Urban and Regional Planning MS at University of Wisconsin Madison

The Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture (DPLA) offers an accredited Master of Science (M.S.) degree in Urban and Regional Planning. The degree trains students in the knowledge, theories, and skills to be leaders in their communities by making positive change through informed and reflective action. Our department centers the values of sustainability, equity and justice, and works with communities to address many of the complex challenges involving space and place that are critical to the planning profession.

The M.S. URPL degree is intended to prepare graduates for professional planning careers in government, nonprofit and community organizations, and the private sector, and to work at a variety of scales including rural and urban communities. The program normally requires two academic years of full-time work plus an internship. In addition to the M.S. program, the department offers a Ph.D. program.

DPLA seeks students with high academic qualifications and the potential to become qualified professional planners. Since there are relatively few undergraduate planning programs in the country, students come into the field from a wide range of disciplines. In recent years, planning students have generally come from the social sciences with geography, economics, political science, and sociology among the most common undergraduate backgrounds. The range, however, runs from the arts to the sciences reflecting the multi-disciplinary character of our field.

DPLA is committed to establishing and maintaining a supportive climate of inclusion, diversity, and collegiality through our actions and policies. We envision a department in which all individuals are engaged in a vibrant learning community, where ideas, experiences, and perspectives are supported, nurtured, and developed to their highest levels. We value diversity, which we define to include race or ethnicity; sex; gender and gender identity or expression; marital status; age; sexual orientation; country of origin; language; disability; socio-economic status; and affiliations that are based on cultural, political, religious, or other identities.

Although DPLA stresses the development of general skills and mental attitudes that are common to all planning endeavors, students are required to specialize in an area of planning that is of interest to the student, such as housing, land use, food systems, environmental planning, regional economic development, transportation, public health, or urban design, among other possibilities.

The objectives of the professional M.S. degree are to:

1. Prepare students to engage in planning processes that recognize a complex, pluralistic and equitable democratic society. Students develop the capacity to work with diverse publics, across government agencies, and in private and nonprofit sectors. Planning processes include the identification of objectives, design of possible courses of action, and evaluation of alternatives.
2. Convey a set of planning literacies to enable students to perform effectively as planners in public, private or nonprofit sectors. These literacies include knowledge in the following areas:
   • Structure and function of cities and regions
   • History and theory of planning processes and practices
   • Administrative, legal, and political aspects of plan-making
   • Public involvement and dispute resolution techniques
   • Research design and data analysis techniques
   • Written, oral, and graphic communication skills
   • Ethics of professional practice
   • Collaborative approaches to problem solving
3. Prepare students with the substantive knowledge foundation and tools, methods, and techniques of planning associated with an area of specialization.

Details on administrative requirements for the degree are available in the MS URPL Handbook.

The M.S. program equips students with sufficient understanding of and training in the principal tools, methods, and techniques of planning to enable them to perform effectively as junior staff members from the start of their careers. UWMadison's program in planning emphasizes concepts, perspectives, and practices that promise to be useful not only upon graduation, but even more so in later years for graduates who reach positions of major influence and responsibility. We train our graduates to be leaders of equitable change through urban and regional planning.

1. (General Planning Knowledge) Comprehension, representation, and use of ideas and information in the planning field, including appropriate perspectives from history, social science, and the design professions.
2. (Purpose and Meaning of Planning) Appreciation of why planning is undertaken by communities, cities, regions, and nations, and the impact planning is expected to have.
3. (Planning Theory) Appreciation of the behaviors and structures available to bring about sound planning outcomes.
4. (Planning Law) Appreciation of the legal and institutional contexts within which planning occurs.
5. (Human Settlements and History of Planning) Understanding of the growth and development of places over time and across space.
6. (The Future) Understanding of the relationships between past, present, and future in planning domains, as well as the potential for methods of design, analysis, and intervention to influence the future.
7. (Global Dimensions of Planning) Appreciation of interactions, flows of people and materials, cultures, and differing approaches to planning across world regions.
8. (Planning Skills) Use and application of knowledge to perform specific tasks required in the practice of planning.
9. (Research) Tools for assembling and analyzing ideas and information from prior practice and scholarship, and from primary and secondary sources.
10. (Written, Oral, and Graphic Communication) Ability to prepare clear, accurate and compelling text, graphics and maps for use in documents and presentations.
11. (Quantitative and Qualitative Methods) Data collection, analysis and modeling tools for forecasting, policy analysis, and design of projects and plans.
12. (Plan Creation and Implementation) Integrative tools useful for sound plan formulation, adoption, and implementation and enforcement.
13. (Planning Process Methods) Tools for stakeholder involvement, community engagement, and working with diverse communities.
14. (Leadership) Tools for attention, formation, strategic decision-making, team building, and organizational/community motivation.
15. (Values and Ethics) Values inform ethical and normative principles used to guide planning in a democratic society. The program shall appropriately incorporate issues of diversity and social justice into all required courses of the curriculum, including:
16. (Professional Ethics and Responsibility) Appreciation of key issues of planning ethics and related questions of the ethics of public decision-making, research, and client representation (including principles of the AICP Code of Ethics and other related principles, as appropriate).
17. (Governance and Participation) Appreciation of the roles of officials, stakeholders, and community members in planned change.
18. (Sustainability and Environmental Quality) Appreciation of natural resource and pollution control factors in planning, and understanding of how to create sustainable futures.
19. (Growth and Development) Appreciation of economic, social, and cultural factors in urban and regional growth and change.
20. (Values and Ethics) Values inform ethical and normative principles used to guide planning in a democratic society. The program shall appropriately incorporate issues of diversity and social justice into all required courses of the curriculum, including:
21. (Professional Ethics and Responsibility) Appreciation of key issues of planning ethics and related questions of the ethics of public decision-making, research, and client representation (including principles of the AICP Code of Ethics and other related principles, as appropriate).
22. (Governance and Participation) Appreciation of the roles of officials, stakeholders, and community members in planned change.
23. (Sustainability and Environmental Quality) Appreciation of natural resource and pollution control factors in planning, and understanding of how to create sustainable futures.
24. (Growth and Development) Appreciation of economic, social, and cultural factors in urban and regional growth and change.