Urban Studies

What Is Urban Studies

Urban Studies is an interdisciplinary program that uses and integrates a diverse range of disciplines and approaches to the study of all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. This includes urban economics, urban planning, education, healthcare, urban ecology, transportation systems, politics, and social relations.

Urban studies majors use and integrate disciplines such as sociology, political sciences, history and other social sciences to learn about the economic, social, political and cultural life of the city.

Urban Studies at Coppin

Through the lens of race and social class, Urban Studies at Coppin State University focuses on the blacks and people of color in the city and metropolitan area including examining the great migration patterns of people of African descent migrating to the city from rural America after the American Civil War and slavery’s end.

By comparison, in the turn of the twentieth century about 40 percent of the U.S. population resided in cities. By turn of this new millennium, 80 percent lived in the city or metropolitan area. Today, over 50 percent of African Americans live in central cities.

Given Coppin's urban mission, the Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas draw special attention as laboratories for examining urban studies. The major incorporates examining cities around the world as part of Coppin's global initiatives mission.