All Ethics Courses
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
Explore the need and opportunity to reinvent aging mall sites into vibrant, inclusive, and economically valuable centers for 21st-century communities.
Green Infrastructure
This course defines green infrastructure, highlights its types and benefits, discusses monetary valuation and financing, and explores its role in addressing climate change, equity, and technological change.
Building Bad, Part 2: How Architectural Utility is Damaged by Expression
Join Jonathan Ochshorn on a captivating exploration of his theory "Building Bad" in Part Two of this course. Discover the fascinating interplay between artistic expression and the functionality of buildings, and how they can sometimes clash.
Building Bad, Part 1: How Architectural Utility is Constrained by Politics
Discover the theory of “Building Bad”: an examination of the costs and benefits that can limit the functionality of buildings in exchange for profits.
A New Era of Downtown Opportunity: The Intersection of Housing and Innovation
Learn specific policy and urban design strategies for adapting downtowns to a new role: innovation communities.
Prospects for Zoning Reform
Catch up on the contemporary policy debates about zoning reform in the United States by learning from one of the nation’s leading voices on the subject, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Jenny Schuetz.
Zoning for Incremental Development
Zoning codes can be crafted to lower the barriers to neighborhood-scale development and infill housing by providing specific tools for more equitable and affordable development.
Controlling Rents
This course introduces planners to the debate surrounding rent control, discussing both what rent control is able to accomplish, and where it often has unintended consequences.
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.
The Elements of Citymaking: Design, Policy, and Finance
Examine the theory of city-making at various scales, ranging from a development site at the smallest scale to the largest urban regions.
Accessory Dwelling Units: Understanding America’s Newest Housing Typology
Explore the latest ADU policy developments from leading American cities, key challenges and opportunities for increasing or limiting ADU production, first-hand examples, and best practices in ADU affordability programs.
Environmental and Sustainability Standards
This course explains the different and most relevant sustainability standards—such as GRI, CDP, SASB, ISO, B-Corp, and others—as well as the differences between process and performance standards.
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.
Introduction to Real Estate Equity Crowdfunding
Learn the rules that govern and allow for real estate crowdfunding and how real estate crowdfunding can be deployed in your community for possible development.
More Sustainability Appraisal Tools and Future Prospects
Learn about the Envision infrastructure rating system, other notable tool options for evaluating community and neighborhood sustainability, and trends and prospects affecting future appraisal tools.
Urban Sustainability Appraisal Tools for Planned Neighborhoods and Landscapes
This course is the third in a four-part series on urban sustainability appraisal tools as collaboration platforms and sustainability accelerators for communities.
Urban Sustainability Appraisal Tools for Communities and Existing Neighborhoods
This course is the second in a four-part series on how urban sustainability appraisal tools can serve as collaboration platforms and sustainability accelerators for communities.