This course offers a policy lens on two of the most consequential and contested issues in American governance: policing and incarceration. Students will examine how the modern police institution emerged and whether it actually reduces crime, why police violence and misconduct have proven so difficult to curb, how the United States came to imprison people at such high rates, and what drives the stubborn persistence of these systems despite widespread calls for change.

The field of urban economics addresses a wide variety of questions and topics. At the most general level, the field introduces space into economic models and studies the location of economic activity. Urban economics typically addresses four sets of questions, and this course is organized around these four areas. The first set of questions focuses on the development of urban areas. Why do cities exist and why do some grow more rapidly? How can local governments encourage such growth? The second set of questions addresses patterns of development within metropolitan areas.

This course examines historic and contemporary patterns of racial and ethnic stratification often found at the center of disputes concerning urban development, the allocation of city resources and unequal distributions of power. Also embedded throughout the course are ongoing analyses of the ways in which structural inequalities often function in class and gender-specific ways.