Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Cities

School of Planning Design and Construction

Michigan State University

• Offered in Spring 2013 (UP 488)

"How do you create a sustainable and climate-resilient city?" is the central question that guides the course. By comparing cities in the US with their international counterparts, we will understand the concept of sustainability and how each city attempts to move towards it. Ranging from master planning the city, via an analysis of different functions (construction, housing, transport etc.) to individual behavior, the class provides an overview of the different processes and approaches cities are taking to become more sustainable, in particular addressing climate change. Critical thinking about this process in the unique cities' contexts (their histories, their political environments, etc.) is crucial and requires looking at the problem from different viewpoints (e.g. citizens, engineers, policy makers, planners). At the end of the class, students will be able to analyze and broadly assess any city qualitatively on the effort it is making towards sustainability and provide policy recommendations on how to improve the city's sustainability efforts.
This course is intended for graduate and undergraduate students as a cross-cutting class engaging students from various disciplines, while being conducted as a mixture of guest lectures (incl. geography, economics, agriculture) and group discussions. For your research project, you will explore two cities of your choice and describe one or more of the cities' sustainability efforts based on your particular interests.

Decision Theory for Urban Planning and Development (to be called in the future: Planning Theory and Ethics)

School of Planning Design and Construction

Michigan State University

• Offered in Spring 2013 (UP 844)

Planning theory informs our understanding of how planners make decisions. The first part of the course is dedicated to learning about and understanding planning theories as critical aspects in the urban and regional planning profession. We will learn the rational-comprehensive planning perspective, the participatory planning perspective, but also which roles planners can take in the planning profession, e.g. advocate, mediator. We will critically assess the political and economic assumptions of each planning theory, and explain their evolution within the historical context. During the second part of the course, we will focus on ethics and values, because they should guide our professional choices. As we analyze the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) code of ethics, we will apply this code and the planning theory concepts to practical case examples in the US context. During the third part of the course, we will venture out to international examples. As a focus topic we will discuss preventive hazard planning, disaster recovery and international response strategies – which planning theories have/are/will be applied during the Pakistani flood, the Mexican Gulf oil spill, the earthquake in Haiti? And with which ethical dilemmas planners are struggling?