Blog

Sanya is a district in Tokyo that had a day laborer market which peaked in the 1980s. Today there is a gap in the literature about the decline of the region since. Rio Smith ’26 spent his summer studying the evolution of Sanya since the eighties and what the district is like today using a Tanaka Fund for International Research summer grant through CUGS. Smith is an urban studies major with a minor in philosophy who grew up between Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Global Studio (URST 403/803) is a new course offered this semester taught by Garth Myers, Director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies and Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Urban International Studies. The course serves as a capstone for urban studies majors as well as a core course for students in the new master’s in urban planning. Every week in Global Studio there is a guest speaker who comes to share their experience working in the field and their unique insights about their focus area within planning.

Shenzhen is a city known for being an overnight metropolis. The city has experienced rapid urbanization since the 1990s which has affected communities in numerous ways. The effect of urbanization on fisherfolk communities in Shenzhen is what John Li ’24 spent his summer researching using a grant from the China Urban Studies Summer Fund.

by Xiangming Chen, Director, Urban Studies Two former China summer program participants reflect on how the program and their time at Trinity shaped their career paths. How Urban Studies Shaped My Path ...

Julius Benthin is a senior urban studies and economics double major who recently presented his research on the HafenCity development in Hamburg with a grant received as a Marcuss Fellow. ...

As one of the first Trinity students to receive the Rosemary and Stan Marcuss ’63 Fellowship for Research in Urban Studies, Kendra Keelan ’23 recently completed her senior thesis on academic and institutional community engagement at Trinity and other colleges.

Nanci Lopez Flores Nanci Lopez Flores is an Urban Studies and Political Science double major. She began her time at Trinity College as a student in the Cities Gateway and has ...

Albert Ananyan '24 has been awarded a Projects for Peace grant to undertake a project in Armenia in summer 2023. Ananyan, a political science and international studies major from Armenia, was selected for a $10,000 grant to undertake a project titled, "DiliKar: a light industry training and capacity-building center for Artsakh Refugees.”

Over the summer, Trinity Students completed three Projects for Peace. Daniel Santos Ramírez ’23 and Gabriel Sorondo Guirola ’23 completed their project “Proyecto Turpial: Diasporic Youth Encounters,” which focused on building connections between young Venezuelans abroad and helping them to network with the eventual goal of empowering young leaders to give back to Venezuela. Suzanne Carpe Elias ’22 and Federico Cedolini ’22 completed the project “Mental Health Training for Peace: Building an Online Platform to Educate Families of Mental Health Patients in El Salvador,” where the goal was to help educate families with members who are suffering from mental health issues how to better help support their loved ones. Nayantara Ghosh ’22 also completed a Project for Peace over the summer called, “Wonder on Wheels: Bringing Mobile Education to the Children of Daily Wage Laborers and Slum-dwellers,” which focused on providing mobile education to those with inconsistent access to educational services in Bengaluru, India.

As we are going through the inaugural self-study and external review of Urban Studies this spring to mark its first decade of development since 2013, we feature two earlier graduates who reflect on their self-designed Urban & Global Studies major in 2011 and its curricular connections to their post-graduation careers. Their experience with that major had helped launch the current Urban Studies Major into existence a decade ago.