Research Methods Courses
- AIA CES
- AICP CM
- CNU-A
- SACPLAN CPD
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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.
Digital Accessibility for Planners: Documents - Part 1
By the end of this course, planners will be able to address common access barriers in documents they produce. The first course will provide an introduction to the topic and initial skills, while the second course will dive into more "advanced" skills.
Generative AI, Ethics, and the Future of Urban Planning
Explore the ethical and equity implications of using generative AI in urban planning. This course addresses bias, transparency, public trust, emerging tools like digital twins, and offers practical guidance for responsible adoption.
Enhancing Public Participation with Generative AI
This tutorial shows how generative AI can enhance inclusive and responsive public participation in urban planning by summarizing feedback, tailoring outreach, and visualizing scenarios using real-world tools and examples.
What Is Generative AI and Why It Matters for Urban Planning
This course introduces urban planners to Generative AI (GenAI), covering its fundamentals and demonstrating how it can create text, images, videos, and designs to enhance planning practices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Introduction to the UrbanSim Cloud Platform
At the end of this course, participants will be acquainted with the UrbanSim forecasting methodology, understanding the features available in the UrbanSim Cloud Platform and the basics of an UrbanSim model at the Census block level.
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: 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.