Environmental Planning and Policy
The Environmental Planning and Policy specialization provides students with an overview of the theory and methods used to guide urban development and redevelopment in a more sustainable manner, so as to conserve natural resources and enhance ecosystem services while providing for economic development and promoting social equity and civic engagement within the planning process. The specialization introduces students to both regulatory and market-based strategies of environmental management, explores economic and systematic quantitative analyses of environmental policy, and offers electives examining discrete topics of environmental practice. Elective topics include EIS development, food policy, energy planning, green infrastructure for urban stormwater management, and water resources management.
Goals of the Environmental Planning Specialization Heading link
- To provide students with an understanding of cities as human-ecological systems.
- To trace the evolution of federal environmental protection laws in response to increased urbanization in the United States. To introduce students to market-based approaches to environmental management, including the use of tradable permit and tax and economic incentives to promote environmental goals.
- To train students to use economic and systems methods to evaluate environmental policy.
- To enable students to explore specific issues in environmental protection and planning in depth by taking various elective courses or an environmental planning studio and by writing a masters project or thesis on a topic of environmental planning or policy which integrates environmental theory, analysis, and practice.
Requirements for the Environmental Planning Specialization Heading link
- UPP 570 Environmental Planning
- UPP 571 Economic and Environmental Planning or UPP 572 Systems Methods for Environmental Planning and Policy
- UPP 57_ Environmental Planning elective or other approved course
* Note: Students may take both UPP 571 and UPP 572, using one to fulfill the elective requirement in the specialization.