Karen C. Seto
Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science, Director of the Hixon Center for…
Urban Specialization
The Urban Specialization prepares students to engage deeply in the management of urban ecosystems. Students will learn to understand and assess key environmental challenges and possible policy and business solutions to address these issues.
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The focus students choose will prepare them for their career goals – which may include, for example, working at a city-level on environmental policy, providing research or policy analysis to international development organizations, or joining a scientific research organization, among many other possibilities.
Note that a capstone course used to fulfill the MEM capstone requirement cannot also be used toward fulfilling an MEM Specialization requirement; a capstone course taken once cannot be used to fulfill multiple requirements. Learn more about YSE capstone courses by visiting the MEM Capstone page.
Program Courses
Core
Two required courses.| Course | Fall 2025 | Spring 2026 | Fall | Spring |
| ENV 573 Urban Ecology for Local and Regional Decision Making |
Grove | |||
| ENV 645 Urbanization, Global Change and Sustainability |
Seto |
Electives
Students must select four additional courses, including one course from each of the following four bins below. There is no guarantee that faculty will accept YSE students in classes offered outside of YSE.Bin 1: Urban Spatial Analysis
| Course | Fall 2025 | Spring 2026 | Fall | Spring |
| ENV 726 Observing Earth from Space |
Lee | |||
| ENV 730 Environmental Data Science in R: Introduction to Data Integration and Machine Learning |
Malone | |||
| ENV 755 Modeling Geographic Space |
Faculty | |||
| ENV 756 Modeling Geographic Objects |
Faculty | |||
| ENV 819 Measuring and Visualizing Urban Environments |
Salazar Miranda |
Bin 2: Urban Environmental Resource Management
| Course | Fall 2025 | Spring 2026 | Fall | Spring |
| ENV 712 Water Management |
Anisfeld | |||
| ENV 744 Conservation Science and Landscape Planning |
Schmitz | |||
| ENV 814 Energy Systems Analysis |
Rao | |||
| ENV 884 Industrial Ecology |
Faculty |
|
ARCH 2250 Demo: Demonstration Projects for the Viable Reuse of Aging Buildings |
De la Selle | |||
|
ARCH 3306 Adaptive Reuse in Karachi:History, Documentation & Intervention |
Bald | |||
|
GLBL 7155 Co-existing with Complexity: Institutional Architecture for Environmental Change |
Seddon |
Bin 3: Land Use and the Built Environment
| Course | Fall 2025 | Spring 2026 | Fall | Spring |
| ENV 782 Globalization Space: International Infrastructure and Extrastatecraft |
Easterling Tentative |
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| ENV 835 Seminar on Land Use Planning (Fall-1 term Aug 27-Oct 10) |
Bacher | |||
| ENV 894 Green Building: Issues and Perspectives |
Kops | |||
| ENV 956 Strategies for Land Conservation |
Gentry | |||
| ENV 966 Sustainability Implementation: Change Management in Institutional Settings |
Smiley Smith | |||
| ENV 971 Land Use Clinic |
Bacher |
|
ARCH 2021 Environmental Design |
Lokko | |||
|
ARCH 2249 Bad Buildings: Decarbonization Through Reuse, Retrofit, and Proposition |
McNamara | |||
|
ARCH 2251 Technology and Practice Regenerative Building Research |
Organschi | |||
|
ARCH 3107 American Architecture and Urbanism |
Rubin (Tentative) | |||
|
ARCH 4011 Introduction to Urban Design |
Plattus & Venable | |||
|
ARCH 4246 Introduction to Urban Studies |
Venable | |||
|
ARCH 4290/MGT 632 Housing Connecticut: Developing Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods |
Cooney/Harwell/Singh | |||
|
MGT 894 Connected Cities and Urban Ecosystems |
Darwish | |||
|
MGT 895 International Real Estate |
Gray |
Bin 4: Cities and Civil Society
| Course | Fall 2025 | Spring 2026 | Fall | Spring |
| ENV 631 Poverty, Environment and Inequality |
Taylor | |||
| ENV 759 Power, Knowledge, and the Environment: Social Science |
Dove | |||
| ENV 878 Climate and Society: Past to Present |
Dove | |||
| ENV 959 Clinic in Climate Justice, and Public Health |
Faculty |
|
AFST 465 Infrastructures of Empire: Control and (In)security in the Global South |
Gross-Wirtzen | |||
|
ARCH360/URBN 360 Urban Lab: An Urban World |
Hsiang | |||
|
ARCH 3303 Urban Century |
Vyjayanthi Rao | |||
|
ARCH 3113 Field Methods in American Architectural and Urban History |
Rubin | |||
|
ARCH 3319 Race and the Built Environment |
Carver | |||
|
ARCH 4247 Difference and the City |
Moore | |||
|
EPH 507a Social Justice and Health Equity |
Keene | |||
|
MGMT 536 Urban Poverty and Economic Development |
Cooney | |||
|
MGMT 537 Inequality and Social Mobility |
Biasi | |||
|
MGT 826 Inclusive Economic Development Lab: Special Topics |
Cooney |
Additional Electives
In addition to the two required courses and the four electives, students may select additional electives to complete the requirements for the MEM degree. Additional electives that may support students’ focus area in the Urban Specialization are listed below.| Course | Fall 2025 | Spring 2026 | Fall | Spring |
| ENV 594 Global Carbon Cycle |
Denning | |||
| ENV 636 Carbon Dioxide Removal |
O’Rourke | |||
| ENV 705 Global Climate Change: Simple, Serious, and Solvable |
Denning |
|
AMST 623/CPLT 880
Working group on Globalization |
Denning | |||
|
ARCH360/URBN 360 Urban Lab: An Urban World |
||||
|
ARCH 1248 Cartographies of Climate Change |
Hsing | |||
|
ARCH 4011 Introduction to Urban Design |
Plattus, Venable | Plattus, Venable | ||
|
ARCH 4219
Urban Research and Representation |
Rubin | |||
|
EVST 473 Abrupt Climate Change and Societal Collapse |
Weiss | |||
|
GLBL 5085 Planetary-Scale Data Institutions: Maximizing Access to Environmental Data for the Public Interest |
Sundwall | |||
|
URBN 305/ARCH 3265
Destruction, Continuation, and Creation –Architecture and Urbanism of Modern Japan/ Architecture & Urbanism- Japan |
Yoko Kawai | |||
|
URBN 341 Globalization Space |
Learning Community
There is a corresponding “Learning Community” for each specialization, where anyone interested in the topic can find related news, spotlights, colleagues, and events.
Faculty Coordinator
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