Location Optimization

This course introduces the basic principles of location optimization models and provides a hands-on tutorial on point-based location optimization using QGIS and LINGO.

Lewis Mumford on the City 1: The City - Heaven and Hell

This short documentary film is the first part of a larger series hosted by Lewis Mumford, an American historian, sociologist, philosopher, and literary critic, who wrote the book The City in History on which this film is based. The film originally aired in 1963. This first film in the series uses historic footage from all over the world for a kind of meditative effect, punctuated with Mumford's philosophical observations on the past, present, and future of cities.

Warning: Some graphic images appear in the last third of this film.

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.

Urbanized

The documentary film "Urbanized" debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2011 and succeeds in popularizing a conversation about urbanism, urban planning, and cities in a way that few cultural artifacts have managed before or since.

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 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.

Introduction to Urban Informatics

This course discusses how the field of urban informatics works. You will also learn about the technologies and concepts influencing Urban Informatics, including "Big Data," machine learning, visualization, and data-driven decision making.

Complying With Federal Law in Regulating Telecommunications

This course explains what local governments need to do—and to avoid—to comply with federal laws while regulating telecommunications facilities.

Federal and State Religious Land Use Statutes

This course will explain what local governments need to do—and to avoid—when enacting and applying land use regulations that affect religious land uses.

Measuring Neighborhood Segregation and Diversity

This course reviews the various ways to measure both segregation and diversity at the neighborhood scale.

Local Regulation of Marijuana Businesses

This course examines the role of local regulation in states that have legalized marijuana. Learn about marijuana components and products, federal and state laws, zoning, and social equity issues.

Transportation Planning: Effects on the Environment, Health, and Social Justice

This course discusses the local and global impacts of transportation systems and the mitigation of those impacts. The course also identifies prospects for change, as achieved by technology, transportation management, and pricing.

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.

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 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 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.

Tableau for Planners 3: Dashboards

This course will expand on the Tableau for Planners: Introduction and Worksheets. Students will have prior experience will building basic tables and will start to use Tableau to build multi-worksheet dashboards with interactive controls like filtering. Students will also learn how to make the data used in their visualization accessible to the public. At the end of the course, we will demonstrate how to publish the work to Tableau Public and embed dashboards on websites and in social media.

Tableau for Planners: Introduction

This course will introduce general principles of data visualization and orient the user with the Tableau platform. Learn how to connect to a data set in Microsoft Excel, understand general principles of a relational database, and start building basic worksheets and dashboards.

Python Street Network Analysis

In this course we will learn how to use Python to conduct street network analysis with the OSMnx package.