09 Jul Urban Issue

PLEASE FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS AND IDENTIFY WHAT TRACK YOU ARE GOING TO USE. 

Urban politics can be defined as the competition amongst groups/individuals for winning and holding control over government to guide/influence governmental policy relating to urban problems. Urban politics is as old as the history of the United States cities and continues to be a current and important phenomenon. From issues of gentrification to climate change, from economic development to social justice, from infrastructure development to community life, urban issues are intrinsically embedded within urban politics. Urban problems have many angles, and a wide array of social actors have different and competing views about the nature of problems and what the governmental action should be in the solution of such problems. Social actors then engage in political processes to have a say and influence in the governmental decisions around the urban problems that they are invested in.

Mission

Selecting an urban issue that is important for you and conducting an analysis of the urban politics of said topic. Urban issues based in New York City are preferred, as you would have better access to information and research opportunities. Nevertheless, issues in other US cities, or even other cities of the world, are also accepted. After selecting the issue to be studied, you have to identify the problem under political dispute, raise a question that will guide your research efforts and design a research strategy to answer the question. Once you have done the research, you will prepare a 10-minute presentation of your project and a written report (5-10 pages).

There are two tracks that you can take in your final paper.

• Track 1, the origins of the urban problem under study. Your paper can be about identifying the key events in the history of American urban politics that helps us explain your urban problem as it is manifested today.
• Track 2, the politics of your urban problem. Your paper can be about describing the current and ongoing competition among actors to win and hold control over the solutions that governments should put in place to solve the problem.

Methodology

• You should start your project by defining the problem. Here are some questions that can help you in this process:
• What is going on and why is this problematic?
• Where is this problem happening and who is suffering the consequences?
• What are the negatives that could happen if the problem does not get solved?
• What are the positives that could come up if the problem is resolved?
• The next step is to justify the importance of your topic. To do so, you have to answer the most significant question: so what? That is, why is this urban issue an important one?
• Then, you should propose a research question that will guide your research project. What is it exactly that you want to know about this problem?
• The question could be related to finding a solution to a problem or can be related to better understanding some aspect of the urban issue under study.
• Finally, design a research strategy. To do this, you have to think carefully about the information that you will need to answer your research question. Where is it? Who has it? Once you have identified where the information is, you should design a strategy to go get it.