Suchergebnisse

The 'Environmental Problem-Solving - A Video-Enhanced Self-Instructional e-Book from MIT' e-book presents short-excerpts from carefully selected readings, expert commentaries on those readings, interactive assignments, short videos of the best MIT student responses to the assignments, exam questions with excellent student responses and additional video excerpts of MIT faculty discussing the four main elements of the curriculum: models of environmental policy-making; competing theories of environmental ethics; tools for environmental assessment and environmental decision-making; and techniques for public engagement and group decision-making. The e-book covers the material presented in the semester-long course required of all students enrolled in MIT's Environmental Policy and Planning Specialization. It includes the actual assignments the MIT students are expected to complete each week as well as videos of the real-time oral presentations they are required to make to visiting practitioners. The final exam is accompanied by the best student answers

Influential members of the urban planning profession have developed certain ideas about new town design, including notions such as self‐containment, social balance, and the neighborhood unit. These parallel, to some extent, concepts that have emerged from the field of community sociology. Efforts to put these ideas into practice have fallen far short of the mark. Without more sophisticated implementation mechanisms, better theories of social interaction at the neighborhood level, and new approaches to citizen participation, efforts to build new towns are likely to remain severely crippled. The aim of this paper is to summarize past efforts to translate implicit theories of social organization into actual new town designs. The possibilities of closing the gap between theory and practice through the use of more explicit forms of social experimentation are discussed in the context of the fledgling new towns program in the United States.