AR 121 - Urban Environments and Planning
Credit Hours: 3
Introduces how physical, historical, social, cultural, political, environmental, economic, and design forces interact to shape and reshape our urban environments. Develops awareness of urban design and regional development. Considers how urban planning and development impacts urbanization, growth management, environmental issues, and urban sprawl in metropolitan areas. From multidisciplinary perspectives, studies images of cities and suburbs, patterns and trends in urban landscapes over time and place, urban observation, environmental changes, population shifts, and urban design on society and culture. Examines the influence of urban planning and design practices for inclusive, equitable neighborhoods. Evaluate contemporary urban issues, including housing, race, class, gender, socioeconomics, environmental justice, population changes, inclusive design, and equitable development. Recognize the physical, historical, social, cultural, political, environmental, and economic forces that shape urban environments through planning, design, and development. Involves reading, multimedia, discussions, and fieldwork.
Course Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- explain the physical, design, social, cultural, design, historical, political, economic, and environmental forces that shape the origins of urban environments;
- discuss the historical origins of cities, urban form, and urbanism;
- define the key disciplines that are used to describe and understand urban environments;
- describe the core functions of urban environments (housing, land, work, and transportation);
- identify and analyze the drivers (physical, social, cultural, design, historical, political, economic, and environmental) of change in urban environments;
- recognize the historical and contemporary factors that shape urban environments on individuals, genders, racial groups, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood identities;
- awareness of how historical environmental design, planning, and development policies impact race, class, gender, and socioeconomic status in urban communities. Consider how urban planning and design play roles in social reproduction; in the legitimation of power through authority; in the creation and maintenance of national identity; and in the absorption and deflection of ideas and social movements that are potentially antithetical to dominant values and interests;
- knowledge of environmental design strategies to plan and develop equitable, inclusive urban landscapes and neighborhoods. Awareness of how urban landscapes reflect the economic logic, social organization, and cultural values of society;
- awareness of how environmental design became a central aspect of contemporary urban life;
- understand as urban environments grow, cities become spaces where increasingly diverse peoples negotiate differences including language, citizenship, ethnicity and race, class and wealth, and gender;
- identify various environmental design movements, including: universal design helping people with physical disabilities; urban design for the benefit of women, children, and the elderly; planning and design for healthy urban communities; physical design that addresses minority populations; and, design that promotes social diversity;
- acknowledge the rights of residents and provide community access throughout the planning, design, and urban development processes that address, mitigate, and amend past and present environmental injustices; and
- ability to use maps and other visual imagery to document physical changes in our urban landscapes.
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