Geography (GEOG) 311

Overview

GEOG 311 explores the people, institutions, and processes that shape urban places in Canada. This geographical overview of the development of Canada’s urban places covers diverse topics such as urban planning, urban policy, urban governance, societal relations with nature in urban places, economic restructuring, and housing. While GEOG 311 focuses specifically on urbanization in Canada, this focus is contextualized, considering global processes of economic, cultural, and social change that impact Canadian urban residents.

Course Objectives

When you have completed Geography 311: Canadian Urban Development, you should be able to

1. describe the relationship between economy, politics, and geography in a historical period in Canadian urbanization.
2. explain the relationship between globalization and urbanization.
3. discuss the relationship between the institutional and political frameworks of urban policy, and outline the effects of those frameworks on urban policy-making.
4. critically discuss the shift to increasingly entrepreneurial modes of urban governance.
5. identify the actors in the urban planning process, and describe the role played by each.
6. discuss the various impacts of global economic restructuring on Canadian cities and towns.
7. identify how conflicting meanings of housing in capitalist society affects urban planning and urban policy.
8. discuss the concept of urban space as a hybrid of nature and society.

Outline

Unit 1: What Is the Urban?

Unit 2: The History of Urbanization in Canada

Unit 3: Urban Places in Canada Today

Unit 4: Urban Policy

Unit 5: Urban Governance

Unit 6: Urban Planning

Unit 7: Economic Restructuring

Unit 8: Housing

Unit 9: Urban Political Ecology

Evaluation

To receive credit for GEOG 311, you must achieve a course composite grade of at least a “D” (50 percent), and you must achieve a minimum grade of at least 50 per cent on the final examination. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Course Materials

The course materials include a course website, a print Reading File, online readings, a print Study Guide, and a CD-ROM (SimCity 4) that is used for one of the assignments.

Challenge for Credit Course Overview

The Challenge for Credit process allows students to demonstrate that they have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university level course.

Full information for the Challenge for Credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.

• Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Policy
• Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Procedures

Challenge Evaluation

To receive credit for the GEOG 311 challenge registration, you must achieve an overall course grade of “D” (50 percent) or greater to pass.

Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Course Registration Form

• Challenge for Credit Form