In an emotionally charged talk, MacArthur-winning activist Majora Carter details her fight for environmental justice in the South Bronx -- and shows how minority neighborhoods suffer most from flawed urban policy. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 18-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

How can we design communities that are safe for people?In this unit, students delve into urban design through a practical lens. The unit launches with students assessing pedestrian safety through a neighborhood walk, evaluating safety features and identifying potential enhancements, concluding with a calculated walk safety score for their routes. Students then utilize the engineering design cycle to draft solutions for pedestrian safety challenges they discover in their community through virtual walks using Google Earth and Street View. Student urban design teams prepare to showcase their proposals for safer community spaces by incorporating peer feedback into their designs and developing map models that clearly communicate how their solutions will increase pedestrian safety. This unit culminates in an Urban Planning Exhibition, where students present their safety recommendations, aiming to inspire real-world change in their communities.

This class examines the built, psychosocial, economic, and natural environment factors that affect health behaviors and outcomes. Students will be introduced to tools designed to integrate public health considerations into policy making and planning, and will be given hands-on training on the application of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) methodology. This class is designed to prepare graduate students from planning and policy fields to interface with public health organizations, agencies, or advocacy groups in professional contexts.

A truly inter-disciplinary course, Housing and Land Use in Rapidly Urbanizing Regions reviews how law, economics, sociology, political science, and planning conceptualize urban land and property rights and uses cases to discuss what these different lenses illuminate and obscure. It also looks at how the social sciences might be informed by how design, cartography, and visual studies conceptualize space's physicality. This year's topics include land trusts for affordable housing, mixed-use in public space, and critical cartography.

8. Brave New World - Internet of Things

The trifecta of globalization, urbanization and digitization have created new opportunities and challenges across our nation, cities, boroughs and urban centers. Cities are in a unique position at the center of commerce and technology becoming hubs for innovation and practical application of emerging technology. In this rapidly changing 24/7 digitized world, city governments worldwide are leveraging innovation and technology to become more effective, efficient, transparent and to be able to better plan for and anticipate the needs of its citizens, businesses and community organizations. This class will provide the framework for how cities and communities can become smarter and more accessible with technology and more connected.

Second of two modules facilitating a basic understanding of computing in planning and public management. Students develop problem-solving skills using computer-based tools for "what-if" analyses. Emphasis on spatial analysis using geographic information systems and database query tools.

12. Emerging Technologies: An Introduction to Cryptocurrency Part 2

The trifecta of globalization, urbanization and digitization have created new opportunities and challenges across our nation, cities, boroughs and urban centers. Cities are in a unique position at the center of commerce and technology becoming hubs for innovation and practical application of emerging technology. In this rapidly changing 24/7 digitized world, city governments worldwide are leveraging innovation and technology to become more effective, efficient, transparent and to be able to better plan for and anticipate the needs of its citizens, businesses and community organizations. This class will provide the framework for how cities and communities can become smarter and more accessible with technology and more connected.

This seminar is an introduction to the usage and impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on urban planning, the urban environment and communities. Students will explore how social relationships, our sense of community, the urban infrastructure, and planning practice have been affected by technological change. Literature reviews, guest speakers, and web surfing will provide examples and issues that are debated in class and homework exercises. We will examine metropolitan information infrastructures, urban modeling and visualization, e-government, collaborative planning, and cyber communities.
Students will attend a regular Tuesday seminar and occasional seminars of invited speakers during lunchtime on Fridays or Mondays.
During the past two decades, ICTs have become so pervasive and disruptive that their impact on urban planning and social relationships has begun to reach far beyond their immediate use as efficient bookkeeping and automation tools. This seminar will examine ICT impacts on our sense of community, urban planning practice, the meaning of 'place', and the nature of metropolitan governance. In each of the four areas, we will utilize readings, class discussion, guest lectures, and homework exercises to identify and critique key trends, relevant theories, and promising directions for research and professional practice.

This course explores perspectives in the policy process - agenda setting, problem definition, framing the terms of debate, formulation and analysis of options, implementation and evaluation of policy outcomes using frameworks including economics and markets, law, and business and management. Methods include cost/benefit analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, and system dynamics. Exercises include developing skills to work on the interface between technology and societal issues; simulation exercises; case studies; and group projects that illustrate issues involving multiple stakeholders with different value structures, high levels of uncertainty, multiple levels of complexity; and value trade-offs that are characteristic of engineering systems. Emphasis on negotiation, team building and group dynamics, and management of multiple actors and leadership.

This course examines both the structure of cities and the ways they can be changed. It introduces graduate students to theories about how cities are formed, and the practice of urban design and development, using U.S. and international examples. The course is organized into two parts: Part 1 analyzes the forces which act to shape and to change cities; Part 2 surveys key models of physical form and social intervention that have been deployed to resolve competing forces acting on the city. This course includes models of urban analysis, contemporary theories of urban design, and implementation strategies. Lectures in this course are supplemented by discussion periods, student work, and field trips.

Advanced-level students will examine photographs depicting suburban development; conduct independent research on land use; and design a plan for a utopian, environmentally-friendly housing development in their city.

This set of open educational resources were developed as a result of the “Training for Last Mile Deliverers/Drivers in Safe and Sustainable Urban Areas” (TRALMEDES) Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnerships VET project (https://trainingforlastmile.eu/), running from September 2020 to August 2022.
The project arises from this need of the logistics sector to promote road safety awareness and adapted training to the growth experienced by the Last Mile Delivery in these recent years.
Go-to URI https://trainingforlastmile.eu/e-learning-platform/ if the resource does not open with "View Resource" button.

Do you have a passion for buildings and want to contribute to a sustainable environment? Then this is your chance to make a difference! The biggest sustainability challenge for cities worldwide is adapting existing obsolescent buildings and making them future-proof. In this course, you will learn about adapting buildings for sustainability.

This course first introduces you to the challenging management task of redeveloping buildings for future use. Then you will learn how different management tools can be used to convert old buildings for sustainable reuse.

Prior experience with studies or jobs related to the built environment is not essential for this course, but will be a great advantage.

This MOOC is especially relevant for students who are interested in Real Estate, Project Management, Urban Planning, Architecture, Construction, Engineering, and Sustainability.

The course is taught by a multi-disciplinary team of instructors and professors with relevant practical and theoretical experience. You can use the practical knowledge you obtain during this course to tackle many challenges related to the built environment.

Hitherto it had gone by the original Indian name Manna-hatta, or as some still have it, 'The Manhattoes'; but this was now decried as savage and heathenish... At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New-Amsterdam. The proposition took every body by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New-Amsterdam the metropolis was thenceforth called.
—Washington Irving, 1808

In less tongue-in-cheek style, this course examines the evolution of New York City from 1607 to the present. The readings focus on the city's social and physical histories, and the class discussions compare New York's development to patterns in other cities.

5. Brave New World - Mobility

The trifecta of globalization, urbanization and digitization have created new opportunities and challenges across our nation, cities, boroughs and urban centers. Cities are in a unique position at the center of commerce and technology becoming hubs for innovation and practical application of emerging technology. In this rapidly changing 24/7 digitized world, city governments worldwide are leveraging innovation and technology to become more effective, efficient, transparent and to be able to better plan for and anticipate the needs of its citizens, businesses and community organizations. This class will provide the framework for how cities and communities can become smarter and more accessible with technology and more connected.

How can ecosystems contribute to quality of life and a more livable, healthier and more resilient urban environment?

Have you ever considered all the different benefits the ecosystem could potentially deliver to you and your surroundings? Unsustainable urbanization has resulted in the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of habitats and has therefore limited the ability of ecosystems to deliver the advantages they could confer.

This course establishes the priorities and highlights the direct values of including principles based on natural processes in urban planning and design. Take a sewage system or a public space for example. By integrating nature-based solutions they can deliver the exact same performance while also being beneficial for the environment, society and economy.

Increased connectivity between existing, modified and new ecosystems and restoring and rehabilitating them within cities through nature-based solutions provides greater resilience and the capacity to adapt more swiftly to cope with the effects of climate change and other global shifts.

This course will teach you about the design, construction, implementation and monitoring of nature-based solutions for urban ecosystems and the ecological coherence of sustainable cities. Constructing smart cities and metropolitan regions with nature-based ecosystems will secure a fair distribution of benefits from the renewed urban ecology.

This course forms a part of the educational programme of the AMS Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and will present the state-of-the-art theories and methods developed by the Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University & Research, two of the founding universities of the AMS Institute.

Instructors, with advanced expertise in Urban Ecology, Environmental Engineering, Urban Planning and Design, will equip designers and planners with the skills they need for the sustainable management of the built environment. The course will also benefit stakeholders from both private and public sectors who want to explore the multiple benefits of restored ecosystems in cities and metropolitan regions. They will gain the knowledge and skills required to make better informed and integrated decisions on city development and urban regeneration schemes.

The course draws on faculty members from the Center for Real Estate, the City Design and Development Group (Department of Urban Studies and Planning), and the Media Lab to explore extraordinary projects that challenge conventional approaches to real estate development, urban design, and advanced digital technology.

What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.

These questions and more are explored through lectures, readings, workshops, field trips, and analysis of particular places, with the city itself as a primary text. In light of the 2016 centennial of MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge, the 2015 iteration of the course focused on MIT’s original campus in Boston’s Back Bay, and the university’s current neighborhood in Cambridge. Short field assignments, culminating in a final project, will provide students opportunities to use, develop, and refine new skills in “reading” the city.

Class website: The Once & Future City
What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.
These questions and more are explored through lectures, readings, workshops, field trips, and analysis of particular places, with the city itself as a primary text. In light of the 2016 centennial of MIT's move from Boston to Cambridge, the 2015 iteration of the course focused on MIT's original campus in Boston's Back Bay, and the university's current neighborhood in Cambridge. Short field assignments, culminating in a final project, will provide students opportunities to use, develop, and refine new skills in "reading" the city.

This course introduces students to the techniques of participatory action research (PAR) and the practice of case study research. PAR processes are place or case-specific, place a premium on local ways of knowing, and gauge the success of research in terms of what partner-communities do with the knowledge that is co-produced. The objective of PAR is to generate the ideas, information, and understandings that ought to inform efforts to promote social change. By focusing on ways of co-producing knowledge using various forms of data collection and analysis, students will learn how the people and communities who are often university partners in applied social science research can use findings or results from PAR case studies to address the challenges they confront in their communities.
Learn more about Participatory Action Research at MIT.