Course Library
Browse our library of planning courses
Creating a Low-Carbon, Resilient City
This course introduces strategies for achieving low-carbon, resilient communities.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting for Cities
Greenhouse gas emissions accounting is a core tool for developing, implementing, and monitoring climate actions and strategies. This course provides a basic overview of concepts that can be supplemented with training in specific software.
Economic Thinking for Planners: Economics of the Environment
This course provides an introduction to environmental economics by exploring the economic effects of national and local environmental policies. By the end of the course, you'll understand market failure, externalities, and private and social costs, applying these concepts to issues like recycling, species preservation, and climate change.
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.
GeoDesign Using CommunityViz: Buildout and Visualization
This second course in the "GeoDesign with CommunityViz" series shows how the CommunityViz extension of ArcGIS can guide the design, and assess the impacts, of a project.
GeoDesign with CommunityViz: Land Use Designer
Learn how the CommunityViz extension of ArcGIS can guide the design of a project and assess the project's impact. This course specifically focuses on a suitability analysis using essential functions and the Land Use Designer wizard.
Planning History, Theory, and Law Primer for the AICP Exam
This course is an excerpt from the Planetizen AICP Exam Preparation Class. It offers a succinct, structured overview of the key principles in U.S. city planning theory and explains major topics of planning history, concluding with a discussion of legal doctrines enshrined in the United States Constitution that all practicing planners must know.
AICP Exam Prep Primer
With more than a decade of experience in online AICP exam preparation, Planetizen brings you this primer for self-guided study for the AICP exam. The course offers a comprehensive catalog of how-tos: from general study preparation to a broad selection of exam topics and associated readings based on exceprt from the Planetizen AICP Exam Preparation Class.
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.
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.
CommunityViz Introduction
In this course you will learn practical applications for CommunityViz, one of the world's premiere GeoDesign and planning scenario tools. Planners, resource managers, local and regional governments, and others use CommunityViz to help them make decisions about development, land use, transportation, conservation and more.
Regional Scenario Planning: Understanding Urban Footprint
This course is the second of two scenario planning courses hosted by Garlynn Woodsong. This course introduces UrbanFootprint, a next-generation open source scenario planning tool developed in response to a changing policy environment in order to automate and streamline the processes involved with: loading base data; assessing and defining developable lands; translating existing plans and scenarios; creating new scenarios; and analyzing those scenarios for their performance according to a range of metrics.
Bicycle-Friendly Streets: Design Standards
"Bike Friendly Streets: Design Standards" presents examples of cities across the United States and globally redesigning their streets to accommodate and encourage bicycling. From road diets that make room for bike lanes to complete redesigns of streets, cities are stepping up to the challenge of providing a variety of options for the bicyclists in their communities.