Three decades after planners in North America and Europe began adopting the public–private partnership approach, such arrangements have become the norm in urban redevelopment and city-building. As a result, when teaching real estate development as a facet of urban economic development, academic practitioners of planning face an uneasy dichotomy between deliberation—which embraces the “plannerly” virtues of inclusivity and participation—and negotiation, the procedural vocabulary of public–private contracting. This dichotomy is felt acutely by instructors who are interested in incorporating principles of equity and social justice into redevelopment pedagogy.

This paper describes a classroom exercise in which students apply negotiation and project finance skills in a simulated economic development negotiation. The goal of the exercise is that students’ experience of negotiating a deal will lead them to constructively explore concepts of “good process” and “just outcomes.” I argue that training for professional planners needs to encompass their future roles as exercisers of situated ethical judgment in addition to their roles as negotiators and parties to contracts.