Research Methods Courses
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All Research Methods Courses
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.
Planning Implications and Design for AV Futures
Part 2 of this course considers the opportunities and challenges of adopting autonomous vehicles for the future of the built environment, safety and urban development.
Autonomous Vehicles: Technology, Trends and Planning Concerns
Explore the technology, terminology, history, trends and concerns behind autonomous vehicles and learn about the past, present and possible future of AVs on the global landscape — and the key challenges they present to planners.
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 3: The Safe Walk (A)
Pedestrian deaths are up 78% since 2009. While car use and size are long-term issues, safer street design — like narrower lanes and two-way roads — can reduce speeding now.
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.
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.
Planning a Municipal Wayfinding System
Often overlooked, wayfinding is important for urban design, accessibility, and economic development. Learn the elements of a successful wayfinding system in this course.
Traffic Congestion, Part One: Sources and Responses
Explore the sources of traffic congestion while also examining common preconceptions that inform how planners and policymakers respond to the challenge of reducing congestion, for better or worse.
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.
Donald Shoup Explains Parking Reform
Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, is shown in this video making a typically funny and engaging presentation at CNU 27 Louisville in 2019. In the presentation, Shoup lays out the key aspects of the parking reforms from his seminal book, The High Cost of Free Parking (2005) and the follow up, Parking and the City (2018).
Transportation Planning: Travel Behavior Principles and Modelling Approaches
This course provides an overview and critique of the four-step model used in transportation planning. By the end of this course, viewers will be able to conceptualize how transportation models can address contemporary problems in transportation planning, such as transit-oriented development.
Transit Service Design 101
In this course, we will review the principles of transit service design, how resources are allocated and accounted for, and using the Remix software platform, we will design and evaluate a new transit route.
Form-Based Codes 101: Downtowns
Downtowns are the historic center of most American cities. In this course, we will review their role in establishing the past and future character of the city, walking through a series of form-based code case studies across a range of scales and contexts.
Form-Based Codes 101: Corridors
Corridors have historically been a key element of the urban fabric of every American town and city, yet they are also commonly problematic. This course looks at the roots of the problem for examples of how corridors can be designed and coded.
Form-Based Codes 101: Learning How To Look
This course will teach you the skills to appreciate and analyze the measures and functions of good urbanism.