All Housing Courses
How to Survive Your First Planning Commission Meeting
New
This course prepares new planners to confidently navigate their first planning commission meeting and understand the role these meetings play in the broader planning and decision-making process.
Public Speaking, Communication, and Influence for Planners
New
Planners regularly present complex information to decision-makers, community members and project teams, yet many early-career planners receive little training in how to communicate ideas clearly, persuasively and confidently. This course helps planners strengthen their professional voice by developing skills in storytelling, public speaking and persuasive communication.
Own Your Worth: Salary Negotiation & Strategic Career Growth for Planners
New
This course equips new planners with practical strategies to navigate compensation conversations, build a professional portfolio, and plan their long-term career growth.
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.
US Disability Access Laws for Planners
Explore the key disability rights laws that shape planners' work — including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Architectural Barriers Act, the Fair Housing Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — to understand their core provisions.
Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
Jeff Speck explains his five principal reasons for building more walkable places — Economics, the Environment, Public Health, Equity, and Social Cohesiveness — arming practitioners with a full range of arguments in favor of pro-walkability planning.
Design for Peace and Democracy
Explore how our designed environments can promote and support peace and democracy using historic examples of how the built environment – including parks, squares and streets – can be an instrument of oppression and serve as forums for both tyranny and uprising. We’ll return to the U.S. for stories closer to home, and frame the future in hope and optimism.
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.
Landscape Design for Social Sustainability, Part 1
Discover how and why the built environment succeeds or fails at supporting thriving, diverse communities, and how designers can create mechanisms that allow communities to enjoy and improve their environments to suit their needs and desires.
Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix it
Nolan Gray presents the complex history of zoning regulation, showing how major legislative decisions led to the country's current state of car reliance, sprawl, and inequity. Now, zoning reform is in the air. But why stop at mere reform?
Connecting Households to Sewer Systems
Delve into these intricate systems, where numerous components must work harmoniously to ensure smooth operation. This course outlines a proven process that can promote enhanced connectivity to sewerage infrastructure and systems.
History of U.S. Landscape Architecture, Part 1
Kristin Faurest explores the history of the profession of landscape architecture from its origins through the 1960s, providing a vibrant global context of how humankind has shaped its landscape over the ages.
E-Waste: A Growing Concern in Waste Management
Understand the alarming growth of electronic waste and its massive impact on the waste stream, explore innovative approaches used by communities to combat this crisis, and discover the far-reaching consequences of mishandling electronic waste.
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.
Crime and Urban Planning in the United States
The spatial patterns and environmental characteristics of urban crime offer planners an opportunity to contribute to building crime-resilient communities.
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.
The Right Price for Curb Parking
Setting the right price for on-street, curb parking, requires a thorough understanding of the theory and practice of demand-based pricing.
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, early American urban theories, and the power of social movements.