The course is designed to combine both classroom learning and active learning that enables students to experience the city and apply the course materials to the city to enhance student learning.

A set of urban adventures is employed to guide students through a series of interactions in the city that will help introduce students to the underlying structures that shape social interactions. The city will be the context through which students will be able to test the concepts, theories and findings presented in the course readings and lectures.

The purpose is to become acquainted with the knowledge and concepts that will help improve the lives of people living here and, in the long run, students' own lives and that of their surrounding communities.