Few professions offer the variety of activities, intellectual stimulation, creative outlets, and tangible rewards of city and regional planning. Focusing on the growth and development of neighborhoods, cities, regions, states, and nations, city and regional planners address urban opportunities and problems while shaping communities and environments in response to the needs of their citizens.

Planning students study Philadelphia's historic Elfreth's Alley for an urban design studio		Never before has the demand for city and regional planning been greater nor its mission so critical. Today's practitioners, who number around 100,000 in the United States, oversee land use, organize transportation and infrastructure networks, explore new means to satisfy housing needs, create innovative approaches to strengthening metropolitan economies, encourage sustainable development, and synthesize solutions to sectorial problems into comprehensive plans. Their plans respond to the aspirations of the citizenry, the limitations of resources, the imperatives of technology, and the realities of governance.

Smart Growth expert Uri Avin, a Penn graduate, speaks with students after a lecture.		The customary entrance into the profession is through post-graduate study in a two-year accredited program. Planning education dates from the 1920s and, today, more than 60 institutions offer master's degrees and about 20 offer doctoral training in the field. The Planning Accreditation Board (PAB), which is composed of representatives of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), and the American Planning Association (APA), maintains educational standards through regular reviews of individual programs, a process that establishes expectations for curriculum, faculty performance, and institutional resources.

Planning education explores several themes drawn from the social sciences, design, and engineering. As described in the recently published ACSP position statement, Anchor Points of Planning, the discipline encompasses knowledge related to the improvement of human settlements, a focus on the future, the identification of the diversity of needs, the fostering of open participation, and the linking of knowledge with collective action. Students pursue these ideas through courses in theory and practice. They learn about the economic, social, political, and cultural forces underlying metropolitan growth. They engage in identifying and addressing problems related to land, space, and place, usually through hands-on workshop and studio experiences. They operate outside the classroom through field work and internship placements. As students develop into full-fledged professionals, they participate in the ongoing dialogue among planning educators and planning practitioners.

Facing Urbanization Around the World

A routine traffic jam in Paris, France		Today's planners deal with many manifestations of urban life. In the United States, for example, they address issues emanating from the fact that 80 percent of the population dwell in metropolitan areas. Elsewhere, guided by the demographic prediction that 85 percent of the world's population will be urban by 2010, they develop and disseminate best-practices information about housing, transportation, and environmental concerns. Witnessing the explosion of cities throughout the world — Mexico City has grown from 350,000 to 20 million residents in less than a century; Shenzhen, China, from 30,000 to 4 million in two decades; and New York has doubled in size from 8 to 16 million in a generation — they foster a number of location-specific solutions for sustainable communities.

Clearly, large cities and their surroundings will continue to proliferate in the coming years, and planners will be active players in their development. In some countries, planners will deal with the migration from rural surroundings to urban areas that is creating intense demand for more and better shelter, increased mobility, new jobs, and basic municipal services. In others, they will address metropolitan conditions where inhabitants and businesses have deserted their cities, leaving historical centers with little social and commercial activity.

Some urban areas have experienced significant decay, while others vibrate with the beauty and life of well-executed plans. In the United States, for example, many cities contain priceless treasures in their museums, performance facilities, stadiums, parks and restaurants, as well as a wealth of opportunities for residents and newcomers to forge improved lives. They also contain neighborhoods of almost unbelievable despair and devastation. At the same time, their suburbs are consuming more land at a higher rate than ever experienced in the past hundred years. Within these extremes, the planner's job is to heighten the positive and ameliorate the negative aspects of these places.