Subjects

The Department offers many subjects for undergraduates and graduates alike. These are broken down into core, specialized and research subjects. Each year the Department offers 25 undergraduate and more than 90 graduate subjects of instruction from which each student designs, with faculty guidance, an individual program of study that matches their interests and experiences. 

The materials of many of the classes developed by DUSP faculty are provided free to the public through MIT's Open CourseWare site. In addition, DUSP is continuing to develop online offerings on multiple platforms, including: EdXMITxPro, and the MIT Case Study Initiative.

Conflict Chart

Filter by
Semester
Level
Type
11.001J
4.250J

Introduction to Urban Design and Development

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.

Spring
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 11:00 - 12:30PM
Location
4-370
HASS
H
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.002J
17.30J

Making Public Policy

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. 

Andrea Campbell
Fall
4-0-8
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 1:00 - 2:30PM (lecture)
R 7:00 - 8:00PM (R1)
R 8:00 - 9:00PM (R2)
F 10:00 - 11:00AM (R3)
F 11:00AM - 12:00PM (R4)
F 12:00 - 1:00 PM (R5)
F 1:00 - 2:00 PM (R6)
Location
4-270 (Lecture)
9-450 (Recitation Sessions 1-6)
HASS
CI
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.005

Introduction to International Development

This course introduces undergraduates to the history, theory, and practice of international development. We take an interdisciplinary and applied approach to some of the "big questions" in our field, drawing from history, economics, sociology, and anthropology: What does development mean? Why are some countries poorer than others? How have different actors sought to address the challenges of development in the past, and how are they approaching these challenges now? What roles do technology and innovation play in international development?

While reflecting on the avenues through which students can build their own careers in the development field, the goal of this class is to go beyond traditional dichotomies and narrow definitions of progress, wellbeing, and modernity. Instead, we will invite students to develop a more nuanced understanding of international development by offering: i) a stimulating learning environment, which will support the development of their critical thinking, reading, writing, and planning skills; ii) interactions with scholars and practitioners of international development, to draw connections between histories and theories of development on one hand, and contemporary realities on the other.

Spring
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 2:30 - 4:00 PM
Location
5-234
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.006
11.206

Poverty and Economic Security

Explores the evolution of poverty and economic security in the US within a global context. Examines the impacts of recent economic restructuring and globalization. Reviews current debates about the fate of the middle class, sources of increasing inequality, and approaches to advancing economic opportunity and security. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
R 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Location
1-135
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.008

Undergraduate Planning Seminar

A weekly seminar that includes discussions on topics in cities and urban planning, including guest lectures from DUSP faculty and practicing planners.  Topics include urban science, zoning, architecture and urban design, urban sociology, politics and public policy, transportation and mobility, democratic governance, civil rights and social justice, urban economics, affordable housing, environmental policy and planning, real estate and economic development, agriculture and food policy, public health, and international development.  Weekly student presentations on local planning issues and current events; occasional walking tours or arranged field trips.

Preference given to Course 11 and 11-6 sophomores and juniors.

Fall
2-0-4
Undergraduate
Schedule
T 3:30 - 5:00PM
Location
10-401
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.011

The Art and Science of Negotiation

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. 

Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 2:00 - 3:30PM
Location
9-255
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.013
21H.217

American Urban History

Cancelled

CANCELLED FOR SPRING 2024

Seminar on the history of institutions and institutional change in American cities from roughly 1850 to the present. Among the institutions to be looked at are political machines, police departments, courts, schools, prisons, public authorities, and universities. Focuses on readings and discussions.

Spring
2-0-7
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 10:00 - 11:00 AM
Location
9-450A
HASS
CI
H
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.021
IDS.060
IDS.540

Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics: Pollution Prevention and Control

Reviews and analyzes federal and state regulation of air and water pollution, hazardous waste, green-house gas emissions, and the production and use of toxic chemicals. Analyzes pollution as an economic problem and the failure of markets. Explores the role of science and economics in legal decisions. Emphasizes use of legal mechanisms and alternative approaches (such as economic incentives and voluntary approaches) to control pollution and encourage chemical accident and pollution prevention. Focuses on the major federal legislation, the underlying administrative system, and the common law in analyzing environmental policy, economic consequences, and the role of the courts. Discusses classical pollutants and toxic industrial chemicals, green-house gas emissions, community right-to-know, and environmental justice. Develops basic legal skills: how to read/understand cases, regulations, and statutes. Students taking graduate version are expected to explore the subject in greater depth.

 
Nicholas Ashford
Spring
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 3:30 - 5:00 PM
Location
E51-057
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.024
11.324

Modeling Pedestrian Activity in Cities

Investigates the interaction between pedestrian activity, urban form, and land-use patterns in relatively dense urban environments. Informed by recent literature on pedestrian mobility, behavior, and biases, subject takes a practical approach, using software tools and analysis methods to operationalize and model pedestrian activity. Uses simplified yet powerful and scalable network analysis methods that focus uniquely on pedestrians, rather than engaging in comprehensive travel demand modeling across all modes. Emphasizes not only modeling or predicting pedestrian activity in given built settings, but also analyzing and understanding how changes in the built environment — land use changes, density changes, and connectivity changes — can affect pedestrian activity. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Spring
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Location
10-401
9-554 lab
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.025J
11.472J

D-Lab: Development

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. 

Libby Hsu
Fall
3-2-7
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 3:30 - 5:00PM (lecture)
F 3:30 - 5:00PM (lab)
Location
N51-310
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.027

City to City: Comparing, Researching and Writing about Cities

Introduces students to practice through researching, writing, and working for and with nonprofits. Students work directly with nonprofits and community partners to help find solutions to real world problems; interview planners and other field experts, and write and present findings to nonprofit partners and community audiences.

Spring
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 3:30 - 5:00 PM
Location
9-217
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.029J
15.3791J
11.529J/15.379J

Mobility Ventures: Driving Innovation in Transportation Systems

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.

John Moavenzadeh
Jenny Larios Berlin
Fall
3-3-6
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 11:30AM - 1:00PM
Location
E25-117
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.041
11.401

Introduction to Housing, Community, and Economic Development

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. 

Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 9:30 - 11:00AM
Location
9-451
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.074
11.274

Cybersecurity Clinic

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.

Fall
Spring
2-4-6
Undergraduate
Schedule
F 10:00AM - 12:00PM
Location
9-450A
Restricted Elective
REST
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.092
11.592

Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic

Presents methods for resolving facility siting disputes, particularly those involving renewable energy. After completing four modules and a competency exam for MITx certification, students work in teams to help client communities in various cities around the United States. Through direct interactions with the proponents and opponents of facilities subject to local opposition, students complete a stakeholder assessment and offer joint fact-finding and collaborative problem-solving assistance. The political, legal, financial, and regulatory aspects of facility siting, particularly for renewable energy, are reviewed along with key infrastructure planning principles. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Fall
Spring
2-4-6
Undergraduate
Schedule
F 3:00 - 5:00 PM
Location
9-450A
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.111

Leadership in Negotiation: Advanced Applications

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.

Fall
4-0-8
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 10:00AM - 12:00PM
Location
9-255
Prerequisites
11.011 OR Permission of instructor
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.122
IDS.066J
11.422, 15.655, IDS.435

Law, Technology, and Public Policy

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. 

Nicholas Ashford
Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 3:30 - 5:00PM
Location
E51-057
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.124J

Introduction to Education: Looking Forward & Looking Back on Education

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.

Eric Klopfer
Fall
3-6-3
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 2:30 - 4:00PM
Location
56-154
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.125
CMS.587

Introduction to Education: Understanding and Evaluating Education

One of two introductory subjects on teaching and learning science and mathematics in a variety of K-12 settings. Topics include student misconceptions, formative assessment, standards and standardized testing, multiple intelligences, and educational technology. 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. Limited to 25.

Eric Klopfer
Spring
3-6-3
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 2:30 - 4:00 PM
Location
56-154
HASS
CI
H
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.127
CMS.590

Design and Development of Games for Learning

Immerses students in the process of building and testing their own digital and board games in order to better understand how we learn from games. Explores the design and use of games in the classroom in addition to research and development issues associated with computer-based (desktop and handheld) and non-computer-based media. In developing their own games, students examine what and how people learn from them (including field testing of products), as well as how games can be implemented in educational settings. All levels of computer experience welcome. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Eric Klopfer
Spring
3-6-3
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 1:00 - 2:30 PM
Location
E25-117
HASS
H
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.129
CMS.591

Educational Theory and Practice I

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.

G. Schwanbeck
Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 4:00 - 5:30PM
Location
56-154
Prerequisites
Co-req: CMS.586
HASS
S
Preference Given To
juniors and seniors
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.131
CMS.593

Educational Theory and Practice III

Students continue their IAP student teaching through mid March. Topics include educational psychology, theories of learning, and using technology and evaluating its effectiveness to enhance student learning. Assignments include readings from educational literature, written reflections on student teaching, presentations on class topics and creating a project that supports student learning at the school where the MIT student is teaching. This is the third of the three-course sequence necessary to complete the Teacher Education Program.

G. Schwanbeck
Spring
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
TR 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Location
56-154
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.137
11.437

Financing Economic Development and Housing

Studies financing tools and program models to support and promote local economic development and housing. Overview of public and private capital markets and financing sources helps illustrate market imperfections that constrain economic and housing development and increase race and class disparaties. Explores federal housing and economic development programs as well as state and local public finance tools. Covers policies and program models. Investigates public finance practice to better understand how these finance programs affect other municipal operations. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 25. 

Spring
4-0-8
Undergraduate
Schedule
T Th 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Location
9-451
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.138
11.458

Crowd Sourced City: Civic Tech Prototyping

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.

Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Location
10-485
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.142
11.442

Geography of the Global Economy

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.

Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
M 2:00 - 5:00PM
Location
9-450A
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.143
11.243

Research Methods in Global Health and Development

Provides training for students to critically analyze the relationship between "health" and "development." Draws upon the theory and methods of medical anthropology, social medicine, public health, and development to track how culture, history, and political economy influence health and disease in global communities. Students work in teams to formulate research questions, and collect and analyze qualitative data in clinical and community settings in the greater Boston area, in order to design effective development interventions aimed at reducing health disparities in the US and abroad. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Spring
3-3-6
Undergraduate
Schedule
W 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Location
9-450A
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.145

International Housing Economics and Finance

Presents a theory of comparative differences in international housing outcomes. Introduces institutional differences in the ways housing expenditures are financed, and the economic determinants of housing outcomes, such as construction costs, land values, housing quality, and ownership rates. Analyzes the flow of funds to and from the different national housing finance sectors. Develops an understanding of the greater financial and macroeconomic implications of the mortgage credit sector, and how policies affect the ways housing asset fluctuations impact national economies. Considers the perspective of investors in international real estate markets and the risks and rewards involved. Draws on lessons from an international comparative approach, and applies them to economic and finance policies at the local, state/provincial, and federal levels within a country of choice. Meets with 11.355 when offered concurrently. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Spring
3-0-6
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 9:30 - 11:00 AM
Location
9-217
Prerequisites
14.01
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.149
11.449

Decarbonizing Urban Mobility

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. 

Spring
3-3-6
Undergraduate
Schedule
W 2:00 - 5:00PM
Location
9-451
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.158
11.478

Behavioral Science, A.I. and Urban Mobility

Integrates behavioral science, artificial intelligence and transportation technology to shape travel behavior, design mobility systems and business, and reform transportation policies. Introduces methods to sense travel behavior with new technology and measurements; nudge behavior through perception and preference shaping; design mobility systems and ventures that integrate autonomous vehicles, shared mobility, and public transit; and regulate travel with behavior-sensitive transport policies. Challenges students to pilot behavioral experiments and design creative mobility systems, business and policies.

Fall
3-0-9
Undergraduate
Schedule
MW 9:30 - 11:00 AM
Location
4-149
HASS
S
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
11.159
11.259

Entrepreneurial Negotiation

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. This course also explores artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces in negotiation, by having the students experience what it is like to prepare for a negotiation using AI, negotiating with an AI bot, and receiving feedback from the AI after the negotiation. 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. Graduate students and Sloan Fellows - please register 11.259

    Fall
    1-3-2
    Undergraduate
    Schedule
    F 12:00 - 1:00PM
    H1
    Location
    9-255
    Can Be Repeated for Credit
    No
    11.164J
    17.391J
    11.497

    Human Rights at Home and Abroad

    Provides a rigorous and critical introduction to the history, foundation, structure, and operation of the human rights movement. Focuses on key ideas, actors, methods and sources, and critically evaluates the field. Addresses current debates in human rights, including the relationship with security, democracy, development and globalization, urbanization, equality (in housing and other economic and social rights; women's rights; ethnic, religious and racial discrimination; and policing/conflict), post-conflict rebuilding and transitional justice, and technology in human rights activism. No prior coursework needed, but work experience, or community service that demonstrates familiarity with global affairs or engagement with ethics and social justice issues, preferred. Students taking graduate version are expected to write a research paper.

    Fall
    2-0-10
    Undergraduate
    Schedule
    W 3:00 - 5:00PM
    Location
    9-450
    Prerequisites
    Permission of Instructor
    HASS
    S
    Can Be Repeated for Credit
    No
    11.165
    1.268
    11.477

    Urban Energy Systems and Policy

    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.

      Fall
      3-0-9
      Undergraduate
      Schedule
      TR 11:00AM - 12:30PM
      Location
      9-451
      HASS
      S
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.171
      11.271

      Indigenous Environmental Planning

      Examines how Indigenous peoples' relationships to their homelands and local environments has been adversely affected by Western planning. Explores how these relationships have changed over time as American Indians, Alaska Natives, and other groups indigenous to North America and Hawai'i have adapted to new conditions, including exclusion from markets of exchange, overhunting/overfishing, dispossession, petrochemical development, conservation, mainstream environmentalism, and climate change. Seeks to understand current environmental challenges and their roots and discover potential solutions to address these challenges. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

      Spring
      3-0-9
      Undergraduate
      Schedule
      W 2:00 - 5:00 PM
      Location
      9-255
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.173J
      1.103J
      11.273J, 1.303J

      Infrastructure Design for Climate Change

      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.

      H. Einstein
      Fall
      0-2-4
      Undergraduate
      Schedule
      TR 1:00 - 2:00PM
      Location
      1-371
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.188
      11.205

      Introduction to Spatial Analysis and GIS Laboratory

      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.

      Faculty:
      Fall: Eric Huntley, Cong Cong
      Spring: Catherine D'Ignazio, Eric Huntley

      Fall
      Spring
      3-3-6
      Undergraduate
      Schedule
      MW 2:30 - 4:00PM (lecture)
      F 1:00 - 4:00PM (lab)
      Location
      9-354 (lecture)
      9-554 (lab)
      Restricted Elective
      INSTITUTE LAB
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.200

      Gateway: Urban Studies and Planning 1

      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.

      Fall
      4-1-7
      Graduate
      Schedule
      MW 11:00 - 12:30PM
      R 2:30 - 3:30PM (R1)
      R 4:30 - 4:30PM (R2)
      F 2:30 - 3:30PM (R3)
      Location
      37-212 (lecture)
      9-450 (R1-3)
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.205
      11.188

      Introduction to Spatial Analysis and GIS Laboratory

      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.

      Faculty:
      Fall: Eric Huntley, Cong Cong
      Spring: Catherine D'Ignazio, Eric Huntley

      Fall
      Spring
      2-2-2
      Graduate
      Schedule
      MW 2:30 - 4:00PM (Lecture)
      M 4:30 - 6:30PM (Lab 1)
      T 4:30 - 6:30 PM (Lab 2)
      R 4:30 - 6:30 PM (Lab 3)
      H1
      Location
      9-354 (Lecture)
      9-554 (Lab Sessions)
      Preference Given To
      first-year MCP students
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.206
      11.006

      Poverty and Economic Security

      Explores the evolution of poverty and economic security in the US within a global context. Examines the impacts of recent economic restructuring and globalization. Reviews current debates about the fate of the middle class, sources of increasing inequality, and approaches to advancing economic opportunity and security. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

      Fall
      3-0-9
      Graduate
      Schedule
      R 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
      Location
      1-135
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.220

      Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I

      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.

      Fall
      3-0-3
      Graduate
      Schedule
      TR 11:00AM - 12:30PM, H1
      R1: T 3:30 - 4:30PM (R1)
      R2: T 4:30 - 5:30PM (R2)
      R3: F 1:30 - 2:30PM (R3)
      R4: M 3:30 - 4:30PM (R4)
      Location
      9-255 (lecture)
      R: 4-146
      Prerequisites
      Restricted to first-year MCP students or Permission of instructor
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.222

      Introduction to Critical Qualitative Methods

      Introduces qualitative methods as an approach to critical inquiry in urban planning research and practice. Emphasizes the importance of historical context, place-specificity, and the experiences and views of individuals as ways of knowing relationships of power and privilege between people, in place, and over time. Explores a range of critical qualitative methods including those used in archival, interview, observational, visual, and case study analysis.

      Fall
      Spring
      2-2-2
      Graduate
      Schedule
      L: TR 11:00 - 12:30PM, H4
      R1: T 3:30-4:30 PM
      R2: T 4:30-5:30 PM
      R3: W 3:00 - 4:00 PM
      R4: W 4:00 - 5:00 PM
      R5: R 10:00 -11:00 AM
      Location
      Spring L: 4-163
      Fall L: 9-255
      Recitations Fall and Spring: 4-146
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.233

      Research Design for Policy Analysis and Planning

      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. 

      Fall
      3-0-9
      Graduate
      Schedule
      T 9:30AM - 12:30PM
      Location
      9-450A
      Prerequisites
      Permission of Instructor
      Open Only To
      PhD students in course 11
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.234

      Making Sense: Qualitative Methods for Designers and Planners

      This subject introduces the practice of qualitative research, emphasizing the founding methods of ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology, to demonstrate how such methods can support the work of social science researchers and practitioners. Its goal is to guide each student throughout the process of research, from the design of an ethnographic study (formulating research questions, the literature and media review, archival methods, formulation of formal and informal interviews, interviewing skills, crafting fieldnotes, participant observation, and the ethics of research, etc.), to the analysis of data. In learning the craft of qualitative methods, students will produce theories grounded in empirical data analysis (i.e. drafting memos, translation and transcription, narrative coding, etc.) and also to apply grounded theories to settings of practice. Students develop a field-based research project that produces a final paper offering original theory and an intervention or design to be implemented.

      Spring
      3-3-6
      Graduate
      Schedule
      M 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
      Location
      7-338
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.236

      Participatory Action Research

      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.

      Fall
      3-0-9
      Graduate
      Schedule
      R 2:00 - 5:00 PM
      Location
      9-451
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.243
      11.143

      Research Methods in Global Health and Development

      Provides training for students to critically analyze the relationship between "health" and "development." Draws upon the theory and methods of medical anthropology, social medicine, public health, and development to track how culture, history, and political economy influence health and disease in global communities. Students work in teams to formulate research questions, and collect and analyze qualitative data in clinical and community settings in the greater Boston area, in order to design effective development interventions aimed at reducing health disparities in the US and abroad. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

      Spring
      3-3-6
      Graduate
      Schedule
      W 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
      Location
      9-450A
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.245
      4.245

      DesignX Entrepreneurship

      Students in teams accepted to the MITdesignX accelerator begin work on their ventures in this intense two-week bootcamp. Participants identify the needs and problems that demonstrate the demand for their innovative technology, policy, products, and/or services. They research and investigate various markets and stakeholders pertinent to their ventures, and begin to test their ideas and thesis in real-world interviews and interactions. Subject presented in workshop format, giving teams the chance to jump-start their ventures together with a cohort of people working on ideas that span the realm of design, planning real estate, and the human environment. Registration limited to students accepted to the MITdesignX accelerator in the fall.

      Gilad Rosenzweig
      Svafa Gronfeldt
      IAP
      4-0-2
      Graduate
      Schedule
      January 23-February 3rd: M T W Th F 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
      Location
      9-451
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.246
      4.246

      DesignX Accelerator

      Students continue to work in their venture teams to advance innovative ideas, products, and services oriented to design, planning, and the human environment. Presented in a workshop format with supplementary lectures. Teams are matched with external mentors for additional support in business and product development. At the end of the term, teams pitch their ventures to an audience from across the school and MIT, investors, industry, and cities. Registration limited to students accepted to the MITdesignX accelerator in the fall.

      Gilad Rosenzweig
      Svafa Gronfeldt
      Spring
      2-4-6
      Graduate
      Schedule
      F 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
      Location
      9-451
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.250

      Transportation Research Design

      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. Limited to 20.

      Fall
      Spring
      2-0-1
      Graduate
      Schedule
      F 9:30 - 11:00 AM
      Location
      Spring: 9-255
      Fall: 9-451
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.251

      Frontier of Transportation Research

      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.  

      Spring
      1-0-2
      Graduate
      Schedule
      F 12:00 - 1:00 PM
      Location
      Spring: 9-255
      Fall: 9-451
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.252
      CMS.863
      11.127, CMS.590

      Design and Development of Games for Learning

      Immerses students in the process of building and testing their own digital and board games in order to better understand how we learn from games. Explores the design and use of games in the classroom in addition to research and development issues associated with computer-based (desktop and handheld) and non-computer-based media. In developing their own games, students examine what and how people learn from them (including field testing of products), as well as how games can be implemented in educational settings. All levels of computer experience welcome. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

      Eric Klopfer
      Spring
      3-6-3
      Graduate
      Schedule
      TR 1:00 - 2:30 PM
      Location
      E25-117
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.255

      Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the Public Sector

      Investigates social conflict and distributional disputes in the public sector. While theoretical aspects of conflict and consensus building are considered, focus is on the practice of negotiation and dispute resolution. Comparisons between unassisted and assisted negotiation are reviewed along with the techniques of facilitation and mediation.

      Spring
      4-0-8
      Graduate
      Schedule
      TR 3:30 - 5:30 PM
      Location
      9-255
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.256
      4.256

      Encounters and Ruptures: Writing About the Modern City

      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.

      Fall
      2-0-7
      Graduate
      Schedule
      T 6:00 - 8:00 PM
      Location
      9-450A
      Prerequisites
      Permission of Instructor + sbmit an application letter (no longer than 600 words) that explains your interest in the class, and discuss a work—novel, essay, film, painting, sculpture, song, play, building—that influences how you see a particular city.
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.258

      Sustainable Urbanization Research Seminar

      Reviews the seminal as well as latest research on the driving forces of urbanization, real estate markets, urban sustainability in both developed and developing economies. Examines the tensions as well as synergies between urbanization and sustainability, and designs and evaluates policies and business strategies that can enhance the synergies while reduce the tensions. Covers various research topics under the umbrella of urbanization under three modules (sustainable urbanization; sustainable real estate; urbanization in emerging economies) where students study the initiation of an idea to its publication, including but not limited to, analyzing, framing, writing and critiquing as parts of the process. Sessions are organized as a semi-structured dialogue.

      Fall
      2-0-1
      Graduate
      Schedule
      M 12:30 - 2:00 PM
      Location
      9-451
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      Yes
      11.259
      11.159

      Entrepreneurial Negotiation

      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. This course also explores artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces in negotiation, by having the students experience what it is like to prepare for a negotiation using AI, negotiating with an AI bot, and receiving feedback from the AI after the negotiation. 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. Graduate students and Sloan Fellows - please register 11.259

      Samuel Dinnar
      Fall
      1-3-2
      Graduate
      Schedule
      F 12:00 - 1:00PM
      H1
      Location
      9-255
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.263
      1.263
      SCM.293

      Urban Last-Mile Logistics

      Explores specific challenges of urban last-mile B2C and B2B distribution in both industrialized and emerging economies. Develops an in-depth understanding of the perspectives, roles, and decisions of all relevant stakeholder groups, from consumers to private sector decision makers and public policy makers. Discusses the most relevant traditional and the most promising innovating operating models for urban last-mile distribution. Introduces applications of the essential quantitative methods for the strategic design and tactical planning of urban last-mile distribution systems, including optimization and simulation. Covers basic facility location problems, network design problems, single- and multi-echelon vehicle routing problems, as well as associated approximation techniques. Requires intermediate coding skills in Python and independent quantitative analyses Python.

      M. Winkenbach
      Spring
      2-0-4
      Graduate
      Schedule
      T Th 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM, H4
      F 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM
      Location
      E51-361
      Prerequisites
      SCM.254 or permission of instructor
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.271
      11.171

      Indigenous Environmental Planning

      Examines how Indigenous peoples' relationships to their homelands and local environments has been adversely affected by Western planning. Explores how these relationships have changed over time as American Indians, Alaska Natives, and other groups indigenous to North America and Hawai'i have adapted to new conditions, including exclusion from markets of exchange, overhunting/overfishing, dispossession, petrochemical development, conservation, mainstream environmentalism, and climate change. Seeks to understand current environmental challenges and their roots and discover potential solutions to address these challenges. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 25.

      Spring
      3-0-9
      Graduate
      Schedule
      W 2:00 - 5:00 PM
      Location
      9-255
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.273J
      1.303J
      11.173J, 1.103J

      Infrastructure Design for Climate Change

      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.

      H. Einstein
      Fall
      0-2-4
      Graduate
      Schedule
      TR 1:00 - 2:00PM
      Location
      1-371
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.274
      11.074

      Cybersecurity Clinic

      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.

      Fall
      Spring
      2-4-6
      Graduate
      Schedule
      F 10:00AM - 12:00PM
      Location
      9-450A
      Restricted Elective
      REST
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.302
      4.253

      Urban Design Politics: The Design-Politics of Housing World Heritage

      Examines ways that urban design contributes to distribution of political power and resources in cities. Investigates the nature of relations between built form and political purposes through close study of public and private sector design commissions and planning processes that have been clearly motivated by political pressures, as well as more tacit examples. Lectures and discussions focus on cases from both developed and developing countries.

      Spring
      3-0-9
      Graduate
      Schedule
      M 3:00 - 6:00 PM
      Location
      10-401
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.303
      4.254

      Real Estate Development Studio: Complex Urban Projects

      Focuses on the synthesis of urban, mixed-use real estate projects, including the integration of physical design and programming with finance and marketing. Interdisciplinary student teams analyze how to maximize value across multiple dimensions in the process of preparing professional development proposals for sites in US cities and internationally. Reviews emerging real estate products and innovative developments to provide a foundation for studio work. Two major projects are interspersed with lectures and field trips. Integrates skills and knowledge in the MSRED program; also open to other students interested in real estate development by permission of the instructors.

      Spring
      6-0-12
      Graduate
      Schedule
      MW 2:30 - 5:30 PM
      M 6:00 - 7:30 PM
      Location
      10-485
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.304
      4.255

      Site and Environmental Systems Planning

      Mexico City Practicum

      Vallejo is one of the most important industrial parks in Mexico. Founded by a national decree in the 1940s, at its peak, it was responsible for five percent of the country’s GDP. With 1,000 companies belonging to 17 industrial sectors, it provides 45,000 jobs. Additionally, the adjacent dry port of Pantaco is the largest infrastructure of its kind in Latin America. Currently, one third of its building stock stands vacant. Today, the area has been rebranded as Vallejo - i, an initiative that aims to transform the industrial park into an “Industry 4.0” hub. However, the planned changes in its economic model are not currently accompanied by any comprehensive planning or design transition strategy. Our project aims to start this process overcome this absence by suggesting paths and design scenarios that will link Vallejo - i’s economic and energy transition in to a comprehensive industrial urbanism approach.

      Spring
      6-0-9
      Graduate
      Schedule
      MW 2:30 - 5:30 PM
      Location
      Studio: 10-485
      classroom: 9-217
      Can Be Repeated for Credit
      No
      11.305

      Doing Good by Doing Well: Planning and Development Case Studies that Promote both the Public Good and Real Estate Value

      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.

        Fall
        2-0-1
        Graduate
        Schedule
        W 2:30 - 4:30PM
        Location
        9-451
        Can Be Repeated for Credit
        No
        11.308J
        4.213J

        Ecological Urbanism Seminar

        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 

          Spring
          3-0-9
          Graduate
          Schedule
          M 2:00 - 5:00PM
          Location
          9-451
          Prerequisites
          Permission of Instructor
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.309J
          4.215J

          Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry

          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.
           

          Spring
          3-0-9
          Graduate
          Schedule
          W 2:00 - 5:00 PM
          Location
          10-401
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.312

          Engaging Community: Models and Methods for Strengthening Democracy

          Examines the demographic complexity of cities and their fundamental design challenges for planners and other professions responsible for engaging the public. Working with clients, participants learn design principles for creating public engagement practices necessary for building inclusive civic infrastructure in cities. Participants also have the opportunity to review and practice strategies, techniques, and methods for engaging communities in demographically complex settings.

          Spring
          3-0-9
          Graduate
          Schedule
          R 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
          Location
          9-450A
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.320

          Digital City Design Workshop

          Explores the application of Visual AI (machine learning and computer vision) techniques to urban analysis through theoretical inquiry regarding the image of the city and technical explanation of state-of-the-art quantitative research methods. Students will gain applicable skills in Visual AI methods through workshops conducted in Python and class discussion surrounding the contextual framing of “city science” as well as current research literature in the field. The course will culminate in a final project aligning Visual AI research methods with contemporary urban questions.

          Spring
          3-0-9
          Graduate
          Schedule
          F 9:00 - 12:00 AM
          Location
          9-217
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.323

          International Real Estate Transactions

          Focuses on analyzing a variety of unique international real estate investment and development transactions. Blends real estate investing and development decision-making with discussion-based learning from a multidisciplinary standpoint. Seeks to facilitate a richer understanding of domestic (US) real estate transaction concepts by contextualizing them in the general analytical framework underpinning international real estate investment decision-making.

          Manish Srivastava
          Spring
          3-0-3
          Graduate
          Schedule
          F 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
          Location
          9-354
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.324
          11.024

          Modeling Pedestrian Activity in Cities

          Investigates the interaction between pedestrian activity, urban form, and land-use patterns in relatively dense urban environments. Informed by recent literature on pedestrian mobility, behavior, and biases, subject takes a practical approach, using software tools and analysis methods to operationalize and model pedestrian activity. Uses simplified yet powerful and scalable network analysis methods that focus uniquely on pedestrians, rather than engaging in comprehensive travel demand modeling across all modes. Emphasizes not only modeling or predicting pedestrian activity in given built settings, but also analyzing and understanding how changes in the built environment — land use changes, density changes, and connectivity changes — can affect pedestrian activity. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

          Spring
          3-0-9
          Graduate
          Schedule
          TR 2:00 - 3:30 PM
          Location
          10-401
          9-554 lab
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.325

          Technological Change & Innovation for Real Estate and Cities

          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. 

          Fall
          2-0-4
          Graduate
          Schedule
          T 2:30 - 4:30 PM
          H2
          Location
          9-217
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.328
          4.240

          Urban Design Skills: Observing, Interpreting, and Representing the City

          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.

          Fall
          4-2-2
          Graduate
          Schedule
          F 9:00AM - 1:00PM (Lecture)
          W 5:00 - 7:30PM (Recitation)
          H1
          Location
          10-485
          occasionally 9-554
          Can Be Repeated for Credit
          No
          11.329
          4.248

          Advanced Urban Design Skills: Observing, Interpreting, and Representing the City

          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.

            Fall
            4-2-4
            Graduate
            Schedule
            F 9:00AM - 1:00PM (Lecture)
            W 5:00 - 7:30PM (Recitation)
            H2
            Location
            10-485
            occasionally 9-554
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.330
            4.241

            The Making of Cities

            Examines the complex development of cities through history by tracing a diachronic accumulation of forms and spaces in specific cities, and showing how significant ideas were made manifest across distinct geographies and cultures. Emphasizes how economic, spiritual, political, geographic and technological forces have simultaneously shaped and, in turn, been influenced by the city. 

            Roi Salgueiro Barrio
            Spring
            12
            Graduate
            Schedule
            W 5:00 - 8:00 PM
            Location
            5-233
            Prerequisites
            11.001, 11.301, or permission of instructor
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.332
            4.163

            Urban Design Studio

            The design of urban environments. Strategies for change in large areas of cities, to be developed over time, involving different actors. Fitting forms into natural, man-made, historical, and cultural contexts; enabling desirable activity patterns; conceptualizing built form; providing infrastructure and service systems; guiding the sensory character of development. Involves architecture and planning students in joint work; requires individual designs or design and planning guidelines.

            Rafi Segal
            Fall
            arranged
            Graduate
            Schedule
            TR 1:00 - 6:00 PM
            Location
            10-485 classroom
            studio space in 7-434
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.333
            4.244

            Urban Design Seminar: Perspectives on Contemporary Practice

            Examines innovations in urban design practice occurring through the work of leading practitioners in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. Features lectures by major national and global practitioners in urban design. Projects and topics vary based on term and speakers but may cover architectural urbanism, landscape and ecology, arts and culture, urban design regulation and planning agencies, and citywide and regional design. Focuses on analysis and synthesis of themes discussed in presentations and discussions.

            Spring
            2-0-7
            Graduate
            Schedule
            W 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
            Location
            10-401
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.344
            1.472

            Innovative Project Delivery in the Public and Private Sectors

            Develops a strong strategic understanding of how best to deliver various types of projects in the built environment. Examines the compatibility of various project delivery methods, consisting of organizations, contracts, and award methods, with certain types of projects and owners. Six methods examined: traditional general contracting; construction management; multiple primes; design-build; turnkey; and build-operate-transfer. Includes lectures, case studies, guest speakers, and a team project to analyze a case example.

            C. M. Gordon
            Spring
            2-0-4
            Graduate
            Schedule
            TR 4:00 - 5:30 PM, H3
            Location
            9-354
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.345J
            1.462J

            Entrepreneurship in the Built Environment

            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.

            Svafa Gronfeldt
            Gilad Rosenzweig
            Fall
            2-0-4
            Graduate
            Schedule
            W 9:00 - 11:00AM
            H1
            Location
            9-451
            Prerequisites
            Permission of Instructor
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.350

            Sustainable Real Estate: Economics & Business

            Offers insight into tension and synergy between sustainability and the real estate industry. Considers why sustainability matters for real estate, how real estate can contribute to sustainability and remain profitable, and what investment and market opportunities exist for sustainable real estate products and how they vary across asset classes. Lectures combine economic and business insights and tools to understand the challenges and opportunities of sustainable real estate. Provides a framework to understand issues in sustainability in real estate and examine economic mechanisms, technological advances, business models, and investment and financing strategies available to promote sustainability. Discusses buildings as basic physical assets; cities as the context where buildings interact with the built environment, policies, and urban systems; and portfolios as sustainable real estate investment vehicles in capital markets. Enrollment for MSRED, MCP, and MBA students is prioritized.

            Spring
            3-0-9
            Graduate
            Schedule
            T Th 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
            W 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
            Location
            9-354
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.351

            Real Estate Ventures I: Negotiating Development-Phase Agreements

            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. 

            W. T. McGrath
            Fall
            3-0-9
            Graduate
            Schedule
            R 6:00 - 9:00 PM
            Location
            9-354
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.352

            Real Estate Ventures II: Negotiating Leases, Financings, and Restructurings

            Focuses on key business and legal issues within the principal agreements used to lease, finance, and restructure a real estate venture. Through the lens of the real estate developer and its counter-parties, students identify, discuss and negotiate the most important business issues in office and retail leases, and permanent loan, mezzanine loan, inter-creditor, standstill/forbearance, and loan modification (workout) agreements. Students work closely with attorneys who specialize in the construction of such agreements and with students from area law schools and New York University and Columbia University. Single-asset real estate bankruptcy and the federal income tax consequences of debt restructuring are also addressed. Limited to 25; preference to MSRED students; no Listeners.

            W. T. McGrath
            Spring
            3-0-9
            Graduate
            Schedule
            R 6:00 - 9:00 PM
            Location
            9-354
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.353
            15.429

            Securitization of Mortgages and Other Assets

            Investigates the economics and finance of securitization. Considers the basic mechanics of structuring deals for various asset-backed securities. Investigates the pricing of pooled assets, using Monte Carlo and other option pricing techniques, as well as various trading strategies used in these markets.

            W. Torous
            Spring
            3-0-6
            Graduate
            Schedule
            TR 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
            Location
            9-354
            Prerequisites
            11.431, 15.401, or permission of instructor
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.355

            International Housing Economics and Finance

            Presents a theory of comparative differences in international housing outcomes. Introduces institutional differences in ways housing expenditures are financed, and economic determinants of housing outcomes (construction costs, land values, housing quality, ownership rates). Analyzes flow of funds to and from the different national housing finance sectors. Develops an understanding of the greater financial and macroeconomic implications of mortgage credit sector, and how policies affect ways housing asset fluctuations impact national economies. Considers perspective of investors in international real estate markets and risks and rewards involved. Draws on lessons from international comparative approach, applies them to economic and finance policies at the local, state/provincial, and federal levels within country of choice. Meets with 11.145 when offered concurrently. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

            Spring
            3-0-6
            Graduate
            Schedule
            MW 9:30 - 11:00 AM
            Location
            9-217
            Prerequisites
            11.202, 11.203, 14.01, or permission of instructor
            Can Be Repeated for Credit
            No
            11.371J
            1.818J, 2.65J, 10.391J, 22.811J
            2.650J, 10.291J, 22.081J

            Sustainable Energy

            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.

              Michael Golay
              Fall
              3-1-8
              Graduate
              Schedule
              TR 3:30 - 5:00PM (Lecture)
              F 4:00 - 5:00 PM (Recitation
              Location
              32-155 (Lecture)
              32-144 (Recitation)
              Can Be Repeated for Credit
              No
              11.373J
              12.885J
              12.385

              Science, Politics, and Environmental Policy

              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.

                Susan Solomon
                Fall
                3-0-6
                Graduate
                Schedule
                F 2:00 - 5:00PM
                Location
                14E-310
                Can Be Repeated for Credit
                No
                11.383
                15.662

                People and Profits: Shaping the Future of Work

                Examines managing work in the 21st century in the interests of both people and profits -- in the context of rising inequality, technological change, globalization, and the growth of the gig economy. Students will evaluate various business and policy interventions intended to improve work, through critical analysis of the evidence, through interviews with workers and evaluations of firms, and through guest appearances of business leaders at leading-edge firms as well as labor leaders experimenting with new ways of providing workers a voice in the workplace. Draws on materials from the MIT Task Force on Work of the Future and the online course Shaping Work of the Future.

                Anna Stansbury
                Spring
                3-1-8
                Graduate
                Schedule
                TR 8:30 - 10:00 AM
                Location
                E62-276
                Can Be Repeated for Credit
                No
                11.401
                11.041

                Introduction to Housing, Community, and Economic Development

                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. 

                Fall
                3-0-9
                Graduate
                Schedule
                TR 9:30 - 11:00AM
                Location
                9-451
                Can Be Repeated for Credit
                No
                11.407
                11.107

                Tools and Techniques for Inclusive Economic Development

                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. 

                Fall
                3-0-9
                Graduate
                Schedule
                MW 2:00 - 3:30 PM
                Location
                9-450A
                Can Be Repeated for Credit
                No
                11.409

                The Institutions of Modern Capitalism: States and Markets

                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.

                  Fall
                  2-0-10
                  Graduate
                  Schedule
                  T 2:00 - 4:00PM
                  Location
                  9-451
                  Can Be Repeated for Credit
                  No
                  11.422
                  15.655J, IDS.435J
                  11.122J, IDS.066J

                  Law, Technology, and Public Policy

                  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. 

                  Nicholas Ashford
                  Fall
                  3-0-9
                  Graduate
                  Schedule
                  TR 3:30 - 5:00PM
                  Location
                  E51-057
                  Can Be Repeated for Credit
                  No
                  11.427
                  15.677

                  Labor Markets and Employment Policy

                  Examines how labor markets work — and how they have evolved over time — through trends such as rising income inequality, technological change, globalization, falling worker power, and the fissuring of the workplace. Through reading and engaging with economics research papers, we use theoretical frameworks and rigorous empirical evidence to analyze public policy interventions in the labor market, including unemployment insurance, minimum wage, unions, family leave, anti-discrimination policies, and workforce development.

                  Anna Stansbury
                  Spring
                  3-0-9
                  Graduate
                  Schedule
                  R 1:00 - 4:00 PM
                  Location
                  E62-346
                  Can Be Repeated for Credit
                  No
                  11.429

                  Real Estate Trend, Volatility, Forecasting

                  Applies the latest economic thinking and research to the task of analyzing aggregate real estate market time series, assessing risk, and developing forecasts. Presents the premise that because of capital durability and construction lags, real estate markets exhibit some degree of mean reversion and as such are at least partially predictable. Examines the extent and causes of market volatility across different markets and types of property. Long-term aggregate trends impacting the real estate sector, from demographics to technology, discussed.

                  W. Wheaton
                  Spring
                  3-0-3
                  Graduate
                  Schedule
                  TR 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
                  Location
                  9-354
                  Prerequisites
                  11.431
                  Can Be Repeated for Credit
                  No
                  11.430

                  Leadership in Real Estate

                  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.

                  Gloria Schuck
                  Fall
                  3-0-3
                  Graduate
                  Schedule
                  M 9:00AM - 12:00PM
                  H1
                  Location
                  9-357
                  Can Be Repeated for Credit
                  No
                  11.431

                  Real Estate Finance & Investment

                  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.

                    W. Torous
                    Fall
                    4-0-8
                    Graduate
                    Schedule
                    MW 1:00 - 2:30PM (Lecture)
                    M 4:00 - 6:00PM (Recitation)
                    Location
                    9-354
                    Can Be Repeated for Credit
                    No
                    11.433J

                    Real Estate Economics

                    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.

                      Fall
                      4-0-8
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      TR 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM (Lecture)
                      W 5:00 - 6:30PM (Recitation)
                      Location
                      9-354
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.435

                      Mixed-Income Housing Development

                      Provides an overview of affordable and mixed-income housing development for students who wish to understand the fundamental issues and requirements of urban scale housing development, and the process of planning, financing and developing such housing. Students gain practical experience assembling a mixed-income housing development proposal.

                      L. Reid
                      W. Monson
                      Spring
                      3-0-3
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      M 6:30 - 9:30 PM
                      Location
                      9-451
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.437
                      11.137

                      Financing Economic Development and Housing

                      Studies financing tools and program models to support and promote local economic development and housing. Overview of public and private capital markets and financing sources helps illustrate market imperfections that constrain economic and housing development and increase race and class disparaties. Explores federal housing and economic development programs as well as state and local public finance tools. Covers policies and program models. Investigates public finance practice to better understand how these finance programs affect other municipal operations. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 25. 

                      Spring
                      4-0-8
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      T Th 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
                      Location
                      9-451
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.442
                      11.142

                      Geography of the Global Economy

                      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.

                      Fall
                      3-0-9
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      M 2:00 - 5:00PM
                      Location
                      9-450A
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.449
                      11.149

                      Decarbonizing Urban Mobility

                      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. 

                      Spring
                      3-3-6
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      W 2:00 - 5:00 PM
                      Location
                      9-451
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.449
                      11.149

                      Decarbonizing Urban Mobility

                      Focuses on measuring and reducing emissions from passenger transportation. After examining travel, energy, and climate conditions, students review existing approaches to transport decarbonization. Evaluates new mobility technologies through their potential to contribute to (or delay) a zero emission mobility system. Students consider the policy tools required to achieve approaches to achieve change. Frames past and future emission reductions using an approach based on the Kata Identity, decomposing past (and potential future) emissions into their component pieces. 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. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

                      Andrew Salzberg
                      3-3-6
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      M 2:00 - 5:00PM
                      Location
                      9-451
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.450

                      Real Estate Development Building Systems

                      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. 

                      Y. Tipsis
                      Fall
                      2-0-1
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      R 3:00 - 5:00PM
                      H1
                      Location
                      9-354
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.452
                      11.S195

                      Planning against Evictions and Displacement

                      Combines state-of-the-art research on evictions and displacement globally (in the context of the global crisis of evictions, land grabbing, and gentrification) with the study of policy and practical responses to displacement, assisted by selected case studies. First half covers explanations about the mechanisms and drivers of displacement, while the second half introduces and evaluates policy and legal responses developed by many actors. Analyzes the use of UN and national standards on displacement as well as the use of tools such as the Eviction Impact Assessment Tool. Limited to 15 graduate students.

                      Spring
                      3-0-9
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      W 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
                      Location
                      9-450A
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.458
                      11.138

                      Crowd Sourced City: Civic Tech Prototyping

                      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.

                      Fall
                      3-0-9
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      MW 2:00 - 3:30 PM
                      Location
                      10-485
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.466J
                      1.813J, 15.657J, IDS.437J

                      Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development

                      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.

                      Nicholas Ashford
                      Fall
                      3-0-9
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      W 4:00 - 6:30PM
                      Location
                      E51-376
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.472
                      11.025/EC.701/EC.781

                      D-Lab: Development

                      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. 

                      Libby Hsu
                      Fall
                      3-2-7
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      MW 3:30 - 5:00PM (lecture)
                      F 3:30 - 5:00PM (lab)
                      Location
                      N51-310
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.474
                      EC.715

                      D-Lab: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

                      Focuses on disseminating Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) innovations in low-income countries and underserved communities worldwide. Structured around project-based learning, lectures, discussions, and student-led tutorials. Emphasizes core WASH principles, appropriate and sustainable technologies at household and community scales, urban challenges worldwide, culture-specific solutions, lessons from start-ups, collaborative partnerships, and social marketing. Mentored term project entails finding and implementing a viable solution focused on education/training; a technology, policy or plan; a marketing approach; and/or behavior change. Guest lecturers present case studies, emphasizing those developed and disseminated by MIT faculty, practitioners, students, and alumni. Field trips scheduled during class time, with optional field trips on weekends. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20.

                      S. E. Murcott
                      S. L. Hsu
                      Spring
                      3-0-9
                      Graduate
                      Schedule
                      T 12:00 - 3:00 PM
                      Location
                      N51-310
                      Can Be Repeated for Credit
                      No
                      11.477
                      1.268
                      11.165

                      Urban Energy Systems and Policy

                      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.

                        Fall
                        3-0-9
                        Graduate
                        Schedule
                        TR 11:00AM - 12:30PM
                        Location
                        9-451
                        HASS
                        S
                        Can Be Repeated for Credit
                        No
                        11.478
                        11.158

                        Behavioral Science, A.I. and Urban Mobility

                        Integrates behavioral science, artificial intelligence and transportation technology to shape travel behavior, design mobility systems and business, and reform transportation policies. Introduces methods to sense travel behavior with new technology and measurements; nudge behavior through perception and preference shaping; design mobility systems and ventures that integrate autonomous vehicles, shared mobility, and public transit; and regulate travel with behavior-sensitive transport policies. Challenges students to pilot behavioral experiments and design creative mobility systems, business and policies.

                        Fall
                        3-0-9
                        Graduate
                        Schedule
                        MW 9:30 - 11:00 AM
                        Location
                        4-149
                        HASS
                        S
                        Can Be Repeated for Credit
                        No
                        11.485

                        Southern Urbanisms

                        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.

                          Fall
                          2-0-10
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          F 10:00AM - 12:00PM
                          Location
                          9-217
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.497
                          11.164J, 17.391J

                          Human Rights at Home and Abroad

                          Provides a rigorous and critical introduction to the history, foundation, structure, and operation of the human rights movement. Focuses on key ideas, actors, methods and sources, and critically evaluates the field. Addresses current debates in human rights, including the relationship with security, democracy, development and globalization, urbanization, equality (in housing and other economic and social rights; women's rights; ethnic, religious and racial discrimination; and policing/conflict), post-conflict rebuilding and transitional justice, and technology in human rights activism. No prior coursework needed, but work experience, or community service that demonstrates familiarity with global affairs or engagement with ethics and social justice issues, preferred. Students taking graduate version are expected to write a research paper.

                          Fall
                          2-0-10
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          W 3:00 - 5:00PM
                          Location
                          9-450
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.499

                          Master of Science in Real Estate Development Thesis Preparation

                          Designed to give students the tools and information needed to successfully complete a master's level thesis. Seminar topics include, but are not limited to: research data sets, different types and styles of theses, the writing and editing process, library services, and the use of humans as experimental subjects in research. CRE faculty share their areas of interest to assist in choosing an advisor. Seminar assignments guide students toward developing a thesis topic and realistic work plan to adequately achieve their research and writing goals. Objective is for each student to have sufficient knowledge to author a fully developed thesis topic and formal proposal by the end of the term. Limited to MS in Real Estate Development candidates.

                          R. K. Cameron
                          Spring
                          2-0-1
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          T 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
                          Location
                          9-354
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.520
                          11.188

                          Workshop on Geographic Information Systems

                          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. Enrollment limited; preference to MCP students.

                          Faculty:
                          Fall: Eric Huntley, Cong Cong
                          Spring: Catherine D'Ignazio, Eric Huntley

                          Fall
                          Spring
                          2-2-2
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          MW 2:30 - 4:00 PM
                          Lab: MTR 4:30 - 6:30 PM
                          Location
                          9-354
                          Lab: 9-554
                          Prerequisites
                          11.205 or permission of instructor
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.523

                          Fundamentals of Spatial Database Management

                          Develops technical skills necessary to design, build, and interact with spatial databases using the Structured Query Language (SQL) and its spatial extensions. Provides instruction in writing highly contextual metadata (data biographies). Prepares students to perform database maintenance, modeling, and digitizing tasks, and to critically evaluate and document data sources. Databases are implemented in PostgreSQL and PostGIS; students interface with these using QGIS.

                          Fall
                          2-2-2
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          TR 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
                          H1
                          Location
                          10-401
                          Prerequisites
                          11.205 or permission of instructor
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.524

                          Advanced Geographic Information System Project

                          Provides instruction in statistical approaches for analyzing interrelation, clustering, and interdependence, which are often key to understanding urban environments. Covers local and global spatial autocorrelation, interpolation, and kernel density methods; cluster detection; and spatial regression models. Develops technical skills necessary to ask spatial questions using inferential statistics implemented in the R statistical computing language. Prior coursework or experience in geographic information systems (GIS) at the introductory level required; prior coursework or experience in R is preferred.

                          Fall
                          arranged
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          TR 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
                          H2
                          Location
                          10-401
                          Prerequisites
                          11.205 and 11.220 or permission of instructor
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.526
                          1.251

                          Comparative Land Use and Transportation Planning

                          Focuses on the interaction between land use and transportation at multiple scales, from metropolitan regions to the curbside. It covers examples from different countries and highlights how land use and transportation influence the social organization of cities, assigning privileges and segregating or negating access to the city to certain groups.

                          Spring
                          3-0-9
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          M 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
                          Location
                          9-255
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.529J
                          15.379J
                          11.029[J], 15.3791[J]

                          Mobility Ventures: Driving Innovation in Transportation Systems

                          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.

                          John Moavenzadeh
                          Jenny Larios Berlin
                          Fall
                          3-3-6
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          MW 11:30AM - 1:00PM
                          Location
                          E25-117
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.540

                          Urban Transportation Planning and Policy

                          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.

                          Fall
                          3-0-9
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          F 2:00 - 5:00PM
                          Location
                          9-451
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.544
                          1.200
                          IDS.675
                          1.041, IDS.075

                          Transportation: Foundations and Methods

                          Covers core analytical and numerical methods for modeling, planning, operations, and control of transportation systems. Traffic flow theory, vehicle dynamics and behavior, numerical integration and simulation, graphical analysis. Properties of delays, queueing theory. Resource allocation, optimization models, linear and integer programming. Autonomy in transport, Markov Decision Processes, reinforcement learning, deep learning. Applications drawn broadly from land, air, and sea transport; private and public sector; transport of passengers and goods; futuristic, modern, and historical. Hands-on computational labs. Linear algebra background is encouraged but not required. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

                           

                          C. Wu
                          Spring
                          3-1-8
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          WF 2:30 - 4:00 PM
                          Location
                          1-135
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.547
                          SCM.287

                          Global Aging & the Built Environment

                          Combines classroom lectures/discussion, readings, site visits, and field study to provide students with experience in various research techniques including stakeholder analysis, interviewing, photography and image analysis, focus groups, etc. Students examine the impacts of global demographic transition, when there are more older than younger people in a population, and explore emerging challenges in the built environment (e.g., age-friendly community planning, public transportation access, acceptance of driverless cars, social wellbeing and connectivity, housing and community design, design and use of public and private spaces, and the public health implications of climate change and aging).

                          Spring
                          3-0-9
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          F 2:00 - 5:00 PM
                          Location
                          9-255
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.592
                          11.092

                          Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic

                          Presents methods for resolving facility siting disputes, particularly those involving renewable energy. After completing four modules and a competency exam for MITx certification, students work in teams to help client communities in various cities around the United States. Through direct interactions with the proponents and opponents of facilities subject to local opposition, students complete a stakeholder assessment and offer joint fact-finding and collaborative problem-solving assistance. The political, legal, financial, and regulatory aspects of facility siting, particularly for renewable energy, are reviewed along with key infrastructure planning principles. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

                          Spring
                          2-4-6
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          F 3:00 - 5:00 PM
                          Location
                          9-450A
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.592
                          11.092

                          Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic

                          Presents methods for resolving facility siting disputes, particularly those involving renewable energy. After completing four modules and a competency exam for MITx certification, students work in teams to help client communities in various cities around the United States. Through direct interactions with the proponents and opponents of facilities subject to local opposition, students complete a stakeholder assessment and offer joint fact-finding and collaborative problem-solving assistance. The political, legal, financial, and regulatory aspects of facility siting, particularly for renewable energy, are reviewed along with key infrastructure planning principles. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

                          Fall
                          2-4-6
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          F 3:00 - 5:00 PM
                          Location
                          9-450A
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.601

                          Theory and Practice of Environmental Planning

                          Cancelled

                          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.

                          Fall
                          3-0-9
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          TR 3:00 - 4:30PM
                          Location
                          9-451
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.630
                          1.811
                          15.663
                          IDS.540
                          1.801, 11.021, 17.393, IDS.060

                          Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics: Pollution Prevention and Control

                          Analyzes federal and state regulation of air and water pollution, hazardous waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and production/use of toxic chemicals. Analyzes pollution/climate change as economic problems and failure of markets. Explores the role of science and economics in legal decisions. Emphasizes use of legal mechanisms and alternative approaches (i.e., economic incentives, voluntary approaches) to control pollution and encourage chemical accident and pollution prevention. Focuses on major federal legislation, underlying administrative system, and common law in analyzing environmental policy, economic consequences, and role of the courts. Discusses classical pollutants and toxic industrial chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions, community right-to-know, and environmental justice. Develops basic legal skills: how to read/understand cases, regulations, and statutes. Students taking graduate version explore the subject in greater depth.

                          Nicholas Ashford
                          C. Caldart
                          Spring
                          3-0-9
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          TR 3:30 - 5:00 PM
                          Location
                          E51-057
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.651
                          15.679

                          USA Lab: Bridging the American Divides

                          Practical exploration of community revitalization in America's small towns and rural regions. Focuses on work, community, and culture. Consists of rigorous classroom discussions, research, and team projects with community development organizations. Site visit over SIP week and spring break required for project fieldwork.

                           

                          Barbara Dyer
                          Leigh Hafrey
                          Thomas Kochan
                          Spring
                          3-1-5
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          W 2:30 - 5:30 PM
                          Location
                          E62-350
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.701

                          International Development Planning: Foundations

                          Offers a survey of the histories and theories of international development, and the main debates about the role of key actors and institutions in development. Includes a focus on the impact of colonialism, the main theoretical approaches that have influenced the study and practice of development, as well as the role of actors such as States, markets and civil society in development. Focuses on the interactions between interventions and institutions at different scales, from local, national and global/transnational. Offers an opportunity to develop a focus on selected current topics in development planning, such as migration, displacement, participatory planning, urban-rural linkages, corruption, legal institutions and post-conflict development.

                          Fall
                          3-0-9
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          TR 2:30 - 4:00PM
                          Location
                          9-255
                          Prerequisites
                          Restricted to first-year MCP and SPURS students
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.800

                          Doctoral Research Seminar: Reading, Writing & Research

                          Open only to: 

                          1st Year DUSP PhD students

                          Required subject intended solely for 1st-year DUSP PhD students. Develops capacity of doctoral students to become independent scholars by helping them to prepare their first-year papers and plan for their dissertation work. Focuses on the process by which theory, research questions, literature reviews, and new data are synthesized into new and original contributions to the literature. Seminar is conducted with intensive discussions, draft writing, peer review, revisions, and editing. Guest speakers from faculty and advanced students discuss strategies and potential pitfalls with doctoral-level research.

                          Spring
                          3-0-6
                          Graduate
                          Schedule
                          T 9:00 - 12:00 PM
                          Location
                          9-450
                          Prerequisites
                          11.233 AND Coreq: 11.801
                          Can Be Repeated for Credit
                          No
                          11.912

                          Advanced Urbanism Colloquium

                          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. 

                            Fall
                            1-1-1
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            M 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
                            Location
                            E14-140L
                            Prerequisites
                            Preference to doctoral students in the Advanced Urbanism concentration
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.912
                            4.275

                            Advanced Urbanism Colloquium

                            Introduces critical theories and contemporary practices in the field of urbanism that challenge its paradigms and advance its future. Includes theoretical linkages between ideas about the cultures of urbanization, social and political processes of development, environmental tradeoffs of city making, and the potential of design disciplines to intervene to change the future of built forms. Events and lecture series co-organized by faculty and doctoral students further engage and inform research. Preference to doctoral students in the Advanced Urbanism concentration.

                             

                            Spring
                            1-1-1
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            M 5:30 - 6:30 PM
                            Location
                            E14-140L
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.919

                            PhD Workshop

                            This one-credit workshop is for all doctoral students in residence.  The workshop features doctoral student progress on dissertation formulation and findings across all years, panels of particular interest to doctoral students as identified by their representatives on the PhD Committee, and an intellectual space for the sharing of ideas and initiatives within the doctoral community and across the department, including faculty. 

                            Instructors: 
                            Gabriella Carolini in fall
                            Jinhua Zhao in spring

                            Fall
                            Spring
                            0-1-0
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            T 12:30 - 2:00 PM (fall)
                            T 12:30 - 1:30 PM (spring)
                            Location
                            9-451 (fall)
                            9-450 (spring)
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            Yes
                            11.920

                            Planning in Practice

                            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.

                            Fall
                            IAP
                            Spring
                            Arranged
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            Arranged
                            Location
                            Arranged
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            Yes
                            11.930

                            Advanced Seminar on Planning Theory

                            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.

                            Spring
                            2-0-10
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            T 2:00 - 5:00PM
                            Location
                            9-450A
                            Prerequisites
                            Preference given to first year PhD students but will be open to continuing PhD Students and second year Master’s students
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.C35
                            6.C35
                            11.C85 / 6.C85

                            Interactive Data Visualization and Society

                            Covers the design, ethical, and technical skills for creating effective visualizations. Short assignments build familiarity with the data analysis and visualization design process. Weekly lab sessions present coding and technical skills. A final project provides experience working with real-world big data, provided by external partners, in order to expose and communicate insights about societal issues. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

                            A. Satyanarayan
                            Spring
                            3-1-8
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            M W 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
                            Lab: Th 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
                            Location
                            45-230
                            Lab: 1-190
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.C85
                            6.C85
                            11.C35 / 6.C35

                            Interactive Data Visualization and Society

                            Covers the design, ethical, and technical skills for creating effective visualizations. Short assignments build familiarity with the data analysis and visualization design process. Weekly lab sessions present coding and technical skills. A final project provides experience working with real-world big data, provided by external partners, in order to expose and communicate insights about societal issues. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

                            A. Satyanarayan
                            Spring
                            3-1-8
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            M W 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
                            Th 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
                            Location
                            45-230
                            Lab: 1-190
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S188

                            Technology and Society: Explore Computational Models for Public Decision-Making

                            Formulates and explores urban applications of computer science skills. Connects optimization algorithms to real-world contexts and fun cases involving such topics as traffic congestion management, natural disaster preparedness, and the location of public services. Engages in the critical awareness of "who benefits, who is harmed, and who decides" when making social choices.  The exercises build on 6.100B psets and completion of 6.100B (or equivalent programming class) is recommended. 

                            The workshop contains 3 sessions, each will consist of a case study that presents real-world challenges and public policy debates, and a hands-on lab using Jupiter notebooks to examine the sensitivity of solutions to problem framing and choices of the objective function.

                            IAP
                            1-1-1
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            T 1/9, R 1/11, and R 1/18. Time: 10am-12pm
                            Location
                            9-255
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S189
                            11.S953

                            Democracy in India: Reading Seminar

                            Considers challenges to democratic governance in contemporary India. Practices critical reading, thinking and communication skills. Builds community with those concerned about democracy in India and elsewhere at a time of multiple challenges. 

                            Spring
                            2-0-10
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            R 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-255
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S195
                            11.452

                            Planning against Evictions and Displacement

                            Combines state-of-the-art research on evictions and displacement globally (in the context of the global crisis of evictions, land grabbing, and gentrification) with the study of policy and practical responses to displacement, assisted by selected case studies. First half covers explanations about the mechanisms and drivers of displacement, while the second half introduces and evaluates policy and legal responses developed by many actors. Analyzes the use of UN and national standards on displacement as well as the use of tools such as the Eviction Impact Assessment Tool.

                            Spring
                            3-0-9
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            W 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-217
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S938

                            Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I

                            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.

                            Spring
                            2-2-2
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            TR 11:00 - 12:30 PM, H3
                            T 3:30 - 4:30 PM (R1)
                            T 4:30 - 5:30 PM (R2)
                            W 3:00 - 4:00 PM (R3)
                            W 4:00 - 5:00 PM (R4)
                            R 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM (R5)
                            Location
                            4-163
                            4-163
                            4-163
                            4-163
                            4-163
                            Prerequisites
                            Restricted to first-year MCP students or Permission of instructor
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S939

                            The Beauty and Frustrations of Transportation

                            The city is shaped by movement--on foot and wheels, in cars and ships and planes--and forces us to reshape our relationship to it and each other based on how we interact, or fail to, via transport. The movement facilitated by transportation exhilarates us, frustrates us, and plunges us into the excitement and malaise of city life at the pace that absorbs or removes us from its dynamics. The physical experience of the city organized by transportation creates mental maps that influence our psychology of the city, as our imagination and emotions respond to how we are included or excluded, whether we are allowed to walk or pulled over for daring to drive, whether we have a bird's-eye view or experience the texture up close. This class aims to examine the kaleidoscope of city life, especially its inequalities and inequities, by looking at how we are moved--physically and emotionally--or turned off by transportation. It does so through a mix of intensive reading, field explorations, and writing and design projects (no previous experience necessary) that will delve into asking who has the right to the city and how can transportation be approached in a fresh way to ask basic questions about freedom and equity.

                            Spring
                            2-0-10
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            W 6:00 - 8:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-450A
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S940

                            The Resilient Cities and Towns Of Japan: Engaging community to plan for the future of Japanese shrinking towns in high disaster-risk areas

                            The practicum, “THE RESILIENT CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN,” aims to examine the complex challenges of urban and rural shrinkage in Japan, including depopulation, aging populations, and disaster risks. Led by Professor of Urban Design and Public Policy Brent D. Ryan and in collaboration with Professor Takefumi Kurose, Professor Kenichi Yabuki, and Kyushu University, the practicum is open to MCP students, with priority given to MCP students who need practicum credit for graduation and to MCP students with relevant skill sets and interests. The practicum will engage with local communities at different scales in Kyushu to understand the impact of top-down measures from the government and grassroots measures being taken for communities. 

                            The practicum is client-based research and interacts with local communities and stakeholders. Students will engage with local communities and regional stakeholders involved in drafting planning policies for the Location Optimization Plan and mobility technology introductions at the sites. The course will have an interdisciplinary teaching team, organizing site visits, meetings with stakeholders, lectures, and workshops in several locations in Kyushu. Students will learn about built environment planning strategies, methods to map and visualize small towns, and normative frameworks to guide development trajectories. 

                            The project aims to provide insights into the effectiveness and issues of various policies and initiatives implemented by local governments in Japan to address the challenges faced by shrinking cities, promoting social and physical resilience. Students will produce comprehensive reports documenting their observation and analysis of shrinking cities in Japan, including planning proposals that provide guidance on how to promote social and physical resilience in built environments. Students will produce presentations and reports that share their findings with the wider academic community, facilitate educational exchanges between students and practitioners in Japan and other countries, and organize a presentation to academic partners and community members in a shrinking city of Japan. 

                            Overall, the practicum will enable students to gain a deeper understanding of the complex challenges faced by shrinking cities in Japan and the innovative solutions being developed to address them. Additionally, the project can provide guidance on best practices in urban planning and development, promoting social and physical resilience, and bridging the gaps between top-down and bottom-up approaches to urban planning and development.

                            Spring
                            : 3-0-9
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            T 5:00 - 8:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-415
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S941

                            Making Good on Baltimore as a Just City: Building Solutions For A Vacant Housing Crisis Spring 2023

                            Making Good on Baltimore as a Just City: Building Solutions For A Vacant Housing Crisis will be a field study and community development course.  The client for this practicum is Fight Blight Baltimore.  This practicum seeks to rethink the stakeholder engagement concept in vacant housing underutilized infrastructure in Baltimore using Citizen Engineers to explore the resident perspective in the city’s neighborhood stabilization initiatives. As an example of hyper-segregated urbanism, Baltimore also provides an opportunity to rethink how physical spaces in neighborhoods can be reimagined to be just.

                            Spring
                            2-0-9
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            T 5:30 - 8:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-451
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S942

                            Urban Design Studio Module 1

                            City Design Workshop Module 1 for Joint Urban Design Studio, weeks 1- 7. 
                            The joint urban design studio will be offered as 2 modules beginning in spring 2023. Module 1 is the city design workshop part (7 weeks + spring break trip); Module 2 is the continuation of the design studio (additional 7 weeks = 14 total weeks). The new modular system, especially module 1, is geared towards DUSP students who want to go through the process of city scale research and “workshopping” schematic design proposal ideas, but do not necessarily want to produce their own detailed design and/or architectural scale projects in the end. This will allow planning students to work within the real world capacity of the planner, urban designer, or landscape urbanist through ‘informing’ the longer studio’s design project goals and parameters. Module 1 students will work in small interdisciplinary groups (ideally of 3) with students enrolled for the full semester studio. 

                            Module 1 (sign up only for 11.S942) City Design Workshop, is 12 credits (0-6-6) and is 7 weeks long including voluntary attendance on the class studio trip (location TBD, costs covered). Module 1 will focus on ‘reading’ the city’s existing conditions and proposing a landscape infrastructural intervention where environmental performance, open space, and programming equity are prioritized. The recommendations from students in Module 1 may form the basis for design studio projects that students will conduct in Module 2. While students who only sign up for Module 1 will technically be done with the course at the end of the 7-week module, they are expected to participate in one class review during Module 2 for the students who sign up for both modules (the whole joint urban design studio). 

                            Module 2 is for students who wish to continue into the design studio portion of the class for 21 total credits (0-12-9) or the whole semester. Students cannot sign up for module 2 individually. You must either sign up for module 1, or module 1+2 (or the entire 21 credit studio).

                            Rafi Segal
                            Fall
                            0-3-9
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            TR 1:00 - 6:00 PM
                            H1
                            Location
                            10-485
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S943

                            Bills and Billions: Policymaking and Planning in an New Era of Transformation in US Cities and States

                            This course will engage with the theory and practice of planning and public policy making, examining how these two fields intersect and are evolving in the context of current national and global priorities including challenges to the dominant paradigms of neoliberalism and globalization as well as the passage of historic legislation in the U.S. in the past year. Classic literature in these fields will be augmented with readings and discussions around themes relevant to the current context such as race, ethnicity and equity, sustainability, labor, industrial strategy and inclusive growth, innovation and equity and geographic diversity.  The course will bring in speakers across these topics in the form of policymakers and planners from cities and states across the US as well as in the federal government to learn how they are planning and implementing new policies, how this has changed if at all compared to the past, and how they are positioned to potentially access and invest the unprecedented new federal funding that will be coming to cities and states in the next 5-10 years. Students will write multiple policy memos on relevant topics throughout the course as well as be paired with partner cities/states to develop in-depth briefs for policymakers and community leaders on ‘ideas and issues to consider’ when applying for and implementing new federal programs and policies.  

                            Spring
                            3-0-9
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            M 2:00 - 5:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-255
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S950

                            Civil Rights Immersion

                            Run jointly between DUSP and the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, this is an immersive, student-led academic trip across the American southeast, which explores the history of the civil rights movement, as well as its contemporary legacy. The purpose of this course is to bear witness to the civil rights movement by walking in the footsteps of those who put their lives on the line to fight for racial freedom and justice to deepen each student’s understanding of systemic inequality, improve their perspective on effective leadership and entrepreneurship, and develop their ability to craft solutions with a diversity equity and inclusion lenses. Course includes a trip over IAP. Application based.

                            IAP
                            3
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            Arranged
                            Location
                            Off Campus
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S953
                            11.S189

                            Democracy in India: Reading Seminar

                            Considers challenges to democratic governance in contemporary India. Practices critical reading, thinking and communication skills. Builds community with those concerned about democracy in India and elsewhere at a time of multiple challenges. 

                            Spring
                            2-0-10
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            R 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-255
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S957

                            Advanced Doctoral Workshop: Political Economy of the Climate Crisis

                            This course is an advanced doctoral workshop on the political economy of climate change. The workshop aims to provide Ph.D. students working on climate change, across sectors and disciplines, with a foundation in the theoretical and methodological approaches of polit-ical economy to conceptualize and conduct independent research. Substantively, the work-shop takes a critical political economy approach to the climate crisis and examines three in-terrelated dimensions: (1) the political governance challenge of mobilizing climate action, given the need to design new institutional mechanisms to address the global and intergener-ational distributional aspects of climate change; (2) the economic challenge of devising new institutional approaches to equitably finance climate action in ways that go beyond the cur-rently dominant economic rationale; and (3) the cultural challenge – and opportunity – of empowering an adaptive socio-cultural ecology through traditional knowledge and local-level social networks to achieve climate resilience. 

                            Fall
                            Spring
                            2-1-9
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            F 12:00 - 2:00 PM
                            Location
                            9-415
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            Yes
                            11.S964

                            Real Estate Private Equity

                            This course is for students interested in understanding private market real estate transactions. It will cover a range of topics, including the formation of real estate private equity funds, investor profiles, capital raising, partnership and fee structures, return allocation mechanisms, waterfall calculations, taxation, and approaches to solving complex situations encountered by owners of private equity assets and investing in private asset-backed companies. Students will investigate real estate private equity transactions with an emphasis on whether to pursue a specific transaction or not based on its investment risks and merits. They will be expected to form well-reasoned arguments in support of their qualitative and quantitative positions with respect to some interesting transaction situations to be evaluated in this course.

                            Manish Srivastava
                            Spring
                            3
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            H3 Fridays 2:00-4:30 pm (with some sessions extending to 5 pm),
                            2/9/24-3/23/24
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.S969

                            Research and Industry Perspective on Data Science and Real Estate

                            Large data sets and novel computational tools have been bringing new perspectives on research on real estate. In this seminar we will explore how data science methods (including machine learning, computer vision) have been adopted by the real estate industry and by researchers. We will covered topics including how climate change affects real estate, the use of computer vision methods to assess people’s perception of neighborhoods and how it affects property values, and how data science approach can combine data sets from multiple sources and make sense them, informing real estate decisions. Students will have access to data platforms (such as StateBook) throughout the semester while they put together their own presentations for the last class.

                            Calandra Cruickshank
                            Spring
                            6
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            M 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM, H3
                            Location
                            1-132
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.ThG

                            Graduate Thesis

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

                            Fall
                            Arranged
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            TW 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
                            Location
                            9-450A
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            Yes
                            11.THTJ
                            4.ThTJ

                            Thesis Research Design Seminar

                            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.

                            Fall
                            3-0-9
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            TR 9:30 - 11:00 AM
                            Location
                            9-255
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            11.UAR
                            1.UAR
                            3.UAR
                            5.UAR
                            12.UAR
                            15.UAR
                            22.UAR

                            Climate and Sustainability Undergraduate Advanced Research

                            Provides instruction in effective research, experiential projects, internships, and externships, including choosing and refining problems, surveying previous work and publications, industry best practices, design for robustness, technical presentation, authorship and collaboration, and ethics. Supporting content includes background and context pertaining to climate change and sustainability, as well as tools for sustainable design. Focus for project work includes research topics relevant to the MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium (MCSC). Students engage in extensive written and oral communication exercises, in the context of an approved advanced research project. A total of 12 units of credit is awarded for completion of the spring and subsequent fall term offerings. Application required; consult MCSC website for more information.

                            D. Plata
                            E. Olivetti
                            Fall
                            Spring
                            2-0-4
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            Fall: M W 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
                            Spring: TR 4:00 - 5:00 PM
                            Location
                            Fall: 32-144
                            Spring: 31-144
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            21H.S01

                            History of Capitalism

                            This discussion-based seminar offers an introduction to the history of capitalism and a broad overview of debates concerning its impacts on social life, with a particular focus on the modern American experience. The United States occupies a central position in today’s capitalist global system and has played a key role in shaping both the development of capitalism and critical responses to its advance. Drawing on primary historical documents and secondary literature from multiple disciplines, the course examines capitalism’s relationships to race, class, and gender, as well as the impacts of business and government, nature and environment, and finance and technology on economic transformation in the United States and beyond.

                            Please contact ?  Contact Profs. Caley Horan (cdhoran@mit.edu) and  Jason Jackson (jbrj@mit.edu) for details.

                            Caley Horan
                            Spring
                            Undergraduate
                            Schedule
                            W 2:00 - 5:00 PM
                            Location
                            E51-385
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No
                            21H.S03

                            Circular Recovery Strategies of Wartime Ukraine: History and Urban Planning for a Ukrainian City

                            The course introduces students to digital approaches for material flow determination and resilient urban recovery, with particular attention to on-site solutions and local capacity building. Through this study, we will develop solutions for remote damage assessment for cities that have suffered from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine after February 2022. We will use digital tools (image segmentation), GIS analysis, and a historical overview of the local nature, ecology, culture, and architecture to develop ideas for reusing available materials from destroyed, damaged, and abandoned buildings, preserving heritage and architectural code. We will also examine the effects of Soviet and Russian colonial rule on Ukrainian city development, exploring decolonization strategies to address these historical impacts. This practical, hands-on course will use the Sviatohirsk municipality and the context of the broader Donetsk Region as a case study.

                            E. Wood
                            K. Lopatiuk
                            Spring
                            2-0-7
                            Graduate
                            Schedule
                            R 3:00 - 5:00 PM
                            Location
                            56-169
                            Can Be Repeated for Credit
                            No