CP 4020: Introduction to Urban and Regional Planning
Modified Syllabus and Reading Links
Georgia Institute of Technology
College of Design
School of City and Regional Planning
Summer 2021
(The 2019 edition, which was taught in a different format, is here.)
Syllabus Topics
What Is Planning?
A Brief History of Planning
Where Is the Public in Planning?
Zoning and Land Use in the United States
Housing: Provision of Public Housing
Housing: Affordability and Gentrification
Housing: What Was Redlining?
Environmental Planning: The Evolution of American Environmental Planning
Environmental Planning: Parks and Greenspace
Environmental Planning: Cities and Climate Change
Transportation: Auto-Dependent Development
Transportation: High-Speed Rail and the Biden Administration’s Proposed Funding
Transportation: The Many Visions of Vision Zero
Economic Development and Growth Machines
Economic Development: Stadia, Festivals, and Other Megaprojects
GIS and Urban Analytics
Urban Design and City Form
“Broken Windows” and Community Development
Planning for All Bodies and All Abilities
Planning and Public Health
What Is Planning?
Brasuell, James. “Searching for the Essence of Planning at the National Planning Conference.” Planetizen, April 14, 2019.
City of Atlanta Department of City Planning. Atlanta City Design: Aspiring to the Beloved Community. 2017.
Rittel, Horst W. J., and Webber, Melvin M. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences, Volume 4 (1973), pp. 155–169.
A Brief History of Planning
Jacobs, Jane. “Chapter 1: Introduction” and “Chapter 6: The uses of city neighborhoods.” From The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage, 1992).
Mumford, Eric. “Chapter 1: The Emergence of Modern Urbanism: European Cities in the Nineteenth Century,” and “Chapter 2: Cities in the Americas and the International Influence of the City Beautiful Movement.” From Designing the Modern City: Urbanism Since 1850 (Yale University Press, 2018).
Where Is the Public in Planning?
Biggs, Dave. “What I Learned When an Angry Group Destroyed My Public Meeting.” Planetizen, March 14, 2016.
Davidoff, Paul. “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 31 (4): 331–38, 1965.
Levine, Jeremy. “It’s Time to Move On From Community Consensus.” Shelterforce, September 4, 2020. .
Milkman, Arielle. “Why Participatory Planning Fails (and How to Fix It).” Next City, April 28, 2021.
Zoning and Land Use in the United States
Chakraborty, Arnab. “Calls to End All Single-Family Zoning Need More Scrutiny.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 123–24.
Etienne, Harley F. “The Detached Single-Family Home Genie and Its Bottle.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 126–27.
Gardner, Spencer. “A History of Zoning in Three Acts - Part I.” Strong Towns, June 28, 2017.
———. “A History of Zoning, Part II: The Problem Zoning Solves.” Strong Towns, July 18, 2017.
———. “A History of Zoning, Part III: Missing the Trees for the Forest.” Strong Towns, August 10, 2017.
Kendig, Lane. “Eliminating Existing Single-Family Zoning Is a Mistake.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 124–25.
The Kinder Institute for Urban Research. “Houston Doesn’t Have Zoning, but There Are Workarounds.” Urban Edge (blog), January 12, 2020.
Knaap, Gerritt, and Nicholas Finio. “Though Rumors of Its Demise Might Be Exaggerated….” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 125–26.
Manville, Michael, Paavo Monkkonen, and Michael Lens. “It’s Time to End Single-Family Zoning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 106–12.
———. “Last Thoughts From Manville, Monkkonen, and Lens.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 127–28.
Mogush, Paul, and Heather Worthington. “The View From Minneapolis: Comments on ‘Death to Single-Family Zoning’ and ‘It’s Time to End Single-Family Zoning.’” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 120–120.
Searle, Glen, and Peter Phibbs. “Ending Single-Family Zoning: Is There a Plan B?” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 121–22.
Silver, Christopher. “The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities.” In June Manning Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf, eds., Urban Planning and the African-American Community: In the Shadows (SAGE, 1996).
Wegmann, Jacob. “Last Thoughts From Wegmann.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 128–128.
Wegmann, Jake. “Death to Single-Family Zoning…and New Life to the Missing Middle.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 113–19.
Yerena, Anaid. “Not a Matter of Choice: Eliminating Single-Family Zoning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 122–122.
Housing: The Provision of Public Housing
Boston, Thomas D. “Chapter 11: Public Housing Demolition and Neighborhood Revitalization,” In Harley F. Etienne and Barbara Faga, Planning Atlanta (Routledge, 2014).
Burns, Sarah, and David McMahon. East Lake Meadows. Documentary. PBS, 2020.
Keating, Larry. “Redeveloping Public Housing.” Journal of the American Planning Association, Volume 66, No. 4 (2000), pp. 384–397.
Marshall, Colin. “Pruitt-Igoe: the troubled high-rise that came to define urban America.” The Guardian, April 22, 2015.
Housing: Affordability and Gentrification
Green, Josh. “How Gentrification Really Changes a Neighborhood.” Atlanta Magazine, March 1, 2016.
Lin, Jeffrey. “Understanding Gentrification’s Causes.” Economic Insights (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia), 2017.
Mock, Brentin, “Where Gentrification Is an Emergency, and Where It’s Not.” CityLab, April 5, 2019.
Rueckert, Phineas. “Can Cities Be Saved From ‘Supergentrification’? Aspen May Offer a Roadmap.” Next City April 27, 2021.
Smith, Noah. “The Left-NIMBY Canon.” Noahpinion, January 19, 2021.
Zuk, Miriam; Bierbaum, Ariel H.; Chapple, Karen; Gorska, Karolina; Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia; Ong, Paul; and Thomas, Trevor. “Gentrification, Displacement and the Role of Public Investment: A Literature Review.” Working Paper 2015-05, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, August 2015.
Housing: What Was Redlining?
Gross, Terry. “A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America.” Fresh Air. National Public Radio, May 3, 2017.
Hillier, Amy E. “Redlining and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation.” Journal of Urban History 29, no. 4 (May 2003): 394–420.
Xu, Wenfei. “The Legacy of Redlining: Residential Segregation in 147 American Cities.” Interactive Map Set. Accessed April 30, 2021.
Environmental Planning: The Evolution of American Environmental Planning
BenDor, Todd, Brozović, Nicholas, and Pallathucheril, Varkki George. “The Social Impacts of Wetland Mitigation Policies in the United States.” Journal of Planning Literature, Volume 22, Issue 4 (2008).
Daniels, Thomas L. “A Trail Across Time: American Environmental Planning from City Beautiful to Sustainability.” Journal of the American Planning Association, Volume 75, No. 2 (2009), pp. 178–192.
City of Atlanta Department of City Planning,. “Atlanta’s Tree Protection Ordinance: Summary of Revisions.” January 2021.
Environmental Planning: Parks and Greenspace
Immergluck, Dan, and Tharunya Balan. “Sustainable for Whom? Green Urban Development, Environmental Gentrification, and the Atlanta Beltline.” Urban Geography 39, no. 4 (April 21, 2018): 546–62.
Palardy, Nathan P., B. Bynum Boley, and Cassandra Johnson Gaither. “Resident Support for Urban Greenways across Diverse Neighborhoods: Comparing Two Atlanta BeltLine Segments.” Landscape and Urban Planning 180 (December 1, 2018): 223–33.
Rigolon, Alessandro, and Jeremy Németh. “Green Gentrification or ‘Just Green Enough’: Do Park Location, Size and Function Affect Whether a Place Gentrifies or Not?” Urban Studies 57, no. 2 (February 1, 2020): 402–20.
Weber, Sarah, B. Bynum Boley, Nathan Palardy, and Cassandra Johnson Gaither. “The Impact of Urban Greenways on Residential Concerns: Findings from the Atlanta BeltLine Trail.” Landscape and Urban Planning 167 (2017): 147–56.
Wolch, Jennifer R.; Bryne, Jason; and Newell, Joshua P. “Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’.” Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 125 (May 2014): 234–244.
Environmental Planning: Cities and Climate Change
Klinenberg, Eric. “Adapation: How Can Cities Be ‘Climate-Proofed’?” The New Yorker, December 30, 2012.
Lyles, Ward, and Mark Stevens. “Climate Change.” In The Routledge Handbook of International Planning Education, edited by Nancey Green Leigh, Steven P. French, Subhrajit Guhathakurta, and Bruce Stiftel. Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.
Raven, Jeffrey, Brian Stone, Gerald Mills, Joel Towers, Lutz Katzschner, Mattia Federico Leone, Pascaline Gaborit, Matei Georgescu, and Maryam Hariri. “Urban Planning and Urban Design.” In Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities, edited by Cynthia Rosenzweig, William Solecki, Patricia Romero-Lankao, Shagun Mehrotra, Shobhakar Dhakal, and Somayya Ali Ibrahim, 139–72. ARC3 Series, ARC3.2, 2018.
Transportation: Auto-Dependent Development
Friedman, Laura, and Donald C. Shoup. “Cities Need Housing. Parking Requirements Make It Harder.” Bloomberg CityLab, April 26, 2021.
Jacobs, Jane, “Chapter 18: Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles,” from The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Shoup, Donald, “Chapter 1: The Twentieth-Century Parking Problem,” from The High Cost of Free Parking (American Planning Association, 2011).
Transportation: High-Speed Rail and the Biden Administration's Proposed Funding
Barro, Josh. “Why New York Can’t Have Nice Things.” New York Magazine, May 30, 2019.
Hall, Peter. “Chapter 5: San Francisco’s BART System,” from Great Planning Disasters (University of California Press, 1982).
Levy, Alon. “Amtrak’s Continued Ignorance.” Pedestrian Observations, May 7, 2021.
———. “High-Speed Rail and Connecting Transit.” Pedestrian Observations, April 13, 2021.
Smith, Noah. “I Don’t Get the High-Speed Rail Thing (Yet).” Noahpinion, April 11, 2021.
Transportation: The Many Visions of Vision Zero
City & County of Denver. “Denver Vision Zero: Data & Trends.” ArcGIS StoryMaps, July 24, 2019.
Conner, Marco. “Traffic Justice: Achieving Effective and Equitable Traffic Enforcement in the Age of Vision Zero.” Fordham Urban Law Journal 44 (2017): 969.
Tingvall, Claes, and Narelle Haworth. “Vision Zero - An Ethical Approach to Safety and Mobility.” In 6th ITE International Conference Road Safety & Traffic Enforcement: Beyond 2000, 1999.
Economic Development and Growth Machines
Cox, Kevin R. “Revisiting ‘the City as a Growth Machine.’” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 10, no. 3 (October 14, 2017): 391–405.
Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth, and Stolarick, Kevin. “The Great Divide: Economic Development Theory Versus Practice—A Survey of the Current Landscape.” Economic Development Quarterly, Volume 25, No. 2 (2011), pp. 143–157.
Levy, John M., “What Local Economic Developers Actually Do: Location Quotients versus Press Releases.” Journal of the American Planning Association, Volume 56, Issue 2 (1990), pp. 153–160.
Molotch, Harvey. “The city as growth machine: Toward a political economy of place.” American Journal of Sociology, Volume 82, No. 2 (Sept. 1976), pp. 309–322.
Economic Development: Stadia, Festivals, and Other Megaprojects
Hall, Peter. “Chapter 6: Sydney’s Opera House,” from Great Planning Disasters.
Zimbalist, Andrew. “Chapter 3: The Short-Run Economic Impact,” and “Chapter 4: The Long-Run Economic Impact,” from Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. 2nd Edition. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press (2016).
GIS and Urban Analytics
City of Atlanta Department of City Planning. “SHIFT ATL.” Accessed May 2, 2021.
ESRI’s StoryMaps Team. “Urban Africa.” ArcGIS StoryMaps, May 13, 2020.
Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation. A Guided Tour of IPUMS USA. Uploaded to YouTube February 2, 2019.
Ritzdorf, Marsha. “The Fairy’s Tale: Teaching Planning and Public Policy in a Different Voice.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 12, no. 2 (January 1, 1993): 99–106.
Matthews, Dylan. “The radical plan to change how Harvard teaches economics.” Vox, May 22, 2019.
Urban Design and City Form
Dunham-Jones, Ellen, and Williamson, June. “Dead and Dying Shopping Malls, Re-Inhabited.” Architectural Design, Volume 87, Issue 5, pp. 84–91.
Jacobs, Jane. “Chapter 19: Visual order: Its limitations and possibilities,” from The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Lynch, Kevin. “Chapter I: The Image of the Environment,” from The Image of the City (MIT Press, 1960).
Schlickman, Emily, and Anya Domlesky. “Field Guide to Life in Urban Plazas: A Study of New York City.” SWA, 2019.
Planning for All Bodies and All Abilities
Ahn, Mira, Jiyun Kang, and Hyun Joo Kwon. “The Concept of Aging in Place as Intention.” The Gerontologist 60, no. 1 (January 24, 2020): 50–59.
Staples, Jamie, and Essex, Stephen. “Design, Disability and the Planning Challenge: The Reality of Living with Severely Disabled Children.” Planning Practice & Research, Volume 31, No. 3 (2016), pp. 327–346.
Webb, Amy. “An Accessible Spring Break in Hocking Hills, Ohio.” This Little Miggy. Accessed June 8, 2021.
———. “Crowd Sourced Post: Traveling When You Have a Disability.” This Little Miggy. Accessed June 8, 2021.
Broken Windows and Community Development
Broderick, Timmy. “Pete Buttigieg Tried to Revive South Bend by Tearing down Homes. Did It Work?” Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2019.
Kelling, George L. “Reclaiming the Subway.” City Journal, Winter 1991.
Kelling, George L., and Wilson, James Q. “Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety.” The Atlantic, March 1982.
Murphy, Alexandra K. “‘Litterers’: How Objects of Physical Disorder Are Used to Construct Subjects of Social Disorder in a Suburb.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 642, no. 1 (July 1, 2012): 210–27.
Planning and Public Health
Hermansen, Bianca, Bettina Werner, Hilde Evensmo, and Michela Nota. “The Human Habitat: My, Our, and Everyone’s City.” In Mark Nieuwenhuijsen and Haneen Khreis, eds., Integrating Human Health into Urban and Transport Planning: A Framework (Springer International Publishing, 2019), 113–33.
Horst, Megan, Nathan McClintock, and Lesli Hoey. “The Intersection of Planning, Urban Agriculture, and Food Justice: A Review of the Literature.” Journal of the American Planning Association 83, no. 3 (July 3, 2017): 277–95.
Wu, Yizheng, Dana Rowangould, Jonathan K. London, and Alex Karner. “Modeling Health Equity in Active Transportation Planning.” Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 67 (February 1, 2019): 528–40.