GSD 5201A: Urban Politics, Planning, and Development
Lecture, Fall 2008

Examines the politics of urban planning, land use, environmental regulation, and economic development. Principal aim is to help students think strategically about the role of governance--and the group conflicts that swirl around it--in shaping the physical, social, and economic character of urban places. Focuses mainly on U.S. experience, but with some attention to international comparisons. Policy topics include land use planning, zoning, infrastructure investment, downtown revitalization; public-private partnerships for economic development; and efforts to move from urban sprawl to "smart growth." Cross-cutting topics include the effects of US federalism and local government fragmentation; the causes and consequences of sprawl and racial-class segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas; business-government relations; and contending theories about the balance of forces in U.S. urban politics. Emphasis placed throughout on the special roles of business and of grass-roots democracy in U.S. urban governance, and on tensions between the values of economic development, citizen participation, and equity.

What Planners Do 
GSD 5505 Lecture, Spring 2006, with Catherine Donaher

What, precisely, do urban planners do? How do their activities add value for the institutions that employ them whether governmental, private for-profit, or private nonprofit and for the public at large? What are the most critical issues with which they grapple in framing their practices, e.g., in choosing for whom to work and how to navigate conflicts between client interests and broader social values? What skills and knowledge bases are most vital to their effectiveness? Finally, how does planning fit into the broader decision making processes of urban governance and economic development? The course will address these questions with the aid of prominent planning practitioners, who will each be questioned in depth during a series of class sessions about their career histories and, more specifically, their roles in one or two recent projects.