Geography (Urban Studies) Major Concentration (B.A.) (36 credits)

Introductory Geo-Information Science.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

An introduction to Geographic Information Systems. The systematic management of spatial data. The use and construction of maps. The use of microcomputers and software for mapping and statistical work. Air photo and topographic map analyses.

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Cities in the Modern World.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

An introduction to urban geography. Uses a spatial/geographic perspective to understand cities and their social and cultural processes. Addresses two major areas. The development and social dynamics in North American and European cities. The urban transformations in Asian, African, and Latin American societies that were recently predominantly rural and agrarian.

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Quantitative Methods.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Multiple regression and correlation, logit models, discrete choice models, gravity models, facility location algorithms, survey design, population projection.

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Biometry.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Elementary statistical methods in biology. Introduction to the analysis of biological data with emphasis on the assumptions behind statistical tests and models. Use of statistical techniques typically available on computer packages.

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Statistics and Spatial Analysis.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Exploratory data analysis, univariate descriptive and inferential statistics, non-parametric statistics, correlation and simple regression. Problems associated with analysing spatial data such as the 'modifiable areal unit problem' and spatial autocorrelation. Statistics measuring spatial pattern in point, line and polygon data.

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Principles of Statistics 1.

Terms offered: Summer 2025

Examples of statistical data and the use of graphical means to summarize the data. Basic distributions arising in the natural and behavioural sciences. The logical meaning of a test of significance and a confidence interval. Tests of significance and confidence intervals in the one and two sample setting (means, variances and proportions).

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Introduction to Psychological Statistics.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The statistical analysis of research data; frequency distributions; graphic representation; measures of central tendency and variability; elementary sampling theory and tests of significance.

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Statistics in Social Research.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

This is an introductory course in descriptive and inferential statistics. The course is designed to help students develop a critical attitude toward statistical argument. It serves as a background for further statistics courses, helping to provide the intuition which can sometimes be lost amid the formulas.

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Southeast Asia Urban Field Studies.

Terms offered: Summer 2025

This course allows students to experience some of the urban changes taking place in Southeast Asian cities, a dynamic region, while providing the opportunity to connect recent scholarship with field observations. We will explore various current themes in urban studies and urban geography including globalization, the transnational circulation of urban policies, interpretations of culture and heritage / new built heritage, gentrification, migrant labour, public housing, creative clusters, and new cities as national economic strategies.

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Urban Field Studies.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Geographical research in urban public and semi-public spaces. Demonstration of techniques of mapping, sampling, measurement, photography, interviewing. Attention to research design.

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Contested Cities and Urban Activism

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Introduction to key themes in contested cities and urbana ctivism, including struggles for LGBTQ communities; racial, gender, and environmental justice, anti- gentrification movements, and contestations over the use of roads and public spaces. How urban geographers and other academics working in urban fields merge scholarship and activism. A hands-on component that focuses on fieldwork skills and direct engagement with communities.

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Global Places and Peoples.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Introduction to key themes in human geography. Maps and the making, interpretation and contestation of landscapes, 'place', and territory. Investigation of globalization and the spatial organization of human geo-politics, and urban and rural environments.

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Geography of the World Economy.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The course introduces the geography of the world economic system. It describes the spatial distribution of economic activities and examines the factors which influence their changing location. Case studies from both "developed" and "developing" countries will test the different geographical theories presented in lectures.

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Environment and Health.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

This course introduced physical and social environments as factors in human health, with emphasis on the physical properties of the atmospheric environment as they interact with diverse human populations in urban settings.

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Health Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Discussion of the research questions and methods of health geography. Particular emphasis on health inequalities at multiple geographic scales and the theoretical links between characteristics of places and the health of people.

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Development and Livelihoods.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Geographical dimensions of rural/urban livelihoods in the face of socioeconomic and environmental change in developing regions. Emphasis on household natural resource use, survival strategies and vulnerability, decision-making, formal and informal institutions, migration, and development experience in contrasting global environments.

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Economic Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Different theories and approaches to understanding the spatial organization of economic activities. Regional case studies drawn from North America, Europe and Asia used to reinforce concepts. Emphasis also on city-regions and their interaction with the global economy.

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Geospatial Analysis.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Overview of both the theoretical and applied aspects of geographic information science and systems. Topics will include spatial analysis techniques, geographic models as abstractions of the real world, spatial data manipulation and management, and conceptual issues related to geographic data and technology. Introduction to a number of leading commercial software including ESRI’s ArcGIS Pro.

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Urban Transportation Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Discusses the history and development of urban transportation systems, as well as problems and potential solutions from a geographic perspective. Specific topics include analysis of the social, economic, and environmental impacts; interaction of land use and transportation systems; the analysis of urban travel behaviour; and the implications of various policy alternatives.

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Political Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The study of the spatial dimensions of political activities and developments at the regional, national and global levels in historical and contemporary perspective. Presentation of case studies relating to the theoretical framework of political geography.

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New Master-Planned Cities.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

This course examines the origins, designs, motivations and cultural politics of planned cities, focusing primarily on those currently under construction in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. A variety of themes will be explored including design responses to urban pollution and over-crowding, 'new' cities from earlier decades, totalitarianism and the city, utopianism, 'green' cities, and 'creative' cities. The course examines the various motivations underlying the design and construction of planned cities and how they are shaped by power, religion, and political ideologies. There will be a focus on evolving concepts used in city design as well as the continuities and cultural revivalism expressed through urban design and architecture. Students interested in urban and cultural geography, cities, architecture and planning in different cultural contexts will enjoy this course.

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Urban Social Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Social space and social time. The reflection of social structure in the spatial organization of the city. Historical perspective on changing personal mobility, life cycle, family structure and work organization. The appropriation and alienation of urban spaces.

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Introduction to Programming for Spatial Sciences.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Introduction to conceptual and practical aspects of programming for the spatial sciences, focusing on programming concepts and techniques irrespective of the specific programming language, framework, or software. Topics include spatial data structures, flow control, classes and objects, and basics of geospatial data modeling and analysis.

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Geography of Development.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Examines the geographical dimensions of development policy, specifically the relationships between the process of development and human-induced environmental change. Focuses on environmental sustainability, struggles over resource control, population and poverty, and levels of governance (the role of the state, non-governmental organizations, and local communities).

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Geographies of Developing Asia.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Current development questions that are of concern to the Asian region. Emphasis on critically studying the major processes of social, economic and environmental change through regional case studies in rural, peri-urban and urban contexts. Covers important debates and considerations that lie at the heart of development geography.

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Advanced Geospatial Analysis.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Advanced techniques in geospatial analysis. Geospatial methods and using geospatial information systems. Topics: geodatabases, interpolation techniques, spatial classification methods, data mining and machine learning, including working with a number of leading commercial software including ESRI’s ArcGIS Desktop/Pro.

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Urban Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Classic and contemporary perspectives in urban geography. Range of topics including effects of capitalism, gender, suburbanism, segregation and inequality, property, urban landscapes, and urban space. Emphasizes theoretical issues but includes empirical and/or case studies.

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Geographies of Race.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Exploration of some ways race and racism manifest spatially, including how race and racism shape vast built environments in addition to intimate experiences of space. Historical, political, and cultural insight for the ongoing racial politics of place.

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Memory, Place, and Power.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

This interdisciplinary class explores the relationships among memory, place, and political power. The course begins with an introduction to key classical, Enlightenment, and contemporary texts on memory and place-making. It then uses this foundation to examine the symbolic transformation of public space, in particular the construction, alteration, and destruction of monuments, memorials, and museums in postcommunist states and in North America. This approach emphasizes the social quality of memory, exploring the ways in which political interests, economic resources, and social practices can shape something as ostensibly personal and individual as memory.

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Advanced Topics in Health Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

A critical review of current themes and trends in health geography, with emphasis on geographical perspectives in public health research. Topics include the social and environmental determinants of chronic and infectious disease, health and health-related behaviours. Seminars focus on critical appraisal of conceptual and methodological approaches in health geography research.

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Advanced Economic Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The objective of this seminar course is to develop an understanding of the geographical dimensions of a variety of new forms of economic and social organization that are emerging across the globe. Key themes focus on innovation, technological and managerial change, evolutionary economic geography, globalization, and changing geographies of inequality.

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Advanced Social Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Current theories and themes in social geography, such as relations between society and space, social and spatial relations of inequality, difference and diversity, situated and embodied identities, social issues and problems, connections between society and nature, all within a spatial framework.

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Advanced Political Geography.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Questions of space and power in contemporary political geography. Range of topics, including territoriality, the state, the politics of space, critical geopolitics, symbolic landscapes, and GIS and mapping. Emphasizes theoretical issues but includes empirical and/or case studies.

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Asian Cities in the 21st Century.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

This course examines current themes relating to mass urbanization in Asia in a range of contexts and the forces that shape the built environment of Asian cities. Various approaches to understanding Asian cities and current theoretical debates will be investigated, including recent critiques of western-centric theorizations of urban change in the region. The course examines a variety of themes through which students will gain familiarity with some of the major strands relating to urban change in Asia: national identity, neoliberalism, social exclusions, migration, religion, ethnicity and sustainability.

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Sustainable Residential Development.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Design strategies of sustainable residential environments at the community and the unit levels. Historic references, siting principles, high density, healthy developments, green homes, urban renewal, circulation and parking, open spaces and implementation approaches.

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History of Housing.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Indigenous housing both transient and permanent, from the standpoint of individual structure and pattern of settlements. The principal historic examples of houses including housing in the age of industrial revolution and contemporary housing.

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Introduction to Medieval Art and Architecture.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Surveys the arts from late Antiquity to the fourteenth century in Western Europe. Focuses on the body and space to introduce artistic and architectural concepts, practices, and styles from the late Roman, Byzantine and Carolingian empires to monastic and royal patronage of the French Kings.

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Urban Culture and Everyday Life.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Explores how popular and artistic cultural texts interrogate the dimensions of urban culture that shape everyday life, such as transnationalization/ globalization; gentrification, migration and other displacements; the proliferation of mobile media and communication technologies; and the political mobilization of fear and anxiety about violence and terrorism.

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Urban Transportation Planning.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Process and techniques of urban transportation engineering and planning, including demand analysis framework, data collection procedures, travel demand modelling and forecasting, and cost-effectiveness framework for evaluation of project and system alternatives.

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History of Montreal.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The history of Montreal from its beginnings to the present day. Montreal's economic, social, cultural and political role within the French and British empires, North America, Canada, and Quebec; the city's linguistic and ethnic diversity.

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Canada: Ethnicity, Migration.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Immigration, ethnicity and race in Canada in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics will include the migration process, government policy and legislation, urban and rural migration, acculturation, nativism and multiculturalism.

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Real Estate Finance.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Fundamentals of mortgages from the viewpoint of both consumer and the firm. Emphasis on legal, mathematical and financial structure, provides a micro basis for analysis of the functions and performance of the mortgage market, in conjunction with the housing market.

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Comparative Local Government.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

An examination of the organization and conduct of local government in Canada, the United States, and selected European countries. Attention to theories of local government, the criteria for comparative analysis, the provision of public goods and bads, urban political patterns and the constitution of new institutional arrangements to deal with "urban crises" in North America.

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Issues: Canadian Public Policy.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The Canadian political process through an analysis of critical policy issues in community development, welfare state, education, and institutional reforms in public service delivery systems. Diagnostic and prescriptive interpretations of public choices in a federal-parliamentary regime.

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Introduction to the Study of Quebec.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Introduction to the ideas and approaches that scholars have used and developed to study Quebec, including some of the foremost issues that have shaped Quebec historically and continue to influence contemporary life. The changing notions about territory, identity, language, citizenship and belonging, the complexity and diversity of Quebec (11 Aboriginal nations, multilingual, multiethnic and religious communities, minority status within Canada) will also be explored from a comparative perspective to identify characteristics that Quebec shares with other nations and those that are different.

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Urban Sociology.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Comparative analysis of the process of urbanization in Europe, North America and the Third World; effects of urbanization upon social institutions and individuals; theories of urbanization and urbanism; the Canadian urban system; urban problems in comparative view.

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Sociology of Ethnic Relations.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

An introduction to the sociological study of minority groups in Canada. The course will explore the themes of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, ethnic and racial inequalities, cultural identities, multiculturalism, immigration. Theoretical, empirical, and policy issues will be discussed. While the focus will be primarily on Canada, comparisons will be made with the United States.

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Social Stratification.

Terms offered: Summer 2025

The pattern, causes and consequences of social inequality. Among the inequalities considered are those of economic class, sex (gender), race, ethnicity and age. Competing theories of the causes of social inequalities are compared and assessed.

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Neighborhoods and Inequality .

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The causes and consequences of neighbourhood-based social inequalities in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Forms of inequality covered include poverty, segregation, ethnic enclaves, unemployment, educational attainment, crime, and health. Methodological issues and social policy will also be examined.

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Crime.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Introductory course on methods and theories in criminology. Exploration of the nature and distribution of crime; and critical evaluation of definitions and the measurement of crime; review of theoretical approaches used to understand such a phenomenon; a comparative overview of the criminal justice system.

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Planning the 21st Century City.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The study of how urban planners respond to the challenges posed by contemporary cities world-wide. Urban problems related to the environment, shelter, transport, human health, livelihoods and governance are addressed; innovative plans to improve cities and city life are analyzed.

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Principles and Practice 1.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

This six-week intensive course exposes students to issues and techniques that are applicable in diverse professional planning contexts. The subject matter, geographic area, scale of intervention and institutional location of planning varies from semester to semester. The course focuses on a specific case study and is taught by a visiting lecturer with professional experience in the selected subject matter.

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Planning for Active Transportation.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

The importance of transit, walking, and cycling as modes of transportation in sustainable urban environments. Planning, design, and operation of mass transit systems, bikeways, and footpaths.

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Environmental Policy and Planning.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Analytical and institutional approaches for understanding and addressing environmental issues at various scales; characteristics of environmental issues, science-policy-politics interactions relating to the environment, and implications for policy; sustainability, and the need for and challenges associated with interdisciplinary perspectives; externalities and their regulation; public goods; risk perception and implications; the political-institutional context and policy instruments; cost-benefit analysis; multiple-criteria decision-making approaches; multidimensional life-cycle analysis; policy implementation issues; conflict resolution; case studies.

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Urban Infrastructure and Services in International Context .

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Issues of practical and theoretical importance in relation to urban infrastructure and services in the international context: science and technology, political economy, policy analysis, policy implementation, public finance, and institutions and governance.

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Current Issues in Transportation 1.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Current transportation issues and topics are addressed from practitioner and academic perspectives.

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Current Issues in Transportation 2.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Current transportation issues and topics are addressed from the perspectives of both professional practitioners and academics.

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Urban Design and Planning.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Fundamentals of city-building in Canada relative to municipal, regional, and provincial actions used to guide urban growth and development. Contemporary urban design in major metropolitan centres as shaped by legal, political, and cultural realities. Current preoccupations in city-building: reurbanisation and adaptive reuse of infrastructure, collaborative multi-stakeholder projects, strategic initiatives, changing relationships between professional experts and grassroots actors. Introduction to specific aspects of practice: public participation and community engagement; land development and real estate; project feasibility and implementation; policy monitoring and evaluation; emergent city-building regimes.

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Urban Economy: A Spatial Perspective.

Terms offered: this course is not currently offered.

Economic functions played by cities; economic processes governing city formation, city growth, and the internal spatial organization of cities. Describing and understanding how cities can be interpreted as economic phenomena. Economic origins of cities, the industrial revolution, city systems and networks, the role of mobility and telecommunications, innovation and creativity as urban phenomena, the internal spatial logic of metropolitan areas.

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