All Things Urban

Recently the term Superdiversity was introduced as a way of looking at the mix of identities of our cities in a less reductive, less statistical way. Superdiverse cities bring with them a next stage in the integration process, where ethnicity no longer is the most important let alone the sole factor with which people define themselves. Instead of the old dividing lines of ethnicity or language, superdiversity seems to create new connections. Communities also start being based on other factors like religion, profession, sexual orientation or neighbourhood, in which many ethnicities and languages are mixed. In other words: the simple pie chart of ethnicity becomes mixed up into a fluid composition of overlapping and mixing colours. During this online course, we use and develop different (Covid-proof) methods and strategies to get an as detailed as possible image of superdiversity in our streets. Basic tools are photography, observation, walks and talks. You can choose a street in your city of residence where you expect to find a great diversity of identities. In online conversations with various experts and the other participants, we ask you to unravel and unfold this street, to find out which shared spaces, languages, symbols and activities are to be found there. Returning to the field regularly, we aim to create a certain sensitivity towards people and communities, towards signs and languages.

Architects, Urbanists, Historians, Sociologists and other 'urban' studies.

Regular tickets are available for 250 euro. Student tickets are available for 200 euro.

The Independent School for the City is a playground for all urban thinkers, do-ers and designers – based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It brings together critical and experimental ideas in the field of urban research, design, strategy and activism. Through a range of diverse activities, it offers a platform where urban professionals can meet to informally discuss the challenges facing the modern city. The school is an initiative of Crimson Historians and Urbanists and ZUS and is rooted in their practices of combining a critical and activist approach to the city with effecting real change through architectural and planning projects. The independent school for the City is founded on a strong belief in an incremental instead of a tabula rasa approach to city planning which blurs the lines between critique and practice on the one hand, and research and policy on the other.