International Urbanization Seminar and Human Cities Initiative in the China Daily

The International Urbanization Seminar is an interdisciplinary course offering students a comparative approach to sustainable cities, focusing on urbanization in the world’s two largest economies and biggest emitters of greenhouse gases: China and the United States. Intercultural collaboration is central to this course, which has been jointly taught by faculty in the Program on Urban Studies and Tsinghua University for the past three years. In Fall 2015, cross-cultural collaboration between multi-national teams of students and community partners led to the creation of projects such as a public campaign addressing air pollution impacts on senior citizens, an exhibit at a community museum in a historic Beijing neighborhood, and a digital online archive showcasing the evolution of Beijing’s infrastructure network.