Semester 2: Vienna

March - June

Universität Wien: 20 ECTS

(6) Demography of European Cities - 4 ECTS
This course has three main objectives:
To provide an overview of the main demographic trends in Europe and especially in European cities. To sensitise the students to the political and societal consequences of these trends. To strengthen the ability of the students to calculate and interpret demographic indicators (fertility rates, migration rates, death rates, life expectancy, age structure ratios…) in a correct way.
To reach these aims, the students attend a series of lectures in which special attention will be devoted to migration issues and to the different approaches to integration in selected European Cities. In tutorials, the students work with statistical data, they will calculating different rates and ratios, as well as they learn how to draw diagrams and small maps.

(7) Principles in Urban Planning and Urbanism- 4 ECTS

This lecture course will take you through the long history of urban planning in Europe, from ancient beginnings to recent examples of urban management. Such a long view is considered helpful to understand contemporary attempts to renovate, reutilize and reinterpret urbanist and urban planning solutions from the more immediate to the more distant past.

A wealth of material will be presented in the course, drawing on a great variety of sources, not only those available in English. Supplementary readings, however, will be in the language of instruction. When available, examples will be taken from the cities visited during the 4Cities course, or from their neighbours.

The basic structure of the course is chronological, but with a focus on the non-synchronism of urbanist styles and planning philosophies across Europe. Civil engineering, zoning legislation, development planning, entrepreneurialism and project planning all arrived at different times and in different forms in our cities.

At the end of the course, all students should have acquired a solid understanding of the similarities and dissimilarities of urban planning in Europe, and beyond. This knowledge will be evaluated in a written exam, in the last week of the Vienna term.

(8) Contemporary Problems in Urban Development
The course "Contemporary Problems in Urban Development" will be divided up into three parts. The first part focuses on contemporary issues and strategies of urban development and related policies. US-American and European cities will serve as examples to examine these topics from various perspectives, including disciplines like geography, economics or sociology. Perspectives of urban development will be discussed at different spatial levels and explained by theoretical concepts and empirical evidence. Theoretical concepts discussed in this section will comprise a variety of economic and sociological approaches as well as geographic theories.

The link between theoretical approaches and society is provided in the second part by discussing issues of urban development on-site on selected projects of urban development in the City of Vienna. Applied field work and studies, comprising surveys as well as interviews and discussions with experts of local private and public institutions aim at putting knowledge and skills acquired in this section into practice. Smaller empirical projects organized by the students themselves are foreseen.

In the third part of the course the students will presents their impressions, their results of the empirical work and will summarize the main findings.

The following aims should be reached:
Gain an overview about the current issues of urban development in North American and Europe; Strengthen the ability to analyse and to present specific research questions in an independent way; Practice the communicative skills and competences necessary for dealing with planners and politicians.
(9) Urban Development and Planning in Eastern Europe - 4 ETCS
The module is an integrated part of the Vienna block of the 4Cities UNICA Euromaster in Urban Studies Project. The main aims of this module are to present the main tendencies of urban development in Eastern–Central Europe and in Hungary, the similarities and differences between the Eastern and Western European urban development models, and to explain the specificities, and the social consequences of Eastern–Central European and Hungarian urban planning processes. The module examines the changes in the spatial-social structures of Hungarian metropolitan areas and: the spatial and social urban issues after the political and social transition in the context of Eastern-Central European models. The module will be presented not only by academic lectures, and by meeting urban experts but especially .by a scientific excursion in Budapest and in Székesfehérvár. In connection with the mission of this module, based on the guided trips the students can empirically recognise the physical and social fabric and the modern urban issues of the presented cities, the changes of historical city centres, the slum and rehabilitations areas, the exclusion problems, the development of agglomeration zones, the inequalities between the highly developed and underdeveloped zones. They will also have the chance to compare the similar zones of two different cities.

(10) Urban Analysis III - 4 ECTS
The general aim of Urban Analysis III (UA III) is to deepen and extend methods that have been lectured in UA I and UA II in order to provide a comprehensive and complete understanding of key methods.
In UA III qualitative and quantitative methods were used in order to collect useful data that can be analyzed and presented in a suitable way. For example, text and discourse analysis will help to identify relevant discourses in terms of urban studies. Semi-structured interviews will support the students in collecting data and enriching their research outcomes. Additionally, participant observation will be tried out and analyzed. To complete the methodical tool box, basic methods in cartography will be lectured during an individual workshop.
Additionally, reflective thinking and a culture of constructive discussion will be continued as core elements of the course. To achieve this objective, we will provide on the one hand a well-balanced combination of lecture sessions, practical teamwork, field-work and presentations. On the other hand we will discuss current literature regularly on a scientific level.