Cities are back in town : sociologie urbaine pour un monde globalisé (Coursera)

Offered by Sciences Po,
Cities are back in town : sociologie urbaine pour un monde globalisé (Coursera)

La mondialisation et l'européanisation favorisent le développement rapide des villes à travers le monde. L'urbanisation atteint de nouveaux sommets aujourd’hui avec l'essor des mégacités (plus de 15 millions d'habitants) comme Calcutta, Los Angeles, Dhaka, Le Caire, Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Mexico ou Séoul. Au-delà de la métropole moderne, les chercheurs tentent de donner un sens à ces grandes régions urbaines au moyen de concepts divers tels que « post-métropoles », « villes globales », et « régions métropolitaines globales ».

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Ce cours passera en revue les débats et les modèles de villes et métropoles actuels proposés par les sciences sociales afin d'en analyser et comparer les développements contemporains. Comment étudier ces villes quand elles deviennent des mégarégions urbaines, leur taille importe-t-elle et en quoi ? Assiste-t-on à la naissance d'un immense monde urbain ou, au contraire, au-delà de l'apparente convergence de processus de mondialisation complexes, compris dans leur relation avec le capitalisme mondial, est-il possible d'identifier des différenciations masquées et le renforcement de mondes urbains distincts ? Quel sens donner à ce monde urbain alors que les villes ne sont pas des unités indépendantes mais doivent être comprises non seulement en termes de territoires et d'enracinement mais également de relations, afin de prendre en compte les flux, la mobilité, les circulations ? Quelle pertinence peuvent avoir des concepts de sciences sociales développés en Occident pour l'analyse de la transformation de Lagos ? Jusqu'à quel point le développement systématique de nouvelles formes de comparaison entre les villes du Nord et du Sud peut-il faire évoluer les sciences sociales et contribuer à surmonter la tendance à privilégier les comparaisons entre nations ? Pour l'instant, dans les conditions actuelles du capitalisme, les questions politiques, économiques, culturelles et sociales deviennent de plus en plus urbaines. Selon la conception moderne de la ville mondiale, caractérisée par la taille, par l'agrégation des logements, les divisions différenciées du travail, et la densité des interactions, plusieurs conceptions de la ville ont fini par s'entremêler et parfois s'opposer. Ces conceptions soulignent différents processus d'intégration : la ville matérielle et ses murs, ses places, ses maisons, ses routes, ses services, ses bâtiments, ses déchets, et son infrastructure physique ; la ville culturelle des imaginaires, des différences, des représentations, des idées, des symboles, des arts, des textes, des sens, des religions, et des esthétiques ; la politique et les politiques de la ville en termes de domination, de pouvoir, de gouvernement, de mobilisation, de politiques publiques, de sécurité sociale, d'éducation ; la ville sociale des révoltes, des inégalités ethniques, économiques et de genre, de la vie quotidienne et des mouvements sociaux ; et l’économie de la ville : la division du travail, l'échelle, la production, la consommation, le commerce.....
Les questions urbaines classiques portant sur les inégalités, le logement, le gouvernement, l'intégration, se mêlent aux questions sur le tissu urbain, sur la mobilité et l'enracinement, sur le développement durable et les risques, sur l'apparition des villes « cyborg », sur le contrôle social et les émeutes, la culture urbaine, l'innovation, et le développement économique urbain.

Plan du cours

Semaine #1 : Introduction, définitions, questions urbaines et l'utilisation de modèles
Semaine #2 : Les villes européennes et le modèle d'intégration wébérien
Semaine #3 : Les villes coloniales et post coloniales
Semaine #4 : Les villes industrielles (et les villes socialistes) et les modèles marxistes
Semaine #5 : Les métropoles américaines et l'école de Chicago,
Semaine #6 : Les post-métropoles, fragments et différences
Semaine #7 : Les villes mondiales et les mégacités
Semaine #8 : Les villes intelligentes et la sociologie des sciences et technologies

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