11.488 URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT CITIES: …...11.488 URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT CITIES: PLANNING CHALLENGES AND POLICY INNOVATIONS 2 COURSE REQUIREMENTS This course meets two

11.488 URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT CITIES: PLANNING CHALLENGES AND POLICY INNOVATIONS Jota Samper [email protected] Office Hours: T 12:00 -2:00, 10-487m Class Meeting: Tuesdays and Thursdays, (4:00-5:30) Location: 9-450B No s

COURSE OVERVIEW In a highly urbanized world like the one we live in, cities become the strategic place of violent conflict.

Economic, religious, gender and ethnic differences are negotiated every day in the urban arena, when

tensions become conflict and conflict escalate into violence, the urban space becomes the battlespace.

The process of city building with all its conflicts and tensions then is a tool for both violence and

reconciliation. In short, the tools of urbanization are the tools of war in an urbanized conflict.

In this class, we examine urban development challenges in conflict cities. Case studies are used to

examine the basic infrastructural, governance, social, and economic dilemmas facing citizens and local

officials. The course explores multiple disciplinary perspectives from which urban conflict is addressed. It

gives equal power to understand the particular conditions of urban conflict and to the policy solutions

used to address such issues. This course examines the urban development challenges facing conflict and

post-conflict cities, defined as locales that are socially, economically, and physically impacted by war,

ethnic or religious conflict, and/or endemic criminal violence. The course reviews the literature by specific

topics in which violence and cities intersect. The curse introduces the concept of urban violence and its

relationship to development, and take a look at different perspectives of urban conflict: Military, gender,

race, spatial, gang, mapping, peace building, and reconstruction.

The eclectic survey of issues pretend to give students a general idea of the varied concept of urban

conflict and by focusing on a particular local (city) inform each case with potential solutions to specific

cases in the form of policy or project solutions. This class propose to collaborate with a diverse group of

institutions that deal with urban security (UN-Habitat, First Mile Geo, USAID, UNDP, Internews all TBC)

that will provide analytical data for some of the students selected cases. Students are also encouraged to

use other cities of their interest, data sources and methods.

mailto:[email protected]

11.488 URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT CITIES: PLANNING CHALLENGES AND POLICY INNOVATIONS

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COURSE REQUIREMENTS This course meets two days a week a class to introduce a concept and the second to have student led

discussion about the issue of the week, building on the expectation that students will have completed all

readings prior to class. Two tipes of weekly readings divided into required (for Monday class) and student

led discussion readings (for thuesday class). All students handle weekly required readings. Each student

will also sign up for a brief oral report of Student led discussion readings for a given week, once in the

semester.

Within the first week of the course, students will pick a single “conflict” city to research during the

semester, both for deeper empirical study as well as problem-solving. Data may be available for a

number of students to focus on the following cities: San Pedro Sula, Medellin and Aleppo. However,

students are also encouraged to focus on other conflict cities, and to select a city of their choosing for

deeper empirical study.

Student grades are based on in-class participation the class presentation, and a paper that would have

two parts (1) survey and description of the particular issues of urban conflict in the chosen city (mid-term)

and (2) Tentative policy or strategic interventions as forms to cope with the conditions of conflict. Each

paper should not be more than 10-15 pages in length, including any data illustrations you may wish to

include.

ASSIGMENT 1: DEFINING URBAN CONFLICT

In this assignment the goal is that you get accounted with a particular place of conflict, understand the

unique conditions of the manifestations of conflict on the urban scale. Become familiar with the history of

violence that permits to understand patterns of conflict and how government organizations, citizen,

international actors, and perverse actors play a role in the reproduction of violence.

ASSIGMENT 2: INTERVENING IN URBAN CONFLICT

This second paper builds in the work you develop for the first paper on “Defining Urban Conflict”. Here

you are expected to look closer into your case city, select a particular issue of violent manifestation of

conflict among your case cosmology of stakeholders. You are required to explain such problem and to

present the history of intervention on it (if exist). Finally, you are asked to propose based on your

information a project/policy to engage with such selected issue. While this is an immense task, and one

that is impossible in the timeframe of a semester, you are evaluated along the logic of your proposal

based on the information that you provide. In other words, the issues that you decide to engage are the

key elements to evaluate your idea.


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GRADING Students are graded on the basis of active participation, commitment, quality of presentation and

submitting the assignments on time. Progress during the semester and striving for improvement will be

credited.

Assignment Due Date % Final Grade

1. a Paper on the description of the conditions of conflict in the selected city.

10/9/2015 30

1. b Second part of the paper that would suggest a particular policy or strategic intervention to cope with violence in the selected city.

12/10/2015 30

2. Class presentation of one of the class topic. Presentation of the assigned and suggested readings.

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3. Participation.

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COURSE MATERIALS Course will have a stellar website where most course reading materials are available at:

https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/11/fa15/11.488/index.html

SCHEDULE

SEPTEMBER

SEP. 10 FIST DAY OF CLASS AND INTRODUCTION TO THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT

CITIES. An ntroduction to conflict and cities in conflict.

Topics selection for in-class review of material

https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/11/fa15/11.488/index.html


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SEP. 15 DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES IN CONFLICT ZONES. The relationship between national conflict and cities, and vice-versa.

Final student selection of city for the assigment.

REQUIRED:

Paul Collier, et. al. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, pp. 1-50; 119-188.

Macartan Humphreys. 2003. Economics and Violent Conflict. Harvard Program on Humanitarian

Policy and Conflict Research. http://www.preventconflict.org/portal/economics/Essay.pdf Esser, Daniel. 2004. The City as Arena, Hub and Prey – patterns of violence in Kabul and Karachi.

Environment and Urbanization, 16(2): 31-38

SEP. 17 DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES IN CONFLICT ZONES. Student discussion.

Deadline of student selection of city for assignment.

STUDENT LED DISCUSSION:

Paul Collier, et. al. 2003. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy. Washington, D.C.: World Bank; pp. 51-118.

Collier, Paul and Nicholas Sambanis. 2005. Understanding Civil War (Volume 1: Africa). Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.

Grünewald, François & Éric Levron. 2004. Villes en guerre et Guerres en ville. Paris: Karthala.

SEP. 22 MILITARY PERSPECTIVE Today more than ever wars are fought in cities. Here we explore how military literature engages with the role of cities in conflict.

REQUIRED:

Weizman, Eyal. 2004. Ariel Sharon and the Geometry of Occupation. In Graham (ed.) Cities, War and Terrorism: towards an urban geopolitics, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 172-191.

Graham, Stephen. 2004. “Postmortem City.” City 8 (2): 165–96. Lind, William S. 2004. “Understanding Fourth Generation War.” Military Review 84 (5): 12. Hills, Alice. 2004. Future War in Cities: Rethinking a Liberal Dilemma. Psychology Press.


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SEP. 24 MILITARY PERSPECTIVE


Hahn, Robert F., and Bonnie Jezior. "Urban Warfare and the Urban Warfighter of 2025." Parameters 29 (1999): 74-86.

Weizman E. 2010. "Forensic architecture only the criminal can solve the crime". Radical Philosophy. (164): 9-24.

Graham, Stephen. 2010. Cities under siege: the new military urbanism. London: Verso. Kilcullen, David. 2013. Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla. Oxford

University Press.

SEP. 29 VIOLENT CONFLICT MULTIPLE DEFINITIONS Understating different disciplinary views of the study of the urban conflict, definitions and areas of research.

REQUIRED:

Winton, Ailsa. 2004. Urban Violence: A Guide to the Literature. Environment and Urbanization 16(2): 165-183.

McIlwaine, Cathy. 1999. “Geography and Development: Violence and Crime as Development Issues.” Progress in Human Geography 23 (3): 453–63.

Moser, Caroline. 2004, „Urban violence and insecurity: an introductory roadmap‟, Environment &

Urbanization, 16 (2), October 2004, pp. 3-16. Davis, Diane E. 2008. Beyond the Democracy-Development Mantra: The Challenges of Violence

and Insecurity in Latin America. REVISTA: The Harvard Review of Latin America (Winter): 3-7.

OCT, 1 VIOLENT CONFLICT MULTIPLE DEFINITIONS


Small Arms Survey 2007 “Guns in the City: Urban Landscapes of Armed Violence.” Pp. 162-256. Human security for an Urban Century, Selected Readings.

Davis, Diane E. 2008. Urban Violence, Quality of Life, and the Future of Latin American Cities: The Dismal Record So Far, and the Search for New Analytical Frameworks to Sustain a Bias Towards Hope. In Garland, Allison (ed.), Approaches to Global Urban Poverty: Setting the Research Agenda, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.


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OCTOBER

OCT. 6 “SLUM WARS” This class explores the intersection between urban informality (poverty in cities) and conflict (violent conflcit related to specific territories). It focus on oa persepective in that of urbanization as a subversive act.

REQUIRED:

Rodgers, Dennis. 2007. Slum Wars of the 21st century: the new geography of conflict in Central America. Working Paper No. 10, Crisis States Research Centre. London: London School of Economics. http://www.crisisstates.com/download/wp/wpSeries2/wp10.2.pdf

Blake 2013, Shadowing the State: Violent Control and the Social Power of Jamaican Garrison Dons Samper, Jose (jota). 2012. “The Role of Urban Upgrading in Latin America as Warfare Tool against

the ‘Slums Wars.’” Critical Planning : The Journal of the UCLA Urban Planning Journal 19th.

OCT. 8 “SLUM WARS”


Weizman, E. 2006. “Walking through Walls: Soldiers as Architects in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” RADICAL PHILOSOPHY, no. 136: 8–22.

Ruediger, Marco Aurélio. 2013. “The Rise and Fall of Brazil’s Public Security Program: PRONASCI.” Police Practice and Research 14 (4): 280–94.

OCT . 13 NO CLASS (MONDAY SCHEDULE OF CLASSES TO BE HELD.)

OCT . 15 1.A PAPER DUE: IN CLASS PRESENTATION

DESCRIPTION OF THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT IN THE SELECTED CITY. Paper 2 distributed

OCT . 20 GENDER AND CONFLICT Here we explore both gender as a motivation of conflict and also new perspectives brought by a gendered perspective of the conflict.

REQUIRED:

Moser, Caroline ON, and Fiona C. Clark. 2001. “Gender, Conflict, and Building Sustainable Peace: Recent Lessons from Latin America.” Gender & Development 9 (3): 29–39.

Wilding P. 2010. “‘New Violence’: Silencing Women’s Experiences in the Favelas of Brazil.” J. Lat.

Am. Stud. Journal of Latin American Studies 42 (4): 719–47.


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OCT . 22 GENDER AND CONFLICT


Moser, Caroline O. N., and Fiona C. Clark. 2001. Victims, Perpetrators or Actors? : Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence. London; New York: Zed Books.

Spain, Daphne. "Gender and Urban Space." Annual Review of Sociology 0 (2014). Buvinić, Mayra, Monica Das Gupta, and Olga N. Shemyakina. 2013. “Armed Conflict, Gender and

Schooling.” The World Bank Economic Review, lht032. Hudson, Valerie M., Mary Caprioli, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Rose McDermott, and Chad F. Emmett.

2009. “The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States.” International Security 33 (3): 7–45.

OCT. 27 DEFENSIBLE SPACE TO SPACE SYNTAX Space policy of urban conflict. Urban form and its relationship with conflict.

REQUIRED:

Taylor, Ralph B. 2001. Breaking Away from Broken Windows : Baltimore Neighborhoods and the Nationwide Fight against Crime, Grime, Fear, and Decline. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Davis, Diane E. 2009. The Giuliani Factor: Crime, Zero Tolerance Policing and the Transformation of the Public Sphere in Downtown Mexico City. In Gareth A. Jones, Public Sphere and Public Space in Mexico, Palgrave Macmillan.

Cozens, P., and D. Hillier. 2012. “Defensible Space.” In International Encyclopedia of Housing and

Home, edited by Editor-in-Chief: Susan J. Smith, 300–306. San Diego: Elsevier. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080471631005609.

OCT. 29 DEFENSIBLE SPACE TO SPACE SYNTAX


Vaughan, Laura. 1997. “The Urban ‘ghetto’: The Spatial Distribution of Ethnic Minorities.” Space Syntax Laboratory. http://www.scientificcommons.org/54494639.

Harcourt, Bernard E. 2001. Illusion of Order : The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Downes, Alexander. 2001. The Holy Land Divided: Defending Partition as a Solution to Ethnic Wars. Security Studies 10: 58-116.

Kusno, Abidin. 2001. Violence of Categories: Urban Design and the Making of Indonesian Modernity. In Smith and Bender (eds.), City and Nation: Rethinking Place and Identity, Somerset, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers; pp. 15-50.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080471631005609

http://www.scientificcommons.org/54494639


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NOVEMBER

NOV. 3 MAPPING CONFLICT How we map conflict narrows the ways that we understand it, different perspectives in mapping violence and conflict. Policy and research implications.

REQUIRED:

Sherman, Lawrence W., Gartin, Patrick R., Buerger, Michael E.,. 1989. “Hot Spots Of Predatory Crime: Routine Activities And The Criminology Of Place*.” Crim Criminology 27 (1): 27–56

Moser, Caroline, and Cathy McIlwane. 2000. "Participatory urban appraisal and its application for

research on violence". Sage Urban Studies Abstracts. 28 (2). Barnett, Thomas PM. 2003. “The Pentagon’s New Map.” Esquire 1: 2003.

NOV. 5 MAPPING CONFLICT


Hagedorn, J. M. 2006. "RACE NOT SPACE: A REVISIONIST HISTORY OF GANGS IN CHICAGO". JOURNAL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY. 91 (2): 194-208.

Eck, John, Spencer Chainey, James Cameron, and R. Wilson. 2005. “Mapping Crime: Understanding Hotspots.”

Hirschfield, Alex., and Kate. Bowers. 2001. Mapping and Analysing Crime Data : Lessons from Research and Practice. London; New York: Taylor & Francis.

NOV. 10 GANGS A particular form of urban violence, gangs are key to understand the role of NSAG in cities.

REQUIRED:

Manwaring, Max G. 2005. Street gangs: the new urban insurgency. [Carlisle Barracks, PA]: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College.

Jutersonke, Oliver, Robert Muggah, and Dennis Rodgers. 2009. "Gangs, Urban Violence, and

Security Interventions in Central America". Security Dialogue. 40 (4-5): 4-5. Arias, Enrique Desmond, and Corinne Davis Rodrigues. 2006. “The Myth of Personal Security:

Criminal Gangs, Dispute Resolution, and Identity in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas.” Latin American Politics & Society Latin American Politics & Society 48 (4): 53–81.


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NOV. 12 GANGS


Sullivan, John P., and Robert J. Bunker. 2002. “Drug Cartels, Street Gangs, and Warlords.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 13 (2): 40–53.

Rodgers, Dennis, and Robert Muggah. 2009. “Gangs as Non-State Armed Groups: The Central American Case.” Contemporary Security Policy 30 (2): 301–17.

Winton, Ailsa. 2014. “Gangs in Global Perspective.” Environment and Urbanization, 0956247814544572.

NOV. 17 WEAK STATES AND CONFLICT THE NSAG PERSPECTIVE. When the state monopoly of violence is disminished by alternatives institiotion, NSAG appears as para –state organizations that fill those voids left by the state a condition called by some “New Violence”. What is the role of these organizations on a world of “megacities” in “weak states”?

REQUIRED:

Eriksen, Stein Sundstøl. 2011. “‘State Failure’in Theory and Practice: The Idea of the State and the Contradictions of State Formation.” Review of International Studies 37 (01): 229–47.

Arias, Enrique Desmond. 2006. Drugs & Democracy in Rio de Janeiro : Trafficking, Social

Networks, & Public Security. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Call, Charles. 2011. “Beyond the `failed State’: Toward Conceptual Alternatives.” European

Journal of International Relations 17 (2): 303–26.

NOV. 19 WEAK STATES AND CONFLICT THE NSAG PERSPECTIVE.


Acemoglu, Daron, James A. Robinson, and Rafael Santos. 2009. The Monopoly of Violence: Evidence from Colombia. National Bureau of Economic Research.

Abello-Colak, Alexandra, and Valeria Guarneros-Meza. 2014. “The Role of Criminal Actors in Local Governance.” Urban Studies, February, 0042098013519831. doi:10.1177/0042098013519831.

Patrick, Stewart. 2011. Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security. Oxford University Press.


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NOV. 24 IN CLASS PRESENTATION ADVANCE PAPER 2

NOV. 26 THANKSGIVING VACATION.

DECEMBER

DEC 1. PEACE PROCESS AND RECONCILIATION Analizing the challenges of the road to peace. Cases studies present examples of such

complex process.

REQUIRED:

Schueren, Vander. 1996. From Violence to Justice and Security in Cities. Environment and

Urbanization 8(1). Humphreys, Macartan & Jeremy M. Weinstein. 2007. Demobilization and Reintegration. Journal

of Conflict Resolution 51(4): 531-567. Vanderschueren, Franz. 1996. “From Violence to Justice and Security in Cities.” Environment and

Urbanization 8 (1): 93–112.

David Keen. 2001. War and Peace: What's the Difference? In Adebajo & Sriram (eds.) Managing Armed Conflicts in the 21st Century, London & Portland: Frank Cass; pp. 1-22.

Fiori, Jorge, and Zeca Brandão. 2010. “Spatial Strategies and Urban Social Policy: Urbanism and Poverty Reduction in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro.” Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America 11: 181.

DEC 3 . PEACE PROCESS AND RECONCILIATION


Addison, Tony. 2003. Africa‟s Recovery from Conflict: Making Peace Work for the Poor: a policy-

focused summary. Published as Policy Brief No. 6, of the UNU/WIDER book From Conflict to Recovery in Africa. http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/policy-briefs/en_GB/pb6/

Khalaf, Samir and Philip S. Khoury. Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-War Reconstruction, pp. 101-182. E.J. Brill, New York. 1993.

Rozema, Ralph. 2008. “Urban DDR-Processes: Paramilitaries and Criminal Networks in Medellín, Colombia.” Journal of Latin American Studies 40 (03): 423–52.


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Gibson, J.L. 2004. Does Truth Lead to Reconciliation? Testing the Causal Assumptions of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Process. American Journal of Political Science 48(2): 201-217.

DEC. 8 PAPER 2 DUE AND FINAL PRESENTATIONS OF PAPERS.

DEC. 10 FINAL PRESENTATIONS OF PAPERS.


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MIT NOTES

Disabilities. If you have a documented disability, or any other problem you think may affect your ability to

perform in class, please see the instructor early in the semester so that arrangements may be made to

accommodate you.

Academic Integrity. Plagiarism and cheating are not acceptable. Never (1) turn in an assignment that you

did not write yourself, (2) turn in an assignment for this class that you previously turned in for another

class, or (3) cheat on an exam. If you do so, it may result in a failing grade for the class, and possibly even

suspension. Please see the instructor if you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism.

Documents

11.488 URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT CITIES: …...11.488 URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CONFLICT CITIES: PLANNING CHALLENGES AND POLICY INNOVATIONS 2 COURSE REQUIREMENTS This course meets two