Urban studies Urban studies is based on the study of the urban development of cities. This includes studying the history of city development from an architectural point of view, to the impact of urban design on community development efforts. The core theoretica ...

is the diverse range of disciplines and approaches to the study of all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. This includes among others:

urban economics Urban economics is broadly the economic study of urban areas; as such, it involves using the tools of economics to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance. More specifically, it is a bra ...

urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

urban ecology Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in an urban environment. An urban environment refers to environments dominated by high-density residential and commercial buildings ...

, urban transportation systems,

urban politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

and urban social relations. This can be contrasted with the study of

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...

areas and rural lifestyles.

A

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

arcology Arcology, a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology",. is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated and ecologically low-impact human habitats. The term was coined in 1969 by architect Paolo Soleri, who be ...

allotment (gardening) An allotment (British English), or in North America, a community garden, is a plot of land made available for individual, non-commercial gardening or growing food plants, so forming a kitchen garden away from the residence of the user. Such plot ...

* Automobile dependency *

autonomous building An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power grid, gas grid, municipal water systems, sewage treatment systems, storm drains, communication services, ...

B

* Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism *

Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall The Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall ( Chinese: 北京市规划展览馆) is an urban planning museum located at 20 Qianmen E St in the old main railway station building from 1903, beside Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The exhibition hall ope ...

bicycle-friendly Bicycle-friendly policies and practices help some people feel more comfortable about traveling by bicycle with other traffic. The level of bicycle-friendliness of an environment can be influenced by many factors including town planning and cyclin ...

built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human a ...

C

car-free zone Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...

* car-pool lane * Central business district *

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

* City limits *

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

community currency A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

* community emergency response team *

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regul ...

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...

* congestion charge *

consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...

* co-housing *

cultural diversity Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural evolution. The term "cultural diversity" can also refer to having different c ...

E

eco-industrial park An eco-industrial park (EIP) is an industrial park in which businesses cooperate with each other and with the local community in an attempt to reduce waste and pollution, efficiently share resources (such as information, materials, water, energy, ...

eco-village An ecovillage is a traditional or intentional community with the goal of becoming more socially, culturally, economically, and/or ecologically sustainable. An ecovillage strives to produce the least possible negative impact on the natural envi ...

ecological health Ecological health is a term that has been used in relation to both human health and the condition of the environment. *In medicine, ecological health has been used to refer to multiple chemical sensitivity, which results from exposure to synthet ...

* ecological footprint * ecological sanitation *

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

economies of agglomeration One of the major subfields of urban economics, economies of agglomeration (or agglomeration effects) describes, in broad terms, how urban agglomeration occurs in locations where cost savings can naturally arise. Most often discussed in terms of ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

electricity generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery ( transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its s ...

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

environmental health Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. In order to effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met in ...

* environmental studies * externality

F

* farmers market *

flash mob A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs may be organized via t ...

G

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the ec ...

* Global city *

Grand Paris The Métropole du Grand Paris (; "Metropolis of Greater Paris"),There is no official or widely-used English translation yet. also known as Grand Paris or Greater Paris, is a ''métropole'' covering the City of Paris and its nearest surrounding su ...

H

* Hudson's village model *

human development theory Human development involves studies of the human condition with its core being the capability approach. The inequality adjusted Human Development Index is used as a way of measuring actual progress in human development by the United Nations. It is ...

I

infrastructural capital Public capital is the aggregate body of government-owned assets that are used as a means for productivity.Aschauer, D. A. (1990). Why is infrastructure important? Conference Series roceedings Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Pp. 21-68. Such asset ...

industrial ecology Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resource ...

J

juvenile justice A juvenile court, also known as young offender's court or children's court, is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgements for crimes that are committed by children who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern legal s ...

L

land ethic A land ethic is a philosophy or theoretical framework about how, ethically, humans should regard the land. The term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his '' A Sand County Almanac'' (1949), a classic text of the environmental movement. T ...

* landscape architecture * Larger Urban Zones

M

* mass transit * Moscow Urban Forum *

Museums A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

N

* neighborhood *

Neighbourhood character Neighbourhood character refers to the 'look and feel of an area', in particular a residential area. It also includes the activities that occur there. In everyday usage, it can often be synonymous with local character, residential character, urban ch ...

* New pedestrianism *

New urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually i ...

O

* Overcrowding

P

pedestrian-friendly Walkability is a term for planning concepts best understood by the mixed-use of amenities in high-density neighborhoods where people can access said amenities by foot. It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport ...

pedestrian overpass A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...

pedestrian underpass A subway, also known as an underpass, is a grade-separated pedestrian crossing which crosses underneath a road or railway in order to entirely separate pedestrians and cyclists from motor traffic or trains respectively. Terminology In the Un ...

* personal rapid transit *

Place Place may refer to: Geography * Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population ** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government * "Place", a type of street or road name ** Often ...

Place identity Place identity or place-based identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, ecocriticism and urban sociology/ecological so ...

Placemaking Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Placemaking capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that improve urban v ...

*''

Planetizen Planetizen is a planning-related news website and e-learning platform based in Los Angeles, California. It features user-submitted and editor-evaluated news and weekly user-contributed op-eds about urban planning and several related fields. The ...

'' *

planned cities A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

productivism Productivism or growthism is the belief that measurable productivity and growth are the purpose of human organization (e.g., work), and that "more production is necessarily good". Critiques of productivism center primarily on the limits to g ...

Public space A public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. Roads (including the pavement), public squares, parks, and beaches are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to ...

public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typi ...

* Principles of Intelligent Urbanism

R

* Radical planning *

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

* redlining *

Regional planning Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. Regional planning is related to urban planning as it relates land ...

S

schools A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsor ...

service economy Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments: * The increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer manu ...

* seven-generation sustainability *

sewage system Sewerage (or sewage system) is the infrastructure that conveys sewage or surface runoff (stormwater, meltwater, rainwater) using sewers. It encompasses components such as receiving drains, manholes, pumping stations, storm overflows, and scree ...

Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center () is located on People's Square, Shanghai, adjacent to the municipal government building. The Exhibition Center is a six-story building, with two basement levels, which displays Shanghai's urban plan ...

shared space Shared space is an urban design approach that minimises the segregation between modes of road user. This is done by removing features such as kerbs, road surface markings, traffic signs, and traffic lights. Hans Monderman and others have s ...

* shift-share * smog *

Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

* soft energy * street reclaiming * suburban * suburban colonization

T

traffic calming Traffic calming uses physical design and other measures to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. It has become a tool to combat speeding and other unsafe behaviours of drivers in the neighbourhoods. It aims to encourage safe ...

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically ...

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

* '' Times Square Red, Times Square Blue'' *

transit-oriented development In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between ...

U

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

urban agriculture Urban agriculture, urban farming, or urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. It encompasses a complex and diverse mix of food production activities, including fisheries and fo ...

urban anthropology Urban anthropology is a subset of anthropology concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, urban space, social relations, and neoliberalism. The field has become consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s. Ulf Hannerz quotes a 1960s remark that trad ...

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...

urban car The A-segment is the 1st category in the passenger car classification system defined by the European Commission. It is used for city cars, the smallest category of passenger cars defined. A-segment sales represent approx. 7-8% of the market in ...

urban culture Urban culture is the culture of towns and cities. The defining theme is the presence of a great number of very different people in a very limited space - most of them are strangers to each other but still try to be polite to each other more times ...

urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...

urban exploration Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inter ...

Urban forest An urban forest is a forest, or a collection of trees, that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense, it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. As opposed to a forest park, whose ec ...

Urban forestry Urban forestry is the care and management of single trees and tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the urban environment. Urban forestry involves both planning and management, including the programming of care and ...

urban geography Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have ...

urban history Urban history is a field of history that examines the historical nature of cities and towns, and the process of urbanization. The approach is often multidisciplinary, crossing boundaries into fields like social history, architectural history, urb ...

Urban Land Institute The Urban Land Institute, or ULI, is a nonprofit research and education organization with regional offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, and London. ULI advocates progressive development, conducting research, and education in topics such as ...

* urban outdoorsman *

urban planner An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning. An urban planner may focus on a specific area of practice and have a title such as city planner, town ...

* Urban planning in ancient China * Urban planning in ancient Egypt *

Urban planning in communist countries Urban planning in the Soviet Bloc countries during the Cold War era was dictated by ideological, political, social as well as economic motives. Unlike the urban development in the Western countries, Soviet-style planning often called for the comp ...

* urban primacy * Urban reforestation *

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

* urban secession *

urban sociology Urban sociology is the sociological study of life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, environmental processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doin ...

Urban space An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

Urban Tourism Urban tourism or also called City tourism is a form of tourism that takes place in the large human agglomerations, usually in the main cities or urban areas of each country. Definition According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), urban t ...

* urban tribe * urban wilderness *

urbicide Urbicide is a term which literally translates (Latin: ''urbs'': city + Latin: ''occido'': to kill) as "violence against the city". The term was first coined by the author Michael Moorcock in 1963 and later used since the 1960s by urban planners a ...

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...

* urbanomics

V

Violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

W

Welthauptstadt Germania Welthauptstadt Germania () or World Capital Germania was the projected renewal of the German capital Berlin during the Nazi period, part of Adolf Hitler's vision for the future of Nazi Germany after the planned victory in World War II. It wa ...

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

* World Planners Congress

Z

zoning Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...

Related lists

List of city squares The following is a partial list of prominent city squares: Africa Egypt *Tahrir Square – Cairoin M Ethiopia * Meskel Square – Addis Ababa * Mexico Square – Addis Ababa Morocco *Djemaa el Fna – Marrakech South Africa * Grand Parad ...

List of city squares by size This article lists the 250 largest city squares in the world in descending order of area. The areas given are as noted in the articles and references provided, but may not be directly comparable. See also *List of city squares *Market square ...

* list of urban planning topics * index of urban sociology articles *

list of planned cities This is a list of planned cities (sometimes known as planned communities or new towns) by country. Additions to this list should be cities whose overall form (as opposed to individual neighborhoods or expansions) has been determined in large pa ...

list of urban planners List of urban planners chronological by initial year of plan. * c. 332 BC Dinocrates – Alexandria, Egypt * c. 408 BC Hippodamus of Miletus – Piraeus (port of Athens), Thurii, Rhodes * 330-336 CE Constantine – Byzantium replanned and rebuil ...

* list of ecology topics *

list of environment topics The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, includes all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth. The natural environment includes complete ecological units that function as natural systems without m ...

list of ethics topics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'"Ethics"/ref> The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, co ...

list of economics topics The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to economics: Economics – analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It aims to explain how economies work and how economic agen ...

list of architecture topics :''The following outline is an overview and topical guide to architecture:'' Architecture – the process and the product of designing and constructing buildings. Architectural works with a certain indefinable combination of design quality a ...

* list of political science topics

External links

* {{Index footer

* Urban studies topics