This seminar is a collaborative seminar, involving a group of students from Viadrina University, Germany. It is taught by Daniela Sandler (School of Architecture, UoM), Stephan Lanz (urban researcher, Viadrina University) and Matthias Rothe (GNSD, UoM). The class juxtaposes Berlin and the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities with its sizable native American population, many communities of color, and longstanding immigrant communities had long been praised for inclusiveness. Yet since the mid-1990s, this has been dramatically reversed. The extent of the existing inequality has become fully evident at the very the latest with the current Covid 19-health crisis and the brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Berlin has undergone a development towards segregated forms of living too, departing from a situation of a relative egalitarianism. Voluntary segregation, based on lifestyle as well as imposed displacement through gentrification or the politics of allocation has increased.
Because some of the patterns of urban development seem comparable even though the local contexts and the prehistories are strikingly different, a juxtaposition of these cities can yield insights into the interplay of local and global factors that co-determine such developments.
The class will put a lot of weight on the perspective of social activism. It will include lectures, guest lectures and text work (on the concept and forms of segregation, on urban planning and segregation, and so on) as well as independent small group work/research (in German/American groups) on social activism in Berlin and the Twin Cities.