More than half the world's population is now urban. The vast amount of wealth created and exchanged in cities is unequally distributed, and since the advent of modern industrial production, every large and prosperous city has had at least one neighborhood in which working-class or marginalized people live in poverty. This course will examine these neighborhoods from a variety of perspectives, from the early nineteenth century to the present day, in Europe, Africa, and the USA. We will read accounts of slum residents and their strategies for surviving and building identity and community, as well as evaluating various efforts to reform, purify, or eliminate these neighborhoods through urban planning, philanthropy, social control, or revolution. We'll also read the work of environmental, social, and cultural historians of cities. How have race, class, and gender shaped urban built environments and the lives of their residents? What role has empire played? What approaches have been most successful? Open only to first year frosh.