Urban Resilience & Sustainability
Overview
Urban resilience and sustainability (URS) is a new kind of professional practice that incorporates the principles of sustainable development. It emerged as a distinct field about 15 years ago, circa 2007, with the establishment of positions such as the chief sustainability officer in the private sector and the urban sustainability director in the public sector. URS professionals are primarily manager-leaders who possess expertise across various disciplines, including planning, law, policy, engineering, and management.
The main focus of URS careers is to develop and implement sustainability plans, climate action/protection plans, and resilience plans within organizations and government departments. These professionals work across organizational functions and policy areas to create strategies and policies that promote sustainability. They are responsible for designing, managing, and leading resilience and sustainability policies, programs, and plans.
The MENV Urban Resilience and Sustainability (URS) specialization is designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge required to become leaders in resilience and sustainability. Taught by experienced sustainability professionals and researchers, the program covers theoretical frameworks and practical skills necessary for effective planning and management across sectors. The goal is to build and lead resilient, sustainable communities and institutions.
Guiding Principles
- Learning about Resiliency through Key URS Topics: We cover a range of topics relevant to urban resilience and sustainability, including climate action and resilience planning, land conservation, smart growth, systems thinking, social equity, transportation, and water and green infrastructure.
- Providing Analytical and Managerial Tools: Students acquire essential analytical and managerial tools necessary for addressing sustainability challenges. These tools enable them to assess critical environmental and social policy issues, develop equitable solutions, and engage with diverse community partners.
- Building Sustainable Communities: We emphasize the importance of building resilient and sustainable communities and institutions. Effective planning, collaboration, and stakeholder engagement are highlighted as crucial components of this process.
- Practicing an Interdisciplinary Approach: We take an interdisciplinary approach, combining theoretical frameworks and practical skills required for effective planning and management across sectors. Students are exposed to various disciplines such as planning, law, policy, engineering, and management.
- Visioning for a Sustainable Future: We aim to inspire students to work towards a bold vision of what could be but isn't yet. We encourage students to think creatively and envision sustainable futures for communities and institutions.
Course Requirements
URS student must choose four courses (12 credits) of the course options below.
Today’s urban water managers are faced with an unprecedented set of issues that call for a different approach to urban water management. These include the urgent changes needed to respond to climate change, population growth, growing resource constraints, and rapidly increasing global urbanization. Many water providers are now moving to a fully integrated management approach to water, focusing on 4 core areas: regenerative water services, basin-connected cities, water sensitive urban design, and water-wise communities. This course will introduce the student to the current state of urban water management, these directives for the future, and the need for systems- and design- thinking necessary for transition both learn the value of, and gain practice with, analytic and project tools currently in practice.
A survey course examining core concepts and best practices in planning and development for sustainable, equitable, carbon-neutral communities, from cities to rural areas, with emphasis on both policy and market/private sector strategies.
This course examines the relationships and connectivity between the natural environment, human society and the social ecological systems relevant to community resilience. The increasing demands of a globalizing economy, aging critical infrastructure, changing demographics, and the impacts of climate change increase concerns about the resilience of multiple scales of governance and the importance of social vulnerabilities.
This course explores sustainability strategies at the community scale and beyond, and the drivers of decision making and investment in sustainability action. We will explore various approaches to sustainability with the goal of answering the question, “How do sustainability leaders engage with diverse stakeholders and decision makers to implement effective, equitable solutions to environmental problems?” Led by local sustainability professionals, this course will focus on citywide sustainability solutions.
This course explores the emerging field of social innovation in the context of sustainable urban development and examines the core concepts, case studies and best practices that define it in areas such as carbon-neutral cities, impact investing/finance, modular housing, renewable energy, sustainable food production and urban mobility and develop our own social innovation ideas and models.
The transportation sector is undergoing a revolution, with the sharing economy, new mobility options and technology advances changing not just how we travel but changing the makeup of cities themselves. This course will prepare students to be knowledgeable and effective practitioners in this revolution. Current transportation topics and policy debates will range from how we design our streets, to managing congestion, and how we price and pay for it all.
URS Electives
The URS clinic model seeks to bring the ideas and resources of supervised MENV students to bear on real-world, real-time resilience and sustainability challenges facing Colorado communities and organizations, with an emphasis on supporting underserved and at-risk populations and places. Through research, written reports, stakeholder interviews and other methods, MENV students gain critical skills and knowledge while providing valuable professional services to community partners. Enrollment is limited to 10-12 students. The course meets weekly for 2.5 hours for the first five weeks of the term to cover key topics in urban resilience/sustainability/climate planning. Subsequent sessions include supervised, team-based research and plan-writing, in preparation for formal presentations to key stakeholders in a joint, knowledge-sharing symposium.
To make a sustainable environment, we need to have legal and governmental structures and rules that foment -- and do not stymie -- sustainable practices. This course explores how we govern for sustainable outcomes at all levels of governance, with a focus on the local. It examines the role that courts play in determining the lawfulness of such governance. Students will have an opportunity to role-play as lawmakers.
Climate action is needed at all levels of government if we are to achieve global climate and sustainability goals. This course will explore the synergistic relationships between U.S. federal, state, and local government climate action planning and the delicate international architecture that supports the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. From this broad perspective, the course will narrow its focus to delve into the “Race to Zero,” and the specific high-impact actions necessary to move local governments toward a carbon-free future.
URS students are also required to take two electives from other MENV specializations.
URS-Related Capstone Projects
Meet the URS Specialization Lead and Faculty
William Shutkin
William Shutkin, the URS Specialization Lead serves as a student mentor, curriculum developer, and faculty leaders for URS. Click the links below to learn more about our URS faculty members.