Course Library
Browse our library of planning courses
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.
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.
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.
Working From Home for Planners
The future of work and the future of education are location independent, and we’re all better off because of it. This course focuses on general remote work tips and three remote work topics at the forefront of urban planners' minds as working from home becomes a new normal in the field of urban planning: productivity, teamwork, and public meetings.
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.
Introduction to Smart Cities
This course explores the characteristics and the challenges of smart cities, as well as the potential opportunities for smart cities within the design and planning fields. This course also discusses the drivers and the essential technologies in a smart city.
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.
Measuring Neighborhood Segregation and Diversity
This course reviews the various ways to measure both segregation and diversity at the neighborhood scale.
Transportation Planning: Strategies for Working with Roadway Capacity
This course explains the menu of contemporary approaches to modifying or adding to transportation capacity. It provides examples of capacity responses to regional mobility for commuters and local accessibility for communities.
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.
United States Census 2020: All About Census 2020
Learn all about the upcoming Census. This course provides an overview of planned operations and discusses the Census schedule, process, products, accuracy, publicity, and jobs.
United States Census 2020: Using FactFinder and the American Community Survey
Learn how to use Census.gov and American FactFinder websites, which are the principal portals to Census Bureau data products and maps.
United States Census 2020: Introduction
This course covers basic Census Bureau geography and Census-taking concepts. It reviews the Census Bureau’s mission and development of the nation’s statistical and geographic "architecture" that is the basis of almost all general purpose used in government, academia, and the business world.
The Ethics of Disruptive Transportation Technologies
This course discusses the process for making ethical decisions as part of planning for disruptive technologies.