Module manager: Dr Asa Roast
Email: a.roast@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is not approved as a discovery module
This module explores a critical history of urban planning as a political practice. It looks at how city planning has changed alongside shifts in social and economic conditions from the 1830s to the late 20th century (the ‘modern’ era). The module examines how ways of planning cities have interacted with different political ideas about how society should be organised (colonialism, capitalism, socialism), with a focus on how city infrastructures shapes everyday life and politics as socio-technical systems. We will discuss the origins and growth of urban planning, particularly how it became more complex in the 20th century as a tool for trying to engineer different ways of organising society. The module emphasizes understanding and questioning the ideas and systems which lie behind planning decisions made by powerful people and institutions. It also looks at how modern planning methods spread around the world and their effects on local communities, as part of a broader study of how urban life connects to political and technical systems. This module culminates in a detailed piece of historical research on the planning of an urban place.
This module aims to provide a historical and theoretical framework through which students can interpret urban planning as a political practice. While the module focuses on history, its main goal is to give students the skills to critically examine how urban areas developed and how they can be changed, in ways that connect to current debates about cities and wider political debates. Students who have completed this module should have acquired knowledge of the broad history of urban planning (Block 1), an understanding of how infrastructures are key to the politics of planning (Block 2), the ability to use theoretical frameworks to critically analyse planning, and the research skills to undertake a detailed research project about a place (Block 3).
Subject Specific Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
LO1: Apply theories of urban change to analyse the political outcomes of discrete urban case studies
LO2: Interpret and contextualise urban environments based on historical information
LO3: Analyse the different ideological and design principles at work in urban environments
LO4: Assess any theory-practice gaps in examples of historical urban planning
Skills Learning Outcomes
SKLO1: Critical thinking: Formulate ideas and hold claims and opinions regarding urban planning to account by supporting them with evidence and sound reasoning, avoiding biases in one’s own reasoning.
SKLO2: Problem solving and analysis: The ability to analyse complex problems in urban planning and the urban environment in their relevant historical and geographical context, and understand how this context shapes the nature of any solutions that may be applied
SKLO3: Researching Data: The ability to undertake detailed historical and geographical research which explores an urban context they have never previously experienced and infer broader insights into urban planning.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supervision | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Practicals | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Lecture | 19 | 1 | 20 |
| Seminar | 7 | 1 | 7 |
| Private study hours | 172 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 30 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 202 | ||
MCQ to test knowledge during teaching
Feedback session on coursework
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Coursework | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 08/05/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team