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GEOG1110: Introduction to Urban & Regional Planning*Dept. of Geography & Earth Sciences, University of North Carolina at CharlotteInstructor: Robert Boyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor [rboyer1@uncc.edu; 704-687-5979]Teaching Assistant: Bryan Rowland [browlan3@uncc.edu]Class meeting time: Monday/Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 Kennedy Building, room 236, active learning labCourse DescriptionGEOG1110: Introduction to Urban & Regional Planning introduces students to the field of urban and regional planning and prepares students for more advanced courses in urban planning and urban studies in the Department of Geography & Earth Sciences. This course has no pre-requisites. The principal focus of this course is plans and the individuals and organizations that make and use plans to influence outcomes in the urban built environment. Everybody makes and uses plans. Yes, you too! If you’re a student reading this syllabus at the beginning of the semester, you’re probably in the process of making and using plans that will help you select courses and ultimately graduate from this university. You’ll make these plans and you and your advisor might use them to make interdependent decisions about completing your degree.Plans influence action through information: the syllabus that you’re reading right now is a plan, created by me, the instructor, to influence your decisions and actions in the coming semester. You will make and use other smaller plans throughout the semester to guide you and your classmates through specific assignments and help you complete the course.Some plans are big, expensive, and made in the public eye with the hope of influencing the actions of others for many decades. Some examples include the 1909 Plan of Chicago, Charlotte’s Centers, Corridors, and Wedges Growth Framework, or the current Blue Line Extension plan that attempts to guide the growth of the light rail system in northeast Charlotte. Some plans are small, private, and used very briefly like weekend plans you make with friends and family. Some are big and private, like Apple’s (presumed) plans for the next iPhone or plans for a secret military operation. Some are relatively small and public, like this syllabus or a bus schedule. All plans express intentions about actions that are interdependent, or actions that require multiple free-thinking, free-acting individuals to do something together, at about the same time, in about the same place. In the case of decisions in the built environment, these actions also tend to be irreversible (cannot be easily un-done), indivisible (cannot be easily completed in small steps), and with imperfect knowledge of the future. While people have made plans for centuries, in the past century urban and regional planning has grown into a professional undertaking. All over the world, public, private, and non-profit organizations hire individuals to make and use plans. The planning profession is extremely diverse, and cannot be covered comprehensively in a single semester. This course focuses mostly on planners in the public sector, at the local and regional level. Students in GEOG1110 will explore how plans and planners shape towns, cities, and regions. As a class, we will explore when and why humans make plans, why cities exist, the causes and consequences of urbanization and sub-urbanization, why cities and regions look and function differently, the origins of the modern planning profession, tools and policies that professional planners use to solve social, economic, and environmental conflicts, the settings in which professional planners work, and issues that local and regional planners will likely confront in the coming century. ObjectivesGraduates of Introduction to Urban & Regional Planning will…understand and express how plans and plan-making for the built environment have evolved since colonial times, including how the concerns of planners have changed and, in many cases, not changed.recognize important individuals, groups, and events in planning history, including those populations that have been excluded from and marginalized by public planning processes understand and express why organizations make plans and how plans work over timelearn how to communicate and collaborate on a small team explore career possibilities in the planning professionTeam-Based LearningWorking and learning in teams is a critical component of this course. It is also a critical skill in the planning profession. Early in the semester, you will be assigned to a permanent team of 5-6 members. We will form teams in class. You will work with your assigned team in almost every classroom session, and will likely meet with your team outside of class from time to time. Teams will collaborate on “Readiness Assurance Tests” (RATs) and several larger projects. Your team can also serve as a de-facto study group for the midterm and final exams. At multiple points in the semester you will provide and receive qualitative feedback from your teammates. Course Structure:This course is divided into four units, each with its own major assignment or exam. Unit 1, Jan 11-25: Elements of Urban Development, Regional Orientation Project. Our first unit will require that you and your team explore different areas of the City of Charlotte. Using Kevin Lynch’s “Image of the City” we will discover important paths, edges, districts, landmarks, and nodes of the Charlotte region and present them to each other on Wednesday January 25th, in class. This project will involve travel and work outside of the classroom with your team. Unit 2, Jan 30-Feb 27: Urban History. Our second unit explores why humans live in cities and towns, how cities grow in population, the historical dilemmas of rapid urban growth in the US and countries of Western Europe, the institutions that have emerged from post-industrial planning, and the unintended social and environmental consequences of these solutions. This is a more traditional unit, involving readings, lectures, and multiple (fun!) in-class exercises. This unit culminates with an exam on March 1st. The exam will include all content covered in the course up to this point. Unit 3, March 13-20. Urban Sustainability. Our third unit will focus on Urban Sustainability, or the challenges of addressing multiple priorities for people at multiple spatial scales, at once. Our focus in this unit will be on planning for climate change, and each team will be assigned to study and present one climate action plan to classmates on Monday March 20. Unit 4, March 22-April 10. Centers, Corridors, and Wedges Growth Framework Project. This unit will involve an in-depth exploration of Charlotte’s current comprehensive growth framework. This unit will work similarly to the Regional Orientation Project, and require that students spend time in the field learning about specific areas of the city of Charlotte. Our focus will be a bit different, however, as we will have learned much more about the tools of city planning and how they shape decisions in the built environment. This unit will culminate with presentations on April 10.Unit 5, April 12 – May 1. Contemporary Planning. This unit will expose students to multiple contemporary focus areas of urban planning including contemporary transportation issues, careers in planning, and contemporary processes of urbanization, which look a bit different than urbanization a century ago. This unit concludes with the final exam, which will cover all material since the midterm exam. The exam will be taken independently. EvaluationYou will be evaluated on a mix of individual and team-based assignments. Readiness Assurance Tests (RATs), 25% of final grade. RATs are 10-question quizzes that take place six times in the semester, usually in the second day of a new unit. RATs test basic knowledge of the required readings and lectures and can be easily passed if you complete the readings, make use of the reading guides provided by the instructor, and attend lectures. You will take each RAT as an individual (iRAT) and re-take the identical RAT with your team (tRAT). iRATs are worth 15 percent of your final grade in the course (60 percent of your RAT grade), and tRATs are worth 10 percent of your final grade in the course (40 percent of your RAT grade). RAT Appeals ProcessTeams have 24 hours to appeal answers marked incorrect on their RATs. Appeals must express a specific concern with a question on the RAT, and offer evidence (e.g. a page number and quotation in a required reading) that a different answer was equally or more appropriate. Appeals can also be issued if a RAT question was poorly worded or somehow misleading. Such an appeal must explain why the particular question was misleading, and where it ‘led’ your team. Appeals must follow these instructions precisely: Submit an appeal as a single e-mail to the instructor within 24 hours of the completion of the class session. The e-mail must have the subject line “RAT APPEAL, GEOG1110, <TEAM #>, DD/MM/YYYY”. Individual team members will only receive credit for the appeal if their e-mail address is copied to the e-mail. Teams may appeal more than one question per class session, but can only make 5 total appeals in the semester. Presentations, 25% of final grade. In the semester you and your team will give three presentations: the Regional Orientation Project (10 percent of final grade), the Climate Action Plan presentation (5 percent of final grade), and the Centers, Corridors, and Wedges Growth Framework Presentation (10 percent of final grade). Some presentations will also have an individual element to your grade. More information to follow.Exams, 40% of final grade. You will have two exams in the course. A midterm and a final, each worth 20% of your final grade. Exams will mix objective questions and open-response essays related to materials covered in class and in required readings. Participation and Attendance, 10% of final grade.Your participation grade in this class is worth 10 percent of your final grade. This portion of your grade will be determined by your attendance during class periods with no RAT or official presentation. During activities and lectures in the semester, attendance will be taken and students who are present for the entire class period will receive full credit for the day. Attendance is usually in the form of a small worksheet submitted with the student’s name.I understand students have obligations and unexpected events outside of class, but in large classes it is difficult to keep track of excuses for missing class, and I do not want to be the judge of whether or not an excused absence is valid. In order to accommodate these unforeseen absences, I will “drop” your lowest RAT grade (both the iRAT and tRAT grade for the day are dropped) and allow for a single excused absence during a class activity. This effectively offers students two excused absences during the semester. Missing other class sessions like exams and presentations will require a note to the instructor detailing the reasons for the absence, and in some cases, verification of the absence, and students must arrange a time to make up the missed session for credit. Assignment (subtotals in italics)% of final gradeReadiness Assurance Tests (RATs), 6 total25individual RATs15team RATs10Regional Orientation Project10Midterm Exam (independent)20Climate Action Plan Team Presentations5CCW Growth Framework Presentation10individual reflection essay5team presentation5Final Exam (independent)20Participation 10Reading MaterialThis course requires that students engage in readings and other media outside of class. Students are required to purchase two texts, both available at the UNC Charlotte bookstore:Levy, John M. 2011.Contemporary Urban Planning (10th Edition). Pearson Education, Inc. Smith, Carl. The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City. University of Chicago Press, 2009.Other reading material will be posted as either PDFs or hyperlinks on the course’s Canvas site. Course Schedule MDDtMod #Module Name (All modules can be found on Canvas)Required Readings, to be completed before class.In-ClassJanM9?Course Introduction and Team Assignments?Discussion + forming teamsW111Elements of Urban Development-Regional Orientation ProjectKevin Lynch, Image of the CityLecture.M16?<<No Class. Martin Luther King Day observed>>?<<No Class. Martin Luther King Day observed>>W181Elements of Urban Development-Regional Orientation Project?Field day. Coordinate meeting time/place with your teams.M231Elements of Urban Development-Regional Orientation Project?Field day. Coordinate meeting time/place with your teams.W251Elements of Urban Development-Regional Orientation Project?Presentations. Slides must be submitted to Canvas before 8pm.M302.1Urban History. Why do we live in cities?Bailey & Peoples "Human Adaptation"Lecture.FebW12.2Urban History. Urbanization and urban growth.Levy Chapter 2; Smith, Introduction and Chapter 1. RAT1.M62.3Urban History. Settlements of colonial America.Foglesong, Chapter 2 "Colonial Town Planning"Colonial settlements game.W82.4Urban History. Dilemmas of industrial cities.Smith, Chapter 3 "The City the Planners Saw"; Jacob Riis, "How the Other Half Lives"Lecture.M132.4Urban History. Dilemmas of industrial cities.Foglesong, Chapter 3, "Early Housing Reform"Housing reformers game.W152.4Urban History. Dilemmas of industrial cities. ?RAT2.M202.5Urban History. Utopian VisionsLevy, Chapter 3LectureW222.6Urban History. Racial exclusion in the post industrial city.Tracey Thompson, “What does racism have to do with gridlock?”LectureM272.6Urban History. Modern American cities, post WWII Dolores Hayden, Chapters 1-2Postwar developments game.MarW1?Midterm Exam. ?Midterm Exam in class.M6?No Class. Spring Break?No class.W8?No Class. Spring Break.?No class.M133Urban Sustainability. Sustainable Development and Climate Action Planning.Levy Chapter 14 "Growth Management, Smart Growth, and Sustainable Development." ; Levy Chapter 15. "Environmental and Energy Planning."RAT4. Climate Action Plans Assigned, Lecture.W153Urban Sustainability. Sustainable Development and Climate Action Planning.?Working day on Climate Action Plans Presentations.M203Urban Sustainability. Sustainable Development and Climate Action Planning.?Climate Action Plans Presentations. W224CCW Growth Framework Project- IntroductionCenters, Corridors, and Wedges Growth Framework (2010)Lecture.M274.1CCW Growth Framework Project. Comprehensive PlanningLevy Chapter 8 "The Comprehensive Plan"RAT 5W294.2CCW Growth Framework Project. The Tools of Land Use PlanningLevy Chapter 9 "The Tools of Land Use Planning"Zoning activity.AprM34CCW Growth Framework Project- field day?Field dayW54CCW Growth Framework Project- field day?Field dayM104CCW Growth Framework Project- presentation day?CCW Growth Framework Presentations.W125.1Contemporary Planning. Transit Oriented Development.?Levy Chapter 12, “Transportation Planning”?M175.2Contemporary Planning. Bicycle Planning.Read the Charlotte BIKES plan online.Guest Lecturer, Ben Miller, AICPW195.3Contemporary Planning. Urban Design Levy Chapter 10 “Urban Design”RAT 6. M245.4Contemporary Planning. Careers in Urban and Regional Planning. Reading TBD?W265.4Contemporary Planning. Careers in Urban and Regional Planning. Complete planning career worksheetProfessional Urban Planner Panel.MayM16Semester ReviewComplete GEOG1110 Survey OR short reflective essayReview sessionW10?FINAL EXAM, 8:00-10:30AM, Kennedy 236??Reading GuidesGuides for many of the required readings will be posted to Canvas. Although there is no expectation that you submit the reading guides, you are strongly encouraged to use these guides to focus your reading, especially for the more complex chapters and articles. The reading guides are a strong indicator of what you are expected to know for in-class assessments, application exercises, and exams. Outside of class, and office hoursYou are welcome to consult both the instructor and the teaching assistant outside of class, at anytime over e-mail. We will do our best to reply to your e-mails immediately but we both handle a lot of e-mail, so if you have not received a reply within 48-hours, please send a follow-up message. You are also welcome to visit us during office hours.Dr. Boyer: Monday 1-2, Wednesday 1-2. McEniry 312.Mr. Rowland: Tuesdays 3:30-4:45, McEniry 430.Cell Phones, Laptops, and other electronic mediaCell phones laptops, tablets, and other electronic media, must be turned off and put away during class, unless we are using these devices for activities in class. University PoliciesAcademic Integrity Students are responsible for knowing and following The Code of Student Academic Integrity and The Code of Student Responsibility. These can be found at and respectively. Standards of academic integrity will be enforced in this course. Questions regarding the policies and enforcement of the policies should be addressed to me during class or during office hours. Accommodations UNCC abides by interpretations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that stipulates no student shall be denied the benefits of an education “solely by reason of a handicap.” Disabilities covered by law include, but are not limited to, learning disabilities, hearing, sight or mobility impairments, and other health related impairments. This course will gladly provide accommodations for students with documented needs. If you feel you need an accommodation, please contact the Office of Disability Services, Fretwell 230, Phone 704-687-4355 for the necessary evaluation and documentation.Diversity The University of North Carolina at Charlotte is committed to equality of educational opportunity and does not discriminate against applicants, students, or employees based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability. In keeping with this commitment, UNC Charlotte actively seeks to promote diversity in its educational environment through its recruitment, enrollment and hiring practices. *This syllabus and the course schedule are subject to changes throughout the semester. Students will be notified about syllabus changes. ................
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