Course | T HIST 452
Art, Culture, And History Of The Eternal City
Uses Rome as a laboratory to understand the role of art, history, and urbanism in the development of Western culture. Addresses the many facets of the cultural development of Rome and Italy, including geography, history, urban design, art, and architecture. Research-based and includes extensive fieldwork.Scholar
Christopher Beasley
Visit scholar websiteNews | June 9, 2020
Cities have changed – for rats
After Chicago’s stores and restaurants shut down in March, Rebecca Fyffe, the director of research at a pest-control company, went on one of her usual evening “rat safaris.” Her employer, Landmark Pest Management, services many of the city’s high-end, Michelin-rated restaurants, which had been forced to close hastily, dumping piles of produce. Beside a dumpster…
News | December 9, 2020
Did COVID-19 heal nature?
The Welsh village of Llandudno went quiet in March as stay-at-home orders began. Then the goats descended from the mountain. A wild herd of Kashmiri goats has lived near Llandudno for almost two centuries, and they sometimes come down from the Great Orme Mountain during inclement weather. But this spring, while the human world hit…
Course | TIAS 443
Ethnicity and the Urban Landscape
Focuses on the intersection of ethnicity, architecture, and urbanism in the United States. Explores the concept of ethnic identity and the creation of a sense of place in urban environments. Examines local neighborhoods as a starting point for students' own investigations of ethnicity and the urban landscape.News | July 6, 2021
Food for thought: Urban lakes contaminated with arsenic pose consumption risk
After analyzing the human health risks of eating aquatic organisms from arsenic-contaminated urban lakes in the Puget Sound lowlands, UW researchers have a menu of concerns. Specifically, they found that consuming certain aquatic organisms in the lakes elevates cancer risk. “The idea was to focus on organisms that people might eat, so we studied snails,…
Course | T HIST 445
History Of Tacoma
Surveys the history and fabric of Washington state's second largest urban center. Topics include early settlements, Tacoma as the Pacific terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, commercial and social currents, ethnic and political struggle as recurring forces, and the development of regional institutions, local governments, and locally based corporations. Emphasizes architecture, urban planning and growth, and the built environment of Tacoma.News | July 8, 2022
Housing boom around University Village: Will it be a real Seattle neighborhood?
Most of Seattle’s growing urban neighborhoods surround light-rail stations, but at least one is sprouting around an upscale, open-air shopping center. There are more than 2,300 new apartments recently completed, currently under construction or planned in the blocks that encircle University Village, a sprawling collection of stores, restaurants, plazas and parking lots located northeast of…
News | July 29, 2024
How Tiny Homes Could Help Solve America’s Homelessness Crisis
Reported by Giulia Carbonaro for Newsweek Shelter villages of tiny homes have popped up across the U.S. in recent years, as the small structures have started to be seen by many advocates as a promising solution to solve homelessness. Perhaps unsurprisingly at a time when mortgage rates are still hovering around the 7-percent mark and…
Scholar
Jennifer Atkinson
Visit scholar websiteNews | July 28, 2022
King County hoping to close heat disparity gap in low-income areas
Earlier this year, King County announced it is developing a heat strategy plan to better handle extreme heat waves. But data shows certain neighborhoods — particularly lower income areas — tend to get much hotter. Those behind the heat strategy say they’re hoping to close that heat disparity gap. The hottest areas are in south…
Scholar
Larry Knopp
Visit scholar websiteCourse | T LAX 356
Latinx Urban Communities
Introduces Latinx urbanism, an interdisciplinary area of inquiry seeking to understand the impact of Latinx people on U.S. cities and metropolitan areas. Drawing from urban studies, cultural studies, rhetorical studies, and cultural geography, examines historical and contemporary issues affecting Latinx populations, as well the ways Latinx people are at the center of urban life in the U.S.Scholar
Luther Adams
Visit scholar websiteCourse | T HIST 490
Medieval Technology
Examines the nuts and bolts of medieval technology and urban life while exploring larger themes of the gendering of labor, the rebirth of cities, the uneasy relationship to Islamic civilization, and the destruction of the natural world.News | July 2, 2020
Monsanto will pay $95 million in PCB settlement with Washington state
The state of Washington will receive tens of millions of dollars in a settlement against Monsanto over its manufacture of toxic chemicals that were deposited decades ago in Washington soil and water and continue to wreak environmental damage today. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office in 2016 sued the company over its production of polychlorinated…
News | June 4, 2018
Mussels In Waters Off Seattle Test Positive For Opioids
Mussels from three of 18 locations near Seattle and Bremerton in Washington’s Puget Sound tested positive for the opioid oxycodone, according to the Puget Sound Institute at the University of Washington Tacoma. The mussels were contaminated because sewage from opioid consumers ended up in the sound after being treated at wastewater plants, scientists explained. “What we eat and…
Scholar
Pierpaolo Mudu
Visit scholar websiteCourse | T SOC 265
Race and Ethnicity in the United States
Introduces issues of race and ethnicity in the United States, particularly the social construction of race, and its effects on policies throughout history. Examines social movements (from the mid-1800s - present) and explores how ideas of racial justice and equality are articulated in relation to economic, political, and cultural contexts.Scholar
Rubén Casas
Visit scholar websiteCourse | T SOC 335
Social Class And Inequality
Examines the problem of persistent urban poverty in the United States. Explores the differential risk of poverty experienced by racial and ethnic groups and by women and children in the context of the major theories of class stratification. Also discusses the factors that lead to extreme-poverty neighborhoods, how these environments affect the life chances of residents, survival strategies of the poor, and public policy implications.News | November 16, 2021
Spark Grants foster research on community-centered environmental infrastructure, supporting collaborations amidst pandemic
Over the past year, two teams of researchers from the University of Washington tackled a host of urban challenges in our region with the support of Urban@UW’s Research Spark Grants. In August 2020 grants of up to $20,000 were awarded to amplify collaborative research-to-practice with a focus on today’s urban issues. Two UW teams of…
News | February 20, 2021
Systemic racism affects wildlife, too: A Q&A with an urban ecologist
What makes the country mouse different from the city mouse? Christopher Schell is a wildlife ecologist who has been curious about this dynamic his entire career. Though he specializes in coyotes instead of mice, the question remains the same. Schell, an assistant professor at the University of Washington Tacoma, is also part of a growing…
News | August 17, 2020
Systemic racism has consequences for all life in cities
Social inequalities, specifically racism and classism, are impacting the biodiversity, evolutionary shifts, and ecological health of plants and animals in our cities. That’s the main finding of a review paper led by the University of Washington, with co-authors at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of Michigan, which examined more than 170 published studies and analyzed…
News | July 27, 2021
Tacoma has been singing about itself from the start. Here’s why Grit City music matters
With some 20,000 people in the newly opened stands of Tacoma’s Stadium Bowl, the city’s elementary students broke into song — and a number specifically written for the occasion. The chorus was prideful and catchy — at least by 1910 standards — describing the City of Destiny as “Tacoma, The Rose of the West,” which…
Scholar
Thomas Diehm
Visit scholar websiteNews | December 8, 2020
Tire dust killing coho salmon returning to Puget Sound, new research shows
First they circle. Then they gasp at the surface of the water. Soon they can’t swim. Then they die. For decades now, scientists have known something was killing beautiful, adult coho salmon as soon as they hit Seattle’s urban waters, ready to spawn. They had escaped the orcas, the fishermen, traveled thousands of miles, only…
News | June 2, 2020
Urban carnivores appear to be more nocturnal as region slows due to coronavirus
The slowdown of daily life under stay-at-home orders because of the coronavirus has many of us feeling more connected to nature. We hear more birdsong in the mornings. The air seems cleaner. Perhaps we’re seeing more wildlife in the parks as we take walks in our neighborhoods. But the change of pace hasn’t necessarily benefitted…
News | December 12, 2018
Urban Ecologist/Superhero
UW Tacoma Assistant Professor Christopher Schell is a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as evidenced by the Black Panther coffee cup and Black Panther bobble head on his desk. Schell is a scientist, not a superhero; but if he were to assume a secret identity he might be dubbed, “Coyote.” Schell is an urban…
News | January 25, 2020
Urban Ecology and Social Justice
Christopher Schell will tell you he’s a black nerd. He’ll tell you he was up at 3 a.m. the night before a conference because his infant son would not sleep. He’ll tell you the students who work in his lab at the University of Washington, Tacoma are paid rather than expected to volunteer. He’ll tell…
Course | TECON 418
Urban Problems and Policies
Develops and applies economic analyses to an understanding of the dynamics and underlying structure of urban economies and urban problems. Draws examples from the local economy and local problems.News | November 22, 2022
Urban Scholar Highlight: Rubén Casas
This is the first in a series of interviews from Urban@UW highlighting the research of urban scholars at the University of Washington. Earlier this month, Urban@UW spoke to Rubén Casas, Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Urban Studies at the University of Washington…
News | March 1, 2022
Urban@UW anti-displacement workshop generates connections, ideas, and opportunities for further partnership.
On January 25th and 26th, Urban@UW hosted a virtual workshop that brought together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community partners to elevate key perspectives and facilitate cross-boundary discussions and action around the capacity for people to stay in place and stay in the community in the face of displacement. The workshop built on discussions initiated by…
News | June 9, 2022
Urban@UW brings together scholars, authors and artists for a roundtable conversation on environmental justice
On May 16th, 2022, Urban@UW’s Urban Environmental Justice (UEJ) Initative hosted a virtual roundtable entitled, “Place and Politics in the Pursuit of Environmental Justice”, examining the ways a changing climate and extreme weather events are giving shape to local places, communities, and politics. With a recognition that today’s urban challenges are embedded with critical inequities…
News | August 18, 2020
Urban@UW Research Spark Grants awardees announced
Urban@UW is excited to announce the awardees for our Research Spark Grants program. The two proposals selected address urgent urban challenges in our region, with a strong focus on community engagement and vulnerable populations. Co-creating an Adaptive Community-Science Network: Supporting Tribal and Grassroots Action through the Puget Creek Watershed Assessment Urban communities in the…
News | April 19, 2022
Urban@UW to host roundtable on place and politics in the pursuit of environmental justice
Urban@UW’s Urban Environmental Justice Initiative is hosting a virtual roundtable examining the ways a changing climate and extreme weather events are giving shape to local places, communities, and politics. Moderated by the UEJ Initiative Faculty Lead, Rubén Casas, participants include Kenneth Walker, author of Climate Politics on the Border: Environmental Justice Rhetorics (2022) and Nik Janos, co-editor of Urban Cascadia and the Pursuit of…
News | September 1, 2020
UW researchers explore how urbanization changes Earth’s ecosystems in new paper
UW researchers Marina Alberti, Urban Design & Planning; Simone Des Roches, Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences; and Christopher Schell, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Tacoma have published a new report titled “The Complexity of Urban Eco-evolutionary Dynamics”, examining how urbanization affects ecological and evolutionary processes over time, and how these changes affect nature’s contribution to people….
News | October 7, 2024
WA Gen Z voters excited, but turnout still a toss-up
Reported by Paris Jackson for Cascade/PBS There’s a surge in interest among young voters, those considered Generation Z, this election cycle. They’re outspoken, savvy and civically engaged. Gen Z’ers are those born between 1997 and 2012, according to Pew Research. They’re touted as the generation that grew up with the internet as an integral part…
News | November 9, 2021
WA’s frontline communities face the brunt of climate change
Urban@UW colleague Rubén Casas shares his perspective on challenges and opportunities for mobilizing vulnerable communities in the face of climate change in this op-ed written for Crosscut. — In my last column, I called for a centralized, coordinated solutions center to help us meet the challenges of climate change — a kind of “help desk” for…
News | May 7, 2021
What can our cities do for us? Columnist Rubén Casas has ideas
Originally written by Rubén Casas, Assistant Professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of Washington Tacoma, for Crosscut. Of the many insightful things Italo Calvino wrote about a city, the one that sticks with me the most is this one: “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer…
News | December 6, 2021
What it’s going to take for Tacoma to become an ‘anti-racist city’
Urban@UW colleague Rubén Casas shares his perspective on the city of Tacoma’s goal of becoming an ‘anti-racist city’ in his Crosscut article. — Mayor Victoria Woodards wants to make Tacoma “an anti-racist city.” The question is, can she do it? And if so, how should it look in practice? This was a central theme of her…