Dr Alan Mace

This course is compulsory on the BA in Geography. This course is available on the BSc in Geography with Economics. This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available to General Course students.

The purpose of the course is to introduce you to selected ways in which human geographers seek to understand cities. Throughout you will focus on the relationship between people and place. Primarily engaging with London, you will consider how the city has been shaped over time by its people and how, in turn the city experience has shaped and continues to shape the lives of those who live there.

You will look at how the city is described, imagined and planned through official discourses. And at how people create a sense of place, of self and of others in the city. In the Autumn Term you will think about the relationship between planning, architecture, design and people’s identities. And in the Winter Term you will look at the relationship between infrastructure and people. Throughout you will look at how human geographers engage with the lived experience of the city through the lens of, for example, ethnicity, class, and sexual identity.

The course seeks to complement courses in methods and theory in human geography by giving you an opportunity to ground that material in a study of London. You will be able to develop and apply theories of, for example, place, territory, landscape, and migration. And you will engage with a range of methods for geographical research, including the use of walking, archives and the arts. You will also be encouraged to reflect on your personal geography of and relationship with the city.

By the end of the course, you will be able to employ selected concepts and methods from human geography to develop arguments on the relationship between people and place (paying particular attention to the significance of ethnicity, class, sexual identity & faith), including the relationship between a city’s population, the physical form and infrastructure.

In the Department of Geography and Environment, teaching will be delivered through a combination of classes/seminars, in-person lectures and other supplementary interactive live activities.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures across Autumn and Winter Term.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term and in Week 6 of Winter Term

Students are expected to write two formative assignments and to participate actively in classes in the AT and the WT.

Mapping tool (don’t miss ‘layer tools’ in bottom left of right-hand window) https://www.layersoflondon.org/map

Municipal dreams – https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/

Jonathan Meades on Letchworth Garden City (The suburbanisation of the UK) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qT5FquwhpA

de Botton, Alain. 2009. A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary. London: Profile Books.

Hall, Stuart. 2017. Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands. London: Penguin.

Essay (50%, 2000 words) in the AT.
Essay (50%, 2000 words) in the WT.