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.

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.

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

Provides 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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.