• Urban Studies Hero

    Urban Studies (BA)

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  • Admission Events

    Explore upcoming webinars and other events for prospective students.
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  • Contact Us

    Admission Contact
    Office of Undergraduate Admission
    72 Fifth Avenue, 1st floor
    New York, NY 10011
    [email protected]
    212.229.5150 or 800.292.3040

    Program Contact
    Chris McElderry
    64 West 11th St., room 120
    New York, NY 10011
    [email protected]

  • Earn a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies in a program open to transfer students, adults, and other nontraditional undergraduates. The urban studies major offers an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to help students examine the 21st century's greatest challenges — globalization, urbanization, social justice, and sustainability — in the quest of making cities more viable, equitable, healthy, and meaningful.

    • Degree Bachelor of Arts
    • Credits 120 (up to 84 transfer credits)
    • Format Full-time or part-time, on campus or online
    • Start Term Fall or Spring

    Flexible Curriculum

    Urban Studies majors have the flexibility to explore courses in multiple academic disciplines as you learn to address the myriad ways urbanization affects many facets of life, including politics, social justice, the environment, and the economy. You develop an understanding of the peoples and structures that make up cities both in the United States and internationally. 

    You can design a customized course of study to meet your personal interests and goals, exploring issues such as:

    • The role of the city in the national and global economy
    • How the city shapes and is shaped by cultural life and the natural environment
    • The intersection of municipal agencies and nonprofit organizations in areas such as housing and homelessness, health, and social welfare
    • How neighborhoods are created, destroyed, and revitalized
    • How urban politics reflects these issues and drives change

    Learn more about the curriculum

    Interdisciplinary Excellence

    The New School offers the BA in Urban Studies as part of the university's suite of cross-college, interdisciplinary undergraduate programs, which includes Global Studies, Environmental Studies, and Urban Studies. These interdisciplinary programs are designed to prepare students for the new careers of the 21st century.

    Career Paths

    Students who complete the Urban Studies major are prepared to pursue graduate study or to enter careers in fields such as community organizing, development, public policy, urban planning, public health, philanthropy, advocacy, arts, education, journalism, management, entrepreneurship, real estate, or law both domestically and abroad.

     

  • Learn from and work with faculty mentors who are academic scholars and professional leaders in urban studies fields.

  • Featured Courses

    • Middle Eastern cities have endured centuries of economic, political, social, religious, and urban design challenges. From Marrakesh to Cairo, Riyadh to Dubai, Baghdad to Beirut, these cities have historically been subjected to foreign invasions, economic development, and the activity of revolutio...

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    • In this course, we consider the many ways people build, adapt, and live together in cities. With the majority of the world's population inhabiting urbanized areas, cities have acquired significance as the locus of people's direct engagement with the material realities of the everyday world. At the s...

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    • What does gentrification entail? Who are the players? What are the driving forces? What are the lasting outcomes? Who is displaced? In this course, students answer these questions, using a range of audiovisual media to examine how cultural institutions, places of consumption, recreational spaces,...

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    • In this course, we examine the causes and consequences of racial discrimination and segregation as they relate to housing, education, policing, and other dimensions of urban life.

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  • If you are fascinated by cities, their built environment, and the life that unfolds in them and want to make a difference in making cities more just, liveable, and sustainable places, then urban studies is the right academic field for you.

    Jurgen von Mahs, Chair and Associate Professor in Urban Studies

Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

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