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.

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.

Parking and the City

Donald Shoup is Distinguished Research Professor from the University of California, Los Angeles, whose 2005 book, The High Cost of Free Parking, is one the most influential pieces of planning scholarship from the 21st century. In the lecture presented here, Shoup presents many of the key ideas and clever phrases from the original book and a more recent follow up, with case studies updated for a contemporary landscape that includes complications like Uber and electric scooters.

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.

Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City

The life and achievements of architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham offer a chance to witness the application of the social agenda of the City Beautiful movement, of which Burnham was one of the most famous practitioners.

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.

Introduction to Smart Cities

This course explores the characteristics and the challenges of smart cities, as well as the potential opportunities for a smart cities approach within the urban design and urban 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: 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.

Transportation Planning: The Role of Transportation Systems in Social and Economic Life

By the end of this course, you will have a strong understanding of the way in which transportation systems interact with society and the economy.

Form-Based Codes: Using Building Types, Part 2

By the end of this course, you will have a high understanding of the range of building type choices, their importance, and where and how to apply them to achieve compatible and more predictable community character objectives.

Form-Based Codes: Using Building Types, Part 1

Learn about building types in the context of form-based coding and how building types can be a direct way to achieve compatible and more predictable built results.

The Ethics of Disruptive Transportation Technologies

This course discusses the process for making ethical decisions as part of planning for disruptive technologies.

CityEngine for Planners 3: Integration and GIS

Learn how to import real-world data from satellite imagery and terrain to GIS data.