Explore Urban Planning Courses
Discover hundreds of courses, with new courses added weekly.
Our most popular courses
Browse by software
Join thousands of urban planners on Planetizen Courses
Browse All Courses
Just Suburbs: The New Frontier for Equity and Inclusion
Poverty is being displaced from central cities to suburbs. As a response, planners should look to strategies that create mixed-income neighborhoods—a place that everyone can call home.
The Pedestrian Safety Crisis in the U.S.
This course discusses the social trends putting people at risk on U.S. streets and roads; why traffic safety is fundamentally a problem of systematic, structural inequality; and what U.S. planners and the public can do about it.
Engaging At-Risk Youth in Arts and Culture Curation
Engaging youth in the revitalization of their own communities can impact their sense of ownership and pride and inform the way they show up and operate in that space.
Creative Placemaking for Minority Communities
This course will focus on strategies to effectively engage residents of marginalized communities in the placemaking process.
Women and Cities 4: Gender Equity in the Public Sphere
This course will outline the way in which women have occupied public spaces and the transition into a greater level of visibility for women in cities.
Women and Cities 5: The Feminist Future City
This final chapter speculates on what a feminist city could look like, recalling case studies and ancient examples that include contemporary contexts but also consider future needs for a more heart-centered city designed for everyone.
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.
Virtual Reality for Planners 1: Introduction
Virtual reality presents urban planners with a unique tool to create immersive virtual experiences that can inform visioning processes, design decision-making, and community engagement. Learn about the evolution of virtual reality technology, its key vocabulary and logistics, the benefits of virtual reality over traditional media, and what the future of public engagement may hold.
Virtual Reality for Planners 2: Modeling in SketchUp
This course provides a step-by-step SketchUp tutorial and teaches users how to create content appropriate for a virtual reality environment. Viewers will learn how to optimize the performance of their software and ensure success in the next steps of the process, including final model export to Unity.
Virtual Reality for Planners 3: Working with Unity
This course provides a high-level overview of the process involved in creating a virtual reality application and teaches viewers how to assemble a virtual reality application from scratch using Unity how to make the process as successful as possible.
Virtual Reality for Planners 4: Refining the End User Experience
Creating a VR experience is one thing, but managing its use at public events and integrating it into the urban design workflow is an extra, separate step. This course considers the bigger picture and covers a few ways to fine-tune the user’s experience for maximum success.
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.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
Urban planners and urban designers are interested in building places that embody beauty and hope. In this course, Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP, presents free urban design software tools that can help urban planners and urban designers visualize changes in the built environment to support the overarching goal of creating better places.
Urban Design for Planners 2: Getting Started with QGIS and SketchUp
Course instructor Emily Talen guides viewers through the process of transferring a shapefile of building outlines into SketchUp and processes of basic manipulation necessary to create a 3D model. Learn how to load data into QGIS, set the coordinate reference system, and change the graphic display of data layers.
Urban Design for Planners 3: Neighborhoods and Centers
This course demonstrates how to delineate neighborhoods and neighborhood centers in a given area and also illustrates a sample of neighborhood enhancing design improvements.
Urban Design for Planners 4: Mix and Proximity
Course instructor Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP provides step-by-step instruction on how to use data sets to visualize and map the configuration of mix and density along main commercial corridors and neighborhoods.
Urban Design for Planners 5: Density
Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP teaches urban design strategies for increasing density in neighborhoods and locating infill development appropriate to the context of specific neighborhoods. Talen also introduces urban design interventions proven to increase density.
Urban Design for Planners 6: Streetscape Design
Learn how to identify thoroughfares where traffic calming is a high priority, identify desired thoroughfare dimensions based on urban context, and redesign an existing thoroughfare.
21st Century Storytelling: Video for Planners
This course will give you motivation to create video content, and give you practical, affordable tips to be heard among the online noise.
CityEngine for Planners 1: Introduction
This course is designed for beginners seeking an introduction to 3D procedural modeling and CityEngine software.
Start Learning with Planetizen Courses
Choose from affordable subscription options to access hundreds of online courses today.
Try Free Courses