Course Description

PLAN 6050 is a required graduate course in planning-analytic methods featuring lectures, computer labs, and hands-on assignments. The course will help you to understand how planners analyze places and people. In addition, the course will focus on effective visual, written, and oral communication strategies to facilitate your ability to communicate your ideas to clients, decision makers, the public, and your colleagues.

The goal of this course is to introduce you to a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods and tools which are common in the practice of planning. By the end of this course you will be able to:

? Develop measures of concentration,

? Forecast future demographic trends,

? Observation,

? Design and conduct surveys, and

? Analyze regional economic activity.

Requirements

Problem Sets: The problem sets are designed to give you practice on specific techniques we cover in class. The assignments are to be done individually although you are allowed and encouraged to confer with your colleagues on the assignments. There will be 4-5 problems sets spaced throughout the semester. Projects: During the course you will work on two longer projects. The first will focus on the analysis of Census data and will be done individually. The second will use qualitative methods such as observation and surveys to address an issue of your choosing. The second project will be done in groups with your project being presented to the class at the end of the semester. In the projects you are expected to analyze the data and present your findings in a clear and concise manner. Projects 1. Analysis of Census Tract Data 2. Qualitative Methods

Readings

Students will use a variety of articles and book chapters.