The Field of Urban Planning
Urban planning has evolved from its
early roots in physical planning and the good government movement to a
broad, integrative profession concerned with the social and physical organization
of society at geographic scales ranging from local neighborhood to global
communities. Attempts to solve urban problems can be wasteful and harmful
without a comprehensive understanding of the social, economic, and spatial
relationships which shape the well-being of communities, cities, and regions.
The planning and financing of services, transportation, housing and amenities,
the control of pollution and environmental degradation, and the management
of energy resources have over the past 20 years come to be examined and
challenged in terms of criteria of social justice--for the poor, minorities,
and women. The evaluation and critical analysis of public policies and
actions has become more central to planning, as the distribution of costs
and benefits from public decisions significantly influence how well different
groups in society fare.
As the scope of planning has broadened, it has also become more explicitly
involved with questions of political choice. What qualities in society
do we value most? What is fair? Whose interests are to be served first?
Planners, as professionals, cannot claim the right to decide these questions
for their society. But they have the responsibility to point out where
these questions arise in the process of planning, to see that they are
addressed, and to help people understand what is at issue and put forward
their own proposals.
The UCLA Department of Urban Planning tries to represent, in its style
and curriculum, this range, complexity, technical diversity, and ideological
sensitivity of the work that planners do. Many courses are concerned with
issues and skills that all professional planners are likely to share.
Other courses are grouped broadly according to the different settings
in which planners make their careers.
For more information on the field of
urban and regional planning click
here.
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