Political Economy of the City explores the forces that have worked to make cities what they are today. This course takes US cities as a starting point while recognizing that we are all operating in an international context and that many of the critical issues facing cities today are global in nature—climate change, inequality, the privatization of public space. Through a careful examination of the historic unfolding of social stratification by race and class, the shifts in the economic foundations of the nation, and the politics of power, we will be able to consider such basic questions as: what is the nature of the state? and what is the role of racism in American democracy? We will read books and the print edition of the New York Times, and we will talk to each other about these and the gripping questions shaping our cities and the world.