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City Dreamers
The film "City Dreamers," directed by Joseph Hillel and released in 2018, tells the story of four women designers who worked to shape North American cities throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century.
Beyond Complete Streets for Walking and Biking
This course covers current practices in planning and implementation of infrastructure for biking and walking.
Missing Middle Housing: Meeting the Growing Demand for Walkable Urbanism
Learn about Missing Middle Housing and how to integrate these types into existing neighborhoods.
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.
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.
Drawing in the Landscape: Painting Color
This is the third course in the Drawing series. In this course we inquire into the nature of observing and representing color works in transitive environments, building upon the initial sketch, and beginning watercolor technique.
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.
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.
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.
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
What makes good public spaces work, and why are some public spaces underused? Over the course of this film, William Whyte details insights into seven basic factors of successful public spaces: suitable space, interaction with the street, the sun, food, water, trees, and, finally, a term Whyte calls triangulation, or the ability of a public space to bring people together.
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.
Lewis Mumford on the City 2: The City - Cars or People?
This short documentary film is the second part of a larger series hosted by Lewis Mumford, an American historian, sociologist, philosopher, and literary critic whose studies in the 20th century included attention to cities and architecture that persists in influence into the present day.
Lewis Mumford on the City 3: The City and Its Region
This short documentary film is the third part of a larger series hosted by Lewis Mumford, an American historian, sociologist, philosopher, and literary critic whose studies in the 20th century included attention to cities and architecture that influences the study and planning of cities into the present day. This film takes a broader view of cities, expanding to the regional level and warning about the ill effects of the sprawling forms that most U.S. cities took on during the mid-20th century, erasing pastoral landscapes and rural communities and undermining the benefits of cities.
Lewis Mumford on the City 4: The Heart of the City
The "Heart of the City" advocates for the compact, historic centers of cities as places of adventure and culture, which, Mumford warns, are in danger of vanishing. For context and historical perspective, Mumford traces the evolution of cities from the Medieval cities showcased in the third part of the film series, to the Baroque Age, which were shaped by a preoccupation with power and order, and into the 19th century, when commercial forces began to carve up cities in a trend that reached its highest pitch with the massive skyscrapers of the 20th century
Lewis Mumford on the City 5: The City as Man's Home
In this fifth episode of the series, Mumford begins his exploration of the city during a period of rapid transformation during the Industrial Revolution, when old cities grew quickly, new cities sprang up in the countryside, and the wealthy fled to the countryside, neglecting the health and prosperity of those who stayed behind.
Lewis Mumford on the City 6: The City and the Future
This short documentary film is the sixth and final installment of a series hosted by Lewis Mumford, an American historian, sociologist, philosopher, and literary critic, whose studies in the 20th century included attention to cities and architecture that persists in influence into the present day.
Methods for Neighborhood Scale Revitalization
This course presents a rigorous but adaptable methodology that builds on the strengths of neighborhoods to develop customized approaches for addressing challenges that directly respond to the needs and vision of each neighborhood.
Landscape Design for Social Sustainability, Part 1
Discover how and why the built environment succeeds or fails at supporting thriving, diverse communities, and how designers can create mechanisms that allow communities to enjoy and improve their environments to suit their needs and desires.
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