Community Planning

Overview

This Community Planning degree from University of Washington is premised on the following ideas: “Community” is not a singular concept; moreover, less visible and under-resourced urban publics are often in need of specific forms of investment and support in order to engage the political process; "Planning” is about enacting urban socio-spatial futures, through a variety of different professional roles; as such it happens in a number of different organizational settings and job titles; The ways that people act and the social structures within which they are able to act are co-constituted; one creates and re-creates the other, and effective change agents use existing structures to generate new forms of action, and/or take singular, strategic actions to enable, demand, or elicit structural change.

Students at Community Planning degree from University of Washington will:

• Construct, articulate, and defend a community-based process of advocacy and change to achieve a more just, equitable, and sustainable community

• Describe and critically analyze current conditions in the dynamic structure of regions and urban communities

• Define and recognize forms of individual and collective action and their role in reproducing current community conditions

• Describe, analyze, and evaluate pathways to change in current conditions

• Develop and refine individual and professional practices that support a lifelong career in planning and advocacy