Course Description

This course is required for all students enrolled in the Master's degree program in Community and Regional Planning. It is the first part of a three-semester 980 sequence that will introduce you to planning principles and practice (the second semester focuses on planning methods, and the third semester is an integrative planning workshop). The goal of this first course is to help you understand the evolution of urban and regional planning and the changing concepts that have guided this evolution. In Western democratic societies, planners often find themselves in an ambivalent role amongst many other players in the sphere of urban development and governance. Planners are duty bound to serve the "public interest", be concerned with long-range consequences of current actions, and understand the complex interconnections between economics, transportation, environment, land use, social equity, infrastructure, etc. At the same time, other powerful political and market processes are at work that often confound these duties for good or ill. Planners have been roundly criticized throughout the history of their profession and less often praised, and yet the need for planning has consistently been recognized. In studying the history of planning, students will understand the development of the dynamic tension between planning and democracy, the various responses that have been proposed, and planning failures and successes. Within this historical context, we will explore the development of and debates surrounding planning theory, by which we mean those concepts that guide how planners work. Even those planners who swear they have nothing to do with theory must base their actions on some idea of what constitutes "good" planning. Those ideas have changed markedly in some ways over time but in other ways have been surprisingly consistent. Our job will be to examine them and bring them out into the open for discussion and critique.

We will focus primarily on American planning history, but will pay some attention to planning in Great Britain and Europe. If they desire, students are encouraged to focus their course work on cities outside the United States.

Course Work

Course work will consist primarily of discussions of reading assignments and a series of "case city/region" assignments. There will be fairly heavy reading assignments every week, and you are expected to complete these in time for class discussion and to participate actively in class discussion and debate. The semester-long case study will be a group project (3-4 people in each group) focusing on a single city or region. This project consists of a some overview materials plus set of individual reports exploring planning topics and concepts as they evolved in that city or region. Each report will be posted to the group web site, and the final project will integrate the various group contributions to create a well-orgnanized web site for your case city region. Work on the reports will be due in several stages during the semester.

Grading

Your grade will be based on the following:

• Class participation and attendance: 20 points
• Individual case study evaluation: 45 points
  The case city project grade will be calculated as follows:
  • On time completion of initial outline, historical background, and discussion of major issues - 10 points
  • Demonstrated understanding and substantive treatment of topics - 25 points
  • Correct grammar, spelling and other mechanics - 10 points
• Group case study evaluation: 35 points
  The group grade will be based on:
  • On time completion of phases 1 and 2 - 10 points (5 points per phase)
  • Clear logical structure of final web site, quality of group authored sections - 15 points
  • Group participation as evaluated by group members - 10 points

Grading will be decided as follows:

• 90 to 100 points = A
• 80-89.9 points = B
• 70-79.9 = C
• etc.

Note for students with disabilities

The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY.