Civic Engagement Courses
- AIA CES
- AICP CM
- SACPLAN CPD
- AICP CM
- CNU-A
- SACPLAN CPD
- AICP CM
- CNU-A
- SACPLAN CPD
- AIA CES
- AICP CM
- SACPLAN CPD
Top Civic Engagement Instructors
Master Urban Planning Skills With A Planetizen Courses Subscription.
Try Free Courses
High quality video lessons developed by experts.
Complete course work to receive a certificate from Planetizen.
Test your comprehension with course quizzes.
Access reading lists, articles, and other materials prepared by instructors.
All Civic Engagement Courses
Just Suburbs: The New Frontier for Equity and Inclusion
Poverty is being displaced from central cities to suburbs. As a response, planners should look to strategies that create mixed-income neighborhoods—a place that everyone can call home.
The Theory and Practice of Culture and Placemaking
Learn about the complex issues at play in the interaction between culture and place: the urbanization process, the historical significance of tools used by urban planners, the urban revolution, early American urban theories, and the power of social movements.
Introduction to Culture and Placemaking
Explore the urban theories that have prepared urbanists and planners alike to recognize culture and embrace of diversity as significant mechanisms for shaping the city and the fate of urban landscapes.
Methods for Neighborhood Scale Revitalization
This course presents a rigorous but adaptable methodology designed to build on the strengths and address the challenges of neighborhoods by developing customized approaches that directly respond to the needs and vision of each unique neighborhood.
Women and Cities 5: The Feminist Future City
The "Women and Cities 5: The Feminist Future City" course speculates about what a feminist future city could look like, recalling case studies and ancient examples that include contemporary contexts but also consider the future needs for a more heart-centered city designed for everyone.
Planning Commissioner Training
The new "Planning Commissioner Training" series offers citizen planners a chance to learn the tools to make a positive impact in their communities (available as a separate subscription).
Women and Cities 4: Gender Equity in the Public Sphere
This course will outline the way in which women have occupied public spaces and the transition into a greater level of visibility for women in cities.
Creative Placemaking for Minority Communities
This course will focus on strategies to effectively engage residents of marginalized communities in the placemaking process.
Engaging At-Risk Youth in Arts and Culture Curation
Engaging youth in the revitalization of their own communities can impact their sense of ownership and pride and inform the way they show up and operate in that space.
The Pedestrian Safety Crisis in the U.S.
This course discusses the social trends putting people at risk on U.S. streets and roads; why traffic safety is fundamentally a problem of systematic, structural inequality; and what U.S. planners and the public can do about it.
Planning for Racial Equity
This course will introduce the concept of racial equity analyses in land use planning, describe the motives and rationales behind such analyses, provide for guidance for conducting such analyses and review, and critique an example racial equity analysis.
Principles of Materiality, Responsiveness, Inclusivity, and Impact
In this course, students will take a deep dive into the AA1000 AccountAbility standard and its four Principles: Inclusivity, Materiality, Responsiveness and Impact and how they integrate to develop a very well thought out framework.
Incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals into the Planning Process
This course focuses on the many ways planners can infuse sustainability into local planning activities and policies using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a guiding framework.
Working With Cross-Cultural Differences
At the end of this course, participants should have a basic understanding of some of the theoretical dimensions of culture that help us to understand cross-cultural differences.
Effective City Branding
City branding strategy can capture and promote the unique characteristics of cities. After understanding the all-encompassing effort it takes to plan a city rebranding, this course teaches how cities can succeed using strong place branding that attracts visitors, new citizens, new industries, and new businesses.
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.
Defining Neighborhoods
This course reviews the varying definitions of neighborhoods and examines methods for defining a physical basis and tangible meaning to neighborhoods based on the location of neighborhood centers, boundaries, and spatial extents.
Virtual Reality for Planners 4: Refining the End User Experience
Creating a VR experience is one thing, but managing its use at public events and integrating it into the urban design workflow is an extra, separate step. This course considers the bigger picture and covers a few ways to fine-tune the user’s experience for maximum success.
Virtual Reality for Planners 3: Working with Unity
This course provides a high-level overview of the process involved in creating a virtual reality application and teaches viewers how to assemble a virtual reality application from scratch using Unity how to make the process as successful as possible.
Virtual Reality for Planners 2: Modeling in SketchUp
This course provides a step-by-step SketchUp tutorial and teaches users how to create content appropriate for a virtual reality environment. Viewers will learn how to optimize the performance of their software and ensure success in the next steps of the process, including final model export to Unity.
Virtual Reality for Planners 1: Introduction
Virtual reality presents urban planners with a unique tool to create immersive virtual experiences that can inform visioning processes, design decision-making, and community engagement. Learn about the evolution of virtual reality technology, its key vocabulary and logistics, the benefits of virtual reality over traditional media, and what the future of public engagement may hold.