Courses

NOTE: This site is an archive of 2012–2013 programs and policies at Boston University Metropolitan College. If you are looking for current information about Metropolitan College and its programs, please go to our official website: www.bu.edu/met.

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  • MET UA 553: Documenting Historic Buildings and Landscapes
    Seminar in architectural and landscape recording techniques involving readings, fieldwork, and writing; projects include research on individual buildings as well as groups of resources. Emphasis on research design and evaluation of evidence.
  • MET UA 560: City in the Media
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  • MET UA 590: International Comparative Urbanization and Planning
    Examination of a selected country, region, or city in relation to issues of urbanization and development planning. Emphasis on comparative analysis of policy, techniques, conditions, issues, and effectiveness. Topics and international subjects vary. Consult the department for details.
  • MET UA 604: Urban Political Decision-Making: Citizen Participation in the Planning Process
    Case studies of political decision-making roles in urban conflict management and resource allocation. Community power distribution, factors influencing change, leadership styles, and relationships to administrators and planners. Selected policy issues, such as redevelopment, education, crime, and service delivery.
  • MET UA 611: Community Development
    Examination of community development challenges in several areas, including housing, economic development, community policing, and resident activism. Analysis of past and present strategies for strengthening communities through case studies, actual government and community programs, guest lectures, and related readings.
  • MET UA 613: Designing Urban Space
    The role of urban design in the community development process. Examines human behavior, aesthetic foundations of design methods, citizen/client participation, and public policy issues. Analysis of actual community spaces. Student design exercises.
  • MET UA 617: Living Systems Theory and Design
    Our modern communities and their related infrastructure have created positive, short-term benefit to humans and unintended destructive impact on the living systems that support us. How can we reconcile the interrelationship between perceived human needs and earth's living processes? This course explores the theory and practical implementation of current practices of 'sustainability' and living systems thinking. The living processes of community will be explored as a catalyst for healthy change, design thinking, and on-the-ground implementation. The course is based on the experience and writings of leading living system theorists, authors, architects, planners, developers, landscape architects, and this instructor. By the end of the course, our understanding will shift from seeing the world as pieces in relationship to seeing it as inseparable 'wholes' of systems, nested within one another.
  • MET UA 619: Urban Transportation Policy and Planning
    This course will provide students with a broad introduction to important concepts and policy issues in transportation, principally at an urban and metropolitan level. In addition, the course will explore methods planning practitioners can use to analyze transportation problems and propose solutions. The course will use specific examples of planning initiatives (both operations and capital) from transportation agencies within the Boston Metropolitan region. Guest speakers from local, regional, and state transportation agencies within the Greater Boston Metropolitan area will supplement the instructor's lectures and assigned readings.
  • MET UA 620: Urban and Regional Land Use Policy and Planning
    Techniques of land use planning, including socioeconomic studies, market analysis and needs forecasting, mapping, environment and service impacts, and transportation/land use coordination. Policies for achieving land use objectives: planned unit development, zoning, development corporations, new towns, and land preservation.
  • MET UA 623: Regional and Metropolitan Development Planning
    Analysis of regional planning as applied to land use, economic development, infrastructure systems, and other topics. Cases and class projects selected from metropolitan and substate regions, including regional approaches and organizations, economic base, comparative advantage, and growth centers.
  • MET UA 629: Urbanization and the Environment
    Interrelationships between physical environment and processes of urbanization. Case studies develop historical perspective on social, economic, and physical aspects of the quality of urban life. Special attention to the preparation of environmental impact statements and assessment of urban environmental quality.
  • MET UA 654: Geographic Information Systems for Planners
    Geographic Information Systems for Planners provides an introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specifically with a focus on applications in urban planning. The role of spatial analysis in local, state and regional planning has steadily increased over the last decade with the infusion of windows-based GIS software such as ESRI ArcGIS. The class focus is to prepare students to feel comfortable communicating with other GIS users, research spatial data, and produce high quality digital maps in an applied learning environment.
  • MET UA 655: Connected City
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  • MET UA 657: Housing from an International Perspective
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  • MET UA 662: Non-Profits and Land Use Development
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  • MET UA 664: Planning and the Development Process
    This course specifically explores the area where the private and public sectors meet so that the student can develop an awareness of the complexity of dealing with these often competing interests. The objective of the course is to give the student an understanding of the motivations of the private sector in the way they go about creating their products and projects and to leave the student with the tools and knowledge to successfully negotiate the Public Interest with the Private Needs.
  • MET UA 668: Post Disaster Planning
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  • MET UA 672: Regionalism
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  • MET UA 675: Urban Sustainability
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  • MET UA 701: Urban Problems and Policy Responses
    Major problems confronting urban areas and the process of policy formulation and implementation. Emphasis on problem interdependence and systems characteristics. Analysis of problem definitions (housing, crime, poverty, etc.), goals, public/private responsibilities, existing programs, and policy options. Analysis of selected, comparative international experience.

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