UEP 0293-01 Food Justice: Critical Approaches in Policy and Planning

This class offers students different lenses, such as critical race theory to see how the intersectionality of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability and citizenship play out in the development of systemic structural and socio-spatial inequities and injustices in food systems. It develops an understanding and contextualization of the role of food justice activism within the broader narrative of the alternative food movement and offers emerging ideas about how policymakers and planners can take a role in increasing food justice beyond the more mainstream and ultimately contested notions of what is ‘local’ and ‘sustainable.’ The course will help participants chart their role(s) in advocating for ‘just sustainability’ as a defining factor in becoming food systems planners and policymakers.

UEP 284 Developing Sustainable Communities

This course will explore the many challenges of achieving sustainable development through a coherent and thought provoking overview of moves towards developing sustainable communities. The course will focus on improving the quality of people’s lives, on disinvested communities and on the inequitable distribution of income, wealth and environmental hazards. It will investigate the theory of sustainable development and ask about the principles, tools and techniques and in what contexts we can move towards the ecological integrity, economic security, empowerment, responsibility and social well being characteristic of sustainable communities. Case studies will be drawn from around the world