Planetizen Courses
Planetizen offers a variety of courses covering planning-related topics and taught by experts in the field. These self-paced courses are designed for professionals, students, or concerned citizens looking for quick yet thorough introductions to concepts relevant to their work. All courses listed below are open for enrollment. For more information or to register for a course, please review the course descriptions and instructor biographies below, or contact info@planetizen.com.
Please Note: If you are already enrolled in a Planetizen Course, you can access your course materials at http://courses.planetizen.com.
Upcoming Webinars
| 07/28/2010 | PLAN-190: Participatory Planning with Nick Wates |
Courses and webinars currently available include:
PLAN-110: Introduction to Historic Preservation Planning
As cities around the world expand and more people move back into older downtowns and inner-ring suburbs, historic preservation serves two important purposes, encouraging a sustained sense of history and culture in the community, while formalizing practical standards for the preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, or reconstruction of historic properties for adaptive use by a new generation.
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PLAN-115: Transit Oriented Development Toolbox
Transit-oriented development (TOD) has gained popularity as a strategy to address a number of urban problems, including traffic congestion, affordable housing shortages, air pollution, and sprawl. Transit Oriented Development Toolbox will be useful to planners, developers, architects, policy makers, students, and advocates.
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PLAN-120: Census 2000, Census 2010, Factfinder, ACS, and Understanding Growth
This course provides professionals with the background and knowledge they need to understand and accurately use data from the decennial Census and the new annual American Community Survey. The wealth of data provided by these two sources can be invaluable to planners in any venue. This course offers a look into how census data and growth are affected by each other, and examines ways planners can use the data to map out where communities are and where they are going.
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PLAN-130: The Australian Planning System For Overseas Planners
With its economy flourishing, Australia has turned to migrants from around the globe to help meet its needs for skilled labor, including a landmark change to the country's immigration laws to enable professional planners to more easily emigrate to Australia. This course will assist people with a non-Australian planning education to understand the life, times, and culture "down under", and provide students with the knowledge to begin seeking work as a planner in Australia. Upon completion of the course, will have a good grounding and understanding of Australian planning systems.
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PLAN-145: Planning Ethics (Video Course)

Planning Ethics is a video course taught by acclaimed ethics expert Carol Barrett, AICP. Three video presentations cover the AICP Code of Ethics, standards of ethical judgment, and some of the common ethical challenges planners might face in their day-to-day work. Running just about an hour, this video course is a quick way to brush up your everyday ethics.
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PLAN-150: The Architecture of the New Economy (Video)

This one-hour video presentation will explore the elements that are essential to successfully build sustainable smaller homes in thriving communities -- even with limited resources. Architecture and urban design expert Marianne Cusato, well-known for her work on the "Katrina Cottages" designed for post-hurricane New Orleans, will discuss how living within our means does not have to be a trade down, and how -- if done right -- it can be a trade up. Also available as a video course.
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PLAN-160: Light Imprint Urbanism -- Integrating Sustainability and Community Design (Video)

Light Imprint is a planning and development strategy that emphasizes sustainability, pedestrian-oriented design, and infrastructure efficiency in the creation of compact, mixed-use communities. At the same time, the approach reduces the infrastructure costs of a community. The Light Imprint video course will introduce participants to the concept of Light Imprint and explore how Light Imprint can be implemented in their city or town.
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PLAN-175: Video for Planners (Video)

Video is a powerful tool for community outreach. This webinar will give you the tools you need to post videos to the web, and use the many free distribution methods at your disposal, like YouTube and vidcasting. You’ll also learn how to take your videos a step further for a professional look and feel. From communicating with a cameraperson to lighting and sound you will walk away with a step-by-step guide for creating video for your city or organization.
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PLAN-180: Preservation and Sustainability (Video)

The Preservation and Sustainability webinar will introduce participants to current theories and discussions of Preservation and Sustainability and their relationship. This video course addresses a different aspect of sustainability—green building, environment, equity and economics— through the strategies, tools and ethos of historic preservation.
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PLAN-190: Participatory Planning (WEBINAR)

Involving local people in planning and development issues is a bedrock principle of the planning profession. This webinar provides an overview of the range of participatory planning methods available, and it equips participants with the practical ability to devise a participatory community planning strategy for their own situation.
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TECH-120: Introduction to SketchUp for Planners (Video)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will introduce planners to Google SketchUp. Topics will include downloading models, walking through the project and exporting the results to Google Earth. This webinar will help you explore using SketchUp for urban design level planning. This is the first part in a series of webinars on Google SketchUp. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-125: Technology for Planners

This highly-practical course focuses on the convergence of web technology and planning. The course offers insight into how technology is being applied in the field of planning today, as well as a complete overview of the current state of web technology, including discussions about the origin of the Internet, email and mailing lists, blogs, search engines, content management systems, website accessibility, and geographic information systems.
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TECH-130: Google Earth for Planners -- An Introduction (Video)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will introduce you to Google Earth. The session will explore basic tasks for using Google Earth in planning. Topics will include finding places, moving around them, saving a location, viewing a site photo and capturing images for presentation. The subject matter is a compelling exploration of Washington DC with a discussion of the tool’s applicability to planning. Part of the three-part Google Earth Webinar Series. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-140: GIS Concepts for Planners (Video)

This hour and a half webinar will introduce you to the mechanics of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The session will explore the components of GIS as a tool, rather than the results GIS can produce. The course will help you communicate more effectively with GIS professionals, by helping you understand their priorities and vocabulary.
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TECH-220: Density Conceptualization with SketchUp (Video)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will use Google SketchUp to depict a site in 3-dimensions. Topics will include locating a site, creating simple buildings, applying textures, and digitizing a plan. This webinar will jump start your efforts in learning SketchUp. This is the second part in a series of webinars on Google SketchUp. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-230: The Virtual Staff Report -- Using the Free Version of Google Earth (Video)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will guide you through the process of preparing a Google Earth presentation for a Planning Commission meeting. Topics will include locating site photographs, georeferencing a site plan, creating a project tour and preparing for your presentation. Part of the three-part Google Earth Webinar Series. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-240: Using Google Maps and Mashups for Planning (Webinar)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will demonstrate how planners can use Google Maps to publish basic geographical information on a custom map, and guide you through the process of creating custom maps using Google Maps. Topics will include adding place markers, lines and shapes to maps, placing photos and videos, importing a data set of map points, and using a map to collaborate with others. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-250: CommunityViz Build Out (Video)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will explore using GIS to calculate build-out of a zoning or land use plan. It will use Build-out, the CommunityViz wizard-based tool in a hands-on workshop using your computer. Topics will include setting densities, adjusting for existing structures, eliminating constrained lands, siting proposed structures, and exporting the results to Google Earth. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-260: CommunityViz Suitability (Webinar)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will introduce you to the Suitability tool included in CommunityViz. The wizard-based tool identifies the best locations for various activities. Whether you wish to avoid hazards, calculate walkability, phase infrastructure or protect natural resources, Suitability offers a simpler way to integrate GIS into your analysis. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-320: Advanced SketchUp -- Modeling Buildings (Video)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will create photo real building models in Google SketchUp and display the buildings in Google Earth. Topics will include importing locations from Google Earth, creating scaled building models, obtaining building imagery from Google Street View, editing the model dimensions, and exporting the results to Google Earth. This webinar will use historic buildings in Estes Park, Colorado, but the techniques are applicable to most places. Also available as a video course.
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TECH-330: The Virtual Staff Report -- Advanced Google Earth for Planners (Webinar)

This one-hour hands-on webinar will guide you through the process of using Google Earth Pro for planning analysis. Topics will include applying a GIS shape file to the terrain, coloring the legend for that layer, locating address points automatically, creating buildings, and thinking like a movie director. Part of the three-part Google Earth Webinar Series. Also available as a video course.
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ECON-201: Economic Thinking for Planners and Developers

Developers often complain that planners are taking away their ability to make a project “pencil out”. And in truth, most planners don’t have the economic background to understand what makes a complicated project financially viable. This course goes beyond supply and demand to give you a firm grounding in the economics of land use, including cost-benefit analysis, the economics of mortgages and lending, encouraging business incubators, and more.
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PLAN-310: AICP* Exam Preparation Course
Are you ready to take the AICP exam? Planetizen offers a convenient online preparation course to help you successfully prepare for the exam. Now in its sixth year, the Planetizen AICP* Exam Preparation Course provides step-by-step, progressive, and interactive instruction that leads you through specific methodologies, lessons, exercises and sample questions.
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*AICP is a registered trademark of the American Planning Association (APA) and the APA's institute. Neither APA nor AICP are affiliated with Planetizen or this website.

















