The Certificate of Undergraduate Studies (CUGS) in Urban & Community Studies will train students in a deep understanding and analysis of the political, economic, and social roots of problems arising in urbanization, emphasizing the social phenomena of contemporary cities, the problems, and possible solutions in mass societies, and metropolitan and regional interdependence. With a tripling of the global population over the past 60 years and the drive for mass consumption, urban sociology provides a foundation best suited to address spatial and consumption issues for crowded populations, focusing on the social processes that create challenges and stratification in urban areas, including the pros and cons of urban planning, gentrification, mechanisms of social control, social stratification, socioeconomic stratification, race relations, racial and ethnic residential segregation and stratification, migration of immigrants/refugees/asylum-seekers from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds, contests over sanctuary cities, the ghettoization of immigrant/refugee groups, environmental pollution, lack of affordable housing, food deserts, and the crime arising in cities because of the poverty created by deindustrialization and joblessness.
Electives from political science, economics, geography, and law & justice will provide additional perspectives on urban and community problems. Graduates will also understand the rise of cities, the creation of the suburbs, rural regions, and the implications of institutionalized inequalities in all three spaces for a democratic society.
Career paths open to students with this training include regional and urban planners, urban administrators, public policy creators, lawyers, local and national politicians, governmental agency employees, special interest lobbyists in anti-discrimination/social movement organizations, economists, community developers, community and social service providers, educators, human resource personnel, communications, and research.
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