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buckster

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I just had a question, if anyone knows please give some info, i would really appreciate it. What do you need to do in order to go into a urban planning field as a career, what courses/programs what are they called or do you need nothing?

Thanks again.

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Best thing I can suggest is to go down to city hall or county hall and get involved and let them know you want to intern there on civic planning. Community Colleges and 4 years offer some programs, I was a Political Science major and 1/3rd of it was local government and planning issues for the courses.

Besides the politics and governance aspects of it, civil engineering is a big way into it as well from a private sector perspective. Everything from sewer lines to new mega developments (malls, neighborhoods, airports) require civil engineers as well as traffic engineers, construction experts etc.

Think of it as you were playing SimCity, a university opening up in your east side requires road widenings, interstate exit ramps being constructed for a new exit, a rerouting of the mass transit, possibly an extension of the subway, probably new sewer, water, electric, cable, fiberoptic lines, new zoning reviews of the areas around it (because where houses are now will soon be businesses that cater to students etc.) and on and on. Thats why nothing beats interning at city hall and witnessing the planning process and community meetings from day one on a project, either that or a civil engineering firm or consultanting firm.

:)

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Best thing I can suggest is to go down to city hall or county hall and get involved and let them know you want to intern there on civic planning.  Community Colleges and 4 years offer some programs, I was a Political Science major and 1/3rd of it was local government and planning issues for the courses. 

Besides the politics and governance aspects of it, civil engineering is a big way into it as well from a private sector perspective.  Everything from sewer lines to new mega developments (malls, neighborhoods, airports) require civil engineers as well as traffic engineers, construction experts etc.

Think of it as you were playing SimCity, a university opening up in your east side requires road widenings, interstate exit ramps being constructed for a new exit, a rerouting of the mass transit, possibly an extension of the subway, probably new sewer, water, electric, cable, fiberoptic lines, new zoning reviews of the areas around it (because where houses are now will soon be businesses that cater to students etc.) and on and on.  Thats why nothing beats interning at city hall and witnessing the planning process and community meetings from day one on a project, either that or a civil engineering firm or consultanting firm.

:)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks alot man :thumbsup:

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I just had a question, if anyone knows please give some info, i would really appreciate it.  What do you need to do in order to go into a urban planning field as a career, what courses/programs what are they called or do you need nothing?

Thanks again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i want to study the same thing, im going to colege next september and taking a university transfer program specializing insocial geography and then possibly urban planning and design at sfu in vancouver

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Many larger universities have city/urban/regional planning programs. You will most definately need a masters to be sure to get your foot in the door of the meat and potatoes of planning. You don't have to be limited to planning though. You can get involved through Geography/GIS, or civil engineering, or local government via poli-sci, environmental science, etc. It really depends on what angle you want to be involved with.

Here is a list of colleges that have accredited planning programs:

http://www.acsp.org/CareerInfo/Accredited_programs.html

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  • 2 months later...

well there is a major field calle cdae (community development and applied economics) and i think they do a lot of prep for urban planning type careers...and also, civil engineering. and engineering in general/architecture/public policy/political science/you name it, if it sounds like it might help it probably will. the head urban planner in my city (his name is lee urban, how weird is that) is a law school grad...so i think it is one of those things you familiarize yourself with and then hop right into to learn hands on...any courses you take will likely help, but obviously things like english, basket weaving, art history (although this might help too) etc...might be LESS of a helo than some of the others i mentioned above. just get a degree and jump in head frst and im sure youll land somewhere you want to, thats how mist of life is. i mean, only careers like MDs, attorneys, firemen, brick layers etc... have specific courses of study you absolutely have to follow.

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:) 

Thanks!  I like my sig, it's a shameless plug for the Florida forums....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was down in FLA in march for the first time (im from maine) and I visited orlando. the orlando airport is so HUGE, I heard over 80,000 people filter through its doors every single day, wow, thats more than the pop of my city. and then you have palm trees everywhere, wow again. then at night the downtown disney lights keep a spectacular show going in the sky and the downtown is compact, but high rises stretch as far as the eye can see along the major high ways for condos and stuff like that, so again, what a nice city it is!

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