All Housing Courses
The First Five Years: A Practical Land Use Toolbox for New Planners
This practical course offers an essential "land use toolbox" for early-career planners working in both the public and private sectors that outlines how core planning processes, from permits and development reviews to public meetings and everyday counter interactions, actually work in practice.
Walkable City 5: The Comfortable Walk
To encourage walking, cities must create comfortable, well-designed pedestrian environments — like outdoor living rooms — with clear orientation, shade, tree cover, and cohesive design, achievable through tools like form-based codes, urban forestry plans, and strong urban design.
Walkable City 2: The Useful Walk
Learn the principal components of “the useful walk,” how zoning can create walkability and boost housing density, and why visual components are key to a walkable city.
Planning Communities for Maximum Transit Access
World-renowned transit planner Jarrett Walker provides an overview of how land use and transportation planners can make their communities better for transit and the people who ride it.
Taking Meaningful Action Towards Fair Housing
This course dives deep into fair housing, exploring everything from the importance of equitable housing laws to practical strategies for planners to promote fairness in zoning and development.
Roadways for People, Part 1
Using Portland's I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project as a central case study, Lynn Peterson and co-instructor Elizabeth Doerr explore why and how we need a more inclusive, people-centered transportation planning process.
The 21st Century Comprehensive Plan
Uncover the emerging and valuable qualities of the 21st century comprehensive plan that can be used to define visions for the future, including robust community engagement, crosscutting themes, and an accountable implementation program.
Making Room for Home-Based Businesses
In this crash course on home-based businesses, Nolan Gray explores how reducing zoning regulations could help revitalize communities and encourage entrepreneurship across the country.
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.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
This course discusses crime as an environmental justice issue and reviews techniques that successfully reduce crime and make communities safer and healthier through Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) theory.
Lighting Regulations and Dark Sky Places
Learn best practices for crafting lighting regulations and dark sky designations that protect night skies and improve environmental and public health.
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.
Walkable Density: Building Livable, Equitable, and Resilient Communities
A new approach to density is an essential need, with multiple public benefits, empowering communities to more effectively manage the accelerating pace of demographic, economic, environmental, social, and technological change.
Suburban Remix: Creating the Next Generation of Urban Places
The economic, demographic, and technological forces reshaping suburbs are under-reported and misunderstood. Learn how suburbs can manage change while enhancing livability, economic opportunity, and fiscal responsibility.
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.
Introduction to Transit Oriented Development
Few terms are as common in the discussion of city and regional planning in the 21st century as transit oriented development (TOD)—the planning and designing of high-demand land uses at or near highly efficient modes of transportation.
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.
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.