All Plan Making Courses
How Zoning Shapes Cities, Communities, and Regions
A better understanding of the basic components of zoning, history and evolution of zoning codes, economic and political goals of plan implementation, and impacts on housing prices and production can inform improved planning outcomes.
Right-Sizing Zoning for Better Outcomes
By framing elements of the built environment that contribute to a community’s unique sense of place and using examples from codes adopted by communities across the United States, this course explores how to realign zoning with the goals and policies adopted in community plans.
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.
The Elements of Citymaking: Design, Policy, and Finance
The course will examine the theory of city making at various scales, ranging from a development site at the smallest scale to urban regions at the largest.
Accessory Dwelling Units: Understanding America’s Newest Housing Typology
This course presents the latest ADU policy developments from leading American cities, key challenges and opportunities for increasing ADU production (or limit it), first-hand examples of ADUs completed by the instructor, and best practices in ADU affordability programs.
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).
City Dreamers
The film "City Dreamers," directed by Joseph Hillel and released in 2018, tells the story of four women designers who worked to shape North American cities throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course provides an introduction to urban design sketching by teaching how to draw urban design sketches and master plans using a mix of colored and black ink. These drawing techniques can be used to create plans that are detailed and expressive enough to use both in academic and professional presentations.
Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City
The life and achievements of architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham offer a chance to witness the application of the social agenda of the City Beautiful movement, of which Burnham was one of the most famous practitioners.
History of City Planning 5: The City of Tomorrow
Learn why city planning is crucial to the urban future and why the success of future cities will depend on the extent to which they are sustainable, equitable, and how they use technology to serve citizens. Evaluate the key challenges facing cities in the future and, importantly, potential solutions for those challenges.
History of City Planning 4: Planning in the Postmodern Age (1980-Today)
Survey the key economic, environmental, sociopolitical, and technological shifts responsible for the evolution of city planning from 1980 to contemporary times. Assess historical urban planning movements through a critical lens, as course instructor Jason Luger discusses the relevance of past successes and failures for cities today.
Transportation Planning: Making Transportation Plans—Rationality and Politics
This course explains the major forms of planning applicable to transportation, including rational comprehensive planning, strategic planning, policy analysis, incremental planning, advocacy planning, and communicative planning.
History of City Planning 3: Midcentury Modern (1940-1979)
Discover the impact of World War II and the Cold War in shaping city planning practices and how the tragic destruction and loss of life in World War II somehow created opportunities for planners to test new ideas.
History of City Planning 2: Modern Ideas of City Planning (1900-1939)
Explore the development of the city and city planning from 1900 to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Learn how the birth of city planning as a formal practice shaped the cities that defined the century.
Introduction to Planning: Zoning as an Implementation Tool
This course discusses the Zoning Ordinance - its structure, its relationship to the plan and the sometimes confusing procedures through which it is modified and varied.
Introduction to Planning: Implementation of the Plan
This course provides an overview of implementation strategies for a Comprehensive Plan and examines how those strategies fit together.
Introduction to Planning: The Comprehensive Plan
In this course we will discuss the comprehensive plan, sometimes called a “master plan” or a “general plan.”
Writing Master Plans, From Start to Finish
In this course you’ll learn how to approach a master plan—starting with concept development and community voice, and finishing with the mechanics of organizing and expressing ideas.
The American City, Part 4: Complexity and Pattern in the City
Understand how sustainable urbanism can be a crucial component of the urban pattern, or otherwise subverted by government regulations and business models.
The American City, Part 3: Learning from the Grid
This course demonstrates the well-defined formal composition and spatial processes of how American cities evolve over time.
The American City, Part 2: The Invention of a New Scale
Understand how the physical characteristics of block size and street length distinguish American cities from earlier models of urbanism, and the implications of these physical characteristics for sustainability in the 21st century.