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The Graduate City Planning Program prepares students to function as professionals who are capable of understanding and resolving planning problems in depth. To enable students to focus their education on a consistent and cumulative body of knowledge, the Program offers the following seven specializations:  

Economic Development  | Environmental Planning and Management | Geographic Information Systems  | Land Development  | Land Use Planning  | Transportation  | Urban Design

Economic Development

Planners have a major role to play in promoting the development of state, regional, and local economies.  This specialization introduces students to the issues and principles of economic development planning.  Among the issues covered are specific processes of industrial restructuring and labor force change, the geographic migration of firms, the role of government in encouraging economic growth, the increasing importance of the service sector and high-tech industries, and the role of public/private partnerships. 

  Students examine the issues and dilemmas  

  communities face when they seek explicitly to guide

  the economic development process.  They learn 

  about: definitions of economic development;

  distributional issues in economic development;

  differing theoretical and conceptual explanations of

  the economic development process; international,

  national, and regional factors affecting local economic

  development; federal, state, and local roles; key elements in the economic development process (including finance tools); and contrasting economic development approaches.
 

Required courses in the Economic Development specialization are:

• Foundations of Local Economic Development Planning and Policy

• Economic Development Analysis and Practice

Students must also take two additional courses in their particular interest area in economic development from the City and Regional Planning Program, the School of Public Policy, other Georgia Tech units, or at Georgia State University.

Available courses include:

• Industrial Restructuring and Its Planning Implications

• Urban Development Policy

• Introduction to Real Estate Finance and Development

Courses within the School of Public Policy

• Methods of Urban Policy Analysis and Practice

• Technology, Regions and Policy

Courses within the Economic Department of Georgia Tech or GSU

• Development Economics or Economics of Development

• Environmental Costs of Economic Development