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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

Urban Design

The Urban Design specialization offers students the opportunity to focus on the process of city building and urban design within the MCP degree program.  The specialization emphasizes four major bodies of knowledge: urban design theory as a way of understanding the order of the city, urban economics and development methods as a basis for formulating development projects, planning theory and methods as a means for designing policies and strategies that can be implemented in  private markets regulated by public bodies, and design studies as a basis for exploring urban design and development issues.

Courses required in the urban design specialization include:

• Introduction to Urban Design

• Urban Design Policy: Analysis and Implementation

In addition, students must take two additional courses in urban design. Alternatives within the College of Architecture are listed below.

• History of Urban Form

• Introduction to Real Estate

• Land Use Planning Methods

• Theories of Urban Design

• Landscape Architecture

• History and Theories of the Modern City

• Urban Design Workshop

• Introduction to Land Use Planning

• Sustainable Urban Development

• Land Use and Transportation Interaction

• Principles of Real Estate Finance and Development

• Applied Real Estate Methods

• Negotiation, Facilitation and Conflict Management