Sustainable Urban Urban Futures Futures Sustainable Dr. Jared Enriquez is an Assistant Professor in the Geography and Planning Department. He is offering a new course during the second 8 week session this spring called Sustainable Urban Futures. 1. What are some of the topics that you cover in your course? The course will examine how emerging technological systems influence the life of future urban places. We will examine previous attempts by designers to construct utopian places as well as artists’ ideas for futurity. Then, we will cover topics such as smart cities, planetary urbanism, decarbonization, green economies, and community relocation. 2. What prompted your interest in teaching a course about Sustainable Urban Futures? My research and personal interests involve sustainability, Professor Jared Enriquez which inherently is a future-oriented field of study because we must be environmentally, socially, and economically resilient for places to sustain and thrive. There were two main reasons I created this course: First, I want students to understand that governments must become more proactive with new technologies to reduce the social inequities they bring. Technology is moving very quickly, and because of people's attraction to money and novelty, we adapt to new technologies before governments understand how to incorporate them well into our democratic processes. Both planners and governments must be proactive with new technologies. Second, students need to learn that solving many issues associated with climate change and societal unrest will need to involve more ambitious experimentation with city design and urbanism. Both governments and markets have been too focused on incrementalist approaches that are not working at the scales we need.
Curriculum
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