PLAN 7207 - GIS for City Planning

Credit Hours: 3

Description This course will introduce students to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software and its common applications in the practice of city planning. GIS allows the user both to analyze and communicate geospatial and integrated tabular data with a high degree of flexibility and is a common feature of many jobs in the planning field. This course will specifically cover basic concepts in cartography, GIS data structures and multi-layer maps, as well as advanced analysis features focused on transportation networks, 3-D mapping, raster layers and socio-demography. We will primarily make use of ESRI’s ArcGIS software suite—the current industry standard—but will also introduce the similar QGIS, an open-source alternative currently growing in popularity.

Following this course, students will be able to:

Collect, manipulate and display geospatial data
Perform geospatial analyses using those and additional tabular data
Effectively communicate planning-related geospatial information to policy makers and the general public