<p>I'm interested in urban planning but I fear the field is not lucrative and that for practical purposes I'd be better off just getting a degree in architecture or engineering. Is it possible for urban planners to earn high salaries and is an urban planning degree worth pursuing? </p>
<p>Which are the best public schools to earn urban planning degrees from? I'm in the Mid-Atlantic area.</p>
<p>I'm good with numbers but also very creative. I'm not good at visual arts per se, but I'm good with concepts and I like working independently. Based on these characteristics am I a better fit for urban planning, architecture or engineering?</p>
<p>An additional bonus question - is there any sort of rivalry between urban planners, architects and civil engineers? Do any of these 3 types of professionals look down their noses at the other or is there any sort of tension between them? It would be interesting, though not necessarily important to know how each of these types of professionals views the other before deciding which team to join.</p>
<p>EatingMachine, you should check out Virginia Tech, UVA and VCU. All have undergraduate programs in Urban Planning. There is a poster on the VT board who has a daughter that is going into urban planning as a freshman this coming fall. Maybe if you posted some of your questions, she would be able to help you. Good luck!</p>
<p>A graduate degree in urban planning is necessary to get anywhere in that field.</p>
<p>From <a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos057.htm#emply:[/url]”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos057.htm#emply:</a></p>
<p>*Most entry-level jobs in Federal, State, and local governments require a master’s degree from an accredited program in urban or regional planning or a related field, such as urban design, environmental planning, or geography. *</p>
<p>Major in something related (arch, landscape arch, engineering, geography, etc.) and then get a graduate degree.</p>
<p>It really all depends upon where you live. Where I work, we do have city planners, but they are far fewer than architects and engineers - only because we don’t have such a need for them.</p>
<p>NYC has an entire city agency of city planners. This may not be true in every municipality.</p>
<p>City/urban/regional planning appears to be more politics than design, from what I see today.</p>
<p>My husband (an urban planner) points out that architects can switch into planning, but not the other way around because of the technical background needed for architecture.
He wanted me to tell you that an undergraduate degree from a recognized planning program is just as good as a master’s degree; it’s just that there are very few undergraduate programs. The ones he likes are at Cal Poly Pomona and San Luis Obispo.
Planning is definitely a field worth pursuing, very rewarding, often frustrating, and sometimes very demanding. </p>
<p>As for your rivalry question, the three professions work together on a daily basis.</p>
<p>I am an aspiring city planner and I’ve interned in the field. Here is some info that I gathered though research and talking with professionals:</p>
<p>The American Planning Association website (planning.org) is a great place to start. Websites like cyburbia.org, planetizen.com and acsp.org (which has a list of US planning programs) are also helpful. I recently finished reading a book called “Becoming an Urban Planner”. It was published this year and goes into detail about the field.</p>
<p>As mentioned before, a master’s degree is needed for advancement in most cases. Your undergrad degree doesn’t matter as much, unless you plan to get into a specific specialization in the field. For example, if you want to become an urban designer you should have a background in architecture or landscape architecture. As a transportation urban planner, a civil engineering bachelor’s would probably be very helpful. Most planners are generalists though and they come from a variety of undergraduate backgrounds. However, related degrees like architecture, real estate, civil engineering and geography/other social sciences are the most common.</p>
<p>Urban Planning is a small field but the BLS claims that it’s growing faster than average. It has been impacted by the recession (with layoffs and such) but not as much as many other fields. For example, I am from a Rust Belt city and our planning department is doing fine. Planners make a decent living, but in most cases you won’t get rich. Private sector planners make more money than public sector ones. Most planners work in the public sector for city governments though and most cities have a planning department (and even many small towns and suburbs). There is also employment in the non-profit sector.</p>
<p>Urban planning is going to be a major up and coming career field due to the challenges facing most cities in the future. Cities that did not previously employ squadrons of planners are finding themselves up a creek of being unsustainable and are bringing many of them in. Case in point, Phoenix and Houston. Urban planning is also going to be one of the more versatile fields and what you do with it will depend on how creative you are, as it will be a key career in the “creative class” movement (something about designing cities just for the rise of the creative class).</p>
<p>There are tons of planners that work for most major cities, particularly ones with growth that needs to be planned out, and also a lot of planners working for arch firms and development firms helping design the sites for building proposals. An emerging trend however is consultants. Many cities are gravitating towards bringing in planning consultants on a regular basis to help with special projects and bring in a fresh perspective. These guys will typically specialize in a very particular field, like walkability, or convention centers, or streetcar transit, or whatever else and advocate for it.</p>
<p>As for who looks down on who, I don’t think any of them look down on each other. But architecture is the best fit for someone with a hand for drafting and city planning is the best fit for those who aren’t so good at math. You won’t be working with advanced CAD software and rendering programs and working with precise angles as a city planner. You will be applying general knowledge of good urbanism and the specific criteria of city code in order to make an up or down recommendation to a city planning entity, and that’s it. Civil engineers are the least “creative” and most technical, so if anyone gets looked down on, probably them I suppose. No offense. I don’t think anyone is inspired to be a city engineer the same way that people are inspired by great cities to be architects or city planners.</p>