Course Syllabus

Many industrialized and post-industrialized cities find themselves with severe infrastructure challenges. The United States dialogue has historically focused on funding and financing challenges at the federal level, but in the meantime American cities, counties and states have struggled with aging infrastructure, state of good repair deficits, complex physical environments for delivering projects, and public capital programs that must be delivered within the constraints of 19th and 20th century anti-corruption regulations that add time and cost. At the same time, capital projects are looked upon to solve increasingly complex problems: among them, responding to emergencies, adapting to climate risks, supporting economic transitions in neighborhoods, and bringing modern telecommunications and transportation technology to urban environments. Further, infrastructure investment has been put forward as a critical catalyst for the nation’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, as exemplified by the unprecedented funding included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Solving these problems requires the combined expertise of planners, engineers and policymakers who can innovate to overcome planning and public policy challenges to deliver modern infrastructure solutions in a cost-effective and time-efficient way.

This course will examine key approaches to addressing these challenges, positioning the emerging professional to lead or work within multidisciplinary efforts to plan and deliver infrastructure and other types of physical projects in the modern industrial/post-industrial city. It will include a practical study of the planning, regulatory and legal environment for project delivery, and will examine case studies, such as the rollout of broadband wireless technology, New York City’s responses to climate risks, and airport modernization.

See draft syllabus linked here