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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Greening the Economy: Sustainable Cities by Lund University

4.7
stars
2,409 ratings

About the Course

How can we shape our urban development towards sustainable and prosperous futures? This course explores sustainable cities as engines for greening the economy in Europe and around the world. We place cities in the context of sustainable urban transformation and climate change. We connect the key trends of urbanization, decarbonisation and sustainability. We examine how visions, experiments and innovations can transform urban areas. And we look at practices (what is happening in cities at present) and opportunities (what are the possibilities for cities going forwards into the future). This course was launched in January 2016, and it was updated in September 2021 with new podcasts, films and publications. The course is produced by Lund University in cooperation with WWF and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability who work with creating sustainable cities. The course features researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs from a range organisations....

Top reviews

SV

Sep 28, 2019

This course has been approached not just for academic purpose but also it is a moral oligation to carry forward what has been taught. I thank the authorities and faculties who have made presentations.

MB

Mar 14, 2019

Really interesting course. I recommend it for all people who want to now how are cities need to act for sustainable development of our cities, how to prevent earth from fast increasing c02 footprint.

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701 - 725 of 764 Reviews for Greening the Economy: Sustainable Cities

By Mohit G

Feb 18, 2018

Great Experience !!

By Dhiraj K

Feb 15, 2016

Structured course.

By Ahmed Y

Jun 2, 2021

very useful coure

By Nithin S N

Oct 2, 2019

very good course

By Aryan M

Aug 6, 2019

Wonderful

By Greeshma B

Dec 5, 2016

very good

By Hector P

Aug 23, 2016

Excellent

By Mehedi H

May 21, 2020

amazing

By Prabesh S G

Aug 31, 2020

Good

By william b

Nov 19, 2018

i

By James D

May 9, 2020

The course contains interesting content and is firmly rooted in real-world examples. One of the most interesting parts was the assignments where I got to interact with other students and hear about issues affecting their cities.

On the negative side, a lot of the content felt like a series of adverts for organisations involved in the business of smart cities. Also, I appreciate the course is provided by a Swedish university but it would definitely benefit from more examples from outside Scandinavia – at times, it felt like I was watching tourism videos of some of the most affluent cities in the world!

Still, all things considered, it's a thought-provoking course that provides a good introduction to the area. While the weekly reading provides plenty of references to follow up should you choose.

By Todd D W

Jan 12, 2024

Thought I did enjoy the course, it was the lowest quality course I have taken at Coursera thus far. The primary reason I say this was that there were several 'glitches' with the program. One, I could never get any of the podcasts to work and my visit to the 'community' in order to ask for help, went unanswered. Also, compared with the other courses I've taken I found this content was rather meandering and somewhat vague, more akin to a high school version of the class. Possibly that was due to the topic which in itself is somewhat undefined and in-development. (I still love Coursera and pan to take MANY more classes. I just feel that I should provide this feedback to maybe help make the class a little better. Overall...Coursera is awesome!)

By Jiří N

Jun 12, 2020

Compared to the course Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia, that I have been doing simultaneously with this one, I was not that amazed. This course did not have a clear structure and it was often unclear, what actually is the learning objective of a specific chapter/lecture. Connected to that, I have often found overlaps and repetition among the lectures/videos in different parts of the course. Nevertheless, I have learnt a good portion of new knowledge and information that I find useful for my future professional life, especially with regard to urban infrastructure.

By Alexandria H

Jan 30, 2022

This course would be a great course for someone who needs inspiration or convincing as to why "the climate battle will be won and lost in cities", but the person taking this course in search of tried-and-true climate solutions will be left poorly equipped. Some solutions in transportation, energy, and air/ water quality are briefly discussed, but not in sufficient detail for the student to quantify their impacts or gauge how well these solutions might work in other contexts. Also, the blather about sharing and smart cities seemed tangentially related to sustainability goals.

By Julen A

Jun 5, 2020

The course has indeed several interesting classes and you certainly can learn new concepts in some videos and readings.

The bad part is, as other students have already mentioned, that the class order and relevance of some lessons are sometimes dysfunctional. You could easily switch/change some materials from the first’s classes with the last ones and see no difference whatsoever.

It’s not a waste of time but other Lund’s University courses (such as “Circular Economy - Sustainable Materials Management”) are way more tastefully designed.

By Hannah G

Aug 27, 2019

Good resources and well-structured course, really felt like a very comprehensive coverage of the topic. Some resources don't appear to have been updated for a couple of years and content sometimes repetitive and a little vague in how exactly things might be carried out, what they cost etc. Readings very dense and took longer than indicated. Would definitely recommend for someone looking for inspiration and a broad range of different examples worldwide, maybe not someone looking for the nitty-gritty ins and outs of sustainability.

By Hiroki K

May 31, 2020

Overall, a good introduction to how cities are shifting and innovating towards a more sustainable society. However, the focus seems to be too much on Scandanavian nations, which is also understandable given that these countries are leading this area. Yet, population growth and urbanization are expected to increase mostly in Asia and Africa. Given this, it would have been better to see more what cities in Asia and Africa are doing in terms of tackling climate change and moving towards a sustainable society.

By Nicole N

Sep 15, 2018

Nice intro and helpful information to smart and sustainable cities

Course is a little old, some reports from 2015 as earliest.

Unfortuanetely the live presentations of the speakers (a third of the whole course) are sometimes not really helpful, as mostly they comment their slides of their presentations, but these slides are not shown in the video. You can only see the speaker without the slide or pp referring at. So sometimes it is hard to follow, as the visual content is missing.

By Phoebe B

Apr 4, 2016

Good. One more written assignment would have been good (the one in week 2 was great), and perhaps more incentives or reminders to use the forum. Some of the reading seemed rather hard going and academic and theoretical, but the course was good as an intro to issues related to public policy, getting to know the keywords used, and showing the systemic shifts in cities over the last 2 decades towards a more multi stakeholder approach for a more decarbonated economy.

By Angel C

Apr 12, 2020

It seemed too much like a "crash course" than a legitimate course. Some topics were too short (I would want to learn more about them rather than have a short mention or a basic video introduction) and unnecessary (such as the short videos/"case studies"). Some quiz questions were also disappointing and too objective (must I need to remember these numbers about Sweden?). I did learn new things which prompts me to do more independent study at least.

By Andrea T

Sep 19, 2022

It was not what I expected. I hoped to get much information about how to make a city more sustainable from a urban planner's point of view. But there was so much talking without saying something, it was hard to grap any real new information. It seemed like a university's point of view: definitions and sorting and cataloging sustainable ideas, but not really explaining: what did they do, what worked out, what to do in what circumstances.

By Louann S

Jun 20, 2019

I think there is alot of interesting ideas, case studies and information. However, I think there is a lot of repetition in the content e.g. more about laying out the problems and less on tangible solution. There is some content that ads very little to the overall piece. However, I have really enjoyed the course and find the information on learning labs and different actions taken by varied cities very interesting.

By Barbara M P

Aug 3, 2019

The course was rather elementary and only the final week provided the information I thought it would be structured around (more detailed solution examples from many cities). The previous weeks were too theoretical in a consulting/management kind of way. However, this is my first coursera course, so I cannot benchmark it against the others.

By Marle F

Sep 13, 2019

The course content was very good. However there is this two month time period (from Mid June to Mid August 2019), where it is impossible to continue/enroll the course! I am very disappointed about the forced break that I have to take. I was about to finish course and now have to wait for two months to complete! Very disappointing!

By Pichakorn J

Apr 13, 2020

Some videos seem like advertisement more than an informative lecture to me. They don't provide much interesting points that sometimes make me lost and question about which topic we are talking about. However, there are also some interesting contents that widen my vision and satisfy my purpose of taking this course.