This course introduces the legal framework and major legal issues arising in land use and environmental planning. We focus on notable US Supreme Court decisions related to tools such as zoning, the comprehensive plan, and eminent domain, as well as controversies and cases surrounding federal environmental laws such as NEPA, the Clean Water and Air Acts, and the Endangered Species Act. No previous legal knowledge or coursework necessary.

Urban analytics draws upon statistics, visualization, and computation to better understand and ultimately to shape cities. This course emphasizes geospatial data, familiarizes students with statistical computing using R, and introduces principles and techniques of machine learning. Students will also learn to explain and to critique the results of visualization, analysis, and predictive modeling.

This course will provide students with an interdisciplinary learning process related to real estate development including finance, branding, design, planning, land use, site planning permitting, adaptive reuse among others. Situated in an actual case, students will have the opportunity to work with a multi-disciplinary team on a real-world development project. Graduate course will have additional course requirement

Topical offerings in planning.

This course introduces design & systems thinking techniques to address the interrelated crises of climate change & social inequity in U.S. cities. It asks how such transformational change might work - examining the socio-technical context,challenges, & opportunities that animate systems change in the built world. Students will learn through readings,discussions,lectures, & workshops to develop interdisciplinary creative problem-solving skills

This class explores the wide range of approaches that have been taken to the complex relationships between body, sex, gender, and the built environment. Some see buildings as a direct expression of sexed bodies (phallic towers and breast-like domes), while others see buildings and settlements as expressions and reiterations of the gender structures of a culture.

Global Environmental Issues contextualizes environmental pressures through case studies on topics such as land use practices and soil health, overconsumption and labor conditions, deforestation and disease emergence, as well as resource extraction and disaster resilience. This course addresses the roots of global environmental issues while cultivating critical thinking about what is required for more just and sustainable futures.

Detailed exploration of the normative debate surrounding environmental issues. Focus on the foundations of environmental economics, questions about the value of endangered species, concerns of future generations, appropriateness of a sustainable society, notions of stewardship, and obligations toward equity. Graduate course will have additional course requirements

This class begins with the premise that contact with nature is essential to modern life.The class will examine the evidence for why nature in important,and the many creative ways in which cities can plan for,and design-in nature, and foster meaningful and everyday connections with the natural world.

Structured internship experience and reporting as a reflective practitioner for ten weeks or 200 hours of experience.