Explore Urban Planning Courses
Discover hundreds of courses, with new courses added weekly.
Our most popular courses
Join thousands of urban planners on Planetizen Courses
Browse All Courses
Environmental and Sustainability Standards
This course explains the different and most relevant sustainability standards—such as GRI, CDP, SASB, ISO, B-Corp, and others—as well as the differences between process and performance standards.
Introduction to Corporate Sustainability
In this course, the student will gain the skills needed to help an organization adopt sustainable practices, develop long-term plans to minimize environmental impact, identify the appropriate frameworks, and undertake meaningful interaction with internal and external stakeholders.
Incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals into the Planning Process
This course focuses on the many ways planners can infuse sustainability into local planning activities and policies using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a guiding framework.
UN Sustainable Development Goals: The Role of Cities in Implementation
This course will introduce the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for planning at the local level.
Getting There
Getting There was produced by planners in New Hampshire to inform other planners of the concepts and benefits of universal design. The big idea illustrated by the film is that a built environment designed with the needs of the visually impaired in mind would be universally accessible for every single member of the community.
Area-Based Location Optimization: Urban Green Space Selection
By the end of this course you will understand the basic principles of area-based location optimization and be able to solve the knapsack, threshold, and shape problems using LINGO software. The course also shows how to map the results of these skills in QGIS.
Designing the Megaregion
Current megaregion development is destabilizing the natural environment, causing gridlock on highways and congestion at airports, and making cities and suburbs separate and unequal. This course discusses how we can change these trends and invest in megaregions to improve planning and development outcomes developing and older areas.
Lewis Mumford on the City 5: The City as Man's Home
In this fifth episode of the series, Mumford begins his exploration of the city during a period of rapid transformation during the Industrial Revolution, when old cities grew quickly, new cities sprang up in the countryside, and the wealthy fled to the countryside, neglecting the health and prosperity of those who stayed behind.
Lewis Mumford on the City 4: The Heart of the City
The "Heart of the City" advocates for the compact, historic centers of cities as places of adventure and culture, which, Mumford warns, are in danger of vanishing. For context and historical perspective, Mumford traces the evolution of cities from the Medieval cities showcased in the third part of the film series, to the Baroque Age, which were shaped by a preoccupation with power and order, and into the 19th century, when commercial forces began to carve up cities in a trend that reached its highest pitch with the massive skyscrapers of the 20th century
Classical Location Theory
This course traces the key theories and conceptual models that have been developed to explain why economic activities tend to locate where they do.
Urban Agriculture
Urban farming is becoming more popular around the state of California, taking many forms along the way, as documented in this film produced by experts from the University of California and the Cal State University system in cooperation with local organizations.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
The 2011 documentary film “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” documents the rapid rise and fall of a housing complex in St. Louis. Pruitt-Igoe became a symbol for the failure of public housing policy in the late 20th century.
The Future of Cities After COVID-19
This virtual panel discussion focuses on the potential for the COVID-19 pandemic to influence the development, demographic, and environmental trends of the future. Speakers: Allison Arieff, William Fulton, Scott Frazier, and Mariela Alfonzo. Moderator: James Brasuell.
The Human Scale
The Human Scale juxtaposes the urban experiences of cities across the World to raise questions about the costs of modernity and to argue in favor of city planning that reclaims the public realm for social life. This new approach to planning is measured by walking distances, social interactions, and social inclusion, rather than vehicle speeds and parking spaces.
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
What makes good public spaces work, and why are some public spaces underused? Over the course of this film, William Whyte details insights into seven basic factors of successful public spaces: suitable space, interaction with the street, the sun, food, water, trees, and, finally, a term Whyte calls triangulation, or the ability of a public space to bring people together.
Incremental Code Reform: Enabling Better Places
The Congress for the New Urbanism’s Project for Code Reform streamlines the zoning code reform process by providing local governments with place-specific incremental zoning code changes that address the most problematic barriers first, build political will, and ultimately create more walkable, prosperous, and equitable places.
The YIMBY Movement: Opportunities and Challenges for Planners
Yes In My Back Yard, most commonly referred to as YIMBY, is a grassroots social movement advocating for an increase in housing development at the regional, city, and neighborhood levels. This course examines YIMBY organizational structures and the roots, goals, setbacks, successes, and tactics of the movement.
Transportation Planning: Principles and Practices of Transportation Finance
This course explains principles of transportation finance and reviews the general structure for funding transportation projects. Learn about the history of U.S. funding, from strong local funding to state and federal involvement to regional funding sources.
Transportation Planning: Making Transportation Plans—Rationality and Politics
This course explains the major forms of planning applicable to transportation, including rational comprehensive planning, strategic planning, policy analysis, incremental planning, advocacy planning, and communicative planning.
Defining Neighborhoods
This course reviews the varying definitions of neighborhoods and examines methods for defining a physical basis and tangible meaning to neighborhoods based on the location of neighborhood centers, boundaries, and spatial extents.
Start Learning with Planetizen Courses
Choose from affordable subscription options to access hundreds of online courses today.
Try Free Courses