Economic Thinking for Planners: Overview

Name: Economic Thinking for Planners: Overview
Rating: 4.10 (447 reviews)
Author: Peter Gordon

This course shows how "Economic Thinking" can inform our thinking on big questions like why some countries are rich while some are poor and how so many us have become so much better off than our ancestors.

Taught By Peter Gordon

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Course Info

8 video lessons (56 Mins)
Published
2015

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Browse Course Chapters

1.

Introduction

4 mins
2.

Why This Course?

8 mins
3.

Institutions, Prosperity, and Property Rights

6 mins
4.

Virtuous Cycle

2 mins
5.

Ten Pillars of Economic Thinking

4 mins
6.

Two Corollary Pillars

8 mins
7.

A Few Trade-offs for Planners

14 mins
8.

Summing Up

6 mins

Course Description

The oldest question in economics asks why some countries are rich and some are poor. A related question: how have most of us have become so much better off than our ancestors? These questions, and others like it, get at the issue of how and why cities matter. The interest of this course relates to what we will call "Economic Thinking" and how it informs our thinking about these big questions.

Learn these skills

Economics
Law and Policy

AICP CM

This course is approved for 1 AICP CM credit.

SACPLAN CPD

This course is approved for 1 SACPLAN CPD point.

Meet Your Instructor

Peter Gordon

Peter Gordon is Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy. His research interests are in applied urban economics.

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Course Reviews

4.10

Dylan Huber-Heidorn

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 15:58

Dissatisfied

In general, I think this course (and the rest of the series) doesn't do a great job of answering its central question about why some places are rich and some are poor. There's no serious grappling with alternative ideas, which leaves it feeling like an uncritical piece of work, although there are interesting insights scattered throughout. I came prepared to be convinced of something, or at least challenged by well-supported argument, and instead I just felt like I was sitting through a pretty standard economics lecture that views a lot of its conclusions as self-evident (again, despite those conclusions supposedly being key to the central question).

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Robin Large 1

Thu, 05/21/2026 - 13:50

Extremely Satisfied

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Alan Booker

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 07:06

Extremely Satisfied

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