CitiesX: The Past, Present and Future of Urban Life
HarvardX
Explore what makes cities energizing, amazing, challenging, and perhaps humanity’s greatest invention.
More resources on Urban Geography
citylab.com
CityLab is a publication devoted to urban life and city policy, exploring how cities are planned, governed, and transformed. It offers news, features, and data-driven stories on housing, transportation, zoning, design, and urban equity, often accompanied by visuals and interactive maps.
Cities and the Wealth of Nations
Jacobs argues that city regions, not nations, are the real units of economic life, and that import-replacing cities drive growth. Explains why national currencies and subsidies can mask stagnation in regions dependent on distant cities.
aag.org/topics/urban-geography
An AAG resource page focused on urban geography, covering core topics like city form, urbanization, and spatial processes, with related research, teaching materials, and links for students and scholars.
The Urban Revolution
Lefebvre's 1970 argument that industrial society is giving way to complete urbanization, introducing the urban as its own analytic field. Dense Marxist and structuralist theory; expect to work through concepts like urban society and centrality.
Sustainable Cities
SDG Academy course, curated by Aromar Revi with faculty from UN-Habitat, universities and city governments, on urban development under the Sustainable Development Goals. Covers urbanization trends, informal settlements, infrastructure, climate resilience, urban governance and finance, explaining how public and private actors shape sustainable cities.
Happy City
Montgomery combines happiness research with reporting from Bogota, Copenhagen, and American suburbs to show how commute length, density, and street design affect wellbeing. Gives concrete criteria for judging whether a neighbourhood is built for people.