SJS 213 Designing Sustainable Cities
This course focuses on the design and implementation of sustainable cities, emphasizing how urban policies, planning strategies, and economic systems can be mobilized to achieve sustainability goals. Building on the analytical foundations of urban sustainability, students learn to develop data-informed and policy-relevant solutions to complex urban challenges.
The course is framed through SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), with a focus on its operational dimensions, including housing, resource allocation, trade-offs, infrastructure and the distributional impacts of urban policy. Students collect data to analyze how economic considerations shape urban planning, social considerations, infrastructure, and governance.
Through case studies, fieldwork, and project-based learning, students work with urban data, economic indicators, and planning tools to assess existing conditions and model future scenarios. Using cities such as Lugano as applied case studies, students evaluate policy options and design context-specific interventions.
The course culminates in the development of a comprehensive urban proposal, in which students integrate sustainability metrics, economic reasoning, and planning strategies to address real-world urban challenges.
Offered
Alternate Spring (odd years)