Urban and Community Planning, MS

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Urban and Community Planning, MS

Discover how to advance social, environmental, and climate justice and empower communities. Our groundbreaking program—with a grassroots legacy extending back more than half a century—equips you with the technical expertise to support these movements.

Two people discuss while sitting next to a table covered in documents and blueprints. There is a computer with a map on its screen resting on the table.

Type: Graduate, MS
Start Term: Fall or Spring
Credits: 50
Duration: 2 years
Courses: Plan of Study
School and Department: School of Architecture,
Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment

Put your passion for social justice to work in our program. You’ll develop the skills to plan, design, and implement transformational solutions for metropolitan areas, cities, neighborhoods, and communities using creativity, innovation, and advocacy. Our evening classes allow you to continue your career while our small class sizes of 8–12 students foster a tight-knit community. Our interdisciplinary, wide-ranging program prepares you for public, private, and nonprofit work.

Curricular Information

Pratt’s accredited Urban and Community Planning (UCP) program equips students with the perspectives and skills to plan and implement equity-building improvements in neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan areas. We teach participatory practice as the best way to advocate for just, equitable communities, emphasizing transformative change through creativity, innovation, and advocacy. Pratt’s MSUCP requires 50 credits. The schedule of classes allows students to enter in the fall or spring* and complete their studies in two years. To promote specialized or interdisciplinary study, half of the credits are in elective seminars and studios. Students are encouraged to take electives and interdisciplinary advanced studios from the three sister programs of the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE) to customize a course of study that suits their academic and professional goals.

About
Pratt’s MSUCP ranks fourth nationally among master’s degree-granting institutions that do not also grant PhDs (Planetizen, 2019). The 50-credit curriculum provides students with strong foundational knowledge in history, theory, law, economics, planning and research methods, data visualization, and spatial analysis. Take thematic electives within the UCP program on transportation, urban design, community development, land use, open space resilience, affordable housing, or topical special courses. Take an interdisciplinary approach and meet your own academic goals by choosing electives from the three sister programs in the GCPE, the School of Architecture, or across the Institute.

Community of Practice
All full-time and part-time faculty are practitioners and are deeply engaged in building equity through their own work in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and they bring their commitment and their experience into the classroom. Small class sizes mean that you are building your professional network as soon as you walk into the classroom by learning directly from professionals who are helping to shape the city. While the campus is in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, the work takes place all around New York City and beyond.

Impact
UCP students acquire skills and actively apply them as early as their first semester through internships, fellowships, and experiential learning opportunities. Coursework in UCP studios and practicums often results directly in advocacy campaigns, funding proposals, constituent briefings, and policy innovation. In studio classes, students learn from faculty-practitioners and work with real clients facing significant planning challenges, consistent with the UCP emphasis on participatory planning and equity issues. Recent studios have taken students to work on scenario planning through gaming for a culturally responsive and equitable future managed retreat in Far Rockaway, Queens; on implementation strategies for a community-based plan for a just transition-inspired, green re-industrialization of the Sunset Park, Brooklyn, waterfront; and to create innovative, asset-based, racially just recommendations to address wealth and income gaps in rapidly gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Independent, applied research in the form of a thesis or a demonstration of professional competence allows students to transition from UCP into practice upon graduation.

An Investment in Your Future
UCP welcomes students from all backgrounds, honors prior related work experience and graduate-level classes with course credit, provides generous merit scholarships upon admission, and offers an array of paid fellowships, internships, and assistantship opportunities to offset tuition and contribute to students’ developing professional networks. On-campus partnerships with the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Spatial Analysis Visualization Initiative (SAVI) provide further opportunity for professional growth and internships. Customized advisement helps students connect to courses, thesis topics, and professional networks that build toward careers. Alumni have risen to the tops of their fields in affordable housing, community economic development, transportation, government, community development, and advanced research.

Chair
Courtney Knapp
718.687.5641
cknapp@pratt.edu

Department Coordinator
Devona Stewart

Office
718.399.4340

Students shall demonstrate both professional competency in the planning field and the ability to independently pursue original thinking and research.
Students shall demonstrate a foundational understanding of planning theory and values, especially participatory planning, urban conditions, and trends, especially in the community planning context; equity and sustainability at multiple scales; and a balance of theory and practice, especially with regard to the use of ideas and information.
Students shall demonstrate technical proficiency consistent with the highest standards of the profession, including quantitative methods, qualitative methods, and written, oral, and graphic communication skills.
Students shall demonstrate knowledge and proficiency in planning practice, potentially with a concentration in community development, physical planning, urban sustainability, and historic preservation.
Students shall demonstrate collaborative skills, critical thinking, and an ability to lead in an interdisciplinary environment enabled through service-learning opportunities.
Students shall exit Pratt as engaged professionals on the path to participate meaningfully in the field, help preserve the environment for generations to come, and foster inclusive planning and just cities.
Students and full-time and part-time faculty are connected, enriched, and advanced in their professions through formal collaboration on service-oriented projects, research, and publication.

Advanced Certificate

We also offer a 9-credit Advanced Certificate in Community Planning. For information on both the MS program and Advanced Certificate, contact: Courtney Knapp, Academic Director, MS in Urban and Community Planning, cknapp@pratt.edu.

Student Work

These examples of work by recent Urban and Community Planning graduates represent the kinds of projects you’ll be engaged in as a student.

An Integrated, Grassroots Approach

Work in partnership with community-based organizations across New York City, making an impact while building foundational knowledge to:

Develop policies and solutions in partnership with community stakeholders to advance affordable housing, equitable transit, and sustainable land use.
Promote social and environmental justice through asset-based community development, which expands community cooperation, wealth, and control.
Advance climate justice goals through sustainable development and management practices.

We take an integrated approach to urban and community planning, working at the intersections of environmental planning, housing, transportation, economic development, and the numerous disciplines that overlap in urban and community planning. This nimble strategy is rooted in our legacy of hands-on, grassroots action and technical assistance.

A Legacy Intertwined with New York History

Pratt has been at the forefront of community engagement since faculty member Ronald Shiffman cofounded the Pratt Center for Community Development—then called the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED)—in 1963. For more than half a century, the planning program has continued to champion an experimental, boundary-pushing approach to building community power.

A Flexible Path: Interdisciplinary Study

You’ll have an opportunity to customize your curriculum by taking classes in the other Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE) programs and to develop an interdisciplinary approach needed to tackle the most pressing challenges using today’s approaches and technologies.

Institutional Partnerships and Resources

As a student, you are connected to a wealth of institutional resources. Through partnerships with the Pratt Center and the Spatial Analysis Visualization Initiative (SAVI), you gain pathways for fellowships, internships, and professional growth. Furthermore, you can enhance your knowledge of design and fabrication of the built environment by taking advantage of the Pratt maker spaces and labs—a unique opportunity to integrate hands-on making with planning research.

Internships and More Opportunities for Hands-On Work

As early as your first semester, you can apply new skills through internships, fellowships, and experiential learning. Our program has strong ties to dozens of local nonprofits, community-based organizations, community development corporations, civic groups, public agencies, and private consulting firms eager to hire Pratt students as interns.

Recent examples of studio projects include supporting the development of a People’s Plan for Coney Island, a community-centered plan for the reuse of the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx based on the vision of community partners Mothers on the Move and the Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Coalition; a travel studio in Atlanta, Georgia, that worked in coalition with local organizations and an affordable housing developer to create plans for a “Just Transition for Vine City”; and a Bronx-based housing strategy to help home health care workers to live in safe, affordable housing in proximity to their clients.

Our Faculty

All full-time and part-time faculty members are practitioners and deeply engaged in building equitable and sustainable communities through their own work in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. You’ll learn from top professionals working in diverse capacities—from directors of nonprofits to city agency and governmental leaders to planners working in private firms to community planners and organizers to landscape architects to policy analysts. See firsthand the range of opportunities available to those with planning degrees.

Eve Baron
Associate Professor
Jonathan Martin
Professor
John Shapiro
Professor
Juan Camilo Osorio
Associate Professor
Ronald Shiffman
Visiting Professor
Mercedes Narciso
Adjunct Associate Professor
Samara Swanston
Visiting Assistant Professor
David Kallick
Visiting Assistant Professor
Mark Winston Griffith
Visiting Assistant Professor
Tara Duvivier
Senior Planner; Visiting Assistant Professor
Sophonie Joseph
Adjunct Associate Professor
David Burney
Visiting Associate Professor
Courtney Knapp
Chairperson, Center for Planning and the Environment

Career Paths After Graduation

Urban and Community Planning alumni have risen to the tops of their fields in affordable housing, community economic development, transportation, government, community development, and advanced research.

Take a look at where recent graduates work:

Yuri Chang, ’22, is now a Director at Karp Strategies
Shweta Iyer, ’22, is now an Analyst – Policy and Stakeholder Engagement at Karp Strategies
Matt Ladd, ’22, is now the Real Estate Project Manager at St. Nick’s Alliance
Ethan Schwimmer, ’22, is now an Associate Consultant-Transportation Planner at WSP USA
Carl Shumate, ’22, is now the Assistant District Manager at Manhattan Community Board 3
Michaela Brochetti, ’23, is now a Project Coordinator for the Business Preparedness and Resiliency Program at the NYC Department of Small Business Services
Lindsey Cassone, ’23, is now an Environmental Planner at VHB
Suzanne Goldberg, ’23, is now a Planner at BFJ Planning
Sophia Hull, ’23, is now an Environmental Planner at Hudson County Division of Planning
Shelby Ketchum, ’23, is now the Inflation Reduction Act Specialist at Seattle City Light
Kieran Micka-Malloy, ’23, is now the Energy Advisor at the Pratt Center for Community Development
Leanna Molnar, ’23, is now an Emergency Management Analyst at NYU Langone Health
Agata Naklicka, ’23, is now a Manhattan Borough Planner at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development
James Tschikov, ’23, is now a Manhattan Borough Planner at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development

Career Support for Life

Students and alumni can schedule one-on-one appointments with career strategists in Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development. A career strategist can work with you to develop your job/internship search strategies and life and business plans, as well as review résumés, cover letters, websites, and other marketing materials.

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