Course goal and approach. The UP course provides students with the tools and perspectives to understand phenomena, changes, and drivers related to urban areas. Second, UP Course is designed to acquaint students with sources, methods, and tools fundamentals for urban governance. Lectures and assignments are centered on Italy and the readings concern mainly the USA and the European countries.

Course organization. The UP Course is articulated into Lectures, Seminars, Assignments and Ancillary activities.
Lectures. Urban planning is treated in three sections: (i) Phenomena and changes, (ii) Drivers, (iii) Changes’ governance. Each section touch two or three main topics and each topic is developed by lectures. Lectures’ content will be resumed into fact sheets available @ the Course web page (materiali).

Seminars and Conferences. A seminar and a conference will be organized during the Course. M. Artuso will introduce the municipal land use plan ad a subdivision plan. On November 16th the annual international conference of the Third World City Center of the Politecnico di Torino will be dedicated to the Urban Impact of Climate Change in Africa. Students are expected to attend all these events and to summarize the lessons learned through written reports to be added @ the final report.

Readings. 13 short readings for a total amount of around 250 pages are available @ the Urban Planning Course web page. Almost each lecture is accompanied by a reading. Texts have been chosen to represent the contemporary thought related to the events illustrated by the lectures. Consequently readings are sometimes scientific articles, books chapters or reports from relevant international organizations or research centers. Two further readings are available for statistics fundamentals and urban planning terms. Students are charged to prepare a one page written summary for each reading according the recommendations specified at the Course statement program available at the Course web page.
Readings’ summaries will be part of the Final report.
Two further readings are available for statistics fundamentals and urban planning terms. They do not need to be summarized.

Ancillary activities. Coordinated by volunteering students they consists in:
a) The “News Centre” (NC) charged to gather press articles in English on Course topics. NC is coordinated by three volunteering students. Each student is charged to e-mail to the NC one article for each Course section (total: 3 articles). The NC will select the most interesting news and prepare a press review for the Course web page.
b) The “on line UP Course Glossary”-UPG. Led by 3 students, UPG gathers new terms for our web page. Each Student is expected to describe one term for each Course section and sent it over to the UPG.
c) The “Commuting survey”. Led by two volunteering students gather fresh information from the other students on the way they reach daily the Politecnico. Findings will be presented to the class by the two coordinators.
Each coordinator will be accredited by 1/30 for this activity.

Assignments. Students are expected to develop two analysis and two planning written assignments during class sessions with limited home completions:
AA1 – Territorial gaps in Italy: regional assessment
AA2 – Urbanization in the Turin’ metropolitan area, 1951-2011: Population and dwellings
PA1 – Building plot development according the Building Code
PA2 – Preliminary subdivision plan according the Building Code
Each assignment findings need to be presented in a one page summary. Instructions will be available @ the Course web page and explanation will be given directly by the instructor. The outcome of each assignment will be presented by volunteering students. Assignments have to be add to the final report.

Bairoch P. (1991), “Urbanization in the Developed World in the Twentieth Century” (ch. 19) and “Urbanization and Economic Development in the Third World” (ch. 30) in Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. … and pp. …
Beaumont M. (1999), “Planning of metropolitan areas: the case of London” in Ricci C. (dir.), Eurometropoli, atti del convegno, Milano 21-22 gennaio 1999, Milano, Franco Angeli, pp. 104-108.
Bowman A.O’M. and Pagano M.A. (2004), “The different contexts of vacant urban land” in Terra incognita. Vacant land and urban strategies, Washington D.C., Georgetown University Press, pp. 1-22.
Carminati M. and Fortis M. (2009), “Sectors of Excellence in the Italian Industrial Districts” in Becattini G., Bellandi M., De Propris L. (dir.), A Handbook of Industrial Districts, Northampton (MA), Edward Elgar, pp. …
EEA – European Environment Agency (2009), “Health, environment and social equity: basic quality of life indicators”, in Ensuring quality of life in Europe’s cities and towns, EEA Report No 5., pp. 13-19
Hayden D. (2004), “Decoding Everyday American Landscapes” in Hayden, A field guide to sprawl, New York, Norton & Company, pp. 7-16.
Holtz Kay J. (1997), “The cost of the car culture” in Holtz Kay, Asphalt nation, Berkeley, University of California Press, pp. 115-137.
Kammeier H.D. (1983), Agrarian Reform, Backwash, Building Code, Building Line, Census, Compulsory Purchase, Conurbation, Coverage, Crude Birth Rate, Density, Development Control, Environmental Impact Study, Floor Area Ratio, Gini Coefficient, Land Use Planning, Local Plan, Neighborhood Unit, Occupancy Ratio, Pedestrian zone, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Sectors, Primate City, Public Utilities, Regional Policy, Sampling Methods, Secondary Cities, Setback Regulations, Site Planning, Space Standards, Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, Urban Design Urbanization, Urban Planning Standards, Urban Sprawl, Zoning in Kammeier, Terms and concepts in planning, Bangkok, AIT, pp. 36.
MLIT (2010), Spatial planning: Italy, pp. 4.
Quader Miah A. (1993), “Central tendency”, in Applied statistics. A course Handbook for human settlements planning, Bangkok, AIT, pp. 43-55.
Tattara G. (2009), “The Internationalization of Production Activities of Italian Industrial Districts” in Becattini G., Bellandi M., De Propris L. (dir.), A Handbook of Industrial Districts, Northampton (MA), Edward Elgar, pp. …
Tiepolo (2011), The Piedmont regional planning law 56/1977, handout, pp.4.
UNDESA (2006), World Population Prospects. The 2006 Revision. Executive Summary, United Nations, pp. 5-13.
UNDESA (2005), The diversity of changing population age structures in the World, pp. 35-69.
Van der Krabben E. (2009), “Urban containment strategies in the Netherlands” in Badiani B., Tira M. (dir.), Urban containment: the Italian approach in the European perspective, Santarcangelo di Romagna, Maggioli, pp. 99-114.
Wolf P. (1999), “The fifth migration begins”, in Wolf, Hot towns. The future of the fastest growing communities of America, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, pp. 35-52.
World Bank (2010), “The impact of climate change on cities” in The World Bank, Cities and climate change: an urgent agenda, Washington, IBRD, pp. 8-32.

Learning control. A ten questions test will take place at the end of each course section simulating the written final exam.