Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy - Urban Planning and Policy Development Program Courses

Courses are taught by multiple instructors and may not be offered each semester. The syllabi listed below are just one sample. Check the faculty pages for more specific syllabi.

34:970:501. History and Theory of Planning (3)
Popper, Vasquez. Required for M.C.R.P. degree.
Surveys the history of urban planning, its major guiding and critical theories, and their relation to a broad range of contemporary issues faced by planners and policy makers. Provides an intellectual foundation for students pursuing professional careers in urban planning, as well as an introduction to planning history and theory for students pursuing doctorates.

34:970:508. Comprehensive Planning (3)
Heyer & Gruel
Introduction to the principles and practice of physical planning
in the United States. Workshop exercises, analyses, and readings designed to provide a comprehensive and practical understanding of steps in the physical planning and approval process, the elements of physical plans, and the data and analyses needed to prepare and review such plans.

34:970:509. Urban Economy and Spatial Patterns (3)
Amirahmadi, Pucher. Required for M.C.R.P. degree.
Overview of basic economics principles and public finance. Survey of location theory, focusing on central place theory, systems of cities, and industrial location theories. Economic, sociological, and geographic theories of the internal structure of cities examined.

34:970:510,511. Graduate Planning Studio (3,3)
Newman, Nelessen Studios Page
Required for M.C.R.P. degree. Enrollment during last year of course work.
Team projects in planning design; research and program development; field studies and problem analysis in local, regional, state, and national contexts. Development of comprehensive solutions, strategies, and recommendations for inner-city, suburban, and exurban areas and for regions.

34:970:512. History of Planning (3)
Major ideas in city and regional planning. Utopian thought, European models of city planning, urban technology, the city beautiful movement, garden cities, housing reform, zoning, regional planning, theories of urban design, and national planning. Focus on the origin, growth, and impact of these ideas on the evolution of planning and urban development in the context of broader intellectual, social, and technological changes.

34:970:515. Methods of Planning Analysis I (3)
Jagannathan, Brail. Required for M.C.R.P. degree.
Introduction to applied statistics and computing. Includes descriptive and inferential statistics, regression and correlation analysis, and computer-based analytic tools for planning analysis.

34:970:516. Methods of Planning Analysis II (3)
Andrews, Brail, Chatman. Required for M.C.R.P. degree.
Introduction to a set of tools widely used in professional planning practice. Topics include applied demography (descriptive analysis of populations, top-down and bottom-up population projections), regional economics, and use and transportation analysis models.

34:970:517. Survey of Planning Law Principles (3)
Davis, Simmons. Required for M.C.R.P. degree.
Introduction to major legal principles involved in the planning process. Subjects include zoning, subdivision, growth management, redevelopment, takings, nuisance, affordable housing, aesthetics and historic preservation. Key provisions of the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law and selected court decisions are also examined.

34:970:521. Historic Preservation (3)
Listokin
The scope of historic preservation has expanded significantly. An overview of historical evolution of the preservation movement in the United States, examining important public preservation regulations and programs and the economics of historic preservation.

34:970:523. Legal Aspects of Environmental Planning (3)
Davis
Major legal principles involved in protecting the environment, including air, water and other pollution. Subjects include legal theories and procedures of environmental law, constraints on land use, property rights, takings claims and wetlands issues. Key constitutional issues, and statutes that impose environmental strictures on the planning and development of land are analyzed, and selected court decisions are also examined.

34:970:525. Property Theory and Policy (3)
Popper
The problem of private property versus public and common property rights in housing, urban space, and environmental resources treated in an international perspective. Policies and practices that determine patterns of ownership, use, economy, and justice in alternative property regimes critically examined.

4:970:527. Advanced Multivariate Methods (3)
Greenberg
Multivariate statistical methods used to analyze land-use, environmental, public health, and other large data sets.

34:970:528. Housing Economics and Markets (3)
Staff
Demographic shifts and changing housing need/demand parameters, evolution of housing supply patterns and cost trends, and market interrelationships. Historic trendlines and future directions evaluated. Current issues and policies examined.

34:970:529. Principles of Housing (3)
Staff
Housing and development policy as it has evolved historically and as it is being practiced currently on the federal, state, and local levels. Basic economic factors affecting housing, political context, and social outcomes.

34:970:530. Housing Policy in Developing Nations (3)
Study of third-world housing policy and informal, low-income housing throughout the world. Topics include privatization of informal housing markets, best practices, children in cities,
community participation, disaster management, gender, sustainable practices, tenure, and technology. Case studies used to illustrate topics.

34:970:555. Urban Transportation Policy Analysis (3)
Pucher
Overview of major policy issues in urban transportation systems; interdependence of transportation with urban land-use patterns. Problems of the present auto-dominated system examined, and alternative solutions analyzed in the context of the changing political/institutional environment.

34:970:556. Urban Transportation Planning (3)
Brail
Urban transportation planning and programming process, with particular emphasis on the methods used at the metropolitan and local levels to gather and analyze appropriate data for decision making, evaluate alternative plans and programs, and fund and implement selected proposals. Integrated approach to conceptualizing and operationalizing various techniques, encompassing both land-use and transportation modeling and administrative and fiscal structures.

34:970:557. International Transport Policy and Planning (3)
Pucher
A comparative analysis of transportation systems, problems, policies, and travel behavior around the world, including North America; Western Europe; Japan; formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe; and developing countries in Africa, South America, and Asia.

34:970:558. Public Transit Planning and Management (3)
Brail & Larrousse
Overview of public transit planning and management issues, including recent trends, tools, and techniques.

34:970:561. Urban Poverty Theory and Policy (3)
Staff
The problem of persistent urban poverty in the United States, primarily from the period beginning with the War on Poverty in the early 1960s. Examines issues such as how is poverty defined, how has the face of poverty changed, the feminization of poverty, and the shortcomings of strategies to address poverty.

34:970:562. Community Economic Development (3)
Rubin
Examines some of the problems that community economic development practitioners are trying to address in low and moderate-income communities -- such as a lack of financial and social assets (affordable housing, high-quality jobs, access to capital, and supportive social-networks); and the presence of predatory lenders and fringe banking institutions. Reviews the kinds of organizations that make up this field and the public policies that enable and shape their work.

34:970:563. Community Development (3)
Newman
Overview of the history of community development and challenges to the dominant perspective, as well as the range of institutional factors shaping the field. Develops student skills appropriate to work in the field through course assignments.

34:970:571. Industrial Ecology (3)
Andrews
Explores the metaphor of industrial ecology and tests whether it is a framework for implementing sustainable development. Evaluates current research and practice in ndustrial ecology at the macrolevel (materials and energy flows), mesolevel (morphology and structure), organizational level (how firms work), and microlevel (individual motives and behaviors). Examines the implications for environmental planning and policy.

34:970:575. Locational Conflict (3)
Lake
Analysis of the origins, dynamics, and resolution of community-level conflicts over the siting of controversial facilities. Explores public participation and communicative planning as alternatives
to NIMBY conflicts encountered by planners.

34:970:581. Gender and International Development (3)
Turshen
Overview of competing theories of development planning and feminist critiques of current theory and planning practice. Feminist perspectives on the sexual division of labor and women's role
in the global economy. Gender dimensions of demography and diversity in planning; environmental problems (gender and the food, fuel, and water crises); organization of space (gender and the city, housing, transport, and land use); and gender research, training programs, and evaluation projects.

34:970:583. Gender in Policy and Planning (3)
Turshen
Examines the issues in planning and public policy through the lens of gender. Focuses on the ways that gender has shaped these issues from problem definition to policy solution. Critical debates in feminist and gender-based theory and how these have been used to challenge traditional planning, policy, and economics.

34:970:585. Tourism Planning (3)
Holcomb
Analysis of the largest industry by value globally. Rise of mass tourism, marketing tourism destinations. Economic, environmental, social, and political impacts of tourism nationally and internationally.

34:970:590. Graphical Communication for Planners(3)
Wiggins
Introduces tools for image manipulation, presentations, drafting,and web design.

4:970:591. Introduction to GIS for Planning and Public Policy(3)
Wiggins, Brail. Pre- or corequisite: 34:970:515 or 516 or equivalent.
Overview of applied computing in planning with special emphasis on geographic information systems. Introduction to hardware and software, modeling techniques, database management systems, and decision support environments.

34:970:592. Topics in GIS (3)
Wiggins. Pre- or corequisite: 34:970:591.
Selected topics in application of computer technology to planning. Advanced implementations of geographic information systems for planning, emerging software developments, and case studies.

34:970:594. Program Evaluation: Process and Implementation (3)
Jagannathan
Focus on program evaluation as the procedures and techniques used to scientifically document the implications of professional interventions. Study of conceptual, measurement, and analytic tools, including intervention activities and objectives, intervention monitoring, measurement, design of monitoring and social experiments, and impact analysis.

34:970:601. Introduction to Planning and Design (3)
Nelessen
Planning and design process, history of design, basic graphic techniques, environmental analysis, and conceptualization of the 10 basic design principles. Prior design training not necessary.

34:970:602. Zoning for Communities of Place (3)
Nelessen
How to write and illustrate a new zoning code that can be applied to a city or county to replace obsolete Euclidean ordinances.

34:970:604. Land Development Practice (3)
Burchell
Emphasizes private decision making and development, publicly supported development, and the impact of public control on private development.

34:970:608. Human Rights, Health, and Violence (3)
Turshen
The law and discourse of human rights. Covers the basic international instruments of human rights law, the theoretical reframing of women's rights as human rights, the traditional uses of human rights and humanitarian law in war time, the new uses as the "rights community" defines violence more broadly, and the specific applications of human rights to health.

34:970:609. Social Policy in Developing Nations (3)
Turshen
Social policy issues and the priorities of developing countries and their ability to achieve balanced economic and social development. Sectors covered include food, health, housing, energy, and education.

34:970:615,616. Directed Study in Urban Planning (3,3)
Directed study with an individual faculty member with approval of the graduate program director.

34:970:618. Environmental Planning and Management (3)
Andrews
Highlights institutional, technical, procedural, and normative factors that influence environmental planning and policy. Topics include environmental decision making (structuring decisions, physical context, social context), actors (government, scientific community), methods (GIS, risk assessment), process issues (public participation, negotiation), and decision criteria (equity, efficiency). Case studies and in-class exercises put topics into context.

34:970:619. Environmental Economics and Policy (3)
Seneca
Applied economic analysis of environmental problems and solutions.

34:970:622. Urban Redevelopment (3)
Long, Newman
Analysis of the evolution of urban redevelopment activities in the United States, post-World War II. Examines the successes and failures of major urban redevelopment policies and programs including urban renewal; public housing; historic preservation; business improvement districts; enterprise and empowerment zones; targeted incentives for industrial, brownfield, and waterfront sites; and the public provision of cultural and tourism infrastructure.

34:970:624. Planning, Public Policy, and Social Theory (3)
Lake
Contemporary social theory applied to planning and policy; the role of the state in globalization, space, and scale; gender, race, and culture; citizenship, ethics, and social justice.

34:970:627. Housing Impact Analysis (3)
Listokin
Quantitative methods and models related to all aspects of housing analysis; rate of return and discounted cash-flow procedures; mortgage, depreciation, capitalization, and appraisal procedures; fiscal-impact and cost-revenue models; and market analysis.

34:970:630. Discrete Choice Methods (3)
Jagannathan, Lahr
This course begins with a review of linear regression and focuses on categorical dependent variables. Methods will include linear probability, logit, probit, multinomial and conditional logit models.

34:970:633. Population: Tools and Policy (3)
Jagannathan
Designed to provide a broad overview of the field of population studies. Introduces students to methods of demographic analysis and surveys social science perspective on population problems. Major topical areas include mortality, fertility, migration, immigration, population growth, marriage, and household formation behavior.

34:970:636. Internship in Urban Planning (3)
Staff
Internship in governmental, nonprofit, or private organization focusing on substantive urban planning issues. Eight to 10 hours a week plus the writing of an analytical term paper.

34:970:644. International Economic Development (3)
Amirahmadi
Theories, techniques, administration, information systems, and core processes of regional planning, including techniques for regional disaggregation of national plans, regional income and multiplier, input-output table, shift-share analysis, economic base analysis, and project evaluation.

34:970:645. Regional Development (3)
Amirahmadi
Theories of development, underdevelopment, and uneven development in developing countries and regions in relation to the international economic order; the role of multinational corporations and international development agencies; national and regional development strategies and policies and emerging alternative
perspectives.

34:970:646. Global Restructuring (3)
Amirahmadi
Defines the nature and causes of the present global political-economic and territorial restructuring; assesses the impact of globalization on industries, local communities, nations, and international relations. Examines implications for world development, planning, and public policy and evaluates emerging alternatives including the "Third Way."

34:970:650 to 675. Seminars in Urban Planning (BA)
Lectures and special problems on current issues. Content of course varies from year to year on the basis of student and faculty interest. Some recent seminars include Energy Planning and Policy, Public Health and War, Planning Support Systems, and Economic Development in Developing Areas.

34:970:665. Transportation and Land Use (3)
Chatman
Focus on linkages between transportation and land use, grounded in realistic representations of human behavior.

34:970:672. Energy Policy and Planning (3)
Weiner, Felder, Andrews
Examines energy policy and planning topics including energy technologies, tools and theories for analysis, energy markets, regulatory approaches and policymaking processes. Also covers the intersection of energy policy with environmental issues, economic development, and national security.