Course Library
Browse our library of planning courses
The Ethics of Disruptive Transportation Technologies
This course discusses the process for making ethical decisions as part of planning for disruptive technologies.
Urban Design for Planners 6: Streetscape Design
Learn how to identify thoroughfares where traffic calming is a high priority, identify desired thoroughfare dimensions based on urban context, and create a redesigned thoroughfare.
Urban Design for Planners 5: Density
The purpose of this course is to show how neighborhoods can increase in density in keeping with their character. Students will learn how to find areas that are close to civic uses, commercial areas, and public transit; propose a level of urban intensity (transect zone) for each area; determine what kinds of units would be appropriate in each location; and create a Sketchup model with varying density layers.
Urban Design for Planners 3: Neighborhoods and Centers
This course demonstrates how to delineate a set of neighborhoods and neighborhood centers for a given area and suggests design improvements that enhance neighborhood centers.
Urban Design for Planners 2: Getting Started with QGIS and SketchUp
The second course in the Urban Design for Planners series provides training on two important tools: SketchUp and QGIS.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process. The first course introduces the software you’ll use to create analytical maps, 3D models, and 2D graphic designs.
What To Do When You Suspect Your Boss Is Unethical
This courses reviews the challenges you face as a planner if you suspect your supervisor of unethical conduct.
Understanding the Content and Process for Determining Ethical Conduct
This course reviews the new organizational structure of the AICP Code of Ethics, along with an extended examination of the new procedures for advisory rulings and adjudication.
The American City, Part 3: Learning from the Grid
This course demonstrates the well-defined formal composition and spatial processes of how American cities evolve over time.
The American City, Part 2: The Invention of a New Scale
Understand how the physical characteristics of block size and street length distinguish American cities from earlier models of urbanism, and the implications of these physical characteristics for sustainability in the 21st century.
The American City, Part 1: A Brief History of the Regular Grid
Learn why the regular grid has been a standard part of the town planning vocabulary around the world for nearly five millennia.
Frontage Types and the Public Realm
This course reviews the 10 primary frontage types and how each shapes the public realm. This course focuses on understanding the features and distinctions of each type and in which locations or contexts each is appropriate.
Comprehensive Planning for Healthy Communities
This course covers the process of incorporating public health goals into a General Plan or Comprehensive Plan for a region, county, city, town, or neighborhood.
Introduction to Healthy Communities
This course provides an overview of the healthy community movement and the relationship between health and planning.
Form-Based Codes 101: Citywide and Countywide Code Updates
The final course in the "Form-Based Codes 101" series explores citywide form-based coding—the assessment of an entire city to determine where form-based code application should occur.
Form-Based Codes 101: Legal Aspects
This course explores the legal issues of creating and using a form-based code.
Form-Based Codes 101: Preparing a Form-Based Code
This course explores basic questions and decisions to consider when preparing a form-based code. It also covers the different approaches to regulating urban form and provides guidance for selecting an organizing principle for your form-based code. Finally, the course explains the visioning and creating of a plan, followed by drafting, testing, and assembling your code.
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.
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.