Master of Community Planning (M.C.P.)

Degree Requirements | Required Courses | Spread Course Areas | Suggested Course Plans | Areas of Specialization | Final Paper

Spread Course Areas

Land Use Planning 

All planning students should understand the public and private sector interests and roles in land use planning, and the basic methods, processes and institutions through which public and private agencies create, implement, and administer land use plans and policies. Students should understand the concepts and implications of land classification systems, strategies by which local governments, landowners, developers, and other stake-holders control the rate, location, pattern and quality of new development; and constitutional and legal constraints on land use regulations and the way they have evolved over time. Finally, students should understand the social, economic, aesthetic, and behavioral implications of physical planning. URSP 603 Land Use Planning satisfies this course requirement.

Economic Planning

All planning students should understand the basic concepts of opportunity costs, supply and demand, marginal cost pricing, marginal benefits or revenues, and the role of profits in the allocation of society's resources. They should understand theories of market failure, especially externalities, and the basics of cost-benefit analysis, including the concepts of the time value of money and present discounted value. Finally, all planning students should be introduced to the limits of economic analysis, and the interrelationship between economic, social, and land use planning. URSP 606 Microeconomics of Planning and Economic Policy satisfies this course requirement.

Social Planning

All planning students should understand the basic concepts of community and community development, including their cultural variations. They should understand the external and internal influences on communities, including community actors (such as community organizations) that serve as agents of change. They should be able to identify problems, and programs and policies that address these problems. They should learn basic skills in planning and managing social programs in fields such as health, education, housing, and social welfare; how to analyze the relevant stakeholders, how to implement the programs, and how to evaluate their effect on different groups in the population. Finally, all planning students should understand the culturally-embedded meaning of the good community, and ways in which social, physical, and economic factors interact to make a good community. Either URSP 673 Social Planning or URSP 662 Urban and Regional Planning in Develoing Countries satisfies this course requirement.