MEM
Specialization

Urban

specializations URBAN

Purpose and Scope

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.  The focus they 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.

The specialization draws upon the unique strength of YSE and Yale.  YSE boasts leading faculty studying ecology, climate, forestry, soils, health and urbanization science.  Therefore, students selecting the Urban Specialization will develop an understanding of environmental management of urban ecosystems, including land use, urban ecology, spatial analysis and urban climate.  In addition, the Urban Specialization at YSE combines a scientific understanding of environmental issues with a deep understanding of urban challenges from an inter-disciplinary perspective. Faculty at Yale, across disciplines, offer classes and conduct research on the most current and pressing issues of urban growth.  Students benefit from the world-class research and scholarship on urban and environmental issues with cutting-edge practical skills to apply to future work.

In addition to providing students with a holistic view of urbanization and its challenges and a deep set of skills and tools to work with, the YSE Urban Specialization is a unique asset at Yale. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the specialization, students will take classes in a number of other Yale Schools and work and interact with students from other disciplines, cultivating a wider awareness on urban environmental issues.  Activities such as speaker series’, workshops, and publications engage faculty and students from across the University to discuss and debate local and global urban issues.  Finally, the YSE Urban Specialization provides a starting point for inter-disciplinary research engaging faculty across the University to address urban challenges from a research and policy perspective.  Thus, the specialization attracts students who plan to work at the city level, and also students with ambitions to work on national security, biodiversity, or climate negotiations at the national or international levels, among other topics.

The Urban Specialization will draw on core courses offered by YSE faculty and faculty cross-listed at YSE, as well as courses offered across Yale.  Faculty across Yale are leading experts in their disciplines, and many are engaged in research and work with a connection to urban areas. 

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.

Specialization Coordinator: Karen Seto

Program Courses

Core

Two required courses.
Course Fall 2024 Spring 2025 Fall 2025 Spring 2026
ENV 573
Urban Ecology for Local and Regional Decision Making
Grove
W 1:00-3:50
  Grove  
ENV 645
Urbanization, Global Change and Sustainability
Seto
Tu 1:00-3:50
  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 2024 Spring 2025 Fall 2025 Spring 2026
ENV 704
Workshop on Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry with Drones
               
ENV 726
Observing Earth from Space
  Lee
Tu,Th 9:00-10:20
  Lee
ENV 730
Environmental Data Science in R: Introduction to Data Integration and Machine Learning
Malone
Tu 2:30-5:20
  Malone  
ENV 755
Modeling Geographic Space
  Tomlin
Th 1:00-3:50
  Faculty
Tentative
ENV 756
Modeling Geographic Objects
Tomlin
Th 1:00-3:50
  Faculty
Tentative
 
ENV 819
Measuring and Visualizing Urban Environments
  Salazar Miranda
Th 2:30-5:20
  Salazar Miranda

Bin 2: Urban Environmental Resource Management

Course Fall 2024 Spring 2025 Fall 2025 Spring 2026
ENV 608
Our Air, Our Health
               
ENV 694
Invasive Species: Ecology, Policy, and Management
  Duguid
Tu,Th 10:30-11:50
       
ENV 697
Science for Policy and Practice: A Seminar
  Bradford
Tu 1:00-2:20
       
ENV 712
Water Management
Anisfeld
M,W 1:00-2:20
    Anisfeld
ENV 744
Conservation Science and Landscape Planning
  Schmitz
M,W 10:30-11:50
  Schmitz
ENV 745
Global Human-Wildlife Interactions
Harris
M,W 2:30-3:45
         
ENV 768
Data-Driven Urban Forestry
  Murphy-Dunning
Tu,Th 10:30-11:50
       
ENV 791
Climate Adaptation
  Mach
M 2:30-5:20
       
ENV 794
Climate Ethics: Principles and Model Applications
  Rao
Tu 1:00-2:20
       
ENV 814
Energy Systems Analysis
Rao
M,W 9:00-10:20
  Rao  
ENV 884
Industrial Ecology
Yao
Tu,Th 10:30-11:50
  Yao  
ENV 963
Case Studies in Water Management: Conflict and Cooperation
               
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 2024 Spring 2025 Fall 2025 Spring 2026
ENV 588
Climate Tech Innovation and Commercialization
  Faculty
Tu 2:40-5:40
       
ENV 782
Globalization Space: International Infrastructure and Extrastatecraft
  Easterling
Tentative
  Easterling
Tentative
ENV 817
Urban, Suburban, and Regional Planning Practice
Kooris
W 4:00-6:50
         
ENV 835
Seminar on Land Use Planning (Fall-1 term Aug 27-Oct 10)
Bacher
Th 1:00-3:50
  Bacher  
ENV 892
Introduction to Planning
Smotrich
M,W 10:30-11:50
  Faculty
Tentative
 
ENV 894
Green Building: Issues and Perspectives
Kops
Tu 9:00-11:50
  Kops
Tentative
 
ENV 908
Urban and Environmental Economics
Faculty
M,W 9:00-10:20
         
ENV 956
Strategies for Land Conservation
  Gentry
Tu 2:30-5:20
  Gentry
ENV 966
Sustainability Implementation: Change Management in Institutional Settings
Smiley Smith
Th 9:00-11:50
         
ENV 971
Land Use Clinic
  Bacher
W 10:30-11:50
  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 2024 Spring 2025 Fall 2025 Spring 2026
ENV 620
History of Environmental Thought and Activism
  Taylor
Tu,Th 1:00-2:20
  Taylor
Tentative
ENV 631
Poverty, Environment and Inequality
        Taylor  
ENV 642
Environmental Justice/Climate Justice
Torres
M,W 10:30-11:50
         
ENV 759
Power, Knowledge, and the Environment: Social Science
Dove
M 1:00-3:50
  Dove  
ENV 774
"Framing" Climate Migration: Science, Policy, Ethics & Politics of a Growing Crisis
  Gelobter
Tu 2:30-5:20
       
ENV 857
Financing Climate Change Adaptation in Developing Countries
        Kurukulasuriya
Tentative
 
ENV 860
Developing Environmental Policies and Winning Campaigns
Alt
M 2:30-5:20
  Faculty
Tentative
 
ENV 878
Climate and Society: Past to Present
Dove
Th 1:30-3:20
  Dove  
ENV 959
Clinic in Climate Justice, and Public Health
Faculty
Th 1:00-2:50
  Faculty
Tentative
 
ENV 960
Urban Climate Solutions Capstone: Freetown, Sierra Leone Clinic
  Seto
Tu 1:00-3:50
       
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 2024 Spring 2025 Fall 2025 Spring 2026
ENV 594
Global Carbon Cycle
Denning
M,W 9:00-10:20
         
ENV 636
Carbon Dioxide Removal
O’Rourke
M 2:30-5:20
         
ENV 701
Seminar on Climate Change Economics
  Mendelsohn
M,W 10:30-11:50
       
ENV 705
Global Climate Change: Simple, Serious, and Solvable
Denning
M,W 1:00-2:15
         
ENV 707
Introduction to Environmental Chemistry
  Benoit
Tu,Th 1:00-2:15
       
ENV 790
Managing the Clean Energy Transition: Contemporary Energy and Climate Change Policy Making
Simons
F 9:25-11:15
         
ENV 829
Pathways to a Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions Future (First Class meets August 27)
Esty
Tu 4:00-6:50
         
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