Curriculum Overview
The MUSPP programme integrates three core focus areas to provide a comprehensive educational experience:
• Urban Theory Core Course provides students with a foundation in critical thinking about cities and the trajectories of urban development.
• Urban Data and Methods Core Courses equip students with quantitative and qualitative social research methodologies. The thematic elective track in Urban Analytics Track supplement the core methodology courses with elective courses in Geographic Information Science (GIS), Behavioural Science, and interactive data visualization.
• Urban Planning and Policy Core Courses teaches students to critically understand the bases of planning and policy in society, assess, analyse, and craft urban interventions and programmes that are thoughtful to multi-dimensional urban dynamics.
Course Overview
TERM 1
Required Courses
This course exposes students to foundational theories and key socio-economic processes and trends that have given shape and meaning to urban development across a number of time periods and cultural contexts. Through an emphasis on the historical and future drivers of change in cities, students will relate theories of the social and physical evolution of cities to structural change, social and political movements, technological advancements, and public policy that impacts urban systems more generally.
Instructor: Dr Jeffrey Chan
Time: Thursday (3-6pm)
Venue: Think Tank 4-5 (1.312)
Week 1: Introduction: What is urban theory?
Week 2: (Groundings) Capital and the City
Week 3: (Groundings) The Neoliberal City
Week 4: (Groundings) The Informal City
Week 5: (Perspective) The City of Strangers
Week 6: (Perspective) The City of Conflict
Week 7: Recess Week
Week 8: (Perspective) The City of AI
Week 9: (Vision) The Serendipitous City
Week 10:(Vision) The Sharing City
Week 11: (Vision) The Ethical City
Week 12: Workshop session—Writing Research Papers on the Built Environment
Week 13: Conclusion and Review of Group Presentations
Week 14: Conclusion and Review of Group Presentations (if required)
The Urban Data & Methods component of the MUSPP is composed of two courses – Part 1 on Analyzing Urban Futures and Part 2 on Interpreting Urban Trends: Urban Inequity, which will be taught in Term 1 and Term 2 respectively. The collective aim of these two courses is to equip students with methods and tools to undertake urban research and analyze urban trends that can inform the crafting of interventions for a better urban future. A key focus of the courses is deepening the understanding and skills to handle both quantitative and qualitative data, secondary and primary datasets through desktop and fieldwork. A major emphasis of the courses is learning to apply social science methodologies and tools to the study of the urban realm.
Instructors: Dr Jose Rafael Martinez Garcia, Dr Dinithi Jayasekara, Dr Ruotong Deng
Time: Tuesday (10am-1pm)
Venue: Think Tank 4-5 (1.312)
QUANTITATIVE METHODS:
Week 1: Introduction and Research Methods
Week 2: Data, Variables, Causality, and Validity
Week 3: Descriptive Statistics
Week 4: Economic Analysis
Week 5: Survey Design & Sampling
Week 6: Designing Experiments
Week 7: Recess week
QUALITATIVE METHODS:
Week 8: Foundations in Traditional Qualitative Methods
Week 9: From Analog to Digital: Disruptions in Human-Centric Research (Part I)
Week 10: From Big Data to Smart Cities: Disruptions in Human-Centric Research (Part II)
Week 11: Qualitative Research in the Digital Urban Present (Part I)
Week 12: Future Directions: Immersive, Mixed, and Gamified Qualitative Methods
Week 13 & 14: Presentation and Wrapping Up
This course introduces the historical and contemporary bases of urban planning as a process and practice, with a focus on developing a socio-spatial mind in approaching urban interventions critically and practically. It is designed to equip students to understand the scope of urban planning in the development of cities and regions, and how urban planners think and make decisions about land use and design of public places to meet social, economic, political, and environmental goals.
A core pedagogic aim of the course is the emphasis of how theories and histories of planning translate in practice. For this purpose, the course is interspersed with opportunities to get you out of the comfort of the armchair and into the city as a live laboratory in which you will observe, document, and analyze the actual dynamics of city making, vis-à-vis what has been theorized and written about urban planning.
As part of the integrative MUSPP programme curation, this course will help students learn about how the urban realm is scientifically studied and investigated and forms a part of planning research that informs urban planning and policy decisions.
Instructor: Dr Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan
Time: Wednesday (2-5pm)
Venue: Think Tank 9-10 (1.415)
Week 1: Introduction: Planning Education
Week 2: Setting the Context: What is Urban, Urbanization, and Urbanism?
Week 3: Emergence of Modern Urban Planning
Week 4: Urban Planning in Singapore 1
Week 5: Urban Planning in Singapore 2
Week 6: “Asian” Urbanism
Week 7: Recess week
Week 8: Socio-spatial Thoughts and Implications for Urban Planning
Week 9: Looking at a city in flux: Alone and Together
Week 10: Urban Planning Practice 1: Values, Politics, Institutions
Week 11: Urban Planning Practice 2: Negotiation
Week 12: Workshop on Urban Change
Week 13 & 14: Reflections on urban planning: Digital, Smart, and Inclusive?
Electives (1)
Cities are the most complex of all human inventions. While majority of the world’s population live in cities, we know comparatively little about how we influence and are influenced by cities. Urban psychology operates in an interdisciplinary context as an application area of psychology in cities, exploring human perception, decision-making, and behaviour. This course will introduce urban psychology and its application to different urban issues, including health and well-being, sustainability and resilience.
Cities are the most complex of all human inventions. While majority of the world’s population live in cities, we know comparatively little about how we influence and are influenced by cities. Urban psychology operates in an interdisciplinary context as an application area of psychology in cities, exploring human perception, decision-making, and behaviour. This course will introduce urban psychology and its application to different urban issues, including health and well-being, sustainability and resilience.
Instructors: Dr Samuel Chng & Dr Sarah Chan
Time: Tuesday (2-5pm)
Venue: Think Tank 1 (1.308)
Week 1: Introduction to Urban Psychology I
Week 2: Introduction to Urban Psychology II: Social Psychology
Week 3: Introduction to Urban Psychology III: Environmental Psychology
Week 4: Introduction to Urban Psychology IV: Health Psychology
Week 5: Urban Psychology in Practice – Why?
Week 6: Urban Psychology in Practice – What and How?
Week 7: Recess Week
Week 8: Urban Lab 1
Week 9: Urban Lab 2
Week 10: Urban Lab 3
Week 11: Group Research Project – In-class group consultation/field work
Week 12: Group Research Project – In-class group consultation/field work
Week 13: Group Research Project Presentation
Week 14: Reflections
This course focuses on the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in the urban context, applying GIS tools and techniques for analysing, modelling, and visualizing geospatial data in urban environments. The most fundamental concepts and techniques in GIS and spatial data analysis are covered in this course, including data collection, data management, and data visualization. Additionally, specific applications of GIS in the urban studies will be taught, namely 3D mapping, basic network analysis, and advanced spatial analysis.
Through a hands-on final project, students will learn how to apply more advanced forms of spatial analysis on real world problems such as understanding the relationship of geographic distribution of population and health system clusters planning. In class discussions will be linked to the final project relating the use of geospatial to:
1. Understanding population health through factors of the built environment
2. Dissecting the relationship between walkability and population health – identifying key factors and datasets that can be used to support this exploration
3. Querying and assessing the quality and value add of different datasets and sources (OSM, data.gov.sg etc) for POIs and infrastructure (clinics, road crossings, markets, senior centres etc).
The course is delivered as a combination of lectures and hands-on tutorials. Students will get to apply methods covered in the lectures during the tutorials and solve a geospatial problem through a final project.
Instructors: Dr Jingya Yan and Mr Bayi Li
Time: Wednesday (10am-1pm)
Venue: Think Tank 6 (1.408)
Week 1: Introduction to GIS I
Week 2: Introduction to GIS II
Week 3: Cartographic Design I
Week 4: Cartographic Design II
Week 5: Advanced Spatial Data I: Spatial data management
Week 6: Advanced Spatial Data II: Spatial Data Processing
Week 7: Recess week
Week 8: Spatial statistics and analysis of vector data
Week 9: Spatial analysis of raster data
Week 10: Advanced Spatial Data III: Spatial Network Analysis
Week 11: Advanced Spatial Data IV: 3D Geospatial data in Urban studies
Week 12: Advanced Spatial Data V: Urban Studies and Applied GIS
Week 13: Final Project Tutorial
Week 14: Final Presentation
TERM 2
Required Courses
This course is Part 2 of the Urban Data & Methods module. The course builds on Term 1 by offering different and advanced methods, seeking to develop students’ hands-on experience in developing a research proposal to study an urban issue or phenomenon. This involves conducting literature review, identifying research gaps and constructing a theoretical contribution, designing data collection and analysis methods, and integrating this into a (mixed-methods) research proposal. Focusing on a specific urban issue, the course introduces and contextualises how different methodologies – quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods – can be used to conduct a study in the urban domain. It develops understanding and skill in the collection, analysis and interpretation of information relevant to urban phenomena and how these affect urban societies from different thematic points of view (e.g. transportation, housing, and the subjective experiences of research subjects). Students will also learn how to address research ethics requirements and craft a research design that takes ethical considerations into account.
By the completion of this course students will be able to:
• Understand key methods for analysing quantitative and qualitative data in urban development
• Develop a research question on an urban issue that is well informed by the literature review
• Propose data collection and analysis methods relevant to answer the research question
• Synthesize the above into a research proposal
Pre-requisite
02.521 Urban Data and Methods: Analyzing Urban Trends
Instructor: Dr Dinithi Jayasekara & Dr Thijs Willems
Time: Thursday (10am-1pm)
Venue: Think Tank 13 (1.508)
Week 1: Worldviews and You as a Researcher: Ontology, Epistemology, Positionality
Week 2: Introduction to R for Statistical Analysis
Week 3: Qualitative Research Design and Asking Questions
Week 4: Talking, Listening, and Observing Urban Issues
Week 5: Working With Communities: Participatory & Action-Oriented Methods
Week 6: Doing Research Ethically (guest lecture by Jasmine Tan, Institutional Review Board)
Week 7: Recess
Week 8: From Field to Findings: Qualitative Analysis and Making Qualitative Claims
Week 9: Exploring Correlation and Causation through R
Week 10: Urban Inference I: Confidence Intervals, Hypothesis Testing
Week 11: Urban Inference II: Comparing Groups
Week 12: Regression Analysis I
Week 13: Regression Analysis II
Week 14: Presentations and Synthesis
Singapore has been recognized as a successful and well-managed global city in numerous international rankings of cities. In particular, it is often used to illustrate the importance of good leadershjp and planning in urban development. This course will help students understand how Singapore approaches its urban challenges, such as housing, transport, environmental degradation, job creation and the management of diversity. Through the careful examination of these empirical, Singapore-specific issues including visits to relevant agencies and organizations, broader questions that will have direct relevance to the development processes of other cities will be raised.
Instructor: Dr Harvey Neo & Dr Suhaila Zainal Shah
Time: Wednesday (10am-1pm)
Venue: Think Tank 13 (1.508)
Electives (2)
*Electives are not fixed and are subject to availability during term
For far too long, the smart city has emphasized smart technology over smart people. With Gen AI, especially no-code Gen AI, we can finally move the emphasis back to smart citizens creating the future of the smart city.
But first, students will need to grasp the power and perils of AI in the years to come. It is after all the technology of our times. They will need to grasp the power and perils of AI in the context of how and why leaders design, build, and manage an economically competitive, socially inclusive, and technologically astute city and citizenry. They will also need to grasp – literally – the power and perils of AI through hands-on designing with no-code AI.
We call this Design AI. Design AI is creating and innovating with AI as a tool, teammate, and/or neither. AI is thus more than a tool. It means integrating AI – or consciously choosing not to — into every stage of the design process —understanding problems, generating possibilities, testing ideas, and creating solutions. The goal is to help citizens, planners, and leaders imagine and build solutions that fit real human needs.
We will be building on our extensive research in Design AI as wll as our experience in conducting workshops for over 1000 C-suite leaders and industry professionals. The combination of research and practice have enabled decision makers to be more informed, human-centred decisions, and outcomes-centric. Interested students can choose to work on related research and industry projects for real world impact of part of this class.
Our class topics will hence span topics from strategy to stories, resilience to reskilling, and infrastructure to industrial revolution. To give our students a foundation of first principles and experiences they can build on, the coming semester’s class will revolve around five questions fundamental to every city.
The five key questions – each of which will span at least two classes – are:
- Week 1: Introduction
- Week 2+3:What is Strategy and Why Does it Matter to the Smart City I and II
- Week 4+5: What is AI/Technology and Design AI and What Is Different (or Same) This Time I and II
- Week 6 + 8: What Do We Really Mean When We Say We Are People-Centric I and II
(Week 7: Term break)
- Week 9+10: How Change Happens and Can We Really Know When It Happens I and II
- Week 11+12: Can Everyone Innovate Or Can An Innovator Come From Anywhere I and II
- Week 13: Synthesis and Reflection
Discussing and answering each of the five questions will see the class engaging in three stages:
- First Principles: Readings to develop relevant key concepts and the underlying first principles.
- AI Lenses: Discussions on how AI changes (or not) how we answer those questions.
- Hands-on: Designing with AI to understand and experience – and build expertise about – how we can better understand the questions and find good answers
The aspiration for the hands-on work with the instructor(s) will be to push the frontiers of what citizens can create for the smart city using no-code Gen AI (and AI and other tech in general). We go beyond the simplistic – sometimes gimmicky – generation of text, code, images etc to embedding this task of generation into the process and system of designing solutions for people. Where available, these solutions will be tested with partners and stakeholders with real needs, and a substantial portion of the grades will be based on how well those needs are met.
This course is thus a hands-on course in turning insights into creations. By the end of the course, we want to make possible what was once impossible (e.g. see Six Impossibles), and develop a sublime sophisticated new understanding of where smart cities are limited and/or limitless (e.g. Limit and Limitless).
Instructor: Poon King Wang & Dr Qian Huang (Cathy)
Time: Wednesday (3-6pm)
Venue: Think Tank 1 (1.308)
Implying that sustainable use of natural resources involves social justice and economic development as well as environmental concerns, the notion of sustainability has led away from narrower conceptions of urban environmentalism, toward more consideration for the future, greater integration of social and economic goals with environmental and ecological objectives, and hence a fundamental rethinking of how cities should be theorized, planned and managed.
This course introduces graduate students to the emerging field of urban sustainability from a combined academic-practical perspective. The course provides students with the theoretical and methodological tools with which to explore the potential for a sustainable urbanism. Approaches to foster more sustainable and resilient forms of urbanization and urban life in different sectors of urban operation (i.e. building, energy, transportation, land use, water, etc.) will be introduced and evaluated. Course deliverables include a mid-term essay, a group case-project, and in-class activities. A Climate Fresk Workshop as well as a field trip to Bishan Park and meetings with experts also form course components. The course is divided into four sequential sections: (1) Conceptual Foundations of Urban Environmental Sustainability (Week 1-4); (2) Cities and Climate Change (Week 5-8); (3) Solutions and Applications (including field trip) (Week 9-13); and (4) Synthesis and Reflection (Week 14).
Instructors: Dr Jennifer Li & Ms Karen Tham
Time: Tuesday (9.30am-12.30pm)
Venue: Think Tank 6 (1.408)
Week 1: Introduction and Background
Week 2: Blue and Green Infrastructures II — Urban Greenery
Week 3: Blue and Green Infrastructures I — Water
Week 4: Chinese New Year (no class)
Week 5: Site Visit
Week 6: Regenerative City
Week 7: Spring Break (no class)
Week 8: Grey Infrastructures I — Energy & Buildings
Week 9: Grey Infrastructures II — Transportation and Land Use
Week 10: Cities and Climate Change: Mitigation
Week 11: Cities and Climate Change: Adaptation
Week 12: Governance of Urban Environmental Sustainability
Week 13: Frameworks for Studying Urban Environmental Sustainability
Week 14: Final Presentation
The term “resilience” has been applied in various fields, including ecology, biology, psychology, urban planning, and international politics. This course examines the theoretical framework and practical application of resilience building within the dimension of urban planning and public policy amid rapid digital transformation.
The course can be divided into two main sections: introduction of resilience in the context of climate change and AI, and thematic topics of resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation. Topics include community resilience, participatory planning, social capital, and digital transformation. In addition to discussing concepts, techniques, and tools, case studies with a reflective focus will be used to describe a variety of opportunities and challenges facing precarity. As a research seminar, students in this course will be active participants through photography presentations, oral discussions, documentaries, and analytical essays to reflect and present the depth and breadth of knowledge and insights to the class on resilient cities.
Week 1: Course Outline and Introduction
Imaging Resilience in the Face of Climate Change and AI
Week 2: What is Resilience
Week 3: Vulnerability & Adaptation
Week 4: Engaging with Resilience
Week 5: Toward Community Resilience
Week 6: Planning Resilient Cities
Week 7: Recess Week
Week 8: Participatory Climate Resilience
Week 9: Social Capital and Resilience
Week 10: Resilience and Resistance
Week 11: Resilience in the Digital World
Week 12: Revisiting Resilience
Week 13: Imagining Your Resilient City (Screening and Class Reflection)
Week 14: Follow-up and Class Reflective Essay
Instructor: Dr Cai Yanjun
Time: Tuesday (2-5pm)
Venue: Think Tank 13 (1.508)
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