Become an Urban Planner

An urban planner, also referred to as a city or town planner, prepares plans for and works to regulate, revitalize, and manage projects, towns, cities, and metropolitan regions. They might work for a local government or other governmental body, a private consulting firm, or a nonprofit organization. They might have a particular focus, such as housing or climate change, and they might serve many different stakeholder groups. 

Urban planners work with community members and consultants on developing regional, citywide, or neighborhood-scale plans. The plans might be for future growth, open space protection, zoning, transportation projects, such as bicycle and pedestrian usage, or a new development proposal. An urban planner might attend a community meeting one night, then complete data analysis, work on a report, and create a map using GIS the next day.  

Urban planners typically work in an office environment during normal business hours and often attend evening or weekend meetings with community stakeholders. They also perform field work, such as site visits.

Consider pursuing this career if you are good at envisioning how to improve a place, how to get feedback from many different perspectives, and care about improving cities and neighborhoods and how people live, work, play, and move around those spaces. 

Entry-level planning positions typically require a graduate degree in urban planning or a related field.  

Master’s degree in urban planning, city planning, regional planning are offered at many universities and urban planning programs in the United States are accredited by the Planning Accreditation Board (there also are a growing number of universities offering undergraduate degrees in urban planning) 

Many of the programs offer concentrations which can help a planner specialize before entering the job market. Concentrations often offered include housing, transportation, community development, urban design, natural resources, and others. 

Working for the planning department in a city or county, working for a regional planning organization (look for Metropolitan Planning Organizations or Councils of Government in your region), state or federal government, or planning consulting firms 

The American Planning Association offers a professional credential for urban planners known as AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners). Urban planners need to have gained a specific number of years of relevant experience and also study for an exam. Once a planner has earned the AICP designation, they then need to maintain the credential with ongoing learning for attending conferences or taking courses by renewing their AICP status every two years. 

Geography, public policy, transportation engineering, urban design, landscape architecture, public health, real estate