Cities and Sustainable Development

Course overview

Gain skills, knowledge and frameworks to drive sustainable and inclusive urban change - particularly  if you have interest in fields of urban design, planning, policy, development, or management in local government or housing associations, as well as to those working in fields related to community engagement, sustainability, public health, environmentalism and place-making. The course provides you with teaching drawn from experienced lecturers and expert practitioners at London Development Trust (LDT), an award-winning charitable NGO specialising in social sustainability. You’ll have access to the LDT 15-year practical experience in community development and social sustainability and management that supports a case-study based approach to teaching. 

You’ll learn through practical experiences such as site visits, workshops, mock development briefs, developing funding applications and interactive lectures. This course is tailored to help students understand and reconcile real-world complexities such as managing stakeholders and funding challenges in the integration of social and environmental policy aims. 

About your course

On completion of this module, you will be able to: 

• Demonstrate in-depth understanding of sustainable urban development and its key contemporary challenges through engaging with critical urban theory  
• Critically analyse approaches to social sustainability within sites of urban development and regeneration, and the relationship these have with local and national policy and governance.  
• Provide a critical outline of the key pillars of community development, including the ways in which they interconnect with one another and their different impacts for residents and for voluntary, statutory and corporate domains
• Identify and apply the principles of sustainable development in a range of contexts to address urban development challenges and draw on real world case studies 
• Outline and propose suitable community development instruments, approaches, and programmes for a range of urban contexts.  
• Effectively design a community project addressing a social sustainability issue in an urban development setting and present it through a large-scale funding application – evaluating and justifying the principles, standards and instruments as well as implementation strategy for action through engagement with literature and secondary research data 

Learning and teaching

Taught by experienced lecturers and expert practitioners, this module uses a variety of teaching and learning methods and innovative resources to help you develop skills and competencies in urban sustainable development and community development.  

The module will be delivered in the form of weekly 2-hour interactive taught sessions encompassing site visits, workshops and seminars. Taught content will be supported by online materials on key concepts, frameworks and case studies drawing from wider literature and the tutors’ practical experience and research to develop holistic understanding of social sustainability and management. Teaching will employ a variety of strategies to help you learn to apply concepts and principles to real life social sustainability issues and policy problems. Students will work constructively in a team to identify and reconcile different stakeholder agendas and interests in social and environmental policy. 

Assessment

This course is assessed 100% by coursework and includes no examinations.  

The formative assessment involves:  

• A 1500 word referenced essay based on critical urban theory on how a key urban challenge of your choice can be responded to through socially sustainable urban/community development (week 6) 
• Outline of a large-scale funding bid: integrating the five keystones into the bid as they relate to one specific urban redevelopment site (week 10). 

The summative assessment involves the creation of a 1500-word funding application which details the principles, standards and instruments as well as implementation strategy for action relating to a specific social sustainability issue in a specified context. This is accompanied by a 1000-word critical academic narrative to situate the application within relevant urban theory.

How to apply

To apply to this course, please fill in this form.