This course provides an overview of the real estate development industry, the development process and, of course, the planning process. It covers the financial basis for development projects, the participants, the market search procedures and the financing of development. It also addresses the interface of the industry with the public sector. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a fundamental background and basic skill set to understand the real estate development business and its interrelationships with urban planning. It will provide students with an introduction to the major disciplines and processes related to development, which can provide a basis for the pursuit of a career in the development field or simply an understanding of the mindset of the developer. The course attempts to provide some understanding of the complexity surrounding real estate development and will introduce a level of quantitative and qualitative thinking sufficient to deal with the myriad of decisions that confront the real estate developer. The objective of the course is to enable students to think critically about real estate development. This is not so much a course in facts as it is a course in thinking, learning, and adapting to the forces shaping the real estate development industry and planning.

This studio is intended to introduce some essential concepts and skills of urban design. This semester, our theoretical investigations, empirical research and design exercises will be organized around three studies (Sketches 1, 2, and 3) of various aspects of spatial and urban form over the first five weeks of the semester as well as two urban design assignments — one Rapid Design Project for a typical city block based on socialist-feminist concepts and a Final Design Project culminating in an urban design plan responding to high-density residential developments proposed by some in Toronto and beyond in response to the problem of housing affordability.

This course is an advanced version of PLA1652H. Emphasis will be placed on research applications to urban design, and the use of computer-generated images for design and presentation purposes.

This course is appropriate to all students interested in understanding the built form of cities and interactions between built form and people at the scale of human experience. It does not attempt to teach design skills. Rather, the purpose of the course is to introduce students to a number of research areas broadly useful to planning/urban design practice and inquiry, and to further develop their skills for understanding and critiquing both research methods and findings. The course should help students define their own research interests and help them identify methods useful in answering their research questions. A conceptual framework will be used to help organize knowledge areas as well as facilitate understanding between different approaches. Environment-behaviour and typo-morphological approaches will be given special attention as they have the clearest links to practice, but students will also have opportunity to focus on other research approaches of their choice.

This course will involve students in the examination of this complex relationship between public policy and urban form and reveal the various ways that government policies, politics, and market forces shape the physical form of our cities and communities in both intentional and unintentional ways. In a seminar/lecture format students will engage with the dynamic forces by which modern cities are designed and built and the mechanisms by which government and society attempt to understand, guide and regulate the individual buildings, neighbourhoods, open spaces and infrastructure that are the products of those forces. During the term, students will have opportunities to engage with the dynamics of urban growth through in-class lectures; directed reading and research; presentations by individuals involved in proposing and planning for development; and individual or group seminar/presentations on relevant, selected topics. Ultimately the objective of the course is to expose the students to a wide array of information and practices to allow them to develop a greater understanding of the important and unavoidable links between public policy and urban design.

This course introduces students to the statutory and non-statutory components of the planning process, including issues and implications of various planning policies and tools, and the role and responsibilities of key stakeholders. The course provides students with a foundation in the planning framework in Ontario, through a review of the intent of legislation and policy, and a critical discussion of the application of policy to current issues and case studies. With an emphasis on several issues of relevance to municipalities in the Toronto region, it also reviews planning approaches from cities around the world. The course focuses on land-use planning, including key considerations and issues in the planning process, such as post-COVID recovery and progressive planning practices, such as anti-racism and planning with equity as an objective. The course will also explore the implications of recent changes to Provincial legislation (e.g., Bill 108 and the Places to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, 2019) and to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Given the enormity of the subject, the course excludes more topics than are covered. It will begin with a brief discussion of how public space is defined and move on to the history of the social and political construction of the modernist street. From there, it will touch on research relating to urban form including relationships to walkability and health and move to changing ideas about street design. The course will finally return to more political themes about changing street design and gentrification, and streets as places where political dissent and social difference is both controlled and expressed.

Infrastructure is the term that describes the transportation systems, sewers, pipes, power lines, health, education, justice, and recreation facilities that provide urban dwellers with necessary public services. In recent years, billions of dollars of public money have been spent upgrading existing transportation systems and infrastructure assets, and planning and delivering new facilities. Infrastructure has many impacts on the way that people in cities live. The way that transportation and infrastructure systems are planned, financed, and distributed impact on environmental sustainability, job creation, social equity, economic development, and urban livability. Moreover, infrastructure has the potential to both serve existing populations, and shape the way that future communities are built. Through lectures, discussions, workshops, readings of scholarly articles and case studies, the course will aim to engage students in the key topics and debates related to the provision of urban transportation systems and infrastructure. Topics to be covered will include: project planning, causes, and cures for cost overruns, financing mechanisms such as public-private partnerships, and the politics of facility planning and management.

The purpose of this course is to introduce planning students to current issues in municipal finance in Canada and around the world, provide basic economic tools to analyze municipal public finance problems, and emphasize the important role that municipal finance plays in planning decisions.

In this course we collaboratively map the territory of planning theory, exploring, and describing those areas of the theoretical landscape that resonate with your research and practice. We draw on interdisciplinary literature and philosophies, grounded in case studies. The role of the planning academic and our responsibility to urban issues are discussed. Themes of transformation, policy and power, representation and culture, displacement and inequity, public space and urban form, mobility and movement are woven throughout.

This is a seminar series in which faculty members, students, and invited speakers will present and discuss the findings of their current research.

The Planning internship is an essential and integral part of the Planning program. Professional work experience in a Canadian planning environment is a valuable part of a student's education. Students will normally be expected to obtain this experience between the first and second year of the program. Internships may be paid or volunteer work experiences that relate to any field of planning and with any kind of public/private/nonprofit or academic organization.

A survey of leading texts in the history of political thought.

This course is a survey of leading texts in 20th century political thought. This course blends a "great books approach" with a thematic approach. We will read the works of canonical political theorists and discuss their distinctive contributions, including concepts such as the original position (Rawls), the critique of the social (Arendt), disciplinary power (Foucault), gender (Bulter), postcolonialism (Fanon), and deliberative democracy (Habermas). At the same time, we will pay attention to the way that a debate about political obligation and civil disobedience, normalization and resistance runs through these different works.

A survey of leading texts in contemporary political thought.

This seminar will focus on the history of modern democratic thought through a careful investigation of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

We will read Xenophon's Memorabilia or Recollections of Socrates and his Apology of Socrates. These are his primary works devoted to the defense of Socrates which is to say of the Socratic way of life. As is characteristic of Xenophon no less than Plato, his answers raise many questions.

This course looks at what some of the 'great' philosophers have said about economics, and what some of the 'great' economists have said about moral philosophy. The course is modeled after Hegel's approach in The Philosophy of History. The point is to ask what the interaction between moral philosophy and economics can tell us about history and our own time. Among others, the thinkers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Calvin, Smith, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Lukacs, Hayek, Rawls, Habermas, Marshall, and Keynes.

Feminist theory offers basic challenges to the foundations of modern political and legal thought. It suggests a different conception of human nature and a different model of epistemology and of appropriate forms of argument about the traditional issues of legal and political theory: justice, power, equality and freedom. Introduction to the foundations of feminist theory, an analysis of its implications for traditional liberal theory, and an application of feminist theory to law.

Specialty courses taught by rotating instructors on topics in Political Theory. Consult the departmental website for details on annual offerings.

Specialty courses taught by rotating instructors on topics in Political Theory. Consult the departmental website for details on annual offerings.

The course explores the advantages and limitations of different ways of interpreting texts in the history of political philosophy and of thinking critically about contemporary politics.

This course will engage with the emerging sub-field of comparative political theory (CPT), as we consider what it means to take seriously a wide range of (mostly) non-Western traditions of political thinking and what methodologies might be appropriate for this endeavour. The readings and discussions will pay particular attention to understanding different traditions on their own terms, and probing the limits of mutual intelligibility. The project of "comparison" is broadly interpreted, to include comparisons between and within different traditions of political thought as well as interpretive projects that consider the work of individual thinkers. In addition to engaging in-depth with several non-Western traditions, we will consider the prospects for the broader de-parochialization of the discipline of political theory and the pedagogical implications of CPT.

This course will explore the Book of Exodus, focusing on the iconic/legendary figure of Moses and his relevance for the subsequent tradition of Western political thought, not excluding the civic-republican tradition.

This course concerns the development of postmodern thought and its passage into the posthuman. The course begins with a brief discussion of a number of themes in Western philosophy that underlie postmodernism. Then to Jean Baudrillard's symbolic exchange, Paul Virilio's understanding of the effects of the technology of speed on the social. Next, we look at a discussion of capitalism and 'virtual' systems in the work of Deleuze and Guattari, racism in Fanon and Spivak, Derrida on the gift, Michel Foucault on art. The posthuman through Donna Haraway's cyborgs. The course will also examine an alternate view of science, myth, and philosophy in the work of Michel Serres.

This course introduces students to key debates and/or new research in Political Theory. The specific focus will vary each year based on the instructor’s area of experience. Assigned readings will deepen students’ understanding of one area of Political Theory. Students will also develop their writing and analytic skills through a series of biweekly papers. Whereas core courses provide a broad overview of a subfield, workshops offer an opportunity for in-depth study of a specific topic. Students will meet with the professor in small groups and receive individual feedback on their work.

This course combines a thematic approach to the literature of Canadian politics with close analysis of the substance and study of politics in Canada. The course considers such questions as: what is distinctive about Canadian politics and the way in which it is studied? Are the conceptual-theoretical frameworks which (explicitly and implicitly) underpin the study of Canadian politics adequate? What intellectual forces (Canadian and non-Canadian) have shaped the literature on Canadian politics and have those changed over time? How have Canadian scholars themselves contributed to the study of politics? What is gained or lost by studying Canadian politics in a comparative context and by studying it in terms of its own particular history, society and economy? Various methodological approaches to analysing Canadian politics will be employed. Substantive topics covered include: political culture, identity politics, Aboriginal politics, political behaviour, the nature of the Canadian state, governmental institutions (Parliament, executives, bureaucracies), federalism, courts, and constitutional politics.

Specialty courses taught by rotating instructors on topics in Canadian Politics. Consult the departmental website for details on annual offerings.

Specialty courses taught by rotating instructors on topics in Canadian Politics. Consult the departmental website for details on annual offerings.