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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

Environmental Planning and Management  

Protection of environmental resources is central to much of the practice of planning.  By focusing on the large-scale and secondary impacts of development activities and by designing alternatives that enhance social welfare, planners promote efficient and equitable use of these resources.  This specialization prepares students to effectively address issues associated with air, water, land, and biological resources.  It emphasizes the impacts of urbanization on environmental quality and resource availability, the spatial distribution of urban activities, and the application of innovative conflict resolution techniques to environmental disputes.

The environmental planning specialization requires a minimum of 12 units of coursework, with two required courses:

• Environmental Planning and Impact Assessment

• Policy Tools for Environmental Management

These two courses provide a critical foundation in environmental impact assessment and in policy formulation, analysis, and implementation. There are no prerequisites for these courses, so they can be taken by students within the environmental planning specialization or by students in other specializations
wanting to understand impact assessment or environmental policies.

Students must also choose two additional courses from the list below or approved by their advisor.

• Sustainable Urban Development

• Water Resources Planning

• Hazardous Waste Planning and Management

• Environmental Law

• Environmental Analysis Using GIS

Courses within the School of Public Policy

• Earth Systems

• Environmental Issues

• Economics of Environmental Policy

• Environmental Organizations and Political Process

• Goals and Objectives in Environmentalism

• Sustainable Systems: Concepts and Measures

• Computer-based Environmental Policy Analysis

• Environmental and Technological Risk Management

• Environmental Values and Policy Goals

• Environmental Policy and Implementation

• Environmental History

In addition to these courses, there are many other environmental science or engineering courses available at Tech in the Schools of Civil and Environmental Engineering or Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. 

 

Courses are also available at Georgia State University in the Department of Geology and in the College of Law. Emory University has courses in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and in the Rollins School of Public Health. Many of these courses have important prerequisites – please check these in advance to
ensure that you have the proper background for these courses.

Students interested in environmental justice issues may want to contact the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark-Atlanta University for more information.