I loved this class. We learned a lot about the history of transportation in major US cities, especially in Los Angeles. Dr. Osman was quite charming, nice and very approachable. Attendance was not taken, but there were 2 pop quizzes. However, he allowed you to make up one pop quiz during the final had you missed one. The midterm and final were free-write question/answers. Slides were posted and the exam questions were based on those. The TAs were super nice too.

This class is pretty easy and somewhat interesting. A lot of the class is pretty intuitive and I actually learned a lot of interesting information from it. There's no homework besides assigned readings before each lecture. He gives two pop quizzes throughout the quarter, but the first one wasn't until week 8 or 9 and the second one was a freebie. He reuses his midterm questions as well as the pop quizzes every year. The midterm is a combination of short-answer and long-answer questions testing on how well you know the slides. Overall, this class is pretty easy.

I am not a urban planning major. I am a MCDB major and considering adding a Geography minor, so a lot of the information in this class was brand new to me. Unlike most of other reviews, I think Dr. Osman was a great lecturer and the exams were quite easy. There are comments that says you need to remember everything from the slides. However, his slides are not dense. Most of the slides were like one or two sentences, and the exams were asking for probably just a sentence. There were only one midterm and one final (not cumulative), and for each, the best thing to prepare is quizlet. I got 100/100 for midterm and probably something similar for the final, and I got an A+ for this class. I would genuinely recommend this class. Compared with other classes, this one is light work, and I have learnt a lot.

The reviews below are half right. The structure of the class follows as: part/pop quizzes 20%, midterm 35%, final 45%. Participation is a given but he gave us 2 pop quizzes throughout the year. 1 in week 8 and the other was a freebie in week 10. In order to do well on his midterm you need to remember his slides verbatim. There are usually 3-5 key terms he expects you to know for each free response question asked. There are about 10 definitional questions on tests, you need to recite the definition word for word in order to get full credit. For free response you also need to know the key terms mentioned above. Having a rough idea of the prompt or being able to accurately discuss 1-2 of the key points will only net you 60-70% credit. I got an C+ on my midterm because of this. Once I memorized the slides I got a 100% on his final which saved me. Essentially, as long as you know the key terms and their significance verbatim, then this class will be very easy. If not, the TAs and him grade pretty harshly. He’s a nice guy but the structure of the class is pretty minimalistic.

Agree with everything the other reviews say. This class was really boring. There were some interesting concepts like the CA High Speed Rail lecture. But I was frustrated that there were so many lectures where transportation was not discussed at all. We spent almost two weeks repeating GEOG 4's content of economic geography and globalization. It's almost like ... that's a lower div for a reason.
The grades are split into two pop quizzes, participation (attendance wasn't mandatory tho), a midterm, and a final, so essentially 0 workload other than readings. The midterm was graded on a super strict rubric even though the questions were very open ended. Nobody did well and the professor was basically like "Yeah, the TAs were tough, but don't feel bad because they graded everyone harshly" so... yeah. I'm expecting the same for the final. I wouldn't recommend this class unfortunately.

By far the worst elective I've taken at UCLA. The topics themselves are entirely intuitive for anyone that's taken introductory urban planning / urban economics classes. What made this class so frustrating were the exams, which are in essence graded on your ability to interpret and provide specific answers to questions that are inherently open-ended and have many potential correct answers. Midterms were returned to us with random parts of our answers underlined, many points marked off, and zero explanation or written feedback so we have essentially no idea what we did wrong. Even if everything in your answer was technically correct, if you so much as missed a single element that wasn't on the rubric (which was never shown or reviewed with us), you'd get several points docked because you need a "perfect" answer to receive full points. Course readings were never tested material, and yet he still felt the need to assign us random pop quizzes on the readings during lecture as if we're back in middle school or something. Save your sanity and take a class where your efforts are actually rewarded.

With the topic of transportation, I was drawn to enroll in this class very quickly. However, I was not very satisfied with what I had learned in class. The first half of the class was okay, but we mainly discussed economic geography and globalization in the second half, which I did not expect in this course—I wish it would be more about transportation planning. The most frustrating part would be the grading scheme, with two reading pop quizzes that are not very reflective regarding lecture attendance. In addition, the grading for the midterm was not very reasonable, as the questions were more open-ended, and all the answers were probably right, but they marked the points down as you were not answering the specific things they were looking for. Even though he did not plan to give people a chance for pop quiz make-up, he finally included one question at the end of the final exam to replace the lowest pop quiz you get. The class contents are relatively easy, but the grading scheme made me feel a little pessimistic about my experiences in the course. There are only readings, a midterm, and a final exam, so I think the workload is manageable. Professor Osman is a nice person if you get the talk to him. I wish he would change the grading scheme or make the grading more reasonable when he offers this class again.