MSc Urban Development

Planning
Expanding the room for manoeuvre for social and
spatially just urban development planning
confronting contemporary challenges in cities
and urban areas in the Global South
The BartIett Development Planning Unit
Development Planning Unit | The Bartlett | University College London
34 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9EZ www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu
Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 1111 Fax: +44 (0)20 7679 1112
MSc Urban Development
Planning
overview The MSc Urban Development
Planning (UDP) at the Bartletts Development
Planning Unit focuses on international prac-
tices in urban development policy, planning
and management that address contempo-
structure The course consists of lectures,
seminars, workshops, case study analyses,
and eld trips in the UK and abroad. Students
are expected to take an active part in their own
learning through reading, essay writing and
opportunities The course attracts
an interdisciplinary group of students,
spanning planners, architects, geogra-
phers, political scientists, sociologists,
economists and public administrators.
for more info and to apply: www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu and then programmes, postgraduate, udp
course co-directors
Caren Levy
Dr Barbara Lipietz
other members of staff
Jorge Fiori, Dr Cassidy Johnson, Dr Colin Marx, Julian Walker
core moduIes
The City and ts Relations: Context, nstitutions and Actors in Urban
Development Planning;
Urban Development Policy, Planning and Management: Strategic Action
in Theory and Practice;
Practice in Urban Development Planning.
rary spatial, socio-economic and political
transformations in Africa, Asia, the Middle
East and Latin America.
Urban growth is substantially transforming
the face of the planet. Increasing globalisa-
tion of economic relations is restructuring
many cities, beneting some citizens, while
marginalising others. Simultaneously, the ris-
ing, albeit differentiated, impact of neo-liber-
al policy and planning is changing the roles
and relationships between those involved in
the development and management of cit-
ies. Cities have become increasingly frag-
mented, while inequality and environmental
degradation have intensied.
The programmes objective is to equip stu-
dents to work effectively as development
practitioners in urban contexts, through a
deeper understanding of the processes that
generate urban change. The course aims to
enhance their diagnostic and strategic ca-
pacities to respond to such change, within
the framework of socially just urban govern-
ance. The course thus seeks to build up a
critical sensibility to planning theory, method-
ologies and skills, and their localised applica-
tion in a variety of international contexts.
These different and complementary per-
spectives make for rich exchanges dur-
ing class and group work, and provide
the building block of an impressively in-
ternational and pluri-disciplinary alumni
network.
DPU Alumni from the MSc Urban Devel-
opment Planning benet from the inter-
national respect enjoyed by DPU thanks
to its expertise in, and contribution to,
urban development and action planning.
The MSc UDP is widely recognised by
international organisations, including UN
agencies and the World Bank; by bilater-
al aid agencies from different countries;
and by many national government and
non-government organisations.
On graduating, UDP alumni have pur-
sued careers in the practice, teaching
or research of urban development. They
have done so in the public, private and
community sectors working in the UK or
in the Global South; with governmental,
inter-governmental and non-governmen-
tal organisations (from grassroots to mul-
tilateral tiers); and focusing on local as
well as international urban development.
individual and group project work. Student
performance is assessed through course
work (individual and group work), examina-
tions and an individual dissertation report.
The course comprises three compulsory core
modules (90 credits) devoted to the courses
focus on urban development and international
practices in urban development policy, plan-
ning and management; an optional module
(30 credits) from a range of modules on of-
fer; and a dissertation report (60 credits). The
core course modules provide the theoretical,
methodological and practice components of
the course while the specialist module and the
dissertation allow students to examine differ-
ent approaches and problems in accordance
with their own particular interests.
FieId based Iearning is a key element of
the DPUs UDP course and pedagogic ap-
proach. Students are encouraged to translate
the theoretical concepts and methodological
approaches acquired during the course, into
practical planning interventions in diverse set-
tings in London and a city of the Global South.
Recent eld trips have taken place in Cairo
(Egypt), Accra (Ghana), Mumbai (India) and
Bangkok (Thailand).