Taught By:
Margo Hill
Professor/Director American Indian Studies
Urban and Regional Planning
Eastern Washington University
Read profile here.
Course Description:
Senior Capstone: This course is designed to provide a real-life planning experience that will enable students to synthesize and apply the full range of planning theories, tools, and techniques that you have learned throughout your undergraduate studies. It is further intended to provide an opportunity to increase your proficiency in acquiring and presenting useful information in a timely manner. The primary focus of the course will be to gather, analyze, and present information necessary to support small town planning. The class will function as a team of planning consultants and class sessions will include regular “team meetings”. It is anticipated that the final products of the class will be presented to the Department of Commerce and possibly community leaders.
Student Campaigns:
Community Development: This course concentrates on Community Development and how it impacts Planning. Considerable time is spent discussing the effectiveness of the different Community Development Models utilized in planning today. Topics covered include review of various Community Development models: Technical assistance, Self-help, the interactional approach.
Other topics covered will be Natural Landscapes, the Role of Conflict, Action Research and Development, The Role of Leadership Behaviors and Principles of Working Together: Developing Relationships That Support Community Development Initiatives.
The purpose of this class is to provide an overview of community development within and in relation to professional planning, with an emphasis on traditional “community development” foundations which evolved from rural sociology and agricultural extension work as a context for all aspects of planning. The class will also provide an overview of urbanism and knowledge of the city through readings and exercises. We will discuss group dynamics, change and social interaction, basic planning field inventory, mapping, and field research skills. The class will present and apply the planning process, management models and strategic planning along with other basic planning tools and techniques.
The Community Development Model provides a framework for community assessment identifies three components of community—the individual, the built environment, and the community. Basic techniques in community research and analysis for each framework will be presented. Emphasis is on both the process of assignments, and the products, including group work, to complete a draft community development neighborhood plan.