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Concept
Urban studies
Summary
Urban studies or pre-urban planning education is based on the study of the urban development of cities. This includes studying the history of city development from an architectural point of view, to the impact of urban design on community development efforts. The core theoretical and methodological concerns of the urban studies field come from the academic disciplines of history, economics, sociology, geography, political science, anthropology, civil engineering, environmental studies, business administration, and the professional fields of urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Urban studies is a major field of study used by paraprofessional practitioners of urban planning, it helps with the understanding of human values, development, and the interactions they have with their physical environment.
The study of cities has changed dramatically from the 1800s over time, with new frames of analysis being applied to the development of urban areas. The first college programs were created to observe how cities were developed based on anthropological research of ghetto communities. In the mid-1900s, urban study programs expanded beyond just looking at the current and historical impacts of city design and began studying how those designs impacted the future interactions of people and how to improve city development through architecture, open spaces, the interactions of people, and different types of capital that forms a community.
Urban history plays an important role in this field of study because it reveals how cities have developed previously. History plays a large role in determining how cities will change in the future. Such areas change continuously as part of larger processes and create new histories that researchers study on both large-scale and individual levels.
Official source
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