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• Macdonald-Harrington Building, Room 400
• 815 Sherbrooke Street West
• Montreal QC H3A 0C2
• Telephone: 514-398-4075
• Fax: 514-398-8376
• Email: admissions.planning [at] mcgill.ca
• Website: mcgill.ca/urbanplanning

Urban planning can be described as the collective management of urban growth and development. It is concerned with the welfare of communities, control of how land is accessed and used by private parties, design of the built environment (including transportation and communication networks), and conservation and enhancement of healthy ecosystems. Contemporary preoccupations include addressing the climate emergency, embracing interculturalism in planning and governance, enhancing public health, and striving for just sustainabilities. It is at once a technical and a political process that brings together actors from the public, private, and community spheres. Planners participate in that process in a variety of ways, as designers and analysts, advocates and mediators, facilitating the search for equitable and efficient solutions to problems of urban change and development.

The 19th-century origins of modern urban planning as a profession were largely in response to the appalling sanitary, social, and economic conditions of rapidly-developing industrial cities. Initially, the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, and public health provided a nucleus of concerned professionals; beautification schemes and infrastructure works marked the early stages of public intervention in the 19th century. Architects, engineers, and public health specialists were joined by economists, sociologists, lawyers, and geographers as the complexities of the city's problems came to be more fully understood and public pressure mounted for their solution. Contemporary urban and regional planning techniques for survey, analysis, design, and implementation developed from an interdisciplinary synthesis of these various fields. This multidisciplinarity is still a hallmark of planning practice and of planning education. In recent decades, important transformations have included bringing the critical ‘cultural turn’ of social sciences to bear on planning, increased emphasis on social justice, and enhancing the strategic roles of planners as interdisciplinary actors working with peers in other professions on the challenges and opportunities of human settlements in the Global North and South.

McGill was the first university in Canada to offer a planning degree, starting in 1947. The School of Urban Planning itself was established as an independent unit in 1972. Today, it brings together students from various fields (such as those mentioned above) and different parts of the world in a two-year professional ³¾²¹²õ³Ù±ð°ù’s program. Key features of the work done at the school are the use of real-world projects for learning, a focus on policy-relevant research, and strong engagement with the community, both in Canada and abroad.

The School has a long track record of research, capacity-building, and engagement in the global context as well as in Montreal and across Canada. Faculty and students collaborate actively with members of other McGill departments, notably Architecture, Geography, Civil Engineering, and Law, and with colleagues at other institutions in Canada and abroad. Alumni/ae of the School work as planners and designers at various levels of government, in non-profit organizations, and with private consulting firms. Their expertise ranges from affordable housing to transportation planning, from real-estate development to the use of big data in public policy. Cross-disciplinary work in urban design and landscape planning continues apace and increasing emphasis is now placed on resilience, social equity, and redistributive justice.

The objective of the School is to enable urban planners to exercise leadership in the public, private, and community sectors. Training is provided at the graduate level. The main degree offered is the Master of Urban Planning (M.U.P.). Many specializations are possible within the program, including two formal concentrations in Transportation Planning and in Urban Development and Urban Design. Details concerning these concentrations can be found at mcgill.ca/urbanplanning/programs/mup-transportation-planning (see also ), and at mcgill.ca/urbanplanning/programs/mup-urban-development-and-urban-design, respectively. Upon completion of the two-year program of studies, graduates are expected to have acquired basic planning skills, a broad understanding of urban issues, and specialized knowledge in a field of their own choice.

The professional program of study offered by the School is fully recognized by the Ordre des Urbanistes du Québec (O.U.Q.) and the Canadian Institute of Planners (C.I.P.). Graduates may become full members of the O.U.Q. and other provincial planning associations, and therefore of C.I.P., by completing their respective internship and examination requirements. For details concerning the M.U.P. admission requirements and curriculum, consult the School’s website.

Although the M.U.P. program is primarily a professional degree program, it does have an independent research component. The work done on the Supervised Research Project in the course of the second year of study qualifies for funding from federal agencies such as SSHRC and NSERC. Some students enter the M.U.P. program with fellowships from these agencies; others obtain them after joining the School, for their second year of study.

The School of Urban Planning hosts a number of events that are open to undergraduate students and to the public: the Brenda and Samuel Gewurz Lectures in Urban Design bring speakers of international calibre to McGill; and the Friday seminar series (held occasionally) brings speakers from academia, the profession, and the community to talk about contemporary urban issues.

For details of the M.U.P. admission requirements and curriculum, consult the Faculty of Engineering section for Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. The School also offers a PhD program in Urban Planning, Policy and Design; information and admission requirements for this program can also be found on the Faculty website and on the School website.

The following courses taught by faculty in the School of Urban Planning are open to undergraduate students: