2017-2018 Undergraduate Academic Catalogue 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
2017-2018 Undergraduate Academic Catalogue [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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LW 103 - Law and the City: Planning, Politics, and Justice

(3.00 cr.)

People shape, and are shaped by, the cities they inhabit. Every city looks, feels, and operates differently due to conflicting political, economic, and demographic pressures. How people use the law to construct their urban environments defines and distinguishes them from others. Examples are zoning laws, which divide, promote, and prohibit various activities within a city; criminal laws that shape the relationships between citizens and police; environmental laws that preserve and protect certain lands while concentrating the contamination of others; and municipal governance laws that allocate political power among residential neighborhoods and socioeconomic groups. An historical examination of how these laws have been used, and by whom, reveals examples of how the American legal system has, in some cases, perpetuated social injustice, and in others, been used as a tool for social justice and change. The laws and legal theories at the heart of urban development are critically examined to help students to better engage directly with these issues as active citizens. IES/IFS



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