Course introduces students to a suite of practical skills for planning and public policy, including field research, photography, focus groups, interviewing, content analysis, and case studies.

Through hands-on course sessions and projects, students will learn to match a topic of inquiry with an appropriate method. After studying each skill set, students will have the opportunity to practice their new skills in real world environments through community-oriented projects.

Required core course for MA students. Introduces students to the history and theory of cities and metropolitan regions focusing specifically on the actions of planners and policy-makers and how these actions shape our communities, neighborhoods, cities, regions, and world. The focus will be on the US, but the course will include comparisons to other systems (e.g., UK, Western Europe, Latin America, and China).

The course will examine the urban and metropolitan fabric through the lens of work, family, transport and communications, energy, environmental conditions, physical structure, economics and trade. Race, class, gender, immigration, and culture change will serve as cross-cutting themes throughout the readings, lectures, and discussions. Particular attention will be paid to institutional actors and their responses – governments, business leaders, and community leaders.

Course provides an introduction to the major components of real estate development and its connection to urban planning. The course will convey key technical and substantive knowledge, as well as situating real estate within a broader political, economic, and social context. Reviewing basic real estate finance, site selection, site 3improvement, architecture, landscape architecture, site planning, construction, and evaluation, the class explores key theories and methods of professional practice. The story of real estate development and planning will be told through a multi-level lens, where the systemic factors that govern (and are governed by) the real estate process will be closely examined and interrogated, allowing students to understand how topics like gentrification, affordable housing, inequality, and homelessness are intertwined with the business of real estate development and planning. Through the use of real-world examples and sample exercises, students will become familiar with the nomenclature and skills needed to influence and impact the physical shaping of human settlements, while understanding social, economic, and political dimensions of that work.

Required core course for students in M.A. program. Practical planning and research experience in a community or governmental setting.

Students are exposed to the realities of urban and environmental planning practice by working in teams for actual clients. Focuses on the interplay of expertise, social and political values, and professional relationships.

Introduces students to the fundamental ideas and tools in the work of planning and designing the built environment, which includes the roads, structures, landscaping, and all urbanized spaces in between. Explores how and why people have planned and designed the built environment from the early Greeks to the New Urbanists. In a studio format, students will first develop skills in basic graphic presentation through paper and pen exercises. Next, the class will move to the digital design realm and experiment with planning and designing through the use of computer-aided design (Sketch-Up), Second Life, and geographic information systems (ArcGIS). You can visit the class' Second Life site by going to www.secondlife.com, creating an Avatar and visiting the Island "UEPP Tufts.”

Major ideas in city and regional planning. Utopian thought, European models of city planning, urban technology, the city beautiful movement, garden cities, housing reform, zoning, regional planning, theories of urban design, and national planning.

Focus on the origin, growth, and impact of these ideas on the evolution of planning and urban development in the context of broader intellectual, social, and technological changes.

Scientific method of study, the processes of conceptualization and measurement, and "experimental design," or how social programs are structured so they may be effectively studied.

Urban housing and development policy as it has evolved historically and as it is being practiced currently on the federal, state, and local levels. Basic economic factors affecting urban housing, political context, and social outcomes.

An introduction to basic computing applications important in the management and operation of resource management and service firms. The major course topics include introduction to the operation system and file management of the Macintosh operating system and the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel software programs.