MSc City Design and Social Science

This programme focuses on the social, economic and political dimensions of urban design. You’ll learn how urban environments shape communities and how design can tackle social problems and create inclusive spaces.

Drawing on our urban expertise from across LSE, this programme is distinctive for its studio-based approach. You’ll examine theory in a practical, real-world context – with a studio workshop, masterclasses and opportunities to learn from innovative practitioners.

You’ll gain the skills to become an interdisciplinary urban practitioner and advanced urban thinker who can work across professional boundaries and help create sustainable and socially inclusive cities for all.

This MSc City Design and Social Science attracts students from wide-ranging academic and professional backgrounds, reflecting the range of skills involved in urban studies, urban policy and urban design today. Our students come from architecture, urban design, planning and engineering backgrounds, as well as the broader social sciences, humanities, law and natural sciences.

By the time you graduate, you’ll have well-rounded research, analytical and practical skills to contribute to the design, development and implementation of transformative urban projects in cities around the world.

• Bayat, Asef. 2013. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. 3rd edn. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Caldeira, Teresa P. 2017. “Peripheral Urbanisation: Autoconstruction, Transversal Logics, and Politics in Cities of the Global South.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35 (1): 3-20.
• Hall, Suzanne and Ricky Burdett, eds. 2017. The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City. London: SAGE.
• Hall, Suzanne M. 2021. The Migrant's Paradox: Street Livelihoods and Marginal Citizenship in Britain. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Kern, Leslie. 2020. Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World. London: Verso.
• Madden, David and Peter Marcuse. 2016. In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis. London: Verso.
• Minton, Anna. 2017. Big Capital: Who is London for? London: Penguin.
• Miraftab, Faranak. 2009. “Insurgent Planning: Situating Radical Planning in the Global South.” Planning Theory 8 (1): 32–50.
• Roy, Ananya. 2011. “Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35. (2): 223–38
• Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2010. Improvised Lives: Rhythms of Endurance in an Urban South. Cambridge: Polity.
• Tonkiss, Fran. 2013. Cities by Design: The Social Life of Urban Form. Cambridge: Polity.