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Missing Middle Housing: Meeting the Growing Demand for Walkable Urbanism
Learn about Missing Middle Housing and how to integrate these types into existing neighborhoods.
The American City, Part 4: Complexity and Pattern in the City
Understand how sustainable urbanism can be a crucial component of the urban pattern, or otherwise subverted by government regulations and business models.
Parking Reform Made Easy
Reforming minimum parking requirements is one of the most effective ways to support Smart Growth. This course explains the many problems created by the parking regulation status quo before presenting a process for reform, providing examples of parking management tools, and discussing strategies for dealing with political and stakeholder issues.
Economic Thinking for Planners: Cities, Externalities, and Governance
Through history, people have become better off as they urbanized. This course investigates how and why the quality of life has improved in cities.
Form-Based Codes 101: Introduction
This course defines form-based codes, explains why they were invented, and distinguishes form-based codes from conventional "use-based" zoning ordinances—all with an emphasis on placemaking and walkability. We will provide an overview of the development of form-based codes, their mandatory and optional component parts, and the importance of making form-based codes context or place-specific.
Form-Based Codes 101: Learning How To Look
This course will teach you the skills to appreciate and analyze the measures and functions of good urbanism.
Form-Based Codes 101: Neighborhoods
This course introduces the essential elements of neighborhoods.
Form-Based Codes 101: Corridors
Corridors have historically been a key element of the urban fabric of every American town and city, yet they are also commonly problematic. This course looks at the roots of the problem for examples of how corridors can be designed and coded.
Form-Based Codes 101: Downtowns
Downtowns are the historic center of most American cities. In this course, we will review their role in establishing the past and future character of the city, walking through a series of form-based code case studies across a range of scales and contexts.
Tactical Urbanism: How It's Done
From unsanctioned crosswalks to city-led "Pavement-to-Plaza" programs, instructor Mike Lydon describes the success of short-term, temporary projects in influencing long-term physical and policy changes in cities across the United States and Canada.
Greening the Neighborhood: An Introduction to LEED-ND
This course introduces the LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) system with a review of its goals and major users and the business case for undertaking ND projects. Also learn about rating system prerequisites and credit requirements, the certification process, and technical resources available for assembling successful certification submissions.
Greening the Neighborhood: Accelerating Sustainability with LEED-ND
This course reviews options and resources for local governments to leverage LEED-ND by examining case studies of local experiences and results.
Greening the Neighborhood: LEED-ND Core Concepts
Learn about the six key elements used throughout the submission preparation process: site type, boundary, buildable land, development program, terminology, and mapping.
Greening the Neighborhood: LEED-ND Metrics
This course describes approaches for making the LEED-ND calculations that will influence the work of the project team throughout the process.
Greening the Neighborhood: LEED-ND Globally and v.4 Update
The final course in the "Greening the Neighborhood" series discusses international considerations for LEED-ND and reviews LEED v.4, the first major update to the LEED-ND system since 2009.
Regional Scenario Planning: An Overview
This first of two courses offers a brief history of regional scenario planning in the late 20th century and beyond, with examples from Portland, Oregon's Vision 2040, Salt Lake City's Envision Utah, and the Chicago Metropolis Plan. Principles of regional planning relating to land use, urban design, and transportation are discussed. Finally, more advanced regional planning topics are touched on, including jobs/housing balance, and the relationship between demographics and regional housing market demand.
Tactical Urbanism: An Introduction
Developed in conjunction with other movements, the Tactical Urbanism approach allows a host of local actors to test new concepts before making substantial political and financial commitments. Sometimes sanctioned, sometimes not, Tactical Urbanism features the following five characteristics: phased instigation, meeting local planning challenges, realistic and short term, low risk-high gain, and stakeholder capacity building.
GIS Walkability Modeling
As the field of planning continues to trend toward multi-modal, sustainable transportation practices, tools to model or analyze the walkability of a given area have grown in number and complexity. In this course, students will learn how to apply ArcMap and the Spatial Analyst extension to model walkability. The course assumes students have a working knowledge of GIS and basic familiarity with Spatial Analyst.
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 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.
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