“Designing a dream city is easy. Rebuilding a living one takes imagination.”    -Jane Jacobs
This course examines the challenges that cities will face and strategies they can use to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Particular attention will be paid to the presence of global disparities, the needs of vulnerable populations and resource constrained locales, and the ways in which local government and community-based activities can achieve equitable levels of climate-readiness.

For many years, Cambridge, MA, as host to two major research universities, has been the scene of debates as to how best to meet the competing expectations of different stakeholders. Where there has been success, it has frequently been the result, at least in part, of inventive urban design proposals and the design and implementation of new institutional arrangements to accomplish those proposals. Where there has been failure it has often been explained by the inability - or unwillingness - of one stakeholder to accept and accommodate the expectations of another. The two most recent fall Urban Design Studios have examined these issues at a larger scale. In 2001 we looked at the possible patterns for growth and change in Cambridge, UK, as triggered by the plans of Cambridge University. And in 2002 we looked at these same issues along the length of the MIT ‘frontier’ in Cambridge, MA as they related to the development of MIT and the biotech research industry.
In the fall 2003 Urban Design Studio we propose to focus in on an area adjacent to Cambridgeport and the western end of the MIT campus, roughly centered on Fort Washington. Our goal is to discover the ways in which good urban form, an apt mix of activities, and effective institutional mechanisms might all be brought together in ways that respect shared expectations and reconcile competing expectations - perhaps in unexpected and adroit ways.

This studio discusses in great detail the design of urban environments, specifically in Providence, RI. It will propose strategies for change in large areas of cities, to be developed over time, involving different actors. Fitting forms into natural, man-made, historical, and cultural contexts; enabling desirable activity patterns; conceptualizing built form; providing infrastructure and service systems; guiding the sensory character of development: all are topics covered in the studio. The course integrates architecture and planning students in joint work and requires individual designs and planning guidelines as a final product.

This studio discusses in great detail the design of urban environments, specifically in Providence, RI. It will propose strategies for change in large areas of cities, to be developed over time, involving different actors. Fitting forms into natural, man-made, historical, and cultural contexts; enabling desirable activity patterns; conceptualizing built form; providing infrastructure and service systems; guiding the sensory character of development: all are topics covered in the studio. The course integrates architecture and planning students in joint work and requires individual designs and planning guidelines as a final product.

This course is intended to introduce graduate students to a set of core writings in the field of urban sociology. Topics include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We examine the key theoretical paradigms that have constituted the field since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these paradigmatic shifts for urban scholarship, social policy and the planning practice.

This course explores the creative dialectic—and sometimes conflict—between sociology and urban policy and design. Topics include the changing conceptions of “community,” the effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, the significance of social capital and networks, the drivers of categorical inequality, and the interaction of social structure and political power. Students will examine key theoretical paradigms that have constituted sociology since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these shifts for urban research and planning practice.
This seminar took place at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk, MA, with half the class from MIT and half of the class from MCI Norfolk via the Boston University Prison Education Program. The location and composition of the class was chosen based on the belief that bringing together students of sociology and urban studies who are incarcerated with those who are at MIT would create a unique and valuable environment in which to generate new knowledge about our social world and the repeated mechanisms that contribute to persistent socio-economic inequality and other pressing social problems.

ViSH is a social and collaborative site for creating and sharing knowledge resources for the realization of educational activities. It provides a collection of tools and services for facilitating the creation of high quality courseware and maximizing technology enhanced learning both in the classroom and in Virtual Learning Environments and Learning Management Systems. ViSH is also a community for teachers and educational professionals who want to meet new educators, create, share and discover novel educational resources, and get access to tools for maximizing technology enhanced learning.

The Global Urban Sustainable Center's project team created a web-based, open-access, crowd-sourced resource to share Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) related to sustainability in India and beyond. The resource has duel purposes for college and university teachers: providing instructional material on urban issues and sustainability through the existing shared
VFTs offered on the site and providing an opportunity for students to create a VFT of a community they are familiar to share. This project was made possible through the generous support of the American Institute of Indian Studies and includes images from site visits from the 2019-20 CAORC Faculty Development Seminar: Exploring Urban Sustainability through India's Cities. This resource not only allows students to view and learn from the Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) that are currently available, but also gives the chance for students to make a VFT of a community that they know and want to share.
This resource can be used as a 'view only' resource for younger students or can be used more interactively with older students who you'd like for them to create their own VFT. For older students you might want them to fully create a VFT or use it as an example for them to think about their communities and how to share that with others.

In this service-learning engineering project, students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design a hearing testing device. More specifically, they design a prototype machine that can be used to test the peripheral vision of partially-blind, pre-verbal children. Students learn about the basics of vision and vision loss. They also learn how a peripheral vision tester for adults works (by testing the static peripheral vision in the four quadrants of the visual field with four controllable lights in specific locations). Then they modify the idea of the adult peripheral vision tester to make it usable for testing young children. The class designs and builds one complete prototype, working in sub-groups of four or five students each to build sub-components of the project design.

A lesson for students to think about the neighborhood they live in and what makes a neighborhood.

In this seminar you will learn about different types of communities. During the activities, you will get to explore the pros and cons of each type of community. You will use this knowledge to compare and contrast the three types of communities. Then you will be in charge of choosing a community type to build a new school in and try to persuade your audience to agree with you!Standards5.2.4.A - Identify individual rights and needs and the rights and needs of others in the classroom, school, and community.

Kevin Allocca is YouTube's trends manager, and he has deep thoughts about silly web video. In this talk from TEDYouth, he shares the 4 reasons a video goes viral. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 7-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Students experience civil and environmental engineering by planning a housing development in an existing biome, while also protecting the native species that live there. They conduct research, draw plans, make brochures and give presentations, with each team having a member serving as a project manager, civil engineer, environmental engineer and graphic designer. The best designs creatively balance the needs and resources necessary to support both the native species and human infrastructure.

The discipline of geography bridges the social sciences with the physical sciences and can provide a
framework for understanding our world. By studying geography, we can begin to understand the
relationships and common factors that tie our human community together. The world is undergoing
globalization on a massive scale as a result of the rapid transfer of information and technology and
the growth of modes of transportation and communication. The more we understand our world, the
better prepared we will be to address the issues that confront our future. There are many approaches
to studying world geography. This textbook takes a regional approach and focuses on themes that
illustrate the globalization process, which in turn assists us in better understanding our global
community and its current affairs.

Learners will intereact with each other digitally and through conversation to talk about the different aspects of community be it their locale, their cultural community or their ethnic community. They will read an article on community and will come away with ideas on how to be more involved in their community.