Socially-Responsible Real Estate Development
Explore socially-responsible real estate development, including the role of impact assessment and public consultation.
Course Information
Certificate Track
Learn for Free
About this Course
How can you determine if a proposed real estate development project is socially responsible?
This online course from the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning introduces the concept of socially-responsible real estate development and key methods for effectively evaluating the social and environmental impacts of a development project. You’ll learn how to use social impact assessment (SIA), environmental impact assessment (EIA), and public consultation methods so you can start applying socially-responsible real estate principles to your practice. The course is also designed to help you build your own personal theory of what constitutes socially-responsible real estate development.
Taught by a professor with more than fifty years of teaching experience at MIT using an applied case study method, this course will open new opportunities for real estate developers and urban planners to see how SIA, EIA, and stakeholder engagement are the keys to creating socially-responsible real estate development throughout the world.
What you'll learn
- Identify the key features of socially responsible real estate development
- Articulate the key elements of both the theory and practice of EIA and SIA
- Apply basic SIA and EIA to analyze large-scale real estate development projects
- Define a personal theory of socially responsible real estate development and a strategy for implementing it
- Understand how SIA and EIA can create value for all stakeholders in a real estate development project
Syllabus
Week 1: What is socially-responsible real estate development?
Introduction to the concept of socially-responsible real estate development and overview of estimating the social and environmental impacts of real estate development.
Week 2: Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA)
Focus on the EIA process and its role in socially-responsible real estate development.
Week 3: Social Impact Assessments (SIA)
Focus on the SIA process and its role in socially-responsible real estate development.
Week 4: Forest City Case Study and Dealing with an Angry Public
Overview and analysis of the ongoing Forest City case study in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Discussion of when to use EIA and SIA, dealing with an angry public, negotiating compensatory agreements, and the role of continuous adaptive management.
Week 5: Conclusion: Creating Shared Benefits
How to create shared benefits, meet stakeholder interests, and integrate the tools and processes you have learned in practice.
Prerequisites
None. This course can accommodate a range of learners including those with limited knowledge or experience in the field.
Meet your instructors
Lawrence Susskind
Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning
Larry Susskind is Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT where he has been a member of the teaching and research faculty for almost fifty years. He is head of MIT’s Science Impact Collaborative (scienceimpact.mit.edu) and teaches a variety of negotiation courses for undergraduates, graduate students, mid-career executive, and senior managers. Larry is co-founder and Vice-Chair of the inter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (pon.harvard.edu) and founder and chief knowledge officer of the Consensus Building Institute (cbi.org). Through these two organizations, Larry has provided face-to-face training in negotiation, conflict management and collaboration to more than 30,000 individuals in 30 countries.
Larry has authored or co-authored more than twenty books, reprinted in eight languages, including Good for You, Great for Me: Finding the Trading Zone and Winning at Win-Win Negotiation, Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating Organization, and Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding the Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success.
