Readings

 Discussion questions are available for each class session in order to help guide students in the reading.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
Section I: Current Lenses on the Phenomenon
1 Introduction to Ho Chi Minh City cases: The urban periphery and urban core. With what lenses do we frame the city?

Optional Reading

The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements.” UN Human Settlements Programs, 2003. (Read Findings, Prologue, Part 1).

International Housing Coalition. “The Challenge of an Urban World” and the “The Challenge of an Urban World: IHC Recommendations Improve U.S. Foreign Assistance.” 

2 The urban economics lens

Required Reading

Central Trading and Development Group, 2004.

DiPasquale, Denise, and William C. Wheaton. “Market for Real Estate Assets and Space: A Conceptual Framework.” Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association 20, no. 1 (1992): 181-97. (PDF - 3.5MB)

Demsetz, Harold. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” American Economic Review 57, no. 2 (May 1967): 347-59.

Kim, Annette M. “North Versus South: The Impact of Social Norms in the Market Pricing of Private Property Rights in Vietnam.” World Development 35, no. 12 (2007): 2079-95.

Optional Reading

Alonso, William. Location and Land Use: Toward a General Theory of Land Rent. Harvard University Press, 1964. ISBN: 9780674537002. (classic exposition of urban land use theory).

Bertaud, A., and B. Renaud. “Socialist Cities without Land Markets.” Journal of Urban Economics 41, no. 1 (1997): 137-51. (discusses how urban land development typically in centrally planned economies occurred in markedly different land use patterns from mono-centric market systems’ bid rent curve).

Bertaud, Alain, and Stephen Malpezzi. “The Spatial Distribution of Population in 48 World Cities: Implications for Economies in Transition.” Working Paper, 2003.

Glaeser, Edward L. “The Economic Approach to Cities.” Harvard University and NBER Working Paper, 2007.

3 Political and sociological theory lens about urban land and housing

Required Reading

Hang, To Thi Thuy, et al. “Assessing the Socio-Economic and Environmental Impact of South Saigon Urban Development Project and Providing Recommendations for Redressing Environmental and Socio-Economic Consequences.” Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee’s Institute for Economic Research, 1997.

Eyal, Gil, Iván Szelényi, et al. “The Utopia of Postsocialist Theory and the Ironic View of History in Neoclassical Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 106, no. 4 (2001): 1121-28.

Optional Reading

Buy at MIT Press Castells, Manuel. Chapters 5, 8, and section 3 of chapter 9 in The Urban Question - A Marxist Approach. MIT Press, 1979. ; pp: 73-85, 115-128, and 215-233. ISBN: 9780262530354.

Dear, Michael J., and Allen John Scott.  “The Urban Process Under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis.” In Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society. Methuen, 1981, pp. 91-122. ISBN: 9780416746501.

Marx, Karl.  Chapters 32 and 33 in Capital (Volume 2). Penguin Classics, 1993. ISBN: 9780140445695.

Pejovich, Steve. “Karl Marx, the Property Rights School and the Process of Social Change.” Kyklos 35, no. 3 (1982): 383-97.

Weber, Rachel. “Extracting Value from the City: Neoliberalism and Urban Redevelopment.” Antipode (2002): 519-39.

4 Legal theory lens about property rights

Required Reading

Ellickson, Robert C., Carol Marguerite Rose, and Bruce A. Ackerman.Perspectives on Property Law. Aspen Publishers, 2002. ISBN: 9780735528741.

Ellickson, Robert C. Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Harvard University Press, 1991, pp. 210-21. ISBN: 9780674641693. [Preview with Google Books]

Acheson, James M. The Lobster Gangs of Maine." UPNE, 1988, pp. 129-35. ISBN: 9780874514513. [Preview with Google Books]

Rose, Carol M. “Property As Storytelling: Perspectives from Game Theory, Narrative Theory, Feminist Theory.” Yale Law Journal 2 (1990): 37-57. (PDF - 1.2MB)

Pipes, Richard. “Human Nature and the Fall of Communism.” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 49 (1996): 38-52.

Goffman, Erving. “Culture and Human Nature.” In Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1961, pp. 18-21, and 244-54. ISBN: 9780385000161.

Cronon, William. Chapters 4 and 5 in  Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. Hill and Wang, 1983. ISBN: 9780809001583.

Optional Reading

Locke, John. Chapter 5 in Second Treatise of Government, 2011. ISBN: 9781453754276. (one of the foundation readings on the philosophy behind private property rights)

Hohfeld, Wesley Newcomb. Excerpts from Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2010. ISBN: 9781584771623.

Calabresi, Guido, and A. Douglas Melamed. “Property Rights, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral.” Harvard Law Review 85 (1972): 1089-128.

Radin, M. J. “Property and Personhood.” Stanford Law Review 34 (1982): 957-73, 977-9, and 1002-6.

Hardin, Garrett. “Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162 (1968): 1243-8.

Blackstone, William. “Commentaries on the Laws of England.” In Commentaries on the Laws of England. Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, pp. 2-11. ISBN: 9780226055381.

Merrill, Thomas W., and Henry E. Smith. “What Happened to Property in Law and Economics.” The Yale Law Journal 111, no. 2 (2001): 357-98.

Cole, D. H., and P. Z. Grossman. “The Meaning of Property “Rights”: Law versus Economics?” Land Economics 78, no. 3 (2002): 317-30.

Ostrom, Elinor. Chapter 1 in Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institution for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780521405997.

5 Everyday practices in public space: Way making, street vending

Required Reading

Ellickson, Robert C. “Controlling Chronic Misconduct in City Spaces: Of Panhandlers, Skid Rows, and Public-Space Zoning.” The Yale Law Journal 105 no. 5 (1996):1165-1248. (PDF)

“Chinese Street Vendors Lash out Against Police Tyranny.” France 24: International News. June 16, 2011.

Chase, John, Margaret Crawford, and John Kaliski.  Everyday Urbanism: Expanded. New York, NY: Monacelli, 2008, pp. 22-35, and 88-109. ISBN: 9781580932011.

Hess, Paul. “Walkability in Torontoʼs Apartment Neighbourhoods: Preliminary Report on Scarborough Village Walkability Workshop.” Toronto: Department of Geography and Programme in Planning, University of Toronto, 2009.

Blomley, Nicholas. “How to Turn a Beggar into a Bus Stop: Law, Traffic and the ‘Function of the Place’.” Urban Studies 44, no. 9 (2007): 1697-712.

Yiftachel, Oren. “Re-engaging Planning Theory? Towards ‘South-Eastern’ Perspectives.” Planning Theory 5, no. 3 (2006): 211-22.

Optional Reading

Sanyal, Bish. “Critical about Criticality.” Critical Planning 15 (2008):143-160. (PDF - 1.94MB)

Blomley, Nicholas. Rights of Passage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow. New York: Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 9780415575614

Dear, Michael J. “Taking Los Angeles Seriously.” In The Postmodern Urban Condition. Malden: Blackwell, 2001, pp. 10-24. ISBN: 9780631209881.

Hess, Paul. “Avenues or Arterials: The Struggle to Change Street Building Practices in Toronto, Canada.” Journal of Urban Design 14, no. 1 (2009): 1-28.

de Certeau, M. “Walking in the City.” In The Practice of Everyday Life. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780520236998.

LeFebvre, H. Chapter 1 in The Production of Space. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 1992. ISBN: 9780631181774.

Buy at MIT Press Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia, and Renia Ehrenfeucht. Chapter 10 in Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780262123075.

6 Critical cartography and the unmasking of spatial relations; the construction of new property relations; SLAB research

Required Reading

Roy, Ananya. “Transnational Trespassings: The Geopolitics of Urban Informality.” In Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia.  Edited by Ananya Roy and Nezar AlSayyad. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004, pp. 289-313. ISBN: 9780739107416. [Preview with Google Books]

Verma, Gita Dewan. “Indore’s Habitat Improvement Project: Success or Failure?Habitat International 24, no. 1 (2000): 91-117.

Kim, Annette M. Chapter 5 in Sidewalk City: Remapping the Public and Space in Ho Chi Minh City. University of Chicago Press. Publication forthcoming.

Mundy, Barbara E. The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geográficas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Preface. ISBN: 9780226550978. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at MIT Press Hayden, Dolores.  Chapters 1 and 2 in The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997.  ISBN: 9780262581523. [Preview with Google Books]

Optional Reading

Crampton, Jeremy W. “Maps as Social Constructions: Power, Communication and Visualization.” Progress in Human Geography 25, no. 2 (2001): 235-52.

Paglan, Trevor. “Mapping Ghosts.” In An Atlas of Radical Cartography. Edited by Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat. Los Angeles: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, 2008, pp. 38-50. ISBN: 9780979137723.

Kwan, Mei-Po. “Affecting Geospatial Technologies: Toward a Feminist Politics of Emotion.” The Professional Geographer 59, no. 1 (2007): 22-34.

Varley, J. B. “Deconstructing the Map.” In Spaces of Postmodernity: Readings in Human Geography. Edited by Michael Dear and Steven Flusty. Malden: Blackwell, 2002, pp. 277-89. ISBN: 9780631217824.

Sassen, Saskia. “The City: Between Topographic Representation and Spatialized Power Projects.” Art Journal 60, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 12.

Section: Property Rights Interventions Mediating the Struggle for Space in the City
7

Affective geography and public space

Guest Speaker: Kanarinka, artist and faculty, RISD

Required Reading

Take a look at the projects that Kanarinka has done on her website and her research group at RISD:

http://www.ikatun.org/kanarinka/

8 Land titling and regularization

Required Reading

Soto, Hernando de.  The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Chapters 3 and 6. ISBN: 9780465016143.

World Bank. Housing: Enabling Markets to Work, 1993. ISBN: 9780821324349. (PDF - 9.1MB)

Hull, Matthew S. “Ruled by Records: The Expropriation of Land and the Misappropriation of Lists in Islamabad.” American Ethnologist 35, no. 4 (2008): 501-18. (PDF)

Kim, Annette M. “North Versus South: The Impact of Social Norms in the Market Pricing of Private Property Rights in Vietnam.” World Development 35, no. 12 (2007): 2079-95. (PDF)

Optional Reading

Buckley, Robert M., and Jerry Kalarickal. Thirty Years of World Bank Shelter Lending: What Have We Learned? (Directions in Development). Washington D.C.: World Bank, 2006. ISBN: 9780821365779. [Preview with Google Books]

(For those interested in a Word Bank perspective on the recent history of shelter programs) (PDF)

“The Challenge of Scale–Nationwide Upgrading.” Cities Alliance Annual Report, 2003.

Field, Erica. “Property Rights and Investment in Urban Slums.” Journal of the European Economic Association 3, no. 2-3 (2005): 279-90. (statistical analysis of a natural experiment situation of titling in Peru)

Firmin-Sellers, Kathryn, and Patrick Sellers. “Expected Failures and Unexpected Successes of Land Titling in Africa.” World Development 27, no. 7 (1999): 1115-28.

Home, Robert, and Hilary Lim. “Outside de Sotoʼs Bell Jar: Colonial/Postcolonial Land Law and the Exclusion of the Peri-urban Poor.” In Demystifying the Mystery of Capital. Routledge-Cavendish, 2004, pp. 11-30. ISBN: 9781904385134.

Payne, Geoffrey. “Urban Land Tenure Policy Options: Titles or Rights?” Habitat International 25, no. 3 (2001): 415-29.

UN Habitat. “Guidelines on how to undertake a National Campaign for Secure Tenure.” 2003.

9 Land trusts and affordable housing

Required Reading

Medoff, Peter, and Holly Sklar.  in Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood. Boston: South End Press, 1994. Chapters 5 and 6. ISBN: 9780896084827. [Preview with Google Books]

Yahya, Saad S. “Community Land Trusts and Other Tenure Innovations in Kenya.” In Land, Rights and Innovation: Improving Tenure Security for the Urban Poor (Urban Management Series). Edited by Geoffery K. Payne. London: ITDG Publishing, 2002, pp. 233-63. ISBN:9781853395444.

Davis, John Emmeus. “Shared Equity Homeownership: The Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, Owner-Occupied Housing.” National Housing Institute, 2007.  (PDF - 1.2MB)

10 Guest speaker from Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative: May Louie A communityʼs power of eminent domain  
11 Land takings and compensation: How to make change, social cognition

Required Reading

Kim, Annette. M. “Introduction: Real Rights to the City—Cases of Property Rights Changes Towards Equity in Eastern Asia.” Urban Studies 48 (2011): 459-69.

———. “Talking Back: The Role of Narratives in Vietnamʼs Recent Land Compensation Changes.” Urban Studies, 48 (2011): 493-508.

Po, L-C. “Property Rights Reforms and Changing Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban-Rural Peripheries: The Case of Changping District in Beijing.” Urban Studies 48 (2011): 509-28.

Kim, Annette M. “Unimaginable Change: Future Directions in Planning Practice and Research About Institutional Reform.” Journal of the American Planning Association 77 (2011): 328-37.

Optional Reading

Kim, Annette M.  Learning to be Capitalists: Entrepreneurs in Vietnamʼs Transition Economy. Oxford University Press, 2008. Chapter 1. ISBN: 9780195369397.

Mayer, Margit. “‘The Right to the City’ in the Context of Shifting Mottos or Urban Social Movements.” City 13, no. 2-3 (2009): 362-74.

Merrill, Thomas W. “Introduction: The Demsetz Thesis and the Evolution of Property Rights.” Journal of Legal Studies 31, no. 2 (2002): 331-9.

Rose, Carol. “Crystals and Mud in Property Law.” Stanford Law Review 40 (1988): 577-90, and 96-604. (Gives some history and a pendulum framework for why property laws change).

Thelen, Kathleen. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999): 369-404.

12 Final Class: Presentations  

Course Info

As Taught In
Fall 2011
Level