Course Syllabus

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SYLLABUS: LDA 205/GEO 233

Time: Tuesday and Thursday 2:10-4:00
Room: Hunt 166
4 Units
Course Number: 48198/45461


DESCRIPTION

This course explores the fields of urban planning and design, with special attention to strategies for urban sustainability. The course has three modules: The nature of urban planning and design; specific tools of local planning, and design and development of a particular site. Within this framework, we’ll survey topics including the planning process, local government structure and institutions, public participation, zoning and subdivision regulations, growth management, urban design, affordable housing strategies, and climate action planning. Throughout we will ask how constructive change can come about to address challenges such as sustainability and social equity.

LDA 205/GEO 233 is appropriate for students in a variety of disciplines, including community development, geography, transportation, energy policy, environmental planning, engineering, design, and sociology. No prior experience in planning or design is needed.

The emphasis in this class is on “active learning,” following the belief that many of us learn best by actively processing material rather than by passively receiving information. In addition to short lectures, the course will include seminar discussions, in-class exercises, quick sketch designs, guest speakers, and field trips to observe urban environments firsthand. We will consider how real-world places have evolved to their current condition, how they function in various ways, and how they might develop in more sustainable ways in the future. Multiple class elements will be integrated into an urban design project done in teams.

The course will consist of approximately two hours of lecture/discussion and two hours of in-class exercise each week. Saturday morning walking tours of West Davis and Sacramento will allow us to observe the built environment more fully. Grades will be based on a research paper, an at-home exam, a neighborhood design proposal done in teams, and participation. The exercises for this class will involve some simple graphic work. If you haven’t done this before, don’t worry.  The emphasis will be on presenting ideas clearly and concisely in graphic format, rather than on artistic quality.

PREREQUISITES

Graduate standing or permission of the instructor

OBJECTIVES

Be able to answer the following:

-- How are local communities planned and governed?

-- How is land regulated in the U.S. and what is the usual land development process?

-- How are sites designed at a variety of scales? What is good design?

-- How can the public and other stakeholders be effectively involved?

-- How can sustainability related goals be achieved within local communities and at other scales?

Skills

-- Efficiently analyze planning documents, designs, and codes

-- Present spatial concepts through simple graphic plans and images

-- Improve first-hand observation and analysis skills

-- Improve ability to develop practical recommendations for local communities

-- Improve written, oral, and graphic presentation skills

GRADING

Review of a Planning Document 10%

At-home Exam 25%

Neighborhood Design Project 25%

Research Paper 25% (you are required to talk to the instructor by Oct. 20 to discuss your topic)

Participation 15%

Each student is required to attend a City Council meeting and write a brief reflection. The Davis City Council normally meets every Tuesday at 6:30; but checkhttp://cityofdavis.org/city-hall/city-council/city-council-meetingsfor confirmation and agendas. City Councils in Sacramento, West Sacramento, Woodland, or other communities are fine too. Submit a one-page reflection on some aspect of the meeting plus a selfie. This will count within the participation grade.

The reading is an essential part of this class. Make sure that you review it before each class so that you can participate in discussion. Read for key concepts, terms, names, and ideas. Develop skills of skimming material to understand themes without necessarily reading every word.

Regular attendance is required and lack of this will result in a lower grade. If you have to miss classes please let the instructor know in advance. Active participation in discussions is strongly encouraged.

We want to link the course material as much as possible to real-world events. Toward this end we will start each class with news items or announcements of local happenings.  Students are encouraged to bring in material they think will be of interest to the rest of the class.

 

COURSE MATERIALS

There is a required text for this course: Weber, Rachel and Randall Crane, eds. 2015.The Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning. New York: Oxford University Press. It should be available in the UC Bookstore or in electronic form from the publisher. Other readings will be available electronically on the course Canvas site under the Files tab.

Certain graphics materials are recommended for the neighborhood design assignment, and may be useful for in-class exercises as well. These can be purchased at the University Bookstore or any art supply store:

  • A planning scale or ruler
  • Black pens of several different line weights, for example Sharpies
  • Different shades of colored marker (such as Berol Prismacolor) to designate types of land use. Typical planning colors for land use plans are:
    • Light yellow: low density residential (single family detached housing)
    • Darker yellow: medium density residential (single family detached housing)
    • Light brown: multifamily housing
    • Red: retail or mixed-use
    • Purple: industry
    • Light Blue: institutional uses
    • Dark Blue: water
    • Light Green: Agriculture or forestry
    • Dark Green: Open space
  • Tracing paper (24” or 36” wide; placing this over aerials or base maps allows you to illustrate design options for a given site)

OFFICE HOURS

Tuesday mornings 9-12, or by appointment. It is best to email or talk to the instructor for a time.

Room 165 Hunt Hall

ACADEMIC HONESTY

In line with University of California at Davis policy, students are expected to maintain high standards of academic honesty. This means that all work that you present as your own must in fact have been done by you, and that all sources must be properly cited. There are a number of possible ways to cite information; please refer to standard reference books such as the Chicago Manual of Style or online citation resources such as https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/guide/citation-styles/. The UCD Code of Academic Conduct is available at http://sja.ucdavis.edu/files/cac.pdf. If you have any questions, please ask the instructor.

CLASS SCHEDULE

PART 1: THE NATURE OF URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN

What are planning and design? Who does them and why? How is the public engaged? How do we plan for sustainability, including social equity and carbon neutrality?

 

Class 1

Thur Sep 26

Course and Student Introduction/Student Learning Objectives

What is planning? What is design? Example: City of Davis

Discussion: How might societies best plan for a sustainable future?

 

Class 2

Tues Oct 1

 Reading:

Brief History of Urban Planning and Design

Exercise: Cognitive mapping & ideal visions

“The City of Dreadful Night” (Peter Hall, on Canvas)

Chapter 30: “Gender, Cities, and Planning” (Brenda Parker)

Chapter 5: “Varieties of Planning Experience: Toward a Globalized Planning Culture?” (John Friedmann)

 

Class 3

Thurs Oct 3

Reading:

 

The Institutions of Local Government/Community Stakeholders

Exercise: Local Government Structure

Chapter 4: “The Evolution of the Institutional Approach in Planning” (Annette M. Kim)

Chapter 32: “The Civics of Urban Planning” (Carmen Sirianni and Jennifer Girourd)

Marshall, Alex. 2000. “The Master Hand: The Role of Government in Building Cities,” in How Cities Work. Austin: University of Texas Press.

 

Class 4

Tues Oct 8

Reading:

 

Planning Processes

Presentation of selected student plan analyses

Chapter 36: “The Politics of Planning” (J. Phillip Thompson)

Chapter 38: “Planning and Citizenship” (Faranak Miraftab)

ASSIGNMENT 1 DUE: TWO-PAGE ANALYSIS OF A PLAN OF YOUR CHOICE. Find a planning or design document from anywhere in the world and critique it in a concise 2-page double-spaced analysis accompanied by 3 simple Powerpoint slides in a single PP file. In your essay, answer these questions: What does the plan try to do? What appears to have been the process used to create it? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Is it likely to succeed? (Upload to Canvas; put your last name first in each file name, e.g. Chu_Plan_Analysis; Chu_Slides)

 

Class 5

Thurs Oct 10

Reading:

 

Public Participation Methods and Issues

Debate: How to Deal with NIMBYism

Chapter 11: “Cultural Diversity” (Karen Umemoto and Vera Zambonelli)

Chapter 34: “Citizen Planners: From Self-Help to Political Transformation” (Victoria A. Beard)

Arnstein, Sherry. 1969. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Planning Association.

Forester, John. 1989. “Designing as Making Sense Together,” in Planning in the Face of Power. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 119-133.

Matthew J. Kiefer. 2008. “The Social Functions of NIMBYism.” Harvard Design Magazine. Spring/Summer.

 

Class 6

Tues Oct 15

Reading:

 

Observing Urban Environments (Walking Tour) Please be on time; we will leave the classroom promptly at 2:10 & return by 4:00

Allan Jacobs. 1985. “Seeing Change,” from Looking at Cities. Cambridge: MIT Press.

 

PART 2: SPECIFIC TOOLS OF LOCAL PLANNING

 

Class 7

Thurs Oct 17

Reading:

Zoning

Discussion/Example (City of Davis code)

Chapter 18: “Codes and Standards” (Eran Ben-Joseph)

“Zoning Ordinances and Development Codes” (William Fulton & Paul Shigley)

 

Class 8

Tues Oct 22

 

Reading:

Form-Based Codes

Exercise: Create Your Own Design Code

Talen, Emily. 2009. “Design by the Rules: The Historical Underpinnings of Form-Based Codes.” Journal of the American Planning Association. 75 (2) pp. 144-160.

Arendt, Randall. 2015. “Simplify That Code!” Planning magazine. June 2015.

Review SmartCode 9.2, available through www.smartcodecentral.com.

 

Class 9

Thur Oct 24

Reading:

 

Subdivision

Guest Speaker: Eric Lee, City of Davis Planner

“The Subdivision Map Act” (Fulton and Shigley)

Keller, Rik. 2018. “Why Is Davis So White?” Davisite. Web resource available at http://www.davisite.org/2018/09/why-is-davis-so-white-a-brief-history-of-housing-discrimination.html.

 

Class 10

***Sat Oct 26

9-12AM

Walking Tour 2 -- Village Homes; West Village. Meet at 9:00 with bikes at the Village Homes Parking Lot, off Portage Bay East in West Davis.

 

Class 11

Tues Oct 29

Reading:

 

Transportation Planning

Discussion/Exercise

Cervero, Robert and Cathleen Sullivan. 2011. “Green TODs: marrying transit-oriented development and green urbanism.” International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology. 18 (3) 210-218.

 

Class 12

Thur Oct 31 

Reading:

 

Housing Policy

Guest Speaker: Dan Woo, Health Program & Policy Specialist, CA Dept of Public Health

Chapter 25: “Housing: Planning and Policy Challenges” (Lisa K. Bates)

Hertz, Daniel. 2015. “American Housing Policy’s Two Basic Ideas Pull Cities in Opposite Directions.” The Atlantic.

Dreyer, Leslie et al., 2017 “Dear YIMBYs: The brutal, unfettered market won’t stop displacement” San Francisco Examiner. July 20.

During, Alan. 2017. “Yes, you can build your way to affordable housing.” Sightline Institute.

Kozhevnikova, Yulia. 2017. “How ‘Collaborative Consumption’ Has Reshaped Real Estate.” Planetizen Feature. July 12.

 

Class 13

Tues Nov 5 

Reading:

 

Economic Development

Guest Speaker: Diane Parro, City of Davis Director of Business and Community Engagement

Chapter 24: “The Evolving Role of Community Economic Development in Planning” (Karen Chapple)

 

Class 14

Thur Nov 7

Reading:

 

Growth Management/New Urbanism
Debate: Are highly compact cities necessary for sustainability?

Chapter 21: “Suburban Sprawl and ‘Smart Growth’” (Yan Song)

Congress for the New Urbanism. 1996. “Charter of the Congress for the New Urbanism.” San Francisco. 2 pp.

Calthorpe, Peter. 1993. Skim selections from The Next American Metropolis. In Wheeler, Stephen M. and Timothy Beatley. 2008. The Sustainable Urban Development Reader, Second Edition. London: Routledge. 

 

Class 15

Tues Nov 12

Reading:

 

Environmental/Climate Planning

Guest Speaker: Maren Walker McBride, ecological design consultant

Bedsworth, Louise W. and Ellen Hanak. 2013. Climate policy at the local level: Insights from California. Global Environmental Change. 23, 664-677.

Wheeler, Stephen M. 2009. “Planning for Sustainability.” In Hack, Gary et al., eds. Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice. Washington, D.C.: The International City/County Management Association

AT-HOME EXAM DUE WED NOV 13 11:59 PM TO CANVAS

 

PART 3: HOW DO WE DESIGN AND DEVELOP A PARTICULAR SITE?

 

Class 16

Thur Nov 14

Reading:

 

Context Analysis

Exercise: Identifying Sustainability Options

Selections from LaGro, James A., Jr. 2013. Site Analysis: A Contextual Approach to Sustainable Land Planning and Site Design. Third Edition. Hoboken NJ: Wiley.

 

Class 17

Sat Nov 16

Walking Tour 3 – An Urban Environment

(Meet SE corner of 13th and J in Downtown Sacramento)

 

Class 17

Tue Nov 19

Reading:

Urban Design/Social Issues in Design

Present Site Analysis

Chapter 6: “Beauty” (Elizabeth Macdonald)

Jacobs, Jane. 1961. “The Uses of Sidewalks.” In Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 50-54.

Foran, Clare. 2013. “How to Design a City for Women.” The Atlantic Cities. Web resource at http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/09/how-design-city-women/6739/.

Hester, Randolph T. Jr. 2006. “Sacredness.” In Design for Ecological Democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 117-135.

Skim Carstens, Diane. 1998. “Outdoors Spaces in Housing for the Elderly,” in Marcus, Clare Cooper and Carolyn Francis, eds. People Places: Design Guidelines for Urban Open Space. Second Edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Reid, Grant W. 1987.  Selections from Landscape Graphics. New York: Whitney Library of Design. pp. 10-27, 36-68. (skim for ideas about graphic techniques)

 

Class 18

Thur Nov 21

Reading:

 

LEED Analysis

Work Time

U.S. Green Building Council. LEED-ND v.4 Checklist and Reference Guide (skim)

Watch video: The Nature of Cities (2006): https://vimeo.com/98080426

 

Class 19

Tues Nov 26

Reading:

 

Budget/pencil-out

Work Time/Desk Crits

Miles, Mike E., Lawrence M. Netherton and Adrienne Schmitz. 2015. Part 5: Financing the Project” and “Part 6: Proving the Concept” From Real Estate Development. Fifth Edition. Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute

 

Thurs Nov 28

THANKSGIVING -- NO CLASS

 

Class 20

Tues Dec 3

Pin-up and Critique

Work Time

 

Class 21

Thurs Dec 5

 

Design Presentations (Pin up graphics & proposal text; upload both to Canvas)

Review/Discussion

NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN PROJECT DUE 12/5/19 12:10 PM

FINAL EXAM PERIOD Wed 12/11

6-8 PM

PAPER PRESENTATION PARTY (3-minute presentation of main points from your paper: your topic; what was really interesting about it; and what can we learn from it?)

RESEARCH PAPER DUE 12/11 6 PM ON CANVAS

 

 

 

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due