Course Description

Methods of planning analysis, many with a strong quantitative component, will be explored through their application to the planning and policy issues of a metropolitan area. Planning has adapted methods from many related disciplines: demography, urban and regional economics, quantitative geography, environmental and sustainability analysis, statistics, survey research and public finance to name a few. This course will cast these into a dual framework of “planning and policy” and “planning research”. The former involves structuring problems, anticipating outcomes and evaluation. The latter involves exploration, discovery, structuring and knowledge building. Topics include: Exploratory analysis and mapping of census data, projection and forecasting of population and economic trends and the associated public service needs, component or sector modeling, concept mapping, decision theory, time series comparisons, cost-benefit analysis and spatial interaction analysis. Each week will consist of a mixture of lecture and workshop activities. In addition, a dedicated computer lab workshop will occur weekly to focus on computational and digital presentation skills.

Requirements

There will be two or three group projects and a series of individual exercises during the course of the semester.

Readings

Patton and Sawicki , Gupta “Analyzing Public Policy” or Bardach “Practical Guide for Policy Analysis” (TBD) Dankekar, Hemalata C. Planners Use of Information, 2nd ed. APA Planners Press ” (TBD) References will be available in the Fine Arts and GEOSTAT libraries. Electronic Web based articles will also be used.