Career Spotlight: Urban Planners

Are you looking for a career where you can make a difference? If the idea of identifying community needs and developing short and long-term solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges sounds exciting, you may want to consider a career in Urban Planning.

What they do – Planners develop land use plans and programs that help create communities, accommodate population growth, revitalize physical facilities, analyze the economic impacts of development, and implement building codes that support sustainable and green building practices. There are multiple specializations within the planning field that support green building:

• Community planners create and implement the plans and policies that promote sustainability. They can influence zoning, land use, building codes, utilities and infrastructure—all of which can help foster green building and regenerative development.
  
• Economic planners quantify the financial impact and considerations of green building, sustainability, environmental protection, and climate adaptation and resilience. This specialization applies an economic lens to the triple bottom line in planning.
  
• Environmental planners optimize the environmental impacts of development and construction and support green building projects using rating systems like LEED.
  
• Transportation planners promote and develop alternative modes of transportation such as walking, bicycling and mass transit. These planners help implement the infrastructure and transportation networks that allow people to move around their communities sustainably.

Who they work with – Planners typically coordinate with public officials, community members, and interest groups to identify community issues and needs. Additional jobs that work with urban planners include: engineers, architects, developers, project management specialists, etc.

How to become one – There are multiple pathways to a career in urban planning. You may seek experience in a related field such as architecture, public policy, or landscape architecture. Undergraduate or graduate studies in planning may be an option. Some other degrees that could prove useful include geography, sociology, urban studies, environmental studies, civil engineering, or architecture.

Opportunities at UF

Get Involved

• Student Planning Association
• Students for the New Urbanism

Content for this blog post was sourced from the U.S. Green Building Council. To review original articles, please visit the USGBC Spotlight on Green Careers: Urban Planners and Urban Planner pages.