Below are currently offered courses for the Spring semester. For course meeting times and locations, see the UC Berkeley Online Schedule of Classes.

Undergraduate Courses

ENVDES 4B (Frick & Ruggeri)
Global Cities

Units: 3 (lecture)

This study of cities is more important than ever; for the first time in history more people live in urban than rural areas, and cities will account for all of the world's population growth for at least the next half-century. We will explore the challenges facing global cities in the 21st Century and expose students to some of the key texts, theories, and methods of inquiry that shape the built environment, from the human scale of home and community to the regional scale of the megacity.

Extended Course Description: 

The urban impacts of a continually globalizing world present new and unexpected challenges to those of us in the built environment professions. Most of us are very aware that populations continue to grow at unsustainable rates in some places; natural resources are diminishing; climate change is with us; technology is reshaping daily life; economic opportunity is uneven.  Fewer of us are aware of the feminization of poverty; decreasing life expectancy rates in some wealthy places; the shrinking middle class; the alarming growth of youth addiction and suicide.  Processes of globalization are diminishing aspects of time, distance, connectedness, travel, and transaction.  While the last two centuries of development and growth have brought great benefit to many places, these benefits are not universally shared between and within cities.  The evidence of urban change is palpable — and the elements  of urban crisis are growing.

While some places like Dubai and Shanghai experience dazzling growth -- other places within Lagos, Caracas, and Karachi continue to suffer from the impacts of poverty and urban violence. The spatial impacts of urbanization are no less, if not differently focused in North America: from exorbitant housing costs fueled by migration and economic expansion in Vancouver and San Francisco, to the continuing impacts of economic restructuring in Detroit and Philadelphia; untenable pollution and slums in Mexico City and Port-au-Prince; the exploding costs of infrastructure in Los Angeles and New York. Europe is no less immune to the impacts of globalization:  growing inequality in the neighborhoods of Paris, London, and Frankfurt; extreme gentrification in Copenhagen, Barcelona, and Berlin; the rise of immigration-induced social instability; the impacts of war refugees on host cities. The urban challenges to the next generation of built environment professionals can be overwhelming. As such, the course will consider a variety of urban challenges, some of which will challenge your intellectual and emotional sensibilities.

Environmental Design 4B – Global Cities is a  course intended to provoke interest in globalization processes and issues of global cities –  but also to help focus attention on your future careers in addressing global urban issues.  The course is an opportunity to gauge where we stand in the ongoing evolutionary and practical processes of city making, and more importantly, where you stand with respect to your chosen  profession in a world that is growing increasingly more complex, integrated, and urban. Your task in this course is to determine who you are with respect to your vocational calling, your strengths and identity – and – to select an initial ,direction for your future careers as an agent of change within the context of a global city and its issues.  This course is different from traditional uni-directional lecture courses, where students typically sit back and take it all in, memorize information, and regurgitate it on exams.  Very differently, Global Cities seeks to be a personal, transformational experience focused on you and your career in the context of current globalization.

 

ENVDES 100 (Larice)
The City: Theories and Methods in Urban Studies

Units: 4 (lecture/discussion)

This course is concerned with the study of cities. Focusing on great cities around the world - from Chicago to Los Angeles, from Rio to Shanghai, from Vienna to Cairo it covers of historical and contemporary patterns of urbanization and urbanism. Through these case studies, it introduces the key ideas, debates, and research genres of the interdisciplinary field of urban studies. In other words, this is simultaneously a "great cities" and "great theories" course. Its purpose is to train students in critical analysis of the socio-spatial formations of their lived world.

Extended Course Description: 

ENVDES 100 is a course intended to both provoke interest and help focus attention on your future careers working in and on cities.  Targeted generally at urban studies students and those in the built environment majors here in the College, the course is not a course that forces rote memorization of details and esoterica from a slate of progressive theories.  It is not a course in advanced navel gazing and posturing.  Rather, it is an opportunity to gauge where we stand as a society in the ongoing historical and practical processes of city making, and more importantly … where you stand with respect to your future career goals.  The course is an introduction to living and emergent urbanisms and the methods we use in urban research and taking action in the world. Since perspectives on cities are endlessly relative, the approach to course material will be both pluralistic and comparative, eschewing any single normative notion of appropriateness or rightness. We will examine course topics from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.  ED 100 The City will be structured in a thematic and disciplinary manner – integrating urban theories with urban methods concurrently.  The City is broad in its scope as a primary upper division survey course.  We will only skim the surface in these few months we are together. We hope that the material strikes a chord to propel you to become a conscientious and capable urbanist – whether as a professional or citizen.

 

CY PLAN C88 (Gonzalez)
Data Science for Smart Cities

Units: 2 (lecture)

Prerequisites: Foundations of Data Science (COMPSCI C8 / INFO C8 / STAT C8)

Cities become more dependent on the data flows that connect infrastructures between themselves, and users to infrastructures. Design and operation of smart, efficient, and resilient cities nowadays require data science skills. This course provides an introduction to working with data generated within transportation systems, power grids, communication networks, as well as collected via crowd-sensing and remote sensing technologies, to build demand- and supply-side urban services based on data analytics.

Extended Course Description: TBD

 

CY PLAN 101 (Chapple)
Introduction to Urban Data Analytics

Units: 4 (lecture/discussion)

Prerequisites: CP 101 is open to all upper-division CED majors and also reserves some seats for upper-division students from other majors, as well as lower division students. While no prior statistics coursework is assumed, students should have a working knowledge of introductory college algebra.

This course (1) provides a basic intro to census and economic data collection, processing, and analysis; (2) surveys modeling and story mapping techniques in planning; (3) demonstrates the uses of real-time urban data and analytics; and (4) provides a socio-economic-political context for the smart cities movement, focusing on data ethics and governance.

Extended Course Description:

CP 101 introduces students to the systematic analysis of urban data in its institutional context. Recognizing that defining this context relies on critical thinking with regard to economic, social, and environmental outcomes, this course explores how stakeholders conceptualize “smart” urbanity. Accordingly, this course will teach students systematic approaches to collecting, analyzing, modeling, and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data used to inform robust research, and, ultimately, urban planning practice and policymaking. Beyond instruction in urban data science and analytics, students will be introduced to theory and critical discourses on topics such as big data, open data and e-governance. Instructors will expect students to engage with technical and theoretical - with particular focus placed on ethical - considerations associated with these subjects in lecture and laboratory sections. The course will introduce students to programming in Excel and Python, using open source software, accessing open and scraped data, and other tools and techniques for urban analysis.

The course will be structured following 3 modules:

• Module 1: Introduction to Data Science for Planners
• Module 2: Story Maps and the City
• Module 3: Big Data and Smart Cities

 

CY PLAN 114 (Chatman)
Introduction to Urban and Regional Transportation

Units: 3 (lecture)

This course is designed to introduce students to the characteristics of urban transportation systems, the methods through which they are planned and analyzed, and the dimensions of key policy issues confronting decision makers.

Extended Course Description:

Efficient, safe, and sustainable transportation is essential to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of cities and regions. This survey course covers a range of themes related to the planning of such systems. We focus on multi-modal ground transportation—autos/highways, mass transit, paratransit, and non-motorized transport—at multiple geographical scales ranging from local neighborhoods to large urban regions. The course concentrates on contemporary policy issues and problems such as traffic congestion, air pollution, energy consumption, social equity, and transportation finance. The institutional and political environment that governs transportation planning and practice are an important theme as well. As background we also study the historical evolution of transportation systems; how transportation systems have shaped metropolitan areas; variance in travel demand in regions; and how transportation planning is carried out in the US.

There is one required textbook: The Geography of Urban Transportation, 4th edition, edited by Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano (2014, The Guilford Press) available at the Student Store and also from online booksellers. Almost all of the remaining required readings will be in a reader for purchase at a location to be announced later. The readings for the first week will be placed online at the bCourses site (https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/). The optional readings can also be found on the bCourses site. Lecture slides and other course materials will be posted there as well.

 

CY PLAN 116 (Suczynski-Smith)
Urban Planning Process-The Undergraduate Planning Studio

Units: 4 (seminar/studio)

Prerequisites: Upper division standing; 110 or consent of instructor.

An intermediate course in the planning process with practicum in using planning techniques. Classes typically work on developing an area or other community plan. Some lectures, extensive field and group work, oral and written presentations of findings.

Extended Course Description:

City Planning 116 is an intensive studio course that aims to give students a real- world experience with city planning. By focusing on one physical area, the course helps students learn about the entire gamut of city planning issues: physical building and street design issues, social and economic issues, environmental impacts, analysis methods, legal framework, city government, politics, and community dynamics. During the course, students carry out fieldwork and develop proposals in the studio. They undertake a series of incremental assignments that culminate in the preparation of a plan for their designated study area.

City Planning 116 is targeted to undergraduate City Planning majors and Urban Studies majors who have already taken CP 110, but is open to other undergraduate and graduate students as space permits. As a studio, it is a class of 20-30 students that allows for intensive interaction with classmates and the instructor. Different components of the work will be done individually, in small groups, and as an entire class.

 

CY PLAN 117AC (Corburn)
Urban & Community Health

Units: 3 (lecture/discussion) 

Prerequisites: Undergraduate, upper-division standing, unless given Instructor permission.

Examination of how the physical development of cities and urban programs have shaped the lives and social roles of all minority groups and women, and vice-versa. Assessment of past and current alternative future planning polices that are equitable will be explored.

Extended Course Description:

This course will focus on the history, research methods and practices aimed at promoting community and urban health. The course will offer students frameworks for understanding and addressing inequities in community health experienced by racial and ethnic groups in the United States, particularly African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Pacific Islanders. We will explore the roles of national and local policy, science and research, and cultural representations to explore the causes of structural inequalities and how racial inequalities get ‘into our bodies’ to influence community health. We will pay special attention to community health in urban areas, since a majority of the world now lives in cities. We will use case studies of community health action from the Bay Area, across the US and globally. The course will take a historical and comparative perspective for understanding the multiple contributors to health and disease in communities and how residents, scientists and professionals are working to improve community health. 

 

CY PLAN 120 (Pineda)
Community Planning and Public Policy for Disability

Units: 3 (lecture)

This course reviews what society and local communities can do in terms of policies, programs, and local planning to address the needs of citizens with disabilities. Attention will be given to the economics of disability, to the politics of producing change, and to transportation, housing, public facilities, independent living, employment, and income policies. Options will be assessed from the varying perspectives of those with disabilities and the broader society.

Extended Course Description: TBD

 

CY PLAN 160 (Reid)
The Origins and Practice of Community Development

CYPLAN 160 Lecture is co-listed with CYPLAN 260

Units: 4 (lecture/discussion)

Extended Course Description:

Community development, broadly defined as efforts to improve the quality of life in low-income communities, has existed in multiple forms for centuries.  However, in the 1950s and 1960s, the United States witnessed the development of a professionalized “field” of community development, encompassing a wide range of institutions, policies, and programs that seek to invest in poor communities. Today, community development organizations have assumed many of the roles once considered the domain of local and federal governments, from constructing and managing affordable housing to providing education and other social services.  At the same time, many of the most important sources of community development funding have fallen prey to local and federal budget cuts, and the changing nature of neighborhood poverty raises new questions about the nature of community development interventions.  These trends, coupled with the deepening of income and wealth inequality and the rise of new social movements like Black Lives Matter, are forcing the field to confront complicated issues related to race, class, and the effectiveness of market-based policies in addressing urban poverty.  All of this suggests that the field is at an important crossroads in its history, and that it will need to innovate and adapt to more effectively respond to the profound challenges facing low-income communities. 

The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the community development field, and to develop their ability to think critically and creatively about the policies that are needed to create inclusive, vibrant, and healthy communities.  We will begin by looking at the causes of urban poverty and segregation.   How can theories from economics, sociology, political science, geography and planning help us to understand the context for community development practice? What are the respective roles of government, community development corporations, foundations and community organizers in the fight for change?  What are the most promising practices emerging in the field?  And how do we open the field to new voices and approaches, particularly in the face of a conservative administration? As we consider these questions, we’ll explore the tensions that exist between people- and place-based policies, the difficulties of “swimming against the tide” of larger economic and political forces, and the challenges of measuring the impact of community development investments. Throughout the course, case studies will provide a real-world perspective on community development practices and the obstacles faced in implementing programs at the local level.

Note: Lectures for CYPLAN 160 and CYPLAN 260 will be joint, however there will be separate sections and expectations for student learning objectives and deliverables at the undergraduate and graduate level.

 

CY PLAN 180 (Lindheim)
Research Seminar on Comparative Urban Studies: Managing Cities for Equity, Equitable Development, and Equitable Government

Units: 3 (seminar)

Prerequisites: A capstone course for urban studies majors; open to other majors by instructor approval.

Extended Course Description:

The topic this semester is managing cities for equity, equitable development, and equitable government.  

The course focuses on key headline issues including development without displacement, affordable housing, Constitutional policing, and more.  The course examines the public interest questions: who do city governments and city policies serve (both explicitly and implicitly) and how to more effectively involve and serve the disparate publics and interests especially those not well served by government or the private sector. Using Oakland and other East Bay communities as case studies, the course will integrate direct front-line experience with broader conceptual analysis. Students will work on projects of current importance and gain a detailed familiarity with a wide-range of issues, policies, programs, and documents.  

The class will include presentations by various city “actors”: senior staff, elected officials, private sector leaders, and community activists.  A major course objective is for students to get exposure to, and do meaningful research on, urgent topics in the pursuit of more equitable policies and actions. The course emphasizes ‘experiential learning’ or 'research-by-doing’ or “participatory research"– particularly working closely with policy makers and coalitions of affected or impacted communities.  

Students will produce a professional-quality research report as well as make public presentations of findings.

The course is taught by Dr. Daniel Lindheim, a former City Manager of Oakland.

 

CY PLAN 190 SEC 1 (McKoy)
Y-PLAN: Race, Place and Equity Through  the Lens of California Youth and Schools

Co-listed with CYPLAN 268

Units: 4 (lecture)

Prerequisites: Upper division standing.

Extended Course Description:

Whether and how is planning responding to the needs and interests of young people who have historically been left out, and too often invisible, to our city’s power structures and planning/policy making practices? 

Whether and how are young people stepping up - and being recognized - today as agents of change for our cities, despite the historic challenges and unjust conditions facing them?  

There is an opportunity today to re-imagine our city planning and engagement practices to be far more racially equitable, economically sound, and “resilient.”

This course will provide an opportunity for UC Berkeley students to work with local and statewide planners and civic leaders investigating how digital technology strategies being employed today in and outside of schools can interrupt and realign patterns of racial inequality and unjust engagement and planning practices. The goal will be to identify best practices for local and state planners and policy makers on how deeper and more meaningful engagement with young people and schools can unlock powerful and under-recognized voices in our cities.

UC Berkeley students will work with Y-PLAN teachers to serve as digital mentors in a 6- 8 week planning project with young people in schools across California through digital mentoring, support in online classrooms (synchronously and asynchronous), and developing final proposals for civic partners.

Using the nationally recognized Y-PLAN methodology, UC Berkeley students will support classroom teachers and their students via digital tools and technology to co-design innovative and implementable solutions, emphasizing the interconnectedness of race, place and schools. The Y-PLAN methodology, adapted to digital media as Y-PLAN Connects, is committed to working with youth and schools furthest from opportunity,. on projects relevant to their lives, and meaningful to their whole communities. While addressing a range of community-based needs, Y-PLAN will situate issues of social justice and structural racism as a central force driving all civic action and engagement projects, for now and beyond (in a post COVID world).

On the heels of Y-PLAN’s 20 year milestone in 2020, this spring course will feature Y-PLAN alumni - clients and students - now in leadership positions across California as guest speakers. 

 

CY PLAN 190 SEC 2 (Moffat)
Ghosts and Visions: Using Physical Installations and Augmented Reality to Tell History and Envision Futures

Co-listed with ART 160

Units: 4 (lecture)

Prerequisites: Enrollment by consent of instructor. Please apply here by November 1. https://forms.gle/8y5eLbp1McmCNSoT7

Extended Course Description:

In this Humanities Studio course you will research local histories and use methods that may include installations in public space, augmented reality, and audio storytelling to convey what you learn. The study site will be an old shoreline landfill called the Albany Bulb, and you will investigate both the site itself and use it as a vista point to consider histories including Ohlone land use, 19th-century dynamite manufacturing, World War II industry, global container shipping, and Bay Area unhoused communities.  You will do archival research and consider questions of the best technologies–or non-technologies–to use to reveal the past and point to better futures. You will engage in collaborative group work and create work that will be used by the general public.

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Graduate Courses

 

CY PLAN 201B (Rodriguez / Caldeira)
Planning Methods Gateway: Part II

Units: 4 (lecture/laboratory)

Prerequisites: City and Regional Planning 201A; exceptions made with instructor approval.

Second course in two-semester course sequence that introduces first-year students in the Master of City Planning (MCP) program to a suite of data collection, data analysis, problem solving, and presentation methods that are essential for practicing planners. 201B prepares MCP students for more advanced courses in statistics, GIS, observation, qualitative methods, survey methods, and public participation.

Extended Course Description:

CP 201B is the second part of a two-semester course sequence that introduces first-year students in the Master of City Planning (MCP) program to a suite of data collection, data analysis, problem solving, and presentation methods that are essential for practicing planners. The course focuses on supporting integrated problem solving, using a case-based approach to introduce methods in sequenced building-blocks. The course also prepares MCP students for more advanced courses in statistics, GIS, observation, qualitative methods, survey methods, and public participation.

The second semester of the course, CP 201B, continues the overview of methods in planning that began in CP 201A. We focus on qualitative methods and data collection (observation, focus groups, interviews, and surveys), additional GIS tools for creating spatial measures, and methods of statistical inference including regression. CP 201A is generally a prerequisite to CP 201B, with exceptions made by instructor approval.

 

CY PLAN 204C (Radke)
Introduction to GIS and City Planning

Units: 4 (lecture/laboratory)

Introduction to the principles and practical uses of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This course is intended for graduate students with exposure to using spreadsheets and database programs for urban and natural resource analysis, and who wish to expand their knowledge to include basic GIS concepts and applications. Prior GIS or desktop mapping experience not required.

Extended Course Description:

This course is designed for graduate students in City and Regional Planning or related disciplines. CP204c covers a range of GIS techniques used in planning. It focuses on the development of spatial models, beginning with simple vector based objects representing a sampled real world, through raster orcell based networks(often from remotely sensed imagery), to constrained vector line networks (solving location allocation problems), to more complex (and realistic) 3D surfaces.It reviews the impact that proximity and boundaries exert on spatial interaction and introduces concepts and models to solve spatial problems in both (urban) constrained and (landscape) unconstrained environments.

This course emphasizes the interplay of theory and application, with a dozen computer-based homework assignments (all involving analyses using ArcGIS 10.8). Theory is introduced through lectures and assigned readings, while application is emphasized during in class exercises, homework assignments, and a final project. A software license to load this on your personal computer will be issued in the first lab session.

The primary goal of this course is to provide students with the spatial theory, knowledge and applied skills to define, design and develop their own models to solve spatial problems in city and regional planning. Thestudent will develop skills in spatial analysis that include: data discovery (Web Based),database design and construction, spatial data integration, data rectification and projection, image processing and integration(at a basic level), spatial data model conversion, data management, modeling and data presentation (commonly referred to as mapping).

 

CY PLAN 205 (Bigelow)
Introduction to Planning and Environmental Law

Units: 3 (lecture)

An introduction to the American legal process and legal framework within which public policy and planning problems are addressed. The course stresses legal methodology, the basics of legal research, and the common-law decisional method. Statutory analysis, administrative law, and constitutional interpretation are also covered. Case topics focus on the law of planning, property rights, land use regulation, and access to housing.

Extended Course Description:

This course will introduce you to land use and environmental law regulating the development of land, such as nuisance law, zoning, eminent domain, subdivisions, building codes, environmental protection statutes and regulations, and fair housing requirements. We will also review the constitutional constraints found primarily in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments on the use of these laws. Because politics, economics, and social norms also shape the use and development of land, we will also examine the relationship between formal and informal controls that govern land use patterns.

 

CY PLAN 208 (Macdonald)
Plan Preparation Studio

Units: 5 (seminar/studio)

An introductory laboratory experience in urban plan preparation, including the use of graphic communication techniques appropriate to city planning and invoking individual effort and that of collaborative student groups in formulating planning policies and programs for an urban area. Occasional Friday meetings are required.

Extended Course Description:

This studio course explores city building and place-making from a planning perspective within the context of preparing a neighborhood plan for a not-to-large urban area.

The first half of the studio will be spent looking at and trying to understand qualities of the existing physical environment, natural and man-made, and the social and economic contexts in which it is situated. Working individually and in teams, students will engage in empirical observations and other forms of data collection. Following analysis of the gathered data, students will prepare graphics that communicate the findings, identify the opportunities and constraints that derive from them, and speak to implications. Students will prepare oral presentations to go with the graphics, and will present the analysis at venues that invite discussion and suggestions for plan-making.

The second half of the studio will be spent preparing a neighborhood plan for the study area. The plan will deal primarily with physical issues including land use and urban form, housing, streets and open spaces, and transportation, but there will be an opportunity to also address economic development and community development issues through their relation to physical elements and structures. Students will work in teams, but will be responsible for individual work within the context of the team’s overall plan. This individual work will consist of either design proposals for specific development sites and public spaces that have been identified as central to the plan, or socio-economic proposals that are associated with specific physical sites. The plan will be prepared in graphic form and students will present it orally at a final review.

A major emphasis of the course is on the graphic communication of planning and design analysis and proposals, and on oral presentations. Time will be devoted to learning drawing and sketching techniques appropriate for plan preparation, including an introduction to the use of computer applications for presentation graphics.

The class will meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and some Fridays, per the course schedule. As well, please note that some of the computer graphics workshop sessions may take place on Saturday mornings.

Study Area this Semester: San Francisco’s Sunset District, with a Green New Deal framing

 

CYPLAN 214 (Collier)
Infrastructure Planning and Policy: Climate Planning and Urban Systems

Units:  3 (lecture)

Survey of basic knowledge and technology of physical infrastructure systems: transportation, water supply, wastewater, storm water, solid waste management, community energy facilities, and urban public facilities. Environmental and energy impacts of infrastructure development; centralized vs. decentralized systems; case studies.

Extended Course Description: This course examines the links between climate adaptation and mitigation planning and urban systems such as infrastructures (water supply, stormwater management, electricity, transportation and land use) and mechanisms of finance (such as insurance, municipal bonds, and disaster relief). It will explore the ways that urban systems are shaping planning for climate change in cities, as well as the way that urban systems are themselves being reworked, reformed, and re-engineered to pursue climate adaptation and mitigation goals. Particular focus will be placed on the links between urban systems and broader national and state level policy frameworks, and on the connections between urban climate planning and questions of social equity and justice. The primary focus will be on California and the United States, but selective international cases will also be considered. Readings will include primary planning texts, policy research documents, and interpretive social science. The course will combine lectures, seminar-style discussion, and student-led discussion of case studies. 

 

CYPLAN C217 (Frick)
Transportation Policy and Planning

Cross-listed with CIVENG C250N

Units:  3 (lecture)
Prerequisites: Civil and Environmental Engineering C290U, City Planning C213, or consent of instructor. Also listed as Civil and Environmental Engineering C250N.

Policy issues in urban transportation planning; measuring the performance of transportation systems; the transportation policy formulation process; transportation finance, pricing, and subsidy issues; energy and air quality in transportation; specialized transportation for elderly and disabled people; innovations in transportation policy.

Extended Course Description: TBD

 

CYPLAN 220 (Belzer)
The Urban and Regional Economy

Units:  3 (lecture)
Prerequisites: CYPLAN 113A or equivalent.

Analysis of the urban, metropolitan, and regional economy for planning. Economic base and other macro models; impact analysis and projection of changing labor force and industrial structure; economic-demographic interaction; issues in growth, income distribution, planning controls; interregional growth and population distribution issues.

Extended Course Description: TBD

 

CY PLAN 238 (Metcalf)
Development-Design Studio

Units: 4 (seminar/studio)

Studio experience in analysis, policy advising, and project design or general plan preparation for urban communities undergoing development, with a focus on site development and project planning.

Extended Course Description:

Studio Format: Serving as an opportunity to mimic real-world experience, this class simulates the process of working with a client and navigating the social, economic, and political challenges inherent in creating an affordable housing project. Students will apply design, finance, and planning skills to develop new approaches to affordable housing—approaches that could go on to inspire an actual development for low-income residents. Thanks to a generous gift from CED Alumni James R. Boyce (M. Arch. ’67), two interdisciplinary studios (Masters of Architecture students (ARCH 202) and Master of City Planning, Law, Business, Public Policy students (CP 238)) will work in tandem to consider all aspects of development and design. City and Regional Planning Lecturer Ben Metcalf is co-teaching this class with City and Regional Planning faculty member Carol Galante and Daniel Simons and Chelsea Johnson of David Baker Architects.  Student teams will produce an affordable-housing development plan and design in a competition that will be professionally juried at the end of the semester.  

Throughout the course, leading professionals in development, finance, law, planning, architecture, non-profits, and municipal agencies will work with students, providing a more thorough understanding of site selection, entitlements, community needs, affordable housing programs, financial modeling, management, construction, and design. Design will include the principles of site planning, sustainability, unit plans, common area spaces, pedestrian street experiences, and neighborhood context. There will be an emphasis on innovation and creativity that simultaneously lower costs and enhance livability and quality.  

Project: This year the studio will focus on affordable housing development opportunities in the context of adaptive reuse of former commercial buildings. Working with the State of California on publicly-owned sites that are slated for future disposition, students will have a real-world opportunity to inform upcoming State requests for proposals for affordable housing. The typology of the building, the population served, and the financing plan are all decisions that each team will have to make. During the first few weeks of class, students will evaluate how zoning regulations, physical constraints, city governments, and the neighborhood context impact what can be built on two different sites. Each site will have multiple interdisciplinary teams of approximately five students collaborating on a finished design, with each team developing their own program, financing plan, and entitlement path as described above.   

Competition: Students will present their work as part of an end-of-year symposium that will include both a juried review and presentations from working professionals in the field of affordable housing. Winning teams will be recognized by a variety of means.  

 

CY PLAN C241 (Lamb)
Research Methods in Environmental Design

Co-listed with LDARCH C241

Units: 4 (lecture/laboratory)

The components, structure, and meaning of the urban environment. Environmental problems, attitudes, and criteria. Environmental survey, analysis, and interview techniques. Methods of addressing environmental quality. Environmental simulation.

Extended Course Description:

How do designers and planners make sense of places? How do we gather information and make judgements about how people use and make built environments? Given that urban environments are always shaped by competing interests, values, and power relations, what are the possibilities and limits of conventional scientific research methods in informing planning and design intervention?

This course will introduce a range of methods that planners and designers use to understand places. We will explore and experiment with methods including direct observation, field measurements, morpho-typological analysis, mapping and critical cartography, photography & drawing, surveys, focus groups, and interviews. We will also consider how these primary data gathering methods might complement or contradict data from a range of secondary sources (e.g., archives, census data, and relevant geospatial data sets).

Students will work in small cross-disciplinary groups to design and carry out research projects on topics of their choosing. Questions could relate to: COVID-induced changes in the public realm; equity considerations of climate change adaptation and mitigation; the urbanistic implications of alternative land and housing ownership; or various other issues related to the regulation and experience of built environments.

The semester’s work will be divided into three phases. During the first phase of the course, we will develop collective research agendas and consider fundamental questions about the role of research in design and planning. In the middle phase, we will discuss and deploy a range of methods for gathering data about the built environment, drawing on the expertise of several guest lecturers. In the third and final phase, we will focus on the role of narrative, visualization, and other methods for communicating research insights, paying particular attention to the ways that representation can shape debate and deliberation.

 

CY PLAN 248 (Lamb)
Advanced Studio: Urban Design/Environmental Planning

Units: 5 (seminar/studio)

Prerequisites: CYPLAN 208 or CYPLAN 240

The studio will undertake a number of design projects focused on real life challenges that address mixed-use, transit-oriented urban design together with transportation, landscape design and sustainable urbanism issues. The studio will undertake a major urban design project combined with several smaller scale exercises to explore a range of planning and sustainable design issues.

Extended Course Description:

In this studio, we will explore the potentials of urban design to reshape an urban district in response to the crises of climate change and inequality. Specifically, we will analyze and propose interventions for southeast San Francisco to advance the goals of the three core goals of the Green New Deal: decarbonization, jobs, and justice.

Southeastern San Francisco, like much of the city, was primarily built during the first New Deal and the industrial and military mobilization for the second world war that followed. New residential districts spread their gridded streets over hills and dunes. Industrial facilities filled former bay marshes. Large housing projects were quickly put up to house workers in shipyards and other growing industries. Federal, state, and local governments built new parks, parkways, roads, and other civic infrastructures for these new urban districts.

In this studio, we will embrace the civic ambitions of the New Deal and use the tools of design to analyze, synthesize, and communicate a radical new vision for the housing, energy, and landscapes of southeast San Francisco. We will ask: How can neighborhoods built on racial exclusion, single-family homeownership, and car accommodation embrace intelligent density and alternative forms of inclusive housing tenure? How might the imperative of rapid decarbonization and job creation inform energy transition measures, including deep energy efficiency retrofitting and neighborhood-scale renewable energy generation? How might the urban landscapes in these areas be remade to advance equitable access, ecosystem health, and climate resilience.

The studio will be divided into three phases. During the first phase, student teams will investigate the socio-ecological and political conditions shaping energy, housing, and open spaces of southeast San Francisco. This inquiry will be guided by a political ecology approach, considering how evolutions in environmental infrastructures, regulations, and practices have shaped the uneven distribution of costs and benefits from urbanization across scales, from the region to the individual parcel. In the second phase, we will generate propositions for intervening in our three sectors of interest (housing, energy, and open space), building on spatial and institutional analyses to identify points of leverage within both conventional and expanded domains of urban design practice. For the final phase, reconstituted teams will propose site-specific interventions that bring together insights from the previous sectoral investigations.

Recognizing that the challenges of the Green New Deal, like any ambitious vision for socio-spatial change, are problems of political persuasion and movement building at least as much as they are technical design challenges, the studios will explore how planners and urban designers can meaningfully contribute to coalition building, mobilization, and institutional reform. Throughout the semester, we will consider the agency of designers and planners in making more just and environmentally sane configurations of land (who controls the territory), labor (who does the work), and capital (who owns the assets).

 

CY PLAN 250 (Balakrishnan)
The Spatial Politics of Land: A Transnational Perspective

Units: 3 (seminar)

This course focuses on the deeply contested and political nature of land-use planning. Some  would argue that land-use planning is the bread-and-butter of what planners do. But the act  of allocating different, often competing, uses across urban space is undergirded by normative  values, making it rife with trade-offs and conflicts. A central premise of this course is to link  land-use planning to property rights. How is land, a spatially fixed resource with unique  characteristics in each location, transformed into an asset for private ownership, an instrument  of finance, a fungible asset? How are fluid ecologies like wetlands and coastal frontiers made  into fixed property, and with what social and ecological consequences? How can planners  regulate the resources appurtenant to land: who owns (and normatively, who should own)  development or air rights above a plot of land, and subsoil resources like groundwater and  minerals? 

Extended Course Description:

 

CY PLAN 254 (Acey)
Sustainable Communities

Units: 3 (lecture)

This course examines and explores the concept of sustainable development at the community level. The course has three sections: (1) an introduction to the discourse on sustainable development; (2) an exploration of several leading attempts to incorporate sustainability principles into plans, planning, and urban design; (3) a comparative examination of several attempts to modify urban form and address the multiple goals (social, economic, environmental) of sustainable urbanism.

Extended Course Description:

This course is a comparative examination of the concept of sustainable development at the community scale. The course covers three areas: (1) a critical introduction to the research and discourse on sustainability and sustainable development; (2) an exploration of several leading initiatives to incorporate sustainability principles into local planning and provision of infrastructural services; and (3) an examination of the institutions impacting the multiple goals (environmental, social, economic) of sustainable urbanism.

Through readings, presentations and discussions of research on sustainability and selected case studies of cities in the U.S. and around the world, we examine how different societies grapple with the ethical, policy, and practical challenges of creating and maintaining healthy urban environments with functioning urban ecosystems amidst increasing social and economic disparity. We will also explore pressing international issues such as climate change, resource depletion, and environmental justice among countries of the Global South.

Key topics include planning innovations to achieve sustainability, the important tensions between the goals of social justice and sustainability, and effective responses from grassroots social movements, new forms of governance, and policies at various levels, from local to international that reduce urban poverty and increase community sustainability.

 

CYPLAN 260 (Reid)
The Origins & Practice of Community Development

CYPLAN 260 Lecture is co-listed with CYPLAN 160

Units:  4 (lecture/discussion)

Extended Course Description:

Community development, broadly defined as efforts to improve the quality of life in low-income communities, has existed in multiple forms for centuries.  However, in the 1950s and 1960s, the United States witnessed the development of a professionalized “field” of community development, encompassing a wide range of institutions, policies, and programs that seek to invest in poor communities. Today, community development organizations have assumed many of the roles once considered the domain of local and federal governments, from constructing and managing affordable housing to providing education and other social services.  At the same time, many of the most important sources of community development funding have fallen prey to local and federal budget cuts, and the changing nature of neighborhood poverty raises new questions about the nature of community development interventions.  These trends, coupled with the deepening of income and wealth inequality and the rise of new social movements like Black Lives Matter, are forcing the field to confront complicated issues related to race, class, and the effectiveness of market-based policies in addressing urban poverty.  All of this suggests that the field is at an important crossroads in its history, and that it will need to innovate and adapt to more effectively respond to the profound challenges facing low-income communities. 

The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the community development field, and to develop their ability to think critically and creatively about the policies that are needed to create inclusive, vibrant, and healthy communities.  We will begin by looking at the causes of urban poverty and segregation.   How can theories from economics, sociology, political science, geography and planning help us to understand the context for community development practice? What are the respective roles of government, community development corporations, foundations and community organizers in the fight for change?  What are the most promising practices emerging in the field?  And how do we open the field to new voices and approaches, particularly in the face of a conservative administration? As we consider these questions, we’ll explore the tensions that exist between people- and place-based policies, the difficulties of “swimming against the tide” of larger economic and political forces, and the challenges of measuring the impact of community development investments. Throughout the course, case studies will provide a real-world perspective on community development practices and the obstacles faced in implementing programs at the local level.

Note: Lectures for CYPLAN 160 and CYPLAN 260 will be joint, however there will be separate sections and expectations for student learning objectives and deliverables at the undergraduate and graduate level.

 

CYPLAN 268 (McKoy)
Race, Place and Equity Through  the Lens of California Youth and Schools

Co-listed with CYPLAN 190-1

Units:  4 (studio/seminar)

Extended Course Description:

Whether and how is planning responding to the needs and interests of young people who have historically been left out, and too often invisible, to our city’s power structures and planning/policy making practices? 

Whether and how are young people stepping up - and being recognized - today as agents of change for our cities, despite the historic challenges and unjust conditions facing them?  

There is an opportunity today to re-imagine our city planning and engagement practices to be far more racially equitable, economically sound, and “resilient.”

This course will provide an opportunity for UC Berkeley students to work with local and statewide planners and civic leaders investigating how digital technology strategies being employed today in and outside of schools can interrupt and realign patterns of racial inequality and unjust engagement and planning practices. The goal will be to identify best practices for local and state planners and policy makers on how deeper and more meaningful engagement with young people and schools can unlock powerful and under-recognized voices in our cities.

UC Berkeley students will work with Y-PLAN teachers to serve as digital mentors in a 6- 8 week planning project with young people in schools across California through digital mentoring, support in online classrooms (synchronously and asynchronous), and developing final proposals for civic partners.

Using the nationally recognized Y-PLAN methodology, UC Berkeley students will support classroom teachers and their students via digital tools and technology to co-design innovative and implementable solutions, emphasizing the interconnectedness of race, place and schools. The Y-PLAN methodology, adapted to digital media as Y-PLAN Connects, is committed to working with youth and schools furthest from opportunity,. on projects relevant to their lives, and meaningful to their whole communities. While addressing a range of community-based needs, Y-PLAN will situate issues of social justice and structural racism as a central force driving all civic action and engagement projects, for now and beyond (in a post COVID world).

On the heels of Y-PLAN’s 20 year milestone in 2020, this spring course will feature Y-PLAN alumni - clients and students - now in leadership positions across California as guest speakers. 

 

CY PLAN 280A (Reid)
Research Design for the Ph.D.

Units: 3 (seminar)

Extended Course Description: This course is designed for students working on their dissertation research plan and prospectus. Weekly writing assignments designed to work through each step of writing the prospectus from problem framing and theoretical framework to methodology. At least one oral presentation to the class is required of all students.

 

CY PLAN 280B (Balakshnan)
Doctoral Research and Writing Seminar

Co-listed GMS 201 / GEOG 206

Units: 3 (seminar)

Extended Course Description: This course is designed for students working on their dissertation research plan and prospectus. Weekly writing assignments designed to work through each step of writing the prospectus from problem framing and theoretical framework to methodology. At least one oral presentation to the class is required of all students.

 

CY PLAN 280C (Collier)
Doctoral Seminars: Doctoral Colloquium

Units: 2 (seminar)

Extended Course Description: Presentation and discussion of research by Ph.D. students and faculty.

 

CY PLAN 284 (Caldeira)
Urban Theory

Units: 3 (seminar)

Extended Course Description:

The investigation of modern cities has presented great challenges for social theory.  For over a century, scholars have debated about how to read and explain the modern industrial city and more recently the various forms of post-industrial cities. This course traces the main ways in which these debates have unfolded since the middle of the nineteenth century to the present.  To follow these debates is to understand how scholars have struggled to make cities legible, to fix them as objects of analysis, and simultaneously to capture their processes of transformation. Readings for the class include classical texts from Weber, Simmel, the Chicago School, the Marxist canon (from Engels to Lefebvre, Harvey and Castells), contemporary urbanists writing from the perspective of cities in the global south, critical perspectives from feminism, black geography, critical race studies, and more.

 

CY PLAN 290 SEC A (Quinonez)
Topics in City and Metropolitan Planning: "Race and the City"

Units: 3 (seminar)

Extended Course Description:

The COVID pandemic turned the world upside down. Millions of people are out of work at no fault of their own, they are losing income and depleting savings just to survive. The economic recession is hitting people of color and immigrants hardest, further exacerbating inequality in America.  During the best of times and in the shadow of the nation's wealthiest region, families live in tents, unhoused and forgotten. And in the world’s epicenter of financial services innovation, people are locked out without access to the most basic of financial tools. As wealth and opportunity abound in the Bay Area, how is it that fewer and fewer stand to benefit? And how is the current pandemic driving wealth and income inequality deeper? 

In this course, we will explore how inequality intersects with race, place, and wealth. This will be a practice-focused course and will provide students with meaningful conversations and engagement with public, academic, and nonprofit sector leaders working to create an equitable economy where everyone can participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the promise of America. And through this course, we will do just that: you will be part of the conversation. We will use Marshall Ganz’s Public Narrative framework to explore how our individual stories are part of the larger American story, and how they propel us towards action. 

 

CY PLAN 290 SEC B (Wolch)
Topics in City and Metropolitan Planning: "Multispecies Cities"

Units: 3 (seminar)

Extended Course Description:

Beyond concerns for endangered species, city planners pay little attention to animals or plants. But cities are multispecies places full of vibrant matter: diverse flora and creatures that fly, crawl, burrow, slither, jump and run – and sing, grunt, cluck, bark, squeak, and buzz. How should planners think about the more-than-human city? This graduate seminar will ask students to engage critically with a range of related topics: transspecies urban theory and practice; species, subjectivity and positionality; cultural difference and animals; metropolitan nature, biodiversity and urban design; urban refugia, wastelands, and terrain vague; climate change and novel urban flora, animals, and ecosystem; carbon emissions and urban diets; multispecies adaptation and resilience planning; animals, rights and ethics of care; multispecies city governance. Students will also select a topic/city of particular interest and have the opportunity to conduct in-depth research.

 

CY PLAN 290 SEC C (Waddell)
Topics in City and Metropolitan Planning: "Data Science Seminar"

Units: 3 ((seminar)

Extended Course Description: Restricted to students who took CYPLAN 255 and want to continue their projects.

 

CY PLAN 291 SEC 1 (Acey & Lin)
Transformative Justice Studio:  Storytelling and Policy in Oakland & Berkeley

Units: 4 (studio)

Prerequisites: Enrollment by consent of instructor. Please apply here by October 21: https://forms.gle/b8Ae2zcT1puqGW2a7

Extended Course Description:

In this studio course you will explore how to partner with communities to carry out joint research and place-based storytelling at the intersections of two of the biggest racial injustice issues facing cities in the United States and other countries–mass incarceration and racial displacement.  You will learn about the principles of transformative justice–how to center the leadership and lived experiences of people impacted by racial injustices. You will experience how your academic research and/or story-telling skills can be applied in non-extractive, strategic, and spirit-lifting ways to support these grassroots led initiatives.  Students will study groundbreaking ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley that eliminate racialized housing discrimination against people returning home from mass incarceration and community efforts to reimagine policing.  Working with the racial justice organization Just Cities, you will use lenses of racial justice and critical race theory and combine qualitative and quantitative analysis with oral history and arts approaches to understand and convey the impact of policy change utilizing a transformative justice model. You will produce public-facing analyses and narratives through means that may include storytelling, mapping, writing, video, photography, and a variety of arts-based approaches.

 

CY PLAN 298 SEC 3 (Imboden)
Community Engagement Workshop

Units: 1 (seminar)

Extended Course Description:

For architects, planners, and developers, understanding how to effectively engage the community is a critical skill set. Thus, we have proposed to link a new community engagement curriculum to campus efforts. DCRP is sponsoring a two-week intensive workshop on community engagement that will focus on a real-life campus issue. Students will work with instructor Heather Imboden (Communities in Collaboration), as well as guest experts in community engagement around development projects, to develop different approaches to working with the community.