This course will provide students with the ability to identify and analyze phenomena in cities and urbanized areas related to a socially fundamental need for adequate and affordable shelter that ensures individual well-being and social and community stability and sustainability. Students completing this course will understand the progress it has made in ensuring decent and affordable housing for its population, as well as the considerable policy barriers that prevent many people enjoying the housing they desire and the individual and social benefits that arise from it. Students will understand initiatives and interventions related to housing primarily from the perspective of public policy, but also disciplines such as sociology, economics, urban planning and management science. Students will learn how to measure outcomes related to housing policy that affect diverse groups in society based on age, race/ethnicity, family status, geography and other characteristics. Students will understand how ideology and values are fundamental to understanding how housing is conceived as a good and a service, how various stakeholder groups are affected by housing policies, and whether and how housing can be viewed as a means for social justice and equality. |