Revitalizing Urban Main Streets: St. Claude Avenue, New Orleans
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this urban planning course built around a real applied project: reviving St. Claude Avenue, a commercial corridor in New Orleans. The syllabus covers why urban business districts decline, the strategies cities use to reverse that decline, and the physical design and economic development tools planners use to assess a struggling Main Street. Students study policies, public investments, and interventions used in commercial revitalization efforts, then apply what they learn by drafting an actual revitalization plan for the St. Claude corridor. Materials include lecture notes, readings, and project assignments from MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The course works through classroom instruction paired directly with fieldwork-style analysis, giving students a concrete case rather than abstract theory. No certificate is offered, but all course materials are free to access and reuse under MIT's open license.