With over half of the world’s population now living in urban areas, the challenge of creating and maintaining urban places as high quality, healthy, vital places for people has never been more important. Our expectation is that recipients of the graduate degrees and certificates offered by the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning will be in the forefront of those efforts, contributing professional leadership and new knowledge in support of this first “urban century”.
Urban Studies—Regional Science Ph.D.
Regional science brings a variety of social science perspectives to bear in analyzing the growth and development of metropolitan areas, states, and regions. The regional science program shares the same core requirements as the Urban Studies Ph.D. Beyond these, students in regional science design a program of study around two field areas.
The only required course in the second field is USP 691 Current Research in Regional Science. Subject to prior faculty group approval, students may organize second field areas around a topic other than the four identified above. It is recommended that the second field include additional methods courses that support the field’s topical focus. For example, in the transportation field area the supporting methods courses might include coverage of demand modeling, cost-benefit analysis, GIS, and spatial analysis.
Students in the regional science program must pass a comprehensive examination in their two field areas. This is a single examination, developed in consultation with two members of the regional science faculty group.