Growth and Structure of Cities (Bryn Mawr)
Department Website:
https://www.brynmawr.edu/cities
The interdisciplinary Growth and Structure of Cities major challenges the student to understand the dynamic relationship of urban spatial organization and the built environment to politics, economics, cultures, and societies.
Core introductory classes present analytic approaches that explore the changing forms of the city over time and analyze the variety of ways through which men and women have recreated urban life through time and across cultures.
With these foundations, students pursue their interests through classes in planning, architecture, urban social and economic relations, urban history and the environmental conditions of urban life. Advanced seminars bring together these discussions by focusing on specific cities and topics.
Students can complete a major or minor in Growth and Structure of Cities, and can complement the major with a minor in Environmental Studies or in Latin American, Iberian, and Latina/o Studies. Students may also enter the 3+2 Program in City and Regional Planning, which is offered in cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania.
Sourced from the Bryn Mawr College website: https://www.brynmawr.edu/inside/academic-information/departments-programs/growth-structure-cities
Major Requirements
A minimum of 15 courses (11 courses in Cities and 4 allied courses in related fields) is required to complete the major.
The 4 core requirements include: CITY B185 (Urban Culture and Society) and CITY B190 (Form of the City: Histories of the Built Environment) comprise the two-semester introductory sequence. CITY B229 is a writing intensive course on urban topics. CITY B253, CITY B254, and CITY B255 represent architectural history topics, one of which is required.
4 intermediary courses from the department or cross-listed courses are required. This is opportunity to develop methodological and research skills as well as to address topical interests. Examples include: CITY B201 (Geographical Information Systems), CITY B207 (Philadelphia), CITY B217 and CITY B218 (Social Science Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods) or CITY B226 and CITY B228 (Architectural Design Studio sequence).
2 upper-level seminars are required to home in on a particular topic of interest, and they may include CITY B350, Praxis seminars that collaborate with community groups or organizations, CITY B378, a seminar on the built environment, or CITY B360, which has had many iterations addressing topics such as urban development and law, new urbanism, and incarceration.
CITY B398 is the senior thesis seminar, a requirement for the major and completed in the fall semester of the final year. Students are encouraged to apply for summer research funding the summer before that fall semester. The project comprises of a 40-60 page written text on a topic of choice, based on primary documents and original research and/or design. Students interested in developing an architectural proposal also have the option of completing an architectural thesis which is for 1.5 credits and requires approval from one of the studio instructors. Students who double major with a department that requires a thesis can discuss alternatives to writing two theses.
The remaining 4 allied courses are determined in consultation with a major advisor. These courses can be outside of the Cities department and are intended to give the student an opportunity to include classes related to their interests with the major. For example, students who intend to apply to architecture schools may count Physics and Math courses. Or students who are applying to the 3-2 program, may count their prerequisites from the University of Pennsylvania.
Sourced from the Bryn Mawr College website: https://www.brynmawr.edu/inside/academic-information/departments-programs/growth-structure-cities/program-requirements-opportunities
Minor Requirements
Requirements for a minor in the Cities department comprise a minimum of 8 courses. They must include the 4 core requirements: CITY B185, CITY B190, CITY B229, and CITY B253, CITY B254, or CITY B255. And a choice of 2 intermediary courses and 2 upper-level seminars among the Cities course offerings or any of the cross-listed courses.
Sourced from the Bryn Mawr College website: https://www.brynmawr.edu/inside/academic-information/departments-programs/growth-structure-cities/program-requirements-opportunities
Faculty at Bryn Mawr
Jeffrey CohenTerm Professor in Growth and Structure of Cities
Daniel Ferman-Leon
Postdoctoral Fellow
Jennifer Hurley
Visiting Assistant Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities
Dirk Kinsey
Visiting Assistant Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities
Min Kyung Lee
Associate Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities
Mason Lehman
Visiting Studio Critic
Gary McDonogh
Helen Herrmann Chair and Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities
Samuel Olshin
Visiting Assistant Professor and Senior Visiting Studio Critic in the Growth and Structure of Cities Program
M.C. Overholt
Visiting Lecturer of Growth and Structure of Cities
Lauren Restrepo
Assistant Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities
Matthew Ruben
Visiting Assistant Professor and Interim Co-Chair of Growth and Structure of Cities and Emily Balch Seminars
Daniela Voith
Senior Lecturer in the Growth and Structure of Cities Program
Courses
CITY B185 URBAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY (1.0 Credit)
Gary McDonogh, Jennifer Hurley
Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B190 FORM OF THE CITY: HISTORIES OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT (1.0 Credit)
Matthew Ruben
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B201 INTRODUCTION TO GIS FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS (1.0 Credit)
Dirk Kinsey
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World; C: Physical and Natural Processes
This course is designed to introduce the foundations of GIS with emphasis on applications for social and environmental analysis. It deals with basic principles of GIS and its use in spatial analysis and information management. Ultimately, students will design and carry out research projects on topics of their own choosing. Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing and Quantitative Readiness are required (i.e.the quantitative readiness assessment or Quan B001).
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
CITY B207 TOPICS IN URBAN STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen
Division: Social Science
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B217 QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR URBAN RESEARCH (1.0 Credit)
Jennifer Hurley
Division: Quantitative; Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course offers a hands-on introduction to quantitative research methods for urban planning and policy analysis. Students will work on a real-world research project to develop the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research at the complexity of a thesis-length project. The course teaches research design (crafting strong research questions and selecting appropriate methods), quantitative research methods (survey design and collection and analysis of secondary socio-spatial data), and data analysis (basic descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using Excel and SPSS). Additionally, students will engage with both the philosophical foundations and real-world best practices of ethical research.
CITY B218 QUALITATIVE METHODS FOR URBAN RESEARCH (1.0 Credit)
Lauren Restrepo
This course offers a hands-on introduction to qualitative research methods for urban planning and policy analysis. Students will work on a real-world research project to develop the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research at the complexity of a thesis-length project. The course teaches research design (crafting strong research questions and selecting appropriate methods), qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observation, and document analysis), and data analysis (qualitative coding and data analysis using NVivo). Additionally, students will engage with both the philosophical foundations and real-world best practices of ethical research.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B226 INTRODUCTION TO ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN (1.0 Credit)
Mason Lehman, Samuel Olshin
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This studio design course introduces the principles of architectural design. Suggested Preparation: drawing, some history of architecture, and permission of instructor.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B228 PROBLEMS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN (1.0 Credit)
Daniela Voith, Samuel Olshin
Division: Humanities
A continuation of CITY 226 at a more advanced level. Prerequisites: CITY B226 or permission of instructor.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B229 TOPICS IN COMPARATIVE URBANISM (1.0 Credit)
Gary McDonogh
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B240 CITIES OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH (1.0 Credit)
Lauren Restrepo
Division: Humanities
This course surveys the dynamic social and spatial processes that make (and constantly re-make) cities in the Global South. We examine what it means to be a city in the ‘Global South’ and study the commonalities that unite these spaces in a post-colonial, post-Bretton Woods world. That said, this is a course that centers diversity among cases in Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia: the unique demands and interventions of people and community groups working for a better urban life, the experimental efforts of local political leaders and planners, and the ways in which particular local histories layer upon themselves to produce a world of singular urban experiences. Local film, memoir, activist non-fiction, and interviews with local planners and practitioners will supplement academic readings to provide a ‘street-level’ view of everyday life in global cities.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B248 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY RESEARCH WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen
This course aims to build students’ mastery at working with historical documents, both visual and textual, and the rich body of scholarly writings that offer key materials for research in architectural and urban history. The course will operate as a collective workshop that will frame structured adventures in research, starting with a detailed focus on the evolution of places through time. We will work with a wide range of document types, and among our best new friends will be highly detailed old maps and historical views, from watercolors and prints to early photographs. City directories, records of ownership, census information, newspaper notices, and documents related to building construction and form will complement these to fill in key elements in emerging narratives. Such sources will also allow us to explore the agency of individuals in a variety of roles that have shaped places, and the lives framed by those building activities. Beyond focusing on specific sites to construct microhistories, we will also look for larger patterns of built form in which they participate, alongside other contingent narratives from the practices of architects to the activities of developers, well-defined building typologies, and the roots of demographic distributions. In our workshop sessions we will engage different types of evidence and analytical resources through small exercises, imagining the kinds of questions and curiosities such materials might inform, as well as inverting such inquiries, starting with the questions. Our overall model will be to delve in and then report out, in a range of ways.
CITY B250 TOPICS: GROWTH & SPATIAL ORG OF CITIES (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
CITY B253 BEFORE MODERNISM: ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM OF THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen
Division: Humanities
The course frames the topic of architecture before the impact of 20th century Modernism, with a special focus on the two prior centuries - especially the 19th - in ways that treat them on their own terms rather than as precursors of more modern technologies and forms of expression. The course will integrate urbanistic and vernacular perspectives alongside more familiar landmark exemplars. Key goals and components of the course will include attaining a facility within pertinent bibliographical and digital landscapes, formal analysis and research skills exercised in writing projects, class field-trips, and a nuanced mastery of the narratives embodied in the architecture of these centuries.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B254 HISTORY OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE (1.0 Credit)
M.C. Overholt
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
A survey of the development of modern architecture since the 18th century.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B306 ADVANCED FIELDWORK TECHNIQUES: PLACES IN TIME (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen
Division: Social Science
A hands-on workshop for research into the histories of places, intended to bring students into contact with some of the raw materials of architectural and urban history. A focus will be placed on historical images and texts, and on creating engaging informational experiences that are transparent to their evidentiary basis.
CITY B328 TOPICS IN ADVANCED GIS (1.0 Credit)
Dirk Kinsey
Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): C: Physical and Natural Processes
An advanced course for students with prior GIS experience involving individual projects and collaboration with faculty. Completion of GIS (City 201)
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B337 THE CHINESE CITY (1.0 Credit)
Lauren Restrepo
This course examines Chinese urbanization as both a physical and social process. Drawing broadly on scholarship in anthropology, political science, geography, and city planning, we will construct a history of the present of Chinese cities. By taking the long view on China’s urban development, this course seeks to contextualize and make sense of the sometimes dazzling, sometimes dismal, and often contested landscape of everyday life in contemporary urban China. Prior familiarity with China and the Chinese language is welcomed but not required.
CITY B340 HISTORY AND DESIGN WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen, Samuel Olshin
This course combines historical and theoretical research with studio and design practice in architecture. It is project based and allows students to work collaboratively on research questions relevant to built environments. This iteration tracks the form and choices shaping three successive built landscapes over five centuries – from the agricultural communities of Quakers in Wales and the Welsh Tract in Lower Merion in the 17th and 18th centuries to the commuter suburb of the 19th and 20th. The course also looks ahead from this history as a studio collectively exploring key elements of a “New Bryn Mawr” as an idealized sustainable community of 1000 residents whose design specifically addresses environmental concerns, inequality, anxiety, joblessness, and spatial fragmentation.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B350 URBAN PROJECTS: CITIES PRAXIS (1.0 Credit)
Jennifer Hurley
In this course advanced students will work with local groups around concrete projects. Class sessions will convene to discuss background readings as well as evaluation of tools and experiences.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B360 TOPICS: URBAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY (1.0 Credit)
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
CITY B361 URBAN THEORY (1.0 Credit)
Lauren Restrepo
Urban theory is a tool with which to critique existing cities, a position from which to imagine cities yet to come, and a structure with which to generate interventions in the space between. This course will trace the intellectual lineages of contemporary critical and postmodern urban theory and put the ‘-isms’ into practice to help make sense of the forces that differentiate and segregate individuals – and those that bring us together as urban citizens. Prerequisite: CITY B185 or prior course work in social theory.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B365 TOPICS: TECHNIQUES OF THE CITY (1.0 Credit)
Jennifer Hurley
Division: Social Science
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
CITY B377 TOPICS IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE (1.0 Credit)
M.C. Overholt
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This is a topics course on modern architecture. Topics vary.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B378 FORMATIVE LANDSCAPES: THE ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING OF AMERICAN COLLEGIATE CAMPUSES (1.0 Credit)
Jeffrey Cohen
The campus and buildings familiar to us here at the College reflect a long and rich design conversation regarding communicative form, architectural innovation, and orchestrated planning. This course will explore that conversation through varied examples, key models, and shaping conceptions over time.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B398 SENIOR SEMINAR (1.0 Credit)
Gary McDonogh, Jennifer Hurley, Lauren Restrepo
Division: Social Science
An intensive research seminar designed to guide students in writing a senior thesis.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B403 INDEPENDENT STUDY (1.0 Credit)
Dirk Kinsey, Gary McDonogh, Jeffrey Cohen, Samuel Olshin
Division: Social Science
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B415 TEACHING ASSISTANT (1.0 Credit)
Gary McDonogh
Division: Social Science
An exploration of course planning, pedagogy and creative thinking as students work to help others understand pathways they have already explored in introductory and writing classes. This opportunity is available only to advanced students of highest standing by professorial invitation.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B420 PRAXIS FIELDWORK SEMINAR (1.0 Credit)
Lauren Restrepo
Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CITY B425 PRAXIS III: INDEPENDENT STUDY (1.0 Credit)
Daniel Ferman-Leon, Jeffrey Cohen
Praxis III courses are Independent Study courses and are developed by individual students, in collaboration with faculty and field supervisors. A Praxis courses is distinguished by genuine collaboration with fieldsite organizations and by a dynamic process of reflection that incorporates lessons learned in the field into the classroom setting and applies theoretical understanding gained through classroom study to work done in the broader community. Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.
CITY B450 URBAN INTERNSHIPS/PRAXIS (1.0 Credit)
Jennifer Hurley
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Individual opportunities to engage in praxis in the greater Philadelphia area; internships must be arranged prior to registration for the semester in which the internship is taken. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.