University of Maryland – College Park June 2016

    RESTON VIRGINIA

             Hurley (2019) "The Fight over the Soul of a New Town"  (Reston) (133-150)

    KENTLANDS, MD

             Lee Chang-Moo and Kun-Hyuck Ahn (2003) "Is Kentlands better than Radburn. The American Garden City and the New Urbanist Paradigms"  Vol. 69, Iss. 1,  (Winter 2003): 50-71.

    NEW AFRICAN-AMERICAN SUBURBAN COMMUNITIES 

                      "How Prince George's County Evolved into One of the most Affluent Black Counties In America" https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/community/equality-matters/prince-georges-county-black-county-most-affluent-past-and-present/65-8f1beda5-4edd-4e40-a8f8-d5352874dd45

     
     
     
    Individual or Group Contributions?
     

    ASSIGNMENT: DRAFT OF YOUR OVERALL MODEL CITY/SUBURB: Zoom Meeting in the next week. 

  • WEEK 6 (October 6). RETHINKING OUR CREATIVE PROCESS

    Prepare two assignments for class discussion:

    (1) Read and provide concrete and sonctructive criticism of two of your colleagues' projects

    (2) Give your core principles to the AI "research assistant of your choice" Ask it to generate a 3-5 page model of community, map, illustration and bibliography.  Add your comments.

  • BREAK: Please Watch Black Panther

    Please Watch BLACK PANTHER over break

  • Week 7 (October 20). Challenging Positions: Race and Class

    Highlighted

         Hurley, Chapter 2 "The Anarchists Who took the Commuter Train" (Piscataway NJ) 51-69

         Du Bois, W.E.B. (1920) "The Comet" http://zacharyrawe.com/sem_6_the_comet_dubois.pdf

         Wiese, A. (1999). The other suburbanites: African american suburbanization in the north before 1950. The Journal of American History, 85(4), 1495-1524.

         Myers, V (2019) "Remembering New Jerusalem" Erie Times News https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/2018/02/15/remembering-new-jerusalem/14783974007/

          Strain, Christopher (2004) "Soul City, North Carolina: Black Power, Utopia and the African American Dream" Journal of African American History 89 (1) Winter: 57-74/
     

  • Week 8 (October 29) Afro-Futurism

             Spencer. (2026) "Urban Planning but Add Some Afro-Futurism" https://wordinblack.com/2024/01/urban-planning-but-add-some-afrofuturism

            Akon City Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akon_City

            Heywood-Routimi (2023) "Corporate Afro-Futurism" https://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2023/03/corporate-afrofuturism/

            Obonyo, M (2026) Africa's Urban Boom" https://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2023/03/corporate-afrofuturism/

            Ajah Ekpeni ObiaJ Emerging Nigerian Megacities and Sustainable Development: Case Study of Lagos and Abuja" 

    ournal of Sustainable Development; Vol. 9, No. 2

    ASSIGNMENT: Choose your comparative case and provide five sources.

  • WEEK 9 (NOVEMBER 3) Asian Utopias Past and Present

    ALL WATCH Lek Sinofuturism 1849-2046 https://www.lawrencelek.com/works/sinofuturism and

    Tao Yanming 421 CE) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:The_Peach_Blossom_Spring

    Choose 1-2 of the following:

    Hunt, James (1998) "Gandhian Experiments in Communal Living --The Phoenix Community and the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa"

    Peace Research  30:1 (February 1998): 83-95.

                Fitting, Peter (2002) Urban Planning/Urban Dreaming: Le Corbusier's Chandigarh Today" Utopian Studies 13 (1): 69-93.

               Zhou, Jianjia (2024) "New Villages: Sewing the Seed of Utopia" https://www.leapleapleap.com/2024/03/new-villages-sowing-the-seed-of-utopia

    Zhou, Y., Zhou, Y., & Fan, X. (2025). Toward a sustainable commodity frontier: From eco-utopian practice of shanghai dongtan to chongming ecological island

    Lin, Zhongjie, 'Epilogue: New Towns after the End of New Towns', Constructing Utopias: China's New Town Movement in the 21st Century (New York, NY, 2025; online edn, Oxford Academic, 23 Apr. 2025)

    Hong, G. (2022). Utopian and insular spaces in chinese literature: An island approach. Island Studies Journal, 17(2), 13-27. 

    Yiu, Angela (2008) "Atarashikimura: The Intellectual and Literary Contexts of a Taishō Utopian Village Author(s): Angela Yiu Source: Japan Review" pp. 203-230

    Ho, "Japanese in Search of Happiness"

    • Hunt File PDF
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    • Founders and Intentions Assignment
      Opened: Saturday, August 29, 2026, 12:00 AM
      Due: Saturday, September 5, 2026, 12:00 AM
    • Fitting File PDF
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    • Liu File PDF
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  • Week 10 (November 10) Gendered+ Perspectives

    Hayden, Dolores (1980) "What Would A Non-Sexist city Looko Like?"

    Edith England (2025) ‘Homelessness is a queer experience.’: utopianism and mutual aid as survival strategies for homeless trans people, Housing Studies, 40:7, 1545-1562

    Becky Walker (2009) Imagining the future of lesbian community: The case of online lesbian communities and the issue of trans, Continuum, 23:6, 921-935

    ASSIGNMENT:  Who lived in your community? What did they do? Are there any testimonies?

  • Week 11 (November 17) Ecological Perspectives

    Zhou, Y., Zhou, Y., & Fan, X. (2025). "Toward a sustainable commodity frontier: From eco-utopian practice of shanghai dongtan to chongming ecological island"

    Johan Hedrén and Björn-Ola Linnér (2009) "Utopian thought and Sustainable Development" Futures Vol 41, Issue 4. This is an intro to the whole volume so look around.

    Bertino, M., & Martín-Lagos López, M. D. (2025). Ecological resistance in intentional communities. A case study of sociocratic governance in an ecovillage in navarre (spain). SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 16(32), 99-108.

    Lisa Garforth, “Ideal Nature: Utopias of Landscape and Loss”, Spaces of Utopia: An Electronic Journal, nr. 3, Autumn/Winter 2006, pp. 5-26 ISSN 1646-4729.

  • Week 12 (November 23) Reading a New Utopia: Tech and Other Visions. SHOULD WE DO ZOOM?

    Mariani (2020) " A New Generation of Self-Created Utopias" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/t-magazine/intentional-communities.html?eafs_enabled=false

    The Line  (saudi Arabia) https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/oxagon

    Aleksandra Savanović (2023) "Tearing Down Fortress Europe: Migration as Utopia"  Green European Journal https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/tearing-down-fortress-europe-migration-as-utopia/

    White, Benjamin Review of Refugia https://singularthings.wordpress.com/2022/08/19/utopian-thinking-dystopian-consequences-reflecting-on-refugia/

    California Forever Websie https://californiaforever.com/

    Moore (2023) "The Tech Elites Utopian Dream  Trend Mill https://www.trend-mill.com/p/the-tech-elites-utopian-dream

  • THANKSGIVING

  • Week 13 December 1 Discussion and Presentations

  • week 14 (December 8) Presentations and Final Discussions

  • Final Paper due by last day of exams

    Final paper due last day of exams.

    It should include:

    revisions original model

    sources of new knowledge and critique that have helped you including your comparison case.

    a final discussion of what you have learned about ideal communities and their dangers