COURSES OFFERED IN PLANNING
The following courses constitute the course offerings within the Planning Degree Program. Electives may be taken from other graduate program offerings.
PLN 500: Ecosystemology
An introduction to the ideas and models of human ecology as they apply to environmental issues and urban planning. Reading and discussion of the basic notions of ecosystem analysis and operation and issues of importance in the Southwest, notably water resources planning and management under the conditions of scarcity and competition. Practical issues in public policy, especially the role of the environmental impact statement will be addressed. The goal of the course is to present to planners a sophisticated level of understanding of operational ecosystem models and a language for the discussion and analysis of natural and man-made ecosystems.
PLN 401A/501A : Introduction to Planning
Introduction to Planning is designed for first-year planning graduate students but is also suitable for advanced undergraduate students seeking careers in urban/regional planning, architecture, landscape architecture, real estate development, and related fields. The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to the planning profession and the tracks of study within the University of Arizona's Planning Degree Program. Some of the topics covered during the semester include: the scope and objectives of urban planning; the evolution of the city and the profession of planning; ethics in planning; the place of planning within the government and the law, and selected topics of interest to planners.
PLN 504: Public and Policy Economics
Applies disciplinary perspective and methodology of economics in analyzing U.S. social problems for public sector policy. An introduction to and study of the political, social and economic structure of public policy and urban finance. Required policy assessment papers are expected to provide a critical analysis of a specific policy-relevant problem covered in each half of the course. A national level or regional level problem may be chosen.
PLN 410/510: Comparative Planning: Past, Present, and Future
This course is designed for planning Students who expect to practice in a variety of national planning systems. The course begins with an overview of planning history in Western Europe and pre-Columbian (Native American) Latin America. This is followed by a survey of planning in modern Western Europe and Latin America. The choice of specific countries varies from semester to semester. The objective of this course is to provide a comparative survey of domestic planning systems in an international context. Additional topics covered during the semester include variations in the powers of local units of government and analysis of inter-jurisdictional competencies and conflicts.
PLN 412/512: Comprehensive & Strategic Planning
A course that examines theory and practice of comprehensive and strategic planning for urban/regional development. The tradition of strategic planning in corporations and other public and not-for-profit organizations, leading to the 'situation change' criterion, is studied. In a parallel manner, the even older traditions of urban and regional comprehensive planning, leading to the appropriately comprehensive criterion will be studied. When possible, students will be able to do hands-on planning at either the compreshensive or strategic planning levels.
PLN 514: Analytic Methods
An introduction of quantitative methods for public and non-profit agency mission planning. Content includes estimation/projection of regional and local demographics and employment, needs for and effective provision of public services, and methods for evaluating programs and project investment strategies under uncertainty. Use is made of personal computers with spreadsheet applications.
PLN 517: Public Policy Analysis
This course will engage graduate students in the field of public policy analysis by introducing conceptual perspectives, methods and concrete applications. Applications will include both 'quick study' and 'in-depth' cases, involving 'basic and 'econ-based' methods. Policy-makers, including agency managers and legislators, will meet with the class, introducing their perspectives on the use of public policy analysis in their different professional settings, and asking students to analyze policy problems that they currently confront. Students will be asked to formally present their project reports.
PLN 551: Planning Infrastructure & Community Facilities
This course shows students how communities determine the need for capital investments, the many ways in which infrastructure can be paid for, the constant tension over the appropriate role of public and private financing alternatives, and how various groups in society are impacted by the way that infrastructure is provided and financed. A special focus of the course is the relationship between capital investment decisions and growth and sprawl.
PLN 457/557: Statistical Techniques in Geography, Regional Development & Planning
Methods of gathering and analyzing data for the solution of geographical, urban, and regional planning problems, with emphasis on quantitative and statistical techniques used in spatial analysis and cartography, on the one hand, and program planning, on the other. Graduate-level requirements include the completion of several data-intensive research projects. Identical to : GEOG 557; GEOG is home department.
PLN 459/559: Land Use and Growth Controls
Current planning and legal techniques to guide and regulate development, rate of growth, sequence of growth, and the eventual total size of towns, regions, and states; concentration on case studies. Issues of equity, economic and social impacts, community values, and other policy implications will be emphasized along with the tools utilized by planners to achieve community goals in land use.
PLN 564: Preservation Planning Issues
Course reviews preservation policy and jurisdictional issues within community development context, addresses complex social equity considerations associated with historic designation, examines economic incentives, and explores preservation philosophy, cross cultural values and emerging trends. Gain skills to connect technical and policy requirements of historic preservation with pragmatic social and economic concerns of community development.
PLN 567: Geographical Analysis of Population
Population distribution and change; practical methods of demographic analysis, migration, business and planning applications. Identical to GEOG 567, GEOG is home department.
PLN 468/568: Urban Transportation Planning
This course is designed to illuminate the urban transportation planning process from both an engineering and planning perspective. The course emphasizes the social, political, economic, amd physical environment in which different kinds of transportation planners work, the traditional planning methods and problems with these methods and emerging alternatives in transportation planning.
PLN 476/576: Land Development Process
This course gives different perspectives to students and an important understanding of the concerns and limitations of the different participants in land use planning.
PLN 496A/596A: Urban Social Issues
This course illuminates major problems facing urban areas from a planning and policy-making perspective focusing on sprawl, employment dispersion, mobility and access issues, housing and neighborhood social capital, and environmental justices. The course is structured to encourage students to consider if and how the problem investigated differentially impacts certain groups in society; and if they do, what the policy and planning consequences of those differences might be.
PLN 497I/597I: Interdisciplinary Community Design Studio
Community design is an emerging field that incorporates elements from Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Planning. It has the scope of planning, the three-dimensional and built environment sensibility of Landscape Architecture and Architecture, and the responsibility of Civil Engineering. Areas covered are: the concept of using physical design as a catalyst for community improvement or economic development, programming, master planning, demonstration project design, site information and site-based decision making using computer based GIS systems, working with real groups in a political process, a rational method for community design decision-making and innovative ways of preparing and presenting design information.
PLN 580: Environmental and Healthy City Planning
In this class, students will learn about and understand the core foundations and principles of envrionmental planning. The class prepares students to plan for healthy cities and communities. It discusses the foundations of environment and planning and the concept of sustainability, and focuses more specifically on environmental planning as it relates to urban form, air and water quality, and natural hazards.
PLN 497S/597S: Sustainable Development
Examines contemporary competition between environment, resources (water, energy), social equity, and economic viability in the community development and revitalization arena. Public policy, planning initiatives, design strategies and technical solutions that bridge the conflicting agendas are analyzed. Graduate-level requirements include a case study paper and formal class presentation.
PLN 597T: Housing
The first of a two-semester sequence on housing which serves as an introduction to housing in the U.S. for students in planning as well as allied fields such as sociology, geography, and architecture. Topics covered include the history of federal housing policy, housing market analysis and projections, housing finance and mortgage lending, and current federal and local policies such as public housing and housing vouchers. Several topics related to housing and households will also be covered, including housing choice, housing and the life course, residential mobility, and urban residential segregation. Planning practitioners working in the field of housing will present lectures throughout the semester.
PLN 497V/597V: Affordable Housing and Community Development
The course focuses on housing and community development issues. Its purpose is to understand the nature of housing development, particularly for the lower income sectors of the community, and its relation to community development. Graduate-level requirements include individual projects and a longer research paper. PLN 599: Independent Study Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise specific work. Graduate students doing independent work or research will register for credit under course number 599,699 or 799. Can be repeated up to 3 times.
PLN 605: Theory & Perspectives
Presentation and discussion of the ideas of leading contemporary authors dealing with the major urban problems addressed by planners and theory as an essential and evolving guide to planning practice rather than simply a scholarly abstraction. Students read and reflect on theories from planning, sociology, geography, economics, and political science in order to begin the process of developing a personal understanding of how theory can inform and guide professional practice. At completion of the course, each student should develop an informed appreciation of the planning process and the underlying theories in use, and their own theory in practice.
PLN 611: Projects in Planning
A capstone planning course in which students do professional plan-making, designed to display what they have learned about various aspects of planning while devising a real-world plan. First, the approach to plan-making and growth management is reviewed. Then, teams within the class take on the business of accomplishing a sponsored project in an Arizona community, a general study or plan completed after a semester of research and data gathering which is presented to the community's governing body and constituency in its final form.
PLN 624: Research in Planning
An introduction into the research and writing skills necessary in the field of planning. The scope of work of this course is to begin students on their Master's Reports by providing them with the necessary research skills and focus. The goal of the course is the development and exchange of scholarly information with research done by students.
PLN 657: Spatial Analysis
Statistical methods for the analysis of quantitative data that are typically encountered in geographic research. The emphasis on spatial data and spatial auto regressive structures distinguishes this course from other statistics courses taught at a similar level. The course is comprised of five portions: basic concepts of hypothesis testing for both parametric and nonparametric assumptions, the linear regression model, auto regression model, generalized linear model for binary and count data, and cluster analysis and factor analysis.
PLN 660: Land Use Planning (Law)
Lecture course offered by a local land use law attorney which is initiated with an overview of American courts and legislative bodies. Topics covered are: nuisance, private covenants, government land use regulation, height, bulk and use restriction, governmental authority to enact zoning regulations under the police power, due process limitation on the police power, regulatory takings, exactions, development impact fees, nonconforming uses and vested rights, boards of adjustment, zoning and First Amendment, historic zoning and aesthetics, exclusionary zoning, subdivision and other ministerial functions, urban blight, direct eminent domain, incentive zoning and development agreements. The course work includes an optional term paper of twenty pages in length.
PLN 693: Internship
Gives planning students experience in the professional side of the discipline before leaving the university program. Three units of course credit are given for sixteen fifteen hour weeks or eight thirty-five hour weeks of work as an intern in a professional planning office. The course is designed to provide the student with learning experiences not present in the classroom through on-the-job training, to allow the student to apply and practice skills and techniques he/she has learned in class in a real-world environment, and to permit the student to interact with a network of colleagues engaged in professional planning practice. Attendance at four class meetings during the semester with the academic coordinator and an internship report are required.
PLN 696d: International Planning
A seminar in theory and practice of international planning and the institutions which participate in planning globally. The system of multi-lateral agencies developed in the post World War II period is examined as is the growing nonprofit and self-help movement worldwide, composed of other public and not-for-profit organizations, known as NGOs, CBOs, grass roots organizations, and local popular movements. Top-down national economic development planning with roots in the colonial period has evolved at the same time that a more locally-based and sometimes democratic development planning has. These two currents meet in some countries but not in others. The practice of international development planning will be surveyed through a series of recently published case materials and guides to international planning by practitioners. Two seminar papers will be required on the practice of international planning.
PLN 696E: Borders Issues in Planning
Seminar on the key planning issues which affect international borders, particularly between Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora. Seminar topics will be enhanced by invited experts on key issues of migration, growth and change, social issues and political realities will be examined. Each student will select a related border region to study in parallel with the structure of the seminar.
PLN 699: Independent Study
Students work with individual faculty members on specific projects or topics. Before a student can register for the class they must provide the department with a written description of the selected project or topic.
PLN 909 or 910: Master's Report or Thesis
Independent work guided by the chair of the master's report or thesis committee. No grade is given for this class until the student completes her/his master's report or thesis.
To receive information about the Planning Degree Program, please contact:
Planning Degree Program
Harvill, Room 341D
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0076
Phone: 1+ 520.621.9597
FAX: 1+ 520.621.9820
Email us: planning@u.arizona.edu
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