Urban Planning - Fndtns Compassion Crit Thinkng

Catalog description

This course engages students with research methods (research design, inferential statistics, and survey methods) within the broad suite of relationship skills on which successful planning analysis and public service careers depend. These relationship skills ironically are commonly referred to as 'soft skills,' in spite of, the hard work they often require. By embedding 'soft skills' within 'hard skills' (quantitative methods), we will examine a variety of motivations for public service and planning through a consistent lens of advancing equity. We use compassion as a framework for integrating science and practice related to a) emotions, relationships, and self-care, b) reasoning and cognitive biases, c) networks of relationships, and d) broader social, economic, and political systems. We pay particular attention to countering racism, sexism, and other forms of exclusion and oppression which can be hidden within seemingly technical/rational research methods and analyses. Through the course, we consider how planners can use research and communication to help the public and decision makers in the near term, even as there is great uncertainty about the future.