This course is especially designed to provide an understanding about current urban issues in Latin American cities and their roots in land and urban policies to a journalism audience. Mass media and journalism professionals have great potential to inform the public regarding cities and their problems as well as influence urban and land policy. The course will cover the fundamentals of land markets (land use and price determination), the nature and limits of property rights in Latin American legislation, and alternative land-based tools for financing urban (re)development. Special attention will be given to new urban planning instruments currently being applied in the region, including value capture, inclusionary zoning, and regularization of informal settlements.

The course, offered in Spanish, provides a space to discuss new theoretical perspectives and practical experiences that seek to challenge and overcome some weaknesses of traditional technocratic planning, and the need to make visible the state’s role in building the city and the impact that planning decisions have on land markets.

Each year, the Program on the People’s Republic of China offers a week-long capacity-building “Training the Trainers” course to young faculty members, researchers, and practitioners from universities, government agencies, and institutions across China. The subject of the course varies each year, often targeting to the specific need for knowledge relevant to the current policy reform. The course is taught by internationally-reputed scholars in relevant fields. This year the course topics are Municipal Fiscal Health and Urban Planning.

Latin America has undergone an accelerated process of urbanization and is nowadays the second most urbanized region in the world. Today, medium-sized cities lead the urban population growth creating enormous challenges for emerging cities. This course, offered in Spanish, aims to expose and work the particularities that define small towns and their urban management processes in order to identify the most appropriate tools for defining land policies.

Prerequisites: Knowledge on land planning models, functioning of land markets and capital gains recovery is recommended.

This week-long professional development course offers students the opportunity to assess and challenge their understanding of fundamental topics related to urban informality. Participants will examine tools on informal economic analysis, land markets and pricing, as well as the development of informal settlements in Latin American cities. Students will deepen their knowledge on different intervention tools and land tenure regularization processes by means of case studies from Latin America, the Caribbean and other regions.

Nowadays it is necessary to analyze a set of policy initiatives on sustainable cities with a broad perspective that not only focuses on explaining the instruments that have been proposed in various cities, but rather identify possible points of contradiction with the theory of land. This course, offered in Spanish, aims to discuss the impact that new urban environmental sustainability initiatives could have on urban land policies.

Specific requirements: Participants must have knowledge of operation of land markets, urban capital gains, fundamentals of urban planning, access to land and urban marginality.

Various countries have long used mechanisms to mobilize value increments as a fundamental component of urban policy in order to finance urban development, social housing, and public spaces, and also to conserve natural resources and heritage. This course, offered in Spanish, discusses the main instruments used in a variety of countries for the recovery/mobilization of value increment, assessing their objectives, scope, limitations and alternatives to finance urban projects.

In recent years, vacant land has developed a great influence within the realm of defining land policies. Housing programs require vacant land, yet with the increase in demand and the resulting increase in value of land, these programs become unfeasible. This course, offered in Spanish, aims to present alternatives for vacant land management during the creation of land policies, focusing on housing for low-income populations, on social facilities, on public space, and on large urban projects.

In this course, offered in Spanish, students discuss and debate new perspectives and practical experiences regarding land management planning while identifying weaknesses of more traditional systems. Topics covered also include the role of the State during urban construction and the impact that planning has on land markets.

Planners in industrialized countries have developed and disseminated a set of prescriptions to address informality. These prescriptions have been embraced by multilateral agencies and turned into public policies in Latin America. The objectives of this course are to present the basic features of the approaches underpinning current policies toward the informal city in Latin America and to explain their origins, central ideas and basic premises, emphasizing issues related to land policies. Specific requirements: The course is aimed at professionals who have participated or are participating in the implementation of policies against informal cities.