This is a course about the urban economy. The emphasis is on understanding how agency (initiative) leads political actors in a state to make possible the conditions that give rise to an urban economy. I review and re-interpret fundamental models that explain how the operation of markets in equilibrium shapes the scale and organization of the commercial city in a mixed market economy within a liberal state. The course reviews classic models of the urban economy that assume appurtenant property, contract, and civil rights. As befits the liberal state, such models also presume that individuals and firms are purposeful and have autonomy in these markets. These models raise questions about how and when governance enables and facilitates markets, autonomy, and the urban economy in this way. Overall, the perspective of this course is that it is helpful to see governance (and hence the urban economy) as outcomes negotiated by political actors motivated by competing notions of commonwealth and aggrandizement.