This one semester course is part of a sequence of classes tied to the Latin American Housing network research initiatives (www.lahn.utexas.org). UN-HABITAT convenes bi-decennially: the first meeting was in Vancouver in 1976; the second in Istanbul in 1996; and the third will take place in 2016 (venue yet to be specified). Each meeting basically reviews the progress of policy and practice since the previous meeting, and sets the housing and urban development agenda for the next 20 years. More regular meetings of the World Urban Forum take place intermittently (every two to three years).
It is hoped that the research and policy findings of the LAHN study and recent publication Housing Policy in Latin American Cities: A New Generation of Strategies and Approaches for 2016 UN-HABITAT III http://www.routledge.com/9781138776869/ will form part of the agenda as governments turn back to the existing stock of the city and emphasize housing and community rehab as an integral part of urban development. However, the aim of the class will be to review the changing paradigms of urban development and housing policy since the early 1970s, and to review the extent to which these modes of thinking and policy advocacy became integrated into the two previous UN-HABITAT meetings, and the impact that the congresses have had in shaping the agendas of housing policy; rights to the city; the expansion and support of housing NGOs; sustainability and changing urban governance practices, etc., and how these are embedded within macro economic and development policies of the past 50 years. Working in groups, students will undertake detailed archival review and content analysis of the two previous congresses, together with several of the WUF meetings as a basis to better understand the dynamics and calculus of conference agenda-setting, and of policy change in the subsequent period. In addition we will undertake a detailed analysis and review of the preparations and framing of the 2016 UN-HABITAT.
Two sets of student products are anticipated. First, a major paper that reviews and analyzes the dynamics and impact of HABITAT I & II and how this appears to feed into HABITAT III. This will not only review UN documentation and reports but will also gauge how a number of specific countries had shaped their policies (or not) as a result of the changing conventional wisdoms arising from UN-HABITAT. Second, students will draft a series of position statements that we view as imperatives for consideration in HABITAT III and which arise from: contemporary interdisciplinary research, from critical theory and from contemporary urban and housing challenges that Latin American and other developing areas confront. In short whither housing policies and practice in the 20 years? There will also be a final essay exam.
Depending upon the venue it may be possible to support some student participation in HABITAT III.
This class is cross-listed with LAS 381 (#39780) and SOC 395D (#45200). LBJ is home department.