The mission of the MUPD program is to educate future planners and urban designers to guide and lead the development of urban environments based on their social, economic and cultural dimension as physical objects in the real world. The goal is to improve the quality of life in cities and other settlements through place-making for live, work, and play in a sustainable and resilient manner. MUPD graduates enjoy a wide variety of employment opportunities due to their multidisciplinary, project-based problem-solving skills in urban planning and design. This makes MUPD graduates ideally suited to approach many issues about the urban environment in the 21st century including the effect of new technologies including CAD, GIS, BIM, Space Syntax, and other applications creating the Big Data-driven Smart Cities of tomorrow.
The educational objectives of the MUPD program include:
- Developing an understanding about the nature, purpose, methods, and practice of planning including knowledge about the governance, planning laws, and politics, their impact on individuals and multicultural communities, and the techniques of policy analysis and place-making
- Understanding the processes of change in social, economic, and cultural dimensions of the urban environment as physical objects in the real world
- Cultivating the ability to undertake substantial, specialist-based independent research into issues of the urban environment
The student outcomes of the MUPD program include:
- The knowledge to comprehend and represent ideas and information in the field of urban design and planning
- The skills to apply this knowledge in performing specific tasks required in the practice of urban design and planning
- The values to inform the ethical and normative principles crucial for the guidance and leadership of the urban design and planning profession in a democratic society
