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The Urban Development Planning MSc equips urban practitioners with the clarity and capacity to tackle multi-dimensional inequalities and promote more just urban futures for all city dwellers.
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About the course
The Urban Development Planning MSc nurtures urban practitioners with the capacity to catalyse and support collective interventions towards more equitable urban futures. Building on longstanding partnerships with civil society networks, academic institutions, local and regional government agencies and global organisations (such as UN Habitat), our programme critically engages a southern planning lens to reclaim the transformative potential of planning.
We operate from the standpoint that reclaiming this potential is crucial for cities and city dwellers to capture the opportunities of urbanisation in ways that meet the multiple and overlapping threats posed by climate breakdown, deepening socio-economic inequalities, democratic disengagement, and violent displacements.
Relevant to recent graduates, current professionals and career changers alike, this degree is designed to equip a new generation of urban development practitioners with analytical and practical tools that will enable them to respond strategically to these overlapping challenges within a framework of socio-spatial-environmental justice.
On this page
- Who should apply?
- Course structure
- Practice in Urban Development Planning
- Careers and employability
- Staff
- More information
Who should apply?
Relevant to recent graduates, current professionals and career changers alike, Urban Development Planning MSc is intended for graduates and practitioners from diverse disciplinary, cultural and geographic backgrounds, who are interested in revisiting the role of urban planning (and urban planners) in addressing contemporary development challenges. Blending together theory and practice, the programme aims to equip graduates with the analytical and practical tools required to catalyse and support more socially, spatially and environmentally just urban development trajectories.
Course structure
The programme consists of lectures, seminars, workshops, case study analysis and practice engagements in London and abroad. Students are expected to play an active part in their learning journey through independent reading and active participation in class activities and group work. Across the programme, an important emphasis is placed on group work as a key aspect of interdisciplinary and relational planning practice.
The programme is structured so that 75 per cent of the taught components of the programme (90 credits) are devoted to the core subjects of Urban Development Planning and 25 per cent (30 credits) to other optional modules.
The core modules provide the theoretical and methodological foundations of the programme while the optional module allows students to examine different approaches and problems in accordance with their particular interests.
Classroom teaching takes place in the first two terms of the academic year (September/October to March) with the exception of the core Practice in Urban Development Planning module which spans three terms (September/October to June).
A module is finalised once work is completed in all its elements of performance assessment, which may include coursework, essays, group reports, presentations and written exams.
- Core modules
- The City and Its Relations: Context, Institutions and Actors in Urban Development Planning explores the economic, social and physical change of cities in the wider context of development and globalisation.
- Urban Development Policy, Planning and Management: Strategic Action in Theory and Practice explores strategic action in urban development policy, planning and management with a focus on promoting social justice in cities.
- Practice in Urban Development Planning provides students with real-life platforms to explore contemporary challenges in urban development planning and governance through practice.
- Optional modules
- Gender in Policy and Planning is a one-term (15-credit) module examining gender relations in the socio-economic, political and environmental processes associated with (but not limited to) the development of cities.
- Transport Equity and Urban Mobility is a one-term (15-credit) module focusing on the relationships between social identity, transport and planning in the context of urban development in the Global South. It critically examines transport planning and its interaction with other kinds of planning, as well as the relationships between the state, civil society and private sector in the provision of transport for more socially just cities.
Urban Development Planning MSc students can also choose optional modules offered by other master's programmes at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit and/or compatible modules offered by other departments within UCL.
More details of these modules can be found in the UCL module catalogue.
Please note that the course structure and list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability are subject to change.
Practice in Urban Development Planning
Working between theory and practice is central to the way we think, do and teach Urban Development Planning at the DPU. Over the course of their MSc, our students complete two practice engagement projects designed collaboratively with progressive urban actors seeking just transformations in their neighbourhoods and cities.
- UK practice engagements
Each year from October to December, our students participate in a London-based practice engagement project developed and delivered in partnership with progressive city actors. In broad terms, the London project aims to actively engage diverse local communities in planning and policy processes to promote more socially, spatially and environmentally just development in the city. The project also acts as a key foundation for the overseas practice engagement which is undertaken in term 3.
Discover more on our London projects page.
- Overseas practice engagements
Each year, at the beginning of Term 3 (April/May), UDP students participate in an overseas practice engagement project developed and delivered in partnership with community groups, NGOs, universities and/or local authorities involved in efforts to shape pathways towards urban equality. Through participating in these projects, UDP students gain first-hand experience of developing strategies towards transformative, community-centred urban development planning.
Recent practice engagements have taken place in Cebu (the Philippines), Yogyakarta (Indonesia), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Bangkok (Thailand), Istanbul (Turkey), Mumbai (India), Accra (Ghana) and Cairo (Egypt).
Discover more on our overseas practice engagements page.
Dissertation
In addition to completing 120 credits of taught modules, students are also required to write a 60-credit dissertation on an independently selected topic relevant to the field of urban development planning.
- Discover examples of our students' dissertations that have been adapted and published as DPU Working Papers
- DPU Working Paper No. 199 - Revanchism entrenched: The case of Cairo’s middle-class street food vendors
- DPU Working Paper No. 198 - Governance and the effectiveness of housing policies in Lima
- DPU Working Paper No. 197 - Refugee women and the Right to Inhabit: Reconceptualising refugee women’s Right to the City in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon
Careers and employability
The Urban Development Planning MSc is the longest running MSc Programme offered at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit. It has an established alumni network and is widely recognised by both national and international organisations, on the basis of our expertise in and contribution to urban development and action planning globally. These include UN agencies, the World Bank, and bilateral aid organisations operating in the UK and elsewhere.
There is enormous variety in the careers that graduates of the Urban Development Planning MSc pursue, ranging from working with Northern-based organisations in the public, private and community sectors that focus on local as well as international planning and development, through to employment with governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations operating in a development capacity in the South.
A global network
The Bartlett Development Planning Unit boasts a global network of alumni spanning many continents, countries and organisations, providing a community of practice for future collaborations. There is a wide geographic spread of alumni from our course; some return to their home countries using their degree to progress or start a new career in urban development practice, teaching or research. Others remain in the UK or travel elsewhere to take up roles in local, national or international development organisations.
What our alumni say
Watch the video from 2018-19 Urban Development Planning MSc alumnus Yiorgos to hear about his career trajectory since graduating from our course:
Discover more career pathways after graduating from the Urban Development Planning MSc from our alumni profiles on the DPU careers page.
Staff
- Programme Leaders
Dr Jordana Ramalho
View Jordana Ramalho's profileTim Wickson
View Tim's profile- Graduate Teaching Assistant
Giorgia Giagnotti
- Teaching staff
Professor Barbara Lipietz
View Barbara's profileJorge Fiori
View Jorge's profile
Professor Caren Levy
View Caren's profileProfessor Colin Marx
View Colin's profileDr Azadeh Mashayekhi
View Azadeh's profile
Dr Daniel Oviedo Hernandez
View Daniel's profile
Professor Julian Walker
View Julian's profile
