Last modified: 09.05.06



Philadelphia presents a vibrant and challenging scene for the city planning student. The curriculum of the Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) takes advantage of these circumstances. The program is composed of three parts—a required core curriculum, an area of concentration and electives taken anywhere in the university.

Bringing practice into the classroom is one of the hallmarks of planning education at PennDesign, whose faculty include many of the region’s most distinguished practitioners as well as scholars of international reputation. Not only do the faculty link their teaching to practice, but also they focus their research on practical issues and provide ample chances for student involvement.

Located in Penn’s highly regarded School of Design (PennDesign), the Department of City and Regional Planning has a distinguished record of educating the leaders of the profession. Founded in 1951, the Department has attracted faculty including Lewis Mumford, Ian McHarg, Chester Rapkin, Paul Davidoff, Martin Meyerson, Ann Louise Strong, Britton Harris, John C. Keene, Erwin Gutkind, and other figures who have left their intellectual imprints on the field. Today the Department has instructors of international repute including Jonathan Barnett, Eugenie Birch, Thomas Daniels, Gary Hack, Amy Hillier, Michael Larice, Randall Mason, Lynne Sagalyn, Rachel Weinberger, and Sidney Wong. Visit the FACULTY page for a complete list. They are joined by other prominent PennDesign faculty including Witold Rybczynski, Dana Tomlin, James Corner, Frank Matero and Laurie Olin.

While the core faculty anchor Penn’s curriculum, visiting instructors drawn from private practice, government, and the non-profit sector add experiential depth. Annually, the Department welcomes an international scholar chosen to broaden the students’ world views. Recent appointments have included Klaus Kunzmann (Germany), Peter Newman (Australia), and Alfonso Vegara (Spain).

Renowned scholars based in Penn’s other schools including historians Michael Katz and Thomas Sugrue, sociologist Kathryn Edin, anthropologist Elijah Anderson, political scientists John Dilulio and Donald Kettl, economists Susan Wachter and Joseph Jyrouko and lawyers Georgette Poindexter and Wendall Pritchett whose courses are available to planning students.

The result is a reservoir of intellectual capital virtually unparalleled in the nation, a fact emphasized by Amy Gutmann, President of the University, whose Penn Compact celebrates Penn’s eminence, and by the American Institute of Certified Planners President’s Award for Excellence given to the Department. Penn has more faculty and alumni elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners than any other institution.

Having trained nearly 2,000 city planners—graduates earning master’s and doctoral degrees—the department’s pride is its student body, past, present, and future. Selected from a competitive pool of applicants from every state in the nation and numerous countries, students reflect a rich diversity of backgrounds and experience. From the moment they arrive on campus, they form bonds that carry through their professional lives. They are part of a proud alumni network, and hold leadership positions in local, state, and federal agencies; community-based organizations; consulting firms; and related corporations.

Illustrative of the opportunities embedded in Penn’s varied educational environment is the rich array of courses, studio and internship experiences. Beyond the core curriculum, classes address urban design, environmental planning, transportation, real estate and community development.

For studio projects, students partner with local, national and international clients and work under the guidance of experienced practitioner instructors. In the past two years, students have worked with a community development corporation to formulate feasibility plans for large vacant sites in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood; developed a “Plan for America,” looking at settlement patterns in 2050; focused on The Northeast Corridor and Central Florida with regional clients seeking in-depth studies of future growth, partnered with a Korean University to develop a master plan integrated with its city surrounds; worked with a major planning firm to explore offshore gambling on the City’s waterfront; and purchased, renovated, and sold a four-story house in West Philadelphia. Visit 'Student Works' by clicking HERE.

Students have held internships at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission; the urban design and planning firm of McCormick Taylor; the Mayor’s Office of Transportation; the New Kensington Community Development Corporation; the Philadelphia Public Housing Authority; the Reinvestment Fund and the Center City District. Others have had placements throughout the nation and beyond, from the Miami, Florida firm of Duany, Plater-Zyberk to the National Park Service to the Massachusetts State Department of Environmental Protection.

Penn’s city planning students also have easy access to the other nearby metropolitan areas, including Washington, DC and New York City. Field trips feature visits and interviews with the creators of model-planned communities; developers of successful growth management programs; and city, county, and regional planners with innovative practices in several states. They also include forays to New York to explore such exemplary developments as 42nd Street, Battery Park City Brooklyn Heights, and Charlotte Gardens.

Further, classes, lectures, and symposia draw upon the collective knowledge and wisdom of the scholars and practitioners from this vibrant urban corridor. In the past years, visitors have included Bruce Katz, Director of the Brookings Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy; Martim Smolka, Director for Latin American Programs, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; Alexander Garvin, former Vice President for Planning and Development, Lower Manhattan, Development Corporation; Richard Baron, Principal McCormick-Baron; Lawrence Beasley, planning director, Vancouver, Canada; and Andrew Altman, Anacostia Waterfront Corporation.

The department’s international reputation and network of alumni and colleagues provide many unique opportunities for Penn planning students to explore the world beyond the region. The department fosters these connections through wide-ranging studio, research and internship projects. In the past few years, students traveled with studio classes to Taipei, Taiwan, Bogota, Colombia, and Madrid, Spain. In addition, students accompanied faculty to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou for a summer class on international planning in Asia. In recent years, students have had internships in Japan, Singapore, and Spain.