Urban studies

Urban studies is a field within the social sciences, developed under this name since the 1960s. The journal Urban Studies was established in 1964. The term is used in diverging meanings; it may either refer to studies of straightforward urban planning or civil engineering. In the United States, however, in the context of the racial unrests since the 1960s has acquired the sense of a euphemism and refers to problems related to race, specifically, the topic of lower class African-Americans in the country's "inner cities" (itself a euphemism for impoverished urban neighborhoods).