Demographic Analysis in Planning: A Graduate Course and an Alternative Paradigm

Abstract

This paper describes in detail a course called "Demographic Analysis in Planning" taught within the com prehensive planning track of the city planning master's curriculum at the Georgia Institute of Technology The course has two integrated streams: projects and seminars. The two main exercises for practice are forecasting tasks: one extrapolation, the other cohort-component. Together with their associated exercises, the proj ects are employed as vehicles for learning the basics of population analysis more generally. The paper describes the projects and exercises in some detail and then follows with a description of the twenty major lessons that underlie the teaching/ learning approach.