This course explores how U.S. cities can foster more inclusive and equitable futures through housing, economic development, and place-based investment strategies. Grounded in racial and spatial inequality realities, students will examine how public policy, at the federal, state, and local levels, can be harnessed to build stronger, more just communities.
Topics include affordable housing finance and production, equitable transit-oriented development, displacement and gentrification, neighborhood revitalization, climate resilience, and tools such as tax credits, public land use, and community development finance. The course critically assesses contemporary initiatives like Opportunity Zones and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, focusing on whether they address or perpetuate systemic exclusion.
A defining feature of this course is its applied, problem-solving orientation. Students will produce a short policy memo and collaborate on a term-long group project that proposes concrete, equity-driven strategies to address a housing or community development challenge in a specific U.S. city. Projects are grounded in real-world policy contexts and designed with the potential to inform public or nonprofit sector action.
Ideal for students interested in urban policy, community development, affordable housing, or public leadership roles, the course centers the urgent work of building equitable cities - neighborhood by neighborhood, policy by policy.
Also offered by the Graduate School of Design as SES-05213.