| 1 |
Introduction
Questions of the Day: What is Urban Design? What is Urban Development? How are they connected?
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Exercise 1 handed out: due
in class during SES 3. |
| 2 |
Ways of Seeing the City
Questions of the Day: What are the visible signs of change in cities? How can we measure the form of cities? How do the underlying values of the observer influence what is observed?
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| 3 |
The Forces that Made Boston
Question of the Day: What does the history of Boston’s development tell us about the issues facing the city today?
Discussion of Exercise 1
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Exercise 1 due in class. |
| 4 |
The Design of American Cities
Question of the Day: What is the difference between agrarian settlements and industrial cities? What happened to cities as America industrialized?
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| 5 |
Walking Tour of Boston
(Optional but highly encouraged)
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Walking tour of Boston. |
| 6 |
Urban Design and the American Workplace
Questions of the Day: What were nineteenth century and early twentieth century housing and workplace reformers trying to reform? Do we still have company towns?
In-class Video: Excerpt from “The Workplace”-- on Lowell, Mass. and Pullman, Illinois.
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| 7 |
Development of Controls and Institutionalization of Planning
Question of the Day: Can we design cities without designing buildings?
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Exercise 2 handed out: due
in class during LEC 19. |
| 8 |
Zoning and Beyond: Urban Design Guidelines
Question of the Day: What is the relationship between development incentives and quality public space?
In-class Video: “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”
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| 9 |
In-Class Field Trip to the Boston Redevelopment Authority |
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| 10 |
New Directions in Land Use Regulation: Performance Zoning
Question of the Day: How can new developments in zoning improve Cambridge?
Guest Speaker: Philip Herr
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PART II: CHANGING CITIES BY DESIGNING NEW ONES
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| 11 |
THREE URBAN UTOPIAS:
1. Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City
2. Le Corbusier’s Radiant City
3. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City
Questions of the Day: What assumptions does each thinker make about how people should live in cities? What beliefs does each hold about the relationship between city design and social change? What aspects of these “utopias” have actually come to pass?
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| 12 |
NEW TOWNS IN THE UNITED STATES & ABROAD
Question of the Day: What motivates planners to design new towns?
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| 13 |
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Exam #1 |
PART III: CHANGING CITIES BY EXTENDING THEM: DESIGNING SUBURBS AND REGIONS
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| 14 |
The Origins and Growth of Suburbs
Questions of the Day: Why do we have suburbs? How and why do the designs of new suburbs differ from the designs of older ones?
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| 15 |
Rethinking American Suburbs
Questions of the Day: How do “urbanism” and “suburbanism” differ as “ways of life”? What are the social consequences of sprawl?
In-class Video: Andres Duany “Suburban Sprawl or Livable Neighborhoods” (excerpt #1)
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| 16 |
Design Standards
Guest Speaker: Kath Phelan
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| 17 |
Neo-Traditionalism and New Urbanism
Question of the Day: What is the appeal of small town life, and can this be designed?
In-class Video: Andres Duany “Suburban Sprawl or Livable Neighborhoods” (excerpt #2)
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Final Paper Assigned.
(Topic due by SES 20; paper due SES 26.)
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| 18 |
Designing Heritage Areas
Question of the Day: How can urban designers create new economic value for historic places?
Guest Speaker: Dennis Frenchman
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| 19 |
Regional Planning and Changes in Metropolitan Form
Question of the Day: What is gained by trying to manage design and development at the level of the region?
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Exercise 2 due. |
PART IV: CHANGING CITIES BY REDESIGNING THEIR CENTERS
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| 20 |
Urban Renewal and its Critics
Questions of the Day: When does a “neighborhood” become a “slum”? How does one achieve a balance between "renewal" and "preservation"?
In-class Videos: Home Movies from Boston’s West End and West End Reunion
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Topic of Final Paper due. |
| 21 |
The Tumult of American Public Housing
Question of the Day: What does urban design have to do with the problems of American public housing?
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Discussion of Exercise 2. |
| 22 |
The End of Suburbia
Question of the Day: Are suburbs being urbanized and cities being suburbanized?
Guest Speaker: Prof. Robert Fishman, University of Michigan
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| 23 |
Downtown Development and the Privitization of Public Space
Question of the Day: Is ‘Public Space’ Being ‘Privatized’?
In-class Video: Gated Communities
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| 24 |
Alternatives to New Urbanism
Question of the Day: Are there good alternatives to New Urbanism?
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PART V: IMPLEMENTING CHANGE: NEW RULES, NEW PARTICIPANTS, OLD PROBLEMS
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| 25 |
Urban Design Futures: E-topia and the City of Bits
Question of the Day: How have advances in telecommunications technology changed the way we use and conceive cities?
Guest Speaker: Dean Bill Mitchell
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| 26 |
The Rise of Environmental Concerns and Regulation
Question of the Day: How can cities best benefit from the natural environment without further harming it?
Guest Speaker: Prof. Anne Whiston Spirn
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Final Paper due. |
| 27 |
The Rise of Community Activism
Guest Speaker: Ken Kruckemeyer
Questions of the Day: How has community participation changed urban design and development? Can urban development be a force for social equity?
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| 29 |
Last Class |
Discussion of Final Papers. |
| 30 |
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Final Exam. |