Career Path in Urban Planning

A career in urban planning or city planning is one of the most challenging professions in the architecture field as urban planning is a field which deals with the quality of life in urban places such as metropolitan cities, sub cities and towns. With the growing public discontent of the quality of city life, policy makers are now taking city planning very seriously which in turn resulted in a growing demand for skilled city planning professionals.

Urban communities are rapidly expanding due to the constant migration of job hunters and fortune seekers. So urban planning should be very much future-oriented so that all the problems related to ever expanding urban communities such as the transportation system, urban buildings and physical facilities of a city are to be addressed properly and thereby the quality of city life should be improved significantly.

A master’s degree in urban planning or city planning or regional planning or a related field is the minimum eligibility one needed to start a career as a city planner. There are several planning and architectural schools which impart education on city planning. Various specializations offered in this subject are community development and redevelopment, land-use planning, transportation planning, environmental and natural resources planning, urban design, and economic planning and development. Candidates with good GIS software skills are preferred in the industry.

Major career opportunities are available with government agencies, regional planning agencies, city and town planning agencies, planning consulting firms, architecture firms, economic development agencies, NGOs, real estate developers and transportation agencies.

A professional city planner begins his career with a planning agency as an assistant planner or associate planner and his major responsibilities include surveys of community properties, market analysis of real estate sector, planning of future course of action etc. With the progress of his career he may go on becoming the director of planning or director of community development or city planning or transportation planning.