Real Estate and Urban Development

REAL ESTATE currently is experiencing a revival of interest from the aca¬demic community. The Gordon and Howell 1 and Pierson 2 reports of the 1950s, which analyzed education for business in U.S. colleges and universi¬ties, condemned much of the prevailing business education, and they were particularly devastating to the field of real estate. Undoubtedly the total effect of these reports was for the good, in view of the education process that prevailed in many collegiate schools of business. Too often the teach¬ing of business subjects involved a how-to-do-it approach rather than the application of theory and research to business problems. The criticisms were particularly cogent for much of real estate education. Undergraduate collegiate real estate education at that time was shackled by a proliferation of courses in Principles and Practices of Real Estate, Real Estate Brokerage, Property Management, Real Estate Salesmanship, Construction Techniques, and others. Too little attention was given the underlying disciplines of economics, land economics, psychology, and sociology. Real estate was most certainly thought not to be concerned with the great social problems of an urban society. The effect of the reports on business education was dramatic. How-to¬do-it courses were pared from business curricula.