Urban Planning for Social Resilience –
Learn to Build Impact from the Ground Up

Urban Planning for Social Resilience – Learn to Build Impact from the Ground Up

Courses

Here, you will find a variety of lectures and units providing theoretical and conceptual foundations on various topics, such as the significance of citizen initiatives for neighborhoods, characteristics of civic engagement, and the importance of participation and co-production for neighborhood and urban planning. Further lectures include social infrastructures, public spaces, planning with people, and the role of the built heritage for public-civic cooperation.

Throughout these units, you will encounter lessons learned that summarize success factors and barriers, exploring how municipal actions can be integrated with citizen initiatives while highlighting the roles of transformative capacity and place- based leadership.

Key concepts
Type of lecture
Strategies for civic and urban impact

18 - Conclusion and Presentation of Assignments

In this final unit, students bring together the module’s key concepts and methods, presenting their assignments and reflecting on civic engagement, social resilience, co-production, and neighbourhood transformation, while considering their future role as built-environment professionals.

17 - What explains the performance of community-based initiatives?

Explores how community-based initiatives in urban areas transform neighborhoods by fostering social cohesion, leveraging leadership, and mobilizing organizational and socio-political resources for sustainable change.

14 - Designing Social Infrastructure: Public Spaces and Third Places

Students focus on designing social infrastructure and third places that strengthen community resilience, using a human-centred, Design Thinking approach to analyse local needs and develop initial ideas for inclusive spaces that foster social connection.

12 - Voices from the Ground: Community-Led Urbanism and the Struggle for Integration

Students explore civic-public partnerships through the lens of grassroots initiatives and urban commons, developing strategies to strengthen civic agency in planning through storytelling, mapping, role-play, and a toolkit exercise.

11 - Governance for Resilience: Designing Civic-Public Partnerships from the Municipal Perspective

Students take part in a municipal council simulation where civic proposals are presented and evaluated, exploring how communities and public authorities negotiate responsibilities, resources, and shared goals to develop a preliminary Civic-Public Partnership Strategy.

1- Introduction to Civic Neighborhoods

Students will learn city performance indicators impacting prosperity and life quality; resilient neighborhoods withstand, adapt, and recover from shocks, stresses.