Courses

The following directory draws from the official course catalog for the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. New and one-time courses offered since the last publication of the catalog may not be included here. Visit Testudo for a list of current course offerings.

• Urban Studies & Planning

• URSP 100 Challenge of the Cities (3)

  [Undergraduate course: CORE Behavioral and Social Science Course, Area D]
  Contemporary urban patterns, trends and problems. Major urban issues, such as: population change, the economy, land use, housing, neighborhood development, fiscal and unemployment crises, and social, environmental, and political controversies of metropolitan areas. International urbanization patterns and policies.
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• URSP 372 Diversity and the City (3)

  [Undergraduate course: Core Diversity (D) Course]
  Exploration of the different needs of diverse economic, racial/ethnic, and gender groups that live and work in cities, the historical background of differences, the impact of societal structures and group cultures, and how public and private policies do and can affect different groups
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• URSP 600 Research Design and Applications (3)

  Techniques in urban research, policy analysis and planning. Survey of methods and practices associated with data collection and analysis. Computer use expected.
  
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• URSP 601 Research Methods (3)

  Prerequisite: As a prerequisite for URSP 601, students are required to have at least one statistics course within the past five years with a minimum grade of C. Contact the instructor if you have additional questions.Emphasis on multivariate statistics in the analysis of urban problems
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• URSP 604 The Planning Process (3)

  Problem formulation, goal setting, generating and assessing alternatives, implementation. Group and organizational settings in which planning takes place. Working with committees and communities, conducting meetings, making decisions, and making presentations.
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• URSP 605 Planning History and Theory (3)

  Examination of major events and issues in U.S. planning history, exploration of major themes in planning theory, and analysis of the relationship of history and theory.
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• URSP 708 Community Planning Studio (6)

  Prerequisite: At least 18 credits of coursework completed, including URSP 600, 601, 604, and 605. For some projects, additional prerequisites may be required. Approaches and techniques previously learned in class are applied to a real-world planning problem. Teams collect and analyze information, develop plans, publish a report, make presentations.
  
  The studio course simulates the practice of planning in a real-world setting. It provides an opportunity for students to learn through doing, with faculty providing guidance rather than instruction, building on the students' previously-acquired knowledge, skills, and ability. Additional learning-which may include invited speakers, discussions, and library research-may be needed to further the project, but the format is more like on-thejob training than a lecture, seminar or laboratory class.
  
  Because each studio deals with dynamics outside the classroom, and because it involves group interaction, each is a unique experience. Even with the most careful preparation, unanticipated things may happen in the course of a project; learning to deal with them is part of the studio experience.
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• URSP 709 Internship (3)

  Prerequisite: At least 18 credits of coursework completed, including URSP 600, 601, 604, and 605. Professional experience as an intern in a planning office.
  

• URSP 488M Exploring the Built Environment through Gaming (3)

  This course will examine the relationship between the built and natural environments. We will explore how the following aspects of our environment relate and impact one another: buildings, air and water quality, transportation systems, neighborhood structure, housing choices, urban design, socioeconomic integration and segregation. This interdisciplinary course introduces students to the various elements of community planning and urban development through the use of such highly interactive learning experiences as simulation games, board games, computer games, card games and role playing.
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• URSP 603 Land Use Planning: Concepts and Techniques (3)

  Basic techniques for regulating the use and appearance of land. Legal framework, social implications, planning approaches, communicating land use information.
  
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• URSP 607 Human Behavior and the Physical Environment (3)

  Interactions between people and physical settings. Theories and research about ways the man-made environment changes and is changed by the behavior of individuals and groups.
  

• URSP 612 Geographic Information Systems for Urban Planning (3)

  This course provides an introduction to Geographic Information System (GIS) and its application in urban planning. The lecture component of the course will help students understand GIS fundamentals, and show them examples of application. The laboratory component of the course will offer students opportunities to learn GIS software and to develop technical skills for mapping and conducting spatial analysis. In addition to attending lectures and completing lab exercises, students will undertake a class project that applies GIS to some urban planning context. By the end of the semester, students will be expected to have gained working.
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• URSP 620 Introduction to U.S. Housing Policy and Planning (3)

  Critical appraisal of U.S. housing policy in terms of production and allocation of housing services. An historical overview of federal, state, and local policy, followed by analysis of the organizational infrastructure around which housing is produce
  

• URSP 630 Introduction to Transportation Planning (3)

  This course will lead to a greater awareness of the interrelationships between land use and transportation. It will promote an analytic approach to using tools of analysis and techniques of planning. It will introduce ways to communicate between communities, builders, and governments.
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• URSP 631 Transportation and Land Use (3)

  Coordination of land use and transportation is one of today's hot topics in urban planning, mainly because other Asolutions@ to traffic congestion have proven so ineffective. If we cannot pave our way out of congestion, we must reduce the need for so much vehicular travel, or so the theory goes. This is where coordinated land use and transportation planning comes in. This course is based on a training course developed for the National Transit Institute and delivered to land use and transportation professionals in 30 metropolitan areas across the U.S. The greater time available for this course should allow us to do a better job than in the NTI training course.
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• URSP 632 The Urban Neighborhood (3)

  Urban neighborhoods as physical, socio-political and geographic entities. Residents' perceptions, urban/suburban differences, neighboring behavior, organization, planning concept.
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• + URSP 640 Growth Management and Environmental Planning (3)

  The course deals with policies and strategies by which governments attempt to control the amount, location, pace, pattern and quality of development within their jurisdictions. This is a foundational course frequently taught by one of the experts on faculty at the Center for Smart Growth.  Environmental requirements relative to brown fields, asbestos and lead paint are anticipated to be addressed in this course as well.  One or more other planning courses offered at the School may be substituted for this core course with approval of the director.

  
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• URSP 650 Urban Political Economy (3)

  Explores the interrelationship of the political and economic systems in urban areas. Examines similarities and differences in political and economic processes. Emphasis given to appropriate role of the state in community and economic development.
  

• URSP 660 Function and Structure of Metropolitan Areas (3)

  Prerequisite: URSP 606 or equivalent. Structural shifts m the national economy and their impact on urban areas. Theory and empirical evidence on the inter- and intra-metropolitan location and movement of population and employment.
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• URSP 661 City and Regional Economic Development Planning (3)

  Also HISP 620.  Prerequisite: URSP 606 or equivalent. Causes of urban and regional growth and decline. Focus on application of economic theory and urban planning techniques. Analysis of local economic development planning potential. Strategies for urban and regional revitalization.
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• URSP 662 Urban and Regional Planning in Developing Countries (3)

  Familiarizes participants with urban ways-of-life, challenges, and social and other influences and changes throughout the world, with a special emphasis upon less industrialized areas. Cross-cultural planning communication and organization, equity, and ethic.
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• URSP 664 Real Estate Development for Planners (3)

  The principal purpose of this course is to introduce planning, architecture and public policy students to the real estate development process primarily from the point of view of the private entrepreneurial developer. This course could well be sub-titled; How developers think; We will examine how a private developer gets into the development business, the stages of a development, and the tasks that must be accomplished at each stage, including particularly the financial requirements. We will review the basic financial concepts underlying the development process. We will learn to use financial spread-sheets. We will learn the language of development and developers; in one sense, this is a course teaching the; foreign; language of real estate development. We will plan and negotiate several development projects. We discuss some of the public policies affecting real estate development. Although we concentrate on the development of both market rate and government-assisted multifamily housing, we touch on other varieties of real estate development, including office buildings, single-family tract development, and historic preservation.
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• URSP 670 Urban Public Policy Analysis (3)

  Processes and structures of policy-making and implementation in urban settings. Systematic study of policy results through use of various quantitative indicators of the distribution and delivery of public goods.
  

• URSP 672 Equity and Planning (3)

  Analysis of who benefits and who loses in plans for housing, education, manpower, transportation, land use. Discriminatory practices, developing equitable programs, plans, and policies. Particular emphasis on issues of race, gender, the handicapped, and age discrimination.
  

• URSP 673 Community Social Planning (3)

  Analysis of social influences on community well-being. Research, organizing, and planning methods for designing programs and policies for community development.
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• URSP 681 Urban Planning Law (3)

  Survey of the urban legal environment. Issues of planning, zoning, eminent domain, land use controls, housing codes, historic preservation, and related tax provisions.
  

• URSP 688 Special Topics in Urban Studies and Planning (3)

  Repeatable to a maximum of six credits if the topics are significantly different. Examination of selected current aspects of the rapidly evolving field of urban affairs. (1-3 Credits)
  

• URSP 688A The Politics of Smart Growth Syllabus (3)

  This course will provide students with an understanding of how land use policy works within the real world of politics. It will concentrate on the nexus between the multi-disciplinary policy decisions on substantive land use issues and the political and cultural dynamics that affect those decisions. As a specific example, it will focus on the origin, enactment, implementation and political history of Maryland ’s Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation initiative. It will look at how the Governor of Maryland and his top staff sought to enact and implement a new program to manage growth and curtail sprawl development. It will highlight the internal and external debate on issues of community design, natural resource and agricultural land preservation, the relationship of transportation decision-making to land use, and the development of public policy on land use issues. It will trace the evolution of the Maryland Smart Growth program from its substantive underpinning to the political and public relations strategies needed to assure its enactment and implementation. Finally, it will focus on the challenges the Smart Growth program faced as a result of a change in state leadership. Students will be asked to research specific Smart Growth policies and projects to determine the impact politics had on policy decisions. A central text for the course will be the instructor’s unpublished manuscript entitled, “Sprawl, Ambition and Politics: The Story of Maryland’s Smart Growth Initiative.”
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• URSP 688C Designing for Community (3)

  What are the characteristics of residential settings that can get residents to interact, develop common ties, and feel a sense of community? Which of them can be changed through the professional services of architects and planners? Is it possible to arrange the streets, buildings, open spaces, and overall appearance of residential areas in such a way as to induce residents to cooperate with one another, and possibly develop feelings of attachment and belonging? Can we say with confidence that this arrangement of houses represents a community and that one does not?   Can designers really design community? These are some of the questions we will address in this class.  We will start by discussing the essential nature of community, and the state of community in the United States. Using case studies of designed and self-generating communities we will look for design elements that are said to serve the cause of community, and we will examine these in the light of social science research. We will use this information to develop design principles and indicators of community.
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• URSP 688D China Development: Issues, Challenges, and Policy Responses (3)

  China has achieved remarkable socioeconomic advances in the past two decades. However, these advances may be overstated if enormous issues and policy challenges are not well understood. Through lecture, discussion and case study, this course will focus on rising tensions that accompany socioeconomic advancements and debates how the Chinese should address them. The course is designed for graduate and undergrad students interested in urban policies from an international prospective.
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• URSP 688F Urban Transportation Planning (3)

  Transportation planners are responsible for estimating where future travel will occur, by what means, and on what routes. What tools are available for planners to evaluate the future demand for travel in our communities? This course introduces the student to transportation planning and provides an understanding of transportation planning models, including travel demand models of trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice, and traffic assignment. The course will also discuss data collection processes and limitations, new approaches, and the land use and transportation interactions. Guest speakers will be called upon to discuss how these concepts are used in practice.
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• URSP 688G Recent Developments in Urban Studies: Urban Design for Non-Architects (3)

  In this course students will learn the basic language of design. We will look at the urban environment in terms of spaces, shapes, forms, light, colors, sounds, and smells, and will consider ways of composing these elements so as to create an appearance of order and wholeness. We will consider how these compositions evoke meanings and emotions, and how these may vary with the physical, social and economic context in which they are seen. We will concentrate on design at an urban scale, where the visual world appears as a series of small-scale scenes unfolding in different sequences and in a different order, and will explore ways of describing, recording, and shaping this ever-changing environment. Course work includes in-class exercises, lectures, site visits, and discussions
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• URSP 688I Urban Economics (3)

  This graduate course helps students to better understand urban and regional theory that is fundamental to urban policy research and to build their capacity to analyze urban policy. This course will focus on economic forces behind the formation and development of cities, trends in urban development, and urban spatial structures. This course is balanced by wide-ranging topics such as housing, transportation, land use and urban sprawl as well as between theory and empirical studies.
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• URSP 688O Land Use Planning for Watershed Protection (3)

  The course provides an intensive survey of watershed planning methods to protect and restore water bodies from negative growth-related impacts. While the focus is on the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the concepts and methods are applicable to other areas. The class will review watershed basics, discuss the impact of land development on the water quality and living resources, and review the management practices that can mitigate its impacts to streams, wetlands, forests and estuarine water quality. Students will learn about the key planning and regulatory drivers that are increasing the demand for local watershed plans, and gain a practical understanding by hearing from local experts, performing research assignments and applying their knowledge to several real-world watershed scenarios.
  
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• URSP 688P Readings in Urban Design (3)

  The course introduces students to some key books (and some not-so-key) that deal with seeing and shaping urban environments. We will look at urban form as a composition of physical elements and as a mental image. We will consider advocacy of medieval cities, garden suburbs, and new urbanism. We will consider urban design as an art form and as a science; used as a means of communication, as an instrument for behavioral change, and as an expression of a particular time and culture. We will consider the limits and boundaries of urban design, and at the design product as a blueprint and as a set of performance standards. Classes will be spent discussing the readings;their content and possible contradictions, their relevance for today, and their application by planners, architects, landscape architects, and preservationists.
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• URSP 688T Introduction to Transportation Planning and Policy (3)

  This course serves as an introduction to the transportation planning process and serves as the gateway course for the transportation planning track. The content will cover the role of the government in the transportation policy making and the various levels of decision making involved in transportation planning for urban areas.
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• URSP 688X New Issues in Community (3)

  The purpose of the course is to look closely and carefully at the meanings of community and at different types of community. The course examines these questions in three parts. The first defines terms: What is a community? What are the varieties of community? The second examines issues posed by communities: What are tensions between individualism, the market, and community? What is the balance between diversity and unity in a community? How does race matter in community? How do communities behave when they plan? The third part explores issues that must be addressed in designing and planning communities: What is community development? How can physical design contribute to community? What are the political requirements for community governance? What is a healthy community? Students will do research and write papers that give them opportunities to wrestle with these questions and the dilemmas they pose.
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• URSP 691 Politics and Planning (3)

  Examination of the practice of planning as a technical and political role. Attitudes of planners toward plan implementation. Development of effective roles for professional planners.
  

• URSP 710 Research Seminar: Urban Theory and Issues (3)

  Prerequisite: 15 graduate credit hours in URSP. An advanced faculty-guided seminar for students preparing their final research projects.
  

• URSP 788 Independent Study in Urban Studies and Planning (3)

  Repeatable to a maximum of six credits if the topics are significantly different.
  Directed research and study of selected aspects of urban studies and planning.
  

• URSP 799 Master's Thesis (3)

  Directed thesis study.
  

• URSP 804 Advanced Planning Theory (3)

  This course will examine selected, major themes and issues in planning theory. The reading, contemplation and discussion of key concepts and debates in planning theory are intended to expand students' capacities to: a) critically examine planning practice; b) make scholarly contributions to the planning theory literature; and c) teach at the graduate level. Since the Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland encompasses planning and design, design theory will also be included. While the instructor has selected the readings for the first 11 weeks of the course, students will have the opportunity to suggest alternative readings for sessions 12 and 13 based on their research interests.
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• URSP 805 Research Design (3)

  This course explores the logic of designing research for the analysis of planning, urban design, and historic preservation questions and the formulation of public policies. This course will cover the elements of research design, case study, survey research, quasi-experimental designs, and social experiments.  Students will focus on formulating researchable questions and produce a product that should lead to a Ph.D. proposal.

  
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• URSP 810 Contemporary Metropolitan Issues (3)

  This seminar addresses the current debates and issues in metropolitan planning, urban design, and historic preservation. A current course would cover controversies over urban sprawl, edge cities, the new urbanism, the impact of technological change on urban form, the role of immigration on shaping the social and economic form of American cities and suburbs, and the role of historic preservation in economic development. The emphasis will be on identifying hypothesis and evaluating methods of analysis.

  
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