Identifies past and future roles of public policy and planning in creating and solving urban and metropolitan-wide problems. Recent themes include religious fundamentalism and the geography of religion. Topics covered include traditional concepts of natural and human resources identification and use, geographical diffusion, modernization, and economic growth, as well as challenges to the prevailing ideas and practices such as dependency, sustainable development, and community empowerment. Introduction to the use of personal computers in planning practice. Develops skills in spreadsheet, database and communications applications, along with elementary programming tools.
Applications focus on models of urban, economic and transportation systems.
Deterministic and probabilistic models of destination and route choice and model split. Temporal aspects of travel decisions. Recent time-budget and activity approaches. Emphasis on policy implications, parametric estimations, and model implementation procedures. Case studies based on Capital District public transportation policy.