Urban Studies 12

Core Competencies

Communicating
 
Collaborating
Critical and Reflective Thinking
 
Creative Thinking
Personal Awareness and Responsibility
 
Positive Personal and Cultural Identity
 
Social Awareness and Responsibility

Students are expected to know the following:

Students are expected to be able to do the following:

Big Ideas

Big Ideas

Urbanization is a critical force that shapes both human life and the planet.
The historical development of cities has been shaped by geographic, economic, political, and social factors.
Decision making in urban and regional planning requires balancing political, economic, social, and environmental factors.
Urban planning decisions and other government policies can dramatically affect the overall quality of life in cities.

Content

Learning Standards

Content

urbanization as a global phenomenon
  • Sample topics:
    • global urbanization trends and case studies in recent decades
    • transnationalism and the interconnectedness of urban centres
historic settlement patterns in urban centres
  • Sample topics:
    • historical trends:
      • urbanization
      • rural-urban migration
      • suburbanization
      • gentrification
    • urban geography models of land use:
      • concentric zone model
      • Hoyt model
      • multiple nuclei model
      • urban realms model
    • types of urban land use:
      • residential
      • transportation
      • institutional
      • recreational
      • commercial
      • industrial
local and regional governance in B.C. and relationships with other levels of government
  • Sample topics:
    • how cities operate within a network of regional, national, and global urban systems:
      • sharing of services
      • funding models
      • elections
      • Federation of Canadian Municipalities,
      • Union of BC Municipalities
      • relationships with Treaty First Nations, Bands, and Métis Nation British Columbia
functions of local and regional government
  • Sample topics:
    • providing infrastructure (e.g., water, waste)
    • public housing
    • taxation
    • economic development
    • public safety
    • support of community organizations such as friendship centres
urban planning and urban design
  • Sample topics:
    • maximizing benefits and confronting challenges of urban centres
    • involving First Peoples in planning
    • livability and sustainability
    • public and private spaces
    • zoning and regulations
  • Key question:
    • What is the relationship between urbanization and sustainability?
decision making in the planning of cities and regions
  • Sample topic:
    • examples of factors influencing decision making:
      • political considerations
      • financial implications
      • public pressure, perceptions, and awareness
      • social capital
      • social engineering
      • policy constraints
contemporary issues in urban studies
  • Sample topics:
    • social justice issues:
      • housing quality and homelessness
      • poverty
      • crime
      • livability, affordability, food security
      • discrimination and inequity in access to services
    • global urban disparity:
      • governance
      • infrastructure
      • access to services such as education and health care
      • quality of and access to jobs
      • gender equality
    • environmental factors:
      • climate change causing rising sea levels, increased storm activity
      • air quality
      • land and water quality

Curricular Competency

Learning Standards

Curricular Competency

Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
  • Key skills:
    • Draw conclusions about a problem, an issue, or a topic.
    • Assess and defend a variety of positions on a problem, an issue, or a topic.
    • Demonstrate leadership by planning, implementing, and assessing strategies to address a problem or an issue.
    • Identify and clarify a problem or issue.
    • Evaluate and organize collected data (e.g., in outlines, summaries, notes, timelines, charts).
    • Interpret information and data from a variety of maps, graphs, and tables.
    • Interpret and present data in a variety of forms (e.g., oral, written, and graphic).
    • Accurately cite sources.
    • Construct graphs, tables, and maps to communicate ideas and information, demonstrating appropriate use of grids, scales, legends, and contours.
Assess and compare the significance of past and present factors that influence urbanization (significance)
Ask questions about the content, origins, purposes, and context of multiple sources in order to corroborate inferences gathered from them (evidence)
Identify continuity and change in the development of urban spaces
  • Sample activities:
    • Study historic maps and photos through time and examine what has changed and what has stayed the same. If change did occur, determine what factors influenced that change.
    • Compare two examples of urban planning in one city, one current and one past. Determine what has stayed the same and what has changed in terms of decision making and how a space is valued.
(continuity and change)
Determine and assess the long- and short-term causes and consequences, and the intended and unintended consequences, of public policy decisions related to urban places
  • Sample activities:
    • Examine the intended and unintended consequences of the decision not to build a freeway in downtown Vancouver in the 1970s.
    • Analyze the factors that influenced decision making in a specific planning decision.
    (cause and consequence)
    Explain and identify the forces that shape opinions and decision making on current issues related to urban studies (perspective)
    Recognize implicit and explicit ethical judgments in a variety of sources (ethical judgment)
    Make reasoned ethical judgments about current and past issues after considering the context and standards of right and wrong (ethical judgment)