Subjects

Examines the evolving structure of cities and the way that cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas can be designed and developed. Surveys the ideas of a wide range of people who have addressed urban problems. Stresses the connection between values and design. Demonstrates how physical, social, political and economic forces interact to shape and reshape cities over time. Introduces links between urban design and urban science.

Examines how the struggle among competing advocates shapes the outputs of government. Considers how conditions become problems for government to solve, why some political arguments are more persuasive than others, why some policy tools are preferred over others, and whether policies achieve their goals. Investigates the interactions among elected officials, think tanks, interest groups, the media, and the public in controversies over global warming, urban sprawl, Social Security, health care, education, and other issues. 

Introduction to negotiation theory and practice. Applications in government, business, and nonprofit settings are examined. Combines a "hands-on" personal skill-building orientation with a look at pertinent tactical and strategic foundations. Preparation insights, persuasion tools, ethical benchmarks, and institutional influences are examined as they shape our ability to analyze problems, negotiate agreements, and resolve disputes in social, organizational, and political circumstances characterized by interdependent interests. Enrollment limited by lottery; consult class website for information and deadlines. 

Issues in international development, appropriate technology and project implementation addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with community organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an optional IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Recitation sections focus on specific project implementation, and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the target countries as well as an introduction to the local languages. Enrollment limited by lottery; must attend first class session. 

This course is designed for students who aspire to shape the future of mobility. The course explores technological, behavioral, policy and systems-wide frameworks for innovation in transportation systems, complemented with case studies across the mobility spectrum, from autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility to last-mile sidewalk robots. Students will interact with a series of guest lecturers from CEOs and other business and government executives who are actively reshaping the future of mobility. Interdisciplinary teams of students will work to deliver business plans for startups or action plans for solving “real world” challenges in established companies, governments or NGOs.

Provides a critical introduction to the shape and determinants of political, social, and economic inequality in America, with a focus on racial and economic justice. Explores the role of the city in visions of justice. Analyzes the historical, political, and institutional contexts of housing and community development policy in the US, including federalism, municipal fragmentation, and decentralized public financing. Introduces major dimensions in US housing policy, such as housing finance, public housing policy, and state and local housing affordability mechanisms. Reviews major themes in community economic development, including drivers of economic inequality, small business policy, employment policy, and cooperative economics. Expectations and evaluation criteria differ for students taking graduate version. 

Provides an opportunity for MIT students to become certified in methods of assessing the vulnerability of public agencies (particularly agencies that manage critical urban infrastructure) to the risk of cyberattack. Certification involves completing an 8-hour, self-paced, online set of four modules during the first four weeks of the semester followed by a competency exam. Students who successfully complete the exam become certified. The certified students work in teams with client agencies in various cities around the United States. Through preparatory interactions with the agencies, and short on-site visits, teams prepare vulnerability assessments that client agencies can use to secure the technical assistance and financial support they need to manage the risks of cyberattack they are facing. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

MIT students can major in Urban Science – a joint degree between Urban Planning and Computer Science – but what does Urban Science look like in the real world? The class introduces participants to the practice of Urban Science in the public sector, private sector and civil society. The seminar introduces students to the history of using computer science approaches in city planning and explores contemporary challenges of addressing complex, often political, unequal and ‘wicked’ planning challenges with new computational and data-analytic tools. It invites a series of practitioners from the field, who work with data analytic tools in the various areas of urban planning to MIT to present and debate their work, exploring how the emerging field of Urban Science is affecting and changing traditional planning practice. The class critically analyzes lectures from weekly “Cities and Technology” guest lectures, and students read and discuss materials related to the lectures and debates. 

 

The three-unit course offers requires a fairly light load—one hour of class time and up to two hours of preparation per week—and expects students to actively engage in presentation, discussion and debate. There are no exams, but students are asked to lead discussions about weekly guest lectures and deliver a final paper.

This course engages economic development planning to understand and address historical economic exclusion and institutional oppression. Begins with 20th-century history and the origins of poverty first to enable students to understand why we must explicitly undertake actions to steer economic development purposefully. The task is to deploy the conventional tools of economic development planning to privilege steps leading to identifying and reducing inequality. This class includes core tools and techniques in economic development planning. Assignments will engage in data collection, analysis, and presentation, emphasizing underrepresented populations. We intend to expose inequities and consider actions that build healthy communities traditionally excluded from mainstream economic opportunities. We couple skills with interpretive intuitions to enable students to master the use of conventional tools and learn to apply them appropriately in specific settings. These are aggregated into a final report and include the tools developed over the semester. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Building on the skills and strategies honed in 11.011, explores advanced negotiation practice. Emphasizes an experiential skill-building approach, underpinned by cutting-edge cases and innovative research. Examines applications in high-stakes management, public policy, social entrepreneurship, international diplomacy, and scientific discovery. Strengthens collaborative decision-making, persuasion, and leadership skills by negotiating across different media and through personalized coaching, enhancing students' ability to proactively engage stakeholders, transform organizations, and inspire communities.

Enrollment limited by lottery; consult class website for information and deadlines.

Examines how law, economics, and technological change shape public policy, and how law can sway technological change; how the legal system responds to environmental, safety, energy, social, and ethical problems; how law and markets interact to influence technological development; and how law can affect wealth distribution, employment, and social justice. Covers energy/climate change; genetic engineering; telecommunications and role of misinformation; industrial automation; effect of regulation on technological innovation; impacts of intellectual property law on innovation and equity; pharmaceuticals; nanotechnology; cost/benefit analysis as a decision tool; public participation in governmental decisions affecting science and technology; corporate influence on technology and welfare; and law and economics as competing paradigms to encourage sustainability. Students taking graduate version explore subject in greater depth. 

One of two introductory subjects on teaching and learning science and mathematics in a variety of K-12 settings. Topics include education and media, education reform, the history of education, simulations, games, and the digital divide. Students gain practical experience through weekly visits to schools, classroom discussions, selected readings, and activities to develop a critical and broad understanding of past and current forces that shape the goals and processes of education, and explores the challenges and opportunities of teaching. Students work collaboratively and individually on papers, projects, and in-class presentations.

Concentrates on core set of skills and knowledge necessary for teaching in secondary schools. Topics include classroom management, student behavior and motivation, curriculum design, educational reform, and the teaching profession. Classroom observation is a key component. Assignments include readings from educational literature, written reflections on classroom observations, practice teaching and constructing curriculum. The first of the three-course sequence necessary to complete the Teacher Education Program.

Investigates the use of social medial and digital technologies for planning and advocacy by working with actual planning and advocacy organizations to develop, implement, and evaluate prototype digital tools. Students use the development of their digital tools as a way to investigate new media technologies that can be used for planning. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Analyzes implications of economic globalization for communities, regions, international businesses and economic development organizations. Uses spatial analysis techniques to model the role of energy resources in shaping international political economy. Investigates key drivers of human, physical, and social capital flows and their roles in modern human settlement systems. Surveys contemporary models of industrialization and places them in geographic context. Connects forces of change with their implications for the distribution of wealth and human well-being. Look backward to understand pre-Covid conditions and then moves to the present to understand how a global pandemic changes the world we now live in. Class relies on current literature and explorations of sectors.

This course focuses on developing realistic pathways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from urban passenger transportation. It reviews the strategies most commonly proposed to advance climate change mitigation: changing urban land use patterns, shifting passenger travel behavior to less energy intensive modes, adopting zero emission vehicle technology, and developing ‘new mobility’ such as carshare, bikeshare, and rideshare. Each of these strategies is evaluated quantitatively to understand its potential to support pathways to zero emission mobility. Students then consider the policy tools required to unlock these changes, and the potential for private investment to support this transition. The course closes with modules on climate adaptation in urban transportation and a comparison to decarbonization in ‘harder to decarbonize’ areas like airlines and long distance freight transport. It seeks to enable students to be intelligent evaluators of approaches to transportation decarbonization and equip them with the tools to develop and evaluate policy measures relevant to their local professional challenges. 

Combines online weekly face-to-face negotiation exercises and in-person lectures designed to empower budding entrepreneurs with negotiation techniques to protect and increase the value of their ideas, deal with ego and build trust in relationships, and navigate entrepreneurial bargaining under constraints of economic uncertainty and complex technical considerations. Students must complete scheduled weekly assignments, including feedback memos to counterpart negotiators, and meet on campus with the instructor to discuss and reflect on their experiences with the course. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Examines efforts in developing and advanced nations and regions. Examines key issues in the current and future development of urban energy systems, such as technology, use, behavior, regulation, climate change, and lack of access or energy poverty. Case studies on a diverse sampling of cities explore how prospective technologies and policies can be implemented. Includes intensive group research projects, discussion, and debate.

In this team-oriented, project-based subject, students work to find technical solutions that could be implemented to mitigate the effects of natural hazards related to climate change, bearing in mind that any proposed measures must be appropriate in a given region's socio-political-economic context. Students are introduced to a variety of natural hazards and possible mitigation approaches as well as principles of design, including adaptable design and design for failure. Students select the problems they want to solve and develop their projects. During the term, officials and practicing engineers of Cambridge, Boston, Puerto Rico, and MIT Facilities describe their approaches. Student projects are documented in a written report and oral presentation. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

An introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a tool for visualizing and analyzing spatial data. Explores how GIS can make maps, guide decisions, answer questions, and advocate for change. Class builds toward a project in which students critically apply GIS techniques to an area of interest. Students build data discovery, cartography, and spatial analysis skills while learning to reflect on their positionality within the research design process. Because maps and data are never neutral, the class incorporates discussions of power, ethics, and data throughout as part of a reflective practice. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided.

Introduces the theory and practice of planning and urban studies through exploration of the history of the field, case studies, and criticisms of traditional practice.

An introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS): a tool for visualizing and analyzing data representing locations and their attributes. GIS is invaluable for planners, scholars, and professionals who shape cities and a political instrument with which activists advocate for change. Class includes exercises to make maps, query databases, and analyze spatial data. Because maps and data are never neutral, the class incorporates discussions of power, ethics, and data throughout as part of a reflective practice.

Develops logical, empirically based arguments using statistical techniques and analytic methods. covers elementary statistics, probability, and other types of quantitative reasoning useful for description, estimation, comparison, and explanation. Emphasis on the use and limitations of analytical techniques in planning practice. Restricted to first-year MCP students. Students are required to attend one of the three scheduled recitation sections.

Develops skills in research design for policy analysis and planning. Emphasizes the logic of the research process and its constituent elements. Topics include philosophy of science, question formulation, hypothesis generation and theory construction, data collection techniques (e.g. experimental, survey, interview), ethical issues in research, and research proposal preparation. 

Introduces students to participatory action research (PAR), an approach to research and inquiry that enables communities to examine and address consequential societal problems. Explores theoretical and practical questions at the heart of partnerships between applied social scientists and community partners. Focus includes the history of PAR and action research; debates regarding PAR as a form of applied social science; and practical, political, and ethical questions in the practice of PAR. Guides students through an iterative process for developing their own personal theories of practice. Covers co-designing and co-conducting research with community partners at various stages of the research process; examination of actual cases in which PAR-like methods have been used with greater or lesser success; and interaction with community members, organizations, and individuals who have been involved in PAR collaborations.

Seminar dissects ten transportation studies from head to toe to illustrate how research ideas are initiated, framed, analyzed, evidenced, written, presented, criticized, revised, extended, and published, quoted and applied. Students design and execute their own transportation research.

Enrollment limited and permission required from the instructor. If interested, please email Prof. Jinhua Zhao (jinhua@mit.edu) your CV and a brief description of your research interest and motivation to join the class

Survey of the latest transportation research offered by 12 MIT faculty each presenting their ongoing research. Students are required to attend the classes, read the assigned articles, and write a brief reflection memo.  

Through extensive reading and writing, students explore the promise and perils of the variegated city, focusing on topics that demand urgent attention: migration, climate change, inequality, racial injustice, and public space. Class strives to create artful narratives by examining how various forms — essay, memoir, longform journalism, poetry, fiction, film, and photography — illuminate our understanding of cities. Special emphasis on the writer as the reader's advocate and on the indispensability of the writer-editor relationship, with the goal of writing with greater creativity and sophistication for specialized and general interest audiences. Limited to 12 students.

Combines online weekly face-to-face negotiation exercises and in-person lectures designed to empower budding entrepreneurs with negotiation techniques to protect and increase the value of their ideas, deal with ego and build trust in relationships, and navigate entrepreneurial bargaining under constraints of economic uncertainty and complex technical considerations. Students must complete scheduled weekly assignments, including feedback memos to counterpart negotiators, and meet on campus with the instructor to discuss and reflect on their experiences with the course. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

In this team-oriented, project-based subject, students work to find technical solutions that could be implemented to mitigate the effects of natural hazards related to climate change, bearing in mind that any proposed measures must be appropriate in a given region's socio-political-economic context. Students are introduced to a variety of natural hazards and possible mitigation approaches as well as principles of design, including adaptable design and design for failure. Students select the problems they want to solve and develop their projects. During the term, officials and practicing engineers of Cambridge, Boston, Puerto Rico, and MIT Facilities describe their approaches. Student projects are documented in a written report and oral presentation. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Provides an opportunity for MIT students to become certified in methods of assessing the vulnerability of public agencies (particularly agencies that manage critical urban infrastructure) to the risk of cyberattack. Certification involves completing an 8-hour, self-paced, online set of four modules during the first four weeks of the semester followed by a competency exam. Students who successfully complete the exam become certified. The certified students work in teams with client agencies in various cities around the United States. Through preparatory interactions with the agencies, and short on-site visits, teams prepare vulnerability assessments that client agencies can use to secure the technical assistance and financial support they need to manage the risks of cyberattack they are facing. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Seminar studies how the messy and complex forces of politics, planning and the real estate market have collectively shaped Boston's urban fabric and skyline in the last two decades. Using some of the city's most important real estate development proposals as case studies, students dissect and analyze Boston's negotiated development review and permitting process to understand what it takes beyond a great development concept and a sound financial pro forma to earn community and political support. Throughout the term, students identify strategies for success and pitfalls for failure within this intricate approval process, as well as how these lessons can be generalized and applied to other cities and real estate markets.

Ecological Urbanism weds the theory and practice of city design and planning, as a means of adaptation, with the insights of ecology and other environmental disciplines. Ecological urbanism is critical to the future of the city and its design: it provides a framework for addressing challenges that threaten humanity, such as climate change, rising sea level, and environmental and social justice, while fulfilling human needs for health, safety, and welfare, meaning and delight. The class applies an historical and theoretical perspective to the solution of real world challenges.

PRACTICUM 

Explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing, and as a medium of inquiry and of expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on landscape, light, significant detail, place, poetics, narrative, and how photography can inform research, design and planning, among other issues. Recommended for students who want to employ visual methods in their theses.  Enrollment limited.
 

In-depth research workshop on pressing socio-economic and environmental design issue of our time, includes discussion and practices with real-world stakeholders experimenting with new development typologies and technologies. The goal is to generate well-grounded, design-based solutions and landscape infrastructural responses to the physical design problem being addressed. 

PRACTICUM 

Seeks to examine the technological change and innovation that is disrupting the foundation of how we create the built environment. Through a series of educational workshops, students scout, catalog, and track technologies by looking at new real estate uses, products, processes, and organizational strategies at MIT labs and around the globe. Participants contribute to an interactive web tool, "The Tech Tracker," which provides technology intelligence to students and real estate professionals to enhance their understanding of technological progress. 

Introduces methods for observing, interpreting, and representing the urban environment. Students draw on their senses and develop their ability to deduce, question, and test conclusions about how the built environment is designed, used, and valued. The interrelationship of built form, circulation networks, open space, and natural systems are a key focus. Supplements existing classes that cover theory and history of city design and urban planning and prepares students without design backgrounds with the fundamentals of physical planning. Intended as a foundation for 11.329.

Through a studio-based course in planning and urban design, builds on the foundation acquired in 11.328 to engage in creative exploration of how design contributes to resilient, just, and vibrant urban places. Through the planning and design of two projects, students creatively explore spatial ideas and utilize various digital techniques to communicate their design concepts, giving form to strategic thinking. Develops approaches and techniques to evaluate the plural structure of the built environment and offer propositions that address policies and regulations as well as the values, behaviors, and wishes of the different users.

***Restricted to pre-admitted applicants***

Examines the rehabilitation and re-imagination of a city, region, or territory. Analyzes human settlement at multiple scales: regional, citywide, neighborhood, and individual dwellings. Aims to shape innovative design solutions, enhance social amenity, and improve economic equity through strategic and creative geographical, urban design and architectural thinking. Intended for students with backgrounds in architecture, community development, urban design, and physical planning.

PRACTICUM 

Introduction to entrepreneurship and how it shapes the world we live in. Through experiential learning in a workshop setting, students start to develop entrepreneurial mindset and skills. Through a series of workshops, student are introduced to the concept of Venture Design to create new venture proposals for the built environment as a method to understand the role of the entrepreneur in the fields of design, planning, real estate, and other related industries.

Focuses on key business and legal issues within the principal agreements used to control, entitle, capitalize, and construct a mixed-use real estate development. Through the lens of the real estate developer and its counter-parties, students identify, discuss, and negotiate the most important business issues in right of entry, purchase and sale, development, and joint-venture agreements, as well as a construction contract and construction loan agreement. Students work closely with attorneys who specialize in the construction of such agreements and with students from area law schools and Columbia University and New York University. Enrollment limited to approximately 25; preference to MSRED students. No listeners. 

Assessment of current and potential future energy systems. Covers resources, extraction, conversion, and end-use technologies, with emphasis on meeting 21st-century regional and global energy needs in a sustainable manner. Examines various energy technologies in each fuel cycle stage for fossil (oil, gas, synthetic), nuclear (fission and fusion) and renewable (solar, biomass, wind, hydro, and geothermal) energy types, along with storage, transmission, and conservation issues. Emphasizes analysis of energy propositions within an engineering, economic and social context.

Examines the role of science in US and international environmental policymaking. Surveys the methods by which scientists learn about the natural world; the treatment of science by experts, advocates, the media, and the public and the way science is used in legislative, administrative and judicial decision making. Through lectures, group discussions, and written essays, students develop a critical understanding of the role of science in environmental policy. Potential case studies include fisheries management, ozone depletion, global warming, smog, and endangered species.

Provides a critical introduction to the shape and determinants of political, social, and economic inequality in America, with a focus on racial and economic justice. Explores the role of the city in visions of justice. Analyzes the historical, political, and institutional contexts of housing and community development policy in the US, including federalism, municipal fragmentation, and decentralized public financing. Introduces major dimensions in US housing policy, such as housing finance, public housing policy, and state and local housing affordability mechanisms. Reviews major themes in community economic development, including drivers of economic inequality, small business policy, employment policy, and cooperative economics. Expectations and evaluation criteria differ for students taking graduate version. 

Introduces tools and techniques in economic development planning. Extensive use of data collection, analysis, and display techniques. Students build interpretive intuition skills through user experience design activities and develop a series of memos summarizing the results of their data analysis. These are aggregated into a final report, and include the tools developed over the semester. Students taking graduate version complete modified assignments focused on developing computer applications. 

Investigates the relationship between states and markets in the evolution of modern capitalism. Critically assesses the rise of what Karl Polanyi and Albert Hirschman have referred to as "market society:" a powerful conceptual framework that views the development of modern capitalism not as an outcome of deterministic economic and technological forces, but rather as the result of contingent social and political processes. Exposes students to a range of conceptual tools and analytic frameworks through which to understand the politics of economic governance and to consider the extent to which societal actors can challenge its limits and imagine alternative possibilities. Sub-themes vary from year to year and have focused on racial capitalism, markets and morality, urban futures, and the global financial crisis.

Examines how law, economics, and technological change shape public policy, and how law can sway technological change; how the legal system responds to environmental, safety, energy, social, and ethical problems; how law and markets interact to influence technological development; and how law can affect wealth distribution, employment, and social justice. Covers energy/climate change; genetic engineering; telecommunications and the role of misinformation; industrial automation; effect of regulation on technological innovation; impacts of intellectual property law on innovation and equity; pharmaceuticals; nanotechnology; cost/benefit analysis as a decision tool; public participation in governmental decisions affecting science and technology; corporate influence on technology and welfare; and law and economics as competing paradigms to encourage sustainability. Students taking graduate version explore subject in greater depth. 

Designed to help students deepen their understanding of leadership and increase self-awareness. They reflect on their authentic leadership styles and create goals and a learning plan to develop their capabilities. They also participate in activities to strengthen their "leadership presence" - the ability to authentically connect with people's hearts and minds. Students converse with classmates and industry leaders to learn from their insights, experiences, and advice.

Concepts and techniques for analyzing financial decisions in commercial property development and investment. Topics include property income streams, urban economics, discounted cash flow, equity valuation, leverage and income tax considerations, development projects, and joint ventures.

Develops an understanding of the fundamental economic factors that shape the market for real property, as well as the influence of capital markets in asset pricing. Analyzes of housing as well as commercial real estate. Covers demographic analysis, regional growth, construction cycles, urban land markets, and location theory as well as recent technology impacts. Exercises and modeling techniques for measuring and predicting property demand, supply, vacancy, rents, and prices.

Workshop explores the integration of economic development and physical planning interventions to revitalize urban commercial districts. Covers: an overview of the causes of urban business district decline, revitalization challenges, and the strategies to address them; the planning tools used to understand and assess urban Main Streets from both physical design and economic development perspectives; and the policies, interventions, and investments used to foster urban commercial revitalization. Students apply the theories, tools and interventions discussed in class to preparing a formal neighborhood commercial revitalization plan for a client business district.

PRACTICUM 

Analyzes implications of economic globalization for communities, regions, international businesses and economic development organizations. Uses spatial analysis techniques to model the role of energy resources in shaping international political economy. Investigates key drivers of human, physical, and social capital flows and their roles in modern human settlement systems. Surveys contemporary models of industrialization and places them in geographic context. Connects forces of change with their implications for the distribution of wealth and human well-being. Look backward to understand pre-Covid conditions and then moves to the present to understand how a global pandemic changes the world we now live in. Class relies on current literature and explorations of sectors.

This course focuses on developing realistic pathways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from urban passenger transportation. It reviews the strategies most commonly proposed to advance climate change mitigation: changing urban land use patterns, shifting passenger travel behavior to less energy intensive modes, adopting zero emission vehicle technology, and developing ‘new mobility’ such as carshare, bikeshare, and rideshare. Each of these strategies is evaluated quantitatively to understand its potential to support pathways to zero emission mobility. Students then consider the policy tools required to unlock these changes, and the potential for private investment to support this transition. The course closes with modules on climate adaptation in urban transportation and a comparison to decarbonization in ‘harder to decarbonize’ areas like airlines and long distance freight transport. It seeks to enable students to be intelligent evaluators of approaches to transportation decarbonization and equip them with the tools to develop and evaluate policy measures relevant to their local professional challenges. 

Provides students with a concise overview of the range of building systems that are encountered in professional commercial real estate development practice in the USA. Focuses on the relationship between real estate product types, building systems, and the factors that real estate development professionals must consider when evaluating these products and systems for a specific development project. Surveys commercial building technology including Foundation, Structural, MEP/FP, Envelope, and Interiors systems and analyzes the factors that lead development professionals to select specific systems for specific product types. One or more field trips to active construction sites may be scheduled during non-class hours based on student availability. 

Investigates the use of social medial and digital technologies for planning and advocacy by working with actual planning and advocacy organizations to develop, implement, and evaluate prototype digital tools. Students use the development of their digital tools as a way to investigate new media technologies that can be used for planning. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Investigates sustainable development, taking a broad view to include not only a healthy economic base, but also a sound environment, stable employment, adequate purchasing power, distributional equity, national self-reliance, and maintenance of cultural integrity. Explores national, multinational, and international political and legal mechanisms to further sustainable development through transformation of the industrial state. Addresses the importance of technological innovation and the financial crisis of 2008.

Issues in international development, appropriate technology and project implementation addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with community organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an optional IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Recitation sections focus on specific project implementation, and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the target countries as well as an introduction to the local languages. Enrollment limited by lottery; must attend first class session. 

Examines efforts in developing and advanced nations and regions. Examines key issues in the current and future development of urban energy systems, such as technology, use, behavior, regulation, climate change, and lack of access or energy poverty. Case studies on a diverse sampling of cities explore how prospective technologies and policies can be implemented. Includes intensive group research projects, discussion, and debate.

Guides students in examining implicit and explicit values of diversity offered in "Southern" knowledge bases, theories, and practices of urban production. With a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, considers why the South-centered location of the estimated global urban population boom obligates us to examine how cities work as they do, and why Western-informed urban theory and planning scholarship may be ill-suited to provide guidance on urban development there. Examines the "rise of the rest" and its implications for the making and remaking of expertise and norms in planning practice. Students engage with seminal texts from leading authors of Southern urbanism and critical themes, including the rise of Southern theory, African urbanism, Chinese international cooperation, Brazilian urban diplomacy, and the globally-driven commodification of urban real estate.

Includes spatial analysis exercises using real-world data sets, building toward an independent project in which students critically apply GIS techniques to an area of interest. Students build data discovery, cartography, and spatial analysis skills while learning to reflect on power and positionality within the research design process. Tailored to GIS applications within planning and design and emphasizes the role of reflective practice in GIS.

This course is designed for students who aspire to shape the future of mobility. The course explores technological, behavioral, policy and systems-wide frameworks for innovation in transportation systems, complemented with case studies across the mobility spectrum, from autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility to last-mile sidewalk robots. Students will interact with a series of guest lecturers from CEOs and other business and government executives who are actively reshaping the future of mobility. Interdisciplinary teams of students will work to deliver business plans for startups or action plans for solving “real world” challenges in established companies, governments or NGOs.

Examines transportation policymaking and planning, its relationship to social and environmental justice and the influences of politics, governance structures and human and institutional behavior. Explores the pathway to infrastructure, how attitudes are influenced, and how change happens. Examines the tensions and potential synergies among traditional transportation policy values of individual mobility, system efficiency and “sustainability”. Explores the roles of the government; analysis of current trends; transport sector decarbonization; land use, placemaking, and sustainable mobility networks; the role of “mobility as a service”, and the implications of disruptive technology on personal mobility. Assesses traditional planning methods with a critical eye, and through that process consider how to approach transportation planning in a way that responds to contemporary needs and values, with an emphasis on transport justice.

This class is open to all graduate students (and advanced undergraduates) at MIT, Wellesley, or Harvard interested in environmental justice, environmental ethics, the tools of environmental analysis, and strategies for collaborative decision-making. The primary objective of the class is to help each student formulate a personal theory of environmental planning practice appropriate to achieving the implementation of environmental justice and sustainable development goals.

The course is taught comparatively, with numerous references to examples from around the world. The course has four parts: Environmental Justice and Environmental Policy-Making, Environmental Ethics and Environmental Policy Debates, Inherent Bias and Environmental Planning Techniques, and Public Participation including Difficult Conversations.

This is a required subject for students who might want to pursue the Environmental Planning Certificate in the School of Architecture and Planning.

Introduces principal issues in the field of advanced urbanism for discussion and exploration. Includes theoretical linkages between ideas about the culture of cities, processes of urbanization, and urban design. Involves events co-organized by faculty and doctoral students to further engage and inform research. 

Familiarizes students with the practice of planning, by requiring actual experience in professional internship placements. Enables students to both apply what they are learning in their classes in an actual professional setting and to reflect, using a variety of platforms, on the learning personal and professional - growing out of their internship experience. Through readings, practical experience and reflection, empirical observation, and contact with practitioners, students gain deeper general understanding of the practice of the profession and enhanced understanding of the intersection of structural racism and planning. 

Introduces students to key debates in the field of planning theory, drawing on historical development of the field of urban/regional/national planning from 1900 to 2020 in both the US and in newly industrializing countries. Class objectives are for students to develop their own theory of action as they become sensitized to issues of racial and gender discrimination in city building, and understand how planning styles are influenced by a range of issues, including the challenge of ethical practice.

Explores changes in the built environment expected from transportation investments, and how they can be used to promote sustainable and equitable cities. Reflects on how notable characteristics of cities can be explained by their historical and current transportation features. From a historical perspective, e.g., discusses how central areas of most European cities created during the pre-modern transportation era are more walkable, dense, and diverse; and the auto-oriented North American suburbs sprawling during the massive increase in car ownership. Introduces theoretical basis and empirical evidence to analyze the urban transformation autonomous vehicles will bring and how shared mobility services affect travel behavior, and its implications from an urban planning perspective. Lectures interspersed with guest speakers and an optional field trip. Subject can count toward the 6-unit discovery-focused credit limit for first-year students.

A weekly seminar that includes discussions on topics in Urban Planning. Topics will include a range of efforts, initiatives, and problems related to: housing and neighborhood change; politics, science, and the climate crisis; transportation and technology; design and the future of cities; racial and economic justice; art and public engagement strategies; urban development and city growth; and the ins and outs of being a working planner in an imperfect world...!  Light reading each week and/or alternate materials: podcasts, online videos, news coverage, events/lecture series, etc.  (We also hope to have a wide range of guest speakers, including DUSP faculty and alums.)

Students in this course will partner with pK-12 educators in the Boston Public Schools and the Leventhal Maps and Education Center at the Boston Public Library to develop an innovative urban data literacy curriculum for young learners. Our goals will be to 1) make mapping and data storytelling accessible for young learners and their teachers; and 2) develop an approachable set of materials that guide students and teachers through critical questions of power and ethics as they relate to data collection and visualization.

Despite the many successes of the ‘open data’ movement, a large gap remains between ‘availability’ and ‘accessibility’, in terms of both technical competencies and institutional capacity. Despite the availability of unprecedented volumes of geospatial data and the software necessary to analyze and visualize the same, these remain largely inaccessible to non-specialist users. Both educators and industry are beginning to recognize the importance of addressing this gap, leading to a range of efforts to bring mapping and open data into pK-12 curricula. However, these initiatives predominantly depend on demanding, proprietary software that will generally be unavailable to students when they lose their school affiliation. Furthermore, these materials rarely engage with questions of ethics and politics that are necessary to prepare students for a data-saturated media ecosystem characterized by disinformation and the abuse of personal data. 

This practicum will confront these twinned problems – accessibility and ethics – by developing reusable, modular curricula and virtual teaching materials. These materials will seek to build teacher capacity, support place-based education, and build critical data literacy among young learners.

PRACTICUM 

This limited enrollment seminar engages students in preparing for their own grounded research projects around “equity” in the infrastructure space. It helps students prepare for grounded field-research domestically or internationally by first introducing students to different analytical constructs of equity (and debates therein) within published empirical research and in political philosophy and theory; and second, guiding them in their consideration of similar analytical constructs within their own infrastructure-related research development and realization.

Explores changes in the built environment expected from transportation investments, and how they can be used to promote sustainable and equitable cities. Reflects on how notable characteristics of cities can be explained by their historical and current transportation features. From a historical perspective, e.g., discusses how central areas of most European cities created during the pre-modern transportation era are more walkable, dense, and diverse; and the auto-oriented North American suburbs sprawling during the massive increase in car ownership. Introduces theoretical basis and empirical evidence to analyze the urban transformation autonomous vehicles will bring and how shared mobility services affect travel behavior, and its implications from an urban planning perspective. Lectures interspersed with guest speakers and an optional field trip. 

This class provides an introduction into essential tools and methods of reflective practices with the objective to support students in their practicum work. In addition, students will have an opportunity to explore theories and frameworks that define the field of reflective practice.

Reflective practice describes the capacity of a practitioner to step back and reflect on one's actions. This process of reflection-in-action is the foundation for successful stakeholder engagement, especially in communities and client systems. Reflective practice builds on a continuous learning process and is based on the assumption that the moment a practitioner joins the system, that system is changed. This implies that the practitioner’s identity, intention, and skills impact the outcome of an engagement with a community and clients. Consequently, the ability to engage methods of self-reflection and to take a critical stance on one’s own practice is essential for the success of a practitioner’s engagement with stakeholders.

This class combines 1) theory of reflective practice, 2) interactive engagement with tools and methods, and 3) dialogues with practitioners.

Students are expected to work on their own theory of practice and identify core principles and practice that will guide their practicum work.

This course meets on the following three Mondays from 5-8pm:
October 3rd
October 17th
October 24th

This graduate research seminar will review the seminal as well as latest research on the driving forces of urbanization, real estate markets, urban sustainability in both developed and developing economies. It will cover various research topics under the umbrella of urbanization under three different modules where students will get a chance to learn from initiation of an idea to its publication including but not limited to, analyzing, framing, writing and critiquing as parts of the process.

The seminar is divided into three core modules and along with other key dimensions of sustainable urbanization—e.g., land and housing, transportation, energy and environment, business environment and political economy — we together will engage in the dialogue on the latest research and will reflect on it as a class. We will together understand the tensions as well as synergies between urbanization and sustainability. Together we will dissect and understand how qualitative and quantitative research methods are applied. In all three modules we will examine the connections between these multiple functional domains. The course entails subjects that evolve continually to keep pace with current trends in the cities, real estate sector and urbanization globally. We will together look into processes, engaging students to provide critical insights and produce cutting-edge academic work.  Under the three core modules -

Module I - Sustainable Urbanization. Cities are the engine for economic growth. This massive movement of residents from rural to urban regions, the so called "urbanization" is exerting more and more pressure everyday on the environment (water, air, soil, biodiversity, climate, and more), and public health and is reshaping economies of our cities as they grapple to adapt. This module is designed for students who wish to gain deeper insights into the tension and synergy between urban development and the environment from a global perspective; and at the same time, to enhance their analytical reasoning and quantitative skills to assist evidence-based study and policy design evaluation in this field.

Module II- Sustainable Real Estate. Today, climate change represents one of the biggest existential threat to the US and global real estate markets. Technology, climate science and regulations have developed dramatically in the sustainability sector due to the significant climate induced physical risks presented to the built environment. At the same time, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is gaining prominence with respect to investment decisions in global real estate industry. Real estate investors and market players put sustainability at the center of their investment approach. This module will provide a systematic framework to understand the most challenging issues in sustainability in the real estate industry.

Module III- Urbanization of Emerging Economies. Asia, Middle East, Africa, and other parts of the developing world have experienced a dramatic urbanization process over the past few decades. Such a rapid urbanization happening at this global era has different underlying forces as well as patterns from that happened in Europe and North America centuries and decades ago. This module will look into a few developing economies/regions (China, Brazil, Southeast Asia, etc.) to study the urbanization dynamics, and explore how to conduct rigorous research in those contexts when data availability is always a big challenge.

Examines the intersection of environmental law with property and land use laws, and how they relate to environmental protection and climate change. It begins with a brief introduction to the U.S. legal system.  It explores the legal process of land transfer and the legal structure of development rights and the regulation of land use in the United States.  It introduces the bases for constitutional challenges to land use regulations and how courts consider claims arising from constitutional protections regarding takings, substantive and procedural due-process, equal protection, and freedom of expression, highlighting the intersection of land use law with climate change.  The course also introduces students to the broad dimensions of federal environmental statutes relevant to land use, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, among others.  It concludes by discussing state and local efforts to address climate change through land use regulation.

This course is intended for any student interested in a career in private market investing. Specifically, we will cover topics pertaining to investing, managing, and developing investments in real estate and private asset backed companies. The course will be divided into three modules. The first module will focus on portfolio construction and understanding investment risks associated with private investments. The second module consists of the analysis of specific transactions with an emphasis on whether to pursue a specific transaction or not based on its investment merits. This section of the course will be run as an investment committee. We will focus on the attributes of both successful and unsuccessful transactions. The final module consists of a focus on private investment firms, their compensation structures and how they impact behavior. Students will be asked to develop an investment concept and present it via a paper and investment proposal. Industry leaders will judge the final presentations.

Small group study of advanced subjects under staff supervision. For graduate students wishing to pursue further study in advanced areas of real estate not covered in regular subjects of instruction. 

Program of research and writing of thesis; to be arranged by the student with supervising committee.

Designed for students writing a thesis in Urban Studies and Planning or Architecture. Develop research topics, review relevant research and scholarship, frame research questions and arguments, choose an appropriate methodology for analysis, and draft introductory and methodology sections.