Community Growth and Land Use Planning
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this seminar and fieldwork course on planning and controlling growth and land use at the municipal level. It covers the local consequences of growth, land use planning approaches, and implementation tools such as innovative zoning, regulatory techniques, physical design standards, and natural systems integration. Students work in small teams on projects arranged with actual municipal clients, applying planning frameworks to real local governance problems. Materials include the syllabus, readings, and project assignments as published by MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The course suits students interested in how towns and cities actually make and enforce growth decisions, pairing theoretical frameworks with hands-on client work rather than lecture-only instruction. As with other MIT OCW offerings, materials are free to access and there is no certificate.