City Planning from Ancient Times to Today

Explore the rise of modern planning from 1900 to 1939, tracing how spatial planning merges architecture, social and economic aspects with technology to shape urban form and policy.

Trace the turn of the century rise of the modern city across London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Chicago, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires, and examine early planning amid mass migration.

Traces decentralization as a response to mass urban growth, linking train and auto suburbs. Covers Burnham's Chicago plan, the garden city idea, streetcar suburbs, and racialized deed restrictions.

Compare Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie landscape integration with Le Corbusier's high-rise modernism and the Boathouse school-inspired utopian design, showing how three early 20th-century movements shaped city planning.

Trace the emergence of city planning as a formal discipline in the early 20th century, shaping urban life through planning departments, comprehensive plans, and powerful planners.

Trace how Walter Benjamin framed 1930s urban dreams and nightmares, as cities, fairs, and planning confront fascism, socialism, migration, and depression amid escape and reality.

Explore how class and race shape planning, from the Booth map of London to redlining in Los Angeles and Oakland, tracing urban renewal and power dynamics.

Trace shifts from the industrial revolution to mid-century planning, noting war and rebuilding's impact. Shape civil rights-led reform, influenced by Jane Jacobs, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, toward humanistic planning.

Explore mid-century modern city planning from 1940 to 1979, focusing on postwar rebuilding and urban renewal. Analyze civil rights, global south planning, and cars to computers shaping cities.

Postwar planning reshapes cities from maps to human-centered visions, blending utopian ideas with grassroots consultation as air conditioning and air travel enable new hubs like Tokyo and hot, dry places.

Toward the future shows how 1940s futurism and science fiction reshaped city planning, moving from past-focused Georgian ideals to visions like Asimov's Trantor and New Babylon.

Explore how post-war destruction spurred modernist urban renewal, green belts, and new towns, from Berlin's clean slate to Milton Keynes, and examine the social costs of brutalist housing.

Mid-century planning shifted from modernist renewal to human-centered, participatory approaches, integrating Situationist International ideas, Kevin Lynch's image of the city, and feminist and community planning voices.

Explore how trains, cars, and air conditioning reshaped cities, unleashed highways and mass suburbs, and sparked Sunbelt growth, donut cities, and manufacturing decline.

Mid-century modernism spurred rapid urban growth and a swift decline, with 1968 riots, structural racism, and neighborhood loss fueling the cycle.

From mid-century expansion to 1970s urban decline, this lecture traces how urban renewal, segregation, and elite-centered planning sparked 1960s unrest and set the stage for the neoliberal turn.

Explore how postmodern planning shifts from austerity and privatization toward public-private partnerships, as the internet, Global South growth, and gentrification transform cities and policy.

Trace the shift from urban decline and renewal to reinvention in the Sunbelt, as the new economy and neoliberal age shape places like the Research Triangle Park, while inequality grows.

Explore how the new economy reshapes cities through gentrification and repurposed industrial spaces, while neoliberal planning shifts power to private interests and tax incentives.

Trace how the new economy drives gentrification, repurposing industrial spaces into retail and nightlife, while planners navigate private investment, tax incentives, and public service cuts.

Explore how global finance shapes urban space, from alpha world cities to gentrified districts, and how agglomeration, branding, and creativity reframe planning in the new economy.

Adopt transit oriented planning, green urbanism, and New Urbanism to replace sprawl, create walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods, and reduce carbon and health impacts.

Explore city futures for the 21st century, outlining hopeful and dystopian scenarios, and emphasize learning from the global south to shape resilient urban planning amid climate change and ecological collapse.

Explore how urban planning must evolve to address climate change, environmental injustice, and rising inequality in a world that becomes more urban, with technology and data guiding just, sustainable cities.

Examine how GIS, remote sensing, and real-time data drive smart urbanism, from greener infrastructure to real-time services, while weighing privacy and governance in Toronto's key side project.

Explore how climate change reshapes cities through sea level rise, heat islands, and evolving risks; evaluate sustainable development, compact mix of land uses, and practical, achievable urban solutions.

Explore how the global south drives the future city amid climate change, data, and rapid urban growth in Africa and Asia, including informal settlements, mega cities, and new planning models.

Look upstream to propose policy fixes—austerity, schools, food, and the drug war—and challenge planning assumptions to link built environments with food security, schooling, and the prison industrial complex.

Conclude by exploring the city of tomorrow through the three futurist scenarios: Fortress World, market forces, and policy reform, highlighting potential paths for urban planning.